As soon as Grandfather Wang entered the villa, he went to the washroom — he had been desperately holding his piss in the entire time he had been riding the tricycle all the way here. At the age of seventy, the old man could still be considered pretty robust; apart from his worsening dementia, his regular physical check-ups at the cultivation hospital indicated that all his other body functions were normal.

　　Although he suffered from severe dementia, Father and Mother Wang weren’t worried that he would get lost as Wang Ling had blessed the old man’s tricycle with the ability to automatically guide itself. Furthermore, and most importantly, it didn’t take the old man any effort at all to ride it.

　　Otherwise, there was no way the old man could slowly cycle here under his own steam from the neighboring city suburb…

　　Hearing that the old man had come, Father Wang hurriedly finished up his work. Apart from Mother Wang and Wang Ling when he was in a rage, the old man was the only other person whom Father Wang was in awe of in the Wang family. When Wang Ling’s grandmother had still been alive, Father Wang had in fact been even more afraid of her. Unfortunately, she had passed away before Wang Ling was born, apparently from a terminal illness.

　　Father Wang had grieved for a very long time after that until Wang Ling’s birth. He would always muse that if Wang Ling had been born a few years earlier, maybe the old lady would still be alive.

　　Unfortunately, there was no “if” in life, and every day was a live show…

　　It was also after Wang Ling’s grandmother died that Grandfather Wang was stricken by dementia. When he was young, Grandfather Wang had been a casanova-type who had had plenty of flings, but he loved this first wife the most. The death of Wang Ling’s grandmother hence had been a huge blow to the old man.

　　In the living room, Father Wang lit a cigarette. “Have we made a restaurant booking for tonight?”

　　Mother Wang nodded. “I made a booking at Kikkaro Restaurant ¹ . Initially I booked at Kitchen God’s Small Restaurant ² , but the owner has been fairly busy lately. I also heard that the price of fried rice with egg has increased! Originally it was two hundred and eighty-eight, now it’s nine hundred and eighty-eight! That’s daylight robbery!”

　　Wang Ling: “…”

　　Wang Ling knew that there was a very popular place recently called Kitchen God’s Small Restaurant. With just one bowl of fried rice with egg, this no-name restaurant had been able to attract countless heavyweight customers and cause renowned local food experts to fall all over themselves in their eagerness to promote it.

　　He felt that this restaurant owner was very suspicious. They were either a veteran senior in the cultivation world or a time-traveling big shot… if not, it was possible that the person had some sort of system on them which could boost their strength! A portable system wasn’t anything new; moreover, Wang Ling knew that this was a research project that Wang Ming had been working on in recent years; to date he had already invented plenty of portable systems and had conducted secret experiments in various locations…

　　“It’s fine, Kikkaro is also not bad.”

　　Father Wang’s eyes fell on the small tricycle in the back garden. “Why are there so many apples?”

　　“Dad brought them. He remembered that Ling Ling liked to eat oranges when he was little, but unfortunately he brought the wrong thing…”

　　“…” Father Wang covered his face and sighed in his heart: dad’s dementia is getting worse and worse!

　　And it seemed… constipation had also become a serious issue! The old man had been in the washroom for quite a while…

　　Wang Ling also felt very helpless. Given his current ability, he could easily eliminate cancer cells in the body. However, he had no way of curing a mental disease like dementia.

　　What was worse, Grandfather Wang’s dementia was very complicated since it had been caused by a broken heart. If it had been a physical problem, Wang Ling would have been able to directly and single-handedly cure it. His treatment was quite superb; in the area of orthopedics in particular, his methods had developed in the last few years to the point of completely surpassing German orthopedics ³ !

　　Not long after, there was the sound of a toilet flushing in the washroom and the old man strolled out at a sedate pace. When he entered the living room, he gripped Wang Ling’s hands and looked at him strangely. “Jiao, I haven’t seen you in months, how have you become so young? Did you steal the youth-retaining elixir again… that thing has preservatives in it!”

　　“…”

　　“…”

　　Father Wang: “Dad!… I am your son!”

　　Grandfather Wang looked blank for an instant, then patted his head. “Oh! Right, right, right! You’re my son! Then this boy is… this is Jingke, right?! Where is our Ling Ling?”

　　“…”

　　Grandfather Wang was a man who was very fond of playing tricks; when he had entered the house earlier, his dementia had indeed been acting up. Now, however, Wang Ling could tell with one glance that the old man was pretending. This little prank could trick Father and Mother Wang, but not him.

　　When Father and Mother Wang saw Wang Ling’s expression, they immediately understood. “Dad, you’re so old already yet you still like playing tricks.”

　　Seeing that his prank had been found out, the old man laughed joyfully. “In the end our Ling Ling is still so amazing. Anyway… what are we doing in the evening?”

　　“Dad, we’re going to eat out at a restaurant, we were just waiting for you.”

　　“No, no, no, what restaurant, damn expensive, are there any groceries in the house?” Grandfather Wang asked.

　　“There are…”

　　“Then that’s good enough!” The old man took off his black cloth hat, revealing his big, bald head, and rolled up his sleeves. “Tonight all of you don’t have to do anything, let me show you what I can do.”

　　“Dad, I think maybe it’s better if you don’t… what if your dementia flares up when you’re cooking?”

　　“What does dementia have to do with me cooking?! Even if I forget all of you, I’ll never forget how to cook!” the old man said angrily.

　　Grandfather Wang was pretty stubborn when it came to cooking because before he retired, he had been a chef in a cultivation star hotel for more than forty years. Even though he had to make three meals every day for three hundred and sixty-five days, he wouldn’t make the same dish twice as long as he had enough ingredients.

　　The old man was an impressive person who had previously taken in numerous apprentices, young and old, when the culinary industry had been at its peak, and they all ascribed to the philosophy of happy cooking. It was the old man’sshifu who had taught him this philosophy, but even Wang Ling didn’t know who this shifu was. Now that the old man had dementia, his memories had become quite confused; even if Wang Ling used his memory retrieval ability, he wouldn’t necessarily be able to discover any useful clues. Furthermore, a forceful search might aggravate the old man’s dementia.

　　After all, the person in question was his own grandfather… even if he was very curious, it wasn’t to the extent of causing harm for gossip.

　　“None of you lift a finger today, I may be old and my brain doesn’t work so well, but my body is still healthy. My good grandson participated in a four-day event, see how thin he’s become!” The old man looked at Wang Ling and smiled, then took the apron from where Mother Wang had hung it behind the kitchen door and tied it skillfully around his waist.

　　“Dad, need any help?”

　　“Find me some oil, salt, sauce and whatnot, then help me check what ingredients we have in the house.”

　　“There’s spinach, radish and some pork in the fridge…”

　　“Mm, I saw some bananas on the living room table, I can make a fruit platter later. My angry bananas ⁴ back then was one-of-a-kind!”

　　The old man opened the refrigerator and his eyes lit up. “Pig’s ears? Um… yes,er gen in sauce ⁵ !”

　　For some reason, Wang Ling felt that there was something familiar about this cooking style. “…”

　　[0] The chapter title is actually the title of a wuxia web novel written by the author Yubi.