Chapter 50: Zhou Xue Grew Increasingly Baffled by This “Boss Ling’s” Motives
“Boss Ling!”
Ling Jing had just finished restocking the skewers on the Malatang table when she heard someone call her name.
Turning around, she saw six figures bundled up from head to toe.
Hmm… these days, patrons who refused to take off their face cloths inside the shop were a rare sight indeed.
Judging by the familiar build and that relentlessly energetic wave, though, the speaker looked an awful lot like the stray kid she had picked up last night.
Ling Jing stepped forward.
“Hall?”
“It’s me! You actually remembered, Boss!” The masked youth beamed with delight.
“Mhm.”
He had only just polished off his breakfast skewers and scampered off this morning, and it was barely noon. Her memory wasn’t that terrible.
“Boss Ling, this is our captain,” Hall whispered with exaggerated stealth, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial hush.
Ling Jing swept a casual glance over the newcomers.
Well now… six people, every last one sporting green eyes.
All Awakeners, presumably?
Curious that the rest of the diners hadn’t batted an eye. Ling Jing seemed to recall someone mentioning that Awakeners hailed exclusively from the Three Great Cities, and frontier folk rarely caught a glimpse of them.
Ah… right. These folks were bundled in full face wraps, leaving only their eyes exposed.
To any passerby, they merely looked like poor souls on their last legs from lethal toxic corrosion.
Such an appearance was hardly a rarity in her dining room.
Guests looking like walking corpses shuffled in every single day.
Though Ling Jing had no inkling where this squad of Awakeners had crawled out from, she had zero interest in prying.
Frontier outposts, Three Great Cities—none of that had anything to do with her. Running her restaurant was her sole concern.
Whether you were an ordinary scavenger or an Awakener, as long as you didn’t cause a scene, you were a paying guest of the Chinese Restaurant.
“Something I can help you with? Any questions about the menu?”
Noticing the group lingering by the menu board, Ling Jing asked.
“Yes, we do have a few questions,” answered the woman Hall had addressed as “Captain.”
“I am Zhou Xue. How should I address you?”
“Just call me Boss Ling.”
While the other party sized her up, Ling Jing was taking stock of Zhou Xue as well.
Her voice was crisp and cold. Though one could tell she was deliberately striving for a polite tone, the fitted combat armor and the heavy blade strapped to her back radiated an unmistakable air of bloodshed.
“Ask away,” Ling Jing said evenly.
“I have no intention of prying into your personal abilities. I am simply astonished by this food… Do you know just how precious these dishes truly are?” Captain Zhou Xue inquired.
“I do,” Ling Jing replied with a nod.
Of course she knew. Wasn’t that screamingly obvious from the way her customers had been reacting every day?
Starting from the very first day she ran into Lilin, Lina, and Long Qian’s crew, every single newcomer to the Chinese Restaurant walked the exact same progression: initial shock, outright disbelief, overwhelming euphoria, and finally, blissful, frenzied gorging.
Ling Jing had also learned from the patrons’ idle chatter that aside from the official municipal rations, no animal or plant in this wasteland could be consumed by human beings.
Naturally, the dishes served in her restaurant were one of a kind.
“Then why… Is it your goal to aid Seed City?” Zhou Xue pressed.
“I wouldn’t call it aiding anyone; I’m a businesswoman,” Ling Jing stated plainly. “Every single item has a clear price tag. I opened a restaurant to make a living and earn money, of course.”
“…”
To earn money… Yet the prices in this restaurant were practically pennies.
Cheap to an utterly bewildering degree.
Ling Jing’s demeanor was so disarmingly matter-of-fact that Zhou Xue found herself momentarily at a loss for words.
The woman did, in fact, collect payment.
Life in Seed City was agonizingly brutal—a reality Zhou Xue knew far too well.
As the years ground on, salvageable supplies outside the walls grew scarcer by the day while lethal perils multiplied.
She had watched countless survivors toil for days on end just to scrape together enough crystals for a single ration block.
She had seen people starve to death, and she had seen them rot away from poison.
Even four or six City Coins could take those unfortunates a day or two of backbreaking effort to gather.
Especially the elderly, the sick, the young, and the infirm, whose frail bodies could barely endure the wastes.
And yet, where had all the coins jingling in the pockets of the smiling diners around them come from?
From the Item Exchange Box standing by the front door.
This proprietor who claimed she was merely out to make a profit had set up a simple metal box that transformed the contaminated vegetation littering the West Wall directly into hard cash.
Zhou Xue grew increasingly baffled by this “Boss Ling’s” motives.
The woman’s power was an unfathomable abyss.
Choosing her words with extreme care, Zhou Xue ventured, “Do you hail from the Three Great Cities?”
Ling Jing shook her head. “I do not.”
Zhou Xue had a keen sense of propriety. Pushing the conversation to this point, she knew better than to pry any deeper.
“Excuse me… If we wish to take this food elsewhere to eat, would it be possible to…”
“Takeout?” Ling Jing interjected.
“Yes.”
“Of course you can. The one-pot stew, roasted potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, and pickled radish already come in takeaway containers. If you wish to pack up Malatang skewers, however, you will need to pay a small additional fee for large takeout boxes.”
Ling Jing wasn’t about to run a charity and eat the packaging costs.
“That’s completely fine,” Zhou Xue agreed without hesitation.
“Just a fair reminder: as stated in the Restaurant Rules, diners are guaranteed absolute safety within our operating premises. If you pack the food to go, you will be responsible for your own safety once you leave.”
“Understood.”
Zhou Xue had never intended to dine inside Ling Jing’s establishment to begin with.
Eating in the dining hall inevitably meant lowering their face wraps.
Exposing only their eyes didn’t draw much attention, but the moment the cloths came off, anyone with half a brain would recognize them as Awakeners.
She had promised Yves to keep their awakenings under wraps and avoid ordinary citizens whenever possible.
Running into one or two scavengers was manageable, but with the dining hall packed to the rafters, letting word slip out would invite endless trouble.
“How much are you looking to buy? If the order is large enough, I can throw in the carry bags on the house.”
Zhou Xue cast her eyes over the menu.
Though they carried no physical City Coins, they had a decent stockpile of medium-grade crystals on hand.
They could convert them into currency using that exchange box outside.
“Twenty roasted potatoes, ten roasted sweet potatoes, twenty tubs of pickled radish, ten portions of one-pot stew, and the Malatang skewers…”
She glanced toward the communal dining tables.
Ling Jing helpfully supplied, “There are ten different ingredient varieties for the Malatang skewers.”
“Ten skewers of each variety, then,” Zhou Xue concluded, tallying the crystals they carried in her head.
“Coming right up!”
A high-roller!
Ling Jing’s eyes sparkled. Why hadn’t she said she wanted that much from the start?
She would gladly waive the container fees.
Charging for the boxes on an order like that would only make her look petty.
“That comes to 360 City Coins in total. The takeout boxes are on the house. How would you like to pay?”
Judging by their gear, Ling Jing doubted they were carrying piles of loose coins, figuring they would likely trade crystals for currency just like Hall had.
“Are energy crystals acceptable?”
“Naturally.”
“Do we need to step outside to use the exchange box?”
“No need, dropping them straight into this Cash Box will do just fine.”
Ling Jing tapped the counter box beside her.
Although the Item Exchange Box had been set outside, the main Cash Box retained its inherent ability to process crystals.
“Very well.”
Zhou Xue nodded, signaling to Shelley with a glance.
Yves had handed over two crates of medium-grade crystals yesterday. Zhou Xue had left one crate behind for Xia Dong this morning, while Shelley carried the second.
Having ventured out prepared for a grueling, bloody battle, carrying spare crystals to replenish depleted energy reserves was standard procedure.
“Pool whatever crystals you’re carrying,” Zhou Xue instructed her squad.
A full crate contained thirty medium crystals, and the members usually kept a few spares on their persons.
Zhou Xue herself had six medium crystals and two large ones left, all harvested during hunts beyond the North Wall over the past few days.
Pooling their reserves, they should easily cover the tab.
“Right.” The squad members reached into their pouches, producing their respective stashes.
Only Hall stood to the side, looking utterly sheepish. “Er… Captain, my crystals are all gone.”
“Didn’t I give you five medium crystals and one large one before we deployed yesterday?” Turner asked, brow furrowing.
“Yeah, heheh… Well, I sort of traded them all for food.”
“The food is dirt cheap; how could you burn through the entire lot? That makes no sense.”
“Uh, well, I had a roasted potato, two orders of pork cracklings, and interrupting the boss in the middle of the night comes with double surcharges! Okay, I had some left over after that…” Hall mumbled, shrinking into himself. “Then this morning I had a dozen Malatang skewers, and I even brought a roasted potato back for you guys! So yeah, I’m completely tapped out!”
“…”
Shelley and the others pinned him with deeply judgmental glares.
Their eyes broadcasted a silent, scathing verdict: You absolute glutton.
“Hey, I was critically injured, alright! When you’re hurt… of course you need to eat good food to heal!”
Hall’s protests grew fainter and fainter under their collective gaze.
Finally, he puffed out his chest and demanded with unassailable logic:
“Looking at all this divine food in Boss Ling’s shop, are you telling me you don’t want to try every single bite?!”
…Well.
He wasn’t wrong about that.
