Chapter 25 The Last Good Medicine

By the time Ji Yue fetched the plastic container Mrs. Wang Xiulian had tucked away in the storeroom corner, Professor Li and his wife had already helped Li Mingyi leave the restaurant.

"What about the Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall?" Ji Yue, holding the container, seemed unsure of what to do next.

The guests had left, but the dish remained.

"Shall we try it?" Wang Hao's mouth had already watered at the smell, and even though the lid was on now, the aroma still lingered in the restaurant, refusing to dissipate.

"No way!" Ji Yue gave Wang Hao a stern look and stepped in front of him to block his path.

"Hao, I remember you took down Professor Li's phone number in your textbook yesterday morning, see if the Signal and System textbook is still in your bag." Jiang Feng suddenly remembered.

"Right, right, it's in the bag!" Wang Hao hurried to get his bag from behind the counter, fished out the textbook on Signal and System from among three or four others, and flipped it open to the first page where Li Junming's number was clearly written: 1xxxxxxxxxx.

It's said that each week, UAL University's Principle of Marxism professors on average receive over ten calls from shop owners informing them that a student has left a book behind.

True enough.

Jiang Feng took out his cellphone and dialed the number written on the page.

About twenty seconds later, the call connected.

"Hello, Professor Li? This is Jiang Feng, you left your dish behind at the restaurant," said Jiang Feng.

"So sorry, as I get older, I tend to forget things easily. My wife and I will come get it later," Professor Li apologized, his voice accompanied by the sound of an elder's cough and the occasionally soft, occasionally firm tapping of a cane on the ground.

Jiang Jiankang silently moved the jar back to the kitchen, Wang Hao felt a bit regretful he couldn't taste the exquisite dish, and helped Ji Yue take out the trash to the garbage station. The next few afternoons would be filled with five straight classes, only surfacing from the sea of knowledge around six o'clock.

Though it didn't show on his face, Jiang Feng, as his son, keenly noticed that his dad was feeling downcast. Every bit of fat, every ounce of grease, seemed suffused with profound melancholy.

"Dad, what's wrong?" Jiang Feng followed Jiang Jiankang into the kitchen, where he saw his father silently chopping vegetables.

He cut extremely slowly, each slice requiring great effort, as if he held a deep animosity against the bell peppers in front of him.

"I've ruined something good," Jiang Jiankang said, sounding somewhat disheartened.

"I think it was quite good," Jiang Feng lied through his teeth. He didn't even want to look at the long remark on the Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall order; it listed several issues such as too short a simmering time, too much shark fin, abalone cut too thick, and insufficient soaking time for the fish maws.

But the complexity of preparing Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall couldn't be blamed on Mr. Jiang Jiankang.

"My poor ham," Jiang Jiankang sniffled.

"The pork knuckle wasn't stewed today either," he even sounded a bit aggrieved.

Jiang Feng: ...

Sorry to have bothered you.

The kitchen returned to the endeavor of Mr. Jiang Jiankang, who picked up his spatula to join the battle at the frontlines of cooking as the scent of the Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall had already attracted many customers. Although everyone had been busy watching the commotion and hadn't placed their orders, the first floor was now almost fully seated. Menus fell like snowflakes, one after another delivered to the kitchen, and Mr. Jiang Jiankang went back to his wok with renewed vigor.

Jiang Feng turned back into a kitchen helper, relegated to washing vegetables, peeling, chopping, and plating—tasks that didn't offer any experience points.

Before long, four Chess Club members who had claimed they were coming to help rushed into the kitchen with their backpacks still on. They took out sour plum and mung bean soups chilled for a day from the fridge. They each gulped down two bowls like hungry wolves before setting their backpacks down to start helping.

Seeing these four, Jiang Feng suddenly became worried about next week's club recruitment.

Other clubs either had a lineage of talents or had their own specialties, or at the very least, attractive guys and girls to lure in new members. But the Chess Club had nothing, not even funding.

What should they perform for the club recruitment?

In previous years, it was just two chess geeks pretending to play serious games. Were they now expected to each chug a pot of sour plum soup like performers?

As Jiang Feng worried about the future of the club, he quietly continued to julienne carrots.

Are carrots on sale these days? Why does Mrs. Wang Xiulian buy so many every day!

After Jiang Feng turned all the carrots into julienned strips, Professor Li and his wife returned to the restaurant.

Professor Li held an envelope in one hand and a lunchbox in the other.

Truthfully, taking the entire liquor jar would have best preserved the dish's original taste but, not to mention its weight, allowing a customer to walk out carrying a large jar just seemed improper. Ji Yue carefully scooped the dish out of the jar and into the lunchbox. This dish was currently worth more than her annual salary, so it needed to be handled with the utmost care.

"Jiang Feng, I'd like to ask for your help," Professor Li handed an envelope to Jiang Feng. "My father has late-stage stomach cancer and has been suffering from a loss of appetite. I was wondering if you could take care of his lunch and dinner."

Faced with such an important task, Jiang Feng felt anxious, about to refuse, but then the system's prompt rang in his mind.

"Ding, an optional side quest has appeared. Please make a choice at your discretion."

Another side quest.

Jiang Feng was startled, realizing there were now two side quests involving old Mr. Li Mingyi. The game seemed to place considerable importance on this elderly man to offer two side quests.

Curious, Jiang Feng accepted the envelope, "Actually, you should ask my dad. His cooking skills are much better than mine."

"It was my father who just now insisted that you be the one to come. He likes you a lot," Professor Li said with a gentle smile. "He's been very happy today. It's been a while since he last felt this joyful."

Unconsciously, Jiang Feng touched his own face.

He didn't think he had the kind of face that would bring joy to someone on sight.

Although he did consider himself quite handsome, surely he wasn't to the extent that everyone would love him at first sight?

"Please," Professor Li said.

"Of course, of course," Jiang Feng felt a tinge of awe being treated so gently by the legendary strict Professor Li these past few days.

Ji Yue had already packed Buddhas Jumping Over the Wall into the lunchboxes. Professor Li's wife left with him, carrying the lunchboxes, and smiled warmly at Jiang Feng before departing.

"Your professor seems to really like you," remarked Ji Yue.

"Ah?"

"He was quite stern when he came at noon, almost like that foreign teacher I had in my freshman year." Ji Yue looked up, seemingly recalling the severe Filipino female teacher she had in her first year of university. "That woman, taking advantage of my poor English to scold me every day."

Women sure hold grudges.

Jiang Feng opened the envelope, which contained several banknotes and a sheet of paper.

He took out the paper and unfolded it to reveal a recipe for a nourishing porridge written in powerful, forceful penmanship.

The ingredients for the nourishing porridge were almost identical to those Mr. Jiang Jiankang used, but there were some minor changes and an additional ingredient—pork liver.

Though Mr. Jiang Jiankang had learned how to make porridge from an old master at a porridge shop, the recipe for the nourishing porridge was given to him by Sir Jiang.

How did Professor Li come by the Jiang Family's nourishing porridge recipe?

"Dad, was the nourishing porridge recipe you used to make for me given by Grandpa?" Jiang Feng was beginning to question his memory and went to the kitchen to ask Mr. Jiang Jiankang.

"Passed down from our ancestors," Mr. Jiang Jiankang replied as he was stir-frying.

Professor Li… was Mo Fang related to our family?

Jiang Feng's mind raced with wild theories. Could it be that his grandfather had six brothers who didn't all perish, and one had survived, changed his name to Li and lived incognito?

Wang Hao, if he knew this material, might spin it into an even better story.

Heading to the storeroom, Jiang Feng opened his character panel.

[The Last Good Medicine]: Li Mingyi is suffering from the late stages of stomach cancer, experiencing loss of appetite and a distaste for food, enduring excruciating pain from prolonged chemotherapy treatments. As a chef, the only thing you can do is provide him comfort through food. Please give him The Last Good Medicine. Assist him with regular meals for a period of 15 days. [Choose: Yes/No]

He clicked yes.

[The Last Good Medicine]: Li Mingyi is suffering from late stages of stomach cancer, experiencing loss of appetite and a distaste for food, enduring excruciating pain from prolonged chemotherapy treatments. As a chef, the only thing you can do is provide him comfort through food. Please give him The Last Good Medicine. Assist him with regular meals for a period of 15 days. Quest Progress (0/15)

Quest Tip: You can complete the quest by following the recipe provided by Li Junming.

Quest Reward: A fragment of Li Mingyi's memory.

No wonder Li Mingyi looked unusually frail; Jiang Feng had originally thought it was simply because of old age.

And this was the first time the game offered a specific reward for a quest, but the reward was a memory.

This memory… does it have something to do with Taifeng Building?