Reborn in Japan as a Chef God

Sensing a powerful grudge in the air, Xia Yu hesitated repeatedly but still opened each chat, automatically filtering out messages like "Are you there?" and "Don't play dead," focusing only on the useful texts.

Eriina, "I threw the Christmas gift in the trash!"

Tiqie Ailisha, "Lecturer, I'm right outside the door..."

Shen Liangzi, "Thank you for taking care of Polar Star Dormitory..."

Tanaka Hikari, "Lecturer, I will personally deliver the Christmas thank-you gift tomorrow. Thank you for your guidance all this time, you've taught me a lot!"

Yoshino Yuji, "Hehe, 'Little Red Riding Hood of the Beast Forest' presents a Christmas gift to the lecturer!"

Makki, "You must come!"

Girls from the Far Moon Faction had almost formed a group.

Of course, there were Secretary, Kobayakawa Ryodan, Hozoi Midori, and others.

With such a luxurious lineup, if Xia Yu had shared a screenshot on Twitter, he would have immediately become the public enemy of all male beings in the school.

Beep beep!

While Xia Yu was checking, his phone vibrated again with a new message.

Jiang Liangzi Lina: "You must be tired tonight, right? Congratulations on the great success of Xia's Shopping Street Christmas Food Festival (^?^)."

What surprised Xia Yu was that Jiang actually included a cute emoticon.

He twitched the corners of his mouth.

Xia Yu bowed his head and pondered. There were many female friends who sent holiday greetings, their admiration implicit or explicit in their words. If he were an expert in dating simulation games, he would have been jumping with excitement, cursing at how many side quests he could undertake.

But a game is a game, damn it, dating sims can save and load files. If you hit a bad turning point or encounter a bad ending, you can load and retry. But how do you load a file in the real world?

If you get "chopped," you're truly done for.

With cautious thoughts, Xia Yu thought it over and decided not to respond to any of them!

He might as well continue playing dead.

"Thank you." Before turning off his phone, he replied to Jiang.

"Hey, it's still fairly early, do you plan on coming over?"

Who knew that with a ding, Jiang sent a second message.

It's still early?

Xia Yu's entire face twitched. Sister, it's the middle of the night, the trams have stopped running, and the only way to get there would be to ask Yuchuan Ayaka to drive. He sent a bunch of ellipses back, feeling that tonight's Jiang was not quite normal, so he simply turned off his phone, threw it back on the bedside table, clapped his hands, and smiled satisfactorily, "Troubles be gone!"

At that moment, a voice came from the store downstairs:

"Hey!"

"It's snowing, it's snowing!"

Whoosh.

Xia Yu pulled open the bedroom window and was stunned.

The light misty drizzle from the pitch-dark night had turned into fine snowflakes.

Thus, the night became pale.

A white Christmas?

A cold breeze gusted through the window into the bedroom. Even though Xia Yu was strong, he felt a chill. For some reason, his mind suddenly recalled the messages he had just checked.

He had only glanced through them hurriedly without paying much attention, but he remembered Makki's message,

"I'll be waiting for you at that place!"

He patted his head, Xia Yu sighed. It's snowing outside, is she still waiting?

After hesitating briefly, he still put on a coat, wore his shoes, and left the house.

...

The route to school from Xia's Shopping Street toward White Seagull High School.

This area, already a mix of commercial buildings and residences, featured a ditch that crossed from behind a residential area through the grass, with high banks on both sides descending into sloped terrain.

The fine snowflakes drifted down. On the slope, a girl sat squatting with her mobile phone's flashlight on, its screen also glowing, casting her silhouette against the night.

"It's so cold!"

Shivering, she couldn't help but sneeze and realized that squatting would make her even colder. Sen Tian Makki stood up, stomped her feet in place, and jumped a little, but her hands still clung tightly to her mobile phone.

The chat window was eerily silent.

Sen Tian Makki bit her lip and glanced at the time displayed on her phone—00:33.

"At this hour, they must have already taken down the stalls and cleaned up, right? Why hasn't Yu replied to my message yet?" A flicker of unease passed through Sen Tian Makki's eyes. She was smart after all. Xia Yu's silence throughout the day and his lack of appearance—that itself spoke volumes about his stance, didn't it?

She squatted down again, hugged her knees, and looked at a small cardboard box next to her.

The box was open and inside were some fireworks.

As her heart slowly sank, the girl's eyes blurred, and she thought of the Christmases of the last two years.

The year before last.

"Today is Christmas; let's talk."

It was still the 24th. Back then, the girl was wearing the uniform of White Seagull Middle School, her long, straight black hair draped over her shoulders, her youthful face slightly naive and inexperienced, lacking the radiance and maturity she had later developed at Far Moon.

Then, as expected, the boy arrived. On the slope, his hands in his pockets, he looked at her indifferently, "What do you want to talk about?"

"For you!"

The boy's deliberate distance did not surprise the girl. She simply pushed the gift bag she had prepared into the boy's hands. Then, she took out a small firework from the box, lit it, and even though the sparkler made the white sky burst with color, beneath this brilliant light, the girl's figure seemed so lonely.

After the fireworks were done, when the girl turned around, he had already disappeared.

Last year was even worse.

Just like this year, the boy hadn't responded to her messages at all. Every invitation sank without a trace, with no response whatsoever.

"Ah, did I fail again this year?"

Annoyed, she slapped the cardboard box; Sen Tian Makki felt a slight pain and looked up at the snowflakes drifting in the sky, though her eyes didn't hold much discouragement or dejection. She self-reflected inwardly, wondering if she had improved too quickly this year and things had gotten much better, maybe she had grown too greedy for more?

She took the lighter, and a firework launcher was also set up on the flat stones near the ditch.

But just then,

"Boom!"

Not far from the bridge, another colorful firework soared into the sky and exploded into pieces in the air.

The white Christmas turned colorful.

Sen Tian Makki was startled and looked up, seeing the night sky lit up. And underneath the curtain of light on the bridge, she could vaguely see the silhouettes of a couple cuddling together, making her inadvertently envious, "That must be nice..."

"What's nice?"

A voice suddenly inquired.

Ah!

She stiffened, and the lighter clattered to the ground.

Behind her, there was the sound of rustling. Before Sen Tian Makki could recover, someone came from behind and squatted in front of her, picked up the lighter calmly, lit it, ignited the fuse, and then pulled on the girl's arm, "Don't just squat there, let's go!"

So, the girl and the boy stepped back a few steps.

The firework ascended and burst apart.

The tightly cuddling couple on the bridge was startled and looked over, then smiled at each other.

"How many fireworks do we have left?"

"Quite a few..."

"This is troublesome, why do you like setting off these things? Isn't it cold outside?"

"A little."

Sen Tian Makki subconsciously wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck.

"Then let's hurry up and clean this up and go back!"

Ten minutes later, the cardboard box was packed with trash, and Xia Yu carried the box, while the girl held the gift bag with a delighted face.

Quietly, her other hand also wrapped around the boy's arm.

Xia's Shop.

A black car had been waiting in the snow for quite a while.

Sitting in the back seat, Tiqie Ailisha watched the young man and woman laughing as they walked inside and immediately her eyes filled with tears.

"I came here first..."