Chapter 11: Let Him Cook

Charlie had barely made it through the manor gates when the master’s voice rolled across the courtyard.

"CHARLIE! YOU BUM! GET YOUR ASS IN HERE AND COOK, GODDAMMIT!"

The shout struck the evening air hard enough to send a pair of birds fluttering from the tiled roof. Charlie stopped beside the wooden cart, one hand still resting on its handle, and stared toward the manor as servants hurried along the covered walkways with their heads lowered. The last light of day had begun to fade behind the roofs, leaving the courtyard washed in the dull blue-grey of evening. Lanterns were being lit beneath the eaves one by one, their warm glow spilling across the stone, while somewhere beyond the walls a street vendor was still calling out the day’s final prices. For a brief moment, Liangjing seemed almost peaceful.

Then the master shouted again.

"CHARLIE!"

Charlie closed his eyes.

He had been gone for perhaps half an hour. Maybe a little longer. Apparently that was enough time for the household to decide that his absence constituted a personal insult.

Beside him, Biggie stood with the patient indifference of an animal who had never once been troubled by another person’s schedule. The pig’s nose dipped toward the ground, investigating some scent that had evidently become much more important than whatever emergency was taking place inside the manor.

Charlie looked down at him.

"You better start moving before the master jumps me again."

Biggie gave a low grunt.

"Exactly."

Charlie took hold of the cart and started toward the house.

The wooden wheels bumped over the stone, rattling loudly enough that several servants glanced over as he passed. His legs were holding, though only because he was careful with them. The lingering weakness left by Elder Guo’s Qi had not disappeared simply because he had managed to walk again. Every uneven step sent a faint tremor through his knees, and by the time he reached the kitchen wing, he could feel the familiar ache beginning to settle into his thighs.

The kitchen was already in motion.

Heat met him first. It rolled through the open doorway in waves, carrying the smell of broth, rendered fat, ginger and something sharply fragrant that he couldn’t immediately identify. Inside, fires burned beneath iron pots while cooks moved between long wooden tables crowded with vegetables, cuts of meat, bowls of chopped herbs and stacks of freshly washed utensils. Knives struck cutting boards in a steady rhythm, punctuated by the hiss of oil and the occasional call from one station to another. Beyond the kitchen doors, servants hurried through the corridors with covered trays, their footsteps disappearing toward the dining rooms.

It was a place that seemed to function without ever quite becoming still.

A servant waiting near the entrance noticed Charlie and immediately straightened.

"There you are."

Charlie leaned briefly against the cart before forcing himself upright. "I was coming."

"You were supposed to come immediately."

"I had to get back first."

The servant seemed to consider whether that answer deserved a response. Whatever he decided, he kept it to himself and stepped aside.

Charlie pulled the cart after him.

Several cooks looked up as he entered. Their attention moved almost immediately to the wooden supports beneath his arms, then to his face, and finally to Biggie trundling behind him.

Nobody said anything.

Charlie noticed anyway.

"What?"

One of the older cooks gave him a reassuring smile that wasn’t particularly convincing. "Nothing, A."

"It’s Charlie."

"Yes, A."

Charlie let the matter go. There were battles worth fighting and battles that would only make him sound like a man arguing with a brick wall.

Yu was standing near his usual station, sorting ingredients into small wooden bowls. She looked up when he approached, and her eyes immediately went to his legs.

"You shouldn’t be standing."

"I’ve noticed."

"You were told to rest."

"I was also told to cook."

Yu’s mouth tightened slightly. She didn’t need to answer; the distant sound of the master’s voice carried faintly through the corridor as if summoned specifically to support Charlie’s argument.

"CHARLIE!"

Yu looked toward the doorway.

Charlie followed her gaze.

"See?"

She exhaled quietly, then reached for a bowl and placed it on the edge of his station. "Sit whenever you can."

Charlie glanced at it.

"I can cook sitting down?"

"You can cook however you want. Just don’t fall."

Charlie gave a small nod and shifted one of the supports before taking his place at the table.

The moment his hands settled around the knife, the discomfort in his legs became strangely distant. It was still there. He could feel the weakness whenever he adjusted his position, and the occasional pulse of foreign Qi beneath his skin reminded him that his body was not entirely his own yet.

Around him, the kitchen gradually settled back into its rhythm. Someone laughed near the ovens. A cook complained about the quality of a shipment of mushrooms. Two servants passed through carrying a tray between them, their sleeves damp from the steam rising off the covered dishes. Outside, somewhere beyond the courtyard, a bell rang to mark the changing hour.

Charlie became aware of something else. The master was nowhere to be seen.

Normally, that wouldn’t have meant anything. The man had no reason to stand in the kitchen while dozens of cooks prepared dinner. But after everything that had happened, Charlie had expected him to appear eventually, if only to complain.

Instead, the master had apparently discovered a remarkable new talent for staying elsewhere.

Charlie glanced toward the kitchen entrance.

Perhaps being thrown through a doorway had taught the man a lesson. Charlie wasn’t sure whether he found that reassuring.

His thoughts returned to the ability that had caused it.

Clothing Rupture.

He still didn’t understand how it worked. The system had called it a technique, but it hadn’t exactly come with instructions. There had been no manual, no cultivation method, not even the courtesy of an explanation beyond make the target sufficiently angry and their clothes may cease to cooperate with them. That was hardly a method.

Charlie looked at his hands. Maybe there was something else involved.

He had seen cultivators use strange gestures before. Hand seals, finger positions, movements that looked almost ceremonial. Perhaps techniques required some kind of physical trigger.

Charlie let the thought linger while he worked. He had seen cultivators perform strange movements before, hands folding into unfamiliar shapes, fingers turning with deliberate precision, wrists shifting through gestures that seemed almost ceremonial. He had never understood what any of it meant, but he had always assumed there was some principle behind it.

Perhaps Clothing Rupture worked the same way.

He glanced around the kitchen. The other cooks were occupied with their own preparations, and the noise of chopping, boiling and conversation seemed to cover whatever foolishness he was about to attempt.

Charlie raised one hand turning his wrist slowly, then brought his thumb inward and adjusted the position of his fingers until the gesture looked, at least to him, vaguely like something a cultivator might do before unleashing a technique. He held it there for several seconds.

The pot continued to simmer. A thin curl of steam drifted past his face.

Charlie narrowed his eyes at his own hand. Perhaps he was doing it wrong.

He changed the position, then tried another, each one increasingly elaborate. At one point he found himself holding three fingers together while twisting his wrist at an angle that made his forearm ache. Whatever profound principle he was supposed to be invoking remained completely unimpressed.

He lowered his hand. Maybe the technique wasn’t something that could simply be copied.

"A?"

Charlie turned.

One of the younger cooks was watching him from the next station, a knife suspended over a cutting board. His expression wasn’t quite confusion and wasn’t quite amusement either. It was the expression of someone who had walked into a room at the wrong moment and was now trying to determine whether he should pretend he hadn’t seen anything.

Charlie picked up his spoon.

"Yes?"

The cook glanced at his hand, then at the pot.

"Were you... doing something?"

"I was thinking."

"With your fingers?"

Charlie looked down at them as though the answer might be written there.

"No."

The cook waited.

Charlie stirred the pot.

"Just thinking."

The young man gave a slow nod, apparently deciding that this was not a subject worth pursuing, and returned to his work.

Charlie watched him for a moment before looking back at his hand.

Worth a try. He had barely resumed stirring when the system appeared in front of him.

[Technique: Clothing Rupture.]

[Activation requires sufficient agitation.]

He stared at the words.

"That still doesn’t explain anything."

The notification remained unchanged. Charlie waited for another line.

Nothing came.

"How much agitation?"

[Activation requires sufficient agitation.]

"How angry does the target have to be?"

[Activation requires sufficient agitation.]

"Does it depend on the person?"

[Activation requires sufficient agitation.]

Charlie slowly exhaled through his nose. He had the distinct impression that he was having a conversation with a wall that occasionally bothered to display text.

"You know," he muttered, "for a system that’s supposed to help me understand this world, you’re remarkably good at withholding information."

The notification disappeared.

Charlie stared at the empty space for another moment before returning his attention to the food.

"Fine."

He stirred again, watching the sauce move around the edge of the pot.

"If you won’t tell me, I’ll work it out myself."

That, at least, was something he understood. He could experiment. He could observe what happened, compare one result to another, and eventually figure out where the boundary lay. He didn’t need the system to hand him a complete explanation every time something strange happened to him. In fact, the less it explained, the more useful it became to learn how things worked without it.

Charlie tasted the sauce and considered the problem while the heat rose gently against his face.

Sufficient agitation.

He would have to find out what it meant. And preferably before the next person lost his temper badly enough to lose his clothes with it.