"Sister, after being poisoned, will you see a Blue Elf duck?"
"Hehe~ It depends on the individual’s constitution, everyone sees something different. I once got poisoned from Green-Thumb mushrooms, and I was driving at the time when suddenly a foreigner popped up from the ground, making me think I had hit someone. I stopped the car but couldn’t find anyone!" The waitress chuckled as she shared her own experience with poisoning.
Xu Qingfan silently gave a thumbs up, truly worthy of the people of Kun City, it seems that everyone has a story about mushroom poisoning.
After waiting for over twenty minutes, the countdown timer finally rang, and the waitress finished sampling the dishes before bringing the utensils to the table. Knowing they had come from Hong Kong, she also thoughtfully served them a pot of hot tea and a bowl of water.
Xu Qingfan was the first to finish cleaning his eating utensils. He couldn’t wait to ladle a bowl of mushroom soup for himself, grabbing a big slice of mushroom and placing it into his mouth.
"Whew~" Xu Qingfan, regardless of the heat, chewed a few times before swallowing. The delicacy soared straight to his palate, a world apart from the mushrooms bought at a supermarket. In the words of Hong Kongers, it was extremely ’mushroomy.’
An apt comparison would be free-range chicken versus frozen feed chicken: the former is delicious even when just blanched with salt water, whereas the latter cannot hide its fishy stench without a lot of seasonings.
The wild mushrooms were already incredibly tasty on their own, and the dipping sauce prepared in advance found no use.
In a strange environment and after a day of travel, everyone was hungry. They all ate silently, without speaking a word, only occasionally exchanging glances.
They additionally ordered a large portion of spicy fried Green-Thumb mushrooms and dried mushroom fried rice. The meal lasted almost an hour and a half, and only when the mushroom soup was nearly gone did everyone finally put down their utensils.
"Just for this meal, the trip was worth it," Xu Qingfan said, patting his rounded belly.
"Are you all full? If not, we can order more," Zhang Chunxue asked with a smile.
"We’re full, we’re full!"
"I can’t eat another bite now."
"Then I’ll go pay the bill." Zhang Chunxue neatly folded the napkins she had used, about to get up.
"Auntie, no need, I’ve already paid. This meal is on me!" Xu Qingfan raised his hand and said.
The five girls heard this and looked unsurprised. Clearly Xu Qingfan often did such things.
"I was wondering why you took so long in the restroom," she ruffled Xu Qingfan’s hair, picked up her purse, and continued, "Let’s go, we should walk around a bit after eating. Let’s check out Kun City’s night market."
The place where they ate was only a few hundred meters from Shuangqiao Night Market; they walked and chatted leisurely to their destination.
At eight in the evening, vendors at the night market had begun to set up their stalls sporadically, and there were also groups of pedestrians on the streets. The stalls lining both sides of the road mostly sold women’s clothing, and the scents of fried potatoes and grilled squid wafted through the air.
As they had just finished eating, they didn’t have the appetite for snacks. They strolled from one end of the street to the other and then back again.
Around the night market, Xu Qingfan didn’t notice any special Kun City delicacies—wolf’s tooth potatoes, crispy sausage, iron plate squid, stinky tofu... basically, it was a replica of Li City’s night market.
But upon reflection, it seemed normal. In places like Li City, aren’t those specialty snacks located near tourist attractions specifically to scam tourists? Normal locals wouldn’t eat those things.
After a day of jostling about, they felt tired as they walked, and by nine o’clock, they hailed a taxi to return to the hotel.
Once inside with their room cards, the five girls disregarded their image, sprawling haphazardly across the living room couches.
Zhang Chunxue went back to her room to catch up on work, freeing up time for the next day’s activities.
Xu Qingfan went to his room to get his laptop and then connected it to the hotel internet in the living room, settling into the center of the couch.
"Who’s going to take a shower first?" he asked, patting Xiao Ruawen and Xia Xiaoxiao who were sitting on either side of him.
"Don’t wanna, so tired," Xiao Ruawen said, lying still in a slouched position.
"Brother Qing Fan, can your computer go online? Help me check QQ!"
"Sure~ I’ll log in for all of you." After the computer booted up, he clicked on the QQ icon six times in a row.
Helping each other log into QQ was common in their small group of six, so Xu Qingfan’s computer had saved passwords for all the girls’ QQ accounts.
No sooner had he logged in than the alerts from six QQ accounts buzzed relentlessly like tuberculosis. Xu Qingfan hurriedly set the status to ’Do Not Disturb’ to put an end to it.
"Who’s going to shower first? There are only two bathrooms," Xu Qingfan repeated with a snap of his fingers.
"I’ll wash... in a bit," Lin Wanning made a motion to get up, but truthfully, her body slumped back down again.
"I’ll go wash then," Wu Lingyu waited for a while and seeing no one else volunteered, so she spoke up.
"Yu, you’re good. I’ll join you. Xia Xiaoxiao, can you help me check for typos in this article?" Xu Qingfan opened the document he had saved on the airplane and said.
"Huh?" Hearing this, the girls weren’t sleepy anymore.
"Fan... Brother Fan... you... I... you..." Wu Lingyu’s face turned bright red, stammering her words.
"Brother Qing Fan, you can’t take a shower with other girls!"
"Brother Fan, what are you trying to do!"
"Xu Qingfan, are you trying to get yourself killed?"