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Cloud Recesses always smells like fresh grass and the earth after a light rain, a part of the mountains in an intrinsic sort of way that seeps into Sizhui’s bones until he, too, feels steady in the bedrock. It’s comforting, familiar. An unshakable truth.
And yet.
“Why does it smell like something died in here?”
It’s Zizhen’s question but Sizhui echoes the sentiment– why does it smell so foul in the kitchens?
“It’s the fish,” Jingyi explains, scowling from where he’s dangling half out the window as if in a desperate bid for fresh, breathable air. Sizhui can relate, to be fair.
“The fish?” He asks when it’s clear that neither Jingyi nor Jin Ling will elaborate further without prompting.
Jin Ling glowers. Or, well, he tries to. His face is half-covered by his sleeve while his other hand holds a soggy paper bag as far away from himself as possible. If gambling weren’t forbidden, Sizhui would bet that’s the unexplained fish. “I bought it in the market.”
“That’s nice,” Zizhen blinks, “but why?”
“We were cooking!”
“Yeah,” Jingyi grumbles from the window, “cupcakes not a three-course meal!”
“Well, I didn’t know that, did I! No one tells me shit here!”
“Did you check the group chat?” Sizhui asks, frowning helplessly at the whole thing, “I’m pretty sure we agreed on the cupcakes there.”
“Also, why would we cook a fish to a bake sale?” Zizhen finally detaches from the doorway to make a beeline for Jin Ling’s rotting fish. His nose scrunches up, “and why would you buy that?”
“I didn’t know it was bad, it wasn’t smelling like that when I bought it,” Jin Ling turns his glare to the paper bag, giving it a sad little wiggle. It squelches wetly. “Ugh, can we just throw it down the garbage disposal or something?”
Resigning himself to losing his sense of smell, Sizhui bravely follows Zizhen into the kitchen. “No, that would probably clog the sink. Just throw it in the trash.”
“And label it a biohazard waste,” says Jingyi, jumping down, sneakers lighting up cheerfully.
“Don’t be mean,” Zizhen reaches across the table to poke Jingyi’s shoulder, “it was his first time in a market,” turning back to Jin Ling, he pats his head with the wise air of someone who’s barely a year older than Jin Ling himself, “you got scammed at the farmer’s market, but that’s okay. We still love and support you.”
Predictably, Jin Ling’s cheeks go splotchy red and he splutters, batting Zizhen’s hand away and waving the fish like a sword, “I will cut off your hand!”
Unable to hide his own amusement, Sizhui steps in, lips twitching not to snicker out loud, “come on, why don’t we flush it down the toilet, then? That why it will stop stinking up the kitchen.”
“Awesome,” Jingyi immediately agrees, taking the paper bag in one quick motion before Jin Ling could protest, “chop-chop, Young Mistress, we don’t have all afternoon and those cupcakes will not bake themselves.”
Jin Ling growls and lunges after Jingyi, and running is forbidden in Cloud Recesses, but Sizhui doesn’t warn them, just laughs, following them at a more sedate pace with Zizhen. It’s a rare thing to hear laughter quite this loud in these halls.
“So,” Zizhen says, “do we have a reliable recipe or are we diving into the scary world of online cooking sites?”
“Jingyi’s mother gave us hers,” he thinks of the scrawled up piece of paper stuck on the refrigerator with a bunny magnet, smiles, “apparently it’s a family recipe, so it will hopefully be more, er. Flavorful?”
Zizhen chokes on a snort. “Sorry, sorry, no offense, but considering we’re holding the sale in Cayi, that’s great news.”
“None taken. I know Gusu has very different tastes from the rest of the sects,” Sizhui opens the bathroom door for them, Jin Ling’s loud voice echoing from inside, “besides, Senior Wei is my father.”
And he has made it very clear what he thinks of the bland food favored by their sect. Sizhui doesn’t mind. In fact, while Senior Wei’s own taste is very extreme, he thinks he might lie in the middle– not enough spices to burn off his tongue, but just a little bit more seasoning wouldn’t hurt. He shakes his head, looks around at Jin Ling and Jingyi’s blank faces. The hem of Jin Ling’s pants is wet. “Everything alright?”
“Yes, of course, it’s fine,” Jin Ling says quickly, stepping forward and dragging Jingyi with him.
Jingyi blinks, adds loudly, “how about those cupcakes now, huh?”
One day, Sizhui is pretty sure he will be appointed First Disciple of the GusuLan Sect. It might even be soon, the way things are headed, but for now– for now, he can trade a look with Zizhen and spin on his heels to march out of the bathroom. The least he knows about this, the better.
*
“Okay, okay,” Jingyi says, hands dripping egg yolk on the white tiles, “okay.”
The recipe is pretty straightforward. No, really, Sizhui is sure it should not be this much of an ordeal! It’s like, it’s like– just adding stuff in a bowl! How hard could it truly be?
Well.
“Stop saying that!” Jin Ling snaps, hair nearly as white as the walls with the flour dusting over his whole self, “just give me this here!”
Zizhen shuffles awkwardly. “Uh, guys? Should I keep whisking?”
“Yes!” Both of them bark at the same time in an unparalleled show of unity. They’re hunched together over the recipe, Jingyi’s sticky fingers leaving yellow stains on the paper, and Sizhui still hasn’t found the mixer to start on the frosting.
When Lan Xichen had taken over some of Lan Qiren’s classes, Sizhui had been delighted– surely, his uncle would be a wonderful teacher, kinder and gentler than his greatuncle had been! And he had, sure, no arguing that, but Lan Xichen also has ideas and philosophies regarding bringing the lectures to the 21st century, and that’s also great! So great! Sizhui loves it! Everyone loves it! But.
A baking sale was perhaps a bit much.
Or, well. Maybe it’s just them that are having this much trouble with it, Sizhui hasn’t heard any of the other disciples complain and they’re not even using the main kitchens to cook, only the ones in their guest houses.
Sizhui really wishes they had been forbidden from using it, heaven knows they would have looked for something easier to make in that case.
“Sizhui!” Jin Ling calls, startling him into slamming his head in the cabinet ceiling, “how are we on that frosting?”
Wincing, “uhm,” he clears his throat, lying is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses, “I have a solid plan on how to make it.”
Jin Ling’s face clouds over. For someone who got scammed in the farmer’s market, he looks a startling amount like Sect Leader Jiang. “What do you– you haven’t started the frosting yet?”
“Considering the batter isn’t ready for the oven yet,” he answers in the placid voice Hanguang-Jun uses whenever he wants to make Sect Leader Jiang froth with rage, “I didn’t think there was that much of a hurry.”
It makes Jin Ling froth with rage.
Yeah, Sizhui sees now why his father does it, it is very amusing.
“How about we switch?” Zizhen interrupts, thrusting the bowl he had been whisking the egg whites on Sizhui’s head, “you try your luck on these and I’ll look for the mixer.”
The clock ticks miserably on the wall and Sizhui sighs, dropping on the closest stool he can find. Is it covered with either sugar or flour? Possibly. Does he care? At this point, he just wants this nightmare to end.
With the calm of a man headed for the gallows, Sizhui starts whisking. Somewhere behind him, Zizhen is asking Fairy to drop something down.
*
The cupcakes come out of the oven slightly drooping and with a dense cloud of smoke.
“They’re not burnt,” Jingyi reassures them, kicking the oven closed. His sneakers light up because they can’t read a room. “Look, they’re all red.”
Jin Ling eyes the batch with distrust. “I wouldn’t call it red, exactly.”
“Yeah,” Zizhen peers over his shoulder, “I think it’s more of a maroon shade.”
“Shut up,” Jingyi scowls, moving past them to drop the second tray on the table, “they’re perfectly fine.”
“Well, we’re going to frost them anyway,” Sizhui says with what he hopes is a bright everything will be alright and we are not going to fail at the bake sale smile. In all fairness, even he can see how that might be a lot to expect from a smile.
The cupcakes stare balefully up at them. Sizhui briefly entertains the idea that they might have baked resentful little cupcakes. Honestly, if anyone could do it, it would be them.
“Should we just,” Jin Ling says, making a face, “go for it?”
“Dunno,” Jingyi shrugs, elbowing him and causing a domino effect until Sizhui is the one being jostled, “hey, you should tell us, isn’t your mom, like, a real chef?”
“That doesn’t mean I know shit! She never lets me or dad into the kitchen when she’s cooking!”
Oh, right, Sizhui thinks he heard Sect Leader Jiang talk to Senior Wei about that– apparently it involved an incident in their teenage days with an accidental fire and a chicken stuck to the ceiling? He’s a little hazy on the details.
“I think Zewu-Jun really overestimated us,” Zizhen laments, stirring the frosting morosely.
“Nonsense,” Sizhui decides, it’s forbidden to lie at Cloud Recesses, “we’re almost done. The worst part is over, we just need to frost them. How hard can that be?”
Jingyi groans. “Famous last words.”
Ignoring his pessimism and the voice in his head warning him about jinxing himself, Sizhui takes the frosting from Zizhen and begins spooning it into one of the piping bags. This is fine, they’re in the finishing line, the kitchen is not on fire, and there is nothing glued to the ceiling. This is already better than the last generation.
Silently, the others follow him, grabbing their own piping bags with no regards for the tips, but this is fine, they don’t all have to look the same. In fact, it will look better with some variety.
Sizhui approaches the first tray. He raises the piping bag. The first dollop of frosting hits the cake and– the world doesn’t end. Resentful energy doesn’t waft up in wisps of black smoke. Nothing blows up.
They all exhale shakily.
“Right,” he shakes himself, making a conscious effort to loosen up before resuming, “see, it’s fine. We regularly fight fierce corpses on night hunts.”
“Fighting fierce corpses does not require finer motor skills,” Jingyi mutters, taking up his own tray.
“Speak for yourself,” huffs Jin Ling, never failing at raising to Jingyi’s bait, “some of us are actually accomplished archers.”
“Yes, yes, you’re Sect Leader Jiang’s mini-me, we’re all well aware of that,” Zizhen is rolling his eyes, waving off Jin Ling’s spluttering, “now, do we have enough frosting? And sprinkles! We need sprinkles!”
Did they? Did they really? Frankly, all Sizhui wants is to be done with this. After they’re finished with the cupcakes, they still have to clean up the kitchen, and oh boy, is there a lot to clean. Some of the batter has spilled on the counter and Jingyi’s first attempt at separating yolk from white is still dripping a puddle from the sink to the floor. The sink itself, of course, is swimming with way too many bowls. That’s too many bowls. Sizhui isn’t sure when they started piling up or where they’re coming from, but they’ve formed a veritable mountain and he’s too afraid to ask. On the floor, there are paw prints even though Fairy hasn’t snuck in the kitchen in at least two hours.
In short, Sizhui is tired and he’s almost missing Lan Qiren’s interminable essays.
*
“We’re done?” Jingyi’s voice is drowning in disbelief like he had also been worried time had stopped working and condemned them to eternity making cupcakes from hell like Sizhui.
“I guess,” Jin Ling echoes, sounding faint.
“It looks almost– nice?” Zizhen says in his most surprised voice.
“And everything is still standing,” Sizhui breathes in relief. Maybe the fish had been a somewhat shaky start, but now–
A scream.
“Did you guys–”
“Did it come from the bathrooms?”
“Why would it–”
Senior Wei appears in the doorway, looking harried but not worried. “Oh, hey kids,” he gives them a grin, and Sizhui’s own worries fade in his chest. It’s fine, his dad is here and he’s got whatever that was under control. “Don’t worry, Jiang Cheng just slipped because apparently one of the toilets overflew? I don’t know exactly what happened, he was screaming about a fish?”
From the corner of his eyes, Sizhui sees Jin Ling and Jingyi fidget guiltily.
“Aw, don’t look so sad,” Senior Wei coos, “your uncle is fine, Jin Ling, he’s just being dramatic! Honest, I used to throw him in the lakes all the time when we were kids, I don’t know what’s so upsetting about being wet now.”
Privately, Sizhui thinks being wet on toilet water with a dead fish is very upsetting, but that would be admitting to knowing about the fish and he’s still officially clinging to plausible deniability.
So instead, he gives his best innocent, earnest look, “I hope Sect Leader Jiang gets better soon. Maybe he could borrow some of the guest robes?”
“Ah, good thinking, A-Yuan,” Senior Wei brightens, “he will hate that, I can’t wait to see his face!”
With that, his dad leaves, and the kitchen rings with a kind of silence that stinks worse than the dead fish– it stinks with the promise of copying many, many rules in the library if dots were to be connected.
“So–”
“I think we’re done here–”
“I should go–”
“It’s quite late–”
In the interest of getting the dots as far from each other as possible, they collectively and silently agree to stick the cupcakes with preserving talismans and vacate the premises.
Calmly, of course, after all, running is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses.