Virtuous Omega Chapter 67: Three Dishes and One Soup

Chapter 67: Three Dishes and One Soup

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: KarateChopMonkey

 

After being asked by Liu Deng about retirement, Lan Yu was stunned for two seconds and then reacted, knowing that Lu RanKong should have mentioned it to him, as he replied, “Yes, I want to retire.”

“Why? In the army, you have a great career, and your future is promising. I have never heard you say that before, why suddenly have the idea of retiring?” Liu Deng sat up straight and asked with a sense of wonder and regret.

Lu RanKong didn’t make a sound, but also slightly looked sideways at Lan Yu, obviously also wanting to know the answer.

Lan Yu thought about it and said, “It’s nothing, just suddenly want to live a quiet life.”

After a few seconds of silence, Liu Deng said, “There’s nothing else, Colonel Lu go back first, Colonel K stay a moment, I have a few words to say to you.”

Lan Yu knew he wanted to talk about his retirement, so he sat still. Lu RanKong scooched his butt and stood up, but instead of going out, he went to the window to look at the pots of greenery on the window and said, “You guys talk about your business, I’m not listening, I’ll just stand here and wait for him.”

“I’m going to talk to Colonel K about a personal matter.” Liu Den sighed.

“I know, you guys talk and don’t mind me.” Lu RanKong reached out to fiddle with the leaves of one of the pots.

Liu Deng asked, “Do you have something to say to me? Then go back for a while and I’ll find you when I’m done with Colonel K.”

“No, I’m just waiting for him here.” Lu RanKong stared at the potted greenery with interest, and went closer to take a closer look.

Lan Yu coughed and said, “If he wants to stay, he can stay. General Liu say it directly.”

Liu Deng reached out and pointed to Lu RanKong’s back, Lan Yu shook his head and said, “It’s not a problem…”

Liu Deng was a little surprised, but somehow relieved to say, “I’m very happy that your relationship has become so good. Recently several incidents about the Lontan people have made you stay in contact. I was worried that you wouldn’t agree with each other, and would cause obstacles to the implementation of the task, and I didn’t think it was all in vain to worry. Very good, very good.”

“Okay, then I will ask directly. Colonel K, what happened to make you give birth to the idea of retiring from the army? Or are you actually looking for a promotion? Let’s all talk openly and honestly, say what you have in mind directly, don’t hide anything.”

Liu Deng picked up the cup of tea on the table and took a sip, and gestured to Lan Yu, “Don’t be formal, drink tea.”

Lan Yu’s mind flashed through various words, and finally picked up the cup of tea and took a sip, saying, “It’s not a sudden idea, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”

Liu Deng asked, “There is no more room for consideration? After all, with your ability, it’s really a pity if you retire now. If it’s because of the position, you have completed these several missions very well, the military department was also ready to give you a promotion.”

“This is the result of my deep consideration.” Lan Yu looked at Liu Deng and said calmly, “Not because of the position, nor because of what happened, I just want to live an ordinary life. After retirement, I plan to open a cafe or travel to various planets or do something I like.”

“But—”

“General Liu, the Empire has no law against military retirement, right?” Lu RanKong suddenly interrupted Liu Deng’s words, turned his body to lean against the window and said, “K has served the army for so long, not to mention his other missions, just his several times catching the Lontan person was a great contribution to the Empire, and that can be exchanged for retirement, right?”

Liu Den sighed with regret and said, “I can’t give you an answer now, I have to think about it.”

“Considering for how long?” Lu RanKong asked.

“For a Colonel to retire early, I have to report it above. It may take months.”

Lu RanKong slightly narrowed his eyes, smiling, “If you consider it for a month, then submit the application in two months, then review for another two months, discuss another two months, it will become years. Will K be able to retire?”

When Lan Yu heard this, he looked at Liu Deng nervously.

Liu Deng wiped his face and said helplessly, “No delay, no delay, who dares to delay in front of a Gu? This way, we will give you the response from the military ministry in a month. If the military ministry approves it, then it will only take three or four months for all the formalities to be completed.” He looked at Lan Yu and asked, “Is this acceptable?”

“Acceptable, thank you General Liu,” Lan Yu put down his teacup and stood up, jumped to his feet and gave a military salute to Liu Deng.

Liu Deng continued, “But before you are officially retired, you are still a soldier, still a Colonel, and still have to complete all the tasks given to you during this time.”

“This is K’s unshirkable responsibility, I will do my best to complete all the tasks.” Lan Yu said aloud.

Liu Deng looked at him for a few more seconds before waving his hand with a headache, “Don’t want to see you guys, get out.”

Lan Yu and Lu RanKong performed a military salute and walked out of the general command room.

They nodded calmly to the soldiers who greeted and saluted them all the way out of the building to a deserted corner, Lan Yu jumped up excitedly and said, “I can retire from the army! I can finally retire from the army!”

Lu RanKong’s face didn’t look good, and he grunted twice and said, “Didn’t you hear the last part of his speech? You’re still a soldier until you’re retired. Just wait and see, this old fox will try to set up all kinds of tasks before you retire from the army, and let you work on all the difficult ones, and will not let you have a rest day.”

Lan Yu saw his sullen face, looked around and when he saw no one, he quickly kissed him on the cheek and said, “It’s okay, if I don’t rest, I don’t rest, as long as I am allowed to retire.”

Lu RanKong’s face looked better and said, “But I killed his favorite pot of flowers as well.”

Liu Deng thought for a while after the two went out, slowly walked to the window and lifted the kettle to water his pots of greenery. As soon as the kettle was lifted, he looked puzzled and got closer to see one of the pots.

That was his most beloved spider lily, usually served like a precious baby, even a total of several leaves were remembered clearly. This pot of flowers grew very well, its leaves were lush and tender, and a red flower had recently bloomed.

But now there were actually two fresh breaks on that rootstock, the broken leaves were laid out in the pot, and the freshly bloomed flower was hanging its head, obviously just decapitated.

Except for Lu RanKong, who was standing by the window just now, Liu Deng couldn’t think of anyone else who would do this to his flowers. He was so angry that he could barely hold the watering can. He looked out the window and saw Lu RanKong had walked out of the building and was walking alongside K.

He was about to shout Lu RanKong’s name and smash the watering can out of his hand when he saw K look around and suddenly kiss Lan RanKong on the side of his face. The two of them disappeared around the corner before he continued to water his flowers. After watering a few times to see the pot of broken flower, his face sank again.

“Bastard…” He just cursed, but felt that the words weren’t very appropriate retroactively, and closed his mouth with hatred.

 

The two crossed the training ground, back to the dormitory building, just to the corner of the second floor when they heard the footsteps of someone coming down the stairs.

Lin Zhu and Chen YuTan appeared at the entrance of the stairs, after seeing them, Chen YuTan greeted, “Come on, let’s go to the dining room to eat, before there are too many people.”

Lan Yu didn’t make a sound and Lu RanKong said, “No, we’re a little tired, so we’re going to eat something in the dorm. You two go ahead.”

“Do you want us to bring you something to eat when we come back?” Lin Zhu asked.

Lu RanKong smiled and said, “No, no, you guys eat, don’t mind us.”

It was not until the two walked out of the dormitory building that Lan Yu whispered, “We see each other every day, we know each other well, and we’ve been on missions together. It’s really hard to accept that they are also suspects.”

Lu RanKong sighed and said, “It can’t be helped, if there’s a Lontan person, everyone on this mission is a suspect. Let’s be more vigilant and wait for Liu Deng to take his time to investigate, and hope that everyone has nothing to do with the leap point.”

Lan Yu swiped his card to open the door, and Lu RanKong, who naturally wanted to come in, was blocked by his hand, “First go take a shower, wash and then come over.”

Lu RanKong looked down at himself, still wearing the same uniform he was wearing before he left, so he nodded and said, “Okay, I’ll come over after I wash up.”

“By the way, I’ve changed your body wash and shampoo. The words on them are small, so you have to distinguish them carefully. Simply put, the grass-green one is the shower gel and the blue-green one is the shampoo.” Lan Yu said. Seeing Lu RanKong turn his head to look at him, with a face of desire to say something, he added, “The one with the same color as the 3C bullets is body wash, and the one with the same color as the 4A bullets is shampoo.”

“Got it…” Lu RanKong walked back with relief.

While Lan Yu was taking a shower, the sound of running water also rang out from the next door’s nozzle. He had just squeezed out a dollop of shampoo when the puffing sound of the bottle cap pressing down came from next door as well. He washed his hair, rinsed, and pressed the shower gel, and next door was also puffing and pressing the bottle cap.

“Xiao Yu, I’m going to take the same step as you, I’ll do whatever you do now.” Lu RanKong’s voice came through, somewhat jarred in the small space.

Before Lan Yu could answer, he said in a grumpy way, “It’s like we are taking a shower together.”

Lan Yu stopped paying attention to him and started to put on body lotion after showering. Just after pressing a dollop of body lotion on his palm, Lu RanKong asked from next door, “What are you using now? Haven’t you washed your hair and taken a shower already? What are you still pressing?”

Lan Yu said, “I have to wash my hair twice.”

“Really?” Lu RanKong sounded a little surprised and then said, “Then I have to wash my hair twice too, together with you.”

Lan Yu couldn’t help but smile as he listened to the sound of the bottle cap pressing from his side.

When everything was cleaned up and out of the bathroom, Lu RanKong also came over, wearing a gray short-sleeved T-shirt. He went to get the hair dryer as soon as he entered the door, and his left hand went to touch Lan Yu’s wet hair, but when Lan Yu glared, he put his hand back shyly.

He lifted the hair dryer to blow himself, and soon his very short hair was blown into a hedgehog. Lan Yu couldn’t stand it, so he took the hairdryer and re-blowed his hair along with it to smooth out the hedgehog hair.

After drying his hair, Lu RanKong went to the kitchen, saying, “It’s noon, I know you don’t want to go to the dining room, so I’ll make you a bowl of noodles to eat.”

“You can still make noodles?” Lan Yu was a bit surprised. In his impression, Lu RanKong was definitely not a person who could cook.

“Yes, I make good noodles.” Lu RanKong said.

Lan Yu thought back to when he cleaned his room. His kitchen was empty, not to mention cooking utensils and spices, there wasn’t even a bowl, so his eyes took on a suspicious look.

Lu RanKong was thinking that he could just make noodles, but when he saw his distrustful gaze, his blood rushed to his head and he said, “I don’t just make noodles, I can cook.”

“You can cook?” Lan Yu was even more unconvinced.

“Three dishes and one soup…”

Half an hour later, Lan Yu leaned against the kitchen door frame with his hands on his chest, looking at the person who was cooking in the small room. Lu RanKong was wearing a light pink plaid apron, slicing a piece of beef in front of a chopping board, his tall figure lining the small space made it even more cramped.

“You don’t have to cut it so carefully, it’s probably just about right, because the meat has to be shredded anyway.” Lan Yu said.

Lu RanKong said without raising his head, “You said three millimeters per slice.”

“That’s when you asked me how thick I wanted it to be, I said about three millimeters. It’s an approximation, you don’t have to compare each piece carefully to see if it’s three millimeters.”

“That’s why I cut roughly three millimeters, if you use a ruler to measure it now, it’s definitely not the standard three millimeters.” Lu RanKong gestured with his knife over the piece of meat and slowly and carefully cut a slice.

After a few seconds of silence, Lan Yu said, “Why don’t I do it…”

“No way…” Lu RanKong said with a serious face, “I said I’m cooking, three dishes and one soup.” He turned to Lan Yu, “How many millimeters is the shred if you shred it again?”

Ten minutes later.

“Are you sure this is the right way to cut the onion? When you cut it with a knife dipped in water, it won’t sting your eyes?” ¹ Lu RanKong asked Lan Yu as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

Lan Yu explained, “You don’t want to get too close. You will definitely hurt your eyes if you get too close, and you can’t dip it in water.”

“I don’t want to get too close, but this board is too short for me and I have to bend over.” Lu RanKong was a little aggrieved.

The kitchen built by the military department was never intended for them to cook in it, not to mention the small size and the fact that the cooking table wasn’ t high enough, Lan Yu usually had to bend over to use it, let alone Lu RanKong, who was 190cm tall. (6’2”)

When Lan Yu saw his face, he said, “You should let me do the chopping.”

“No way…” Lu RanKong half-squinted his eyes as he held the knife tightly, while shedding tears and said, “How can I let you do the cutting when it stings so much?” Thinking about it, he asked, “What if we replace the onions with potatoes?”

“Onions are for the shredded beef, and the beef cubes go with the stewed potatoes.” Lan Yu said.

Lu RanKong said, “Then let’s change the dish to beef stew with potatoes.”

Lan Yu looked at the board and said, “For beef stew, you’ve already shredded the beef.”

“Oh, then can we change it to shredded beef and potatoes?” Lu RanKong tightened his brow and looked at the pile of unshredded onions.

“Or let me do it—”

“I’ll cut it! Just make shredded beef with onions!” Lu RanKong saw Lan Yu coming and hurriedly interrupted him.

An hour later.

The two sat around the table and finally started to eat.

“How about the taste, is it good?” Lu RanKong, with a ring of redness around his eyes, asked Lan Yu expectantly with his bowl.

Lan Yu swallowed the shredded beef in his mouth and said, “Yes, it’s good, it’s delicious.” Seeing that Lu RanKong’s expression wasn’t very pleased, he added in a heavier tone, “It’s very delicious, especially delicious.”

How could it not be delicious? He was the one who directed how much seasoning to mix, when to put it in the pot, how much salt to put, and how many times to stir with the spoon.

Lu RanKong also tasted it and said with a big smile, “I told you I could cook, and it’s still three dishes and one soup.” He also took a big bite of rice in his mouth and said vaguely, “I have such good skills, I must cook for you more often.” After saying that, he picked up a piece of pork ribs and put it into Lan Yu’s bowl, “Eat more, you need to grow some meat, you are too skinny.”

Lan Yu bit the head of chopsticks, looking at the opposite red eyed wolf swallowing, as he smiled and nodded.

By the time lunch was finished, it was already 3:00 p.m. Lan Yu sat on the sofa while Lu RanKong lay down, resting his head on his lap, with a cold towel over his eyes.

“Are you more comfortable?” Lan Yu asked, looking down at him.

The corners of Lu RanKong’s mouth curled up in satisfaction, “Yes, your legs are really comfortable.”

“I’m asking if your eyes feel better…” Lan Yu said.

“My eyes, they’re okay. They’re actually open, it’s not as bad as you think.”

Lan Yu put his head down from his lap, went to the fridge to get another cold towel and put it on him, saying, “You’re too sensitive to onions, don’t cut onions anymore.”

“That’s not possible…” Lu RanKong said, “You have to if I don’t cut them, they’ll sting you too.”

Lan Yu said, “You’re an exception, very few people cut onions, making their eyes swell. I’ll be fine.”

Lu RanKong said after a few seconds of silence, “Then let’s not eat onions anymore,. If you want, we’ll go out to eat, okay?”

“Okay…” Lan Yu’s voice was very soft.