Ever since Shen Jing sent out that message to the entire plane, for some reason, both Chef and Lonemoon saw fewer invasions in their respective planes. The few of them became much more free. Thus, they returned to the Divine Realm after staying at Invincible Sect for awhile.
Lonemoon had handed over nearly all the matters in the sect to Yu Hong and the others. Although they did not really want to take over the title of Sect Master, they were in fact doing all the things expected of the Sect Master. But something was wrong with their brains, so that they thought only Shen Ying would ever be fit to be called the Sect Master.
Lonemoon initially intended on dragging the two cheaters to his own plane to help out. Although there were no more invaders, his plane was still a new plane after all. Even the Heavenly Dao had just formed not long ago. There was always room for the rules to be improved. There were problems all around just waiting to be resolved. Hong Meng, Fatty, Rabbit and Mushroom were not bad, but some things had to be done by the manager.
Lonemoon thought that since Chef was also a manager, he could offer up some help. If all else failed, Chef could always copy and paste the Heavenly Dao from his own plane into Lonemoon's. As for Shen Ying.... Forget it!
But when they finally got to it, he realised that although the two planes were largely the same, there were still critical differences between them. One such difference was the techniques and body elements. Some techniques from Chef's plane were not suitable to be used in Lonemoon's. Be it the effectiveness, the incantation or the style, something would always vary.
Suddenly, he remembered Shen Jing saying that every single plane was unique. From the looks of it, this was true. His initial hope of copying Chef's plane was now useless. All he could do was to edit it on his own as time went by. What's more, he had to do it all by himself. Thus, his long-awaited break ended just like that. He began to get busy once again. Chef and a certain foodie, however, just ate and slept all day every day. They were essentially "eating" 1 Lonemoon up.
Even Chef had the luxury of cooping himself up in the kitchen all day. If he was not cooking, he was getting ready to start cooking. The entire Divine Realm smelt of his dishes. The smell was... amazing! Even Fatty, who dropped by occasionally to get some work done, would not be able to stop himself from sitting down and having a bowl of rice. He would then squat at the corner and enjoy it.
Just like that, even Hong Meng – an ancient god who had been around for the longest time – would come down and enjoy a bowl of rice next to Fatty. Then, Rabbit and Mushroom followed suit. In a line, they ate their rice. At the beginning, they only dropped by once in awhile. Then, they came by much more often. It was an odd scene – Lonemoon, Shen Ying and Chef would be seated around a table filled with all sorts of delicacies, while four others would be squatting in a line behind them, drooling over the bowls of white rice in their hands, their eyes red and teary.
Perhaps Shen Ying became scared by their looks of misery and hunger. On a certain day, she asked them, "Do you... want to join us?"
"Alright!" The four of them called out in unison.
Thus, they set up another table beside them and shared all the vegetarian dishes. Originally, Lonemoon did not think much of this. But later on, he realised something was amiss. Chef always cooked as if he was feeding a pig. And Shen Ying was a foodie. She was a bottomless pit. Meal times lasted at least two hours when it was just the three of them. That was six hours each day. Now that they had more people with them, this meant that they needed more time to finish their meals. If this added two hours to meal times each day, that meant they now spent eight hours a day just eating.
As a good businessman, Lonemoon had always stuck to an eight-hour workday. Based on his calculations, he was the only one working until he was dead beat every single day! The other four of them from his plane were just spending their work hours eating and not doing anything!
This made Lonemoon feel terribly uncomfortable. He could not let this go on! Thus, he cancelled meals during their working hours and dragged the four of them out of the Divine Realm. Then, he took away their authority to enter it ever again. They were to go back to squatting down and having white rice only! He turned to glare at the two wastrels. It was bad enough that they were not helping. They were freaking taking away his employees too! Did they forget who was giving them the allowance to buy all these food?
Yet, the two of them did not seem like they knew they were in the wrong. Instead, Chef began to explore new recipes now that he had fewer people to cook for. He completely forgot that he was a sword cultivator. From time to time, he would even bring over new dishes for Lonemoon to taste.
"Father Niu, I saw pastries like that in Elder Shen's plane, but Master doesn't have a sweet tooth. I'm going to change them to spicy pastries – why don't you give it a taste?"
Lonemoon glanced at the plate in his hands and pursed his lips. He really wanted to stab Yi Qing in that moment. "Get lost! Do you think I can't tell? Who eats spicy cakes!"
"Eh? Does this flavour not work?" He had only seen it once.
"No, why don't you try it on your own!"
"Oh." Disappointed, Yi Qing retracted the cake. He summoned a flame in his hands and burned the plate clean.
Lonemoon: "..."
F*cking hell! You did not even dare to try the cake, so you made me try it, didn't you!
凸(艹皿艹)
But Chef had already turned to walk off. He was again gathering brand new ingredients. He looked so relaxed and peaceful, Lonemoon thought that it was weird he was not humming. What's more, compared to before, Chef looked a lot less cautious. Perhaps now that there were fewer invaders in his plane and things were stable, he felt much more relaxed. There was no sense of danger at all.
Lonemoon looked down at himself, working like a dead dog. Then, he turned to glance at a certain someone, who was slumped in her chair. He could not help but stir trouble.
"Chef, is it right for you to be this relaxed?"
Chef picked up a pot and paused. He looked confused as he said, "But there aren't any invaders, and Shortie is looking after the plane. There isn't anything worth worrying about. Elder Shen is a judge as well. I don't think we will ever face any trouble in future." I don't think anybody blind would come and look for trouble on their own, would they?
"Oh." Lonemoon picked up a pastry from the counter and put the entire thing in his mouth. "How about you and Shen Ying? Don't you have any plans?"
"Master?" He turned to look at Shen Ying, still slumped down in her chair. His gaze softened and his entire body seemed to emit love. "As long as Master is by my side, I have nothing else to ask for."
"..." Lonemoon suddenly felt like he was choking on the pastry. He looked down immediately. I'm going blind, I'm going blind. I want to burn them so badly! He scanned Chef from head to toe and couldn't help but say, "Let me ask you – when are you planning to settle down with Shen Ying? Given your situation, do you think you'll obtain Elder Jing's approval?"
Chef's face drained of all colour at once. His hands began to tremble. The pot fell out of his hands and landed with a loud clunk. Even the True Phoenix Fire on the stove went out.
"Holy shit! Are you just thinking about it now?"
"..."
"You could not beat Shen Jing when she was just a monitor. Do you think you can beat her now?"
"..."
"What are you looking at me for? I can't do anything about it. Shen Jing loves controlling her younger sister – you know that. She'll kill you for sure!"
"..."
"Don't do this... There's no point squatting down and drawing circles on the floor!"
"..." Autistic!
"Wait... What are you holding your sword for?"
"..."
"Holy shit, let me go! I don't want to join in your perverted training!"
Shit, he would not have stirred trouble if he had known earlier that this would happen!