Blood Neon

Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Curry

“Oh egg dog~ egg dog~ egg dog~ egg dog~...”

The girl hummed softly as she pressed down on an onion with her left hand shaped like a cat’s paw, while her right hand moved swiftly and precisely with the knife.

Zhang Qiming stood behind her, eyes tightly shut. Despite his excellent control over his facial expressions, his nervousness was clearly visible.

Because of that tension, he had initially shut his eyes a bit too hard, which caused some discomfort. So he took a deep breath, adjusted the pressure, and relaxed the muscles around his eyes a little.

He had no idea what was going on, but his instincts told him that now was definitely the time to obediently keep his eyes closed.

However, it wasn’t long before his attempt to stay calm and still like water began to slip, and his mind started wandering.

What’s going on?

Why did she ask him to close his eyes?

Was there something he wasn’t supposed to see?

What would happen if he opened them now?

What would he see?

What would happen?

...

Vision is one of the most performance-demanding modules in the human brain. Once it’s shut down, it releases a large amount of processing power, some of which gets redistributed to other sensory modules. In other words, with vision removed, hearing, taste, touch, and perception become more sensitive. That’s also why blind people often have exceptional abilities in other senses.

Similarly, when people are thinking deeply or trying to listen to faint sounds, they often close their eyes subconsciously. This is an unconscious behavior used to help focus.

In other words, with his eyes closed and in an extremely tense state, Zhang Qiming’s sensory perception had, to some extent, become sharper than usual...

...

As the dang dang dang of chopping rang out, his attention was involuntarily drawn toward the source of the sound.

He knew Lin Ying was standing there, in front of the chopping board, swinging her knife.

In the darkness of his awareness, the crisp, loud sound of blade meeting chopping board was as sharp and clear as a drumbeat.

What was she chopping?

Ah, right—onions.

The onions he had bought himself. Purple-skinned, not very big.

Thump.

But would cutting onions really make a sound like that?

The noise coming through the air had become dull and heavy, making him feel that something was off.

It was no longer the light, crisp “dang,” but had turned into heavy “clang, clang” sounds.

It didn’t sound like small onions being chopped into pieces.

Instead, it was more like something large and unyielding was being struck over and over again.

Like what?

Ah, right—like hacking into a big slab of pork with a cleaver. The blade sinks into the meat but gets stuck tightly, forcing the person to lift both the knife and the meat together before slamming them down hard onto the chopping board again.

Or like in movies, when a murderer is dismembering a body after the act.

A chill ran through him in an instant.

What kind of image was that? What was he even thinking about?

But he couldn’t control it. The moment he forcefully suppressed one wild thought, another absurd scene would immediately surface, completely beyond his control.

—After closing his eyes, the world seemed to have become much more unfamiliar.

At first, he only felt an instinctive resistance, but gradually, an indescribable curiosity began to take hold of his heart.

That intense curiosity kept urging him to open his eyes, to confirm what the scene in front of him actually looked like.

Zhang Qiming’s breathing grew heavier, yet instinct still stopped him from opening his eyes, as if something bad were happening right beside him.

He leaned his weight against the doorframe, but suddenly felt that even the wall beside him was no longer still, as though it had its own breathing, gently rising and falling.

He subconsciously raised his hand, wanting to touch the wall.

But just before his fingers made contact, he pulled his hand back as if shocked by electricity.

What was he afraid of?

No… that’s not it…

…

…Zhang Qiming’s wild thoughts might continue for a while longer.

.

.

.

The chopped onions were placed into a bowl, and now the two bowls of ingredients were each piled into small mounds.

After rinsing the knife clean with water, the girl set it aside at an angle to dry.

Everything looked perfectly normal.

“Alright, time to check how the meat is thawing.”

Lin Ying muttered to herself as she took out the chicken breast that had been soaking in cold water and pinched its chilly surface with her fingers.

It felt like it was just about ready.

Maybe it was because things had dragged on a bit today? By now the meat had mostly thawed. At this level, it probably could barely be cut.

So, after placing the palm-sized chicken breast on the cutting board, Lin Ying began preparing to cut the meat.

This was exactly the benefit of chopping vegetables first — the cutting board could be used directly without needing another wash.

The still slightly frozen meat felt a bit like a frozen potato when she sliced into it, somewhat like a hard fruit. It was easy to separate into chunks. Although chopping it took a bit of effort, after a few crisp ka-cha ka-cha sounds, it had all been turned into small pieces.

However, after placing the chopped meat into a small bowl, Lin Ying touched the center with her hand and clearly felt icy shards still inside.

It probably needed to thaw a bit more. Otherwise, the meat might not absorb the flavors well when marinated.

This time, after giving it a bit of thought, she decisively shoved the meat into the microwave nearby.

Since there was still the marination step afterward, she didn’t want to waste any more time.

Zhang Qiming’s microwave was the kind that used a rotating dial to adjust the settings and set the timer. Its old-fashioned design reminded Lin Ying of her past home, stirring a bit of nostalgia in her heart.

She turned the dial and set it to defrost. Two minutes later, a ding! sounded, signaling that the thawing was complete.

Taking out the bowl, Lin Ying tested the temperature with her fingers and felt that it should be good enough now to proceed to the next step.

She quickly grabbed cooking wine and light soy sauce from the nearby rack. With a flick of her small hand, she poured some into the bowl by feel.

Roughly one to one, she guessed. It wasn’t like this was some strict recipe — you just had to play it by ear in situations like this.

After all, curry was a very forgiving dish.

From Lin Ying’s experience, if no salt was added at this stage and she only relied on soy sauce and the curry later on, the meat would still end up tasting a bit bland. So she sprinkled in some salt, then reached in with her cleaned hands and gave it a thorough mix, ensuring the salt, meat, and seasoning were all well incorporated.

Watching the meat chunks get fully soaked and surrounded by the brown marinade, Lin Ying nodded in satisfaction. With her other hand, she turned on the faucet and rinsed the seasoning off her hands.

Out of habit, she sniffed her fingers — still a faint smell of soy sauce and alcohol.

While lost in thought, she dried her hands with the towel hanging nearby, and only then suddenly realized — there had been no need to go through all that trouble.

She could have just used her shadow to filter the scent and residue. That probably would’ve done the trick.

All she could say was that the process of preparing this meal had made her feel like she was back in a normal world — so much so that she’d forgotten about those things altogether.

But… this kind of properly grounded feeling was nice too.

After finishing all the preparations, Lin Ying turned around with a smile — only to see Zhang Qiming still leaning against the doorframe, eyebrows tightly furrowed, eyes shut, standing completely still.

She froze for a moment.

“…What are you doing?”

Staring at the boy who looked like he was wearing a mask of pain, she asked in confusion.

“Didn’t you tell me to keep my eyes closed just now?”

Only then did Lin Ying realize — she had gotten too focused and completely forgotten that she’d left someone standing behind her after giving that order.

“Alright, it’s done now. You can open them.”

She spoke with a mix of amusement and helplessness.

Initially, she’d just wanted to be considerate about his eyes. Later, on a whim, she had decided to spook him a little and observe his reaction. She hadn’t expected the effect to be so impressive.

No wonder her stomach had that delicious feeling earlier.

.

After getting her reply, Zhang Qiming finally opened his eyes cautiously, adjusting to the slightly glaring light.

Everything in the kitchen looked normal. The cute girl stood in front of him with a smile. Behind her were the ingredients, all neatly prepared and arranged.

There was no imagined mountain of meat or sea of blood, no writhing, unnameable human limbs sprouting everywhere, and the walls hadn’t transformed into a pulsating mass of tentacled flesh.

Seeing this familiar, ordinary scene, the heavy weight in his heart finally lifted.

No—he suddenly realized.

Why had he felt afraid?

Why had he assumed that opening his eyes would reveal those terrifying scenes?

That didn’t make any sense.

He was too old for this—scaring himself like that… wasn’t that just embarrassing?

Had he been watching too many horror films or reading too many novels?

Or was it… maybe he’d just been under too much stress lately?

That was the only way to explain why his imagination had run so wild with nonsense.

Zhang Qiming felt a bit troubled, another layer of the “mask of pain” appearing on his face.

.

Lin Ying looked at the boy in front of her, who seemed worried and distressed, a hint of concern surfacing in her eyes. She hesitated a little inside.

…Had her joke gone too far?

The emotion she was sensing from him now was one of confusion and dissatisfaction.

Was he angry?

Upset because he had been tricked?

She wasn’t sure.

Ah, damn it. Damn it.

She felt a little disheartened—had she messed it up again?

She had this bad habit in her previous life—liking to tease friends, occasionally pulling little stunts that could make others mad.

Even though she knew that kind of behavior wasn’t very likable, she would still, more often than not, choose that path like a brain glitch when the moment came.

Ugh…

Now Lin Ying just felt awkward.

She truly wanted to maintain a good relationship with this new friend, but maybe she had gone a little overboard with the teasing?

Should she apologize at a time like this?

But wouldn’t saying it outright just make things more awkward?

After all, sometimes the best thing both people could do was pretend they “didn’t mind.”

No one would ever know what they truly meant to each other, nor whether their friendliness was genuine or just polite surface-level interaction.

—If she were still an ordinary person, she probably would’ve done exactly that.

Pretended she hadn’t been disliked, pretended the other person wasn’t mad.

—Just like she had done so many times in her past life.

But thanks to this time, she could actually feel the emotions of others, and she no longer had to play deaf and dumb.

.

“…Are you okay?”

Choosing not to avoid the issue, Lin Ying took a small step forward and spoke, her eyes turning slightly to the side.

“?”

The other person didn’t seem to catch on right away, so she continued speaking.

“Sorry, I was just joking earlier. I didn’t mean to leave you hanging like that.”

She planned to approach the topic step by step. After all, as a reliable adult, communicating with a high schooler should still be something she could full combo, right?

“You know,” she paused to organize her words, then decided to go straight to the point, “I can kind of sense that you’re not in a great mood right now.”

“Is it because of me? Did I go a little too far?”

Maybe she shouldn’t have made such a deadpan joke about “you might die.”

Even with close friends, that could come off as offensive, right?

What was wrong with her? Had killing too many people made her nerves in this area go numb?

.

So that was just a prank?

Zhang Qiming internally complained. For a second back then, he’d really thought it was some kind of murder warning. Turned out he had just overthought it.

“You’re overthinking it,” Zhang Qiming said, rubbing his temples and trying to sound casual.

“Honestly, I was just overthinking things myself earlier. It wasn’t your fault or anything.”

He truly wasn’t mad, and he didn’t feel like she'd gone too far.

The only thing he wanted to say—though he couldn't bring himself to yet—was that her “jokes” never really felt like jokes. They were a little… scary.

“Alright. But if I ever do anything wrong, please make sure to tell me.”

Lin Ying let out a small breath of relief and nodded.

“At the very least… I don’t want to be disliked by someone because of something I didn’t even realize I did wrong…”

Her hands were behind her back, her head slightly lowered, eyes staring at the floor as she spoke.

No no no, how could anyone dislike you?

Facing the pitiful-looking girl in front of him, Zhang Qiming nearly died from the cuteness on the spot.

How could anyone in the world dislike an adorable pretty girl?

…Even if she was a bit scary sometimes.

.

After escorting him back to the living room and telling him he could lie down and wait for dinner, Lin Ying returned to the kitchen to continue cooking alone.

About fifteen minutes into marinating the meat, she poured oil into the wok, turned the gas stove to high heat, and switched on the exhaust fan, ready for the main event.

Once she felt the waves of heat rising from the iron pan, she decisively poured out the leftover marinade and then smoothly dumped the bowl of meat into the hot oil.

With a loud sizzle sizzle, the moisture in the meat rapidly boiled upon contact with the heat, conducting heat inward while also bursting into splashing drops of water and oil.

Wearing an apron and holding a spatula, Lin Ying quickly stirred the meat in the pan, making sure the pieces were evenly heated and didn’t stick together.

Less than a minute later, the chicken had mostly changed color. Lin Ying turned off the heat and quickly scooped the meat into the freshly cleaned small bowl.

Right after that, she grabbed a bowl of prepped potatoes and dumped them all into the still-hot pan in one go, switching the flame back on in the same motion.

This step of frying vegetables varied depending on the person. If someone didn’t want too much oil, they could skip this entirely and go straight to simmering the potatoes in water — that was perfectly fine too.

But since stir-frying in oil gave the potatoes and onions a better texture and also helped shorten the later cooking time, Lin Ying preferred to do it this way out of habit.

If it had been her mother making this, she would’ve added a bunch of chopped carrots too...

…Staring at the potatoes in the pan, the girl drifted off a little.

Who would’ve thought that the carrots she used to hate could one day become something she’d miss...

We always end up nostalgic for the times when we lived under someone else's protection, even if things didn’t always go our way, don’t we?

She picked up the bowl of onions. The heat waves from the oil pan wafted upward, drying out her eyes, which she'd forgotten to close.

.

A few minutes after adding the onions, Lin Ying saw the edges of the potatoes starting to brown, so she turned off the heat.

Patiently, she used the spatula to scoop all the vegetables back into the same bowl, doing her best to drain off the excess oil to keep the dish from becoming too greasy later.

She set the frying pan aside to let the oil cool. Whether to dump it or reuse it — that would be Zhang Qiming’s call.

Lin Ying then pulled out the cooking pot again, added some water by feel — just enough to submerge the potatoes and onions.

She turned on the stove, waiting for the water to boil before adding the onions and potatoes. Once they were mostly cooked, she'd add the meat back in.

As the pot of stewed potatoes, onions, and meat reached a bubbling boil, Lin Ying finally pulled out the curry box that had been set aside for a while — this was the finishing touch.

Inside the sealed packet was a solid block of curry. Lin Ying broke it into four pieces through the packaging and dropped them into the pot.

Come to think of it, when she was a kid, she used to open the pack and stab it apart with chopsticks...

As the memories surfaced, she stirred the ladle, watching the curry chunks melt rapidly into the water, turning the light broth into a rich brownish-yellow and reducing the volume quite a bit.

There might be a bit too much food this time — well, the leftovers could just go to him.

As the cooking came to a close, Lin Ying turned off the heat, picked up a small carton of milk she had prepared earlier, and walked into the living room.

Zhang Qiming looked completely normal. He was playing on his phone, with no trace of negative emotion coming from him. It seemed he wasn’t brooding over what happened earlier, which let her breathe a little easier.

The girl waved the milk carton in her hand and asked,

“Mind if I use a bottle of milk?”

“? Oh, go ahead.”

After getting his approval, she snipped off a small corner of the carton with scissors and then held it over the pot, pouring in about 100 milliliters in a circular motion.

The amount didn’t need to be exact — as long as it wasn’t wildly off. In her case, Lin Ying simply poured in about half the small carton.

Watching the white milk pour into the yellow-brown curry, she turned the stove back on to low heat and stirred for a good while. The whole pot began to bubble gently, gradually turning into a smooth, creamy pale yellow.

With this final step done, the curry was finally ready to be served. Lin Ying took a deep sniff of the delicious aroma and couldn’t help but feel as if she had spent several days making this one meal.

The rice had already finished steaming. She called over the slacking Zhang Qiming and had him help serve the rice.

But the guy just quietly kept his head down and did the task without cracking a single joke. What a waste of a perfect moment. If it had been her, she would’ve definitely said something like, “Chef, the rice is ready!”

Since she’d planned to make a large portion from the start, she had cooked enough rice for about four servings — which matched the four curry blocks perfectly.

So Lin Ying didn’t bother plating the curry separately as a side dish. Instead, she ladled it directly over four bowls of rice.

The chicken curry rice bowls, packed with soft potatoes and onion strips, were finally complete. A cause for celebration, truly, a cause for celebration.