Madame Sheng stood petrified. Her bionic eyes flickered wildly from red to yellow, while her jaw muscles mechanically began to chew the dumpling fired by Bao. Everyone on the terrace held their breath. Lu barely dared to blink. One wrong twitch from the matriarch, and the bodyguards would turn them all into sieves.
Suddenly, the grandmother paused. Her expression, which had just resembled an armored plate, relaxed. The dangerous humming of her vibrating rolling pin ceased and was replaced by a soft clicking as she lowered the weapon.
“This ratio...,” she murmured, almost in a trance. “The chili oil... it was modified by exactly 0.4 milligrams with toasted sesame oil. And the steaming time...” She stared down at Bao. “How did you do that, tin dumpling?”
Bao blinked in time with the gentle meditation music still booming from the sector speakers. “My sensors detected a minimal imbalance in your sauce recipe, venerable grandmother. By combining it with the open-source feedback of 14,000 hobby cooks currently commenting on the recipe online, I optimized the molecular structure of the flavor by 4.2 percent. The feeling of happiness when consuming it increases exponentially.”
Madame Sheng swallowed the dumpling. A slow, almost eerie smile spread across her face. She turned to her bodyguards. “Weapons down. Immediately.”
Lu exhaled so deeply he almost toppled off his hoverboard. Mei caught him by the collar, although relief was written on her face as well.
“You are a genius, little saboteur,” said Madame Sheng, tapping Bao’s casing with her titanium finger. “My family has protected this recipe for generations, but we were blind. We were going in circles. You didn’t ruin the soup... you developed it further.”
She looked up at Lu and Mei. “You two are lucky. This robot just saved your lives. But the chaos in the city is not over yet. Wang’s police cruiser is still blocking all air traffic with that absurd waltz, and the other street food clans are already using the recipe to sell cheap copies.”
The grandmother slammed the rolling pin on the table. “We have to fix this. You will help me replace the monopoly with an official franchise licensing. And you, Lu, will immediately teach this thing how to properly calculate a menu!”