Love Code At the End of The World

I beamed at the head chef in anticipation. “Can I make my own soy milk? I really want to drink soy milk!” 

“Soy milk?” He gave me a confused look, as though he didn’t know what soy milk was.

“Oh, it looks like we are going to have an additional chef here. Haha!” The fat chef laughed with an orange in his hand while the lady chef smiled by the side. “You can try if you know how to.” 

“Thank you!” I ran in excitedly. 

Putting down the tasks on hand, they stood together to watch me like an impromptu audience. 

I began to search for soybeans. I wanted to put together a homemade breakfast for myself. I wanted to find the taste of home again! 

“Oh! He is messing up my kitchen!” The head chef got agitated. 

“Don’t get angry, Head Chef Kempinski. We hardly ever get any guests here.” The fat chef chuckled. “Plus, don’t you want to know what this soybean milk he’s talking about is?”

“Da Pan is right. I’d like to see too. We always get new ways of cooking whenever humans come up from the ground to Silver Moon CIty.” 

“But not once was it delicious. Arvil, they don’t have as many ingredients as us on the ground,” Head Chef Kempinski said in disappointment, shaking his head. 

“There are many ingredients that we don’t even know how to use.” Da Pan spread his hands and shrugged. 

I finally found some soybeans. Taking a handful, I put them into water. 

“What is he trying to do with those beans?” Head Chef Kempinski asked confusedly.

“Let’s see what he can make with those beans. Haha!” Da Pan held Head Chef Kempinski’s shoulder happily. 

I picked up two eggs and a bowl. Then, I began to beat the eggs. 

“Hey! This boy has some skills! He looks like he knows how to cook!” Da Pan remarked in astonishment. 

“I’ll say this first, if he comes to be a chef, I get first dibs on taking him as my apprentice. Do not fight with me,” the beautiful Arvil lifted her head and declared. 

Grabbing a handful of flour, I added it into the beaten eggs.

“Why did he do it the other way round?!” Head Chef Kempinski cried, half mad with curiosity. It was like a chef with OCD was desperately pointing out my flaws. “You should beat the eggs into the flour.” 

I replied while mixing the batter, “I am making fritters, not bread. Flour can be used in many ways.” Then, I added water to thin the batter, being careful not to make it too thin. Otherwise, it wouldn’t form a fritter. 

Next, I added some milk. That would give a tinge of milk fragrance to the egg fritters.

The vegetables in Silver Moon City were plentiful. I added things that I liked into the batter, including minced meat, vegetables, tomatoes, cucumber, green onions, and mushrooms. 

Then, I drained the yellow beans that I had soaked in the water earlier. Turning to them, I asked, “Do you have a mixer?” 

The three of them pointed in unison at a machine by the side. They hadn’t spoken for a while, staring at me in surprise and curiosity. 

I poured the yellow beans into the machine and covered it. There was no button on the machine. 

“Beat it,” Head Chef Kempinski said, and the machine immediately turned. It was even soundless. 

“We have never used that machine before,” the pretty Chef Arvil said with a smile. “But we thought it would be of good use one day. So why we kept it here, although we don’t know what it can make.”

I smiled. “You will find out in a bit.” 

As I spoke, the machine released the fresh aroma of soybeans. That’s so fast! Back at home, it would have taken more than an hour to make soy milk. 

“Smells so good!” The fat chef exclaimed in astonishment. “I never thought that beans can smell so good!” 

“Yeah!” Sis Arvil said in surprise as well. 

I returned to the stove and put a pan on it. A blue glow automatically lit up around the bottom. Adding olive oil into the pan to heat, I then poured the batter into the pan. The kitchen was instantly filled with the aroma of food and seasoning like an explosion, especially the aroma of onions. 

In actuality, I liked food with strong flavors. The food here was too bland for me. Although it was still much much richer than the food in Noah City, I was really missing the food from my homeland today. 

When the fritters turned golden brown, I fished them out from the pan. Head Chef  Kempinski, Chef Da Pan and Sis Arvil were salivating. 

At once I grabbed one and took a huge bite. “Mm!” I almost cried. I finally had a taste of home! 

It had been more than a year since I’d had any delicious food from the earth! 

“Can we have some…?” Chef Da Pan asked while licking his lips.

I laughed. “Of course, you can!” Avoiding the part I had bitten into, I cut the rest into three pieces and gave it to them. 

Blinking, they slowly picked the fritters up, then stuffed the fritters into their mouths. At once their eyes shot open. “It’s so delicious!” They exclaimed simultaneously. 

*Ding!* The beating machine was done. 

Taking four glasses, I added some sugar in them. When I opened the lid of the beating machine, I saw that there was no residue in the soy milk. But that wasn’t important. I poured the hot soy milk into the glasses and stirred them well, then placed the glasses before them as I explained, “This is soy milk.  You can also make it savory.” 

They picked up the soy milk and took a sip. Again they were astonished, as though they were surprised that the tiny beans could be made into something so sweet and refreshing. As if I’d brought them to a whole new world, a world where any food could be transformed into other forms. The world of delicacies was no longer limited to a flat surface but had become a world with boundless dimensions!

“This is so magical!” Chef Da Pan said excitedly. He stared at me with anticipation. “Kid, can we serve the breakfast you’ve just made today?” 

“Yeah! It has been thirty years since we last released a new menu in Silver Moon City!” Sis Arvil’s eyes were filled with tears as she spoke. 

“I am such a failure!” Head Chef Kempinski said, abruptly falling to his knees with my fritters in his hand. Raising it up, he said, “I once vowed to make a new menu for Silver Moon City when I became the Head Chef but I haven’t done so.” 

I stared at him blankly. Head Chef Kempinski is exaggerating…. 

Confused, I said, “Haven’t the recipes from sixty years ago been passed down?” 

They stared back at me with a puzzled look. 

Head Chef Kempinski replied, “The people from sixty years ago also ate like this. This is also the most comprehensive way we can cook.” 

“Huh!?” I was shocked. The technology in this world was so advanced yet they ate so simply! 

“The people back then prioritized healthy eating. So, the food went straight out from the processing plants to the malls. Everything was packed with nutrition,” Chef Da Pan explained to me. 

Now I remembered that while I had found processed food in the food area in Kro, rather than food, I’d prefer to call them medicines. While those bottles and boxes had all been compact packages of well-rounded nutrition, somewhere in the process the happiness that food brought to humans had been lost. 

Back then in Kro, I had found  fruits but not vegetables. The green vegetables that I had been able to find were the type that could be eaten raw and were usually used for salad. 

The technology of Kansa Star was advanced, but it had taken away the joy of making delicacies.