It's not actually a hundred years old

The fruit of Marcia and Hong Yi’s three hours in the kitchen yesterday was a cheesecake.

Vesper watched as they set the soot-black-and-cream confection down before her upon a porcelain platter, from which a large slice—or several—had already been taken. The cylinder was almost too tall, and had begun to sag to one side, like a Leaning Tower of cheese and frosting.

“Tada!” proclaimed Hong Yi.

“It is here, the cake,” Marcia added with a flourish, at the end of which she nudged a fork into Vesper’s hand.

“Thank…you,” said Vesper, lifting an eyebrow. Both were beaming too hard for this not to be an elaborate joke. But they weren’t suppressing any laughter, and she chose to give them the benefit of the doubt.

“Enjoy, and let us know what you think!” sang Hong Yi, knife brandished in a vaguely threatening manner. That gesture was meant for the cake, it seemed, for he now sank its edge into it and began sawing off another slice of the marshmallowy confection.

Midway through transferring the slice to her saucer, it toppled off the top of the knife and landing in a spatter of crumbs on the edge of her plate. Staring at it as it flopped over to reveal the glistening globs in its flank, Vesper found herself closer than ever to flouting her personal rule of never judging something before she had tried it.

And then came the after-scent. The odour of something that was perhaps not meant for the dinner table at all. “What’s that? Is something…burning?” she said, glancing past their shoulders at the door to the kitchen. “It smells like smouldering matches. Or. Rotting eggs.”

“Eggs,” Marcia piped, looking up from the phone into which she was typing with one finger. “We used eggs. But they are not the usual type of egg.”

“It’s just century egg,” Hong Yi said with a shrug.

“That…is not what it sounds like, is it?”

Marcia beamed. “The recipe says that it’s egg that has been prepared in am—” 

“Oh! Yeah, nah,” Hong Yi swooped in before Marcia could finish, raising his index before her mouth. “It’s not actually a hundred years old. I’m not sure why they call it century egg to be honest, I got those fresh from the market. But anyway, what happened was that I was on my Twitter feed when I saw this recipe for century egg cheesecake, and I was like, century egg? In cheesecake? Oh my god, I gotta try that. And then Marcia tried it, and then we were like, what if we let everyone try it?”

Long before Hong Yi had finished his little spiel, Vesper had placed the first spoonful in her mouth.

And there and then, she was thrust before the greatest, most consequential dilemma of her life.

On one hand, she could inform Hong Yi and Marcia that they had done a truly remarkable job in those three hours of labour, truly outdone themselves, bravo, she must go for seconds. After all, it was what they deserved, so perfectly pleased with themselves as they looked.

On the other hand, she could tell them the truth.

“I…I think I need a glass of water,” she finally managed.

As she chewed the confection (if that it could be called) to a swallowable state, choice phrases such as “how I imagine fresh fireplace ash would taste” and “cow dung pudding” crossed her mind. She spoke none of them. She powered through the acridity and the taste of ammonia, just as she had powered through the battle for the Kapelsche Veer, or the Siege on Gerjen Bridge.

As swiftly as she could, she swallowed the mouthful. Only to discover that some ingredient in the concoction, the one she could only suspect was the century egg foretold of, was leaving a diabolically stubborn aftertaste. “Water. Please," she choked. "Thank you.”

She snatched the glass almost as soon as Marcia had scurried back, water sloshing over her hands. With a huge gulp, she rinsed her mouth vigorously, and swallowed the rinse. Then she slammed the glass down.

“It’s bad.”

“Bad?” Marcia and Hong Yi glanced at each other.

“Yes. It’s bad. This century egg stuff.”

A smile broke out on Marcia’s face. And then, seeming to realise the jig was up, she began to laugh. “Three!” she exclaimed. “Three people said it was bad! Ha! Ha! I told you!”

Hong Yi sulked, lower lip jutting, as he produced a notepad from his pocket.

“What?” Vesper glanced from one to the other. She lifted her palms in a gesture of exasperation. “No.”

“Yes,” Hong Yi replied, nodding. She was certain that the words he next uttered under his breath as he scribbled in his notepad were, “bad taste. Bad taste, all of you.”

Truly, Vesper’s conscience was never more prickly than when it least needed to be.

“It’s not that bad,” she sighed. Holding her breath, she lifted her fork and began to eat the rest of the slice.