Chapter 78: Dinner’s Ready

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

The lights in the parking garage flared on in sequence with Lu Yao’s running footsteps. From five meters away, Deus powered up his motorcycle in advance. With a low hum beneath him, Lu Yao swung his leg over the seat and twisted the throttle, roaring into motion.

Behind him, the lights of the garage blinked out one by one in time with the engine’s thunder, as though the darkness itself were chasing after him. The bike climbed steadily upward until the lights ended before the tightly sealed garage doors. Just as the front wheel neared, only a couple of overhead lamps lit his frame.

He didn’t slow down. The doors, detecting the approaching vehicle, lifted open automatically. Suddenly, a blast of blinding light and cold night air poured in. The glare consumed his vision. Instinct took over—he slammed the brakes and wrenched the bike sideways into a forced stop. The back wheel scraped in a wide arc, flinging gravel through the smoke of the engine exhaust.

The gravel scattered into the brilliance and vanished. A faint metallic patter echoed in the light. Through his visor, Lu Yao squinted. A silhouette approached against the glare, backlit in hard relief. His blue-gray coat flared in the stirred air, cold as the night itself.

Only Lu Yao’s sharp nose and chin showed beneath the helmet. His lips shifted coolly. “General Zhou. Turn off the light.”

The figure paused, then lifted a hand. The front beams of the military flier behind him were cut out. The world returned to normal. Lu Yao blinked against the heavy afterimages burned across his retinas, and when his vision cleared, Zhou Yunchen stood before him.

Lu Yao pulled off his helmet, long hair spilling free. “Why are you here?”

“I hadn’t seen you,” Zhou Yunchen said simply, already lifting a hand to smooth out the strands his movement had disturbed. “So I came to wait.”

“I was caught up in experiments. Lost track of time.” Lu Yao’s lips pressed faintly. “Shall we go now?”

“Yes. Get on.”

“Wait.” Lu Yao caught his arm. “I need to ride my bike back.”

“Let it auto-nav home.”

“It doesn’t have an auto-nav.” Lu Yao glanced at Zhou Yunchen’s flier. “Yours does. Have it return on its own.”

Zhou Yunchen’s gaze shifted to the motorcycle. “Can it carry two?”

“By weight, yes…”

But the truth was, when Lu Yao had designed it, he hadn’t considered carrying a passenger. Its form was pure racing craft—low posture, feet set on rear pegs, waist held taut and suspended for maximum aerodynamic fusion between rider and machine. He could cradle the snow leopard in his lap like this, but a man of Zhou Yunchen’s size? Impossible. Lu Yao frowned, thought briefly, and asked, “Can you ride a motorbike?”

“Yes. The Military Academy’s training covers nearly every interstellar vehicle.”

Lu Yao steadied the handlebars, swung one long leg down, and dismounted. His legs were slim but not frail, muscle lines distinct beneath the fabric. Zhou Yunchen hadn’t expected such flexibility—when Lu Yao lifted his leg, it nearly brushed his chest.

Then, suddenly, something heavy landed in his arms: the helmet. Lu Yao hadn’t noticed the flicker in Zhou Yunchen’s eyes as his thoughts strayed. “You ride.”

“All right.” Zhou Yunchen’s throat tightened. He mounted, one foot bracing the ground as he looked back at Lu Yao.

“Hold the handlebars,” Lu Yao instructed.

Zhou Yunchen paused. “You’re not getting on?”

If he leaned forward to grip the bars, how could Lu Yao fit in front of him? The space was far too narrow. For Lu Yao to ride there, he would have to recline against him, pressed close beneath Zhou Yunchen’s bent frame.

“I’ll sit behind.” Lu Yao guided Zhou Yunchen’s hands into place on the grips, adjusted his stance by pressing at his waist, and finally swung back onto the bike himself. Draped over Zhou Yunchen’s lowered back, he wrapped both arms around his waist. “Borrowing you.”

The pegs were so far back that when he set his feet, his calves nearly ran parallel to the ground. His toes pressed firmly into the backs of Zhou Yunchen’s legs.

Zhou Yunchen’s Adam’s apple shifted dryly. “All right.”

“Just a second.” Lu Yao stretched forward, adjusting settings on the display. “Safety measures in place. Let’s go.”

The pale-blue field flared alive, smoke and dust scattering as the bike shot forward. Lu Yao’s grip on Zhou Yunchen’s waist tightened with the sudden thrust.

The flier, set to auto-return, fell behind. Together, under the starlight, they sped into the mountains’ shadow. With no additional safeguards, Zhou Yunchen dared not engage the flight mode. He steered along the winding roads at the base, the night wind heavy with the scent of mountain grass and wood.

They passed through tall, narrow ridges. Beyond them stretched wide plains, rippling gray-blue to the horizon.

“Where are we going?” Zhou Yunchen asked over the rush of wind.

“The villa at the summit. Far from the city.”

He turned the bike at a fork, heading toward the low hills in the distance. No one else shared the endless sky and earth. Only the two of them, with stars and shadows, surged toward the mountaintop villa. The glowing field split the night air, cold wind on one side, the heat of skin on the other. The wind howled, but pressed against his back, Lu Yao could hear it—the thrum of breath, the steady beat of a living heart.

At the mountain’s base, they wound onto the narrow road upward. Lu Yao told him to ride straight into the courtyard; no need for the underground garage. D lit the lamps for them. Still, the villa lay silent and cold, only the ring-shaped infinity pool whispering with its currents.

Torque had been left with Mo Feng. The snow leopard hadn’t come either; Zhou Yunchen had said shifting its living space too often would make it anxious.

So with no little cat, no big cat, only General Zhou himself remained to keep Lu Yao company. Remembering this, Lu Yao stopped halfway toward the kitchen. His usual instinct to prepare food for them both faltered.

Zhou Yunchen, at his side, caught his glance. “You’ve been in the lab all this time. You haven’t had dinner, have you?”

“No, not yet. You didn’t either, did you? I have concentrated nutrient packs, if you—”

“Dinner.”

“What?”

“Would you like actual food tonight?” Zhou Yunchen repeated patiently. “I’ll cook for you.”

“What?” For the first time, Lu Yao’s expression turned dazed with disbelief. “You can cook?”

General Zhou loomed so large, his presence so commanding, that no one could imagine him in an apron at a stove. Few could even picture him out of uniform, resting, living.

“Only a little,” he admitted. “Not as well as Shang Sanjiu, who often cooks for you. On my homeworld, ordinary food was cheaper than processed packs, so I ate more of it.”

That planet had been remote and barren, with no major nutrient-processing factories. Once interstellar shipping was factored in, supplements cost three to five times more than basic ingredients. “But I don’t have any ingredients here.”

“Don’t you have any? I remember you feeding the snow leopard fresh meat. After boarding the starship, he even got picky because of it. Isn’t there still some left in the fridge?” Zhou Yunchen remembered there was.

“There’s beef and lamb, but that’s for the cat. Can we eat it?”

“Cooked, it’s fine.” Zhou Yunchen sounded almost exasperated. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how deeply Lu Yao cared for the snow leopard—if he was willing to cook fresh meat for him.

Lu Yao led Zhou Yunchen to the open kitchen, pulling two large slabs of meat from the fridge and setting them on the cutting board. Zhou Yunchen quietly sliced off a small portion from each and gestured for Lu Yao to put the rest back.

Cooking real food was a vague, distant memory for Lu Yao. He could no longer recall how much he could eat. Zhou Yunchen rummaged further through the fridge, eventually finding a block of butter and some eggs—freebies tossed in by a supplier who valued Lu Yao as a major client.

There wasn’t a single vegetable in the fridge. All Zhou Yunchen could do was sear the beef and lamb chops. Before he started the pan, he shrugged off his windbreaker, then his uniform jacket. Lu Yao stepped forward, carefully taking the garments and draping them over his arm before handing Zhou Yunchen a kitchen apron.

Zhou Yunchen turned back to the counter, broad shoulders stretching the thin white shirt taut across strong muscles. His hair fell into his eyes as he worked. “YaoYao, go out to the yard and bring me some herbs,” he said. The words slipped out before he realized what he had called him. Zhou Yunchen froze, tense. No one had ever addressed Lu Yao that way. He worried Lu Yao wouldn’t like it. But Lu Yao only blinked. “There are herbs in the yard?”

You couldn’t expect a mecha engineer who spent his days surrounded by steel and fire to recognize the plants growing in his own garden.

Zhou Yunchen opened his personal AI assistant and pulled up a list of plants he had noticed in Lu Yao’s courtyard. “These—mint, basil, garlic. I also saw a wild lemon tree on the northeast slope. Bring a couple of those.”

No one knew why Carriedo had insisted the gardeners plant garlic of all things, but it turned out useful. The island counter already had the basics—salt, pepper, sugar.

Lu Yao walked out into the night breeze, circling back with an armful of green leaves, garlic bulbs, and bright yellow lemons. He set them down on the counter, standing across from Zhou Yunchen, watching him work.

Half an hour later, the scent of sizzling meat filled the air. Two plates of pan-seared beef and lamb chops landed on the table. The meat Lu Yao bought for the snow leopard was of the highest quality. It hardly needed seasoning—just salt, herbs, and a touch of lemon, and it was exquisite.

The dining table sat close to the courtyard, where lamplight and night blended into blurred halves. Lu Yao slipped into his chair. Zhou Yunchen polished the silverware and handed him a knife and fork. “Put on the olfactory stimulator. Try it.”

Lu Yao fitted the stimulator over his nose. Zhou Yunchen had already sliced the meat into neat cuts for him. Juices glistened in the grain as the aroma of seared fat and herbs hit his senses, awakening an appetite long dormant.

Of course, Boss Shang’s dishes were more refined, and at gatherings Mo Feng always teased Lu Yao to wear the stimulator. But he had rarely felt any desire for food in years. This time was different. He had participated—if only with his eyes—in the cooking process. The cook sat across from him now, waiting for his reaction. More importantly, tonight’s cook was Zhou Yunchen.

The warmth of food and flame wrapped around them both, the glow of the lamps swaying with the autumn wind drifting in from the courtyard. Lu Yao finally speared a piece of beef and slipped it into his mouth.

Rich juices burst forth. The meat melted tenderly on his tongue, savory and smoky, cut with a light lemon sharpness that kept it from being too heavy. He asked softly, “Do you think the snow leopard tastes the meat like this too? Does it taste this good to him?”

Author’s Note:

Little moments of daily life between a couple.

Engineer Lu’s bike design can be imagined like RoboCop’s or Catwoman’s motorcycle—leaned forward for riding, dangerously tempting.

 

 

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