The griddle-cooked shrimp were numbing, spicy, and savory. The shells were crispy, and the meat was firm and chewy—both numbing and hot. The grilled fish was golden and crisp, its skin slightly curled at the edges. The snow-white flesh was soaked in a red chili oil broth, so spicy it made those who had never eaten peppers before break out in a sweat.
Da Hu's and Xiao Yu's little faces were flushed red from the spice. While whimpering that something was "hitting their tongues," they kept eating the deboned fish meat Yu An gave them.
Mo Yan couldn't handle much spice, but the fried chicken was right up his alley. It was coated in a thin layer of flour, fried to a golden crisp, and the meat inside was juicy and incredibly tender.
Han Li buried his head in his food, thankful he hadn't stormed off in a huff.
'A peeled shrimp appeared in my dog bowl—ah, no, my rice bowl.' Han Li looked up just in time to see Yu An's hand, which she hadn't yet pulled back.
Yu An smiled at him. "Eat up, puppy. You worked hard today."
To Han Li, the birthmark on her face looked like a blooming flower, unfurling layer by layer.
Han Li's face flushed red, and he quickly lowered his head.
Mo Yan peeled a shrimp and placed it in Yu An's bowl. "The fried chicken is even more fragrant than the buns," he said nonchalantly. "You should add it to the menu. I can go hunt wild chickens."
'The fried chicken is just too good. So good I'm reluctant to leave.'
'No, no, I still have to go. Once she makes it a few more times and I get tired of it, then I won't be so reluctant to leave anymore.'
"We'll see in a couple of days," Yu An said casually.
'I just used cookware that wasn't from my space, and I only have a few canisters of gas left. I need to use them sparingly.'
After dinner, Yu An gathered some ingredients from her space, made jam from the berries Da Hu had picked, and prepared a few snow skin mooncakes.
With a cub in each arm and an egg resting in front of her, she took the three little ones out to admire the moon.
There's a saying that the moon is fullest on the sixteenth day, not the fifteenth. Today was the perfect time for moon-gazing.
Mo Yan and Han Li were left to the side. They glanced at each other, and both could see the disdain in the other's eyes.
For some reason, they felt like they were mortal enemies.
The fragrance drifted for miles, making the cubs in the neighboring caves cry with hunger.
Bai Rong smelled it too. As she ate the bland, tasteless beast meat, her mind was elsewhere.
'It smells so good! Even better than the buns. Meeting Boss Yu is both a sweet and torturous affair.'
"Rongrong, is that fragrance also coming from that Boss Yu An?"
From deep within the cave, a middle-aged female suddenly spoke. Bai Rong quickly put down her food and replied, "Female Mother, it must be Boss Yu. Only she can make such delicious food."
"I heard Boss Yu is from Beast Emperor City. The people in the Imperial City must be so happy, getting to eat such delicious food every day."
Bai Rong's face was full of envy.
Bai Ruo gave a helpless smile. A thought seemed to cross her mind, and her face grew even paler. "COUGH, COUGH, COUGH... Silly child, the people in Beast Emperor City are just like us. Only the nobility can afford cooked food."
"The delicacies Boss Yu makes... they might be the first of their kind on the entire continent."
Bai Rong knew her Female Mother had been exiled here, but she was always tight-lipped about the past. This was the first time she had ever brought it up.
'My Female Mother knows so much about Beast Emperor City... could she be from there?'
On a whim, Yu An added a new item: Orleans chicken buns, priced the same as the meat buns. Compared to the previous three types, the Orleans chicken was savory with a hint of spice. The Beastmen who weren't used to spicy food were hissing and panting as they ate. For a moment, it seemed like the whole crowd was made up of Serpent Beastmen.
"Boss Yu!" a Beastman gasped, panting from the spice. "What is this filling? It's so delicious!"
"It's Orleans chicken," Yu An said. "What kind of buns would you like today?"
"Ten of each," Bai Rong said with a yawn, though her eyes were frighteningly bright. "Boss Yu, the food you made last night smelled so amazing that it even attracted people from the next tribe over."
Before, the buns were only being shared within a single tribe. Fortunately, Beastmen have large appetites, so they were perfectly capable of buying up all three hundred buns themselves.
But now, the local tribespeople felt a sense of crisis, worried that Beastmen from other tribes would buy all the buns.
Thanks to her Female Mother's reminder, Bai Rong had come to wait before dawn, which was how she became the first to buy the new type of bun.
She teased the Little Merfolk for a moment, giving him and Da Hu each a pretty stone as a gift before turning to head home.
Her Female Mother had always been in poor health and could barely manage a few bites of meat. Her Beast Father and brothers were always out earning money, trying to find some way to bring cooked food back for her. Who would have thought they could now buy it right on their doorstep?
Staring at the seemingly endless line, the male horse Beastman at the very back, Ma Shu, wanted to cry but had no tears.
"So many people... If I'd known, I would have been more diligent before instead of having to go earn money at the last minute."
He was the tribe's notoriously lazy male. Once he was full, he'd go straight to sleep, never storing food or looking for a female to have cubs with.
Of course, no decent female would have him anyway.
But ever since Yu An arrived and he tasted her delicious buns, he had started going out to hunt before dawn, then taking his catches to the trading market to sell.
The round trip took two days. He had just run back with the warm copper coins in his pocket, only to find a line so long it made him want to die!
As Bai Rong passed him, she deliberately took out a warm bun and took a huge bite. "Mmm, so good!"
Ma Shu salivated so hard he had to swallow repeatedly. He barely managed to stop himself from snatching the food right out of a child's hands.
"Go on, go on," Ma Shu said, waving his hand dismissively. "Hurry home and stop torturing me."
Bai Rong grinned. "Alrighty! You take your time in line, Uncle Ma. I'm heading off!"
'Finally, someone found a cure for Ma Shu's laziness. If my Female Mother hadn't been so kind-hearted last winter, he would have starved to death long ago.'
Bai Rong really looked down on the lazy male.
Ma Shu waited anxiously in line for a long time. Finally, the Beastman in front of him left with their buns, and he stood before Yu An, saying eagerly, "I'll take five..."
"I'm sorry," Yu An said apologetically as she closed the steamer lid. "The buns are sold out. Please come earlier tomorrow."
Ma Shu: "..."
'My world is crashing down!'
Closing up shop and heading home, Yu An hummed a little tune and calculated how many buns she had sold in total.
'I'm just two hundred away from completing the mission. But it's only the fourth day, so it doesn't matter if I sell more. Who would complain about having too much money? I'll sell four hundred each for the next two days, and then I'll release a new product! The space will issue the new mission a day in advance, which gives me exactly one day to prepare.'
"An'an, turn left up ahead. A thousand meters from here, I've discovered mature wild rice!"
Yu An instantly perked up. "I'll go check it out right now."
The cart made a turn, heading in the opposite direction of the cave. Mo Yan quickly said, "This isn't the way home. you're going the wrong way."
"There's a new food source over there. I'm going to check it out."
Mo Yan fell silent, but he was very curious. 'How can she detect a food source from so far away?'
"Want to know?"
Yu An's voice sounded right beside his ear. Mo Yan realized he had spoken his thoughts aloud. Meeting her smiling eyes, he clenched his fist. "I do."
Han Li silently pricked up his ears. He wanted to know, too. 'The ugly female seems to have a lot of secrets.'
"Because..."
"Look out—"
"MOO!!!"
A Wild Bull came charging straight at them. With lightning-fast reflexes, Mo Yan snatched Yu An into his arms, grabbed Da Hu and Xiao Yu with his other hand, and leaped from the cart.
Han Li followed right behind. They all rolled on the ground, narrowly dodging the Wild Bull's attack.
But the cart was smashed to pieces. If a blow with that much force had hit one of them, it wouldn't be a simple matter of a few bruises.
They'd be in pieces, scattered here and there!