I'm the King of Curry at Hogwarts

Chapter 252 The First Chinese Meal in Fourteen Years

If I remember correctly, that movie was the third in the series, and it was released around 2001.

Yes, it's that classic monster movie series – Alien – which ran for about 21 years, making it quite long-lived.

The third-generation offshoot of the Gabor monster uses its rear end to breathe fire, allowing it to fly and glide through the air to hunt humans. The tough guy in the movie gave it a funny name: "Ass-blaster," the monster with the flowery rear end.

It's quite similar to the fried-tailed snail.

"Quite a novel creature." Hermione frowned as she looked at the Blasttail in the box. "This smell is so familiar. It must be some kind of flammable gas. I think I learned about it in chemistry class—oh, chemistry is a Muggle subject, somewhat like Potions..."

"Perhaps that's the principle behind rocket propulsion," Justin, also a Muggle, chimed in.

"Oh, right! I was wondering why it looked so familiar." Hermione looked at Justin with sudden realization: "Now that you mention it, I understand why I had that feeling of déjà vu. Haha... Isn't the way the Blast-tailed Conch's tail propulsion works a lot like a rocket?"

As she spoke, Hermione looked at Louis and asked as if she had discovered something new, "Don't you think you look familiar, Louis?"

"Sorry, I don't really understand the principles of rocket boosters," Louis said honestly. He genuinely didn't know much about how they worked. "But it's always good to encounter something familiar in the magical world. Perhaps you two should study the Blasttail Conch carefully and write a paper about it?"

As soon as she finished speaking, one of the Bombtails in the box let out a loud thud, and then its limp body flew onto Hermione's head.

The pungent smell of rotten fish and shrimp almost made Hermione faint. She endured the discomfort, used her wand to pick the frizzy-tailed snail back into the box, and vomited all over it.

It's somewhat a case of repaying evil with evil.

"This thing is disgusting, Hagrid." Hermione fired a Cleanse at herself. "What are you going to do with this weird creature? Just to hear it crackle and pop?"

This question stumped Hagrid. He opened his mouth and pondered carefully, but couldn't figure out what the blasting snail could do for a long time.

"That won't do, Hagrid," Hermione said very seriously. "I know you love magical creatures, but when it comes to breeding a new species, you first need to understand what its purpose is."

"That's for the next lesson, Hermione," Hagrid argued. "Today you just need to feed them. You need to try feeding them different things—I've never raised them before, and I'm not sure what they like to eat..."

"So you're just asking us to help you figure out what they like to eat, right?" Harry couldn't help but think Hagrid was a bit unreliable. "What if they don't like what I feed them and get angry? I don't want to get bitten, oh my god..."

As he spoke, Harry glanced at the pupa-like, burrowing snail in the box with a twisted expression.

"They're still juveniles, they shouldn't bite," Hagrid said, his tone uncertain.

"You know it's unlikely, right?" Draco said sarcastically from the side.

Hagrid was speechless.

"This new semester is really strange," Simon Finigan muttered. "First they made us squeeze the pustules on those tubers, and now they're making us feed this thing..."

Hagrid didn't say anything. He put on his big gloves and divided the tamarins into more than ten groups, letting the students try to feed them.

The students looked at each other, none of them daring to step forward and be the first to do so. Out of affection for Hagrid, Harry used a stick to pick up a piece of frog liver and reached into the box to hand it to a Blasttail.

The fritter-tailed snail showed no interest whatsoever, not even bothering to raise its head.

"Well, it seems it definitely doesn't like frog liver, Harry." Ron said, then eagerly picked up a clump of ant eggs and offered it to the frizzy-tailed snail.

Just like Harry, the Bombshell wasn't interested in the ant eggs either.

"You're really stirring up trouble. That's not a good habit," Ron said, frowning.

Hermione glanced at Ron and scoffed, "If you looked closer, you'd see they don't even have mouths..."

No sooner had he finished speaking than a loud thud was heard from the side, followed by Dean Thomas's scream.

"Ouch, shit, that hurts so much!" Thomas yelled angrily. "What the hell is this? Why does it hurt so much..."

Hagrid walked up to him in a panic and asked with concern, "What's wrong? What's wrong?"

Thomas angrily showed Hagrid his arm, which had been injured by the exploding tail snail: "Its tail exploded! Good heavens, that was dangerous..."

Hagrid's Magical Creatures class is mostly a mess, starting and ending in chaos, but it's not as boring as Professor Binns's lectures; he just always manages to come up with a little something interesting.

Minor injuries are commonplace for Hagrid, as long as no one dies—his classmates generally accept this, since dealing with magical creatures inevitably involves getting hurt, and those creatures have a much higher injury rate than flying broomsticks.

"Luckily, these blasting snails are quite small," Ron said with a grin on the way back to the castle.

Hermione quickly said, "They're just small now! But you know how big Hagrid raises things, he always raises magical creatures to be huge. I have no doubt these Blasttails will grow to the size of ponies, or even bigger. Good heavens, sometimes I really wonder what Hagrid feeds his magical creatures?"

"Jin Ke La, I guess," Louis replied with a smile.

Hermione's guess wasn't unfounded; in fact, the Blasttail is really big, eventually growing to over ten feet long...

Louis was well aware of the potential of these dangerous creatures, but he was too lazy to meddle. He figured it was better to let them grow wild under Hagrid's care, at least to give the kind and lovable old Hagrid something to do, lest he get sick from being idle.

Besides, the fritter snail isn't entirely useless; at least in terms of being useless, it's still quite useful.

Perhaps we could give them to Professor Snape and let him study whether they have any medicinal value.

Of course, he doesn't want to develop its practical value.

When Louis returned to his office, the moment he pushed open the door, he smelled a fragrant aroma, somewhat familiar yet utterly unfamiliar. It seemed as if the last time he smelled this fragrance was more than a decade ago…

Yes, that was before he time-traveled.

"Wow, what day is it today, Mom?" Louis handed Sakuya his coat with practiced ease, then walked over and pulled up the table. Looking at the dazzling array of dishes on the table, he couldn't help but stare blankly.

To be honest, I'm used to adapting to local customs, and I've never really thought about eating any Chinese food to savor the taste since I was a child—actually, it's not that I've never eaten it, but ever since I ate General Zuo's Chicken, I've lost all hope for Chinese food in Britain.

So much so that he never even considered hiring a Seres cook.

"It's dinner time today." Emma sat in the main seat, glanced at Sakuya and Christa, and said, "We're all family, you two should sit down too."

Christa sat down next to Emma with a delighted air, but Sakuya bowed slightly and declined, saying, "Sakuya wouldn't dare."

This caught Christa off guard. She stood up slightly, but Louis stopped her with a look. Louis then reached out and pulled Sakuya to his side, saying, "Mom is right, there are no outsiders here. Just sit down."

Sakuya then hesitantly sat down next to Louis.

"Try it, the seasonings are all from the local area." Emma smiled kindly and gently as she scooped a spoonful of tofu for Louis. "Authentic Sichuan green peppercorns and Erjingtiao peppercorns. I don't think you've ever had authentic Seres cuisine before."

Louis paused for a moment, then nodded absentmindedly.

"Poor child." Emma patted Louis's head tenderly. "Eat up, if you like it, Mom will cook for you in the future."

Louis nodded heavily, his nose tingling with emotion. He scooped up the tofu coated in chili oil and minced meat with a spoon and put it in his mouth.

The intense stimulation nearly made him spit out his food. After forcing himself to swallow, he couldn't help but cough.

This is so damn exciting...

"Eat slowly, no one's going to take it from you." Emma gave him a reproachful look and patted his back to try and soothe him.

"It's okay, it's okay, it has nothing to do with speed, I'm just not used to the taste." Louis coughed for a while before he recovered, tears streaming down his face.

For years, I've been eating things that are neither sweet nor salty, so it's really hard to get used to eating something so strongly stimulating.

"Don't like Sichuan food?" Emma raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. "It's okay, you'll get used to it. Severus didn't like it either, but in the end, he still used a cauldron to cook hot pot with me, didn't he? Hehe... He really loves tripe, but he never seems very happy when we use his cauldron to cook hot pot."

"It would be strange if he were happy." Louis coughed twice more, then shifted his attention to the milder dishes.

Fortunately, there was no braised pork intestine on the table, which was a relief to Louis.

Surprisingly, Catherine was very interested in Sichuan cuisine, and she and Sakuya ate almost all of the Mapo Tofu and Boiled Sliced ​​Pork.

Actually, it's just a matter of constitution; some people can eat spicy food, and some can't. It's like in his past life, he especially loved spicy food, but his roommate across the hall couldn't eat spicy food at all, not even a little bit of chili oil. So, for four years in college, he loved to mock his roommate who couldn't eat spicy food. And now, karma has come back to bite him... He can't eat spicy food in this life.

This is too difficult. How come we didn't notice this problem before? Louis secretly resolved to find out how to fix this shortcoming in the system.

Not being able to eat spicy food really takes away a lot of fun...

After the meal, Ye Ziyan sat in her chair, elegantly wiping her mouth with a napkin, and praised, "Sister's cooking is still so delicious."

"Hmph..." Emma chuckled softly, then suddenly raised her voice: "What did you call me?"

"Sister... Sister..." Ye Ziyan's confidence suddenly wavered. She looked at her best friend guiltily, silently praying that she wouldn't tease her, that she wouldn't tease her...

But Murphy's Law states that things often go in the worst possible way. Emma clearly saw through Ye Ziyan's thoughts and deliberately dragged out her words in a sarcastic tone: "Hmph, you call me 'sister,' but with my son... Shouldn't you call me Aunt Yu or Mom now?"

Ye Ziyan turned her head away and stopped looking at her.

She knew Emma wasn't holding back any nice words. Looking at the clouds drifting by outside the window, she decided to ignore Emma.

"Mom," Louis said helplessly, "Are you addicted to teasing Ziyan? Honestly..."

"Oh, oh, oh, you're calling me so affectionately." Emma pouted, like a primary school girl, leaning forward and scratching her alabaster cheek with her index finger: "Shame on you, you're so shameless!"

Louis and Ye Ziyan exchanged a glance and said in unison, "Let's not stoop to her level!"

This was undoubtedly the right choice, but Louis's fate was not good; his ear was almost twisted off.

"Whose son are you anyway?!" Emma tugged at her eldest son's ear. "You actually side with someone else against me! Humph, I'd rather have given birth to a piece of barbecued pork than you!"

"Ouch, ouch, ouch... Mom, my ear is going to fall off!" Louis quickly begged for mercy. It wasn't that he was in pain, but rather that so many people were watching, especially Catherine, who was also there. He was a little embarrassed.

"Hmph!" Emma let go of Louis, looked at his bright red ears, and couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him. She reached out and rubbed them for him again.

"Okay, Mom, it's alright." Louis stopped Emma's movements. "I'm not a child anymore. Don't keep pulling my ear, it's embarrassing..."

Emma glanced at him and rolled her eyes at him.

This kid is getting more and more outrageous.

"Sixth-year classes start at 2 PM today. Luckily, the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom is big enough to hold students from all four houses and two other schools," Emma said, then looked at Catherine: "Little Moon, where were you all in last semester?"

"It's just a normal course schedule, Auntie," Catherine answered honestly. "When Xiao Lu teaches us, he always focuses on practical training; he rarely talks about theory..."

Emma nodded, then turned to Louis: "And you, my dear son, do you have any objections?"

"Of course not, how could I have a problem with that?" Louis quickly replied, and he meant it from the bottom of his heart. He was overjoyed to have someone share his burdens and pain so he could be a hands-off manager...

"Then let's do it this way, follow the old ways," Emma said, using an idiom. "I'll teach them the same way you taught Defense Against the Dark Arts last semester."

(End of this chapter)