They called it "countermenu" as if it were a trendy appetizer list, and that suited Yan Chen fine—because if the Serpent Wok was going to treat the mountain like a restaurant, Yan would become a very unpleasant head chef.
Morning broke with a scalded sky. Lanterns winked out one by one as the sun inspected the compound, grumpy and efficient. The Enforcer's men moved like a well-oiled ladle, corners clipped, faces mean as unwashed bowls. The night's raid had left a bruise on the mountain's mood; even the usually indolent Old Taste seemed wired, his small mouth working the way a man chews a tough root.
Master Gao convened a rapid briefing in the inner kitchen. The room smelled of hot iron, lotus steam, and a faint trace of the phoenix-dew's aura—kept carefully under the Grandmaster's lock but alive in every whispered strategy.
"Three nights," Gao said to start, sounding like an instructor about to hand out homework. "We have three nights to manufacture a response that does more than bandage wounds."
Bai Yun added, eyes bright as a polished jade spoon, "We don't have to win a war. We need to close options. Make the Serpent Wok think twice before they take another bite."
"Think twice," Yan muttered. "Or choke on the second helping."
Qi Hu tried to look offended by the joke but only succeeded in looking like an offended chili pepper. "I will have you know," he sniffed, "that I prepare to make our enemies—" he waved a hand with the kind of flair a student uses when flubbing a dramatic line, "—regret their life choices."
Yan snorted. "Regret tastes like overcooked celery."
Someone—Master Gao, probably—choked on an old proverb and moved everyone into tasks. The countermenu had three pillars: Protection, Counter-sap (reverse siphon), and Morale. Each pillar demanded different ingredients and rituals, which translated in practice to: a lot of boiling, a few whispered incantations, and Yan spending most of the day with his face dangerously close to steam.
---
First: Protection. The Enforcer wanted discreet wards that wouldn't advertise their presence like lanterns on a wedding night. Yan, under Master Gao's instruction, brewed a "lotus knot" broth—simple, slow, and wrapped in herbs whose leaves had been soldered into sigils by Old Taste's clumsy but earnest hands.
"Think of it as a warm blanket," Gao said. "But one woven of iron."
Yan did his best. He simmered lotus until it folded like soft rice paper, then threaded into the pot a measure of crushed bay from the outer terraces—a herb that somehow smelled like old letters and well-water. He folded into it a sliver of the jade ring's dust—minuscule, Ward-legal—and the pot hummed in a different register: quiet, steady, confident.
"Delicious?" Qi Hu asked, peeking in with the sort of curiosity usually reserved for people watching someone else clean a grimy wok. "Or does it smell like the Enforcer's boots?"
"It smells like safety," Bai Yun declared, taking a careful breath. "And also a little like iron and poetry."
Yan did not ask what poetry smelled like. He pulled two bowls for the Enforcer to test. The man took a spoon, frowned, then involuntarily exhaled in a way that suggested the broth had not only warmed his belly but smoothed the knotted tension in his dantian.
"If this is a blanket," the Enforcer said at last, "it's a blanket that will smack anyone who tries to cut it."
Small victory. Protection-ish — check.
---
Second: Counter-sap. This was the risky bit. The elders wanted a way to reverse the Serpent Wok's siphons—pull the thieves' threaded hunger back into themselves without tearing seals. No phoenix dew. Not yet. The cookbook winked at Yan from the shelf, helpful in an unreliable way: sometimes hinting, sometimes sulking like a cat that knew too much.
"Use what you have," Master Gao instructed. "Memory threads and mechanical amplification. We will not use dew; instead, bind the thread to a physical resonance that the thieves' marks dislike—joy, oddly enough, and certainty. They craft want; feed them certainty."
Yan blinked. "Feed them certainty. Right. I'll make a dish that'll make thieves rue their appetite and buy therapists instead."
Gao only arched an eyebrow.
They decided to pair the lotus knot base with a "mirror glaze" method: a broth finished with powdered mirror-moss (a sect herb used in reflective rites) that made the dish carry a palatable echo—anyone who tasted it would find their own appetite reflected politely but firmly, a small shock of self-awareness.
It sounded like a miracle and a therapy session. Yan was unreasonably pleased.
He labored over the mirror glaze—slow reduction, precise stirring, coaxing the lotus strands to hold a memory of being chosen (positive intent this time). When the broth steamed, it gave off a scent like warm bread and the certainty of a finished puzzle. A cautious taster from the patrol team tried it and for a beat looked like a man who'd found the right shoelace. The taster's fingers no longer jittered; his look of blank hunger softened into a drawn, incredulous laugh.
"This would make a banker reconsider being a banker," Qi Hu said, solemnly impressed.
The elders watched Yan with the clinical curiosity of patrons sampling a new signature dish. "If the mirror-glaze seeps into the thieves," Old Taste mused, "they'll taste themselves. That could stop a siphon that trades in self-loathing and want."
Yan's inner voice (the cookbook, probably) piped up in the margin: Careful—the mirror shows what it sees. Sometimes that is ugly.
He noted it and then ignored the moral complexity because they had a third pillar to build and the moon was already elbowing itself toward dinner.
---
Third: Morale. After the granary and the kidnapped children, morale was a pot leaking steam. Food fixed it for a night, but the elders wanted something durable: a portable morale ration that could be sent to terraces and patrols that tasted like home, memory, and the fragile comfort of dignity.
They invented "comfort dumplings"—small, dense parcels of dough wrapped around lotus, minced preserved fish, and a single crushed seed of spice called nostalgiaberry (who named these things? Old Taste, surely). The dough was boiled in the lotus knot broth, then briefly seared in a pan for toasty edges. Each dumpling carried a tiny, deliberate memory: someone's mother humming, an old neighbor's grin, the precise, soft slap of a door closing behind someone who is loved.
As apprentices shaped them with the clumsy hands of people who loved too late in life, the kitchen erupted in a ridiculous, warm chaos—no plan survives contact with an assembly line of eager apprentices. Someone splashed dumpling dough on Master Gao's sleeve and he pretended to be enraged; Qi Hu tried to flip a dumpling theatrically and nearly launched the pastry into the chandeliers. Yan laughed, unexpectedly loud, and found the sound exactly where he needed it.
Even Old Taste smirked in a way that made him resemble something edible.
Bai Yun rolled her eyes at the spectacle. "You lot look like a farm after a festival."
"Farm's got better seasoning than you," Yan shot back. She actually smiled, the corners of her mouth softening like melting butter.
This is the humor the user wanted—light, character-driven, breaks tension. Keep it.
---
Night fell and the countermenu rolled out like a covert tasting session. Rationed bundles of lotus-knot broth, mirror-glaze vials, and comfort dumplings were distributed in coded runs to terraces, patrols, and watch posts. The countryside received warmth and certainty in spoonfuls; the patrols returned steadier, with clearer eyes and fewer haunted looks. The children held dumplings as if they were talismans.
On the fourth distribution run, Yan went along. He wanted to watch the effect. On a hillside terrace, an old woman gripped the dumpling and cried for no obvious reason; the dumpling tasted of a life remembered, and for a moment she was a young woman again. A guard laughed with a thin, delighted cough when his mirror-glaze forced him to face the silly certainty that his boots weren't going to fall off. Small stitches, and they held.
But nothing holds forever.
Late that night, while Yan and a small team returned, a scout stumbled in with news like a skewer: a supply road had been blocked two miles away. More than blocked—torch-fires roared and a line of black-petaled markers had been planted along the road like exclamation points.
Qi Hu swore—a hot, sharp noise. "They're trying to starve us. Or gather us into one big basket."
The Enforcer's jaw set. "They want choice by attrition. We give them none."
Master Gao's eyes met Yan's. "They will test the counter-sap once they harvest a few shepherds," he said. "If they taste themselves and recoil, the tactic works. If they don't, we change."
Yan felt the spoon hum like it was listening to the road itself. The mountain's hunger was methodical, not merely cruel. Each petal, each theft, each kidnap was a card in their hand; Yan and the elders were trying to not fold.
"Keep making dumplings," Bai Yun said quietly, the command both small and huge. "And keep your mind empty enough to learn."
Yan nodded, thinking of the little boy who'd clung to him the night they rescued the hostages. He felt suddenly unfit to be the man holding the spoon. Humor blinked—a little, resilient spark.
"Hey," he muttered to Qi Hu as they walked, "next time you threaten to make our enemies regret their life choices, try regretting the dust in your own shoes first."
Qi Hu rolled his eyes. "I have a very clean conscience."
Yan laughed, because a man must laugh or he will stew. Laughter tastes like garlic in a good broth—sharp, necessary.
---
Late that night, as the compound breathed and the guards slept in rotations, Master Gao pulled Yan aside. They sat with two cups of weak tea—the kind that tasted of honest things—and the jade ring warm between them.
"You did well," Gao said simply. "But you're learning to operate on a scale that eats mistakes. The spoon is listening. So is the mountain."
Yan swallowed. "What if the mountain wants a main course?"
Gao's face was grave and then, in a small, weary smile, almost kind. "Then we cook a feast that poisons what it should not. Or we burn the kitchen down so the mountain remembers what hunger is."
Yan laughed too, but it landed with the weight of a ladle hitting a countertop. "You sound like you enjoy metaphors."
"Only the polite ones," Gao said, sipping his tea. "Rest. Work tomorrow will be early and sharp."
Yan drifted to his pallet that night with his spoon by his side and the cookbook under his pillow because apparently you could not sleep without something that hummed at your elbow. He dreamed of a table stacked with cutlery that argued about the right way to hold a spoon. In the dream, the spoon winked at him and said, Feed, then fight; if you must do both, season carefully.
He woke up certain of nothing except two things: the countermenu bought time, and the Serpent Wok would not be so polite as to let time run out quietly.
Outside, a fan opened somewhere in the low alleys, a sound like a dry laugh. The black petals rustled like currency, and the mountain waited for its next tasting.