◎Even if you don’t say it, I know it wasn’t you.◎
By the time Liu Shun arrived, the kitchen was already in complete chaos.
“What’s all the shouting about?”
Before being summoned, Liu Shun had been busy with his own work. Now he stood there with his hands behind his back, wearing a sour expression.
“Manager Liu, something’s happened!”
“You’re the one who’s happened!” Manager Liu snapped, giving the man a slap.
The man hurriedly corrected himself. “Yes, yes—the kitchen’s had an incident!”
“I know there’s been an incident in the kitchen. Why else would I be here?” Liu Shun barked. “Get to the point!”
“Manager Liu! She’s a cultivator!” Someone quick-wittedly pointed at Nangong Yu. “She just took away all the prepared dishes and the reserve ingredients!”
Liu Shun’s expression hardened as his gaze swept across the kitchen.
The stovetop, the corners, the shelves—in every place that should have been piled high with food, there was nothing.
The servants stood around in a disorderly crowd, all talking at once and gesturing wildly.
It was nearly mealtime. “Are you all trying to get yourselves killed?”
If they couldn’t serve the dishes in time and made their master and his guests wait, how many lives did they have to spare?
“It was her!” someone pointed at Nangong Yu. “She just raised her hand, and all the ingredients disappeared! We have nothing left to cook!”
“We were almost finished preparing everything.”
“Manager Liu, she’s a cultivator in disguise!”
“Hurry and arrest her!”
Liu Shun was a cultivator. Although he was only a minor cultivator in the middle stage of Qi Condensation—a nobody in cultivator circles—in the eyes of mortals, he was no different from any other immortal.
What difference could there be? All it took was a flick of their fingers for these “immortals” to crush them to death.
“She took all the ingredients?” Liu Shun asked, pointing at Nangong Yu as his gaze moved across the group.
Everyone nodded repeatedly.
“That’s right!”
“Exactly!”
“She was incredibly arrogant. The moment she came into the kitchen, she started eating and taking things.”
“When we wouldn’t let her eat, she took everything away.”
Liu Shun laughed in anger. He raised his hand and flicked it, sending the black whip wrapped around his wrist flying. It coiled around one person’s neck and dragged him over.
“I see your guts have gotten fatter and fatter!” Liu Shun’s face darkened. “You steal food and drink whenever you please, and no one’s stopped you. Have you started treating the kitchen as your own home?”
Liu Shun didn’t believe for a moment that Nangong Yu was a cultivator.
He had personally brought her in. How could he not know whether she was a mortal or a cultivator?
There wasn’t a trace of cultivation on Nangong Yu. Her entire body was permeated with the turbid aura of a mortal. She was an utterly ordinary person.
These servants, on the other hand, were greedy and completely lacking in restraint. “Hand everything over!”
He shouted harshly, “Don’t think the kitchen can’t function without you! If I deal with every one of you today, there’ll be new people here before nightfall!”
The Lin Family was one of the four great clans in Sunset City. Who wouldn’t want to work for the Lin Family?
“Manager Liu, it’s not that we don’t want to hand them over. It really wasn’t us!”
“We’ve been wrongly accused!”
“It was Little Yu! She was the one eating and taking things, not us!”
The servants hurriedly defended themselves. They pointed at Nangong Yu, and some even rushed over to search her.
“Manager Liu, look!” One of them pulled a piece of radish from Nangong Yu’s sleeve and immediately held it up.
Liu Shun’s face filled with speechlessness. His gloomy gaze swept over them impatiently. “Do you really want to die?”
What could a piece of radish prove? Who among them didn’t have a bit of food or drink hidden somewhere on their person?
Seeing his expression grow increasingly grim, the servants panicked.
“Manager Liu, it really wasn’t us!”
One after another, they dropped to their knees with thuds.
“Manager Liu, please investigate this clearly!”
They wept with such heartfelt sincerity that Liu Shun began to feel suspicious. “How exactly did the ingredients disappear? Explain it properly!”
Someone said, “It was her. We saw her raise her hand. Wherever she passed, everything vanished.”
That did sound like a cultivator’s method. Liu Shun frowned. Could some petty thief have snuck in, stolen the ingredients, and then used an illusion technique to make everyone in the kitchen believe Nangong Yu had done it?
He simply couldn’t believe Nangong Yu was responsible. Even so, he shifted his gaze back to her.
She had changed into a servant’s uniform from the Lin Residence. It didn’t fit particularly well, but the clothes were new and neat, without a single patch. She looked much more presentable than before.
“My lord, they were all eating, so I ate a little too.” When he looked at her, Nangong Yu became shy and embarrassed. She pinched her thumb and forefinger together. “Just a tiny bit.”
Liu Shun couldn’t care less how tiny a bit it was. He examined her clean fingers and wrists. There wasn’t a single ornament on them.
She had no storage pouch at her waist, no necklace around her neck, and not even earrings in her ears.
There was no hairpin in her hair either—only two strips of cloth tied into little tufts on either side of her head.
She had neither anything that looked like a magical tool or treasure nor the slightest fluctuation of spiritual power.
“I’ll report this matter,” Liu Shun said in a low voice. “For now, clean up the ingredients that remain and prepare whatever you can.”
The rest would have to be handled by him somehow.
Irritated, Liu Shun turned and left. If this matter wasn’t dealt with properly, he would be punished along with them.
Inside the kitchen, everyone stared at Nangong Yu.
“You…”
They watched her with wary, frightened expressions.
They had clearly seen her take everything away, yet Manager Liu hadn’t found anything on her!
“Get back to work.” An old servant in the kitchen spoke in a hoarse voice and began working.
Little by little, the others followed.
Some of them looked at Nangong Yu with unwillingness and suspicion, only to see her scoop up another spoonful of honey.
“Stop eating!” someone shouted.
They hurriedly snatched the honey away.
The Fourth Young Master liked to eat this. He had a good temperament, and the servants were planning to send one of their daughters to serve in his courtyard. Without the honey, how were they supposed to coax the Fourth Young Master into a good mood?
“Don’t eat that!”
“Little ancestor, please stop eating!”
Nangong Yu wanted to taste everything she saw. After taking one thing away, she would wander over to another.
The people in the kitchen were terrified. They were practically on the verge of kneeling and begging her.
“I’m eating?” Nangong Yu said, emphasizing each word. “I’m stealing~!”
Everyone suddenly remembered how all this had started in the first place.
“Ancestor, grandaunt, please eat! Eat whatever you like! But could you eat a little less? If you eat too much, we won’t be able to answer for it!”
“That’s right, we’ll be killed!”
“The family head will kill us!”
“We have elders above us and children below us. Grandaunt, please take pity on us!”
One after another, they copied each other, putting on a full theatrical performance.
Nangong Yu pouted. “Hmph.”
In the end, Liu Shun had to pay for the lunch out of his own pocket. He bought more ingredients and ordered wine and dishes from a restaurant to get them through the meal.
To avoid being punished by his masters, he made sure the food he prepared was even more sumptuous than usual and in no way inferior.
After spending his own money and losing his temper, he went to the kitchen and flew into a rage.
“If I find out that anyone steals food again, you’ll be dismissed immediately!”
“And every one of you will lose half a year’s wages!”
At the first threat, the servants didn’t feel particularly alarmed. Stealing food was forbidden, of course, but tasting the dishes while cooking to check the seasoning, whether they were done, and how well-done they were—that was perfectly normal, wasn’t it?
It wasn’t until they heard the second part that they cried out:
“Manager Liu, please show mercy!”
“Without our wages, we won’t be able to survive!”
“Spare us!”
Liu Shun sneered. “You lost all those ingredients. You should have lost your lives too. I’m the one who saved you, and you still have the nerve to bargain with me?”
However, after sweeping his gaze over the group, he changed his mind.
“Fine. Then you’ll be fined a full year’s wages—half your salary every month.”
Not giving this bunch even a single spirit stone would have them rioting. If something went wrong, it would only become another headache.
This way, he wouldn’t lose out either. As long as these people weren’t pushed into a corner, they would behave themselves.
Though dissatisfied, everyone put on an obsequious show of gratitude. “Thank you, Steward Liu!”
A rhythmic sound came from the corner.
“Chop—”
“Chop—”
“Crack—”
Liu Shun had already taken one step out when he glanced toward the woodpile and frowned. “You. Come here.”
Nangong Yu set down her axe and hurried over. “Did you call for me, sir?”
Her eyes were clear and guileless, just as they had been before.
She was obviously a simple-minded child with no schemes of her own—rather foolish, in fact—who possessed little more than brute strength.
Liu Shun asked, “Tell me. How exactly did the ingredients disappear?”
Nangong Yu followed him outside and answered honestly, “Just like they said. Plate by plate, bowl by bowl, they suddenly vanished.”
“But it wasn’t me.”
Liu Shun gave a mocking snort. “Even if you didn’t say so, I’d know it wasn’t you. Do you have that kind of ability?”
As he spoke, his brows drew tightly together.
It sounded like the work of a cultivator. But what kind of cultivator had such a bizarre habit? Stealing ingredients?
Cultivators knew their own circumstances best. These ingredients might look valuable, but they weren’t all that precious. If they truly were, the Lin family couldn’t possibly afford to eat them three times a day. They were merely everyday supplies.
“Do they steal food often?” Liu Shun asked again.
Nangong Yu said, “How much counts as often?”
Liu Shun glared at her.
“Usually, they just sample a little of everything. I don’t think that’s very much.” Nangong Yu looked the picture of honesty.
Liu Shun’s frown deepened. Judging by this, it really was the work of a cultivator. Those mortals wouldn’t dare be so greedy.
“Sir, where are you taking me?” Nangong Yu looked at the road ahead, her eyes lighting up.
Liu Shun answered casually, “To the spirit-beast garden.”
He suspected that one of the spirit beasts had escaped, caught the scent, and snuck into the kitchen to steal food.
“You’ll work at the spirit-beast garden from now on.” Since he had already brought her out, he couldn’t be bothered to take her back. Work was work wherever she did it, and the spirit-beast garden paid better anyway.
“Yes, sir,” Nangong Yu replied obediently.
Her docile attitude made Liu Shun’s expression relax a little. “There’s plenty of work at the spirit-beast garden. I won’t shortchange you. I’ll give you five spirit stones a month.”
Five spirit stones? She had given him more than five as a bribe when she first entered.
What a black-hearted NPC.
“No, no, you don’t have to.” She waved her hands repeatedly. Her childish face filled with embarrassment and deep gratitude. “You brought me in, gave me food, and gave me a place to sleep. You’re my benefactor. I don’t want your spirit stones.”
Liu Shun felt immensely pleased upon hearing this. “All right. Since you have such filial devotion…”
They passed through corridor after corridor. Before long, the calls of birds and the roars of beasts could be heard, blending into a single cacophony.
They were nearing the spirit-beast garden.
