Early in the morning, Sen Tian Makki was woken up by the sound of snow shoveling outside.
Rubbing her eyes awake, her vision gradually cleared, and at last, Makki remembered that she had stayed over at Xia Yu's house, and the bed she was lying on…
She looked around, pulled the blanket over her head, but after a few seconds, poked her small head out again. Her nostrils were fluttering non-stop, like a lazy cat sniffing its owner's scent, the longer she sniffed, the brighter her eyes shone, "Yu's scent!"
After speaking, her cheeks turned red in an instant. This behavior, resembling that of a female pervert, made Makki bow her head like an ostrich.
A real cat stopped outside the door, sitting there with a call that carried a hint of familiarity.
"Are you telling me to get up?"
Makki couldn't bear to leave the warmth of her bed, pushed open the window, and after discovering who was shoveling the snow outside, her eyes filled with both astonishment and delight, "Right, Christmas presents!"
Without even bothering to freshen up, she quickly straightened her long black hair in the mirror, and Makki dashed downstairs, Hua Mao gracefully following.
She stopped at the door.
Upon hearing the footsteps, Xia Yu turned his head and greeted her, the smile quite natural and without a trace of fatigue from practicing cooking all night.
The snow in front of the door was also cleared, and a path was made, but as for building snowmen, Xia Yu really didn't have the leisurely mood to do so, considering he was no longer a little kid.
After putting the shovel back in the backyard storeroom, when Xia Yu returned to the store, he noticed that the Yuchuan Sisters had also come over from the apartment next door.
Someone was yawning by the stairs.
"Ah, everyone's up?" Zhu Qing rubbed her eyes.
"It's not even seven o'clock yet, you guys are early!" Xia Yu curled the corners of his mouth.
Meisha immediately came up close, like a child waiting for a red envelope, "Boss Xia, Boss Xia, where are the gifts? I was a bit sad this morning when I didn't find them in the socks by my bed."
Noticing several pairs of expectant eyes on him, Xia Yu laughed, "You're all thinking about that, huh!"
At the same time, he murmured to himself in his heart.
It seemed that his circle of friends and relatives placed quite an importance on this Christmas gift. He thought about the night he'd spent working on the gift, for the task related to Taboo Spices, oh, it should be said he'd spent many days in the virtual space. At last, he had captured the shimmering key.
As for whether the key was correct or whether it could open the door to the corresponding gourmet treat…
At that moment, a sound indicating the oven was done came from the kitchen direction.
Hearing this, Xia Yu's expression became more focused, no longer in the mood for jokes, and he quickly went inside. Donning heat-resistant gloves, he fetched a large baking tray.
Zhu Qing and Makki followed inside.
There were four golden, teardrop-shaped loaves of bread, carrying a rich mixed scent.
But aside from the shape, the crusts of the bread weren't much to look at, uneven with some black and dark red particles mixed in, which were actually crushed nuts and raisins.
Makki, smelling the scent, said curiously, "It doesn't seem much different from the usual 'German Christmas Cake' ..."
"Mm, there's no difference in taste, at least from the scent, we can tell the ingredients are all regular," commented Ayaka, a fellow expert in the field of pastries.
"But this is just the base of the cake, right?"
Xia Yu picked up a bowl of melted butter, held a brush, and began evenly applying the hot butter to each cake.
Seeing this, Meisha raised her hand, "I know this step, it's the finishing touch!"
"If it were my sister, at this point, she would probably use a unique vanilla sugar to sprinkle on, right?" But then she threw the topic back to Ayaka.
Ayaka was momentarily stunned, then pursed her lips, "Vanilla sugar is sugar with vanilla flavor, either granules or powdered, and if you're a dessert lover then you'd probably really like it…"
While speaking, she watched Xia Yu take a strange bowl and, with a spoon, scoop up the white-as-snow powder from it, sprinkling it over the bread that had just been buttered.
It could have been an illusion, but Ayaka's eyes seemed a bit distant, and her vision was sparkling with a strange halo.
As a Lin Chef, Zhu Qing immediately sniffed something amiss and exclaimed, "Then what is this white powder?"
Xia Yu removed the spoon, looked at the four finished products on the baking tray, and clapped his hands.
Thus, the originally unsightly bread underwent a thorough transformation.
The powder fell like snow, covering the bread, some of it merging with the butter to form a frosting-like film.
Opening his mouth, Xia Yu was about to invite the friends and relatives beside him to enjoy his latest creation, but unexpectedly, the system jumped out at that moment, giving him a cooking assessment message.
Actually, Xia Yu didn't need to call anyone. When the bread was enveloped in frost and snow, Zhu Qing and Makki's eyes lit up, unable to look away no matter what.
An indescribable culinary aura trapped them.
Even Zhu Qing felt a small tremor inside: "It looks so ordinary..."
She bit her teeth in disbelief.
"Then let's have a taste!"
Glancing left and right, Zhu Qing grabbed a fruit knife, at least aware of the proper way to eat this type of hard cake. Since it was fresh out of the oven, it definitely couldn't be eaten directly with hands, so she cut her share of the cake into even slices, making it less scalding to handle.
As the bread was sliced, the cross-section came into view. Zhu Qing stared, "The ingredients are indeed those from last night, no mistake; crushed dried nuts include almonds, walnuts, and other ingredients like dried fruits, salted lemon slices and such, and there are plenty of spices, cardamom, cinnamon powder..."
Slowly, her mouth unconsciously moved closer to the bread, about to take a bite.
But at that moment, Zhu Qing trembled, her eyes showing horror.
A calm, waveless sea appeared in her mind, a quiet daytime with no wind or waves. Unexpectedly, many bubbles appeared on the surface, and a dark shadow beneath the sea rapidly enlarged.
A behemoth surfaced, emitting a dull roar that seemed to shake the heavens. At the same time, a column of shiny golden water shot high into the sky, sprinkling droplets everywhere.
Some of the droplets splashed against her face.
Golden lightning struck in the deepest recesses of her brain. After closing her eyes for a while and then opening them again, Zhu Qing, finally showing surprise, nibbled on the crust of the bread she held in her hand.
The bread's texture couldn't really be called soft.
Biting down, huh, the very first bite contained almond, the roasted nuts were like an oasis in a golden desert, and Zhu Qing felt the thrill of a hunter on a treasure hunt.
"Mmm, there's almond in this bite!"
"Wow, wow, wow, I got walnut, crunchy, crunchy, so fragrant!"
"The raisins are so sweet!"
Beside her, Makki and Meisha were exclaiming loudly.
Unconsciously eating several pieces, Zhu Qing's mouth grew tired from chewing, and she closed her eyes to chase the images bestowed by the chef onto the food.
Each jewel gleamed dazzlingly, like treasures on the road of life.
This road stretched endlessly within her view.
"Life is full of treasures everywhere, reminding us to mind our steps, but also to carry hope and courage to move forward, right?" Zhu Qing roughly understood the chef's intention.
This was a Christmas gift.
Instead of speaking profound truths, it was better to let friends and relatives come to their own realizations through food—that was Xia Yu's holiday blessing for them.
When Zhu Qing truly finished her share of the cake, her brows were tightly furrowed.
"There's something not right..."