My daily life in various anime crossovers can't possibly be this sci-fi.

In fact, Jiang Jinghua has never been a fan of any celebrity in either his real life or in the world of anime.

Not only do they not idolize traditional idol groups, but they also never view any other type of celebrity, such as anchors, movie stars, or voice actors, through the eyes of a "fan." Even if they admire their work, they never extend that admiration to their idols. Simply put, they treat them as "things" rather than "people" in their lives.

Jiang Jinghua dislikes effort that yields no results.

It's not that there was no reward, but rather that there was no result.

Even if you give everything for your idol, what good is it? To your idol, everything you have is just a tiny fraction of their existence. They won't miss you, and they won't add you. Even if your idol smiles, it's definitely not for you; even if they don't smile, it still can't be for you.

Although idols often say "Thank you for your support," Jiang Jinghua knows very well that the so-called "everyone" is definitely not you. It's like how a certain great man once said, "I am a son of the Chinese people," but he could never be your son.

Let's face reality: following celebrities won't change anything, whether it's you or your idol.

When he heard the word "Lovevelive," which for some reason just made him feel irritated, feelings like these just kept flowing out like tap water.

Perhaps that's why... I hope to become their "companion" rather than just a "supporter".

Actually, I'm quite selfish and pragmatic... I can never reach that saintly level of "giving my all to support someone even if it will never be noticed." At least I should be a backup option, or at least a jack (someone to use when you need to switch to another car), right?

...Because of the unintentional arrangements made by SCIC and the foundation, he now has the potential to transcend the level of a "fan" and become someone of value to them. Perhaps it is for this reason that he became a fan of μ's.

Okay, then it's decided...

If μ's mission is "to bring smiles to others," then I'll presumptuously declare: "My mission is to bring smiles to everyone in μ's."

what

Section 56, Chapter Fifty-Six: The Handmade Cooking Competition

After making a rather shameful statement in his mind, Jiang Jinghua spent another hour compiling a report.

"Knock knock."

"The door's unlocked, come in," Jiang Jinghua said.

The knocking sound shouldn't be from Honoka, because when Honoka knocks, she usually knocks three times, and much harder than she is now.

Sure enough, it wasn't Honoka who walked in from outside, but Minami Kotori wearing a pale yellow apron.

"Um, I wanted to ask, does Lord Jinghua know how to cook?" Nan Qinli asked.

"Cooking?" Jiang Jinghua was a little at a loss. "Unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about cooking."

"Completely clueless... What a pity." Minami Kotori sighed. "Although the quantity and variety of ingredients we brought are very limited, we plan to cook dinner ourselves tonight. Each of us will have to cook at least one dish. I was originally planning to have you join in too... but if you can't cook, then there's no way."

Jiang Jinghua shook his head helplessly and gave a wry smile. Well, is cooking really an essential skill for male protagonists when dealing with girls? But it's quite normal for a background character like himself to lack such skills.

"Although I couldn't participate, I still want to thank you for remembering someone like me," Jiang Jinghua said sincerely.

"What do you mean, 'someone like you'... No, I can't leave you out." Minami Kotori nodded, a determined look on her face. "It's okay if you can't cook, you'll just be in charge of... cooking instant noodles!"

"Huh?" Jiang Jinghua was a little startled. "That thing can actually be called a dish?"

"It may sound strange, but cooking instant noodles perfectly fits the definition of a dish!" Kotori Minami said. "It's not just about boiling the noodles; there's also the combination and preparation of the ingredients, and so on. Although it's simple, it's not just repetitive work without any skill!"

"Even so, it still sounds far-fetched..." Jiang Jinghua smiled wryly, "It's okay, you don't have to force me to get involved like this..."

"What do you mean 'reluctantly'? If you still consider us friends, you absolutely can't just do nothing," Minami Kotori said seriously. "It's shameful to expect something for nothing. If you want dinner tonight, you'd better cook me a good bowl of instant noodles!"

"Is that so..." Jiang Jinghua nodded. "Alright then, I'm honored."

"Don't look so flattered." Nan Qinli smiled and patted Jiang Jinghua on the shoulder. "Didn't we already agree on this yesterday on the mountain? We're friends, okay?"

"……Um."

We've only known each other for a few days.

As Jiang Jinghua followed Nan Qinli downstairs, his heart was still unable to find peace.

Such a simple personality is almost unbelievable in real life. Even the exaggeratedly artistic characters in anime probably don't have personalities like this…

Wait, animation?

……

Forget about all that nonsense for now.

There is no kitchen in the dormitory building. If you want to cook, you have to go to the kitchen in the cafeteria downstairs.

Because this dormitory building was converted into guest rooms specifically for travelers, the kitchen was also converted into a dedicated kitchen for travelers. The foundation has installed many modern cooking appliances here for travelers from all over the world to use at will.

"Everyone!" Minami Kotori greeted the other eight people who were already busy at the cafeteria entrance, "I brought Jinghua-kun with me!"

"Hello," Jiang Jinghua greeted them from the side.

"Now that you're here, don't just stand there and greet people casually!" Yazawa Nico shouted, hands on her hips. "Even though I can't cook, that doesn't mean I can be lazy! Come on over and help me wash the vegetables!"

"Hey, you can't be so aggressive," Nozomi Tojo reminded him while processing the fish on the cutting board. "You should be especially polite to your juniors, and act a little like a senior."

"Ah, it's alright, I don't care about these things." Jiang Jinghua rolled up his sleeves and walked towards the sink where Yazawa Nico was. "Yazawa-senpai, do whatever you think is appropriate."

"...Hmph, at least you have some self-awareness as a junior." Yazawa Nico smiled with satisfaction (or rather, satisfaction), pointing to the half-full bowl of lettuce leaves in the basin. "You can handle this half, and the remaining half can be taken care of by the cutest Nico in the universe!"

Washing vegetables... Although I've basically never cooked, I was indeed forced to wash vegetables by my parents when I was a child.

After carefully washing his hands, Jiang Jinghua picked up a large handful of lettuce leaves and put them into a basin to rinse.

"Huh? Jinghua-kun seems to really enjoy this kind of treatment?" Tojo Nozomi said with a mischievous grin. "Yeah, judging from his appearance, he does seem to have that kind of personality..."

"So please, can you please stop criticizing me anytime, anywhere?"

First, give the vegetable leaves a quick rinse, then scrub them thoroughly with your hands, paying special attention to the roots, which are more prone to getting dirty. Anything like dirt or insect eggs must be carefully removed. He himself might not care, but these vegetable leaves will be served to nine people later.

"What dish is Yazawa-senpai planning to make?" Jiang Jinghua asked, carefully washing the vegetable leaves while looking at Yazawa Nico, who was cutting tomatoes with a knife.

"Hmph, of course it's the Super-Extreme Vegetable Salad made with Nico's secret recipe!" Yazawa Nico said in a smug tone, making a bizarre statement that was hard to look at. Although she was only a year away from adulthood, her cute face, which still had a childlike innocence, was now filled with a strange confidence.

Let's put aside the question of what's going on with that strange name...

“Vegetable salad…you just chop all the ingredients up, put them in a bowl, and drizzle with salad dressing, and you’re done,” Jiang Jinghua said uncertainly. “Although I don’t know if my understanding is wrong, I feel that this kind of dish doesn’t seem to contain much of the ‘culinary’ element…”

Nico Yazawa's bright expression suddenly turned dark.

"What are you talking about?!" Nico Yazawa shouted angrily. "You stupid toad! The essence of a vegetable salad is the dressing! Do you even know what dressing is? Only the right one... Ugh!"

Nico Yazawa suddenly let out an extremely high-decibel and high-frequency scream. Her right hand twitched as she threw the knife in her hand to the side of the table. Then she clenched her left index finger tightly: bright red blood was gushing out from it.

The bright red marks on the knife used to cut the tomatoes, which were a distinctly different color from the tomato juice, clearly indicated that Nico Yazawa had just cut her hand.

what

Chapter 57, Section 57: A Few Things Happening in the Kitchen (Part 1)

"Are you alright?" Jiang Jinghua snatched Nicole's right hand. The cut she made just now must have been quite forceful, extending from the base of her index finger all the way to above the second joint, resulting in considerable bleeding: her fair index finger was now almost completely stained red.

For an injury of this severity, a regular band-aid simply won't work!

Jiang Jinghua was extremely anxious. He gripped Yazawa Nico's fingers tightly because healing magic achieves its maximum effect when cast in contact.

"Are you alright, Nico-senpai?" Everyone around gathered around.

"N-nothing...it's nothing..." Yazawa Nico's voice was trembling with tears. "It's all...your fault! Why...why did you...talk to me and distract me...Ouch, it hurts so much..."

"Yes, it was indeed my fault, I'm really sorry!" While casting a healing spell, Jiang Jinghua also used a basic calming illusion to alleviate Yazawa Nico's pain. "So..."

"Huh?" Nicole looked incredulous. "You...really?"

"Yeah! It's obvious that you accidentally cut your hand because I was talking to you, right?"

"I...was...just...joking!" Yazawa Nico said, sniffling and her voice trembling with tears. "Who...would...blame you...for...something like this!"

"Phew, that puts my mind at ease." Jiang Jinghua breathed a sigh of relief. "If you still have the energy to joke around, it probably isn't too serious."

Despite saying that, Jiang Jinghua did not stop mobilizing his magic power.

“Speaking of healing magic, I’m more skilled at it. I’ll take care of Nico-chan.” Minami Kotori walked over. “Jinghua-kun, why don’t you go and prepare these vegetables?”

"Hmm... I should be able to handle something like a salad." Jiang Jinghua nodded.

After a brief period of excruciating pain, Yazawa Nico, her face still streaked with tears, wore an expression of utter despair. She slumped into a nearby chair, her eyes vacant, as if she had just lost her dreams. Now, it was Minami Kotori who was holding her fingers.

"It's okay, it doesn't hurt..." Minami Kotori said in a gentle tone, stroking Nico's head as if she were comforting her younger sister.

"Don't... treat me...like a child..."

There's really nothing I can do. Jiang Jinghua shook his head and focused his attention on the vegetables in front of him.

Because Kotori Minami has to take care of Nico, who cut her hand, the cooking she's currently preparing has to be done by Umi Sonoda. She puts down the frozen prawns she's processing, takes off her rubber gloves, and starts stirring the egg mixture in Kotori's bowl.

"Hey, Hai, are you sure you can handle cooking for two by yourself?" Honoka, who was stuffing filling into dough, looked over. "Won't you be too busy?"

"Don't worry, I can handle this perfectly well." Sonoda Umi added the dried scallops used for flavoring to the egg mixture, and then chopped the shrimp on the cutting board into small pieces to make it easier to put into the bowl.

"Hmm... how much water should I add?" Hoshizora Rin looked at the translucent rice that had just been washed in the steamer. "Does Hanayo-chan prefer firmer or softer rice?"

“If we’re going to eat fried rice… it definitely needs to be a bit firmer!” Koizumi Hanayo said with an academic seriousness as she chopped the sausage into small pieces. “If the rice is too soft, it will just clump together after being fried in the pan… and that kind of thing can’t even be called rice!”

As for Maki Nishikino, she was still standing alone in the corner, quietly doing what she was supposed to do, just like always. After stirring the mixture of heavy cream, milk, cheese powder, and egg whites in the bowl, she sliced ​​a sausage in front of her into slices about two millimeters thick, and at the same time cut the bacon into slices about the thickness of a fingernail.

Even while performing this housewife-like activity, Maki Nishikino's movements still possessed a wonderfully rhythmic quality, almost like music. Her pale purple eyes shone with focused concentration, as if what lay before her were not ordinary ingredients, but the black and white keys of a piano, or the internal structure of an extremely complex machine.

"You're as serious as ever." Nozomi Tojo smiled as she wrapped seaweed around a vinegared rice ball, watching Maki Nishikino's back across from her. "But you always seem a bit lifeless."

"What do you mean by 'not angry'?" Eli Ayase asked while preparing the cod pieces on the table.

“I can’t explain it either, but…” Nozomi Tojo pondered for a moment, then made her decision with a mischievous smile.

At this moment, Nishikino Maki was still preparing the ingredients for making pasta, and therefore completely unaware of the increasingly obvious threat behind her...

"Ha! Taste our lace attack!"

Nozomi Tojo's hands deftly moved upwards from Maki's waist, slipping under her apron, and then grasped her soft, not yet fully developed but already beginning to form breasts. Since the weather in this dimension was relatively hot, Maki was only wearing a thin black top besides her apron, therefore…

"Aaaaaah!" Nishikino Maki screamed, spilling all the cream sauce she had intended to taste to test the saltiness. The sauce was all over her apron, with some even getting on her lips, the ends of her hair, and her exposed collarbone.

"What are you doing, senpai!" Nishikino Maki put down her spoon, both embarrassed and angry, and turned around to glare at Tojo Nozomi. "Why are you doing something so meaningless!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Maki. I couldn't help but tease you a little because you've been so quiet." Nozomi Tojo pulled a kitchen paper towel from the tissue box on the table and used it to wipe the milky white, sticky liquid off Maki's body. "Look, everyone else is chatting and laughing. Why are you the only one standing there, not saying a word?"

"..." Nishikino Maki looked at this disrespectful senior with a "I can't do anything with you" look, "When you're cooking, you should cook properly and concentrate on making the food well!"