In his "previous life," Lin Wuming had been accustomed to living alone, having maxed out his basic life skills. Although there was still a gap between him and professional housekeepers, he could at least manage his own life well.
Now, with the convenient assistance of his psychic ability, doing housework wasn't even a burden for him. Instead, he found it novel and somewhat enjoyable.
As a result, after just one week, Yomikawa Aiho had become completely reliant on Lin Wuming for daily life. It wasn't so much like a guardian taking care of a child, but more like she had hired a live-in housekeeper.
Even Lin Wuming himself felt a strange sense of looking after a girl who lacked the ability to live independently...
Early Friday morning, Lin Wuming woke up on time to prepare breakfast.
Because of the handy assistance of his psychic ability, Lin Wuming wasn't afraid of complex cooking and was willing to try various difficult dishes.
The night before, he had prepared dumplings and soup dumplings and flexibly used the kitchen's various high-tech appliances to grind soy milk. With all the ingredients pre-processed, all he needed to do this morning was turn on the heat and start cooking, which was highly efficient.
As a side note, the kitchen appliances in the apartment were also specially sponsored by the manufacturers for the sole purpose of gathering user experience feedback. However, Yomikawa Aiho, who was accustomed to using the rice cooker, had never truly utilized these high-tech gadgets, leaving them to collect dust in a corner of the kitchen.
Now, Lin Wuming, no longer satisfied with stir-fry, turned his attention to the pile of impressive-looking machines. After a few days of tinkering, reading manuals, and checking online tutorials, he had generally figured out the functions and usage of this equipment.
Lin Wuming even found a small dough mixer among them and decided to tackle authentic ramen for lunch today.
If the experiment was successful, he could let Yomikawa Aiho try some when she returned home in the evening.
While planning the day's menu, Lin Wuming changed the steamer basket on the pot. Due to space constraints, household kitchen appliances were designed to be relatively small, so to make a sufficient quantity of soup dumplings, Lin Wuming had to steam them in two batches.
It should be noted that both occupants of the house were big eaters. Yomikawa Aiho, a Judgment officer and P.E. teacher, was a woman, but her high energy consumption meant she could eat an endless amount of food—especially since she was particularly fond of everything Lin Wuming cooked. For the first two days, Lin Wuming couldn't even fill himself up.
Lin Wuming's current body was that of a fourteen-year-old boy in the middle of a growth spurt, and his stomach was a bottomless pit, which was why he was so interested in cooking.
While steaming the buns, brewing soy milk with the coffee machine, Lin Wuming also started shallow-frying the dumplings.
Half an hour later, breakfast was ready.
Yomikawa Aiho was not yet awake.
Checking the time, Lin Wuming took out a large insulated food container and filled half of it with soup dumplings and half with fried dumplings while they were hot. Then, he poured freshly brewed "white coffee" into an insulated thermos.
This was Yomikawa Aiho's lunch, which was why Lin Wuming prepared such a large quantity.
After finishing all this, it was almost seven o'clock.
Lin Wuming operated his wheelchair to the door of Yomikawa Aiho's bedroom.
"Wait, she's a P.E. teacher, she shouldn't have to be at school on time, right?" Lin Wuming muttered.
As if in response to his words, a scream suddenly erupted from the room: "I'm late!!!"
Lin Wuming quickly backed away to make room, and then saw the door violently pushed open. A figure in pajamas, with disheveled hair, shot out like the wind.
"Wuming, good morning!" Seeing the young boy at the doorway, Yomikawa Aiho greeted him, then loudly complained, "Why didn't you wake me up!"
"Does your school have P.E. class first thing in the morning?" Lin Wuming asked.
"It's not school, it's the Judgment force!" Yomikawa Aiho rushed into the washroom like a whirlwind.
Academy City's Judgment forces are actually composed of volunteers; strictly speaking, it's a side job, and the main profession of all Judgment officers is teaching.
Among them, P.E. teachers and life skills teachers, whose academic workload is relatively less burdensome, form the majority.
Only they had enough time and energy to fulfill the various missions of the Judgment force without compromising their primary teaching duties.
Yomikawa Aiho was a typical example. Precisely because she didn't have P.E. class first period in the morning, a lot of work that needed to be handled early, like regulating traffic during rush hour, was assigned to her.
It was clear from this that the work of Judgment teachers was quite demanding, making the generous benefits they received entirely reasonable.
It seemed Yomikawa Aiho was truly in a hurry. She spent less than five minutes washing up, barely glanced at breakfast, changed clothes, and was about to rush out the door.
Lin Wuming sighed, packed her breakfast in a disposable paper bag, and handed it to her along with the lunch bento.
"Oh!!! This is great! Thank you so much, Wuming-kun!" Yomikawa Aiho was deeply moved. "I'm so glad to have you here!"
"Instead of thanking me," Lin Wuming said, "it would be better not to stay up late and wake up on time next time."
Last night—no, early this morning—they were so engrossed in gaming that they didn't go to sleep until after 3 a.m.
"Speaking of which, we both stayed up until three, so how are you able to get up?" Yomikawa Aiho asked, confused, while putting on her shoes in the entryway. "Did you not sleep at all, Wuming?"
"No, I slept," Lin Wuming said. "Maybe I'm just better at staying up late? Besides, I have a chance to catch up on sleep during the day. As for you, working so hard every day and still staying up late to play games, you really need to be careful not to crash!"
"Don't worry, this was just a momentary lapse. I'm still young, big brother!" Yomikawa Aiho opened the door and rushed out tempestuously.
Lin Wuming returned to the living room, turned on the TV for the morning news, and ate breakfast alone.
Since arriving at Yomikawa Aiho's house, Lin Wuming hadn't stepped outside the apartment building once. However, because there were so many things he could do, he didn't feel bored and was content to be a homebody.
Staring aimlessly at the TV screen, Lin Wuming thought, "Should I find time to go out? I'll be starting school soon, so I need to scout the area beforehand, right?"
Lin Wuming had profoundly realized how severe his current "directionally challenged" attribute was. He even got lost taking a walk inside the apartment building and only found his way home by checking every door one by one.
Since then, Lin Wuming had spent three days familiarizing himself with the internal layout and environment of the apartment building. He felt the time was almost right.
It was time to explore outwards!