Volume 1, Chapter 67: True Delicacy! This is the Ultimate Flavor of the Universe!
"The First Ancestor's decree!" Steward Fu's voice echoed through the Creation Kitchen. "Brew a bottle of 'coca-cola,' and make it 'iced'!"
Inside the kitchen, a group of Gu family powerhouses wrapped in chef's uniforms, their auras unfathomably deep, froze for a moment before ecstatic expressions took over their faces.
They had finally... finally waited for the First Ancestor to order a dish!
"Quick! Fetch the 'Origin of the Void' for water!"
"Use the 'raw sugar' refined from the 'seven emotions and six desires of all living beings'!"
"Bubbles! Bubbles are the key! Go to the River of Time and Space, capture ten thousand of the most violent 'spatiotemporal ripples,' and compress them into 'gas'!"
"And the 'ice'! Don't use ordinary profound ice. Go to the extreme edge of the concept of 'Absolute Zero,' sever a section of the 'Law of Annihilation,' and turn it into ice!"
"And the bottle! Blow it from 'Causality-Law Crystals'! The cap must be forged from a fragment of the 'Wheel of Destiny'!"
The entire Creation Kitchen instantly transformed into an infinitely precise, cosmic-scale machine running madly to create a single bottle of "coca-cola."
In less than a single breath's time.
A bottle that, in appearance, was entirely indistinguishable from a cheap plastic bottle of cola from Earth, was respectfully delivered into Steward Fu's hands.
Steward Fu's figure returned once more to the small courtyard.
He unscrewed the cap. The cap forged from the fragment of the "Wheel of Destiny" emitted a soft, crisp *shh* sound.
A black, bubbling liquid was poured into an ordinary glass cup. Inside the cup, a few ice cubes composed of the "Law of Annihilation" radiated a chill that froze the surrounding space itself.
Gu Changsheng took the glass, didn't even look at it, and tilted his head back for a large gulp.
The ice-cold liquid, laced with the sharp, stimulating bubbles, slid down his throat.
In that instant, all his thirst, all his irritation, vanished.
Only a single sensation remained.
Refreshing!
From the depths of his soul, every single cell was cheering in ultimate comfort!
"Burp—!"
Gu Changsheng set down the cup and let out a long, loud, satisfied belch.
...
It was precisely this belch.
Like a mischievous child, carrying a faint undertone of the "void," a hint of the sweetness of "all living beings," a trace of the playfulness of "time and space," and a shred of the icy coolness of "annihilation," it effortlessly pierced through Steward Fu's defenses and the barrier of the dimensional singularity. In a manner that could neither be understood nor blocked, it drifted straight to the venue of the "Eternal Tea Gathering."
The Taste Elder, who had been confronting the Pill Emperor, froze.
The Pill Emperor, who had been boasting about his divine pill, also froze.
Every single guest present froze.
Their divine consciousness, their perception, and the Dao they took such pride in all failed the moment they came into contact with this wispy breath of the belch.
They felt as though they had regressed into the most primitive mortals, standing by the shore, feeling the sea breeze caress them for the very first time.
What was in that wind?
Unknown.
Yet it was simply... extremely comfortable.
The pill in the Pill Emperor's hand, the "Myriad-Dao Convergence Pill," reacted the most violently.
The three thousand Dao laws contained within it were like three thousand diligent elementary school students in class who suddenly heard the bell ring for recess.
"Hum—!"
The medicinal pill emitted a mournful cry.
The three thousand Dao projection phantoms instantly disintegrated, transforming into the most primitive particles that dissipated into the chaos. They were not destroyed, but rather... "off duty."
It was as if they had been liberated from a rigorous "rule" that demanded constant operation, returning to the freest, most primordial state of "laziness."
That supreme divine pill, which had condensed the Pill Emperor's lifelong efforts, transformed within a single second into a... completely unremarkable, slightly grayish lump of mud.
"No... my pill... my Dao..."
The Pill Emperor's eyes instantly bloodshot. He stared blankly at the lump of mud in his palm, then looked up at the surrounding guests who were trapped in the same dazed state, and finally cast his gaze toward the direction from which that wispy "belch" had drifted.
He could see nothing.
Yet he could feel it.
He could feel that his own "Dao," his "pride," and his lifelong pursuit of gathering the "myriad DAOs" into the "ultimate form of alchemy" were nothing more than a joke in front of a casual "belch" from some existence in that direction.
A colossal joke.
He attempted to analyze the "logic" contained within that breath.
Yet he failed.
Because inside it, there was no "logic."
There was only "comfort."
A pure, unreasonable, instinctual, physiological... "comfort."
His Dao was "convergence"—merging the three thousand DAOs into one.
While the Dao of that belch was "dispersion"—allowing everything to return to its origin, to the void, to the most comfortable state.
His "convergence" was utterly vulnerable in front of "dispersion."
"Puff—!"
The Pill Emperor violently spat out a mouthful of reverse-flowing blood, his aura instantly withering. At that exact moment, his Dao heart was completely "shattered" by that single belch.
He had not lost to any particular person, nor had he lost to some superior Dao.
He had lost to "comfort" itself.
"So... lying down... was the right way all along..." the Pill Emperor muttered, his eyes unfocused. It was as if his soul had been sucked out. Crazed and unhinged, he turned around and fled, vanishing into the ends of the chaos.
The scene fell into a dead silence.
Everyone was shocked out of their wits by this sudden turn of events.
After a long while, the Pavilion Master's light-and-shadow body was the first to react.
His illuminated form trembled violently—not out of fear, but out of an extreme, irrepressible ecstasy!
"A miracle! This is a miracle!"
His voice resounded in the depths of everyone's minds, laced with a hint of crying.
"We... we were still using 'Dao' to brew tea, still using 'logic' to debate the Dao—how shallow! How laughable!"
"And that supreme adult has already transcended all of this!"
"He has returned to simplicity and truth, beginning to savor the most primitive 'desire' and 'emotion' that existed before 'Dao' and 'logic' were even born!"
"Thirst is 'desire.' Satisfaction is 'emotion.'"
"That belch was not a belch! That was the 'joyful' cry emitted by the 'Dao' after satisfying 'desire'!"
"This is true fine cuisine! This is the ultimate flavor of the universe!"
The Taste Elder and the pavilion members listened in rapturous fascination, their faces exhibiting expressions of sudden enlightenment and profound shame.
They raised the cups of Dao tea before them—brewed from the "Light of Chaos" and "Leaves of the Era"—and suddenly found them utterly tasteless.
Compared to the post-meal belch of that adult, their cup of tea was practically plain water.
No, it wasn't even as good as plain water.
At least plain water quenched thirst.
And their tea—aside from allowing one to comprehend the Dao, extend one's lifespan, and perceive the laws—what use did it have?
Useless!
"Dismiss it," the Pavilion Master sighed deeply, his voice laden with endless desolation and a trace of a release.
"Today, having witnessed true flavor, we have no regrets in this life. The 'Eternal Tea Gathering' ends here. From this day forward, the Myriad Realms Fine Cuisine Pavilion shall seal its doors for an epoch. All members shall enter closed-door seclusion to introspect and rethink what the true meaning of 'deliciousness' actually is."
That magnificent pavilion, along with all its wondrous manifestations, vanished instantly as if it had never existed.
Leaving behind only those startled guests from the myriad heavens, standing bewildered in the wind, unable to recover their wits for a long time.
...
Back in the courtyard.
Gu Changsheng finished the last drop of cola and leaned back comfortably onto his reclining chair.
The sunshine was just right, and the breeze was pleasant.
He glanced at the empty bottle crafted from the "Causality-Law Crystals," deciding that keeping it around was just creating garbage.