One early morning, Jianmen was preparing food for the day's medicinal lunch and dinner, while listening to a podcast with his phone on loudspeaker.
"Hello Mr. Thaicus Theon, welcome to the James Sully show. It's been a long time coming. Thank you, thank you for doing this man, appreciate it."
"Thanks James, happy to be here."
Jianmen already collected a bunch of best quality meat from his private and secret farm. He also picked up two whole baskets of fresh berries and veggies, especially Linggen roots. For the meat, he needed to clean it, marinate it lightly and it can be easily cooked, even for his students or Dave who have no idea how to cook. His trusted meat cleaver moving in a blur, the giant pieces of meat were cut into smaller and thin slices. The pieces of meat with bones were cleanly deboned - and the bones were cut into smaller chunks and thrown into a metal pot filled with clean water.
"... So, what inspired you to start building these giant tunnels under LA?"
"First of all is the LA traffic, and second is that we as a country are kinda behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to public transportation and infrastructure..."
Jianmen started his stove and put the pot of clean water and chopped bones on the fire, then he started cutting different veggies and separating them for different uses. He used the same short but wide meat cleaver that he just used on the meat and bones to cut the veggies and berries, the only difference was his movements became even faster. When the water in the metal pot started boiling, he turned down the fire and put sliced ginger, minced garlic and assorted other cut veggies in the water.
"... So what do you think about cyborgs? I got kinda creeped out by your suggestions, that we fuse ourselves with machines? That's also tripping a lot of people out. They think you're crazy, like a crazy scientist that is gonna doom us."
"But that's the thing, James, if we don't do this and learn to further take advantage of the processing power of computers. You know, for the last few decades, the computing power of our machines have climbed more than a thousand fold, while our brain, though loaded with new information, barely evolved..."
Jianmen placed some of the cut veggies into some plastic containers, and some of the chopped berries into big clay jars to start the wine making fermentation process. He then laid some of the meat on a metal pan, then sprayed his homemade sauce on it. With a snap of his fingers, a small fireball dropped on the metal pan and lit all the meat and sauce on fire. At the same time, a rich and umami-filled smell started coming out of the pot boiling with the pieces of bone.
"... So, Thaicus, my final hard hitting question for you."
"Oh, you have another one?"
"What's your experience with psychedelics? Do you use it?"
The fire on the meat and sauce on the metal pan slowly died down, and the pieces of meat were already cooked to Jianmen's desired temperature. These were not for immediate consumption, these were intended as late night snacks to go with noodles or ramen.
The pieces of meat that were still being marinated were then placed in metal containers and then into the fridge - though he had the ability to speed things up, doing so would ruin half the fun.
Food preparations were done, now he just needed to proceed to room cleaning - the meat cleaver disappeared from his hand, and was replaced by a humble rattan broom. When he was cleaning the room, he pretty much used the broom to clean everything - from the floor, to the bathtub, to even the bedsheets and pillows. With simple and broad sweeps with the broom, dirt, cigarette ash and even stains from sweat and body fluid were simply gone from all corners of the room, even the air smelled a little fresher.
When he was done with room cleaning, he proceeded to the garden to take care of the plants - not all of the plants, they were put there as disguise and as mechanisms of defense against potential thieves and unwanted visitors, but a few of the special ones, which included some ginseng, a few pieces of ganoderma fungus, and a few blossoms that would hopefully one day bear fruit. And thanks to his students, there was also a rose planted on some newly reclaimed land near the garden, with a living and growing minor spirit inside.
Right now, the same light was flickering from within the rose bud, after being planted here and being taken care of by Caroline and Jason for a few days, the light grew brighter and warmer.
When Jianmen finished watering the plants and went back to the kitchen to start cooking breakfast, Caroline and Jason just barely woke up.
"Hey Boss. You're up early again." Jason was the first to enter the diner, "Breakfast smells good! What are we having today?"
"Special rice noodle soup and matcha cake." Jianmen already had two big bowls ready, and a big pot of tea, all he needed was two slices of cake.
"Cool, but when can we have some coffee?" Jason sat down and enjoyed the smell: "Nothing against tea, but it's kinda good to have some variety."
"Uh, when I figure out how to grow coffee trees the way I grow tea. Believe it or not, I am not opposed to coffee."
"Well, you kinda can't, it's not tea."
"Yeah yeah, I just meant growing them so that they have the same mind calming and strengthening powers as the tea I grow."
"Ah, but that means you're trying?"
"I tried, it's either too strong or too weak. You wouldn't want to take a sip and act like you are on a ton of cocaine, and I wouldn't want it to be not effective at all. But rest assured I will keep trying."
"Hmm, I am looking forward to it. But I gotta ask, where did you learn to grow the tea?"
"It's been a practice in my clan for a few hundred years. And one of my clan sisters, Yanyu, taught me how to properly grow tea in different atmospheres and on different kinds of ground. She also taught me how to properly infuse water and fertilizer with Xuanli and elemental power to make the plants exhibit certain properties. The technique was practiced and improved over the years, and we didn't have coffee. So it'll take some time. Hopefully it won't take too long."
"Hey Boss, Jason. Morning." Caroline came into the diner with a yawn: "What are we having?"
"Rice noodle soup and matcha cake. And since you're both here, a lesson about Xuanli circles and arrays after breakfast."