Great! I'm surrounded by villains!
Chapter 201 - 121: Indulge in Desire!

Chapter 201: Chapter 121: Indulge in Desire!

Jiuyue returned with her tail between her legs, and carrying a thick notebook, she came to Duan Mingyuan’s room.

"Mr. Mingyuan, please instruct me!"

She moved a small chair over and opened her notebook earnestly, adopting the posture of a diligent student, "Why does no one listen when I speak?"

She too wanted to win people over with virtue just like Mr. Mingyuan, which is a crucial aspect of leadership.

"Have you been to see the Executive Chef?"

Duan Mingyuan, calculating with his fingers, had anticipated why Jiuyue had come to see him.

The reason he could persuade Hei Misa was that the creature revered him as though he were the Sun King, but to the Executive Chef, Jiuyue was simply a thorn in his side for taking over his kitchen, and mimicking the same approach would naturally be ineffective.

"Did he tell you to get lost?"

"Mr. Mingyuan is truly omniscient!"

Jiuyue gave a thumbs up, not hiding her admiration at all.

Duan Mingyuan thought Jiuyue, this little fox demon, was essentially quite clever, but simply inexperienced in the ways of the world, lacking expertise in many aspects of interpersonal communication.

"To deal with someone like the Executive Chef, other measures must be used, and only you can pull this off."

"What kind of measures?"

Jiuyue immediately perked up with interest.

"You just need to do this and that..."

.........

Before dinner time arrived, Jiuyue once again returned to the Executive Chef’s room.

This time, she came prepared.

The Executive Chef lay on his bed, immobile, and when he saw Jiuyue continuously carrying equipment into the room, an ominous premonition surged in his heart.

An induction cooker, an oven, an air fryer.

Just as he was about to speak up, Jiuyue approached him, and while he was opening his mouth, she stuffed a white cloth ball into it, silencing him to mere muffled noises.

The Executive Chef was both shocked and furious, but compared to their last encounter, a trace of fear had crept into his heart, as he had already guessed Jiuyue’s plan.

This fox demon must be some malevolent interspace creature, only a being from the most chaotic and twisted realms could conceive such a vile strategy!

But he was completely unable to stop Jiuyue’s actions, and could only watch helplessly as Jiuyue turned on the induction cooker, poured the hotpot base into the pot, and instantly, the aroma of butter mixed with spice filled the room. Before the hotpot even started boiling, Jiuyue wasn’t idle; she pushed the cart to the Executive Chef’s side, showing him the hotpot ingredients one by one.

Fatty beef slices, shrimp paste, duck intestines, tofu skin, wide vermicelli, tofu, and cabbage...

All these were ingredients she had carefully selected.

Before coming to visit the Executive Chef, she had made a special trip to the kitchen, and after inquiring from the staff, had learned about the chef’s preferences.

The Executive Chef’s eyes nearly popped out of his head, yet no matter how he struggled, he couldn’t get out of bed to escape from this hell of a sickroom.

After showing off each ingredient, Jiuyue set up the grill and started arranging various skewered meats on the cart in order.

No, you can’t do this!

The Executive Chef’s eyes were bloodshot. He tried to stop Jiuyue with his gaze, but it was in vain.

He couldn’t prevent her from placing the meats on the grill or block out the sound of sizzling fat from entering his ears. He tried holding his breath, but couldn’t last more than twenty seconds—before the aroma of meat overwhelmed him.

Seeing this, a devilish smile finally appeared on Jiuyue’s face.

Mr. Mingyuan had enlightened her with many facts about ascetics. Ascetics didn’t abstain from food out of distaste; on the contrary, this Executive Chef might have an even stronger appetite than most, but he firmly believed in controlling his desires, in being pure and free from worldly cravings, to better receive the divine revelations of the Sun King.

The essence of asceticism is to fight against one’s own desires.

So, the way to utterly break an ascetic is to tempt them into breaking their vows.

Resisting desires requires a long and painful process, but yielding to them is much too easy.

"Look at the grain on these skewers of lamb, as a gourmet you should know what that means, shouldn’t you?"

It was Jiuyue’s first time tempting someone to break their vows, yet she handled it with aplomb.

This was the innate talent of Fox Demons, as the ancient texts claimed they were naturally adept at luring people into drowning in their desires, beyond the point of escape.

The Executive Chef had wanted to close his eyes, but at the sound of Jiuyue’s seduction, he found himself prying them open a sliver against his will.

He certainly knew what the texture of the meat signified, that it was definitely high-quality lamb, that needed only to be roasted over a fire without too many spices for its aroma to fill the entire room.

In order to suppress his craving for food, he had not come into contact with such things for a long while.

He also saw Jiuyue skillfully placing the skewers on the grill, and recognized her professional technique at a glance.

Such a tender-looking young girl, who seemed hardly ever to engage in physical labor nor know the five cereals, turned out to be a master of roasting; he simply couldn’t imagine how delicious these skewers must taste.

His sense of time blurred as the Executive Chef became mesmerized by the roasting stove and meat, his gaze gluing to it and unable to move away in the slightest.

He watched Jiuyue shake the skewers that were seasoned with just some salt and cumin in front of him.

The gauze ball in his mouth was already soaked through with saliva; he, an Ascetic, secreted saliva incessantly like a dog seeing a bone.

This was torment.

He had never experienced such torment before.

"Would you like a bite?"

Jiuyue shook the skewer in front of the Executive Chef, whose eyes had gone straight, and despite his inner resistance, his body honestly reacted, nodding like pounding garlic.

Upon seeing this, she, under the wide-eyed gaze of the Executive Chef, brought the perfectly roasted skewer to her mouth, and a blissful smile of indulgence appeared on her face immediately.

The Executive Chef’s bed shook violently as he caught sight of the grease staining Jiuyue’s lips and couldn’t bear it any longer.

The Ascetic rules had been thrown to the back of his mind, and the only thing he could think about now was the lamb skewers.

In the end, asceticism was just another method of cultivation devised by his family.

Was asceticism important?

Perhaps not at all, perhaps the Sun King didn’t care at all about what his followers ate regularly!

No, the eternal Sun King was compassionate, and if he knew of the current situation, he would surely not want his devout followers to miss out on this sumptuous banquet.

"Do you know who I am?"

Jiuyue lightly wiped the corner of her mouth with her finger, and seeing the Executive Chef shake his head, she rolled up her sleeves and announced proudly, "I am Jiuyue, the youngest top-rated chef on Blue Star."

Although she had not yet taken the exam to obtain the certificate of a top-rated chef, this had been certified by the head of the Imperial Dining Room.

And the level of culinary skill on Blue Star held great weight among the stars, with the chefs from Blue Star occupying half the culinary scene in the Universe Company’s cafeterias.

"Would you like to experience the craftsmanship of a top-rated chef?"

The Executive Chef nodded eagerly, and whether it was an illusion or not, he even felt the gauze ball in his mouth take on the flavor of meat.

"Then sign this."

Jiuyue produced a prepared agreement, one of the conditions being to abandon the tradition of asceticism on the flagship and to return the holy kitchen to everyone who needed it.

The Executive Chef hesitated, but Jiuyue urged, "You have three seconds to consider, three, two, one—"

In the end, the Executive Chef lost to his hunger, once again becoming a slave to desire.

Having accomplished this feat, Jiuyue felt like she had opened the doors to a new world, experiencing a sense of achievement like never before.

She cast a contemptuous glance at the utterly defeated Executive Chef and said, "Give up the position of Executive Chef and start again as a dishwasher."