Chapter 134 - 132: Who Understands a Cook’s Pain?

Sev gasped heavily, taking a long while to calm her racing heart. Carefully recalling the scenes from her dream, she finally remembered what she had overlooked during the day.

It was the big shot in that battered trunk!

To thank the big shot, she had personally promised that she would definitely offer him good food in the future! But today, she had broken her promise. She had made three kinds of delicacies and shared them with Hayden Hanson, Mr. Fuller, Artie Sawyer, and her entire family, but she had completely forgotten about the big shot.

Well, she couldn’t really be blamed. Who asked the big shot to stay invisible and hide inside a trunk? What kind of normal person would think of a broken box in the woodshed while cooking?

Thinking of this, she still couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. Logically, she should have built an altar and enshrined the broken trunk on it, but for safety, she had kicked it into a corner of the woodshed.

Thinking about it seriously, if the big shot really harbored malicious intentions toward her, she probably would have been sucked dry the first time she made contact with him. Although Rose used her Ability to sustain Sev’s life, Rose’s Level was so low—how could she withstand the big shot’s devouring? Ultimately, the other party was doing their best to restrain themselves, sparing both mother and daughter from being sucked into human husks.

Filled with guilt at the thought, Sev got up, went into the kitchen, and loaded a plate with the three delicacies. She took it to the woodshed and dumped it into the broken trunk, muttering, "Big shot, it’s all my fault for being so busy that I forgot. Next time, I will definitely remember to offer you tributes first thing!"

The trunk naturally remained silent, impossible to give her any answer. However, under the moonlight, Sev clearly saw the food at the bottom of the trunk turn into a small pile of ashes in the blink of an eye.

Sev let out a long breath, returned to the living room, and climbed onto her Arhat Bed.

She couldn’t help but complain in her heart, "Other people’s transmigration cheat mentors always show up right from the start. But as for mine, it’s been so long, yet I haven’t even seen a shadow of him. All he does is open his mouth and ask for food."

Complaining away, she eventually drifted back to sleep.

The next morning, she woke up and went straight to the kitchen, planning to cook a large pot of nutritional paste for the whole family.

She diced half a Mutated potato and half a carrot into small cubes, then grabbed a small handful of dried hazel mushrooms and crushed four Nutrition Blocks into powder for later use. Bringing a pot of water to a boil, she tossed in all the prepared potato and carrot cubes, boiling them for fifteen minutes until soft. Then, she added the mushroom powder and Nutrition Block powder, stirring evenly. She continued to simmer the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until the broth thickened. Finally, she added milk, stirring rapidly with a spoon while pouring to prevent lumps. Before taking it off the heat, she seasoned it with refined salt, and it was done.

Among the family, Sev and Rusty woke up the earliest. After they finished breakfast together, Sev instructed him to watch over their younger siblings. She loaded the oven onto the pushcart and headed out.

As soon as she reached the door, she saw Silas Lynn standing guard there like a door god.

"Why are you here?" Sev jumped in fright, glaring at him.

"I was worried you wouldn’t be punctual. I planned to go in and call you in five minutes," Silas said coldly.

Sev had absolutely no desire to entertain him, but then she saw him wave his hand, instantly storing both the pushcart and the oven into his spatial storage. He followed behind her like he was escorting a prisoner, walking her all the way into the courtyard of Painter Sawyer House before leading her into the kitchen.

Pointing to a large pile of ingredients on the cutting board, as well as the jars and bottles crammed into the large cupboard next to it, he said, "Everything is here. Artie said to let you do as you see fit."

"Okay," Sev replied with just a single word.

Silas turned and left, quickly vanishing without a trace.

Sev was already used to these Ability users coming and going like shadows. She turned her head to inspect the ingredients on the cutting board. Aside from Mutated potatoes and mutated green radishes, there were various mutated wild vegetables. But most importantly, she actually saw flour!

At this moment, Sev’s eyes grew hot, and tears flowed uncontrollably. She knew her reaction was quite pathetic, but in a wasteland where wild vegetables and Nutrition Blocks were the main food sources, suddenly seeing flour made it truly impossible to hold back her tears! Although this flour couldn’t compare to Azure’s Snowflake flour and was at best equivalent to whole wheat flour, it was still real, actual flour!

She took a few deep breaths and finally managed to calm her emotions. Then she looked at the bottles and jars. Most of them were transparent glass containers. Among them was rendered animal fat, wild honey, various mutated insect eggs, mutated walnuts, pine nuts, and the like. There were also a few dark brown glass bottles. Upon opening them, she was astonished to find various seasonings inside!

At this, Sev’s tears fell uselessly once again! Because among the pile of seasonings, she actually spotted Peppercorns—and the kind with seeds, no less!

Sev’s fingers trembled. She tried her best to restrain herself, barely suppressing the urge to pocket a few Peppercorns to take home. She warned herself, "I can’t take them, I can’t take them, I can’t take them!"

Taking several deep breaths, she finally shifted her gaze to a washed, blocky piece of fresh meat. The whole piece weighed a little over five pounds. She decided to make meat jerky, which was delicious and had a long shelf life.

However, when she picked up the kitchen knife from the cutting board and tried to slice it, she discovered that the meat was incredibly tough. She couldn’t cut through it at all! Recalling the meaningful look in Silas’s eyes before he left, she had every reason to suspect that the guy had left this piece of meat purely to mess with her on purpose!

Fortunately, she was carrying the S Level Dagger that Doctor Jenkins had given her. Although it pained her to use such a precious weapon for this, she gritted her teeth and took it out to cut the meat anyway. With a single slice, cold air seeped from the blade’s edge, instantly freezing the meat to just the right degree, making its firmness perfect for slicing.

Delighted, Sev quickly took the opportunity to dice the meat into tiny cubes. She added an appropriate amount of powdered sugar, refined salt, a small portion of crushed Peppercorns, and a crushed star anise. These were the two most suitable meat seasonings she had picked out from the whole batch. Most of the other seasonings had either spoiled or were completely unrecognizable, so she didn’t dare use them.

Finally, she picked up one of the mutant bird eggs. After slicing it open with the dagger, she poured the egg liquid into the diced meat. She vigorously stirred the minced meat and all the seasonings in one direction until it developed a sticky, stringy consistency, ensuring the meat jerky wouldn’t easily fall apart after baking.

Spreading the seasoned meat paste onto the bottom of an alloy tray, she used a spatula to flatten it into a thin, two-to-three-millimeter sheet. After finishing this, she preheated the oven to about 180 degrees Celsius. She placed the alloy tray inside to bake for ten minutes, then took it out to drain the excess moisture. Brushing both sides of the meat with honey water—a one-to-one ratio of honey and water—she put it back in to bake for another fifteen minutes.

She took it out once the surface was dry and crisp, and both sides were toasted to a golden brown. The entire process took a full hour.

Only after the meat jerky was done baking did she belatedly realize she didn’t even know what kind of meat this was, or what Level of Mutant Beast it came from. However, that didn’t really have much to do with her. She wasn’t the one eating it anyway. Based on her guess, Artie Sawyer and that Silas Lynn were both Ability users of no low Level. Since Silas dared to leave this meat for her, he must have known that an ordinary person like her couldn’t eat it to begin with.

Smelling the mix of roasted and savory aromas, Sev subconsciously swallowed her saliva.

She lamented inwardly, "Seeing it, touching it, smelling it, but absolutely being unable to eat it—who could possibly understand this kind of torture?"