Handmade Incense

The grievances which lingered on Xu Yao had not dissipated even after they returned home, yet Le Yao had already thought of the punishment he wanted meted out at night. Who told him to always make fun of me!  

Le Yao even made dinner according to the standards of 'the last meal ever of one's life'. He made dishes like steamed fish, cabbage roll meat, broccoli with shrimp and cold cucumber salad. He also made corn soup with minced chicken, and cut a yellow peach into small pieces, then put it in a plate with strawberries.

Four dishes, one soup, two bowls of rice, and one fruit plate, such a delicious and nutritious meal! The more Xu Yao looked at it, the more he realized that his wife was really good at cooking and it was worth marrying him.

When Yan Jie came to ask Xu Yao something, he saw several delicacies laid out on the table. He asked very confusedly, "Brother Xu, did you order these dishes from the cafeteria?"

Xu Yao replied, "Is there such a delicious dish available in the cafeteria? These dishes? Of course they've been made by my wife." 

Yan Jie: "…" Seriously?

In fact, Le Yao was aware that Yan Jie hadn't liked him from the first time they met. But since this person was Xu Yao's subordinate, surely he would come here often. So, since he still hoped that everyone could get along peacefully, he said, "Would you like to eat dinner here? The food is enough for the three of us."

Yan Jie was a foodie. He couldn't believe in Xu Yao's words which said that the dishes had been made by Le Yao. He stood still, just staring at the dishes and not leaving. Since he had always been suspicious of Le Yao, he felt embarrassed in accepting this offer. Just as he was about to refuse, Xu Yao interrupted, "Don't mind him. He must have had dinner in the canteen. Besides, I can eat all of this by myself."

Le Yao: "…" Could you give him some face?

Le Yao was feeling embarrassed for Yan Jie, how could Xu Yao say something like that?

Yan Jie forced his eyes away from the delicious food. "Thank you for your offer, Mr Xiao Le, but I have eaten. Take your time. I have something else to do." He said that and left.

After the door closed, Le Yao complained, "Why are you being so mean to him? It was just a little bit of food and you became picky about it with your subordinates."

Xu Yao replied, "If someone else cooks it, I won't be stingy. But since my wife cooked this food, can it have the same value?" 

Le Yao's face became hot and he shouted, "When you were in school, did you take a 'how to sweet-talk' class? Just say you want to eat all of this!"

Xu Yao smiled, "If you know that I want to eat it all by myself, why did you ask Yan Jie to stay? Next time, don't cook more than eight dishes for the table and you're not allowed to invite another person to eat it, got it?"

Le Yao said, "I got it. Come on, you have to eat quickly."

After eating, take a bath and go to sleep! 

Xu Yao ​​was wondering  what Le Yao was thinking about. When he saw Le Yao's expression, he thought it was strange. After they returned from buying vegetables and fruits, he was as angry as a blown-up puffer fish. How come he seemed fine now?

Le Yao's portion of food was not large. At least it was much lesser than that of Xu Yao's, so he finished his dinner in a short time. He forked up a few yellow peaches and strawberries to get rid of the greasy feeling, and then went to work on the two branches.

These branches were something that had grown outside. As he was unsure if there were any insects on them or not,  he had placed them in the yard temporarily after they had brought them back. Before making it into incense, it has to be cleaned and dried thoroughly, and then it will be crushed into powder.

Le Yao took some small branches and thought that he could break it with a little effort, but his strength didn't seem to be enough. Sigh. The branches couldn't be cut using his small scissors either, but there must be a saw blade or an axe in this place, otherwise he wouldn't be able to cut the bigger branches. 

"General, do you have a saw blade or axe at home?" Le Yao shouted at the house.

"..." The person inside was silent and didn't answer him.

"This damn general!" Le Yao called to the other courtyard, "Uncle Ming! Are you busy at home?"

"I'm not. What can I help you with, Mr Xiao Le?" 

"Do you have a saw blade or an axe over there? I want to borrow it if you have one."

"Yes, I do. Just a moment." Uncle Ming went back to his house and soon found an axe for Le Yao. He saw Le Yao toss the branches on the ground and asked, "What will you do with that?"

"I just want to make something to play with. Thank you for the axe, Uncle Ming," said Le Yao.

Uncle Ming said nothing more and went back to his house. When Le Yao held the axe, he found that it was heavier than he had thought it would be. He used it to cut a few times at the small branch and it didn't even chip much. Although the sun was already setting, the temperature outside was still 32 degrees Celsius. He was sweating all over and felt very tired. Added to this was that he had never done any heavy work like this, so it was all the more difficult. 

After Xu Yao finished his dinner and went out to stand at the door, he realized that his wife was holding a heavy axe and looked very tired. In fact, the work itself might not be too tiring, but it wasn't the same when the temperature was so high.

Sigh. He couldn't stand it anymore. Xu Yao came down and held Le Yao's hand. He took the axe away carefully, "How do you want to cut it?"

"I want to cut it into pieces about twenty centimeters long," said Le Yao.

The branches also needed to be put into the intelligent chef for processing, so they couldn't be too long, no matter how wide they were. 

Xu Yao raised his chin toward the living room, "Go inside and get me my cigarette. It was on the table."

As soon as Le Yao saw that the man seemed to want to help cut the branches, he hurried into the room to get the cigarette and even lit it.

Xu Yao rubbed Le Yao's head, "It's hot outside. Just wait inside and I'll cut this for you!"

Le Yao indeed felt a little hot, so he went back into the house to make some mango shaved ice. Before, the mango had fallen onto the ground. The part that had landed on the ground was a little damaged, but since it had grown to be quite big, there were still many places which were intact. He was going to make mango shaved ice, which would be just a perfect relief for the heat. 

Le Yao cut the mango and kept glancing outside from time to time. He could see that Xu Yao was busy cutting the branches. Xu Yao was wearing a white I-shaped vest and a thin but opaque pair of dark blue linen household pants. His movements were very precise and efficient, every time he wielded the axe. As long as the axe went down, it would cut out a piece of the branch that was about 20 cm, neatly and tidily.

Human beings have a predisposition of admiring strong people. At this moment, even Le Yao had to recognize his husband's strength. Sometimes this man looked really attractive. When he wielded the axe, the muscles on his shoulders and back tightened and looked very strong. When some sweat slid down from his forehead, it made the honeyed skin sexier.

After a while, Xu Yao felt hot and was sweating all over, so he took off his vest. He just tossed it aside, stood up straight, blew out cigarette smoke, took a branch and broke it into pieces with his bare arms.

Yes, it might take a whole day for Le Yao to do this task. This man would finish it soon! 

Le Yao put more pieces of mango into the big bowl of shaved ice, and said in a low voice, "For your hard work, I've put more pieces of sweet mango for you~"

"What are you muttering about there?"

Le Yao was surprised, "I… I made mango shaved ice. Do you want to eat?" When did Xu Yao come in? So immortal, how come I didn't hear his footsteps?

Xu Yao said, "I'll wash my hands first." 

After that, they sat at the front door side by side, eating mango shaved ice and chatting. There was a big bowl for Xu Yao and a small one for Le Yao. Suddenly, Le Yao asked in a serious voice, "Will your army stay here for a long time?"

Xu Yao said, "Hmm, It's hard to say. But that's more likely. Why do you ask?" Xu Yao turned his head to Le Yao, "Do you think it's not good here?"

Le Yao shook his head, "No. I like this place. It's hot here, but it's better than it was in Xingdu."

No matter how bad it is, this planet is also my hometown. Moreover, there are no pesky white lotuses and green tea bitches here. 

Xu Yao wanted to find something to cover Le Yao's eyes. No matter what he thought, Le Yao's eyes were full of his real feelings. What he had just said was the truth. Although it was not clear on why he thought this way, it was hard to find someone who had the same idea as himself. Xu Yao felt very pleased with his wife.

Xu Yao took a few big mouthfuls of the mango shaved ice in his bowl, and then scooped out most of the mango pieces from the small bowl into his own. Le Yao, who was originally looking into the distance and thinking about things, soon found that his bowl had become very light. He looked down at his bowl. What had happened ah? Why were there only a few mango pieces left? 

He looked at the big wolf beside him.

"You have enough mango to eat in your bowl! Why did you rob mine?" Le Yao covered the rest of the mango pieces in his bowl, bent on protecting them to death. He wanted to call all his ghost brothers and have them hold a party on Xu Yao's back! 

"You're an omega. It's not good to eat too much cold food." Xu Yao held back his laughter and quickly turned around to enter the house.

"Then you can scoop up the ice! Why did you scoop up my mango?" Le Yao quickly followed him in, but Xu Yao had already entered the bathroom. He banged his hand on the bathroom door and shouted, "You are a bully!"

A low laughter emerged from the bathroom.

Le Yao was too angry and too lazy to care about him, so he went back to the kitchen to study the other functions of the intelligent chef. By the time he understood them more or less, Xu Yao had finished bathing. Because of the grievance on him, he went to sleep very early. 

After pondering on it, Le Yao decided to let Xu Yao go temporarily. When he was sleeping, he could feel that Xu Yao had an uneasy rest. He was probably having a nightmare. In fact, it was a pretty miserable situation. Upon realizing this, he began to wonder what Xu Yao had done to accumulate so many grievances.

The weather was not so bad the next day. It was not as hot as the previous day. In the morning, Le Yao had just gotten up to prepare breakfast when Xu Yao rushed out from the bedroom and left.

"What about your breakfast?" Le Yao shouted at him.

"You eat first, don't wait for me." The word 'me' had just reached Le Yao's ear and Xu Yao was already gone. 

This was the first time Le Yao had seen him in such a hurry and with a worried face. It was a pity that it was already morning. He couldn't get his ghost brothers to follow him. He simply took out the Tianxiang elm branches and put them into the belly of the intelligent chef, then chose the baking and crushing function. After doing this, he went to find Uncle Ming.

"Uncle Ming, do you know how to contact the supermarket's boss? I want to ask her if they have glutinous rice."

Uncle Ming said, "I don't have her communication code. Moreover, you have to go to the canteen if you want to buy rice, noodles or seasonings. Things like these are centrally supplied to the cafeteria and thus not sold in the supermarket. We don't have time nor the skill to cook, so most people here don't need these ingredients."

Le Yao recalled that the Flying Wolf Division had a cafeteria and that he had never been there. He asked Uncle Ming, "Can you take me along the next time you go there? I want to buy some ingredients." 

"You can make a list of the ingredients that you want to buy and I will bring them back for you. Soon, it will be time for breakfast, there will be many people in the canteen and the cooks may not be able to come to see you. Else, if you're not in a hurry, I'll take you there once breakfast is over."

After thinking about his own situation, Le Yao felt really uncomfortable with appearing in a place where Alphas were piled up. So he said, "Then I'll just make a list for you. Sorry to trouble you, Uncle Ming."

Le Yao not only wrote glutinous rice on the list, but also included milk, eggs, light cream and other ingredients necessary for making snacks. After that, he gave the list to Uncle Ming and transferred some money to him.

Uncle Ming accepted the list and went to the cafeteria to have breakfast. When he came back from breakfast, he bought all the things that Le Yao had wanted, except for some special spices. 

There were star anise, cumin, and common spices present, but sandalwood was not available.

When Le Yao had written the list, he had purely wanted to try his luck to see what kind of spices he could get here. It was fine if he had just these spices, at least he could still make incense with them.

Upon seeing that Uncle Ming was not in a good mood, he asked, "Uncle Ming, is there an urgent matter in the military? The General left in a hurry this morning."

Uncle Ming said, "It's nothing urgent. It's common for someone to get hurt when they are on a mission. Don't worry about it." 

"Oh."

After thanking Uncle Ming, Le Yao returned to the house to let the glutinous rice soak while he continued to prep the other incense materials.

It took about an hour and half for the intelligent chef to powder the Tianxing elm branches. Le Yao looked at the powdered branch and thought it had come out fine. After that, he also baked the soaked glutinous rice and had it ground into powder. Because there was no glue, he planned to make it from the glutinous rice flour.

He found a small clean electric pot and poured in some water, added the glutinous rice flour to it and turned it to boil on minimum heat. 

Once the glutinous rice glue was made, he took a small bowl,  added the Tianxing elm powder, cumin powder, some of the glue and mixed it. As there were no suitable fragrant spices available at this time, he could only work with the cumin first! Let's see if the incense can be shaped or not.

After adding a certain amount of Tianxing elm powder and cumin powder, the dough became hard to stir, so he began to knead it by hand. Le Yao kneaded the dough into a ball like shape, then kneaded it into smaller balls one by one. He put them on the table to air-dry before putting them into the intelligent chef's stomach.

Later that night, a fragrant barbecue-like smell had permeated throughout the house!

… 

The author has something to say:

Xu Yao: My wife, did you cook barbecue?

Le Yao: No, I'm making incense!

Xu Yao: Incense? It's a piece of poop! 

Le Yao: （╯‵□′）╯︵┴─┴