Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Abandoned Dormitory Kitchen

“Alright, since we've decided, let's get started. Let's check the dormitory cafeteria to see how many ingredients are left.” After receiving Wen Hui’s affirmative reply, Zhuang Xiaoyuan stretched languidly, shook off her lethargy, and hopped out of bed. Out of habit, she folded her quilt into a perfect square before leading Wen Hui out of her room.

There weren’t many residents in the girls’ dormitory building where Zhuang Xiaoyuan and Wen Hui lived, for it had only been constructed in recent years. Most of its residents were recent graduates. Given the extremely low number of women in the military’s administrative education system, many rooms in this newly built dormitory inevitably stood vacant.

It’s also worth mentioning that this was the only new dormitory for women, whereas three new dormitories had been built for men, all of which were now nearly full.

Originally, after becoming a reserve Divine Armored Warrior, Wen Hui was supposed to move into the command center’s quarters. For some reason, she had remained in the girls’ dormitory and had not moved out.

Due to the invasion of the Evil God Legion, human territory had gradually contracted, and the population had become concentrated in specific cities. The density of people had increased significantly, leading to the abolishment of villa districts. Now, most people lived in standardized dormitory buildings like this one. The conditions in these dormitories were, in fact, quite good—worlds apart from the commercial apartments Zhuang Xiaoyuan had known in her previous life.

Each dormitory building here was equipped with its own bathing facility. Although these were communal, the bathhouses were vast and spacious. Both Zhuang Xiaoyuan and Wen Hui had already experienced the sheer comfort of soaking in them.

The dormitory kitchens were also communal, located on the ground floor along with the bathhouse. The kitchen was fully equipped: induction cookers, ovens, microwaves, even plasma separators—any number of high-tech appliances could be found there, as long as they ran on electricity or solar power.

Yet, for all this impressive equipment, the kitchen was almost never used. As previously explained, due to the job allocation system in this world, those with culinary skills became chefs, while those without had neither the leisure nor the inclination to learn. As a result, the ground floor kitchens of most dormitories were left unused—especially in a sparsely populated building like theirs.

There had even been a suggestion to do away with the kitchen facilities in newly built dormitories, but fortunately, the proposal had not passed. Otherwise, Zhuang Xiaoyuan would not have been able to make use of such a variety of kitchen tools, which allowed her to fully unleash the versatile culinary talents she had acquired through her transformation into the culinary prodigy Erina Nakiri.

Since Zhuang Xiaoyuan had already visited the kitchen on the first floor once before, she led Wen Hui there with practiced ease.

“Wow, so this is the dorm kitchen? It looks like some scientist’s lab,” Wen Hui exclaimed, her eyes wide as she surveyed the spacious kitchen and the array of strange machines scattered everywhere. This was her first time entering the dormitory kitchen.

“There are still some black soybeans and yellow soybeans left from my last experiment with tofu, some green peppers, and eggs. It seems we don’t have enough ingredients for dinner today,” Zhuang Xiaoyuan remarked as she opened the refrigerator and began scanning through the available supplies, while Wen Hui continued to marvel at the unusual appliances.

Seasonings like green peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, and ginger were all well-stocked, but aside from a few leftover beans from her tofu experiment, there was no meat at all in the fridge. However, there was a rather large carp in the live tank. It seemed a trip to the market for some groceries was in order. Although it was already past five, some vendors should still be around.

“Xiaoyuan, what are you planning to cook tonight? It doesn’t look like there’s any meat left,” Wen Hui asked, having wandered over at some point to peer into the nearly empty refrigerator. Although, as a girl, she was supposed to watch her figure, Wen Hui, who exercised regularly, loved meat dishes—they helped replenish the energy she burned each day. Thanks to her constant training, she had no fear of gaining weight.

“No helping it. We’ll just have to see if there are any vendors left at the market,” Zhuang Xiaoyuan said as she closed the refrigerator and walked to the live tank, scooping out the lone carp and placing it in the now-dry sink.

“Huh? I thought you said we were going to the market. What are you doing now?” Wen Hui asked, her curiosity piqued. She had eaten plenty of dishes prepared by the logistics team’s kitchens, but had no idea where the ingredients came from. The concept of a market was something she had only heard about, never seen, and she was quite eager to experience it for herself.

Although both Wen Hui and Zhuang Xiaoyuan were orphans, they had not grown up in orphanages. The organization that had taken them in was a military agency, where the focus was naturally on combat training, with cultural education as a secondary priority—certainly not on teaching them how to cook.

It was no wonder Wen Hui had never seen a market before. If not for the culinary knowledge Zhuang Xiaoyuan had acquired through her transformation into Erina Nakiri, she probably wouldn’t have been much better off herself.

For Zhuang Xiaoyuan, her unusual ability to transform into a two-dimensional girl was impressive, allowing her to unleash combat prowess far beyond her own abilities. But perhaps the greatest benefit was not the powers she gained in those forms, but the vast array of knowledge that surfaced in her mind whenever she transformed.

Whenever she assumed the form of a two-dimensional girl, Zhuang Xiaoyuan would automatically acquire all the knowledge that character possessed—though not their memories. However, after the transformation ended, the knowledge remained vivid in her mind, as if etched there permanently.

This knowledge was purely theoretical and could not be immediately converted into practical skill. For instance, after transforming into Erina Nakiri, Zhuang Xiaoyuan had learned countless culinary techniques and recipes, but when she tried to apply them herself, the results were wildly inconsistent: her knife skills were poor and produced uneven slices, and her lack of experience with heat control meant her dishes were often half-cooked or burnt.