Guo Fanxiang simply couldn’t resist the scent, his nostrils twitching nonstop, his very soul nearly dragged along by it.
And if even he was affected like this, the other ability users were far worse off.
“That smell — it has to be food!”
“What on earth is it? It smells even better than the roast chicken at Heavenly Delicacy!”
“So good! It smells so incredibly good!”
The group stood at the entrance, craning their necks and peering around, following the scent through the air until it led them right up to the cafeteria nearby.
Their gazes landed on the four people eating — Xue Xiaobai’s group.
And then—
Silence.
After a long stretch, an exclamation of shock finally burst out from the group.
“What is all this?!”
Watching more than a dozen strangers suddenly appear in the restaurant, Zhu Bei felt a flicker of confusion, but thinking they might simply have some difficulty of their own, he offered an explanation. “This is the inn’s restaurant. Is this your first time here?”
“No…” Yu Chun forced down the shock in her voice and stammered, “When we came by this morning, this wasn’t even here yet.”
“Oh… the innkeeper only just finished building this restaurant. If you’d like to eat, you can go register a consumption card for the inn first, then come back and swipe it to pay,” Zhu Bei explained.
The word “register” was one he’d only just picked up from listening to the robot.
“The restaurant stays open until midnight, so you should have time,” Zhu Bei added.
As he spoke, he discreetly withdrew the assessing gaze he’d been giving them.
He was an ability user himself — tier-two speed evolution.
Ability users could sense the tier of other ability users, and the energy surrounding these newcomers was remarkably deep and steady — clearly high-tier ability users at a glance.
The one leading the group, Zhu Bei recognized from the last time mutants had assaulted the city — the man who’d commanded a large contingent of soldiers. He had to be a tier-six ability user from the base’s upper ranks.
Why would people like this show up here together, as a group?
Could it be that the base commander and the others already knew about this place?
At the thought, Zhu Bei’s body stiffened slightly.
The inn’s remarkable nature was plain for anyone to see — but if the base decided to attack this place, determined to seize full control of whatever resources the innkeeper possessed, could the inn possibly survive that?
Meanwhile, the ability users standing at the restaurant entrance exchanged glances with one another, apparently unable to make up their minds.
After a moment’s thought, Guo Fanxiang asked Zhu Bei, “Where’s the owner of this place?”
Zhu Bei shook his head.
Just then, a figure about half a person’s height came into view — the inn’s all-purpose robot, Xiao Yi.
“Hello, honored guests. Are you here to check in? Please head to the self-service registration terminal in the lobby~” It looked genuinely friendly, its screen displaying a little emoticon: /(^▽^)/
Seeing everyone’s eyes on him, Guo Fanxiang, as the group’s leader, glanced briefly at the food behind the nearby window but didn’t act immediately.
Instead, he followed Xiao Yi’s instructions and made his way to the self-service terminal in the lobby, working through the card registration process step by step.
Upon seeing that deposited funds were non-refundable, he furrowed his brow slightly, but ultimately said nothing.
The owner here was certainly confident, entrusting the shop entirely to a robot like this while never showing his own face at all. Was that because… he was already certain none of them could cause any real trouble?
After depositing six tier-two crystal cores, and seeing 299 points remaining on his card, he immediately headed for the restaurant to spend it.
Braised pork belly — buy!
Stir-fried yellow beef — buy!
Black pepper beef strips — buy!
Braised chicken with mushrooms — buy!
Braised hairtail fish — buy!
Guo Fanxiang didn’t even glance at the vegetable dishes, going straight for all five meat dishes.
Combined with rice and other add-ons, he’d spent 265 points in an instant.
Looking at the food laid out before him, he steadied himself, picked up his chopsticks, and put a small piece of fish into his mouth.
Fish simply didn’t exist in their inland region.
Even at Heavenly Delicacy, getting to eat fish cost several times more in points than meat did.
Guo Fanxiang was a tier-six ability user, serving the base, earning six figures in points a month — visiting places like that was practically a weekly habit for him.
But even so, the moment he tasted the braised hairtail fish on his plate, the texture and flavor left him momentarily stunned.
Unlike the stiff, bone-riddled fish served at Heavenly Delicacy, this fish was simply fresh and tender beyond compare.
…To be able to raise fish like this, whoever backed this establishment had to be even more formidable than the owner of Heavenly Delicacy.
Guo Fanxiang let out a breath of relief.
Good thing he hadn’t listened to that fool Lu Tianxin and come here to threaten the owner.
“How is it?” one of the ability users beside him asked, swallowing hard. “Captain Guo, is it good?”
Guo Fanxiang didn’t answer, just nodded deeply, with feeling.
In an instant, the dozen-plus tier-five and tier-six ability users who’d come along abandoned any pretense of dignity and rushed straight for the self-service terminal, each getting themselves a card for the inn.
Most of the food was sold out within moments.
Inside the restaurant, aside from the constant sound of eating, all that remained was a rolling wave of astonished exclamations.
One ability user sitting across from Guo Fanxiang lowered his voice and murmured, “Captain, so are we still going through with the attack? The food here is ten thousand times better than Heavenly Delicacy! If we took this place over, wouldn’t we…”
Imagining the glorious future ahead, he swallowed hard.
Guo Fanxiang gave him a look that was almost a smile and said, “Do you really think someone capable of running a shop like this could possibly be an ordinary person? Why do you think Heavenly Delicacy thrives across so many different bases — because they control resources? No. It’s because their owner holds real power.”
The ability user fell silent.
After a moment, he forced out, “But we haven’t even met the owner of this place. Besides, there isn’t even a single guard here — what if…?”
Just as he finished speaking, a loud slam rang out from a nearby table — one of the ability users had brought his fist down hard.
Bang!
The sound drew everyone’s attention.
The man had a full, scraggly beard and a loud, blustering way of speaking. He shouted at Xiao Yi, who was patrolling nearby, “Hey! Get over here! Go call your innkeeper out! I’ve got some business to discuss with him!”
Xiao Yi received the message and slowly rolled its little wheels into the restaurant.
The same smiling face still displayed on its screen.
“I’m terribly sorry, honored guest. The innkeeper is currently occupied and unable to come out at the moment. If there’s anything you need, please feel free to tell Xiao Yi instead ^^~”
“What? Occupied?” The bearded man looked incredulous. He stood up at once, his expression turning ugly. “I’m doing him the courtesy of wanting to discuss business with him, and he’s brushing me off with excuses?!”
With that, he reached out and yanked Xue Xiaobai up by the collar from the table beside him.
“Tell your innkeeper — if he doesn’t show himself right now, I’ll kill this kid on the spot!”
Xiao Yi’s screen filled with a burst of garbled text.
And just like that, Chu Yi, who had been in his room watching a big-budget sci-fi movie, was summoned.
He checked the surveillance feed and looked out at the cafeteria.
His gaze landed on the burly troublemaker.
This group…
Chu Yi ran a scan over them, pulling up their personal information.
All of them were tier-five and tier-six ability users.
“They really did move fast,” he said, then sighed. “What a shame, though — their tiers are too high. I can’t get any practice out of them.”
He then turned his attention to the system, which had accumulated a string of unprocessed notifications.
[Income received: 67 tier-two crystal cores, 34 tier-one crystal cores, totaling 3,690 points. You have earned 2,583 points. Per your default priority setting, this has been deposited into the shop balance.]
[Remaining points: 2,698]
[Main Quest: Total Revenue of 2,000 Points! (2,000/2,000) Complete!]
[Reward: 200 experience points!]
[Reward: Underground parking lot development rights!]
[New quest issued!]
[Main Quest: Total Revenue of 5,000 Points! (1,830/5,000)]
[Reward: 1. Inn Experience +300. 2. Branch development rights. (You are not required to set up lodging fees — you may open only a vending machine, or a restaurant, or any other facility. Full discretion is entirely yours!)]
Branch development rights already, this soon?
Chu Yi was somewhat taken aback.
He’d assumed he’d need to level up the shop several more times before being granted a privilege like that.
With this, there was so much more he could do now.
Meanwhile, on the other end, having received no response from the innkeeper, the bearded man grew increasingly displeased.
“Get him out here, now!” he snapped, punctuating it with a hard kick aimed straight at Xiao Yi.
The next instant—
Before the big man could even react, his entire body seized up rigid. He couldn’t even complete the motion of grabbing Xue Xiaobai — he collapsed straight to his knees, both hands clutching at his own throat, gasping in ragged breaths.
“Ugh… ugh!”
It all happened too fast — no one had time to react at all!
Right there, in full view of everyone, the bearded man’s eyes bulged and he stopped breathing entirely — dead.
Inwardly cursing the man for a fool, Guo Fanxiang walked over, crouched down, exhaled through his nose, and said quietly, “He’s dead.”
The ability users erupted into chaos.
They whispered urgently among themselves.
“I didn’t even see how it was done!”
“There has to be a tier-seven or higher mental-type ability user here!”
“I told him not to act rashly!”
Meanwhile, having just escaped the villain’s grip, Xue Xiaobai’s heart was still pounding uncontrollably.
Zhu Bei walked over and patted him on the back. “You alright?”
Xue Xiaobai shook his head.
He’d genuinely thought, for a moment, that he was about to die at the hands of an ability user today.
That was just how it was for ordinary people — without an ability of their own, they were nothing but expendable resources in the hands of the powerful, their lives never guaranteed from one day to the next.
He was simply too weak.
Even here in the inn, under the innkeeper’s protection, he was still, in the end, just an ordinary person.
In that moment, what rose up in Xue Xiaobai’s heart was a stubborn refusal to simply accept his fate.
But even more than that, it was despair — the despair of knowing that, as an ordinary person, he would never awaken an ability in his entire life.
Chu Yi caught that look in his eyes through the feed.
“Refusing to accept fate, hm… now that’s a decent look to have.”
[Aren’t you going to go out there?] the system asked.
“Why would I need to go out there for that?” Chu Yi said flatly. “All the shop’s rules are posted right there on the walls. They’re not illiterate, are they? Whether it’s eating or checking in, can’t they handle it themselves?”
[Well… you are the innkeeper, after all.]
“Yes, I’m the innkeeper. I’m not a waiter. Why should I have to run out with a smile plastered on my face every single time someone new shows up?”
The system didn’t know what to say to that.
Clearly, this host in front of it cared more about the sci-fi blockbuster he hadn’t finished watching than the life-or-death situation of the guests outside.
[I noticed you seemed quite interested in Xue Xiaobai just now. The shop has ability-awakening serums available — are you thinking of selling those to them?]
Chu Yi smiled.
He asked only one question in reply.
“Do you think selling a serum like that would truly maximize the profit to be had from something as valuable as ‘awakening an ability’?”