Chapter 42: You’re Telling Me There’s a Customer Outside Right Now? Are They Even Legitimate?
Ling Jing rolled up her sleeves, brewed three cauldrons of one-pot stew in one go, portioned every serving onto the storage racks, and set about pickling white daikon radish.
The three cauldrons yielded forty-seven portions of stew in total.
With her remaining 10 points, Ling Jing spent another 5 in the Mall to purchase a second transparent storage bin, preparing two massive tubs of pickled radish right off the bat.
Once the daikon was curing, the Malatang broth simmering across two stockpots reached a rich, fragrant finish.
Ling Jing clicked off the burners.
Glancing at the automatic skewer machine’s digital counter, over fifteen hundred skewers had already been prepped.
Automation felt glorious; the oversized steel trays were already half full.
Seeing them stacked to the brim with neatly assembled skewers brought an inexplicable wave of peace of mind.
Plucking out nearly forty skewers from the finished trays, Ling Jing sat down to a thoroughly satisfying dinner simmered in the final pot of soup from today’s service.
Once finished, she tapped “Clean” on the shop layout panel.
The Chinese Restaurant snapped into immaculate order in an instant. Footprints tracked across the hardwood floors, sauce splatters left by the final wave of diners at the skewer table—all of it was erased clean in a heartbeat, as if an invisible eraser had wiped the slate clean.
The entire dining hall looked as pristine as the day it was manufactured.
Even the crooked stools by the two dining tables on the right were tucked back into place, aligned in crisp, orderly rows.
…Suddenly, that 50-point daily maintenance fee felt remarkably well spent.
Who could truly understand the unadulterated joy of not having to mop floors after closing?
Ling Jing certainly could.
It meant that once prep was finished and her belly was full, she could walk straight to bed and rest.
Ling Jing offered a languid stretch.
—Even the tableware she had just used had been cleared away into storage. She truly could play the role of an entirely hands-off proprietor.
Rising to her feet, she strolled to the front entrance and pulled the glass double doors shut.
Though whether they were locked or not made little practical difference.
At this hour, every patron had long since retreated behind the towering city walls. Through snippets of chatter overheard during service, Ling Jing had pieced together the strict curfew governing their lives.
Eight in the morning to six in the evening. Once the morning bells tolled, people could leave; once the evening chimes rang out, all were required to return.
Failing to report back on time was treated as death, and names were struck from the city register.
When night fell, the emerald mist thickened to lethal levels. Outside the safety of the perimeter walls, no ordinary mortal could survive the dark.
Rumor had it that failing to return on time was also viewed as dodging mandatory labor, an offense punished with permanent exile beyond the gates anyway.
Her patrons hadn’t gone into exhaustive detail on the legal nuances.
Regardless, one fact remained absolute: there were no customers at this hour.
Darkness had fully swallowed the horizon. Anything still roaming the wastes out there had to be mutated flora or feral beasts.
The white protective dome would handle any intrusions. Those things were not her clientele.
Switching off the dining hall lights, the lanterns hanging outside the eaves faded to a soft slumber.
Ling Jing cast a final glance at the whirring machinery in the kitchen, pushed open the rear door, and walked into her bedroom.
Click.
She flipped on the bedroom lamp.
Pulling a clean bath towel from the wardrobe, Ling Jing slipped into the adjoining bathroom, took a luxuriously long hot shower, and dried her hair with the blow-dryer mounted to the wall.
Bathed in warm lamplight, the bedroom felt cozy and safe.
Beyond the windowpane lay an abyss of pitch-black night; peering far into the distance, faint, twisted green silhouettes seemed to writhe against the earth, indistinct and menacing.
Inside, however, lay a soft single mattress, a plush throw rug, and the gentle fragrance of shampoo lingering in the air.
Ling Jing drew the curtains shut, slipped into her pajamas, kicked off her shoes, and sat down on the edge of the bed with bare feet buried in the fluffy rug.
Reaching for the small notepad on the nightstand, she jotted down a concise log of everything accomplished today.
Once finished, she slipped under the covers.
After toiling through an entire day, sinking into bed was the purest form of bliss.
Shoulders, back, waist, legs—every muscle unspooled, sinking into the contour of the plush mattress.
Ling Jing gave a casual flick of her wrist, pulling up the floating panel. The digital clock in the upper-right corner read 9:30 PM.
Ah. Though business resumed tomorrow, she could sleep in until she woke up naturally.
What a wonderful luxury.
Ling Jing reached out to hit the switch on the wall, turning off the bedroom lamp.
System panel, off!
She nestled back down and closed her eyes.
Right now, she didn’t want to lift a single finger; meeting the god of dreams was her only priority.
Thump.
A faint, muffled sound registered outside the storefront entrance.
The Chinese Restaurant was far too well soundproofed; with her eyes already shut, Ling Jing caught not the slightest echo of it.
Ping.
A sharp system chime rang right in her ear.
Ling Jing’s brow furrowed.
What now? Didn’t the system know that waking someone on the verge of sleep was the quickest way to test their patience?
At this ungodly hour, what could the system possibly want?
Whatever it was, it couldn’t be important.
She turned over and ignored it.
Ping!
Ping!
The chime escalated, ringing persistently right beside her head.
Ling Jing: “…”
Good grief, what sort of fit was this system throwing in the middle of the night?
Frowning, she cracked her eyes open.
A glowing notification box hovered dead in front of her face.
[Alert!] [The shop is currently closed and outside business hours. A customer has arrived at the front door. Do you wish to receive them?]
The irritation of being pulled from sleep hadn’t faded, and reading the prompt only made Ling Jing’s frown deepen.
A customer? At this hour?
She glanced at the timestamp in the corner of the panel.
21:36.
You’re telling me there’s a customer outside right now?
Are they even legitimate?!
The moment Hall hit the dirt, he blacked out entirely.
While battling those mutated beasts that afternoon, a moment’s lapse in focus allowed a thorny creeper lashing from a beast’s back to hook around his throat.
Having awakened his abilities only recently, he hadn’t yet mastered precise control over his power.
He had been forced to watch helplessly as he was dragged farther and farther away into the gloom.
Sister Zhou and the rest of the unit had clearly fought to save him, but before they could break through, three other mutated beasts had pinned them down in a bloody standstill.
Expending every ounce of strength in his body, Hall had barely managed to channel his power and manifest a jagged ice dagger, covertly severing the vine strangling his neck.
He was dragged straight into a foul-smelling, suffocating den.
Assuming its prey had suffocated, the mutated beast opened its gaping maw to tear into him.
Catching the creature off guard, Hall jammed the ice blade deep into its throat.
The beast shrieked in agonizing fury.
Seizing the opening, he drove the blade straight into its eye!
Driven mad with pain, the beast lashed out with a savage kick to his abdomen, sending him flying clean out of the cavern.
Hall had slammed violently against the rocky ground, coughing up a mouthful of dark blood on impact!
Awakeners possessed enhanced physical resilience, but as a newly awakened novice, taking a full-force blow from a C-rank mutated monstrosity was nearly fatal!
His internal organs had to be ruptured and bleeding.
Excruciating agony racked every inch of his frame, yet survival left no room for hesitation. Gritting his teeth, he scrambled up from the dirt and bolted.
Behind him came the frenzied roars of the wounded C-rank predator. Hall dared not slacken his pace for an instant, sprinting blindly into the wastes.
Fortunately, blinded in one eye, the beast hadn’t closed the distance immediately.
That desperate flight had stretched from dusk into pitch-black night, losing him entirely among the twisted, gargantuan flora of the wasteland.
By the end, Hall’s mind held only a single thought: find where the high walls were.
Before passing out, he had heard the beast’s chilling roar echo once more.
Drawn, most likely, by the scent of fresh blood pouring from his wounds.
…Regrettably, he hadn’t made it back inside the safety of the walls.
At least Sister Zhou and the squad were likely safe.
It hurts so much.
That was the last coherent thought in Hall’s head before his vision succumbed to the dark.
…
When faint consciousness drifted back into his senses, a tingling, spicy heat washed across his tongue.
Is this… radish?
Subconsciously, Hall’s jaw worked, chewing twice.
Immediately after, something thick and mushy was pressed into his mouth.
The taste of potato?
Hall startled inwardly.
How many years had it been since he last tasted real food? How could this be?
Fighting through the fog, he cracked his eyelids open, catching a blurred glimpse of light.
There were… two round, warm glowing lanterns, and a door radiating bright, clean light?
And leaning close above him, a strikingly beautiful woman looked down with a cool, measuring gaze.
Her skin was pale and flawless, without the slightest trace of emerald rot.
Ah.
Of course.
He had arrived in paradise.
Thank the heavens he had never done anything evil in his life.
