Cooking

"You're really not afraid of gambling away your entire scholarship..." Freya shook her head. "Besides, don't overestimate yourself. You might not even make the cut for the lowest green tea rank at a tea cafe. If you want to earn money there, you'd need to take out a loan for a full-body cosmetic overhaul first—body curves, facial features, hair, lips, teeth, scent, erogenous zones, and all sorts of other anatomical structures would need tuning..." Adela looked terrified. "It's that horrifying?" "Let me paint you a picture." Freya pointed at herself. "If I were to work at a tea cafe, at most I'd be a cyan tea level tea master, and my performance numbers would definitely be in the lower-middle tier." "Tea cafes are getting way too cutthroat! Even a Veela can barely scrape by?!" "Actually, if you ask me, mud cafes are far more competitive than tea cafes. Next time you come with me to a mud cafe, I can introduce you to a beastman prettier than any Veela." "It's all the healers' fault!" Adela ground her teeth in frustration. "Nowadays, even a natural beauty like me can't make a living with her body." "That's why you need to study hard. Sorcerer is the least cutthroat profession there is." Freya packed up her bookbag. "The Void Realm doesn't care about rankings. It only cares whether you pass." Adela stood up as well. "Come on, let's hit Salais." Salais was a music bistro near the university, popular among students for its reasonable prices and wide menu. It even had separated moon sugar and non-sugar sections, so students dining there didn't have to worry about patrons next to them suddenly overdosing on sugar and convulsing. "I'm not going with you." "Huh? Why? It's my treat." "I've got plans tonight." Adela blinked in surprise. "Two nights in a row at a mud cafe? You're that rich?" "Not a mud cafe either." Freya rested her chin in her hand. "Just something that isn't really appropriate to tell you." Before heading out this morning, Yaxiu had asked about Freya's class schedule and instructed her to return home as soon as classes finished. Freya was well aware she was harboring an escaped convict, so she intended to head straight back to check on things. Adela gave her a skeptical look, then gasped as a thought struck her. Grabbing Freya's lovely shoulders, she asked, "You're not dating someone, are you? Don't tell me you got played by one of those mud workers!" "No way, how could I?" Freya chuckled and waved her hands dismissively. "Have you ever heard of a Veela getting fooled by the opposite sex?" Adela thought about it. True enough. Ever since she had known Freya, her friend had frequented more than a dozen mud cafes around the university, yet she never lingered on any single mud worker. Veela were notoriously a single-use race—infatuated before mating, thoroughly disgusted afterward. Only an exceedingly rare individual could ever be an exception for a Veela. Romance was inherently foreign to them; they simply could not tolerate a long-term intimate relationship with the same person. Adela clicked her tongue. "If you're not going, I can't be bothered with Salais either. I'll just go eat at the buffet at High Fortune." High Fortune was the most famous casino near the university; buying a certain amount of chips entitled patrons to its complimentary buffet. Freya warned her, "Don't go losing all your meal money. I won't have anything to lend you." "Pah, pah, pah! My luck is fantastic today, so don't you go jinxing me!" After leaving the classroom and parting ways with Adela, Freya silently offered a prayer to the Blood Moon Sovereign, hoping He would protect Adela from losing everything—otherwise, Adela would inevitably glom onto her for free food and drinks. Adela was her close college friend, a human woman with wine-colored hair, green eyes, and a passion for gambling. While her gambling habit was severe, it wasn't rare in university. Gambling and sex—virtually every college student indulged in at least one, and more often both. Anyone who touched neither was viewed as a prude and ostracized. In contrast, the proportion of sugar folk among college students was fairly low. Although no official survey existed, common belief held that consuming moon sugar degraded one's cognitive faculties, leaving sugar folk incapable of passing university entrance exams. Even so, Adela wasn't a gambler who had lost her mind. She could afford to be brazen because her grades were among the very best. With a bit of extra effort, she had every chance of passing the graduate exam for the Red Mist Research Institute upon graduation, at which point the institute would naturally wipe out her student debt. In popular terms, she was on track to reach safe harbor soon, so she had little reason to worry about the future. Those like Freya who couldn't make it to graduate school would have to repay their student loans after graduating. If they couldn't find a decent job and defaulted, the bank would gladly introduce them to 'more lucrative' lines of work—such as becoming a tea master at a tea cafe. How many of those mud workers tailored to cater to every client's fetish had once been upperclassmen from her university, she wondered... Lost in thought, Freya arrived back at her apartment building. On the stairs, she ran into Aunt Mulan from the second floor. She had barely offered a greeting when Aunt Mulan seized her forearm. The soft patch of down on a Veela's forearm was a vulnerable spot, so Freya didn't dare pull away with force, leaving her stuck listening to the woman's nagging. "Freya, child, whatever you do, don't trust men! No matter how nice they seem, they're all liars! Men just can't empathize with women deep down in their bones. Back in my day, I..." After enduring the classic tale of 'the young and gorgeous Mulan falling for a scoundrel and getting swindled out of her savings' yet again, Freya seized an opening to break free. "I know, Aunt Mulan! I'm a Veela, men can't fool me!" Aunt Mulan sighed heavily, shouting after her, "Men love tying you down with petty favors! If he won't spend piles of cash on you, it's all a lie!" Aunt Mulan was unusually agitated today. Did she book the very man who swindled her back then at a mud cafe? Freya's mind wandered as she fished out her key to open the door, only to suddenly remember that a cult leader was currently living inside. Come to think of it, why did he tell me to come back early? What does a cult leader do when left all alone? Surely some evil sacrificial ritual! Did he tell me to come back just to be his sacrifice? No, that makes no sense. The contract from last night explicitly forbade either party from harming the other. Could it be that he's short-handed for the ritual and wants me to lend a hand? If that's the case, wouldn't I be going from harboring a fugitive to becoming an accomplice?! And even if that cult leader can't hurt me, what cult leader doesn't have a few henchmen? Who knows if there's a whole pack of black-robed scoundrels brandishing torches waiting inside! Even with such thoughts racing through her head, Freya still had to open the door and take a look. If there was danger, she would bolt immediately. This was the city center; an escaped convict couldn't possibly chase a college girl down the street in broad daylight, could he? Freya opened the door, her nose twitching slightly as the savory aroma of food reached her. Puzzled, she stepped into the entryway and saw Yaxiu standing in the kitchenette wearing an apron. He was busily at work with the cookware she hadn't touched once since moving in. Xiaoxian circled around his feet, meowing from time to time as if eager to taste his cooking. Yaxiu glanced over at her and smiled. "Have a seat for a moment. The last dish will be ready shortly, and then we can eat." "Welcome home."