Theoretically, she was at least a human, her status higher than a robot.
But now she believed that the squad leader would dare to hit her, yet wouldn’t dare lay a finger on that robot.
【No reservation — no entry.】
The robot repeated the phrase without mercy.
“You!” the squad leader bellowed, his face smeared with blood, his ragged protective suit barely holding together. “Must we bring it to Chef Li?”
“There aren’t many chefs in Fengtu City. Most serve as guest chefs for the big families. The only one who takes outside jobs is Chef Li.”
“Too bad I don’t have that kind of pull. I heard Chef Li charges 5,000 star coins per job.”
Those words landed in Shen Guoguo’s ears like music: 5,000 star coins. Her eyes lit up.
Looks like chefs, agronomists, and the like had higher status than she’d imagined.
Suddenly an idea popped into her head.
…
“I heard Chef Li was invited to the Shen family banquet,” a tentative voice carried from the crowd.
Shen Guoguo remembered Shen Yazhi and Li Ge saying they’d invited Chef Li to host their household banquet.
Some people are born in Rome; some are born to be oxen and horses. Shen Yazhi could call up the great chef — while a regular squad risking life and limb could only watch helplessly.
A squad member immediately looked over. “Little girl — are you serious?”
Shen Guoguo nodded emphatically.
The leader’s eyes gleamed and, grabbing a steel pipe, he was about to run. “Let’s go to the Shens’!”
Seeing the crowd about to surge off in a stampede, Shen Guoguo decided to nip things in the bud. “Um…you know the Shen family’s young intermediate warrior, right?”
The leader froze.
“I heard that intermediate warrior is about to be promoted to a high-level warrior,” she lied on the spot — pure fabrication, meant only to intimidate.
“Tonight’s their pairing banquet.”
A banquet for someone about to become a high-level warrior — the leader dared not offend them. Shen Guoguo edged closer. “How about I handle this ‘mountain chicken’ — oh, phoenix — for you? I’ll only charge half the usual fee.”
Oh ho!
Her voice was quiet, but everyone heard it clearly. A pin could drop. Shen Guoguo had planned for this; she’d wanted to negotiate somewhere private with the leader, but now the crowd watched and there’d be no alone moment. She couldn’t miss this chance. All in or nothing.
“Who’s this brat with such gall, demanding half the fee? Can she even do it?” someone jeered.
“Yeah — did she eat something weird and lose her mind?” another scoffed. “Fengtu City hasn’t seen a phoenix in three hundred years. How could she possibly process one?”
Shen Guoguo: Ha. Not only had she seen one, she’d killed one — and knew seventy-two ways to cook it!
They said the apocalypse had brought zombies and catastrophe, and humans finally used nuclear weapons to end things. Though they had won, the world collapsed into wasteland. Technology regressed and many cultural crafts were lost. In that situation, people didn’t even know how to deal with mutated flora and fauna — reasonably so.
Shen Guoguo flashed her little tiger teeth and smiled sweetly at the leader. “Give me twenty minutes to handle this phoenix. If you’re not satisfied…”
“Hmph — not satisfied how?” someone in the crowd, eager for drama, interrupted before the leader could answer.
“If the leader’s not satisfied, I’ll give you ten nutrition vials — all yours — and it’ll only take twenty minutes. That won’t stop you from going to the Shens to find Chef Li.”
“Get lost — we don’t have time to play.” A few teammates fretted they’d miss Li the chef’s window and, grabbing the huge bird, prepared to leave.
The leader held up a hand. “Show me the nutrition vials.”
“All right!” Shen Guoguo opened her cloth satchel wide, her big eyes full of sincerity.
The leader wiped dried blood from his face. “Deal.”
“Captain! Don’t waste time — we should still try for Chef Li!” someone urged. “She’s just a child — what if she botches the bird?”
The leader stared at Shen Guoguo without saying a word. Going to the Shen family now might offend a soon-to-be high-level warrior; even if Chef Li agreed to take it later, they’d miss the best processing time. That meant some of this “phoenix” would go to waste. So why not take the little girl’s ten vials now? It was only twenty minutes.
Heh heh — it was settled.
Today she’d slap them with a little lesson: behold the butchering craft from the old world.
“If I do a good job, you’ll pay me 2,500 star coins,” Shen Guoguo said. “Whoever backs out is a dog!”
Although the leader didn’t know what “dog” meant exactly, it certainly wasn’t flattering. Gnashing his teeth at the ten nutrition vials within reach, he agreed. “Fine!”
The group went to the beast slaughter site.
Many base functions were centrally managed — beast processing, for example. Officially, all beasts had to be processed here, though powerful families sometimes had private slaughterhouses — an open secret.
The guard robot at the slaughter site logged them in.
Robot: Name?
Shen Guoguo: Guoguo.
She hid her surname. Although the original body was known in Fengtu City as a useless waste, not everyone had seen her face. She wanted to live quietly and keep distance from the Shen clan.
Robot: Beast type and owner?
She left that information to the squad leader.
Shen Guoguo observed the slaughter site. It was the size of a playground, open-air, with five stations in a row. Each station had a prep table and pots, arranged from small to large. The smallest pot was about the size of a wok she used at home; the biggest was as large as a double bed. Behind the tables was a huge deep pit, reeking with blood.
She held her breath and peered in.
Ugh! Yuck!
The stench hit her like a wall. Pig heads the size of washing machines, sheep tails like feather dusters, unidentified animal innards piled up — and the parts she loved most for her spicy chicken: duck feet, duck blood, beef tripe… heaped into little mountains, only far larger.
Her heart bled at the waste. Such a shame!
She cleverly asked the leader, “Which parts do you want from this mountain—er, phoenix?”
The surrounding crowd laughed louder.
“You’ve got to be kidding — a chef asks the owner which part? Never heard anything like it!” someone sneered. “See? She’s clueless. This is a wasted trip. Let’s disperse.”
Laugh all you like — you’ll be eating your words soon.
Shen Guoguo calmly explained, “For this type of beast, different parts are used for different dishes: wings, breast, legs — like with a chicken or phoenix. But I should ask — do you want the innards or feathers?”
Her thorough-sounding breakdown made the leader half-believe her. “All right — meat from those parts only. Feathers and innards, we don’t want. What use are those?”
Exactly what she wanted to hear.
Shen Guoguo chose a mid-sized prep table.