The Star Lord Chang Sheng of the Palace of Trials - Chapter 11
Chapter 11 : Even Though He Is Vegetarian, He Still Has Taste Buds
Time rewound to the day before Weiqing came, which was the day Lord Changsheng didn’t drink the fish soup.
That night, since Lord Changsheng hadn’t eaten much, Wuyi planned to cook some straw mushroom porridge after dinner as a late-night snack for him.
Jufang heard commotion in the kitchen, and thinking Wuyi was making something delicious again, she excitedly barged in. But seeing the bland vegetarian porridge on the stove, she instantly lost her appetite.
Jufang said with disgust, “Late at night, you eat this just to satisfy a craving?”
Wuyi explained, “It’s not for me to eat! Lord Changsheng didn’t eat much today, so I thought I’d cook some porridge to pad his stomach.”
Jufang glanced at the straw mushroom porridge and said with disdain, “Even though he is vegetarian, he still has taste buds. Making it taste so grassy, it’s not like he’s a cow!”
Wuyi felt quite helpless and said, “Then what should we do? I’m just not very good at making vegetarian dishes! Do you think if I add fish soup to the porridge, he’ll be able to taste it?”
Originally, Jufang thought Lord Changsheng had high cultivation and could rescue her from the Tianshan Snow Lotus Pool without a scratch. But recently, Lord Changsheng was constantly coughing. Thinking that it must be because the pool water was too icy cold and he had caught a cold, she felt a bit bad about it, so she planned to help Wuyi get him to eat better.
Jufang pondered for a moment, then said with great delight, “Are you silly! Isn’t down this mountain the mortal realm? How about I go get some dongquai and goji berries or whatever, and we brew a soup for him?”
(T/N: Dong quai ( Angelica sinensis ), often referred to as “female ginseng,” is an herb in the Apiaceae family (the same family as carrots, celery, and parsley) native to the high-altitude mountain regions of China, Korea, and Japan. Its dried root has been a staple of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for thousands of years. )
Hearing this, Wuyi got excited as well.
Thus, this bird and cat sneaked down the mountain, entered a village to act as thieves, and took vegetables like sugarcane, corn, and radish, intending to plant them on the mountain themselves.
After bustling about for a while, the fragrant sugarcane and corn soup was ready.
—
Usually, when Jufang entered the kitchen, it was to steal food to eat; this was her very first time washing her hands to make soup. Cats are naturally curious animals, full of interest in anything new. Cooking soup for the first time, Jufang could hardly conceal the joy filling her heart. She insisted on delivering it to Lord Changsheng herself, watching him drink it down with her own eyes, and then forcing him to say whether it tasted good.
Knocking on the door in the middle of the night, when Lord Changsheng opened the door and saw it was Jufang who came, he seemed extremely surprised.
Lord Changsheng said, “What… what are you doing here in the middle of the night?”
Jufang said happily, “Wuyi and I cooked soup for you. Try it and see if it tastes good! This is my first time cooking soup!”
Lord Changsheng had a clueless face and asked, “Cough… You knock on the door in the middle of the night just to ask me to try your soup and see if it tastes good?”
Jufang hurriedly explained, “Didn’t you barely eat anything at dinner? Sleeping on an empty stomach isn’t good. Try drinking some!”
While speaking, Jufang even scooped up some soup, intending to feed it directly into Lord Changsheng’s mouth.
Lord Changsheng was so startled that he retreated two steps. Seeing that Jufang actually seemed to intend to follow him into the room, he hurriedly yelled, “Niyan!”
Jufang was scooped up around the waist by Niyan, who flashed into sight, and delivered outside the bedroom door. Just as Jufang wanted to explain, Lord Changsheng said in a flustered and exasperated tone, “Not drinking! Not drinking! Not drinking your soup! Cough!”, and then used a wave of palm wind to slam the door shut, leaving the dumbfounded Jufang standing in place, unable to understand why Lord Changsheng had such a big reaction.
Let’s briefly explain here what Lord Changsheng was doing before Jufang knocked on the door.
After dinner that evening, Lord Changsheng returned to his own room as usual to continue looking through the Mirror of Mortal Observation to find the record of love tribulations. As he watched, he actually saw Jufang and Wuyi descending to the mortal realm to look for dongquai and goji berries.
Thinking they were probably curious and wanted to go to the mortal realm to find good food, Lord Changsheng let out a slight smile.
But seeing them descend to the mortal realm alone, he recalled the various things that happened when the two went together to orchestrate a tribulation for Lianyue previously.
Suddenly, his chest felt tight.
“Indeed, how could you possibly ask me to accompany you down to the mortal realm? I did so many things to make you dislike me before, and even drove you away,” Lord Changsheng forced a bitter smile, murmuring to himself.
From this moment on, Lord Changsheng vaguely realized that he seemed to have fallen in love with Jufang.
Perhaps he had fallen for her even earlier, but not until now did he realize just how much he didn’t want to share Jufang with anyone else.
“If Jufang didn’t dislike me so much, would she have asked me to accompany her down the mountain tonight?” Lord Changsheng couldn’t help but think.
Shaking his head, he told himself that these were all greed, delusion, and attachment.
Jufang and Wuyi were mutually in love; he didn’t even qualify as a supporting character, so what was he doing indulging in fantasies to join the excitement?
Forcing himself to continue searching elsewhere for the whereabouts of the love tribulation record, after looking for less than an hour, Lord Changsheng suddenly felt a bit hungry.
Indeed, he had eaten almost nothing for dinner, but with the thousand-year snow ice inside his body, he really didn’t want to go to the kitchen without a heater to make food, nor did he want to trouble Niyan, so he thought he would just drink a cup of tea to fill himself up.
“Ouch!” The tea was too hot, and the wound on the tip of his tongue hadn’t healed yet, making him cry out in pain.
This burn reminded Lord Changsheng of the blood-feeding incident in the room that day. Touching his own lips, this grown man actually blushed with embarrassment.
Why hadn’t he thought so much back when he was feeding her blood?
“Enough. Having this memory is more than enough,” Lord Changsheng thought to himself, letting out a slight smile.
Jufang would have a healthy and happy life afterward, while he had a memory that belonged solely to him; this trade was fair enough.
Suddenly, Lord Changsheng felt that even if the tip of his tongue never healed, it didn’t matter anymore.
“Knock, knock,” a knocking sound came from outside, leading up to the scene of Jufang delivering soup in the middle of the night.
Seeing Jufang, whom he had been thinking about all night, right before his eyes, Lord Changsheng felt extremely guilty, like a child caught doing something bad.
Unexpectedly, Jufang, who never played by the rules, actually wanted him to try the soup.
Other than being stunned, Lord Changsheng couldn’t give any other reaction.
When she wanted to feed him the soup, this shy boy’s heart was about to explode in an instant.
For some reason, he felt that if Jufang entered the room, his thoughts would be seen through, so in his desperation he called for Niyan.
And then there was the dumbfounded Jufang holding the soup, standing in the hallway.
Not knowing what to do, Jufang stammered to Niyan, “Do… do you want to drink it?”
Niyan took a glance, saw that it was vegetarian, and said, “You cooked this for Lord Changsheng, right? Not drinking it.”
Then Jufang returned to the kitchen like a little daughter-in-law, drinking the soup along the way while talking to herself, “It tastes really good! How come not a single one of them drinks it?”
Meanwhile, in the room, Lord Changsheng only realized that the soup just now was cooked by Jufang herself after his heart rate finally dropped below eighty beats per minute.
On that hand holding the spoon to scoop soup, there was even a burn mark, yet not only did he not drink it, he even drove her away.
Hurriedly rushing out of the room, Jufang had already long gone. Lord Changsheng came to the kitchen and didn’t see anyone either, but he saw the remaining soup on the stove.
Scooping a bowl, it indeed tasted pretty good.
For some reason, Lord Changsheng suddenly felt like crying.
The hot soup could not melt the ice inside his body, but his heart was very hot.
—
Having stayed at Mount Luoyun for a few days, during the day Jufang and Wuyi practiced martial arts with Niyan, while Xiaofan drank wine and fished by the pond. At night, everyone fooled around and played starting from dinner; except for Lord Changsheng, everyone was as relaxed as if on vacation.
Day and night, aside from eating, Lord Changsheng was searching for the love tribulation book, but this wasn’t the main reason for his gloominess. Ever since Wuyi misunderstood that he was vegetarian, Lord Changsheng had never eaten meat again.
This night, he finally couldn’t hold back anymore and decided to emulate Jufang by sneaking to the kitchen to steal food as well.
Rummaging for a long time, he finally found the dried meat hidden by Wuyi and hurriedly stuffed it into his pocket. Just as he wanted to slip away, he heard approaching footsteps, so with a flip, he hid behind some junk.
The one coming was, of course, the ancestor of late-night kitchen raids, Jufang.
She also searched high and low, hoping to find some late-night snack to pass the long night. Little did she know the dried meat was already in Lord Changsheng’s pocket, so naturally she found nothing.
Lord Changsheng, seeing through her thoughts, chuckled secretly. With a wave of spiritual power, half a pack of dried meat was conjured beneath the stove.
Jufang searched and searched, and indeed discovered that half pack of dried meat. Opening it to take a look, however, she had a face full of disappointment and murmured to herself, “Only this little bit…”
Hearing that the dried meat he had reluctantly parted with was actually deemed too little, Lord Changsheng felt a bit annoyed, thinking, “If I knew, I wouldn’t have given you even half a pack!”
However, seeing the nearly healed burn scar on Jufang’s hand, his heart softened again. With a wave of spiritual power, he conjured the remaining half pack of dried meat beneath the cutting board as well.
Looking at Jufang’s satisfied face, Lord Changsheng became happy too.
“Cough!” Right as Jufang turned around to leave, this damned coughing sound bubbled up from Lord Changsheng’s throat.
Sure enough, the sharp Jufang turned back into the kitchen, wanting to find where the sound came from.
In desperation, Lord Changsheng revealed his true form, turning into a giant Peach of Immortality.
Jufang rummaged behind the junk, saw a big peach on the ground, and actually picked “him” up.
“It’s over! I thought by turning into a peach, meat-loving Jufang would ignore me. She wouldn’t eat fruit too, right? Can cats eat fruit?” Lord Changsheng thought.
Jufang ran outside Lord Changsheng’s bedroom holding the big peach. Just as she wanted to walk in, she was stopped by Niyan.
Niyan said with an unhappy face, “Why do you always want to enter Lord Changsheng’s room? You don’t even knock.”
Jufang said hastily, “Oh, both my hands are occupied! I thought I’d make a sound after going in!”
Only then did Niyan see what Jufang was holding in her hands, and his face instantly turned pale with fright.
Seeing this, Jufang thought the other party was frightened by her informal nature, so she explained, “I saw this big peach in the kitchen just now. I remembered Lord Changsheng mentioned before that he likes the scent of peach blossoms, so he probably likes eating peaches too, so I brought it for him. Is his cold any better? You can even hear him coughing in the kitchen!”
Seeing Niyan standing silly without reacting, Jufang walked into the bedroom on her own, took a look, found that Lord Changsheng wasn’t in the room, placed the peach on the table, and went out.
Before leaving, she turned to that dumbstruck Niyan and said, “Lord Changsheng is already sick and you still let him run around late at night. No wonder his cold has lasted so long!”
This silly girl self-righteously felt that after eating the peach, Lord Changsheng’s cold would get better; no idea where that confidence came from.
Once Niyan snapped out of his daze, he turned around and looked into the room, only to see Lord Changsheng sitting on his own table, his expression beyond description.
With a loud “Snap!”, Lord Changsheng closed the door using spiritual power, leaving the dumbfounded Niyan standing in the hallway with his mouth agape.
