Su Shu’s smile was altogether too genial, which couldn’t help but cause a chill to run down Wuji’s spine.
He offered a dry laugh. “I… have a rather unrefined thought…”
Su Shu maintained a pleasant demeanor: “Do tell.”
Wuji said, “The egg you took from the old hen is still with you, right?”
Su Shu ignored his question, blew gently on her bowl, and resumed drinking her soup.
Wuji: “…”
“Did I… actually eat it?”
Su Shu nodded directly, offering a word of comfort: “Life in this world boils down to eating and drinking.”
“Yet I didn’t dare enjoy it all by myself…” Su Shu took a bite of a tender mushroom, her mouth filled with aroma. “Knowing you were coming, I thought to share half with you.”
Wuji’s heart instantly settled halfway—
At the very least, he had only eaten half.
“Turns out you didn’t leave me a single bite and ate it all.”
Wuji: “…”
Would it still count if he threw it up right now?
Su Shu’s tone carried a heavy sense of regret: “Had I known, I would have eaten some myself first.”
Wuji: “…”
The woman across from him looked remarkably sincere, but she turned hostile faster than one could flip a page; Wuji remained skeptical: “You didn’t just grab a random egg to make me take the fall, did you?”
Su Shu let out a cold laugh, dipped her spoon into the pot, and brought up another plain white egg right before Wuji’s eyes: “I certainly wanted to use a white egg to set up a scapegoat, but didn’t you eat it before I even got the chance?”
Wuji, staring at the white egg: “…”
He simply abandoned all pretense: “Fine then, I’ll own up to it.”
With that, he extended his chopsticks, snapped up the remaining egg onto his plate, sloshed it through the leftover green pepper juices, and stuffed it into his mouth.
Su Shu, looking at her empty spoon: “…”
Wuji swallowed the egg down with a gulp of soup and said to Su Shu, “Since I’m the one who ate both eggs, I’ll take the fall for that damn red egg.”
“Consider it my compensation for killing you that day.”
Wuji’s face remained expressionless, yet his words carried a trace of solemnity: “You have skill, but I advise you that before your wings are fully fledged, you had better not go around stirring up trouble.”
“The tallest tree in the forest is the first to be felled by the wind,” Wuji said. “Sometimes the bottom line in games is much lower than in reality; I expect you understand this principle far better than I do.”
Su Shu kept her head bowed, using a wooden stick to dig the mud-wrapped bundle out from the campfire.
In truth, Wuji had also been staring at this mud bundle for a long time.
He rubbed his hands together and asked Su Shu: “Seeing as I’ve been so earnest and took the fall for you, might I ask what delicacy lies inside this?”
Su Shu was amused by him. She drove a knife straight into the cracked seam of the baked mud, swiftly stripping away the dirt and the lotus leaves, which had turned yellow and soft from the prolonged heat—
The aroma of chicken meat mingled with the delicate fragrance of lotus leaf wafted out in all directions.
Su Shu placed the whole chicken onto a lotus leaf prepared beforehand, rinsed her mud-stained dagger in the lotus pond, and went straight to work with her hands, rapidly tearing the whole chicken apart—
In truth, she merely partitioned it into several large pieces.
The golden chicken skin glistened with oil, and the portioned muscle fibers of the stark-white chicken meat stood out in clear relief, framed by the deep green of the lotus leaf—
Plumes of white steam billowed upward, forcing its way into one’s nose alongside the rich scent.
Wuji could not help but swallow his saliva.
That was not the end of it; right before his eyes, Su Shu placed a bit of chopped chili in a small saucer, added salt and scallions, and finally ladled in a spoonful of rich broth topped with chicken oil straight from the soup pot—
Wuji could not refrain from reaching out his hand.
Su Shu slapped his hand down with a sharp *snap*.
Su Shu said: “You may eat, but we need to lay things out clearly first.”
“Our previous duel was fair and square; I lost because my skills were inferior, so your notion of ‘compensating me’ does not hold water.”
“You did indeed eat both eggs I scooped from the chicken nest, so your notion of ‘taking the fall’ does not hold water either.”
“There is no transaction between us, nor any deep acquaintance, so do not make it seem as though I am taking advantage of you.”
Wuji: “…”
Alright then, you have a sharp tongue, so you get the final say.
Su Shu understood full well the logic of giving a sweet after a bitter blow.
She reached out, tore off a chicken leg, and handed it to him, smiling with utter gentleness: “After all, one can eat carelessly, but one cannot speak carelessly.”
Su Shu feigned a touch of bashfulness: “A low-level account like mine is particularly fragile and cannot withstand such storms.”
Wuji remained still, staring at Su Shu.
From the moment he met this woman today, her attitude had changed faster than flipping pages in a book.
The word “fragile” did not apply to her in the slightest.
Wuji had a hunch that if not forced by circumstances, let alone offering him a chicken leg, this woman named Huai Shuo wouldn’t even leave him a single chicken feather.
Yet if he recalled correctly, the first time he met Su Shu, she had also been cooking food and had similarly handed him a rabbit leg, asking if he wanted to eat.
It was just that the first time, he had refused.
Whereas this time…
Wuji took the chicken leg from Su Shu’s hand and bit into it with a large mouthful: “Fine.”
Only then did Su Shu draw her hand back.
She then began packing up the tableware on the ground, placing everything into her inventory in short order, preparing to take her leave.
Wuji did not try to keep her either.
Except when Su Shu departed, she paused beside him and said: “Today Rumeng Zhimeng died once in my place; I am returning her staff to her, so the matter between her and me is considered settled.”
“However, if she remains relentless and refuses to heed your advice…”
“Even if you give her ten times the men, she won’t be able to pin me down.”
Although the novice village of Meng Hui Jiang Hu was termed a village, its territory was vast, with the map’s borders serving as its gates, not to mention the teleportation NPCs inside the village.
Su Shu had seen all kinds of people in her past life. A delicate young lady like Rumeng Zhimeng, having suffered losses at her hands three times, was hardly someone who could take advice to heart.
Wuji held the chicken leg in his mouth: “I will pass the word along for you; whether she listens or not is out of my hands.”
Su Shu thought to herself, *Isn’t she your partner? How can you be so heartless?* But since it was ultimately someone else’s business after all, Su Shu merely uttered an “Oh,” took her small pouch, and walked away without looking back.
Wuji turned his head to watch Su Shu’s departing back and laughed with a light curse: “Tsk, truly cold-hearted…”
He then looked down at the half-eaten chicken leg in his hand, unable to stop a smile from spreading: “The food really is delicious, though.”
Not long after Su Shu left Wuji, she received a newspaper and a letter.
The newspaper was the *Jianghu Daily*, while the letter was sent to her by Wuji.
Having browsed the forums extensively, Su Shu naturally knew of this gaming gossip paper, but one gold coin a day felt a bit steep to her. Little did she expect that now…
Wuji stated in the letter that as a return favor for her hospitality today, he was gifting her a one-year subscription to the *Jianghu Daily*.
Su Shu remained expressionless. She withdrew 370 gold coins from her storage and handed them to the sprite, instructing it to deliver them to Wuji along with the message, “No reward without merit.”
Only then did she unfold today’s newspaper. The main headline of the Jianghu Miscellany section immediately caught her eye—
Wuji, using a boastful tone, claimed that he had eaten the old hen’s egg.
Su Shu pursed her lips.
In truth, she had not directly answered Wuji’s question today, merely glossing over it with ambiguous language; as a result, Wuji had now returned the favor using the exact same ambiguity.
Both were eggs, but who knew what color the egg actually was?
In stark contrast to the reaction Su Shu received upon obtaining the red egg, the discussions below were filled with awe and envy, with no one daring to bring up finding trouble with Wuji.
This was the game: strength spoke loudest.
Su Shu stowed the newspaper neatly into her inventory, clicked open her quest panel, and began working on the quests she hadn’t completed earlier.
Whether Wuji’s words were effective or not she did not know; she only knew that if she remained at Level 7 forever, then no matter what she did, she would have to live at the mercy of others.
She now had fame; in all of Meng Hui Jiang Hu, there was likely no one more famous than her at the moment—
What she lacked now was strength convincing enough to back it up.
Su Shu worked very quickly when her mind was undivided; at the very least, she finished the novice village quests in short order—
Catching chicks, gathering balsam flowers, repairing houses, delivering letters.
The novice quests were not difficult for her, and the system handed out experience generously. After another seven or eight minor quests, Su Shu reached Level 15.
Su Shu opened her character panel to review her stats:
Intelligence: 35 | Spell Attack: 135 | Spell Defense: 70
Strength: 35 | Physical Attack: 135 | Physical Defense: 70
Energy: 36 | Max Mana: 720
Constitution: 50 | Max Health: 1500
Agility: 26 | Spell Evasion: 78 | Physical Evasion: 78
On Su Shu’s character panel, there were now 30 unallocated skill points and 15 unassigned stat points.
—She could now change classes, learn life skills, and leave the novice village.