The force of the clash was enough that Alfie was sent fluttering backwards just from the strike landing on someone else. Cliche of a cultivation story or not, the young Texan found himself spitting blood and breathing hard as he stared at the form of Hou Gen, clean shaven and well put together for once with a wooden sword that had as much in common with a grave marker as a sword, etched with ritual symbology and pulsating with energy as Hou Gen trembled against the strike of the immortal.
Alfonso did not expect his compatriot to clean up in the wilderness, to clean up so well, or for Hou Gen to have thrown himself forward to protect Alfie after only knowing each other for a day. He expected the tall, graceful woman who looked out of a painting and the broad shouldered and stern man even less.
“Ding Hui of the Immortal Cloud sect, you will not strike that boy down.” The bear of a man, dressed in deep blue colored robes, said. “I wish to try his food and to see you battle in the martial manner of his people. I believe he called it a chili cook off?”
The man’s words alone were enough to send Ding Hui and the others who still stood to the ground from sheer intent, and when he was done speaking he turned to look at the dark-haired, tanned young man from Texas and gave a nod. Meeting Alfonso’s blue eyes with his own eerily blue eyes, the man spoke.
“Are you willing to allow myself, my companion, Ding Hui, and your friend Xiang Hou Gen to try your chili and judge it? I admit I am intrigued.”
Alfonso did not immediately respond, as even the outlander with his barely born core could feel the pressure of the man’s immense cultivation. Nonetheless, the young man forced himself to his hands and knees and then to his feet.
“Of course but may I get your name? This one is Alfie Carter. Let me get out my gear.”
“Pleased to meet you, Kartuh Al Fi, I am Wan Qi of the Crescent River Sect. My companion is Lady Gong Tung-Mei of the Celestial Desert Sect.”
That led to murmurs, but not anything which Alfie specifically understood meaningfully, instead causing the cook to head to the still parked Celestial Chili Cloud, sitting in the village stables and gathering a folding camp table and bowls from the trailer in the back of the dirt bike and striding back carrying the bowls in one hand and the still folded table in another.
In short order, the set up was prepared and Alfie was sweating a little. Villagers and members of the Army of Immortals alike crowded, and after unfolding the table Alfonso placed four bowls and focused his energy on summoning the cauldron of chili he had stored in the storage ring Hou Gen had allowed him to borrow.
As he set up the bowls, he looked with sorrow at his friend - initially having planned to overwhelm the chi of Ding Hui and allowing Xiang Hou Gen to strike out of nowhere, to slay the immortal warlord. They had failed, thanks to Alfonso’s goof, but fortune seemed to smile upon them still.
If Hou Gen could also survive the heat and chi density of the chili that Alfonso had prepared to serve Ding Hui. Four bowls were ladled with spoons provided and the challenge and danger for Alfonso’s friend, and Alfonso, began.
Ding Hui glared daggers at Hou Gen and Alfonso even now and a large part of him worried that if it did not succeed, Alfonso would find himself in deep danger from the likes of the immortal cultivator that they had set out to strike down.
***
The dark haired young man’s blue eyes flickered over the assembled four cultivators and hesitated as he ladled out the bowls. Which would be the correct order to provide them in? Was Wan Qi or Lady Gong Tung-Mei more powerful and important? Would it feel suspicious if he picked out a bowl for them all at once?
He just ladled out the bowls and then held two bowls up to the Elders. “Please choose whichever you want of the bowls.”
With a wide grin, Wan Qi took one. At the same time, after a much more gentle and barely visible smile from the ebon haired Lady Tung-Mei, she took another. Immediately there after, Alfonso did the same for Xiang Hou Gen and Ding Hui. The immortal picked first among them, with the cultivator taking the last available one.
Then, Alfonso Carter of the Chili Cloud restaurant, took a bowl of his own and began to consume what he hoped to be a weaponized masterpiece.
With one bite, he was enjoying it. With another he was thinking back to how he had begun this new recipe based on the foundations of the old. As he ate, he watched the four cultivators assembled in front of him and found that they were also taking in the food with aplomb.
Even Ding Hui -who seemed skeptical and murmured a ‘If you try to poison me, you will die’, before biting after a glare from Wan Qi and Gong Tung-Mei- was consuming it rapidly and enjoying it.
But Ding Hui was slowing, as was Xiang Hou Gen. The size of the bowl ladled out was part of the reason – it was the size of a normal pot of chili back on Earth, – but the tell tale signs of watery eyes and runny nose were appearing on both of them. To the honored elder cultivators, nothing but smiles were coming.
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
Alfonso enjoyed his bites as he thought back to the making of this chili. This felt almost as good as the chili that Mama Alma made, or Grandpa Charlie made. True champion chili. Too bad he would have to make it back home before he could use the ingredients he’d gathered to make more. So he committed the recipe to memory.
First, they had gathered great sized green onions and garlic from the edge of the swamp near Eyu Luzhou. Dicing the stalks of the onions for garnish and flavor, the rest were cut into wider strips to keep their moisture – super natural moisture that made the first one they had gathered almost slip out of Alfonso’s hands just from the sheer amount of water essence that the onions possessed.
Then, they had deseeded and diced the fiery essence filled peppers from their first meeting, which Hou Gen had called ‘Fire Fruits’, and Alfie was now calling a Hougoushi Chili Pepper after the tingling words that had come in his ears at that.
The seeds were pounded into a paste with some of the ‘Fire Fruit’s’ meat, and the rest of the pepper was put aside. Salt from the fishery shack found in ruins of the village was added to the poultice.
Then the pair took the metallic essence filled beans of the great beanstalks they had found was soaked, having been flash dried by the pair with their essence as yet another test of Alfie’s nascent cultivation skills.The beans were left to soak in some salted water as the pair went on to butcher one of the deers and one of the boars they had taken in.
The water essence which filled the deer’s blood and meat was strong and added to the fire essence of the boar’s own meat and blood. As the pair went through the careful work of butchering and cleaning their hunting produce, the beans soaked.
Then the pair began to fry the meats together, adding the peppers, garlic, onions, and paste before Alfie added some of the secret stash of spices he kept in his jacket pockets – a true chef should never be without his spices, after all!– A dash of nutmeg and cinnamon, some paprika, garlic powder and the tiniest dash of turmeric.
So the meats and veggies were stirred and fried in the cauldron until the beans were plumped and water was added to both. The beans were cooked separately at first, and added when the chili was truly thickening in the cauldron.
With Hou Gen making stirs of the pot which would have made a giant jealous using a boat’s oar, they were able to keep up their pace and soon the first chili con carne by Alfonso was made in this new world he found himself in.
Topped with the green onion tops when it was served, they were truly a good job and he was going to have to add the samples he had taken to his garden and make sure that this recipe could live on.
***
A bark brought Alfie back to the present, and it was then that the young man remembered his canine companion had yet to be fed since they got back from Eyu Luzhou. With a moment’s thought he grabbed another of the carved wooden bowls and placed a helping of the chii for Odiseo on the ground.
It might be bad for the chihuahua, but the Carter matriarch’s dog had always enjoyed chili and scarfed it down with even greater gusto than the assembled martial arts masters partaking in the food.
None so much as raised an eyebrow at the gesture towards the animal and soon Alfonso was back to focusing on the cultivators as they ate.
Soon, Wan Qi was done and smiling with a gentle tap on the table. “Delicious! May I have another!”
Gong Tung-Mei was not yet done but she was near to completing her bowl. As Alfonso gave a nod to Wan Qi and prepared a refill of the bowl he had used before for the azure robed cultivator, the young man from Texas watched his friend and Ding Hui move at largely the same pace.
Both had reddened, sweating faces and both continued to have water from their nose, pores, and tears continue to flow down. The loss of face alone might be an issue, but despite that Ding Hui did not strike out at Alfie.
Instead, he placed his hand on the table and made a very unhappy face. A monstrous burp erupted from his mouth and nearly knocked the honored elder cultivators nearby from their places, but the warlord of the army of the immortals caught himself before he stirred up too much of a fuss.
“Please excuse me, Master Cook.” He tried to genuflect but stopped himself before entering much into the bow. Disgraceful to bow to a mere cook! And his stomach hurt, his core hurt… what was this dish?
“Certainly! I hope you enjoyed my Chili. Do what you need to do, Master Cultivator Ding Hui.”
Which resulted in perhaps the greatest loss of face for the cultivator. A jab towards one of his subordinates. “You! Point me to the outhouse of this wretched village!”
So our heroes defeated the greatest threat yet to the Juren Wuting, the Giant’s Playground, not with force of arms but instead with force of food. The art of hard work in bringing out the strength of the ingredients. Even if the warlord of the Immortals, the feared Ding Hui, were to survive the results of this Chili and the spiritual pressure it created, the loss of face would have caused him great trouble.
And that was before the end of the warlord’s time in the latrine, as he stormed forward shouting at the top of his lungs. “You! You poisoner! You huadan!” Alfie didn’t even need the world’s translation to understand that meant Bad Egg, he had seen more than enough Wuxia and Xianxia with his grandfather to have known the word. “I will rip your throat out! You cracked, you ruined, my c-c-core!”
Ding Hui, pale and for all intents and purposes what one would expect if they looked for a mixture of golden universal monsters film dracula and a cultivator pushed together, charged and he was fast.
It was not Alfonso or Hou Gen, not the Master Cultivators or the two newest followers of Alfonso who stopped the strike of Ding Hui the Immortal.
It was a dog. Truly a good dog, for Odiseo’s mistress and her heir Alfonso often told him such. With one mighty paw, the Chihuahua had stopped the force of the strike from the Immortal. With another, Ding Hui was launched into the distance. With a wag of his tail the followers of Ding Hui were knocked to their backs, sprawling.
Tienye and Diwu whispered in the crowd.
“Maybe he really is a wizard.”
“I told you, Diwu, that that tiny rat dog of his was a monster.”
Soon the cousins were met by their own cousin, Xu Chasun, who had just lost their benefactor.
“You owe me an in with that bastard as well, if he helped you two with your cultivation so.”