Master of Kaidan
Chapter 148 No Woman Can Resist This Temptation

Chapter 148: Chapter 148 No Woman Can Resist This Temptation

"Miss Q, you wanted to see me?" Miranda, dressed in her everyday attire, entered the office and asked the ageless woman before her.

"Indeed, the Demon Chef has surfaced again and this time his target was at the same supermarket as you, even at the exact same time," Miss Q picked up a file bag and handed it to Miranda, whose expression immediately turned peculiar.

As she received the file bag, she found screenshots from the supermarket’s surveillance footage from the day before. In several shots, the Asian youth clad in a luxurious suit was quite eye-catching.

Yet, this conspicuous individual managed to escape the notice of both herself as bait and an agent disguised as a supermarket employee.

Miranda was not particularly surprised by this, or rather, a month earlier, through analyzing various traces left by the Demon Chef, they deduced that he possessed a kind of power that rendered him undetectable.

Flipping past those photos, symbols of her failure, Miranda saw yesterday’s chosen target—

Joan Horami, female, 36 years old, a full-time housewife, whose husband was a director of a public company, with two children...

"As precise as always," Miranda commented under her breath while looking at the woman’s profile, wondering if the Demon Chef’s knack for picking well-off matrons was based on supernatural powers or merely eye power. But as she turned the page again, her expression became slightly astonished—

"Miss Q, is this photo misplaced? Or is it from ten years ago?"

"No, it was taken this noon," Miss Q said with a serious expression, and Miranda’s face lit up with interest.

Because the woman in the photo, while still bearing the shadow of Joan Horami on her facial features, appeared at least ten years younger... no, fifteen years younger than in the other photos!

The previous photos highlighted her forehead and crow’s feet wrinkles, sagging facial muscles, deep-set eye sockets... all these signs were quite evident. But in this photo, the woman’s smooth and supple skin made Miranda a touch envious.

"Is this the Demon Chef’s power?" Miranda quickly grasped the essence of the issue and Miss Q nodded in affirmation:

"Exactly, this Mrs. Horami is a member of the Hillston Community Forum, and after the legend of the Demon Chef started circulating on the forum, she grew interested in Chinese cuisine. According to the post she made on the forum this morning, she wanted to try some Chinese ’beauty and wellness’ food yesterday, so she went out to buy some ingredients, and just happened to encounter the Demon Chef."

"And then the Demon Chef really made her a ’beauty and wellness’ dinner using the ingredients she bought?" Miranda stared blankly at the radiant woman in the photo, momentarily hesitant—

If she really did reel in this Demon Chef, should she indulge in a meal he prepared before capturing him?

Miss Q, being a woman herself, naturally guessed Miranda’s thoughts. She shifted slightly in her chair before speaking:

"We can’t yet confirm if this beautifying effect is durable, or if there are certain costs involved. More observation is needed over a longer period. However, there’s no denying that with this incident fermenting, the demon chef’s influence is likely to surge once again. We’d better catch it fast."

The word "cost" cooled Miranda’s initial enthusiasm, and she couldn’t help but recall the legendary tales of demons granting human wishes at the price of lifespans or souls. However, as a woman, she knew all too well the devastating allure of reversing aging.

If people could return to their twenty-year-old selves, even if it meant selling their souls, there would likely be more than a few willing to try.

Not to mention anyone else, even she wanted to give it a try, okay?

After a moment of contemplation, she finally spoke:

"Ms. Q, is it possible to impose a lockdown on the news?"

"It’s futile," Ms. Q shook her head. "Now in Bakerland, who knows how many devotees of the demon chef there are. After that post went up, countless people have already seen it. Even if we delete the forum post now, there’s MSN, and even the spread by word of mouth. In the end, the targets the demon chef chooses are females with certain social status; we simply can’t limit their right to speak. Otherwise, those human rights organizations, dog-like as they are, will swarm us. In fact, just regulating forum posts could attract a bunch of troublemakers hiding under the banner of ’freedom of speech’..."

...

Just as Miranda and Ms. Q had predicted, at this point, the entire housewife circle in Bakerland was in an uproar.

No woman could resist the temptation of regaining youth, especially since the woman who posted, Mrs. Joan Horami, was no stranger. Quite the contrary, she was quite well-known among the housewives, many of whom had met her in person. It was for this reason that her rejuvenation seemed so irrefutable.

By this time, housewives who had never encountered the demon chef yearned deeply, while those who had met him beat their chests in regret, as they suddenly realized that the mysterious gentleman crafted dishes based on the ingredients provided. If you only prepared beef, you could only get a steak, but if you prepared ingredients known for their health and medicinal properties, he could create magic food that could reverse aging.

Instantly, search engines in Bakerland were overtaken by keywords like Yan Country cuisine, medicinal food, dietary therapy, and the like. Wealthier housewives began researching Yan Country cuisine, and the Amazon shopping platform received a flood of orders for Yan Country cookbooks from Bakerland.

The craze began to wane around the third day because Mrs. Joan, who had reversed her aging, seemed to be aging again.

However, as people worried whether the three days of youth would come at an even higher cost, the aging stopped.

Mrs. Joan’s appearance, although older than after consuming the "magic food," still maintained a look of around thirty years old, undoubtedly still much younger than before she ate that dish.

Some people continued to wait and see, wondering if aging would resume after the next three, five days, or perhaps even longer. Meanwhile, those willing to gamble maintained their original intent, purchasing various ingredients claimed to have beautifying and health-preserving properties daily. Even without the delicious demon, they relied on their own interpretations of the cookbook to make all sorts of strange dark cuisine, which, apparently, to Victorians, still seemed somewhat acceptable?

...

Feng Xue, who generated this trend and was known for leading discussions online, was of course aware of it. But he didn’t do anything else and maintained a regular lifestyle. A momentary craze held no meaning for urban legends; only when all the excitement had settled could those stories that continued to be told transform into true Kaidan...