Wei Jia stood frozen in the doorway, feeling the weight of Su Mingyi's triumphant smirk and Li Shiyan's calculating gaze. Ignoring them, she stepped inside the kitchen.
"What are you doing here?" Li Shiyan asked in a cold voice.
"I need the tools to do the job you blackmailed me into." Jia replied coming straight to the point.
Su Mingyi stiffened, her spoon still midway to Li Shiyan's lips as she processed her words sounding like a challenge. Li Shiyan's eyes sharpened. Wei Jia met his gaze without flinching.
She had nothing left to lose. Her freedom was already gone, her family was already drowned in debt, her future was already mortgaged to corporate interests. But her dignity? Her right to demand basic professional respect? Those were still hers to fight for.
"Or is incompetence now a trait at Tianxia?" She continued. "Because confiscating the ingredients I need to complete your assignments seems like an interesting business strategy."
Su Mingyi's mouth had fallen slightly open, her perfect composure cracking as she realized that Wei Jia wasn't going to play the role of defeated corporate chef she had scripted for her. Li Shiyan set down his tasting spoon. The warmth toward Su Mingyi suddenly vanished.
"Excuse me?" He said with surprise in his voice.
But Wei Jia wasn't worried about consequences. She had been humiliated, stripped of her tools, and forced to witness the intimate partnership between the people planning for her professional destruction. If they wanted to destroy her, she might as well go down fighting.
"You heard me," She said, taking another step into the kitchen until she was close enough to meet Li Shiyan's eyes. "You asked me to optimize traditional dishes, then confiscate the traditional ingredients I need to do the work. Either you want me to succeed, or you want me to fail. But using your power to ensure failure while demanding success is just cowardice dressed up as business strategy."
His jaw tightened. Su Mingyi's smile vanished completely, replaced by shock as she realized that her carefully planned humiliation had backfired.
"You will have your ingredients. Every traditional spice, every authentic component you claim to need for your work."
Su Mingyi started to speak, maybe to protest or defend her actions, but Li Shiyan silenced her with a single glance that could have frozen fire.
"But," He continued, his eyes returning to Wei Jia, "you will remember your place in this organization. You are here as a consultant, not as a peer. You work for me, not with me. And the next time you want to show your advocacy for traditional methods, you will do so through professional channels rather than storming into private meetings with accusations and demands."
The threat was personal rather than professional.
"Do you understand?" He asked, stepping close enough that she could see her own reflection in his eyes.
"Perfectly. I understand that you want results but you're afraid of the methods that might actually deliver them. I understand that you hired me for my expertise but you want to control every aspect of how I use it. And I understand that you're more comfortable with failure you can explain than success you can't control."
Li Shiyan's eyes narrowed, and for a moment Wei Jia wondered if she had just committed professional suicide. But then the corner of his mouth twitched into a smile.
"Your ingredients will be returned to your laboratory within the hour. I expect your first optimization report by tomorrow."
He turned back to Su Mingyi, dismissing Wei Jia from the conversation. Su Mingyi's face had gone rigid with fury, her malicious satisfaction completely vanished with Wei Jia's unexpected victory. When she looked at Wei Jia, there was nothing but cold hatred.
Wei Jia walked out of the traditional kitchen wing with her head high, knowing that she had just won a battle but possibly escalated a war she wasn't prepared to fight. Behind her, she could hear Su Mingyi's talking to Li Shiyan, but she couldn't hear it.
Back in her laboratory, Wei Jia's hands shook with fury. The confrontation with Su Mingyi and Li Shiyan had left her feeling both victorious and vulnerable. She had stood her ground and won her battle, but at what cost? In corporate hierarchies, challenging authority usually came with consequences that weren't immediately apparent.
She was still processing what had just happened when the laboratory door opened and Ming entered inside, carrying a small bag. His face was filled with excitement and nervousness.
"Your spices," He said, setting the bag on her workstation. "A cleaner gave them to me to deliver them to you. I checked, everything is inside. Your spices are safe."
Wei Jia's hands stopped shaking as she opened the bag and saw her precious ingredients, each container exactly as she had left it.
"Thank you." She whispered.
"There's no need to thank me." Ming interrupted, glancing toward the door. "Its the result of what you did earlier. What you did there was either incredibly brave or stupid. I think it was probably both."
Wei Jia began arranging her spices.
"They can try. I'm not backing down anymore."
"He's never spent that long in the traditional wing before." He informed her.
"What do you mean?" Wei Jia asked.
"Mr. Li. He barely ever goes to that section. He leaves all the traditional cuisine stuff to Mingyi's team. But..." He shrugged. "Ever since you got here, he's been spending a lot more time there. The staff is starting to notice."
She didn't care about Li Shiyan's personal relationships or professional collaborations. He was her corporate tyrant boss, not someone whose attention or affection mattered to her.
"Well, I'm sure they have a lot of traditional cuisine to destroy together. It's very romantic." Her voice filled with sarcasm.
"I'm just saying, the timing is interesting. You shake up his perfect view of food at the expo, and suddenly he's spending personal time with the woman everyone expects him to marry. It could be coincidence also."
"I don't care about his personal life."
Ming understood she wasn't interested in their boss's personal affairs, so after telling her some more corporate gossips he left. But before leaving, he promised to keep her updated on any gossip that might affect her situation.
Wei Jia fired up the induction plate with more force than necessary, the plate becoming an outlet for her emotions.The laboratory suddenly felt like a battlefield, and she was preparing for war using the only weapons she had ever mastered. The flame, oil, and the alchemy of authentic cooking.
Her knife work was aggressive as she prepared ingredients for another batch of Mapo Tofu, each chop imagined against Li Shiyan. The sound of steel against cutting board echoed through the space like gunshots.
Chop.
That's for blackmailing me into this corporate cage.
Chop.
That's for letting your girlfriend steal my spices.
She added oil in the heated pan, then doubanjiang watching it bloom in the hot oil. Every ingredient that followed was added with aggression. Her cooking was fierce, bold, angry completely different from the day before.
The Mapo Tofu that she made with aggression was extraordinar in its intensity. Every flavor was amplified which made the dish more aggressive by the energy she had poured in it. It was the kind of dish that would make people remember exactly what they were eating, that would leave a long lasting impression. This wasn't comfort food. This was a declaration of war served in a ceramic bowl.
Wei Jia was adjusting the seasoning, trying to reduce some of the dish's intensity, when the laboratory door open behind her. She looked up expecting to see Ming returning with more office gossip.
Instead, Li Shiyan entered inside alone, his presence immediately transforming the laboratory from her cooking space into a courtroom. He moved with the same authority but there was something different about his energy. He looked more focused.
He didn't speak for sometime, didn't give the reason for his presence or demanded status reports. Instead, he approached her workstation.
Without asking permission, Li Shiyan picked up one of the forks and took a bite of the Mapo Tofu directly from her wok which was still simmering on the flame.
Wei Jia watched him as he tasted her dish, she saw the moment when the aggressive flavors hit his tongue and his eyes widened slightly with surprise or appreciation or recognition, she wasn't sure.
When his eyes turned to meet hers, Wei Jia saw something that made her breath stop. There was no business assessment. Instead, there was something raw.
For a moment, they stared at each other across the small distance of her workstation, the air between them crackling with tension that had nothing to do with corporate hierarchies but still everything to do with two people who had just recognized something dangerous in each other.
"Again." He commanded. "But this time try to cook with logic, not with a tantrum."
The challenge hung between them, now transforming her laboratory into an arena where much more than cooking skills would be tested.
Wei Jia felt her grandmother's phoenix pendant pulse warm against her skin as she realized that the real competition was just beginning.