Beginning with the Ubume Bird Chapter 180

Chapter 180: Chapter 17 Identity Fog

The thick-backed cleaver opened the belly and sliced through, the liver was highly toxic and was removed by Cha Xiaodao, wrapped in oil paper and set aside.

“Watch closely, the real show is about to begin.”

As he spoke, Cha Xiaodao poked the tip of his knife to lift the fin of the Fire Gold Shark and ran the blade across it, revealing a row of cartilage as fine as onion strands. Golden red and dazzling like fire, it was as clear as impurity-free rubies.

“This can be used as an ingredient for 'Buddha Jumps Over the Wall', I'll keep it for myself.”

“So, what are we going to eat?”

Li Yan held a silver pocket watch with a blue triangular rudder emblem on it. After looking it over, he also had a pretty good guess about the identity of this foreign devil.

“Shark meat, of course!”

Cha Xiaodao pointed with his hand.

The knife parted the snow-white fat and was doused with steaming hot water twice to clean off the sand. A few cuts later, he sliced the pale white meat of the fish into several large pieces.

“Set up the pot! Set up the pot! Got any wine?”

Cha Xiaodao shouted a few times and reached to test the heat of the oil pot; minced ginger and garlic went in, sizzling and popping in the oil.

The ingredients were all carried by Cha Xiaodao, cooking wine, soy sauce, and salt, nothing was missing.

This man usually looks listless with a cigarette hanging from his lips, seeming completely despondent and weak. But when he picked up the cleaver to cook, his whole demeanor changed, showing a different kind of vitality. The vigor seemed to radiate from inside out, making him quite pleasant to watch.

“I've heard people say that shark meat can't be eaten, they all say it contains…, heavy metals, uric acid and stuff?”

Li Yan recalled the news he had read.

“Pfft, you ask those people if they know how to cook? Shark meat nourishes and strengthens the spleen, removes blood stasis and reduces swelling. It's a good tonic for those recovering from serious illnesses; that's the ancient wisdom. Oh, to slaughter a shark and just slice off its fins, throwing them back into the sea? That's just wasteful, I'm still keeping the liver to extract oil, saying shark meat can't be eaten, that's a joke.”

“Alright, then we'll wait to eat.”

Li Yan wasn't concerned, he didn't usually eat this stuff anyway.

“Watch closely.” Cha Xiaodao struck a match and started to saute in the big iron pot with a spatula.

Lin Yuanfu and Zhang Dong were on the Spirit of the Duck, sitting right by the cabin at this time. Old Man Lin's face wasn't looking good, his lips were pale, and the Red Flag Gang hadn't mistreated him, making sure he was watched over for every meal. His illness was his own doing from all the exertion.

Lin Yuanfu thought, I am a proper first-rank imperial officer, the Royal Envoy, the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi; if I die on your boat, aren't you afraid? I'm not asking you to let me go directly, just see me once, if you agree to take me on, everything is negotiable. But to his surprise, Li Yan really left him to his fate, completely disregarding him. The old man had wilted now.

Xue Ba swayed back and forth, hanging onto the ship's rope, and shouted to Cha Xiaodao: “Brother Daozi, pick a lean piece for me.”

“Oh ho, the whelp starts calling me brother at a time like this?”

Cha Xiaodao snorted coldly, “Didn't you hear what your Tianbao said? This stuff is poisonous, you still dare to eat it? Don't you only listen to your Tianbao?”

At this moment, Xue Ba didn't argue at all, “Brother Daozi's cooking skills, everyone in the gang knows I can trust them, definitely no poison.”

Everyone laughed, only Li Yan frowned.

“Xiao Ba, you just said, everyone knows Daozi's cooking is good?”

“Yeah, Brother Daozi's skills are really famous.”

“Xiao Ba, how long have we known each other?”

“It's been too long, I can't count.”

Li Yan turned his head and asked the other people on the boat.

“And you? How long have you known me?”

Some answered five years, some said seven, and the longest was fifteen years–it was the ship's doctor, Mr. Hu.

“What do I usually like to do? What am I good at? Do you guys know?”

Cha Xiaodao glanced at Li Yan and somewhat understood why he suddenly asked this question.

“Brother Tianbao, you… you don't really have any special hobbies…” Mr. Hu, who claimed to have known Li Yan for fifteen years, frowned and thought for a long time before he managed to say:

“You just like visiting brothels.”

Cha Xiaodao on the side couldn't help but shake with laughter.

Li Yan had no expression on his face and casually waved his hand: “Men, who doesn't like to visit brothels?”

“No, no, Brother Tianbao, you're different.” Mr. Hu lacked any semblance of tact, “Brother Tianbao, at the brothels, you never go for the young girls, no matter how pretty. It has to be, you know, those around twenty-four or twenty-five years old, with still some charm left, but fewer…”

“That one, Mr. Hu, go check on Old Man Lin and send him a bowl of shark meat, it's nourishing, hurry up.”

Only then did Mr. Hu realize his faux pas and stopped talking, carrying a bowl of shark meat from the table to the cabin.

Cha Xiaodao wiped his hands and walked up to Li Yan, staring at the murderous look in his eyes and whispered teasingly, “It's normal, think about it, Tianbao was eighteen or nineteen when he got together with his godmother, a fire ignited by dry wood. Let me put it this way–in such a situation, either you see it as a shadow, start liking those younger, undeveloped ones, and become a… you know what I mean. Or, you developed a taste for it! Hey, hey, don't get violent, it's not fun anymore! Hey!”

Li Yan kept a cold face as he tucked the emerald Copper Coin into his clothes and still mumbled defensively with his head down, “What does this have to do with me.” After securing the Copper Coin, he picked up a ladle and chased after Cha Xiaodao.

Li Yan didn't ask this question on a whim. The identity that Cha Xiaodao took on in this world was a pirate from the Red Flag Gang known as Cha Daozi. While Cha Xiaodao himself is a proper chef with great culinary skills, Cha Daozi, a trusted lieutenant of Tianbao and born a fisherman, also possesses culinary talent. Why is that?

First of all, Mo made it very clear at the beginning that the Yan Fu Fruit is a parallel space that truly exists.

After descending upon Yan Fu, even without using a token to elevate one's status, one's background and identity within this fruit can be verified.

So, why exactly does he look identical to the walker? Is this man actually real, or is it a disguise by the enigmatic Earth Endurance?

Or did Yan Fu crudely alter everyone's memories, forcibly making them recognize me as Tianbao? Is Cha Daozi the same as Cha Xiaodao?

No, that's not right either, the cost is too high. If Yan Fu possessed such ability, there would be no need to make us avoid causing a ruckus in our own world, drawing attention, and there wouldn't be any need for an organization like Earth Endurance to clean up after us. It would just directly modify them.

Finally, does Yan Fu have its personal will? What exactly are the rules that govern Yan Fu as it travels through each of the fruits?

“I don't have a brother.”

The dim gaze of Zhao Xin once again flickered before his eyes.

Zhao Wu was dead, yet Zhao Xin insisted she had no brother; with that expression, she clearly knew everything, but people around her were convinced she was an only child, as if the trace of Zhao Wu's existence had been completely erased.

This was even more chilling than disguising an accidental death.

When I descended, Tianbao completely disappeared, and I replaced Tianbao; when Zhao Wu died, all traces of his existence were erased…

Li Yan seemed to have caught a thread of the truth, yet he still couldn't unravel the mist-shrouded reality of Yan Fu's workings.

Chapter end

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