Chapter 31: Chapter 31: She’s So Strange, It’s Almost As If She’s Not From Their World

Once Jiang Yunnuan finished her work, she turned around to see four men standing by the hall entrance like guardian statues. Her expression changed in an instant, and she asked tensely.

"Don’t you guys have anything better to do? What are you doing standing guard here?"

’I didn’t make much food. There’s none for them.’

Jiang Yunnuan was terrified that these guys had their eyes on the meal she had spent all morning preparing.

But as fate would have it, her worst fears were coming true. The men were staring eagerly at her food, obviously having set their sights on it.

"Wasting food is a shame. You’ve made so much, you can’t possibly eat it all by yourself, can you? We came over specifically to help you!"

Si Xie declared shamelessly and started walking toward the small dining area, making Jiang Yunnuan curse his audacity in her mind.

But now wasn’t the time to curse him. She quickly spread her arms to block his path, looking as if she were facing a great enemy.

"Wait! That’s not food, it’s Poison!!!"

"That’s a lie. There is no Poison!!!"

Ming Ye added calmly, and Jiang Yunnuan immediately shot him a glare, gritting her teeth.

’Damn it, how could I forget his Talent Skill is Poison? His Perception of it is extraordinarily sharp. How could I possibly fool him about whether or not there’s Poison in the food??’

’Big mistake, big mistake!!!’

Her mind raced, and she quickly came up with a new excuse.

"There is no Poison, but only women can eat it. Beastmen can’t—to a Beastman, it might as well be Poison!"

"Do we look that stupid and easy to fool??"

Fu Yuan’s lips curled as he spoke calmly. The moment he finished, Si Xie picked up.

"Damn woman, do you have to be so stingy? You woke us up at the crack of dawn, and we didn’t even hold it against you. What’s the big deal if we have a few bites of your food? We just want to taste it, we’re not going to eat it all."

Cooked meals only existed in the legends of the Beastmen. The stories claimed they tasted much better than Energy Liquid. None of them had ever eaten such a thing, and since the aroma was so mouth-watering, of course they wanted to try it.

Jiang Yunnuan: "..."

She retorted, both angry and indignant, "Why should I let you taste it? You’re nowhere to be found when I need help, but the moment I’m done after working all morning, you all come running. Things don’t work that way!"

"Is all the work we do for you, slaving away like animals, not enough? Or have you forgotten that we’re the ones who unpacked, moved, and arranged all this kitchen equipment? We cleaned and sanitized it, too." 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Si Xie’s indignant retort left Jiang Yunnuan speechless.

’Alright, fine, they did help!’

Just then, she suddenly recalled an old saying: the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

’This might just be useful for my mission to win them over.’

Thinking of her pathetically low affinity scores, she decided to make a concession.

"Fine, you can have a taste, but you can’t finish it all. And afterward, you have to wash the pots and dishes and clean up the kitchen."

"Deal!"

The four men helped carry the dishes to the living room table.

Spicy Dry Pot, Red-Braised Eggplant, Stir-fried Beef, Cold Cucumber Salad, Lamb Offal Soup, plus a pot of fragrant rice.

Aside from the ingredients for the rice, Red-Braised Eggplant, and Cold Cucumber Salad, which were harvested from the farm, all the other ingredients had been purchased with Points.

This single meal had completely wiped out her Points.

Since they had agreed to only have a taste, Jiang Yunnuan served them each just a tiny bit of rice. Once seated, Si Xie couldn’t wait to grab some food.

But because he had never used them before, he didn’t know how to use chopsticks and couldn’t pick anything up no matter how hard he tried.

After failing several times, his patience ran out. He simply tossed the chopsticks aside, rolled up his sleeves, and reached out to grab the food with his hand, making a vein throb on Jiang Yunnuan’s forehead.

"What do you think you’re doing?"

She quickly shot out a hand to stop him, her expression turning ugly.

She had worked so hard all morning, and he was about to ruin it all with his bare hands.

"Those things are impossible to use! I don’t know how!"

Si Xie shot back, looking at her with brazen confidence. Jiang Yunnuan was both exasperated and amused, and she fought back her temper to talk to him.

"They probably don’t know how either. Chopsticks aren’t that hard to use; you’ll get it with practice. What would you look like grabbing food with your hands? Only monkeys do that."

Si Xie: "..."

His face soured at her last sentence. He turned to look at the other three, and only when he saw that they weren’t doing much better than him did his expression finally improve.

"Then how do you know how to use them?"

He looked at Jiang Yunnuan and asked quizzically.

’This woman not only knows how to cook, but she can also use chopsticks. She’s so strange... It’s almost like she’s not from this world.’

"Because I’m smarter than you."

Jiang Yunnuan huffed smugly, instantly drawing Si Xie’s ire. But before he could retort, he heard her continue, "Come on, I’ll teach you..."

And just like that, his attention was diverted.

None of the men wanted to be a monkey, so with the help of their superb aptitude, they grasped the essentials after Jiang Yunnuan demonstrated just once. They then eagerly reached for the food.

Jiang Yunnuan paid them no more mind and started eating herself, afraid that if she was a step too slow, they would finish everything.

’Wow, the Spicy Dry Pot is fragrant, spicy, and numbing—the flavor is absolutely incredible! The Red-Braised Eggplant is rich and savory, filling my mouth with fragrance. The Stir-fried Beef is exceptionally tender, and the Lamb Offal Soup is explosively delicious...’

’One hundred stars! This definitely deserves one hundred stars!’

’In my past life, I had eaten my way through the Eight Great Cuisines and countless local delicacies, and I’d even attended a state banquet, but I have never tasted food this delicious.’

’This Full-level Chef God Guide is really something else. It let someone like me, whose cooking skills were originally just average, make simple dishes taste this incredible.’

’If I had taken these dishes to a culinary competition in my past life, I definitely could have won the grand prize.’

’Wait, why does it feel like my Superpower is about to break through?’

Jiang Yunnuan frowned, carefully sensing the power within her body.

As for the four men, they were initially so immersed in the exquisite flavors on their tongues that they were all trying their best to maintain an elegant demeanor, yet they couldn’t resist the urge to wolf everything down.

As they ate, the men keenly sensed that something was wrong. Why did every bite feel like they were consuming Energy?

The Energy inside their bodies grew more and more tyrannical, and the bottleneck to the Realm they had been stuck at for so long began to give way.

’What is going on?’

Before they could think any further, they saw Jiang Yunnuan drop her chopsticks, get up, sit cross-legged on the sofa, close her eyes, and begin to break through to the next Realm.

’What is going on with the Energy coming from this woman?’

’Didn’t she fail to awaken any powers?’

Aside from Jun Yao, the other three were dumbfounded. However, the Energy rampaging within their bodies grew increasingly violent, forcibly interrupting their thoughts and preventing them from thinking any further.

The three men reluctantly dropped their bowls and chopsticks, each found a spot, closed their eyes, and also began to break through to the next Realm.

In an instant, only Jun Yao remained at the dining table.

He continued to pick up food and eat, seriously observing the changes in the Energy within his body as he watched the four people beside him breaking through their Realms. His gaze finally settled on Jiang Yunnuan.

’She just casually cooked a table full of food, yet not only is it too delicious for words, it also contains an incredibly potent and pure Energy, not much inferior to a Crystal Stone.’

’And another thing, where did she get these ingredients?’