Awkward Encounter (Part 2)

It was not just Tie Zhu who was shocked, but Bing Meifeng and Tao Keke had also expressed their shock.

"...Uhhh no, I don't have a girlfriend right now, but I'm I don't know if Bing Meifeng would even agree to that, right?" Tie Zhu replied nervously looking towards Bing Meifeng after a brief silence as he tried to word himself carefully.

"...."

Taking into account Bing Meifeng's prideful, frosty personality he expected her to quickly refute her mothers suggestion however to his surprise she had actually not said anything this whole time. Instead a faint blush covered her face as she turned her face towards the ground as if accepting her mother suggestion!

"See, even she agrees. So how about it, why don't you kids go out on a date this weekend?" Xiao Ling suddenly said excitedly. The reason why she had done this was not only because of Tie Zhu's food, but because she had guessed that her daughter had some sort of feelings for him. Furthermore she could see that his childhood friend Tao Keke had also had feelings for him and would likely be a competitor for Bing Meifeng in the future if she did not take any initiative. With this being the case, of course she would take the side of her daughter.

'Whats happening! Surely this is a mistake or something, am I dreaming?' Tie Zhu couldn't help but think. Because of what he had done to Bing Meifeng yesterday he had expected her to hate him, however this did not seem to be the case. Since she was also his first woman of course he did not want to ever let her go either, however the problem now was that Tao Keke was also present and he had already scheduled a date with her for tomorrow, where he planned on expressing his feelings to her! He did not want to hurt the feelings of either woman, however he could not think of what to say.

"I don't agree with this! I'm already going on a date with him tomorrow." Tao Keke suddenly said angrily. She was not usually one to be confrontational, however she could not stand it any longer as could not accept the sudden turn in situation. 'Wasn't Tie Zhu only supposed to be her chef? How did it end up like this, and why didn't he say anything?' She worried, as it now seemed that there was something more serious between them.

"Why does that matter? As long as you two are not boyfriend and girlfriend then he can date whoever he wants. Isn't that right?" Xiao Ling said directing her eyes again to Tie Zhu, putting him once again into an awkward situation. This was the first time that two different women had actually showed interest to go out on a date with him.

"Yeah... No.. I mean I'm not sure. Give me more time to think about it, but now I have to cook breakfast otherwise we will be late for school." Tie Zhu said unsure on how to respond without offending either woman.

Without wasting much time Tie Zhu quickly went to the kitchen to begin preparing the meal, breathing a sigh of relief as if he had just escaped from a prison. The meal that he had in plan for today's breakfast was steamed fish with rice, however this was no ordinary steamed fish and rice. The main ingredient, the fish was actually an almost transparent, crystal clear fillet, defined with lustrous streaks of beautiful blue lines from a celestial permafrost moon fish, while the perfectly oval shaped grains of rice radiated with a misty golden luster, that gave it the name of Heaven Dew Rice.

Since the rice would take the longest to cook it was the first thing on Tie Zhu's list to prepare. Although normally, Tie Zhu would thoroughly rinse the rice to remove excess starch this time he did not as he did not want to remove the precious dew that was covering it. With this being the case, it only took him a short time to finish preparing it before moving on to the main course.

After putting some water in a large pot, Tie Zhu quickly took out a set of bamboo steamers that he planned on using to steam the fish. Taking out four large portions of fish that he had prepared yesterday, he carefully seasoned both sides of the fillet with a tiny pinch of Colossal Armageddon Crocodile Salt (CACS), before covering both sides with scallions, ginger and coriander to give it a familiar taste. After repeating this with all the other pieces of fish, he placed them all in different plates, splashing in a tiny bit of heaven dew rice wine before carefully placing them in the already steaming bamboo steamers.

Now that he had finished with the main parts of the all he had to do now was to prepare a flavored oil to give the fish its final seasoning. This oil however was not too special as he wanted to keep some traditional flavors that he enjoyed. After the oil heated up, he browned some thin slices of ginger, before sizzling some scallions and adding some soy sauce, emitting a fragrant scent in the air. However this scent was completely overwhelmed by the extremely intoxicating aroma coming from the rice and fish, that even he had to hold himself back from eating all of it while it was still cooking.

He had been so focused on cooking the meal that he did not notice that all three women had already stepped into the kitchen. They had been lured in by the scent that they even temporarily forgot about their grievences, as they all stared wide eyed at Tie Zhu and the pots where the fragrance had originated from with drool leaking from the side of their mouths.

In fact, the intense aroma was so strong that it actually permeated its way through the entire top 15 floors of the residential building, causing torment to all of those residents! Although they were able to smell such a divine aroma, knowing that they could never taste what ever it was had caused them severe grief as they could not even pin point where the scent had originated from. For some, the torture was so great that they had to immediately evacuate the building and contemplate moving out entirely to suppress those memories.