Chapter Twenty-Five: Face

When Liu Ru and Qing Yi pushed open the door to the fifty-sixth floor, a remarkably rich and peculiar fragrance wafted out from within, causing the two young women to exchange a glance.

"You never told me that Su Ziye was also quite skilled at cooking," Qing Yi said with a smile.

"Well, it's not too late to tell you now." Liu Ru replied calmly as she stepped into the room first.

In terms of permissions, Carlotes had granted Su Ziye enormous privileges. For instance, of the one hundred and eleven floors in the Sun Tower, only about sixty percent were designated for curriculum tasks; the remaining floors generally served as spare rooms. Su Ziye, however, was free to pick any of those floors he liked to use as production workshops or laboratories. For example, floor seventy-nine had already become his permanent concentrated syrup production workshop, while floor fifty-six served as Su Ziye's private laboratory.

"What are you doing here?" Before Qing Yi stood Su Ziye, gently stirring a spoon in a small pot. Behind him, there were perhaps twenty or thirty more such pots—some bubbling away with something cooking inside, while others appeared to be waiting.

"You two came just in time." Su Ziye looked up with a smile at the two girls who had come to visit. He took out two small bowls, fished two clumps of snow-white noodles from the pot in front of him into the bowls, then ladled a little milky-white broth over them.

"Here." Su Ziye handed one bowl to each of them.

Qing Yi took her bowl and raised an eyebrow. "Where are the chopsticks?"

"Of course I wouldn't forget those." Su Ziye smiled and handed the girls a pair of chopsticks each. Liu Ru, who hadn't eaten lunch yet, took the bowl and chopsticks, picked up a strand of noodle, blew on it gently, and put it in her mouth.

The noodles were pleasantly chewy, and the broth was fragrant and rich. The flavor was... passable, more or less.

But as for it being particularly delicious—honestly, not at all.

"How is it?" Su Ziye asked with a smile.

"Seems your cooking isn't all that impressive either." Qing Yi, who had tasted it as well, gave her verdict: "It's just a bowl of noodles hovering at the passing line. This is what you managed to come up with after a whole month? People would laugh their heads off."

"What about you, Liu Ru?" Su Ziye turned to look at Liu Ru.

Liu Ru was actually quite hungry, so she had taken a few more bites. Only when she heard Su Ziye's question did she look up. "It's edible."

She gave a very fair assessment.

By Su Ziye's average cooking standard, this bowl of noodles was honestly just plainly and simply edible. Neither the ingredients nor the flavor rose above the mediocre line. To be precise, even those big chunks of roasted meat Su Ziye had fed Liu Ru back on the snowy mountain tasted far better than these noodles.

"Then that's enough," Su Ziye said with a smile.

"I didn't know your standards for yourself could drop this low," Qing Yi remarked with a hint of mockery.

"That's because this was never meant to be a dish you savor for its exquisite taste." Su Ziye smiled and explained: "As long as it can fill your stomach, then it's unquestionably a qualified product."

"As for flavors, I don't plan to make too many for now—three or so should be enough."

"What are you muttering about?" Qing Yi looked at Su Ziye. "I have absolutely no intention of praising you, you know."

"I know the vice president isn't praising me." Su Ziye looked at Qing Yi calmly. "But you did say it's a bowl of noodles at the passing line. So let me just ask you one question: if you're working late into the night, starving, and the canteen is closed, would you rather spend thirty minutes to an hour making yourself a simple midnight snack, or three minutes making a bowl of soup noodles like this to fill your stomach?"

"Well..." Qing Yi was momentarily stumped.

Without a doubt, she would absolutely settle for a bowl of soup noodles. After all, while it wasn't great, the taste was acceptable, and if the goal was just to fill one's stomach, it wasn't objectionable in the slightest.

"You're saying this noodle can be done in three minutes?" Qing Yi immediately zeroed in on the core issue.

After all, although noodles count as a relatively convenient food to make, from kneading the dough to shaping the noodles, then boiling the water and cooking them—the whole process took about thirty minutes, and that was already with practice.

Besides, not everyone knew how to make noodles from scratch.

"Maybe even less," Su Ziye said calmly.

"Prove it to me!" Qing Yi blurted out.

She refused to let anyone challenge her common sense.

"Fine." Su Ziye nodded. "I assume the time to boil the water doesn't count?"

"It counts!" Qing Yi said decisively.

Su Ziye sighed. "Vice President, you really are strict."

As he said this, Su Ziye pulled an hourglass from his chest and handed it to Liu Ru. "How about you keep time?"

"Why are you carrying an hourglass on you?" Liu Ru caught the flaw.

"Because I really have been using it often lately." Su Ziye smiled slightly. As he spoke, he dragged a small pot from behind him, turned it upside down to show the two that it was empty, then looked at Liu Ru: "You can start timing now. This is a three-minute hourglass."

Liu Ru quickly flipped the hourglass over, and at the same moment, Su Ziye took out a bottle of clean water from his chest and poured it into the pot, then switched on the burner underneath.

"Normally, boiling the water alone would take more than three minutes," Su Ziye sighed. "But my stove burns hot enough that we can just barely manage."

As he said this, Su Ziye took a round, flat noodle cake from his chest. Liu Ru looked closely and saw that it was indeed a cake made of curled-up noodles compressed together.

"Isn't that cheating?" Liu Ru couldn't help but remark.

"This is the key," Su Ziye said. He watched the water in the pot, counted three seconds silently, then dropped the noodle cake in.

At the same time, the young man took out a small solidified ball of milky white from his chest and dropped it into the water with a plop. Then he picked up the spoon and stirred it back and forth until white foam began to rise across the surface of the pot. Only then did he quickly turn off the heat, use the chopsticks to lift the noodles into a bowl, and pour some broth over them.

"Here." Su Ziye pushed the finished bowl of noodles in front of Qing Yi. "I couldn't prepare any vegetables, of course. If you have the means, you can add an egg or some vegetables yourself."

With that, Su Ziye turned back to Liu Ru. "So, how long did it take?"

"Two... two minutes." Liu Ru stared at the hourglass in her hand, speaking with some disbelief.

"You see?" Su Ziye turned to Qing Yi. "I told you, didn't I?"

Qing Yi was momentarily speechless.