Chapter 13 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 13: The Nightingale's Past 09
Sophia smiled: "I originally thought both this disaster-dispelling lake and that curse against killing people were legends. I didn't expect them to actually all be true. Actually, after I killed those people, I had a premonition and immediately regretted it. If I'd known, knocking them unconscious wouldn't have been impossible either."
Lucita thought her smile had a hint of melancholy.
Though after years of bearing a curse, it was indeed very difficult to remain optimistic.
"No one knows the origin of the sacred lake. Perhaps the royal family knew, but they were captured by humans after the defeat over five hundred years ago and have disappeared without a trace ever since. After that, the sacred lake vanished as well, and no one has seen it since."
"The clanspeople speculate that the sacred lake's existence was closely related to the royal family. Once the royal bloodline was severed, the sacred lake ceased to exist. There are various theories, but none have any real proof."
"Regarding your sense of smell..."
Lucita interrupted briefly and added: "It's recovered now, but it's become much more sensitive, and I can still smell special scents that ordinary people can't."
"Like 'life' and 'death'?"
"Yes."
Hearing this, Sophia unexpectedly reached out her hand towards Lucita: "Can you smell any scent on me?"
Lucita stood and stepped closer. She lowered her head slightly, and her expression startled: "How could—"
"You really can smell it." Sophia exhaled softly in wonder: "Do you know? This ability to directly perceive the Real—only our clan's high priestess can do this when communing with the divine. But our high priestess can perceive the Real with all five senses, while you only have smell."
Perceive the Real?
In a certain sense, that was indeed the case. Whether life or death, neither were things that could be observed in the surface world. She had directly bypassed the surface world to directly perceive the essence of things, which was why she seemed to have lost her sense of smell while being able to smell the scents of life and death.
Lucita's thoughts wandered for a moment, then she suddenly came back to herself: "Wait, is that the point right now?!"
She hardly knew what to say, and her tone sharpened: "You clearly drank the sacred lake water that removes curses, why are you still dying!"
The deathly aura of Sophia had weakened considerably compared to their first meeting, but she still showed signs of decline. It felt as though her life would not last much longer.
"It has nothing to do with the curse. My true spirit is running out." She sighed softly: "Elves have lifespans of a full five hundred years, even becoming a nightingale wouldn't change that. But after becoming a nightingale, my thinking kept deteriorating. I almost became just an ordinary, ignorant bird in the forest. If it had been like that, what would be the point of living five hundred years? The real me would have died from the very beginning, wouldn't I?"
"I used my true spirit to maintain my consciousness for ten years. Only recently, as my true spirit was about to run out, did I begin to forget bit by bit. Forgetting the past, forgetting loved ones, sleeping day by day. When the day comes that I forget even myself, I'll truly die as an ignorant nightingale. Having endured until now, even after the curse was lifted, I'm already at the end of my rope."
Lucita pressed her lips together: "Does Mavis know?"
Sophia smiled helplessly: "I told her. You saw it just now. She cried as if I were about to die immediately. Actually, I still have several months to live."
Probably having long anticipated such an outcome, Sophia appeared calm and unruffled, not at all like an underage child. She asked Lucita: "Regarding the sacred lake, I need to notify my clanspeople to come investigate. If you'd like, I can also write a letter to the high priestess for you and have her come look at your abnormal sense of smell."
Lucita felt she didn't have anything worth coveting and readily entrusted Sophia to invite the high priestess.
Having settled this matter, Lucita carried the half wild boar that Mavis had given her as a token of gratitude and returned to her own farm.
She had a new idea to try.
In a complete world, the laws of time and space were both indispensable.
She could create space, but the spaces she created had neither time nor life. They couldn't contain living things and wouldn't undergo changes.
In other words—wouldn't they be natural food preservation containers?
Making one space could save her the money for buying and maintaining a frost box, how wonderful would that be?
Lucita painfully poured out the lamb and radish soup she'd had left over from two days ago, which only deepened this thought.
She picked up an egg-sized pebble by the pond in her backyard, planning to use it as the carrier for her experimental space.
This time, she made the space into a rectangular prism.
The triangular pyramid had four awkward pointed corners, and while the rectangular prism was slightly less stable, it offered more usable volume for the same size.
The maximum volume of this cube was about one liter—nearly double last night's limit—but it was still far too small to contain food. A single cabbage could fill it.
Lucita put this stone in her pocket, planning to carry it with her to observe how long it lasted.
After doing all this, her stomach began to growl.
She remembered she had skipped breakfast in her rush. Though it was not yet noon, she was already starving.
Taking advantage of her recovered sense of smell, Lucita planned to go to the kitchen to make some food.
Passing through the living room, she noticed the message feather box on the table. She thought for a moment and sent notes to both Garcia and Mavis, inviting them and Sophia to lunch.
Now that things were settled, there should be some celebratory ceremony.
Before long, she received two replies accepting the invitation.
She went to Aurora's shop and bought some fresh potatoes, greens, and garlic shoots, then bought two loaves of white bread at Teresa's shop, planning to process the wild boar Mavis had just given her today. Her house didn't have a frost box, and such a large piece of boar meat would probably end up the same as the lamb and radish soup from two days ago before she could finish eating it—rotting and being thrown away.
Speaking of which, it was strange. After her sense of smell recovered, not only was it much more acute than before, but she was also slowly picking up habits she may have had before losing her memory.
This time cooking felt very similar to when she'd made the lamb and radish soup two days ago, as if she were self-taught. The difference was that she now vaguely felt these were things she'd known before.
Boar meat had a lot of fat. She first cut a large piece of multi-layered pork belly from the abdomen, set aside the ribs and leg meat, and prepared to braise half and stir-fry half.
Making twice-cooked pork required thin slices of meat. She first cut off a strip of the large pork belly, seared the skin in an iron pot, then added water with scallions and ginger to boil. After cooking, she removed it, dried it, cut it into thin slices, stir-fried them until they curled into lamp shapes, added various spices and sauces, and when the whole pot was covered in red oil, added the cut garlic shoots briefly until just cooked.
Braised pork also needed to be cut into pieces and boiled first, then fried with white sugar to create a caramel color, stir-fried with aromatics for color, then simmered with boiling water and spices until the sauce reduced.
Although the lamb and radish soup from two days ago had spoiled, fortunately the three small crucian carp in the bucket were still barely alive. She lifted out the carp, scaled and gutted them, steaming one, braising one, and stewing one with greens into a rich white fish soup.
After that, she cut a few cloves of garlic and stir-fried some greens, peeled and cut potatoes into strips and deep-fried them crispy in butter over low heat, then sprinkled coarse salt and plated them.
The long-missed fragrance of food permeated the smoke in the kitchen. Lucita took a deep breath enjoyably, then was immediately choked and opened the window to air it out.
She stretched.
The pork belly cut from half a boar yielded a large quantity. She only used one strip for stir-frying and made braised pork with all the rest.
She took out several large wooden bowls, filled several bowls, and sent them to people who had helped her like Javena and Sylvette. Fortunately, the town was really too small, by the time she reached her destination, the meat was still hot.
From everyone's reactions, they seemed to have never seen boar prepared this way and all looked somewhat bewildered, but they quickly succumbed to the exotic fragrance of the braised pork.
By the time she returned home it was already noon. She had covered the dishes with soup tureens beforehand to keep them warm, cut the bread and placed it on the cutting board, just waiting for guests to arrive so she could fry it golden as a staple. It would be a sufficiently sumptuous lunch.
Garcia arrived first.
This morning Lucita had been in a hurry to find Mavis and had only briefly explained a couple of sentences to Garcia before leaving, so she now had a belly full of questions. After her habitual greeting, she asked somewhat urgently: "What exactly was going on with my sleepwalking last night? Can you explain it to me in more detail?"
Lucita poured her some goat's milk and readily told her some details from the time, supplemented with her own indirect speculations: "Is there something special about you, or does your mother have something special that you inherited?"
Garcia decisively shook her head in denial.
At this time, Mavis also arrived with Sophia.
When lunchtime arrived, no matter how important something was, it had to wait until after the meal.
Lucita fried the bread and distributed it on dining plates, ladled fish soup for everyone, and opened the plates covered with tureens. Immediately a rich fragrance filled the air.
In the twice-cooked pork, the garlic shoots were bright green, the meat slices thin and chewy, with red oil from the chili sauce as a base, fragrant but not greasy on the palate, with a lingering aftertaste.
The braised pork had a fresh, bright color, soft meat texture, and full elasticity. Soaked in rich sauce, the taste was as rich as its appearance, melting in the mouth.
Plus the refreshing stir-fried greens, french fries crispy on the outside and soft inside, two crucian carp—one savory and fragrant, one tender and smooth—and the rich white fish soup so delicious you could swallow your tongue.
During this lunch, everyone ate until they were sweating.
For the residents of Irttat, even for the residents of this continent, sweating while eating was a novel experience.
Of course, her neighbors didn't realize this and thought this was how people in the outside human world cooked. And Mavis, who came from the human world, lamented that the city of Andas from her past had truly been a culinary desert; humans in other regions actually had such stunning dishes.
Sophia had no time to speak and only knew to eat with her head down.
Eating together was indeed the best way to draw everyone closer. After one meal, even the most unfamiliar pair, Garcia and Sophia, had become much more familiar.
They lounged on the sofa, sipping goat's milk while chatting.
Sophia reported the elven race's latest itinerary to everyone: "After Priestess Ellie heard that the sacred lake that could remove curses had been discovered, she was so excited she immediately wanted to summon the clanspeople to come. But the high priestess said five hundred years had already passed, there was no rush at this moment. She'd first send two people to investigate the situation."
"But though the high priestess says this, one of the two people she's sending includes herself."
At this point, Sophia glanced at Lucita: "Of course, it might also be because I mentioned the issue with Lucita's sense of smell, so she plans to come see for herself."
"The other one is my mother." Sophia looked at Garcia again: "She asked me to ask Sister Garcia if she could stay at your house to observe your sleepwalking situation at close range and find our sacred lake. Of course, she'll provide her own food and lodging and can help in your shop for free."
Whether out of consideration for Sophia or for the elven race, Garcia had no reason to refuse and naturally agreed with the plan.
Her mother...
Meeting the child you thought had died after ten years, only for the child to have just a few months left to live, truly one didn't know whether to feel sorrow or joy.
Lucita secretly sighed.
She glanced at the back window. The luo flowers in the backyard had already begun to bud, with dots of star-white mixed in the greenery.
Spring was deepening.
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