With the clue to the Vermilion Bird Ruins, Lin Qingyue had a deeper conjecture about the cause of Pan Wenhuo's illness.
She closed her eyes.
Deep within them, a pink aura, invisible to ordinary people, flashed for a moment.
The authority of "Desire" was like an invisible probe, silently penetrating Pan Wenhuo's spiritual world.
Instantly, Lin Qingyue "saw" the crux of the matter.
Pan Wenhuo's spiritual world was not a place of dead silence.
On the contrary, a massive gray whirlpool squatted there, slowly rotating with a posture that could devour the heavens and earth, emitting a terrifying suction force that could annihilate all things.
That was the state of [ Sloth ], extremely magnified by the Dungeon Rules.
It had already mutated into a terrifying black hole of desire.
All other colored specks of desire around it...the pursuit of gourmet food (orange), the craving for honor (golden), the goodwill toward the opposite sex (pink)...
The moment these specks surfaced, they were distorted and pulled by the black hole's gravity, then ruthlessly devoured.
Lin Qingyue could even "hear" the fleeting monologue from the depths of his heart:
"That Holy Light Spell just now was so amazing. If only I could learn it... Nah, learning spells requires reading books and meditating. Too much trouble. I'll just lie here."
"Sister's barbecue smells so good. I really want a bite... Nah, I'll have to brush my teeth after eating. Too tiring. It's easier to just chew on bamboo shoots."
"Cuihua is so beautiful... Nah, chasing girls requires spending a lot of effort on gifts and going shopping. Just thinking about it gives me a headache. I'll just lie here."
Every spark of desire was completely extinguished by the even stronger desire to "lie flat" the moment it ignited.
Lin Qingyue instantly understood.
When Pan Wenhuo was exploring the Vermilion Bird Ruins, he likely experienced both mental and physical exhaustion due to his extreme longing for the "Sun Fireseed."
When he left the Ruins, that forced level of effort collapsed, and an overwhelming wave of fatigue swept over him.
The most primal thought—let me get some rest—was catalyzed by the rules of the [ Punishment of the Seven Sins ], eventually spiraling out of control to evolve into the invincible "Sin of Sloth," creating the vicious cycle it had become today.
She had found the crux of the problem.
In Lin Qingyue's mind, a bold and amusing new plan already took shape.
Forcibly stimulating his other desires would only cause them to be swallowed by this black hole of sloth. It would treat the symptoms, not the cause.
The only way...
...was to first ruthlessly weaken his pathologically distorted desire for Sloth itself!
Lin Qingyue opened her eyes, a mischievous glint of a "troll" dancing in her pink pupils.
She surveyed the mixed expressions of worry and anticipation on everyone's faces, then lazily snapped her fingers.
"I've got it."
"It's not that he lacks desire. It's that his desire for Sloth is so overwhelming it's formed a black hole, sucking in all other thoughts to use as fuel."
This novel "Black Hole Theory" left Pan Big-Ladle and Pan Ironpaw completely bewildered.
Though they didn't understand it, they were profoundly shaken.
"Then... then what should we do?" Pan Big-Ladle's voice trembled.
"Simple."
Lin Qingyue spread her hands in a relaxed gesture.
"Use his own spear to pierce his own shield."
"Since he finds everything 'too much trouble,' I'll use a dish that is 'extremely simple' yet 'extremely delicious' to ignite his most primal appetite."
"A single dish that will both show him hope—'So a simple preparation can reach such heights'—and use irresistible flavor to drag him out of the dry well of his desires!"
Lin Qingyue's bold proclamation did nothing to reassure the Pan uncle and nephew. Instead, it left them staring at her in bewilderment.
Extremely simple?
Extremely delicious?
In the culinary world, these two descriptions were diametrically opposed. The more exquisite a dish, the more insanely complex its preparation and the more blood and sweat it demanded.
Pan Big-Ladle opened his mouth to ask for an explanation, but held back, fearing he might disturb the "Divine Healer's" train of thought. He could only watch anxiously.
Lin Xiyue leaned in, her brow furrowed in a frown. "Sis, what kind of crazy stunt are you pulling now? This sounds completely absurd."
Lin Qingyue shot her sister a sideways glance, ignoring the critique. She turned to the utterly bewildered Pan Big-Ladle and extended her hand. "Boss Pan, I need your largest stewpot. Just a pot of fresh water, nothing else."
Pan Big-Ladle was riddled with doubt, but seeing Lin Qingyue's absolute confidence, he figured it was worth the gamble. He nodded vigorously, rushed to the kitchen, and heaved out a massive copper pot—big enough to stew a calf—before setting it heavily onto the fire pit in the courtyard.
Fresh water poured into the pot. The firewood was lit.
After doing all this, Pan Big-Ladle and Pan Ironpaw stared expectantly at Lin Qingyue, waiting for her next set of instructions.
In their minds, the next step should be to prepare some sort of rare ingredient or mix a secret sauce.
Lin Qingyue nodded in satisfaction, then swept her hand across the space in front of her.
A burst of radiance flowed.
A pile of ingredients, shimmering with multicolored auras and even generating their own supernatural phenomena, appeared out of thin air beside the copper pot, stacked into a small mountain of flowing light and color.
A whole slab of beast meat, still steaming with cold air, had golden light slowly flowing beneath its crystal-like fat marbling.
Several Deep-Sea Abalones, each larger than a human head, had seven-colored nebula patterns naturally formed on their shells.
A bunch of vegetables bound with golden rope, each leaf carved from jade, flowed with the light of life.
The most eye-catching were several giant mushrooms the size of washbasins, their caps as crimson as blood, their stems as pure white as jade, and a ring of visible seven-colored auras floating above them, looking like immortal herbs from a myth.
This appearance was no longer just strange, it was divine.
Lin Xiyue's eyelid twitched wildly. She instantly leaned into her sister's side, whispering in a terrified yet slightly excited tone:
"Sis, red umbrella, white stem... Are you seeing how lazy he is and preparing to send him straight to the morgue after he eats? A one-step, physical transcendence?!"
"Don't slander me," Lin Qingyue shot her a look that said, "What the hell do you know?" "This is called prescribing the right medicine for the disease, fighting poison with poison."
Before her voice even faded, she moved.
An unremarkable kitchen knife appeared in her hand, and in an instant, the blade's light connected into a sheet of splashed moonlight.
Those top-tier ingredients, which others would consider priceless, were tossed around carelessly in her hands.
With no cutting board, she used the air as her board and Holy Light as her ruler.
Slicing, deboning, removing tendons, changing knife techniques...
The series of movements was so fast it dazzled the eyes, filled with a wild and unbridled aesthetics of violence.
Pan Ironpaw and Pan Big-Ladle were completely stunned.
They had never seen knife skills so wild, yet precise to the millimeter.
Just when they thought Lin Qingyue would treat these prepared ingredients like works of art and carefully categorize them before putting them into the pot, her next action caused the awe they had just built up to instantly collapse and shatter all over the floor.
She simply gave a casual wave of her hand.
Plop!
Plop!
Plop, plop, plop...
Like a complete amateur who knew nothing of cooking, she carelessly tossed all the prepared ingredients into the giant pot of plain water, regardless of whether they were meat, vegetables, or different attributes.
Splash, splash...
The ingredients hit the water, kicking up splashes that broke the hearts of the two chefs.
Su Wan's mouth twitched uncontrollably. She muttered to herself, "She... just threw them in? Is she boiling plain-boiled rice?"
Xia Lian couldn't bear to watch. She covered her face with her hands and peeked through her fingers at the two Pandaren chefs.
"It's over, it's over. Uncle Pan looks like he's about to have a heart attack... Are we going to get kicked out? This is practically murdering the ingredients right in front of the chefs!"
Lin Qingyue put away her kitchen knife, poured in some special seasoning, and slammed the lid on with a clang.
"I announce, this dish shall be called 'Lazy Man's Version: Immortal Jumps Over the Wall'!"
She wiped the water from her hands and declared loudly.
"Traditional Immortal Jumps Over the Wall requires soaking, blanching, simmering in separate pots, and finally slow-stewing together for several hours. Just hearing that, wouldn't a lazy-cancer patient die on the spot?"
She spread her hands, her face written with absolute certainty: "The core idea of my version is just eight characters: The Great Way is Simplest, a One-Pot Stew!"
These shockingly unconventional remarks made Pan Big-Ladle and Pan Ironpaw's eye corners twitch violently. They nearly couldn't catch their breath.
This... this was no longer just desecrating the culinary art!
This was murder!
This was a crime!
However, the culprit, Lin Qingyue, showed no remorse.
She used the gentlest flame to let the water in the pot slowly heat up.
After doing all this, she acted like nothing had happened at all. She pulled a small stool from her Storage Space and sat down beside the pot.
She even took out a pack of sunflower seeds, sharing them with her equally stunned teammates.
"Come, come, everyone sit, don't be shy. The rest is left to time."
Seeing her utterly salted-fish-like manner made Pan Big-Ladle's heart bleed.
It's over.
All over.
This... can this be called Immortal Jumps Over the Wall?
This is clearly nothing but a one-pot stew of unknown ingredients!
Minutes passed by, one by one.
For the first ten minutes, the copper pot remained completely still, with only the simplest water vapor seeping through the gaps in the lid, carrying a faint, fresh scent.
Pan Big-Ladle's face was even blacker than the soot on the bottom of the pot.
Lin Qingyue leisurely sipped her juice, even humming a little tune, as if the pot wasn't boiling precious ingredients, but just a pot of plain water.
Another ten minutes passed.
The air in the courtyard began to undergo a subtle change.
A wisp of aroma, extremely faint yet incomparably dominant, burst forth without any warning.
It wasn't like the scent of any single ingredient, but a marvelous hybrid.
It had the raw power of Dracobeast meat, the richness of Deep-Sea Abalone, and the heart-refreshing fragrance of Immortal Mushrooms.
The three flavors had actually reached an unimaginable harmony within a single pot of clear water.
Pan Wenhuo, who had been motionless on his lounge chair, involuntarily gave a slight twitch of his nose.
But, that was all.
He remained lying down, motionless, turning a deaf ear to the strange aroma that had begun to spread.
Yet, that tiny movement did not escape Lin Qingyue's eyes.
The corners of her mouth curved up, revealing a smile that said she had everything under control.
The fish is about to bite the hook.