When Leyu returned home, he found his sister Qian Yuya was already back, seemingly washing vegetables in the backyard.
The Qian family had a backyard, and the most important tool there was the water press. All the household water was drawn from this water press—the technology of running water was indeed available, but it wasn't that relevant to ordinary folks like them.
Leyu thought about it, and although he was willing to shamelessly wait for dinner to be served, he had nothing to do during this wait. He didn't have a phone or computer, and the only books at home were either Qian Yuya's textbooks or manuals from the Qian Yu school—reading those was less appealing than helping with cooking.
Qian Yuliu usually never returned home before dinner was ready. In fact, since graduating and starting work, he had never returned home before dark—either he was openly working overtime at the Statistical Department while secretly eavesdropping, or he was training Combat Technique at the Statistical Department's training ground.
Leyu had also considered whether to train in Combat Technique, but Qian Yuliu's experience had shown him that it wasn't a training that would show obvious results after just 'a few weeks of effort.'
To give an analogy from a previous life with ping-pong, most people in this world's Combat Technique were like neighborhood ping-pong experts; military academy graduates were roughly at the level of city-level ping-pong players; someone like Qian Yuliu had just barely stepped into the realm of provincial-level athletes.
Therefore, if Leyu wanted to surpass Qian Yuliu's Combat Technique level, it would be akin to advancing beyond the foundation of a provincial-level athlete—which couldn't be achieved by 'effort' alone.
Scoring from 0 to 60 might be easy, but the effort and talent required to go from 80 to 90 were several times that.
Even with Qian Yuliu's remarkable physical and gifted talent, at his age, he could only reach the level of 'beginning stage Eight Grain Flow Biting Battle Technique.' If Leyu thought he could surpass Qian Yuliu with some effort, he'd be seriously underestimating the geniuses of this world.
What's more, Combat Technique was really difficult. Even if Leyu absorbed all of Qian Yuliu's memories, applying higher levels of Combat Technique was still 'the brain seems to understand but the body just doesn't get it.'
Study? What for? Better to honestly go home and eat with his sister.
Leyu went to the backyard and saw Qian Yuya sitting on a small stool beside the water press. Her long hair was tied into a ponytail for convenience in doing chores. Her sleeves and trousers were rolled up, revealing her fair ankles and wrists. She wore a white apron over her uniform and was washing vegetables with a bowl of water.
Qian Yuya heard the sound of boots and turned to glance at Leyu, her eyes showing slight surprise, but she soon lowered her head and continued picking vegetable leaves.
Curious, Leyu looked at the flowers and plants in the backyard; it was obvious these were tended by Qian Yuya: "Anything you need help with?"
"No."
"Really no? Don't be shy, I know a thing or two about cooking."
Leyu was no longer bothered if he was OOC (out of character); after all, even Chen Fu had noticed something, and it was impossible to hide from his sister Qian Yuya. The best approach was to let them gradually get used to his changes.
The most important difference between him and Qian Yuliu was that Leyu didn't wish to continue living with a mask on.
The spy life was almost a DNA-engrained instinct for Qian Yuliu, but for Leyu...he wasn't the kind of tough guy who could engrave everything into his DNA like Qian Yuliu!
Returning home to eat was, for Leyu, not just about Crossing the Tribulation. He subconsciously viewed coming home as a form of relaxation, a respite from the stiflingly dangerous spy life.
Even his sister washing vegetables looked so cute and pleasing.
Certainly better than the complaining Chen Fu.
"You really don't need any help, you carry on." Qian Yuya didn't lift her head, seemingly picking vegetable leaves was some important task.
Since he didn't need to help, Leyu was content to be a freeloader for dinner. However, since he was idle, he asked while leaning against the wall:
"How's your academic performance? Is school going smoothly?"
Qian Yuya raised an eyebrow slightly.
"Is your pocket money still enough? Do you want to buy new clothes?"
Qian Yuya tugged at the corner of her mouth, accidentally picking out an edible leaf.
"Have you started dating? I'm very open-minded, I support free love, but you need to discern if the person is good, preferably tell me and let me check a bit. I've been a man for over twenty years, a slight tail wig and I can tell if he's decent..."
Bang!
Qian Yuya slammed both hands heavily on the basin, splashing the vegetable wash water everywhere. Leyu was startled and instinctively stepped back: "Wh-what's wrong?"
"...I'm going to make plum vegetable meat patties tonight, can you help by chopping the plum vegetable and mushrooms into small pieces, chop the meat into mince?" Qian Yuya asked while suppressing her anger.
"Your wish, I indeed heard it."
Leyu went to the stove and picked up a large dark kitchen knife, starting to chop the soaked mushrooms and plum vegetables, the sound of chopping echoing. After finishing chopping the mushrooms and plum vegetables, Leyu noticed the knife wasn't sharp, making the meat chopping feel unpleasant.
He suddenly thought about using Spiritual Power to manipulate light into claws, wouldn't that turn the kitchen knife into a Divine Weapon?
So he went on with it, extending Spiritual Power to the knife's edge, simulating claw effects using Combat Technique, and sliced with force!
Bam! Crack!
The first sound was the cutting board being split.
The second sound was the knife snapping.
"What are you doing?"
Qian Yuya wiped the water off her hands and cleaned them on her apron, walking over to look at the knife with several broken bits: "Did the knife upset you?"
Leyu explained his idea of wanting to strengthen the knife with a plus one enhancement, as Qian Yuya's expression grew increasingly puzzled: "The knife doesn't have a Luminous Stone chip, your Spiritual Power can't penetrate, the Light Crystal you created naturally can't integrate with it and would damage the knife... only Luminous Stone devices can extend Spiritual Power, isn't that common knowledge?"
So, a plain kitchen knife couldn't be enhanced, forcing enhancement would only ruin it... Leyu pretended nothing had happened: "Ah, I see. I suddenly forgot about that."
Qian Yuya mildly said: "You and your forgetfulness."
"What should we do?"
Qian Yuya inspected the knife for a moment: "I'll take it to the knife repair master at the street corner tomorrow, it should still be usable. I'll go borrow a knife from Aunt Li later."
Knife repair master… the slightly martial arts flavored term he had heard only from the mouths of grandparents made Leyu blink. He just realized the Qian family's knife seemed to have been used for many years, dark and weathered, apparently repaired quite a few times.
The development of solar industrialization by the Illuminated Imperial Court was not long ago, societal productivity hadn't reached the level where knives could be bought freely. Moreover, kitchen knives were considered controlled items, purchasing one required going to the Imprisonment Department for registration, so the vast majority of families used one knife for a lifetime.
Leyu looked at the unchopped meat on the cutting board: "No need to borrow a knife, give me a moment and I'll finish chopping these meats."
"The knife's broken, how will you..." Qian Yuya hadn't finished speaking, but saw her brother's hands distort with light.
Slice!
Grab!
Dig!
Tear!
The Eight Grain Flow Biting Battle Technique inherently mimicked the action of 'biting.' If Leyu were asked to slice pieces of lean and fatty meat, he might be at a loss, but chopping meat into mince was right within the scope of the Biting Battle Technique!
Soon enough, Leyu tore a pound of meat into mince with his bare hands, molding it into a ball and placing it on a plate, "Is this okay?"
Qian Yuya nodded: "Yes, chopped very well, true to yourself."
She paused, then added:
"Just like a butcher."