Kingdom of Corrosion

Cotton and Horse Soul, the renowned chefs, were not around, and what was left in Shadow were all cooking rookies. Conversely, it was a good thing they were not there, as it might have led to issues. Without automatically generated recipes, all ingredients needed to be cleaned, chopped, or processed—no one could withstand such work alone in the winter.

Assisting in the kitchen could easily lead to minor disagreements and quarrels, which in turn could break the principle of equality and lead to a hierarchy. Normally, to avoid being scolded, the assistants might have to flatter the head chef. Even if everyone could restrain themselves, emotionally, no one wanted to offend the head chef.

After three rounds of discussion, they finally decided to draw lots. Eight people were split into four groups, each responsible for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As for midnight snacks and afternoon tea, that would depend on the on-duty chef’s mood. Before drawing lots, they agreed on three rules: no scorn for unpleasant food, no instructing the on-duty chef, or else they would take the chef’s duty once.

The on-duty chef was obliged to cleanly prepare the ingredients and could improvise as long as they did not poison everyone, but wasting ingredients was prohibited. They were to try to balance meat and vegetables. Each round would involve an anonymous vote, where every individual from each group had to write down two groups’ names, and the team with the most votes would win a snack reward.

They used playing cards for drawing lots, forming pairs, and ultimately Lin Wu and Lin Meng ended up together. When the cards were revealed, everyone looked at Lin Meng with sympathy. Teaming with Lin Wu was perilous, the danger and the workload were only on you.

If Lin Wu were paired with others, perhaps they would do some work, but paired with Lin Meng, Lin Meng essentially became Cinderella. Nobody understood why these two formed such a bully-victim relationship, as Lin Wu seemed quite easy-going. Why target Lin Meng to bully? Importantly, both the process and the result seemed flawless.

Maya asked, "Lin Meng, do you want to swap with you?"

Stone egged on, "Swap, swap, that rascal does absolutely nothing." Stone and Maya had nothing to say to each other; in fact, apart from Lin Wu, everyone found it hard to interact with Maya alone, as Maya didn’t communicate. Stone would rather team up with a loafer, at least loafers would chat and share the blame.

Lin Wu sneered, "It seems everyone thinks they slack off; perhaps I should hold back a bit." But some sign of restraint wasn’t enough, so he used a sneer to control the ambiance, making others uneasy.

Lin Meng said, "It’s alright, what’s drawn is drawn. If one could reconsider a lot, why would one draw lots?"