Chapter 119 - 117: The First Stir-Fried Dish

"Of course it’s fine to tell Mom, but you must not tell anyone outside," Sev Steele said with a serious expression. "Otherwise, they will take you away and lock you up. You’ll never see Mom or your brothers again."

Rose was still young and couldn’t possibly understand the stakes involved, so Sev had to scare her using words she could comprehend.

Hearing this, the little girl’s face turned deathly pale. She immediately clamped her hands over her mouth, nodding her head vigorously like a chick pecking at grain.

"By the way, did you follow the method Mr. Quinn taught you?" Sev asked, changing the subject now that her goal of scaring the child had been achieved.

"I did! I got close to every kind of plant in our house. Curly is the easiest to communicate with. It’s so obedient and even calls me its little master.

"Coco Holden is also very good. Now, as long as I give it a little bit of green light, it will produce however many fruits I need.

"Then there are the seeds planted in the boxes. They were originally very weak, but they’ve slowly recovered over the past few days. They told me they’re going to sprout soon!

"Oh, right! And that mutant wild garlic you brought home from the wild. When it first arrived, it complained that our wooden boxes were too small and the soil wasn’t fertile enough. But now we’re good friends, and it doesn’t want to leave at all."

The little girl’s eyes sparkled whenever she talked about plants. Sev could tell that she genuinely loved them.

Possessing a Wood Ability and loving plants so much, she would probably live a very happy life, right?

In fact, there were many times when the attribute of an Ability didn’t necessarily match a person’s preferences. After all, humans had their own thoughts and wouldn’t be completely dictated by their attributes.

However, hearing her mention that the soil wasn’t fertile enough, Sev figured she should bring back some rich soil the next time she went out.

Her first choice was naturally the place where they had dug up carrots yesterday. The soil there looked soft and dark, and the carrots they had unearthed had well-developed roots and plump bodies. Plants grown in that kind of soil would yield at least twenty to thirty percent more than those grown in less fertile dirt.

Yes, it was happily decided.

Given that Rick Kaye had earnestly taught her daughter the method to improve her Ability, Sev decided to use local ingredients to stir-fry a dish, rewarding this dedicated teacher.

This would be her first time cooking a stir-fry since she transmigrated here. Compared to those so-called delicious nutrient pastes, stir-frying was the true essence of the diet for the Celestrians of Azure.

She selected two carrots, washed them, and cut them into rolling wedges to set aside.

She then washed half a basin of carrot greens, cut them into one-inch sections, and set them aside. Boiling water in the pot, she sprinkled in a small amount of salt and scooped in a tiny bit of animal fat. This was the key to keeping the leaves vibrant and green.

The carrot greens were blanched in the boiling water for thirty seconds until they softened and changed color, then scooped out and rinsed with cold water. The fat and salt would be absorbed by the leaves without wasting a single drop. This process removed the bitter and astringent taste. She then squeezed out the excess water and set the greens aside.

She plucked two leaves from the mutant wild garlic and minced them for later use. Sev had actually delegated the task of plucking the wild garlic leaves to Rose, taking the opportunity to have her use a little green light to heal the physical and mental trauma the mutant plant suffered from being plucked.

The fat grub from last night—the one that had been despised by the broken box—was washed and diced into two-centimeter cubes. It was then tossed into the pot and stir-fried until it rendered its fat.

Next, she added the minced wild garlic to release its fragrance, poured in the carrot chunks, and stir-fried them together. Adding salt, she poured in enough water to submerge the carrots. She let it simmer on low heat until the carrots were soft and tender.

Finally, she tossed in the half-basin of blanched carrot greens, stirred everything evenly, and served it up after a few quick flips.

Rick Kaye had already hopped into the kitchen while she was stir-frying the diced grub.

Seeing the dish served, he hurriedly grabbed a pair of chopsticks, picked up a wedge of carrot, and stuffed it into his mouth. It was so scalding hot that he grimaced in pain, yet he couldn’t bear to spit it out.

Rusty, who was helping add firewood beneath the stove, twitched his lips. He felt that this big shot was truly a glutton. In the face of delicious food, the man’s self-control couldn’t even compare to his as a child. However, considering the man was Rose’s teacher, Rusty could only silently lower his eyes and pretend not to notice.

At nearly eight years old, Rusty fully understood the true meaning of the word "teacher." For Rose to have a powerhouse like Rick Kaye as her mentor was a blessing others would fight tooth and nail for.

As Rick ate, he gave his review. "Oh my! These carrots are absolutely delicious! They’re sweet, tender, and have soaked up all the essence of the meat. It’s clearly a vegetable dish, but it tastes even better than meat!

"And these carrot greens! The texture is rich and crisp without a hint of bitterness. This is absolutely the best wild vegetable I’ve ever eaten, bar none!

"These little meat cubes go without saying. They’ve absorbed the mellow sweetness of the carrots and the fresh fragrance of the greens. It’s simply the ultimate delicacy!

"It’s just a pity that there’s too little meat. If you added more, the flavor would definitely be even better!"

Sev rolled her eyes at him. "Do you think I don’t know it would taste better with more meat?

"It wasn’t easy getting this little bit. If we don’t ration it, we’ll eat it all before winter even arrives."

"Sigh! If only I weren’t injured. I could go out and hunt a few fat-yielding Mutant Beasts for you in minutes!" Rick lamented.

"You’re overthinking it. Even if you could hunt them, they wouldn’t be suitable for us ordinary folks to eat.

"It’s only because this fat grub is First Tier and still in its Larval Stage that we can eat a tiny bit without exploding from the excess energy," Sev said.

Rick turned his face away in slight embarrassment. He had gotten so excited over tasting delicious food that he had completely forgotten that, aside from Rose, Sev’s entire family consisted of ordinary people.

If it weren’t for the need to hide his tracks, he swore he would have immediately contacted his vice-captain to have the fleet members keep a close eye out for this kind of fat grub whenever they went out hunting.

What Rick didn’t know was that it had been four whole days since his disappearance, and the crew members on the Doomsday Judgment aircraft carrier were in an absolute uproar.

With their captain missing and his fate unknown, his subordinates were running around like headless chickens, entirely lost on what to do next.

Vice-Captain Derek Scott was acting like a madman, sending people everywhere to ask about his whereabouts. At the slightest sign of trouble, he would rush over immediately, trying to find even the smallest clue.

The upper echelons of the Second Security Zone had also begun to destabilize. Conspiracy theorists were already suspecting that the Judge’s disappearance was highly likely a plot against Leader Number One, an attempt to cut off his most valued right-hand man.

Rick could actually guess a bit about all this, but he didn’t care right now.

Compared to the turmoil among the top brass of the Second Security Zone and the panic of his subordinates, he was much more concerned about what delicious food Sev would cook up every day.

In the face of life and death, nothing else mattered. He didn’t even know how long he had left to live, so he couldn’t do anything about other matters even if he wanted to.

Not to mention, he was currently a cripple who had to lean on crutches and hop around just to move. Rather than worrying about things he was powerless to change, it was better to focus more on improving his little apprentice’s Ability.

After all, she was now his only hope for survival.

Therefore, his primary task now was to improve Rose’s Ability, increase his chances of survival, and ultimately recover his own Ability. Only when all these goals were achieved would he be qualified to return.