Chapter 22 – A Feast for the Eyes, Nose, and Palate

There was too much meat to braise all at once, so Yu Sheng processed it into several dishes prepared in different ways.

As the saying goes, the first time is unfamiliar, the second time you’re comfortable, and the third time you throw in some green onions, ginger, and cooking wine — ancient humans in the early days of civilization probably followed roughly this same process of gradual exploration and experimentation when faced with nature’s bounty.

Yu Sheng hummed a little tune as he cut the largest portion of meat into big chunks, blanched them in boiling water to skim off the blood foam, then placed star anise, fennel, cloves, cinnamon, and other braising spices into a clay pot. He added the meat, poured in enough water, salt, soy sauce, and cooking wine to mask the gamey smell, then set it on the stove to simmer slowly.

While the meat was braising, he took the remaining portions and stir-fried them separately — one with chili peppers and one with garlic scapes — giving each a taste. They were savory and pleasant, neither overcooked nor undercooked, with tender and smooth slices of meat. He couldn’t quite identify what animal the flavor resembled, but in terms of texture, it was somewhat close to very tender beef.

What was left over, he planned to cure into preserved meat after confirming there were no issues with this batch… or perhaps he could dehydrate it in the air fryer after curing and aging it to make dried salted meat? He’d never tried that before and wasn’t sure if it would work.

Yu Sheng’s mind spun through all sorts of ideas. He felt like a bold scientist exploring possibilities in a field no one had ever ventured into before.

And so he explored in the kitchen for nearly two hours, and only after all that busy work did he finally open the door and carry the cups, plates, bowls, dishes, and the clay pot of braised meat to the table in the dining room, trip by trip.

Eileen in the Oil Painting watched Yu Sheng bustle about with a look of sheer horror on her face. Her expression simultaneously displayed two completely contradictory emotions: “forget it, I’m tired, let him do what he wants” and “you can’t do this, what the hell are you doing.” After a long while, she finally couldn’t hold back any longer and spoke up: “You’re not really planning to eat that, are you? This stuff was brought out of the Otherworld! Don’t eat yourself to death!”

Yu Sheng looked up at Eileen. “What if I told you I’ve already eaten it twice over ‘there’?”

The conflicted expression on Eileen’s face vanished instantly, replaced by pure horror. “…What?!”

“Look at me — I’m still hopping around just fine, so it should be no problem. It was hard work getting these spoils of war back; it’d be such a waste to throw them out,” Yu Sheng said matter-of-factly. “You know what hunting is? This is my catch — sooner or later, I’m going to drag that whole thing back and make it understand who’s at the top of the food chain!”

Eileen didn’t respond. Yu Sheng glanced at the dumbstruck puppet and, out of curiosity, pressed further: “But speaking of which, has no one really ever ‘tasted’ the ‘physical entities’ in the Otherworld? Didn’t you say there are all kinds of them? There shouldn’t be a shortage of things that look edible in there.”

“Who would even try that?!” Eileen looked absolutely frantic. “They could have all sorts of bizarre properties — poison would actually be getting off easy. Who in their right mind just puts that stuff in their mouth? And you ate it twice… you really ate it twice?!”

“Mm, though the first two times were raw. The situation was pretty urgent then — no time to cook it. It was the kind of emergency where if you didn’t eat that bite right then, you wouldn’t live to eat anything else.” Yu Sheng said this casually as he sat down across from Eileen, picked up a slice of meat with his chopsticks without a care in the world, tossed it into his mouth, and ate with relish.

Eileen listened in a daze. “So… what was your reaction after you ate it?”

“I died after eating it,” Yu Sheng said with complete honesty.

“Then why are you still—” Eileen let out an instinctive cry, then sensed something was off — but she didn’t know about Yu Sheng’s ability to die and come back to life, so she could only assume he was teasing her. She glared at him, somewhat annoyed. “I’m being serious with you!”

Yu Sheng broke into a grin and laughed aloud at the sight of the flustered puppet in the Oil Painting.

He found that he was starting to enjoy trading barbs with this puppet.

After all, it wasn’t like she could leap out of the painting and clock him over the head.

He still didn’t explain the matter of dying and coming back to life to Eileen. On one hand, Eileen had no way of perceiving his death process at this stage, so even if he explained it, it would sound like he was making things up. On the other hand, he still had far too many guesses about the changes happening to him that awaited confirmation. He wanted to wait until he understood things better before discussing them with Eileen.

Eileen, however, had no idea how many jumbled thoughts lay behind Yu Sheng’s mischievous smile. She simply couldn’t help glancing again at the spread of food on the table, then watched with a slightly glazed look as Yu Sheng chewed.

It… actually looked quite appetizing. And after being cooked, the color was no different from ordinary meat — you couldn’t see any trace of the eerie appearance it had started with.

“…Is it good?”

The Puppet in the Painting finally couldn’t hold it in any longer and asked, feigning indifference.

Yu Sheng immediately smiled, as though he had anticipated this moment all along, and casually picked up an empty bowl he had set on the table beforehand. He served a portion of rice, dishes, and meat broth for Eileen and placed it in front of the Oil Painting.

“I never said I wanted…” Eileen muttered.

Yu Sheng said offhandedly: “It’s not like you can actually eat it anyway, so there’s even less reason to worry about the ingredients, isn’t there?”

Eileen thought about it and felt that made sense. “That’s… that’s true, isn’t it?”

And so she relaxed again, settling into a state of cheerful presence before the bowl and chopsticks Yu Sheng had set out — as though her spirit lingered there, her smile very much alive.

Halfway through the meal, their conversation drifted back to their earlier discussion about “professionals.”

“Actually, there’s another possibility for why no one’s come looking for you yet,” Eileen said, hugging the Toy Bear as she sat near the edge of the picture frame, thinking as she spoke. “That would be that some organization or official personnel have actually already noticed something wrong here, but based on professional judgment they’ve determined they can’t act immediately — or they haven’t yet precisely located the connection point to the Otherworld or gathered enough intelligence — so they can only arrange surveillance for the time being.”

“Surveillance?”

“Right. Who knows, maybe there’s a whole bunch of plainclothes agents staking out your house as we speak. After all, you made it back from the Otherworld on your own without waiting for anyone to rescue you. Whether it was due to strength or luck, the people who specialize in handling this sort of thing didn’t get a chance to act, which means they probably didn’t get a chance to pinpoint your location either, so naturally they’d first arrange surveillance in the surrounding area… You could keep an eye out over the next couple of days for any unfamiliar faces appearing nearby. They might be plainclothes agents, plainclothes detectives, plainclothes investigators, or whatever — just something to notice in passing. It won’t get in the way of you going to look for flyers on the telephone poles in the area…”

Yu Sheng ignored the comment about “flyers on telephone poles” and looked out the window.

Eileen made it sound simple — just keep an eye out for unfamiliar faces nearby. But how was he supposed to know which faces were unfamiliar? He’d only been here for two months, and for the first month he’d been holed up at home almost the entire time. On top of that, he was somewhat face-blind to begin with — in his eyes, half the people in this place were unfamiliar faces to begin with!

“Do you think the guy selling crepes at the intersection looks like a plainclothes agent?” After staring suspiciously out the window for a long time, Yu Sheng whispered to Eileen.

“I don’t know — I can’t see, remember.”

“Oh right, I forgot,” Yu Sheng snapped back to his senses, quickly stood up, picked up Eileen’s picture frame, and carried it to the nearby window, facing it outward. “Right over there, that one…”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“That certain?”

“Obviously. Fifty seconds per order, extra sausage, extra egg. If he were a plainclothes agent, fifty seconds wouldn’t even be enough time to brush on the oil properly.”

“…Fair enough. What about the phone screen protector guy next to him?”

“Doesn’t look like it either — too nimble with his hands.”

“Oh… hey, what about that one…”

“Stop looking. Being paranoid like this isn’t going to help, and if they’re real professional surveillance agents, you definitely won’t be able to tell anyway,” Eileen cut him off. “Instead of guessing blindly, you’d be better off going out for a walk yourself over the next couple of days. You’ve been exposed to the aura of the Otherworld — anyone who specializes in this kind of thing will be able to tell at a glance once you get close enough to them.”

“…Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Yu Sheng sighed, unable to argue with that, and turned around to start clearing the bowls and chopsticks from the dining table.

But the moment he turned around, he heard Eileen shout from behind him: “Put me back first! I’m still propped up against the window!”

Yu Sheng let out another weary sigh, turned back around, moved Eileen down from the windowsill, and muttered under his breath: “Tch, what a hassle.”

“Then hurry up and get me a body, and I can run around on my own,” Eileen in the Oil Painting looked up at him as he set her down on the dining table, then added: “I feel like we’ve gotten a bit more familiar today, so I’m asking again…”

Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched involuntarily at that.

Eileen had indeed mentioned when they were discussing the “escape plan” earlier that the two of them weren’t familiar enough yet, so any cooperation on that front would have to wait until they knew each other better — but he hadn’t expected that this puppet’s standard for “familiar enough” would be quite so flexible.

“We’ll talk about it later. I’ve got a head full of things to deal with right now. At least let me get through this busy stretch first…”

“Sure, that’s fine,” Eileen was easy to placate. She looked momentarily deflated, then nodded. “Just don’t forget!”

Then, after a brief silence, she watched Yu Sheng clear the bowls and chopsticks from the table and started chattering again: “What are you going to do next? Planning to head out and look for telephone poles?”

“You’re never going to let the telephone poles go, are you?” Yu Sheng shot her a glare. “I’m going upstairs to sleep! After everything that’s happened, I’m dead on my feet!”

Eileen made a sound of acknowledgment and pointed at the TV across from the picture frame.

“Could you fix the TV first? The signal suddenly went out and there’s nothing to watch…”

Yu Sheng: “…”

A moment later, he let out an exceptionally heavy sigh.

After such a brief time living with this chatterbox, he was already beginning to miss his carefree and happy life of living alone.