Chapter 161 – Eileen’s World-Shaking Culinary Skills

Chapter 161 – Eileen’s World-Shaking Culinary Skills

After hearing Yu Sheng’s reply, Little Red Riding Hood said nothing, simply sitting quietly on the grass. She seemed to be thinking about something, or perhaps she was just spacing out.

After quite a while, Yu Sheng finally heard her murmuring softly, “It’s really quiet here. No squirrels or wolf packs either.”

“The way you said that gives me a really bad feeling, like five hundred ambushers are about to leap out of the bushes any second now.” Yu Sheng glanced around uncomfortably before his gaze settled back on the girl. “Uh… are you alright? You look pretty tired.”

“No kidding, I’m in my senior year of high school,” Little Red Riding Hood rolled her eyes. “And I fell asleep during chemistry class, no less.”

Yu Sheng hadn’t expected such a practical answer and was momentarily stunned. The girl before him didn’t wait for his response, shaking her head with a smile. “At first, I really didn’t want to go to school anymore. Especially after going through the ‘Awakening’ phase and finding out what was going to happen in the future… I had a huge fight with my ‘guardian’ back then. You already heard what the argument was about… pretty stupid, wasn’t it?”

Yu Sheng said nothing.

Little Red Riding Hood didn’t mind whether he answered or not.

“Now, I occasionally have similar arguments with those teenagers,” she continued, talking to herself. “They can never understand why the orphanage insists on making them attend school and study in an orderly way. The ones in better situations even get specially arranged to attend regular schools, while the ones in worse shape still have to take classes with teachers at the compound. For almost all of them, the things they learn will never be of any use. They won’t graduate. They won’t ever get jobs. They’ll never have the chance to become a designer, a technician, a driver…

“And honestly, they’re right — it really is a waste of time, if you only look at the fact that each child has, on average, only a dozen or so years to live.

“But the ‘guardian’ who took care of me once told me that people should live with hope. If this world doesn’t give us hope, that’s the world’s problem. Whether we hold onto hope ourselves — that’s our own business.

“In this world, there’s very little we can control. Too many things won’t develop the way you expect them to. So in the end, your ‘mindset’ becomes the only thing that still truly belongs to you… though even that isn’t always so easy to control.

“She also said that it’s hard for us to live complete lives, but we can try to make the years before adulthood complete… She told me not to smoke, not to drink, not to do bad things. She told me to learn things, to understand how vast this world is. She said it’s incredibly, incredibly easy for a person to go bad. Giving up on yourself is the simplest thing in the world. So we should do something challenging instead — like being a good student…”

Little Red Riding Hood talked on and on, saying so much, then let out a long breath. She lay back, face toward the sky, resting on that dim yet soft grass, gazing up at the equally hazy sky above.

“None of it was really profound wisdom. She couldn’t come up with grand philosophies — after all, when she left, she was only eighteen. She didn’t even have time to get a driver’s license.”

Yu Sheng turned his head and looked at the girl lying on the grass. “But she raised you well.”

“Not that well. I ended up ignoring a lot of what she said — like not getting into fights. And some of her reasoning I still don’t agree with to this day. But what can you do? It’s not like I can argue with her about it anymore.”

“True.”

The two fell quiet again.

Little Red Riding Hood stared at the hazy sky, spacing out for a long while. After some unknown amount of time, she suddenly broke the silence. “It really is quiet here…”

“You already said that once.”

“No, what I mean is — your dream is so boring. Is there really nothing here but grass?” Little Red Riding Hood flipped over and sat up. “It’s a dream, shouldn’t it at least be… bizarre and fantastical, full of twists and turns? How come this place looks like some kind of… afterlife?”

“Are you seriously being picky now?” Yu Sheng’s eye twitched. “What’s wrong with having a nice, peaceful dream? If you’ve rested enough, just go back — find a high spot, turn your back, and fall backward. That should wake you up. Or I can call Eileen over to kick you out. That method has a one hundred percent success rate…”

“Never mind then. I’d rather wait and get woken up by my teacher’s chalk,” Little Red Riding Hood immediately waved her hands. “You’re right though, a quiet dream is nice. After I accidentally fell asleep, I was worried I’d open my eyes and find myself back in the Dark Forest. Didn’t expect I could hide out here for some peace and quiet.”

Yu Sheng pursed his lips, but just then, he faintly sensed that he could smell something.

“Do you smell anything?” He frowned in confusion, looking at the girl beside him. “A weird smell. Pretty pungent.”

“No,” Little Red Riding Hood sniffed the air. “Just the smell of grass — you probably have a stuffy nose.”

“That’s impossible. It smells like something’s burning.”

“You’ve definitely got it wrong. My nose is sharper than a dog’s—”

Little Red Riding Hood was only halfway through her sentence when she saw Yu Sheng spring up from the ground as if launched by a catapult, his face stricken with alarm. “Wait — the kitchen!”

Little Red Riding Hood: “…Huh?”

But Yu Sheng’s figure had already vanished.

The next second, Yu Sheng’s eyes snapped open. He rolled over and felt nothing beneath him, dropping straight onto a pile of fluffy tails.

Crackling static electricity bloomed like winter flowers, and its flower language read: the fox spirit living in your house might genuinely possess a lightning spiritual root.

Yu Sheng yelped and leaped out of the pile of tails, then nearly pitched headfirst into the sharp corner of the coffee table because he’d stepped on the slippery fur. If that fall had landed solidly, he’d have needed at least half an hour before getting a chance to check on whatever was happening in the kitchen. But mercifully — he survived. He then scrambled frantically from the living room to the kitchen doorway, and the instant he pushed the door open, a powerful burning smell hit him in the face.

Mixed in was Eileen’s panicked shrieking: “Hey, hey, hey — water, water, water! It’s on fire! My food’s on fire… I’m on fire too!”

Yu Sheng rushed forward in one stride, grabbed Eileen — who was standing on the stovetop with her dress already sprouting flames — and tossed her straight into the sink. Then he shut off the gas in one motion, smothered the fire in the wok with the lid, and threw the window open for ventilation, all in one seamless sequence.

No. 66 Wutong Road was saved.

Hu Li stood in the corner of the kitchen with her neck retracted. Eileen lay in the dishwashing basin, her little face blackened with soot, water gushing from the faucet as the tiny doll slowly began to float. Yu Sheng stared slack-jawed at these two living treasures and at the smoke dissipating above the stovetop. Because his body had acted before his brain, his brain still hadn’t caught up.

Just then his phone buzzed twice. He picked it up and saw a text message from Little Red Riding Hood:

“I woke up. Got caught by the teacher. Chalk to the head. Furious.”

Yu Sheng sent back a cheering emoji, then swept his gaze across the kitchen again and scratched his head. “So, uh… can someone explain to me what exactly happened here?”

A few minutes later, Eileen was once again threaded through both sleeves by a laundry pole and hung up on the balcony, dripping water all over. Yu Sheng held a large hairdryer beside her, blowing away, sending the little doll swaying back and forth.

Finding the blow-drying too slow, Yu Sheng had no choice but to bring out the electric heater and set it next to the drying rack to help.

“Um, you don’t need to hang me up. I can dry myself…” Eileen glanced at Yu Sheng’s expression and murmured cautiously, “I can even flip myself over.”

“I’m not hanging you up there to save you effort. I’m hanging you up there to help you remember your lesson.”

“R-right…”

Yu Sheng stared wide-eyed at this pitiful little doll lady, held his stern expression for as long as he could, and finally sighed in resignation. He stepped forward and took Eileen down from the laundry pole.

The little doll immediately scrambled with nimble hands and feet onto the nearby electric heater, sat cross-legged on top of it, and wisps of white steam began rising from her body.

Now Yu Sheng understood why this girl hadn’t noticed she was too close to the fire even when her clothes were already ablaze.

She wasn’t afraid of heat!

“I’m actually happy you two wanted to help cook,” Yu Sheng finally said, exasperated, after holding it in for a while. “But you nearly set the kitchen on fire, and that’s a bit terrifying. It shouldn’t have gone wrong though — Hu Li, don’t you normally reheat food just fine?”

“I… I normally use Fox Fire to heat things up,” Hu Li said, standing nearby with her neck retracted and tail tucked between her legs, ears drooping. “But Eileen said she wasn’t used to that and that she knew how to use the gas stove… and then she wanted to show off her wok-tossing skills…”

Yu Sheng froze, then turned to look at the doll lady sitting on the electric heater — who at this moment was wreathed in steam, looking like she was about to achieve Metamorphosis and ascend to immortality. “You… tossed the wok?”

Eileen let out an awkward little laugh, the black soot still on her face.

“That spatula standing upright is almost as tall as you are! You tossed the wok?” Yu Sheng’s eyebrows shot up. “Who was tossing whom?!”

Eileen gave two dry laughs, shifted her position on the heater, and continued emitting “smoke.”

Yu Sheng shook his head, stood up, and walked over to lift the little doll off the heater.

Eileen jolted in alarm. “Hey, what are you—”

Yu Sheng sighed, carrying the doll by the collar toward the bathroom. “Stop roasting yourself. I just remembered — you should take a bath first. You’ve been smoked and grilled so long you’re practically seasoned.”

Eileen dangled in midair by her collar and looked up at Yu Sheng. “You’re not angry anymore?”

“Do I even have enough hours in the day to stay angry?” Yu Sheng laughed despite himself. “Fine, at least you didn’t actually burn the house down… I’ll go check the kitchen in a bit and figure out what to do about lunch.”

(End of Chapter)