The silence was a physical weight, pressing down on the dusty street of Maple Creek.
The only sounds were the frantic, shallow gasps of Junior Brother Zhang and the steady, ominous simmer from Lin Fan's pot.
Lin Fan's own breath caught in his throat.
The ladle felt alien in his hand, a simple kitchen tool that had just performed a miracle, or a catastrophe.
He looked from the kneeling cultivator, whose face was a twisted mask of agony and humiliation, to the splatter of broth staining the pristine white robe.
It steamed gently, the ordinary, comforting scent of pork bones now smelling like a threat.
Leng Xuan was the first to move. She stepped forward, her movements still fluid and graceful, but her icy composure was fractured.
Her gaze, sharp and analytical, swept from her junior brother to the pot of broth and finally settled on Lin Fan.
The astonishment in her eyes was being rapidly filed away, replaced by a deep, calculating curiosity.
"Junior Brother Zhang," she said, her voice cutting through the tension like a knife. "Can you circulate your qi?"
He looked up, his eyes wide with panic.
"It's... it's clogged! My dantian... it feels like it's full of gravel and fire! What demonic art is this?!" He scrambled backward, pointing a trembling finger at Lin Fan. "He's a demonic practitioner! A heretic!"
"He used soup," Leng Xuan stated flatly, her tone leaving no room for argument.
She knelt, ignoring Zhang's sputtering, and placed two fingers on his wrist.
A faint, frosty aura emanated from her fingertips. Her brow furrowed slightly.
"The spiritual energy within the broth is... complex. It didn't attack you. It... disrupted you. It introduced foreign concepts your Frost Moon Art couldn't process."
She stood and turned her full attention to Lin Fan.
The winter in her eyes had thawed into a piercing, focused intensity.
"Cook. What is your name?"
"Lin Fan," he managed, his voice hoarse.
"Lin Fan." She tested the name, as if its taste could reveal his secrets. "What did you put in the broth?"
"The same things I always use," Lin Fan said, his pragmatism reasserting itself despite the tremor in his hands. "Pork bones, spring water, ginger, scallions, a few spices. Nothing an 'immortal' would find remarkable." He gestured to the now-lukewarm bowl Zhang had abandoned. "You ate it. Did it taste demonic to you?"
A flicker of something, amusement?, touched the very corner of Leng Xuan's mouth before vanishing.
"It tasted... balanced." She took a step closer, and Lin Fan felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. "Your spiritual root. What is its attribute?"
Lin Fan gave a short, bitter laugh.
"I have no spiritual root. The elders called it 'Culinary Trash.' My dantian is a barren field."
"Barren fields do not produce harvests that can incapacitate a Foundation Establishment cultivator," she countered, her voice dropping low. "What you just did... it should be impossible."
By now, a small crowd had gathered at a safe distance, their whispers a nervous hum.
Uncle Guo was staring at Lin Fan as if he'd grown a second head.
The third Frost Moon disciple, who had remained silent throughout, finally stepped forward, his hand resting on his sword hilt.
"Senior Sister Leng, we should take him back to the sect for questioning," he said, his eyes wary. "This... anomaly cannot be ignored."
Leng Xuan held up a hand, silencing him. Her gaze never left Lin Fan.
"There will be no taking. And no questioning." Her decision was absolute. She looked at the still-struggling Junior Brother Zhang. "Help him up. We are returning to the sect. Now."
"But Senior Sister—!"
"That is an order."
The finality in her tone brooked no argument.
The other disciple reluctantly hauled a pale and trembling Zhang to his feet, supporting him as they began a slow, shamed walk out of the village.
Leng Xuan lingered for a moment longer.
She reached into a small pouch at her waist and placed two silver taels on the counter, the exact price for three bowls of noodles. No more, no less.
"Lin Fan," she said, her voice so quiet only he could hear it. "What you possess is not trash. There are those who will kill to possess it, or to destroy it."
She turned to leave, her white robes swirling around her.
Then she paused, glancing back over her shoulder.
The exhaustion he had seen earlier was back in her eyes, deeper now, and underscored with a genuine, uncharacteristic concern.
"That 'barren field' of yours," she said. "Be ready to tend it."
And with that, she was gone, following her juniors, leaving Lin Fan alone in the sudden, deafening normalcy of his stall.
The crowd, seeing the drama was over, slowly dispersed, casting backward glances filled with a new, uneasy respect.
Lin Fan stood frozen, his mind reeling. Her words echoed in his head.
His eyes fell on the black-iron wok, sitting on its stove, simple and unassuming.
It was the only thing of value his grandfather had left him.
Along with the set of chipped kitchen knives, it was part of the "inheritance" he was supposed to protect.
Driven by a sudden, powerful impulse, he walked over to it.
He ran a hand over its curved surface. It was cool to the touch, its iron dark and unreflective, seeming to drink the light.
It was just a wok. Wasn't it?
He thought of his grandfather's dying words, whispered with his last breath.
"Fan'er... the Restaurant... is real. The wok... the knives... they are the foundation. You are the Unfired Cauldron..."
He had thought the old man was delirious, speaking of legends and metaphors from the stories he'd told as a child.
Tales of the Gourmet Dao, a path where chefs were kings and a meal could topple empires.
"The Unfired Cauldron."
A cauldron that had never felt flame. A vessel of pure potential.
He looked at his hands, the hands that could pull perfect noodles, but could not grasp a wisp of spiritual energy.
The hands that had just, with a ladle of soup, defeated a cultivator.
A slow, dawning understanding began to push through his shock and grief.
The elder who tested him was wrong. They were all wrong.
He wasn't broken. He was just... different.
He wasn't meant to absorb the energy of the world. He was meant to transform it. To cook it.
He wasn't Culinary Trash. He was a chef.
And this wok, these knives... they were his spiritual tools.
He picked up his cleaver. The weight of it in his hand felt different now.
Not just a tool for dicing vegetables, but an extension of his will.
A strange, warm sensation, faint but undeniable, pulsed from the handle into his palm.
It wasn't the cold energy the cultivators wielded.
It was a warmth, like the heart of a well-tended fire. It felt like... potential.
Lin Fan took a deep, shuddering breath, the scent of his broth filling his lungs, the scent of his power.
The world had just become infinitely more dangerous, and infinitely more vast.
He looked out at the empty street where the cultivators had vanished.
"Alright, Grandfather," he whispered to the quiet air. "Show me how to tend this field."