### Chapter 107: This Steamed Bun is So Sweet [4K]
Under the irresistible assault of spiciness, after holding on for about twenty minutes, Luxianbei made all the prepared dough into steamed buns and placed them in the already prepared steamer.
A total of two hundred and sixteen, a large quantity that would fill anyone up!
Du Sixian quietly watched from the side, pursing her lips and saying nothing.
Watching Luxianbei’s “seven orifices bleed,” his body covered in sweat, and finally turning white-haired in an instant, she was truly frightened. But despite her worries, she dared not say anything or do anything.
Now, as she saw Luxianbei placing the steamer filled with buns onto the steaming stove, the clenched powder fist finally relaxed slowly.
She wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but she always felt that in the moment the steamer was set down steadily, Luxianbei seemed to have undergone a sublimation of spirit, and his entire demeanor changed.
It was as if he had entered a transcendent state.
Could it be that this was the legendary enlightenment one experiences during battle? Du Sixian thought, stepping closer and cupping her hands to Luxianbei, saying, “Congratulations, High Person.”
“Uh, uh…” Already in sage mode, floating in the air, Luxianbei responded somewhat perfunctorily. As the saying goes, lust is a bone-cutting steel kn*fe; she felt it personally today.
She initially thought that after enduring the bitterness of the ordeal, everything ahead would be smooth sailing, but upon experiencing the taste of “spice,” she suddenly realized that in cooking, the trials of fire and smoke are probably never easy at any stage.
If it weren’t for the critical moment when the core entity of the Urban Legend Witch activated by itself, absorbing the negative effects brought by the spice, she might have burnt herself to ashes right then and there, doing something outrageous.
For instance, grabbing Du Sixian and pushing her onto the chopping board for a paid performance.
However, after finally getting through the tests of sour, sweet, and spicy, the essence of human fire dissipated, and the buns were placed in the steamer, just as they were about to be completed, Luxianbei’s mood turned serious.
She wasn’t sure if it was the core entity of the Urban Legend Witch overexerting while absorbing the negative effects of the spice, but until now, as the cooking was nearing its end, she still hadn’t experienced the “sweet” taste.
According to Hu Boss, a genuine human fire should encompass all four flavors of sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy; without one of them, it isn’t complete.
Less “sweet human fire” is like a sauerkraut fish with only sauerkraut and no fish, or like a 3D area without Tifa; it is bound to fail.”
What to do now?
Could it be that after toiling for half a day, the result was a cooking failure?
Although the remaining losses could be remedied and done again, but to do it again would take another two or three hours, and Du Sixian might not be able to hold out much longer. Luxianbei thought with concern—
On the other side, at Luxianbei’s home.
Jumeng sat beside the unconscious Huaxie Yu, looking resentful, fiddling with a mobile phone game, pouting, and complaining non-stop.
“You worthless thing, you promised to help watch Huaxie Yu for a bit, but you’ve been gone for several hours with no sign of coming back, absolutely no credit! When you get back, just wait and see how I settle you!”
As she spoke to herself, she glanced at the new characters she had drawn on her phone screen, suddenly feeling less angry.
Being able to successfully obtain a long-desired character was thanks to the generous sponsorship from Miss Calamity.
To make “The Great Bottom God” draw happily and satisfactorily, one can imagine how many times Miss Calamity must have spent 648, which was a significant investment, enough to offset the costs of taking care of Huaxie Yu and Wang Ying.
Fortunately, the mobile games Jumeng liked to play all had a guarantee mechanism in place.
Huh, considering you helped my sister get the nitrogen, I’ll let you off this time!” Jumeng muttered to herself, regaining her focus and preparing to bury herself in the game.
Just then, a strange spirit energy fluctuation suddenly emanated from Huaxie Yu’s body. Feeling disturbed by the fluctuation, a strong wind erupted in the living room, and the air filled with a dusty scent, creating a strange illusion of being in the center of a storm with sand and stones flying around.
Noticing something unusual, Jumeng set down her phone and turned toward the source of the spirit energy fluctuation, glancing at Huaxie Yu and knitting her brows.
There, below Huaxie Yu’s collarbone, a green light flickered, outlining a complex totem pattern.
“Is this a protective mark? In this day and age, someone still uses this kind of thing? Don’t you think that’s a huge loss?” Jumeng mumbled.
While she couldn’t think of a solution to the parasitic urban legend, she had some knowledge about protective marks as a significant urban legend with thousands of years of experience.
From a certain perspective, protective marks are also a kind of contract, but unlike most contracts, it is an extremely unequal one, with unilateral sacrifice, and requires enormous spirit energy to cast; if one is not careful, they might get hurt fundamentally.
In earlier years, in the Peach Source, only when the lives of their parents, the spirit ability users or urban legends were nearing their end, would they use protective marks on their offspring.
But as time went by, everyone realized that while protective marks protected the offspring, they strongly repelled external spirit energy fluctuations, which could likely limit the offspring’s ability to draw spirit patterns and enhance their authority, so gradually no one used them anymore.
“Who would have thought, I’d see it on this guy again today, quite rare!” Jumeng sighed, feeling a lot more relaxed.
Since Huaxie Yu had a protective mark, her work burden had effectively dropped several levels.
At least she didn’t have to worry too much about Huaxie Yu being swallowed by a parasitic urban legend anytime soon; she just needed to focus on controlling the proliferation of the parasitic urban legend.
Oh, right!
As if remembering something important, Jumeng raised an eyebrow, glancing at the nearly drooling Wang Ying next to her.
She also had to guard against this little one eating random things.
Although the Inheritance Beast’s power is special, allowing it to devour any urban legend’s power without restraint and then replicate it for its own use, she couldn’t just let her go wild if she wanted her to grow up healthy.
If allowed to devour a bunch of random powers, she might end up turning into a distorted and terrifying ghost again. And the attributes of the parasitic urban legend clearly stated, “Contains harmful ingredients, not suitable for infants and young children!”—
In the narrow and cramped space, there was only a glass window covered with grease, and the room was dimly lit. Dense fog blanketed the area, and shallow gray clouds appeared to have been burned by fire, giving off an eerie red color.
In the fog where one couldn’t see five fingers in front of their face, the entire Dawn City seemed to transform into an ethereal dream, with everything in sight reduced to blurry outlines.
In the distance, suppressed cries and heavy noises continued to emerge.
Outside the window, several shadowy figures stood there with excessively elongated body proportions, looking quite strange, raising their arms that hung down past their knees and repeatedly beating against the window.
Gently, knock after knock on that greasy glass, leaving palm prints while whispering a series of irresistibly tempting words.
“Stop holding on, he can’t hold out much longer…” “We have everything you want here—”
“Is it painful? Become our companion, and you will never suffer again…”
Ignoring those figures outside the window, Huaxie Yu lay on the slightly damp bed exuding a faint moldy smell, wearily staring at the tightly closed door.
From the door came the sounds of fierce fighting and the acrid smoke wafting in.
Outside the door, that man was fighting such twisted monsters with no fixed form, all ablaze with pitch-black flames. Yes, that gray-cloaked person ultimately couldn’t take Huaxie Yu away.
Before they could escape the narrow street where the small building was located, they were blocked by swarming monsters and had to retreat into this small room to defend their position.
However, even though the gray-cloaked person couldn’t fulfill the promise of taking Huaxie Yu away, he was exceptionally reliable; apart from their initial encounter, no monsters had been able to touch Huaxie Yu since.
“Bang—!”
Suddenly, a muffled crash came from the window’s direction, and a pair of broad and powerful hands reached out from the fog, forcefully pressing the heads of those figures against the glass, smashing them to pieces.
In a series of heart-wrenching wails, those figures vanished, and the small room fell back into silence. Moments later, the rusty iron door creaked open with a “creak.”
The gray-cloaked person pushed the door and entered, gasping for breath as he approached Huaxie Yu, touching her hot forehead, letting out a silent sigh and then slumping down against the bed’s edge.
“I’ve temporarily scared those guys away; they shouldn’t be back for a while. You can rest well for a bit.” “Why?” Huaxie Yu asked, looking at the gray-cloaked person’s back, her voice rough.
As she spoke, her gaze drifted to the bloody spot on his back, slightly lost in thought.
This was the third time the gray-cloaked person had driven off those twisted monsters. Each time he returned from battling outside, he would have several new wounds on his body.
And also, it wasn’t just her imagination; she noticed that when he returned this time, his figure seemed to have become blurry and transparent, as if he were about to vanish.
The gray-cloaked person didn’t turn around and responded with a question, “What do you mean by why?”
“Why are you trying so hard for me?” Huaxie Yu asked.
Since the gray-cloaked person appeared, she had been puzzled as to why this guy, who had only met her once, was so determined to protect her.
“This…” The gray-cloaked person fell silent for a moment, shrugged, and said, “I really don’t know, but I feel I must protect you. Protecting you is my reason for existing.”
Huaxie Yu gazed at the now somewhat blurred figure of the gray-cloaked person, lost in thought for a while, and quietly asked, “Next time, when those monsters come again, can you not go? I’m worried—
worried that if you go, you might never come back.” Huaxie Yu added silently in her heart.
For some reason, she always felt that this gray-cloaked person was very dear to her, and if it really came to separation, she would be unwilling to let go. “Probably not!”
“Roar—!”
Just as the gray-cloaked person finished speaking, a ground-shaking roar echoed from outside the small house. Those monsters had returned.
So, without waiting for Huaxie Yu to say anything more, the gray-cloaked person stood up and charged toward the door. Bang!
With a muffled sound, the rusty iron door swallowed the light from Huaxie Yu’s eyes and the figure of the gray-cloaked person—
Hoo~!
As the steamer was lifted, sweet-smelling steam swept and dispersed all around, and each fluffy, round, and well-presented white steamed bun gradually emerged from the steam.
Gazing at those buns, Luxianbei felt somewhat downcast. It seemed she had failed.
Although those buns looked fairly decent, they had probably not reached the standard of human fire.
A dish of that caliber would, at the time of serving, at least need a striking BGM or have some glow, right? But these buns were just too ordinary.
After all that effort, to not produce human fire—it was a problem. Luxianbei thought.
Watching from the sidelines, Du Sixian glanced at the buns in the steamer and then at Luxianbei, who was frowning with apparent worries, and softly probed, “High Person, is there a problem?”
“Uh, it seems to have failed.” Luxianbei’s expression was solemn as she looked at the buns and nodded.
“Failed? How could that be? They look pretty good!” Du Sixian said with a face full of confusion, reaching out to tear off a piece from the bun in front of her and sending it to her mouth.
Wait, no—
Luxianbei didn’t notice Du Sixian’s action in time. When she reacted and tried to stop her, Du Sixian had already swallowed that small piece of bun.
Oh no, now it’s over!
Not only had the human fire not been made, but she was also going to poison her own kin. Luxianbei thought.
In her mind, if these buns only contained “sour, bitter, and spicy” emotions, they were probably comparable to a poison of the same level as [living], untouchable by someone of Du Sixian’s level of spirit energy.
However, just as she was anxiously trying to think of a way to remedy her oversight, she discovered that Du Sixian not only didn’t show any signs of poisoning but also closed her eyes, revealing a thoroughly enjoyable expression, emitting a satisfied m*an from her nose.
In a daze, it seemed she saw the golden waves of wheat rippling under the sunset as the breeze swept through, a boy leading a water buffalo across a field, and three or four children playing in a threshing field while an elder leisurely played chess under the shade of a tree.
“This bun is so sweet…” Du Sixian instinctively murmured, a crystal tear silently tracing along her cheek.
Sweet? I didn’t add any sugar, how could that be? Wait! Luxianbei was momentarily stunned, then as if realizing something, she suddenly grabbed a bun and took a big bite.
In the next moment, an indescribably sweet flavor spread between her lips and teeth and in her heart.
“Old Zhang, your house is built so beautifully; you really didn’t waste all those years of hard work outside, haha!” “Little Li, you don’t have to care about the rumors in the company; we all see your efforts and abilities. The company plans to start new business ventures next month and wants to leave it to you to handle; do you have confidence?”
“Stop it! Why do we have to play this scene of the ex-girlfriend’s last meet before marriage? It makes me so shy. But you were much better than before!”
As fragments of memories flashed through her mind, Luxianbei suddenly understood why she hadn’t experienced the “sweet” taste while cooking.
This “sweet” flavor had never existed independently; it had always been hidden among the “bitter and spicy.” Putting down the bun, she echoed Du Sixian, saying, “Yes, this bun is so sweet…” Human fire had been achieved!
