Genshin Impact: A Guide to the Unofficial History of Teyvat — Chapter 88

Chapter 88: Friendship with Xiangling

Ever since discovering the incredible culinary chemistry she shared with Xiangling over “special ingredients,” the lingering hesitation Lovia felt about approaching Wanmin Restaurant had completely evaporated. Any anxiety about interacting with familiar faces from the game was thoroughly washed away by her craving for gourmet food and the sheer joy of finding a kindred spirit.

After all, who would have ever guessed that Xiangling was a hidden grandmaster of Melusine cuisine? This was practically the Liyue version of Food Wars: Melusine Edition!

Lovia even found herself seriously calculating the mora required to hire the energetic chef as her personal, three-meals-a-day caterer. She would just need to teach Xiangling a few more authentic Melusine recipes, and her daily dining experience would reach absolute perfection.

Of course, she couldn’t rush it. If she just dumped the entire unholy compendium of Melusine gastronomy onto Xiangling all at once, it might actually scare the poor girl. Better to boil the frog slowly. Step by step.

During this time, the two volumes of A Bite of Liyue—which Lovia had specifically penned with Xiangling in mind—had quietly hit the local bookstore shelves. She just needed to find the right excuse to casually gift them to her.

Just yesterday, she had heard a rumor that the prestigious Liuli Pavilion and Xinyue Pavilion had actually launched a promotional series of dishes based on A Bite of Liyue. Lovia had even sneaked over to take a peek at their menu boards, only to walk away utterly disappointed. Those high-end establishments had completely ignored the avant-garde Melusine delicacies featured in the second volume.

What a deep lack of artistic vision! As expected, only Xiangling truly understood her genius.

To avoid accidentally sabotaging Wanmin Restaurant’s business—since Xiangling had a terrible habit of abandoning her cooking station the second they started chatting about ingredients—Lovia made a point to visit during the sluggish afternoon lull or right before closing time. She still kept her oversized hooded cloak wrapped tightly around her small frame, but the sheer frequency of her visits had undoubtedly earned her the unspoken title of “Wanmin Restaurant’s Strongest Regular.”

As the days bled into weeks, her initial mindset of treating these visits as reconnaissance for her writing slowly shifted. She wasn’t just going for the food anymore; she was genuinely just going to hang out with Big Sister Xiangling.

Xiangling, for her part, was absolutely delighted by this mysterious young guest. In the chef’s eyes, even though Lovia was young and dressed like a secretive mage, she possessed a wildly imaginative palate. Lovia would casually wonder aloud if the slight numbing discharge of an Electro Slime felt like popping candy on the tongue, or if the dense Slime Condensate from a Geo Slime could replicate the heavy, comforting texture of stone soup. These offhand comments frequently shattered Xiangling’s creative blocks, flooding her with new inspiration.

This particular afternoon, Lovia strolled down the sunbaked streets toward Wanmin Restaurant, clutching a pouch of newly received manuscript fees. Before her boots even crossed the threshold, she heard a heavy, discouraged sigh drifting from the kitchen.

“Ugh, it’s still not right… the flavors have merged, but it’s missing a kick. It’s just not surprising enough.”

Lovia peeked her head around the doorframe. Xiangling was slumped over a bubbling pot of thick broth, looking thoroughly defeated. Beside her, Guoba was making soft, comforting chuffing noises, gently patting the chef’s leg with a paw.

“Is Chef Xiangling attempting to conquer a new recipe again?” Lovia asked, mimicking the dramatic cadence of a Tea Master. “What elusive dish has managed to stump our genius chef today?”

“Ah! Lovia!” Xiangling’s golden eyes lit up the instant she saw the cloaked girl, looking at her as if the Geo Archon himself had just descended to offer culinary salvation. “Get over here, quick! You have impeccable timing! Help me taste this!”

She practically threw herself at the counter, scooping a small ladle of the broth into a porcelain bowl and shoving it into Lovia’s hands.

Lovia took it, peering down through the steam. The soup was a rich, warm amber, dotted with plump mushrooms and finely minced meat. The aroma was intensely fragrant, but beneath the savory surface lurked a strange, indescribable earthiness mixed with the sharp, astringent bitterness of raw saplings.

Blowing on the surface to cool it, Lovia took a careful sip.

To an ordinary human, it might have just tasted like a slightly botched, overly earthy mushroom stew. But Lovia’s Melusine taste buds instantly isolated the culinary crime.

The earthiness was far too oppressive. The bitterness completely failed to transition into a sweet aftertaste, coating the tongue and making the entire texture of the soup feel muddy and exhausted rather than refreshing.

“Well? How is it?” Xiangling leaned over the counter, bouncing slightly on her heels. “Be brutally honest! Don’t hold back!”

Lovia lowered the bowl, choosing her words with surgical care so as not to crush the older girl’s enthusiasm. “Hmm… the initial fragrance is wonderful, and the mushroom profile is very strong. But… it feels like the flavors are fighting each other. It’s a bit cluttered.”

She did her best to translate the sensory clash into human terms.

Xiangling slammed her hands down on the counter in triumph. “Exactly! That’s exactly the problem! I wanted to use Dendro Slime juice to inject a burst of forest-like freshness to elevate the mushrooms, but I just can’t tame that raw bitterness! Instead of tasting like a morning breeze, it just made the whole pot taste like a swamp!”

She scratched at her braided hair in sheer frustration. “I’ve tried everything. I blanched the slime, I added heavy spices to mask the smell, but nothing works. Either the Dendro flavor completely vanishes, or the soup tastes even weirder!”

‘Well, maybe it’s because you’re messing up the elemental reactions,’Lovia thought, suppressing a laugh.’Add a little Hydro to that Dendro juice and you’ll end up serving Dendro Cores. Boom.’

Staring at the bubbling pot, Lovia’s unique Melusine senses sparked a sudden idea.

She hesitated for a fraction of a second before suggesting softly, “Sister Xiangling, do you think… instead of just dumping the Dendro Slime juice straight into the broth, you could pair it with something else first? Like, introduce a completely new ingredient specifically meant to neutralize the slime’s bitterness before it hits the mushrooms?”

She kept her suggestion vague, deliberately avoiding naming any specific magical plants so as not to break her cover, but she tried to convey the mechanical concept of flavor-balancing.

Xiangling froze. The dim light of frustration in her eyes suddenly flared into a blinding supernova of inspiration. “Neutralize? Oh my archons, you’re right! I’ve been trying to fight the bitterness or hide it. I never once thought about neutralizing it!”

She spun around, her hands already flying across her spice racks. “What should I use? Maybe that… no, the acidity is wrong. Wait, what about…”

Muttering a mile a minute, her face glowed with renewed, manic energy. “Lovia, you are an absolute genius! Guoba, move! Help me grab that jar of dried frostpetals from the top shelf! We’re doing a total recipe overhaul!”

Watching Xiangling dive headfirst back into the culinary battlefield, Lovia felt a warm rush of relief and a tiny spark of pride. It felt genuinely good to help refine these chaotic dishes—dishes that perfectly suited her own bizarre palate.

As for the palates of normal human beings?

Lovia could only offer a silent prayer to Rex Lapis that Xiangling wouldn’t unleash these experimental slime-based concoctions on the ordinary lunchtime crowd. Otherwise, Wanmin Restaurant was going to witness a mass exodus of traumatized diners.

Then again, Xiangling’s own stomach was a terrifying anomaly. To be able to casually taste-test hardcore Melusine recipes without so much as a flinch meant her digestive system was arguably the strongest entity in all of Liyue. No, probably all of Teyvat.

The girl was built different.

And so, this comfortable routine solidified. Lovia practically became the unofficial, off-staff taste consultant for Wanmin Restaurant. Xiangling quickly realized that her tiny friend possessed a miraculous, almost supernatural intuition for balancing ingredients that carried raw elemental power.

Whenever Lovia offered advice, she always hid behind vague excuses like, “It’s just a guess,” or “I just had a feeling.” Xiangling simply chalked it up to a child’s uncorrupted palate and raw talent, never pressing for deeper answers. Instead, she just treasured her little consultant even more.

In return for her services, Xiangling didn’t just ply Lovia with endless bowls of experimental soup. Whenever Lovia finally turned to leave, Xiangling would forcefully stuff her pockets with custom snacks: sweet sugar pills infused with raw Valberry nectar, or soft glutinous rice cakes laced with just enough Slime Condensate to give them an impossibly bouncy, addictive chew. They were absolute heaven to Lovia.

Sometimes, after the dinner rush finally died down, Xiangling would drag a small wooden stool over and sit right next to Lovia, chatting endlessly while her feet rested. The topics bounced wildly from ancient Liyue folklore to the most bizarre ingredients she had scavenged in the wild, eventually devolving into hilarious rants about impossible customers.

“I swear, last week a guy came in and demanded a dish that captured both the immovable heaviness of the earth and the boundless freshness of the ocean,” Xiangling complained, crossing her arms and mimicking the customer’s snobby voice. “So I made him Salt and Pepper Geo Slime paired with Qingxin-sauteed Seagrass. And he actually had the nerve to say it wasn’t what he envisioned!”

Lovia mostly just sat there, a quiet and attentive listener, occasionally chiming in with a dry comment or a deliberately childish question. It only reinforced Xiangling’s belief that she was just a uniquely talented, painfully shy kid.

This effortless dynamic made Lovia feel more relaxed than she had in months.

Sitting here in the warm, spice-scented air of Wanmin Restaurant, she didn’t have to pretend to be normal. She didn’t have to force down bland human food. She could just be happy over a weirdly delicious bowl of slime soup, brainstorming culinary madness with a friend.

It was a friendship built entirely on a shared, slightly unhinged hobby, and it was wonderfully pure.

She still hadn’t taken off her hooded cloak, of course.

But as she sat there, bathed in the warmth of Xiangling’s bright smile and Guoba’s curious, gentle gaze, that heavy protective shell she used to hide from the world felt just a little bit lighter.

‘Maybe…’Lovia thought, watching Xiangling happily hum a tune while scrubbing down the stove.’Coming out to play like this once in a while… isn’t so bad after all.’

Beneath the shadows of her hood, the corners of her mouth curled into a genuine, quiet smile.