Su Yu woke up.
He blinked twice, waiting for his pupils to adjust to the light, and found the ceiling above him — and that cat-shaped water stain he'd long since memorized.
Same world. Nothing had changed.
He tried to roll over.
Couldn't.
His left arm was pinned under something. Not especially heavy, but broad — a warm, soft, faintly laundry-scented weight that ran from his elbow all the way up into the hollow of his shoulder.
Su Yu looked down.
Kiana had rolled over at some point in the night without him noticing.
She'd curled herself into a ball, lying on her side, the back of her head pressed squarely against his chest. Her white hair had spread across the whole pillow, and a few loose strands had fallen over his chin, tickling him with every breath.
Her hand was still wrapped around his fingers — but sleep had loosened her grip. Only her index and middle fingers were still hooked around the base of his thumb.
Her breathing was steady and slow.
Her face was buried in her sleeve, leaving only the bridge of her nose and a small slice of cheek exposed. On that cheek, faint and pale in the morning light, were the dried tracks of last night's tears.
Su Yu looked at her for three seconds.
Then he smiled — just barely — and started working his hand free.
He eased his fingers out one by one, moving slowly. Thumb first. Then index finger. His middle finger snagged — Kiana's fingers reflexively tightened in her sleep, squeezing once, then going slack again.
Su Yu held his breath and waited two counts.
She let go.
His hand slipped free. The warmth of her fingertips lingered in his palm. He closed his fist around it, then opened it again, working the stiffness out of fingers that had been pinned under her all night.
He rolled over.
Got out of bed.
His knee cracked when his feet touched the floor.
He glanced back.
Kiana shifted. Her hand patted across the blanket, found nothing, and she made a small mumbling sound — then pulled the pillow beside her into a hug.
"Mmm… can't eat another bite… seriously, I'm stuffed… heh heh heh…"
Apparently she'd turned into a little glutton in her dreams.
Su Yu eased the bedroom door shut behind him and padded to the kitchen.
He turned on the tap and let the cold water run over his hands, flushing the lingering pins-and-needles from his fingers. He shook them dry, then rummaged through the cupboard for a bag of flour, and pulled from the fridge: eggs, dried wood-ear mushrooms, day lily buds, and a leftover piece of pork belly from the night before.
Zha Jiang noodles with braised sauce.
One of the very few things he'd taught himself from scratch since arriving in this world. The first time he'd made it, he hadn't kneaded the dough properly and the whole pot turned into paste. Kiana had pinched her nose, forced down three bites, and declared it "worse than Honkai Beast meat."
Su Yu had asked, "Aren't Honkai Beasts silicon-based? Where would the meat come from?" and Kiana had replied, "Who knows more about Honkai Beasts — you or me?"
Fair enough.
In this world, no one knew Honkai Beasts better than her.
But back to the noodles.
With practice, he'd at least gotten to the point where the thickness was reasonably even and the seasoning was more or less right.
As he tipped flour into the mixing bowl, flashes of last night drifted through his mind. The memory of being killed one thousand and twenty-four times hovered like a thin fog over the surface of his thoughts — but without any sting. It was just there now, like a stack of old photographs: visible, but unable to cut.
He figured that was probably Fenghuang's doing. His head had been unusually clear when he woke up. Knowing her, she'd never say so outright.
He tried calling out to her, quietly, inside his mind.
"Ah Hua."
The response came almost instantly.
At the edge of his consciousness, a presence appeared — warm and unhurried, like the quiet embers still glowing in the corner of a fireplace on a winter night.
Then a voice.
Soft. As though it was traveling from somewhere very far away, yet every word arrived perfectly clear.
"Morning."
Just one word.
The corner of Su Yu's mouth curved up.
Just that one word — and the moment he heard it, something in his chest that had been quietly wound tight finally eased.
Not because Fenghuang was powerful. Not because she could solve any particular problem for him.
It was because — at last, someone knew.
From the moment he'd crossed into this world, he'd been carrying everything alone. The System's missions. Kiana's PTSD. The threat of the Herrscher of the Void. None of it was something he could tell anyone.
Not Kevin. Not Elysia. Not Fu Hua. Not Himeko.
They'd all helped — enormously — but none of them knew the full picture.
Fenghuang did.
She knew where Kiana had come from. She knew what the Herrscher of the Void was. She knew what Herrscher erosion meant. She knew what Su Yu had gone through inside the consciousness space last night.
She was the first person who understood their situation — his and Kiana's — completely and entirely.
Which meant Su Yu finally had a teammate who was, in the truest sense of the word, fully reliable and fully informed.
He cracked an egg into the flour, working it in with his fingers, and smiled.
Fenghuang felt it through the Spiritual Link — a faint ripple, like a breath of wind passing over still water.
"Your mental state is better than I expected."
A pause.
"After everything that happened last night."
Su Yu pressed the heel of his hand into the dough and folded it over.
"Because things are different now."
"Before, it was just me and Kiana. To put it plainly — we were like two blind people walking a dark road together, neither of us able to see what was ahead."
He kneaded the dough into a smooth ball, covered it with a damp cloth to rest, and turned to the pork belly.
"Now I have you."
The knife hit the cutting board in a steady, rhythmic tap-tap-tap.
"At least one of us can see the road. We're not just huddling together for warmth anymore."
"With you here, things are going to get better. I know it, Squad Monitor."
Fenghuang was quiet for two seconds. The ember presence in the Spiritual Link wavered — just once.
"…I won't make any promises about forever."
Su Yu's knife paused for a beat.
"But I will help you in every way I can."
Su Yu pushed the sliced pork to the edge of the cutting board and started soaking the wood-ear mushrooms.
"Is it because of a sense of duty?"
He asked it casually.
Fenghuang didn't answer immediately. Through the link came a barely perceptible tremor — as though she were hauling something up from a very deep place.
"Yes."
A beat.
"But more than that… I want to see your efforts amount to something."
Su Yu's hands kept moving under the tap, rinsing the mushrooms. He didn't stop.
Fenghuang's voice grew quieter. The way a person's voice does when they're saying something that weighs on them — automatically, without thinking, softer.
"I have known many people."
"And I have forgotten many of them. Fifty thousand years is a long time. Most faces have blurred. Most names I can no longer recall. But there is one feeling I have never forgotten —"
Su Yu turned off the tap.
"The feeling of giving everything you have, pouring out everything you are — and in the end, changing nothing."
The kitchen was very quiet.
In the basin, the wood-ear mushrooms slowly unfurled, spreading open like black flowers blooming in still water.
Su Yu knew what she was talking about.
The battle at Finality. The end of that previous world. The last stand of the Flame-Chasing Moths.
He didn't linger there.
He understood that for Fenghuang, those memories didn't need to be dug up and turned over in the light. They were already there — like an old scar, fully healed, but not without its ache.
"Ah Hua."
His tone shifted — from the serious to the easy, the way you shift from talking business to making small talk over the kitchen counter.
"Fu Hua from your world — the you from that world — what did she usually eat for breakfast?"
Fenghuang paused.
"…What?"
"Breakfast." Su Yu fished the mushrooms out of the water and shook them dry. "Congee? Steamed buns? Jianbing?"
Fenghuang was silent for a second.
"I am a spiritual entity."
The faintest trace of exasperation crept into her tone.
"Connected to you through consciousness. I do not need breakfast."
"I know you don't need it." Su Yu set the wok on the burner and turned on the flame. "I'm asking what you like to eat."
Fenghuang was quiet again — but this time she came back quickly.
"If I had to say… the source of energy sustaining me right now is your spiritual power."
Su Yu poured oil into the wok.
Half a minute later, the oil shimmered and began to spit softly.
"So you really have gone full golden-finger grandpa on me, Ah Hua."
He dropped the pork slices into the wok as he spoke.
"Taking up residence in some young person's body, living off their spiritual energy — textbook elderly mentor arc. Just please don't drain me dry. I can't afford to wake up one day at Dou Qi Stage Three and get publicly dumped by a pink twin-tails, only to have you pass me the Burning Codex and drag me off to fulfill a three-year appointment."
He turned the meat over in the pan.
"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."
"Just rambling. Don't mind me." Su Yu laughed. "But come to think of it — since you're running on my spiritual energy, you should be able to share my five senses, right?"
Fenghuang paused.
"…That is technically possible. But is it truly necessary?"
Su Yu let out a breath.
That was Fenghuang all over.
Efficiency first. Every single thing had to pass through the filter of "is this necessary?" — and anything that didn't make the cut didn't even get a second glance. Fifty thousand years of life, perhaps, was how you learned to budget your attention that way.
Though she did play gacha games — with terrible luck — so maybe she'd just spent all her fortune on the side of staying alive.
"Think of it as taste-testing for me, Squad Monitor."
He tossed the soaked wood-ear mushrooms and day lily buds into the wok and gave them a stir.
"Kiana had a rough night. When she wakes up she's going to be tired and starving. I want to make her something good — but you know my cooking. Six months ago I was still capable of turning noodles into wallpaper paste."
He added a ladle of soy sauce to the pot. The color deepened instantly.
"Help me taste it — check whether the seasoning's right. It's part of keeping Kiana's mental state stable, isn't it? Full stomach, better mood. Better mood, slower erosion. That's just logic."
The Spiritual Link was silent for about three seconds.
Su Yu knew Fenghuang had seen through it.
It was an excuse. A not-very-polished, thoroughly well-meaning excuse.
She didn't need food. She didn't need to experience taste. What she needed was spiritual energy — not the saltiness of braised noodle sauce.
But Su Yu wanted her to taste it.
Simple as that.
"…Shenzhou cuisine."
Something new had entered Fenghuang's voice.
"It has been… a long time."
Su Yu's ladle made a slow circle in the pot.
"Alright."
Fenghuang said.
"Then let me see — what this world's Shenzhou cooking tastes like, compared to the one I remember."
Su Yu smiled. He turned the heat down a notch and went to work on the dough.
It had rested long enough — it pushed back when he pressed into it, soft and yielding beneath his hands.
He lifted the ball onto the lightly floured board and began to roll.
The rolling pin pressed through the dough with a low, muffled sound. The disc spread and thinned between the wood and his palms, until it lay open like a round banner trailing a soft mist of flour.
His movements weren't fast. But they were steady.
Fenghuang connected to his senses through the link.
Vision first — then touch. The fine dry powder of flour settling onto his fingertips, cool and slightly chalky. The wooden rolling pin revolving through his palm, its grain worn smooth by who knew how many years of use.
Then smell.
The braising sauce was beginning to burble in the pot. The deep, toasty fragrance of soy sauce blooming in heat, and the rendered fat from the pork belly floating across the surface in small, glistening circles.
Fenghuang's consciousness rippled — very gently.
The noodles were cut.
The widths weren't perfectly even — a few strands were noticeably thicker than the others.
Su Yu glanced at them and didn't bother. Kiana never cared about the shape of her food. Only the quantity.
The water came to a boil.
The noodles went in.
The white strands churned through the rolling boil, turning translucent, their edges curling gently. Su Yu worked the chopsticks through them to keep them from sticking.
He lifted a single noodle out.
Balanced it between the chopsticks. Brought it to his mouth. Blew on it.
Then took a bite.
Fenghuang felt it through the link.
The texture: silky on the outside, with just a faint resistance at the core — not especially chewy, but nowhere near mushy either. A trace of sweetness from the starch left a light impression on the tongue.
Then he lifted a spoonful of the braising sauce.
Salty. Savory.
A deep, full base from the soy sauce — rich, but not sharp.
The unctuous warmth rendered out of the pork belly wrapped around the wood-ear mushrooms and day lily buds. The egg, whisked into the sauce, had broken into ribbons of soft gold — stirred by the ladle, they drifted like clouds dissolving in water.
Inside Fenghuang's consciousness space, the air of that bamboo room shifted — just slightly.
—
She said nothing.
But Su Yu felt it.
The temperature of those quiet embers in the Spiritual Link rose — just a little.
"Well?"
Su Yu ladled the noodles into a bowl and spooned the sauce over the top.
"How does it compare to what you remember?"
Fenghuang was quiet for a few seconds.
"The noodles aren't rolled evenly enough. The sauce cooked a fraction too long — the day lily buds are overdone."
Su Yu's mouth twitched.
"But the flavor —"
She paused.
"Not bad."
Su Yu set the bowl on the table.
Steam rose from the sauce in a slow curl, drawing a faint white thread through the morning light.
He filled a second bowl.
Two bowls of braised noodles, side by side on the table.
One heaped high — piled like a small mountain.
One normal-sized, with the sauce ladled out evenly.
The mountain was Kiana's.
Su Yu wiped his hands and glanced toward the bedroom.
Door still closed. Not a sound from inside.
He checked his phone.
7:12 a.m.
From the direction of the bedroom came a soft rustling — the sound of blankets being shifted — followed by a low, deeply congested:
"Mmmmf —"
Su Yu's ear twitched.
Someone was awake.
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