When she returned to her seat, she was still holding a tray with two dipping sauce bowls and a large plate of pickled radish.
About half an hour later, the server arrived carrying a pot, followed by two small carts filled with dishes.
Fortunately, the two-person table was in a corner against the wall, forming a safe triangular area with the adjacent partition—otherwise, she would have been mortified!
Before being served, the marinated frog had already been cooked. The server helped her ladle out the original broth before stepping away.
Not long after, the server brought over a pot of eagle tea, a standard offering at hotpot restaurants.
“Let’s dig in!”
With long chopsticks, she picked up a well-toned frog floating in the boiling red broth. With a gentle pull, the tender, snow-white garlic-clove-like meat obediently fell away.
Five pounds of frog was only enough to satisfy her craving. Encouraged by Little Golden Dragon’s greedy urging, she added another ten pounds.
She also added tofu skin and lotus root slices, and feeling it still wasn’t enough, she threw in enoki mushrooms and large wood ear mushrooms.
The frogs were well-toned, and they kept coming!
Frogs: Ribbit, ribbit! Speak up for me!!
At the table next to hers, also a two-person seat, sat a young girl who looked slightly older than Yin Shu.
Glancing around nervously as if she had heard something, she curled up in her chair.
It wasn’tt until a middle-aged man with slightly graying temples returned with bowls and plates that the girl dared to peek out.
Li Chu, clutching her small pink purse, saw her father return and huddled close to him, shrinking her neck as she warily looked around. But she had no idea where those inexplicable sounds were coming from.
“Dad, can we eat somewhere else? I’m a little scared.”
“You heard those sounds again?” Father Li, his eyes filled with concern, grasped his daughter’s wrist.
At first, he thought it was a hallucination caused by the stress of her studies, but after the college entrance exams, the condition not only persisted but grew worse.
He had taken his daughter to numerous hospitals for check-ups, but all results showed no issues—she was perfectly healthy.
With the hospitals unable to find a cause, he desperately turned to bustling Taoist temples and Buddhist monasteries, but in the end, nothing helped.
Li Chu nodded slightly and whispered, “Yes… It’s like someone is talking right in my ear, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.”
Father Li sighed with heartache and gently patted his daughter’s head.
“Don’t be afraid. Dad will protect you. If you’re scared, let’s go home now. I’ll cook your favorite dishes, and we won’t go out anymore.”
Unexpectedly, Li Chu shook her head and refused the suggestion. Seeing her father’s confusion, she explained softly, “The sounds suddenly stopped.”
Stunned, Father Li stared blankly at his daughter, his gaze filled with doubt as he looked directly into her eyes, fearing she might be saying this just to comfort him.
Next door, Tang Ximo, satisfied with her meal, was finishing up, slowly eating a bowl of side dishes she had piled up.
First, let it be known that she wasn’t intentionally eavesdropping on the father and daughter’s conversation. It was just that her seat was right next to theirs, separated only by an openwork wooden partition.
However, their brief exchange was enough for her to guess what was happening to the young girl.
In the Cultivation World, there is a group of people who closely resemble Beast Tamers, but they possess no Spirit Root—only Mental Strength and Affinity.
Such individuals cannot absorb Spiritual Qi but can cultivate their Mental Strength.
Once they reach a certain level of cultivation, they can use their Mental Strength to draw Summoning Arrays and form temporary contracts with Spirit Beasts. They are known as Summoners.
A Summoner with high Affinity but weak Mental Strength, if favored by a Spirit Beast, can have a temporary contract transformed into a formal one. From then on, they can summon the Spirit Beast from their Mental Sea of Consciousness to assist in battle without needing a Summoning Array.
A Summoner with strong Mental Strength but low Affinity finds it difficult to gain the affection of Spirit Beasts.
In many cases, scenes of forcibly contracting Spirit Beasts using Mental Strength occur. At such times, the Spirit Beast either chooses to end its own life or, even in death, takes the Summoner with it.
In her opinion, the young girl was most likely a Summoner, and her Affinity was exceptionally high; otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to hear sounds that others couldn’t.
[Coming out once and encountering a potential Summoner seedling—what luck!]
[Whether she is or not… we’ll only know after seeing for ourselves. It’s not good to celebrate prematurely.]
She finished the last piece of lotus root, stood up to go settle the bill, and as she passed by the young girl, she glanced at her and smiled slightly.
She really was a Summoner with an Affinity as high as ninety-seven!
A few minutes later, the father and daughter, who were finally able to enjoy a proper meal, looked up in perfect sync at the uninvited Tang Ximo.
She casually dragged a chair from the neighboring table and sat down boldly across from them.
If she remembered correctly, hadn’t she just gone to pay the bill?
With a snap of her fingers, the noisy chatter in the restaurant vanished completely, as if an invisible, intangible barrier had isolated their table from the rest.
“Hello, Mr. Li. I am Tang Ximo, the dean of Taichu Cultivation Academy. Would you be interested in sending your daughter to study at the academy?”
Li Chu was full of question marks: Are scammers these days so brazen?
In contrast, Father Li was much more cautious. He was certain he didn’t know the Tang Ximo before him, so how did she know his surname was Li?
The sudden silence in the hotpot restaurant, combined with her confident and certain look that he would agree, convinced Father Li that this person was definitely not ordinary.
“A Cultivation Academy? The kind with proper procedures?”
It was normal for parents to be skeptical, especially since the concept of Cultivation was so unbelievable. So, she wasn’t the least bit offended and flashed a standard smile.
“What are you thinking, Mr. Li? Taichu Cultivation Academy is a legitimate academy with all the necessary procedures in place. You don’t need to worry about it being an unlicensed institution.”
Taking the proof documents handed over by Tang Ximo, Father Li carefully examined them, then looked down at his daughter, who was obediently nibbling on frog meat.
Could it be that she was impressed by his daughter’s appetite?
“No need to guess, Mr. Li. I know your daughter can hear sounds that others cannot. This happens to align perfectly with my enrollment criteria.”
Mentioning his daughter’s condition, Father Li immediately grew agitated and asked anxiously, “Do you know what illness my daughter has?”
Calm and composed, Tang Ximo tapped the edge of the table and explained simply, “To be precise, it’s not an illness. Her Mental Strength and Affinity are both quite high, which is why she can hear those sounds.”
“Is there a way to cure it?”
He didn’t understand terms like Mental Strength or Affinity. All he knew was that those sounds were driving his daughter to the brink of a mental breakdown.
Tang Ximo wagged her index finger left and right twice, disapprovingly dismissing Father Li’s question.
“Mr. Li, you didn’t quite grasp what I said. With your daughter’s talent, she will grow into an outstanding Summoner.”
Hearing the term “Summoner,” Father Li didn’t react much, but Li Chu, who had put down her chopsticks beside him, grew excited first.
“The kind of Summoner from cartoons?”
When she heard about Mental Strength and Affinity, she had already stopped eating. She felt that her fantasies might actually come true.
She did not miss the careful, questioning look in Li Chu’s eyes and nodded in confirmation.
“That’s right. As long as you can win the Spirit Beast’s affection, you can form a contract with it.”
Having confirmed what she had in mind, Li Chu grabbed Father Li’s hand and looked at him with an expectant expression.