79 The Meeting of the Cooks

Xiao Ying stood off to the side as he watched all the children go about their day and pretend that nothing at all happened the day before and the prior morning.

They still all worked together folding together various vegetable bao together, placing them all on a wooden and floured tray to be passed on to the next member of staff in the kitchen, the head cook suspiciously absent today.

From her hurried and harried look this morning, as she sprinted out of the kitchens and off inside deeper towards the centre of the Imperial palace, there was some important meeting that had been lined up to occur that day that she was late for.

Muttering angrily underneath her breath, she had stomped past the quartet and off, slamming the doors behind her as she raved on about various officials and their fickleness and uptight attitudes, complaining that she was by no means a miracle worker and that they needed to get off her back.

Taking one look at Ming Cheng, Xiao Ying found himself hesitant to leave the little boy alone.

As much as he was trying to hide his activities, it was obvious that the small child was taking each and every opportunity that was available to him to keep Xiao Ying within his line of sight, those large and searching eyes too distinct to be ignored in the reflections that Xiao Ying looked at him through when his back was turned.

Ming Cheng was discreet, yes, but he was still fundamentally a child and was still ultimately quite clumsy when it came down to it.

Qi Tao seemed to have toned down his exuberance from the day prior, leaving Qi Qing to snap at him far less, with Wang Yuan continuing on with what he had already done the day before.

They constantly asked Ming Cheng questions on what he wanted to do next, buttering up to him but never coming quite as close to initiate physical contact, moving to his line of sight whenever they needed to say something and using teamwork to ensure that this quickly established makeshift system worked.

It was truly an ingenious thing and Xiao Ying that if he was their age, he definitely wouldn't be able to reach that level of co operation and would probably end up forgetting that he was supposed to be working to accommodate Ming Cheng.

Also, it required him to have friends which already automatically disqualified him from meeting their standards.

Nevertheless, Xiao Ying wasn't actually back in his own world right now...

He was technically free to do as he liked at the moment, as long as he didn't accidently reveal himself to all the others.

He was free to play along with all the others, wasn't he?

He was allowed to relax and give himself the freedom to have some fun like all the others here?

It didn't really matter that he over triple their ages, he was still human right?

It was fine if he took a day off.

Right?

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