Chapter 136: Chapter 136 Chopstick Cult_1
In the canteen, Aiden sat on one side of the square table, with Veronica and Rebecca sitting side by side opposite him. Prison guards coming and going for meals couldn’t help but cast additional glances in their direction.
"Warden, that woman who was brought in, she looks a bit familiar."
Seated in a corner, prison guard Isabella spoke to her supervisor nearby, the warden of the sector, Flandre.
"Seems like an ex-colleague, replaced by Presia before." Flandre only glanced briefly before continuing to eat.
"Didn’t Veronica get off work already? She’s actually stayed to have dinner?" Isabella added.
"Apparently, she just happened to encounter an incident outside the prison, so she stayed to help out." Flandre continued to eat deliberately, "Didn’t you see a bunch of people just get handed over by the warden?"
Isabella looked over again, her mouth curling into an excited smile, "Hey hey, warden, do you think maybe—"
"Young one, don’t be so gossipy, just eat your food," Flandre cut off the conversation directly.
Meanwhile, at Aiden’s table, the temperature was gradually rising.
Rebecca’s expression was serious as she looked at Aiden, then at Veronica, and finally, she couldn’t hold back anymore and spoke, "Sorry, I really have to ask, forgive my intrusion..."
She paused before asking, "What exactly is this dish?"
In the center of the table sat a large, thick ceramic bowl filled with a stir-fry of spices and various ingredients, shiny red and piping hot, the trio seated around it all feeling the blast of heat that surged forth.
"Spicy hot pot," Aiden calmly replied.
In each of their plates were some bread as the staple food, along with a vegetable soup, but only the main dish had undergone a drastic change, a big bowl of freshly served spicy hot pot.
"The smell is so strong, is this... a regional dish from somewhere? I’ve never seen it before," asked Rebecca, quite puzzled.
"It’s a unique creation of our canteen, give it a try," Aiden casually invited, then noticed Rebecca holding a fork, seemingly at a loss as to where to start, and timely handed over the long-handled ladle from the pot, "You might want to use the ladle to serve the food into your plate first."
"Oh, okay..."
Rebecca quickly took it, then in surprise, noticed Aiden and Veronica each pulling out a pair of thin wooden sticks, reaching directly into the hot pot to pick up food.
"What are these now?" At that moment, Rebecca felt as if she had arrived in a land with entirely different customs and traditions.
"These utensils are more convenient for eating this kind of food," Aiden replied succinctly.
"I... learned from everyone else," Veronica said somewhat shyly. She wasn’t very skilled with chopsticks and succeeded in picking up some food only after several attempts.
Rebecca looked around and indeed saw several dining prison guards holding similar utensils—this was the result of Aiden’s push for canteen reform, as most of the recipes he organized for the canteen were Chinese dishes, many of which were more conveniently eaten with chopsticks. Over time, quite a few prison guards learned to use chopsticks.
"Where did you learn this? I feel like it rings a bell..." Rebecca recollected for a moment before she realized something, "Aiden, you haven’t been promoting some strange religion here, have you?"
"That’s a bit rude... Why would you suddenly ask that?" Aiden was utterly confused.
"I remember seeing a record of a religious group in the historical archives of the Inquisition," Rebecca said earnestly, "It seems that the members of that group used to eat with utensils like these."
"I see..." Aiden was picking up some food with his chopsticks as he responded, then suddenly stopped in his tracks.
He realized something was amiss, "They also ate with these utensils?"
"Yes, the book said ’They would use an extremely skillful technique, holding two wooden sticks in one hand to pick up food,’ apparently it was part of their dining etiquette," Rebecca continued as she recalled.
Aiden was secretly shocked. A cult that uses chopsticks? The Chopstick Cult?
But no, it might just be that someone within that cult popularized this kind of utensil, and it was misunderstood by others as a religious rite.
He had not heard of any other countries on this world that used chopsticks. The "excellent tradition" of using chopsticks in this prison was purely something he, as a transcender, had brought over. If there were others on this world who also used chopsticks and had no connection with him... Then they were most likely "fellow countrymen."
Yet, Aiden wasn’t particularly surprised by this revelation; he had always suspected that the rulers of this world, who have the power to summon souls from other worlds, could mean there were other transcenders besides him.
"Which religious group was it?" Aiden immediately asked further.
"I forgot the name; was it two hundred or three hundred years ago?" Rebecca tried hard to remember, "It seems to have appeared around the Old Lese Kingdom, then it apparently got involved in some event and was annihilated, I just stumbled upon it by chance."
Two or three hundred years ago? If that "fellow countryman" hadn’t achieved immortality, they should be long dead by now...
This cult, based on the description, was probably also started by that transcender.
Because real gods exist, and it seems they also undergo succession, this world is teeming with religions. It will probably be quite difficult to trace and study an extinct cult, but since it was recorded in the historical archives of the Inquisition, there should still be a way to collect some information.
"Actually, I heard about these utensils from someone else, and I didn’t know its origin; I just found it interesting, so I made a pair to try them out, and unexpectedly, they worked quite well," Aiden casually made up a reason, "Could you find that cult’s records for me to look at? I’m a bit curious."
Information or resources from past transcenders might be useful to him... Aiden felt that he needed to pay some attention to this.
"Sure..." While replying, Rebecca used her fork to spear a piece of cauliflower, and a strong spicy taste immediately exploded on her tongue, with the just-right aroma of spices rushing into her nostrils.
"Delicious!" She covered her mouth subconsciously, as this taste, full of foreign flavor, was quite novel to her.
Aiden’s reaction, however, was much more moderate. In his eyes, this spicy hot pot was just passable, as the ingredients of this world and those of his former world were not exactly the same. Many spices were not widely used or even entirely absent—the most egregious was the lack of Sichuan peppercorn, having to use a somewhat similar but inferior alternative spice instead.
In other words, this so-called spicy hot pot was spicy but not numbing—lacking soul. Though it was tolerable, it wasn’t authentic.
"Commander," Veronica began speaking again, "Are you really going to keep living in the prison from now on?"
