The sound of footsteps approached from a distance—heavy, chaotic, and dull. It seemed there was more than one customer, or perhaps the guests didn’t just have two feet.
Sweat began to pour down Lin Xia’s forehead.
He suddenly realized something: was the neon sign on the roof of his food stall cart lit up?!
A lit sign meant the cart was open for business. Right now, the display window was completely empty. If a customer arrived, would they file a complaint? Was there a manager keeping order in this place?!
With his mind racing, he didn’t dare slow down his hands. He first selected the slow-simmered bone broth—the dish that had received the best feedback earlier—and placed it into the display window. While prepping the ingredients, he took a quick moment to check the customer feedback forms.
Fortunately, all five feedback forms praised the seasoning without exception. They also emphasized that they loved the rich texture of meat mixed with bone, which allowed Lin Xia to breathe a huge sigh of relief.
It seemed the people here liked to eat meat and bone together. Unfortunately, the Big-Headed Lizard had been harvested using the system’s one-click collection feature, and he hadn’t selected the bone parts at the time. Now, he could only mix in some cartilage from the Sac-Gland Tiger. He wasn’t sure if slow-simmering these two together would be a good match.
To be safe, Lin Xia selected the compound-spice grilled lizard leg meat as his second dish.
He fashioned a simple roasting fork and set it over the gas stove to grill it manually.
Learning from his experience with the white-tier quest, Lin Xia avoided adding ordinary ingredients as much as possible, aside from the seasonings, to prevent any potential drop in his rating.
Ordinary grilling usually required brushing on oil, heating the ingredients through the fat to bring out their inherent flavor. However, regular cooking oil could not be used for this grilled lizard leg. He could only force out its natural fats using high heat, thoroughly roasting the meat to accelerate the temperature rise and trigger the Maillard reaction. During this process, he also had to apply various sauces at the perfect moments based on the state of the meat to ensure it cooked evenly and achieved the best flavor.
As Lin Xia processed the ingredients, other signs began to light up one after another in the thick black fog.
This place appeared to be an alleyway, lined with rows of crowded stalls on both sides. The closest sign to Lin Xia belonged to a corrugated iron shack. Several display cases were placed outside its doors, packed to the brim with food.
Lin Xia narrowed his eyes and looked at the sign across the way. He couldn’t understand the words spelled out by the neon lights, but there was a line of small text in the bottom left corner of the sign:
—Black Fog Farm, Outer Dining District No. 7364.
Black Fog Farm?!
Lin Xia’s eyes widened.
This wasn’t the first time he had heard the name “Black Fog Farm.” A customer had previously left a comment on a feedback form, stating that even the scraps from Black Fog Farm were better than the ingredients he used.
After that, once he started using the hind leg meat of the Sac-Gland Tiger, the diners’ evaluation of his ingredients instantly began to shift. The Sac-Gland Tiger was a mutated specimen captured from the Polar Black Fog Zone by Zenith, the Alliance’s largest biochemical technology enterprise. It was said to be used for researching the origins of the Polar Black Fog and its impact on the Alliance. Could he then infer that the black fog at the poles was related to this “Black Fog Farm,” and that the Sac-Gland Tiger counted as a “farm ingredient,” making it different from ordinary mutated creatures?!
Too many questions flooded his brain at once, but now was hardly the time to ponder them carefully.
The urgent priority was to fulfill orders as quickly as possible and fill the food stall cart’s display window.
His shop was located at the very end of the alley. Since he couldn’t see any other neon signs behind him, the forest of neon-lit shops ahead would at least buy him some time.
Lin Xia accelerated his grilling speed.
The edible oil glands of the Big-Headed Lizard were buried deep within the inner side of the muscle. As the temperature rose rapidly, the melting fat began to seep out of the skin bit by bit.
The faint aroma of meat quickly grew rich and potent. By now, Lin Xia was practically drenched in sweat. He had to constantly wipe his forehead with a towel, but even so, he couldn’t stop sweat from dripping onto the roasting fork, which deeply annoyed him.
According to the Alliance’s hygiene operating standards, such contaminated semi-finished products should be discarded immediately. But the reality was that he had no extra ingredients left. Throwing it away meant failing the quest, and Lin Xia was incredibly unwilling to give up.
Fortunately, the sweat evaporated instantly under the intense heat waves. Lin Xia decided to pretend he hadn’t seen it. After all, hardly any chefs in the Fourth District followed the Alliance’s hygiene regulations anyway—what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
The sweat mixed with the fat of the Big-Headed Lizard, quietly triggering a miraculous chemical reaction.
Lin Xia, busy with his work, didn’t notice it, but the unconscious Chi Zheng twitched his nose.
Even though his consciousness hadn’t fully recovered, his bodily instincts woke up a step ahead of him, starting to gather more of the wonderful aroma.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Someone was banging on the display window.
Lin Xia looked up through the smoke and fire and discovered that two figures had appeared outside the food stall cart.
These two figures were clearly not human. One was tall and thin with four noodle-like arms. The other was covered in slit-like eyes, its double-layered mouth open to reveal dense, serrated teeth. At this moment, the noodle-armed creature was repeatedly pounding on the window, muttering as it knocked.
“Smells so good, smells so good, smells so good…”
“…Put it on the shelf… put it on the shelf quickly…”
By now, the Big-Headed Lizard leg meat in Lin Xia’s hands had turned a golden brown. The fully rendered fat had fried the skin of the leg meat to a crispy, fragrant perfection under the high heat of the flames. Brushed with a layer of his secret sauce, it looked exceptionally appetizing.
Lin Xia felt it still needed a bit more time on the fire, but the two diners outside were clearly running out of patience. To prevent his food stall cart from being smashed out of shape, he decisively turned off the gas, pulled out the plates provided by the system, and rapidly sliced the lizard leg meat right in front of the customers.
Soon, two plates of steaming grilled leg meat were ready. Lin Xia carefully placed the plates into the display window and set a price he deemed reasonable. Almost the very next second, he heard the notification for a successful payment.
—Beep.—
—You have sold 2 items. 20 Mall Coins have been credited to your account.—
—Please wait patiently for the diners’ reviews.—
Across the display window, the noodle creature and the eye-slit monster were gorging themselves. Entire plates of lizard leg meat quickly vanished between their teeth. As they ate, they stared at Lin Xia inside the food stall cart with greedy, undisguised eyes, as if Lin Xia himself were part of the ingredients.
After a few agonizing minutes, the diners swallowed the last pieces from the system plates and finally, rather reluctantly, submitted their reviews.
—Beep.—
—Congratulations, you have received the approval of your diners. Would you like to open the detailed page?—
Lin Xia naturally clicked “Yes.”
The first diner’s review appeared on the light screen.
Flavor Fraud! Liar! Not delicious! ￥%#@￥%#@@##￥% Negative Review! (Note: Since this review has been detected as disingenuous, it has been automatically voided, and Diner No. 97GDH847SS854 has been issued a warning.)
Fine, the taste is actually okay. At least in the cheap hole-in-the-wall dining district, this is considered a very decent dish. After all, you can’t ask for more at such a cheap price.
But there is a real gap between this taste and what I smelled earlier. I was drawn in by a burst of rich aroma, thinking I could eat a delicacy from the Inner Dining District or even the Central Dining District. In the end, what did I eat? The flavor is there, but it’s so bland it feels watered down. If that’s not a scam, what is?!
I think the chef’s own flavor must be excellent. I just don’t know if he’s willing to carve off his own flesh and bones. It’s a pity he stays inside the shop and won’t come out. If he agrees to use himself as an ingredient, I’m willing to pay a high price to buy him…
Lin Xia frowned.
It seemed his earlier intuition wasn’t wrong. The way those two diners outside the window looked at him was indeed the way one looks at food, and his flesh seemed to be even more alluring than that of the Big-Headed Lizard.
So, staying inside the food stall cart was the right choice. The diners here were bound by rules; they couldn’t give false reviews against their true feelings. Furthermore, if a diner wanted to attack the shop owner, certain conditions had to be met first.
What those conditions were, Lin Xia still didn’t know.
He opened the second review. It was largely similar to the first, starting with an explanation of why it had initially given a negative review, followed by an emphasis that it would submit a request for a secondary review.
Clearly, the system’s review concluded that the monster had lied, forcing it to reluctantly alter its rating. It then highlighted that for this price, it felt the ingredients weren’t quite worth it.
But clearly, that wasn’t entirely genuine either, because the rating standards for the hole-in-the-wall district inherently took cost-effectiveness into account. If it truly weren’t worth it, the diner’s appeal would not have been rejected.
The first batch of diners left after finishing their meal. The system likely placed a limit on the number of purchases to prevent malicious review-bombing.
Lin Xia breathed a small sigh of relief.
Two positive reviews meant his grilled lizard legs passed the test. As long as he maintained a stable quality, clearing the quest shouldn’t be difficult.
“Ugh…”
A sound came from the wooden board bed. Chi Zheng sat up, clutching his head.
“Xiaxia…”
“You’re awake?”
Lin Xia squatted down to help him sit up.
“How do you feel? Does anything hurt?”
Chi Zheng shook his head.
“What happened to me?” He looked around, frowning. “Where is this?”
“It’s Black Fog Farm,” Lin Xia said, lowering his voice. “The orange quest was completed, and then I triggered a red quest, which teleported us to Black Fog Farm.”
“Someone just called this place the hole-in-the-wall district, and our food stall cart counts as one of the stalls. I just sold two dishes and earned 20 Mall Coins, though we probably won’t keep the full amount since there’s a handling fee…”
He rambled on about a lot of things, including his fierce battle with the Big-Headed Lizard after the aurora appeared, how he risked the cart’s durability hitting zero to rush the orange quest, and the whole process of the two diners being lured over by the scent and penalized for submitting fake reviews.
He didn’t stay idle while talking, busying himself with putting more grilled Big-Headed Lizard hind leg meat onto the shelves. Chi Zheng listened silently behind him. Golden halos swirled within his black pupils, and the shadow beneath his feet opened and closed as if it possessed a life of its own.
“You should get some proper rest first. I can handle things on this end by myself. Once these 24 hours are up, we can finish the quest and go back. When that time comes…”
Before he could finish his muttering, a warm body leaned in from behind. Arms wrapped around his shoulders, his waist was locked tight, and without warning, he was pulled into a thick, solid embrace.
“Chi Zheng…”
“Xiaxia worked hard.”
Chi Zheng was too tall and had to bend his back so he could rest his chin against the sensitive side of the neck of the person in his arms.
He let out a sigh.
“I thought…”
He held the person even tighter. The shadow beneath his feet abruptly surged to half a man’s height, and the golden halos in his eyes shrank almost into a thin line.
“It’s so good that you’re okay.”
“Let’s go back… go to ￥#＆@#, we #￥@＆%￥…”
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