Bai Su blinked her big eyes. "Why aren’t you cutting?"

Only then did Yelias realize he was holding a knife.

A knife that looked remarkably like a scalpel...

His brow furrowed, and he subconsciously moved to throw the knife away.

But a small hand covered the back of his. "I’ll teach you!"

Bai Su took his hand from the side, arranging his fingers. "Like this. Grip the handle with your back three fingers, and use your thumb and index finger to control the force and direction..."

Yelias felt himself once again enveloped by the sweet scent of a juicy peach, as waves crashed against his spiderweb, one after another.

The web rippled like the surface of water, trembling gently and assailing his sanity.

He absolutely loathed holding knives...

As if not sensing his aversion, Bai Su took his other hand and placed it on the radish. "Hold it down now. You have to curl your fingers. Don’t press down with your fingertips, it’s easy to cut yourself that way. It’s better to curl them and press down with your knuckles..."

Although the little rabbit had slender limbs, it was still a bit difficult for her to embrace him from behind like this.

She had to lean her head out to teach him the slicing technique.

As her little head strained forward, her chest inevitably brushed against his back.

Even though Yelias was used to a life of abstinence and had seen female bodies before, this was the first time he had felt such a full weight. His ears turned an unnatural shade of red. "Susu, I..."

He wanted to pull his hand back and tell her that he didn’t like holding knives, nor did he like using them to cut things. It would remind him of unpleasant memories.

"Ah..."

As he pulled his hand back, Bai Su let out a soft cry.

She quickly retracted her hand. A bead of blood, piercingly red, welled up on the pale, tender pad of her index finger.

Yelias froze. "Sorry, I..."

Bai Su quickly waved her hand. "It’s nothing, just a small cut."

She brought her finger to her lips, stuck out her tongue, and deftly licked the drop of blood away. Then she bent down to look for a bandage in the cabinet. "It’s just part of cooking. When you chop vegetables often, you’re bound to nick your hands. I’m used to it. It’s no big deal!"

Yelias’s mind went blank. All that remained was the fleeting glimpse from a moment ago—a visual stimulus that was wet, pink, clean, and soft.

After applying a cute bandage, Bai Su looked at him again. "Still want to learn?"

Yelias, who had been about to explain, pressed his lips together and fell silent for a moment. Meeting her eager and expectant gaze, he ultimately softened. "I’ll learn..."

Bai Su beamed. "Come here! I’ll demonstrate once, and you’ll get it."

Yelias nodded lightly and stepped closer.

Bai Su held the knife and gave him a slow, detailed demonstration. "Actually, cutting things with a knife is very simple. It’s not as complicated as you think. Look..."

Yelias watched her hands deftly hold the knife and slice the radish into perfectly even pieces. His eyes flickered, his thoughts unreadable.

Bai Su knew you couldn’t get fat from one meal.

She finished slicing the radish and didn’t make him try again. She just cooked by herself, explaining the steps to him as she went.

Yelias was very smart. He could basically remember anything he was taught after hearing it just once.

It was also his first time visiting.

Bai Su didn’t actually make him do anything.

’She was only deliberately testing him. After confirming he truly had an aversion to using knives, she had a good guess as to why.’

’The plot of the novel hadn’t changed in this regard.’

’It was because of a mistake on the operating table years ago. He failed to save his sister, which left him with a psychological trauma, and he hadn’t dared to touch a knife since.’

’Now that she had confirmed the root of the problem, Bai Su could prescribe the right remedy.’

She made an arrangement with Yelias for him to come here every morning as an apprentice.

*

「The next day.」

Bai Su opened the shop as usual, and Yelias arrived right on time.

She had started her live stream and was in the middle of her prep work. She gestured for Yelias to sit down beside her.

The stream’s camera was aimed at the two of them.

She had already mentioned the need for him to be on camera to Yelias yesterday, and he had agreed, so she didn’t try to hide anything.

But the bullet comments exploded.

[HOLY SHIT? Who’s that? Let me get a closer look, who IS that?]

[I must be dreaming, right? The heir to the Lanton Family? The great beauty from the Lanton Family who caused a massive stir online after showing up at a single medical research lecture?]

[The owner is too good to us, right? She must have spent a fortune to hire such a huge hottie for us to feast our eyes on!]

[I still can’t believe it. Is that really Doctor Yelias? It’s not a high-quality cosplay, is it?]

[INSANE INSANE INSANE, who would dare to cosplay this guy? He’s even wearing the ring that symbolizes the heir of the Lanton Family. Forging that thing is a death sentence!]

[HOLY SHIT...]

In the few steps it took for Bai Su to get ingredients from the ice cellar, the number of viewers in her stream had already approached one million. To put that in perspective, her streams usually only had a few tens of thousands to a hundred thousand viewers.

She was dumbfounded. "What is..."

[DOCTOR YELIAS!! I LOVE YOU! My body and my soul are both screaming, I LOVE YOU!]

[Doctor Yelias, when are you seeing patients again? I want to bring my wife in for an appointment!]

[AHHHHHH we actually caught the missing person in a food stream!]

[The higher-ups at the Global Medical Federation must be crying their eyes out, right? The person they’ve been looking for for years suddenly shows up here.]

[They begged him to go back to the Medical Federation, but he refused and came to be a guest on a food stream instead. It had to be our owner, Susu!]

Seeing the screen full of confessions and teasing, Bai Su belatedly looked at Yelias. "I had no idea. Turns out you’re pretty popular online, huh?"

Yelias gave a helpless smile. "They’re just messing around."

Years ago, right after he graduated from university, he participated in a hospital lecture. Reporters took videos and photos of him, uploaded them to the internet, and for some reason, he just blew up.

His hospital became an internet-famous checkpoint because of it, with tons of people who had heard of his fame registering for appointments with him.

It brought a lot of trouble not only for him, but for the hospital as well.

Despite strongly appealing for them to be rational, the hype remained high for half a year.

Left with no choice, Yelias discussed it with the hospital. Deciding it was better to channel the flood than to block it, they simply registered an official personal account for him on the internet, with someone specially assigned to film some of his daily consultations and post them online.

Over time, those people slowly calmed down and shifted their attention to his account.

That year, they even pushed his account to number one on the annual popularity charts. Number two was a popular new singer-dancer idol who had just debuted, making the whole situation a complete mess...

Later, his update frequency dropped, and after joining the medical research department, he rarely saw patients in the outpatient clinic. Over time, the hype slowly died down.

He just hadn’t expected that showing his face today would still attract so many people.

[AHHHHHH DOCTOR YELIAS’S TONE IS SO INDULGENT! HE’S INDULGING ME!!]

[Doctor Yelias, come take a look, my heart is racing!]

This was also the first time Bai Su had seen such a huge commotion. It was actually a little thrilling.

’If I touch Yelias’s hand in front of the live stream, will the viewers chase me down and bombard me with hate?’

She looked at Yelias, as if asking for help.

Yelias couldn’t help but chuckle. He lowered his head slightly in a gentlemanly manner and said with a smile, "Teacher Bai, just go ahead and teach according to your normal process. I believe they are all a bunch of enthusiastic and lovely Beastmen. They won’t flame you."

He let out another low chuckle and looked at the camera. "Right?"

His voice, husky with a slight upward tilt, was devastatingly sexy. Coming from the abstinent, gentle-as-jade Doctor Yelias, it wasn’t out of place at all. Instead, it had an indescribable allure.

In an instant, the bullet comments devolved into a massive heat-fest.