Chapter 4: The Boss in Silent Tears

When his slightly bent legs were freed from their restraint and power burst from them, Chen Fengshi’s body flew up—yes, the feeling was just like flying!

Even though his one-on-one fighting ability was already pretty good, at this moment everything around him was getting shorter. As he leaped up and saw the glowing sign of the noodle shop not far away at the corner quickly become lower than the soles of his feet, that feeling was just like flying!

But this process was too fast. Before he could even carefully savor it, his body went from rising to falling, and Chen Fengshi’s pleasant surprise turned into the fear of the landing process.

The height at this moment was already over three stories. While falling, the fear was that if his body tilted and he landed on his head, his brains would surely burst out; even if he landed on his feet, the shock would break his bones.

This feeling only lasted an instant, because Chen Fengshi’s feet quickly landed on the ground. The sound of the ground shaking showed that the impact was no small matter, but, after being stunned for two seconds and gradually coming back to his senses, Chen Fengshi could not feel too strong of an impact. The feeling in his legs was as relaxed as jumping from a height of just over one meter.

‘Damn! What exactly happened!’ Chen Fengshi could not explain it, but, taking advantage of the dark to directly jump up the dorm building and ignoring the lights-out time, still made him feel that his current leaping ability was very practical.

The feeling of having power beyond the norm was actually not bad. The world was built based on human normality; for a human who could easily jump several stories high, many obstacles were practically nonexistent.

So, for Chen Fengshi, what felt bad was—not knowing the reason for all these changes, and thus being full of unknown doubts about himself, about Shen Ai, and about the future.

Did the strange condition of his body only have good sides? Would he suddenly just drop dead? Or were there hidden dangers in certain areas? Was the strange red mist he saw with his eyes related to the changes in his body? He had been in contact with Shen Ai, so was he also possessed by the red mist but unable to see the red mist on his own body? If not, then why wasn’t he possessed by the red mist?

Skinny had long since fallen asleep. Chen Fengshi lay in bed, thinking about these questions, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep. So he got up, turned on the computer, and searched various keywords, but there was absolutely no related information.

It was not until the sky was getting dimly bright that Chen Fengshi finally made up his mind—rather than always living in this fear of the unknown, he would rather take the risk to figure out the problem. And to get more information, it was nothing more than Shen Ai, or the endpoint where the red mist threads on Shen Ai and the others extended.

Compared to directly contacting the mysterious unknown behind it, of course, it was more appropriate to get close to Shen Ai first.

Making this decision made Chen Fengshi feel much more relaxed, so waves of sleepiness hit him, and he quickly fell asleep.

He had no classes today. Usually, sleeping so late, he could totally sleep until noon before getting up, and then eat breakfast and lunch together. But today, he woke up past eight o’clock. He wanted to continue sleeping, but he had no sleepiness at all, and felt that his mental state was very good, even better than the feeling of sleeping from ten at night to eight in the morning.

But he still had to get up. What was worse was the feeling of hunger in his stomach, which gave him, besides the worry about the unknown, also the anxiety about reality, which was—if he ate one hundred and eighty for every meal, what his parents earned would not be enough for him to eat. And the immediate problem was that it was the end of the month, there were still a few days before his parents gave him living expenses, and he already had no surplus food.

Borrowing money? This was of course a way, but if Chen Fengshi could manage to solve the problem himself, he was used to prioritizing solving it on his own.

But, could he get money right away?

Other than borrowing, there was no other possibility to solve the problem immediately. But, Chen Fengshi clearly knew that what he needed money to solve was ultimately the problem of being hungry, so, getting money immediately could not be done, but what about immediately getting enough things to eat?

There was totally a way for this. Chen Fengshi was thankful that the world had all kinds of business promotion methods. He was even more glad that Xuancheng was prosperous enough, so the promotion method of the noodle shop in the city was to use a portion size impossible for a normal person to achieve—as the challenge standard to act as a gimmick.

Although their school was a bit far, taking a ride for over an hour, Chen Fengshi felt he could totally endure it.

So, Chen Fengshi sat in the Tutu Noodle Shop and finished a portion that was twenty times the food intake of a normal person. Although there was no cash prize, there was a challenge reward of eating as much as he wanted here for a month.

But this highest reward, when it was set, was never meant for anyone to complete, so the boss of the noodle shop was scared and on edge for a while, fearing that Chen Fengshi would literally eat himself to death right here. He even couldn’t help but propose giving the meal for free midway, plus giving him a few discount coupons, on the condition that he stop crazily stuffing himself.

When Chen Fengshi finished the challenge and still called for another bowl, the noodle chef who had been watching at the kitchen door early on quickly said: “That’s enough.”

“The problem is, I don’t feel full, I can still eat another bowl.” Chen Fengshi felt very satisfied, although being the center of attention was not something he really liked.

The noodle shop was already full of diners, and they had all finished eating long ago. They were all surrounding him and watching him, all wanting to witness the moment of a miracle. Now that they saw it, they all clapped and cheered excitedly.

The boss of the noodle shop publicly stated that starting today, the promise of the Food God who completed the challenge being able to eat as much as he wanted for a month was valid, and he would absolutely not go back on his word.

Although he had not prepared anything at all for the person who successfully challenged, the boss very cleverly took a photo of Chen Fengshi, and then said with a smile that he would print it tomorrow and hang it in a conspicuous place. The photo would be both the honor of the first-generation Food God and the proof of eating for free for a month.

The chef in the noodle shop could only secretly admire the boss’s cleverness. He clearly had no preparation at all, but at this moment he could turn it into a result where the onlookers clapped and cheered. But what he found even more unbelievable was that Chen Fengshi really finished so many bowls of noodles, and noodles that were all secretly increased in portion and ingredients!

After walking into the kitchen, he still said in disbelief to his apprentices: “Can that kid do magic tricks?”

“Master, even for magic tricks, he’d need a place to hide it!”

“This is so weird…” The noodle chef was completely puzzled, because Chen Fengshi’s stomach obviously could not hold that amount of food.

Chen Fengshi was still eating his eleventh bowl of noodles when he suddenly saw someone coming in from outside. It was a guy he had followed yesterday and seen meeting with Shen Ai.

He knew this guy; his family’s financial situation was far below the school’s average line. At this time, he pushed the door open, looked at the liveliness inside, and very calmly squeezed to the only empty seat—the two-person table where Chen Fengshi was. After sitting down, he shouted: “Boss, I’m here for the challenge.”

“Another one?”

“Today is really lively!”

Most of the people watching the excitement in the noodle shop were very expectant. Some who had other things to do wanted to leave after seeing Chen Fengshi actually achieve the challenge. At this time, they didn’t think the new challenger could complete it either, and some felt that since someone had already succeeded, even if there was a second one, it wouldn’t be anything special, so some people dispersed.

The boss of the noodle shop happily asked someone to bring the noodles over, stated the different rewards for three levels, and finally said that if one participated in the challenge and then failed, every bowl of noodles during the challenge process had to be paid for at three times the price.

Chen Fengshi was eating noodles, but he was already absent-minded. His attention was almost entirely on the student from the same school in front of him, because he was just like Shen Ai, covered by red mist, and the red mist thread above his head extended out the door, towards the direction of the school.

They were this close, would the red mist crawl onto him?

He saw that the red mist first crawled onto the boss of the noodle shop, but they didn’t talk for long. After separating by a certain distance, those red mist could no longer continue to surge towards the boss. And after the boss left for a while, Chen Fengshi didn’t find more red mist appearing on him either.

‘Does this thing require close distance and a certain duration of invasion?’ Comparing the situations he saw following Shen Ai yesterday with what was in front of him, Chen Fengshi couldn’t help but reach this comparative conclusion. If this was the case, he also understood why Shen Ai met people alone, and they were all walks of about ten minutes.

At first, Chen Fengshi was worried that the red mist would run onto him, but he had originally planned to meet Shen Ai to figure things out, and sooner or later he couldn’t avoid it, so he simply didn’t hide.

“Are you Liu Shuzhi?” Chen Fengshi remembered the name of this schoolmate. He had played in Liu Shuzhi’s dorm room a few times before, and because Liu Shuzhi’s personality was rather introverted, it also made him easily impressionable. The Liu Shuzhi today gave Chen Fengshi a different feeling from their past meetings. In his memory, he was someone who subconsciously avoided crowds, always liked to keep his head down, and his gaze was always directed at the tips of his shoes.

But with so many people in the noodle shop, when Liu Shuzhi came in, he acted as if no one else was around, his gaze was straight, and his voice was loud.

“You haven’t been to our dorm for over a month, what a coincidence today.” Liu Shuzhi smiled in response. Chen Fengshi breathed a slight sigh of relief. He had originally wanted to test the situation, and it seemed the effect of the red mist was not like his wild guesses.

“The challenge here is not easy to complete, are you confident?” Chen Fengshi somewhat doubted whether the red mist had a substantial, or rather, dominant harm to people. At least Liu Shuzhi remembered him, so he naturally cared about the situation.

“I feel it’s no problem. I’m especially hungry today, and eating a little feels like I haven’t eaten at all. But you also know, my daily plan is six steamed buns and three bowls of rice porridge from the cafeteria.” Liu Shuzhi’s behavior was really abnormal. In the past, he wouldn’t talk about these things, and he was even afraid of others caring about him by bringing them up. The people in his dorm helping him out wouldn’t do it openly. It was mostly trying to treat everyone under various names, where no one in the whole dorm was allowed to be left out; or pretending to be disgusted by the taste of a bag of instant noodles they bought, and then giving them to him instead.

But now, he said these words so calmly, completely different from the impression Chen Fengshi had heard. However, what Chen Fengshi cared more about was Liu Shuzhi’s feeling of abnormal hunger.

‘Could it be that I’ve also been infected by the red mist, but I can’t see it on myself?’ Chen Fengshi’s guess, therefore, seemed to become closer to the truth, while he said from his mouth: “Great minds think alike, I’m also here to find free food. I searched and found only eight shops in Xuancheng have this kind of challenge. The Tutu Noodle Shop is the closest, plus I also love eating noodles.”

“For the challenge, hurry up and start eating, there’s a time limit!” The boss of the noodle shop couldn’t help but remind them, lest the challengers find excuses to renege when it was time to collect money later.

Liu Shuzhi then stopped talking and buried his head in eating.

Chen Fengshi certainly wasn’t in a hurry to leave. He sat there, started leaning his body back, and spread his legs apart to stay as far away from Liu Shuzhi as possible, but he soon discovered that after those red mist surged to a certain distance in front of him, they retreated back, and then did not approach him anymore.

He deliberately and tentatively moved his foot closer to Liu Shuzhi’s foot, but those red mist still did not approach. Even when he was almost touching it, the red mist would retreat, clearly unwilling to make contact with him.

Although he didn’t understand why, this was of course good news.

Chen Fengshi then observed Liu Shuzhi with more confidence. He found that he ate very fast. As bowls of noodles went down his stomach, the red mist on his body became more and more active, and Liu Shuzhi’s body seemed to be able to endlessly produce red mist. The constantly overflowing red mist endlessly moved along the trajectory of the red mist thread extending from his head.

Bowl after bowl, when Liu Shuzhi finished his eighth bowl, the face of the noodle shop boss was already very ugly. In his eyes, the challenges of Chen Fengshi and Liu Shuzhi were originally here to give him money, but in the end, Chen Fengshi gave him a series of slaps in the face, and now Liu Shuzhi completed the third-prize challenge, getting the qualification to eat for free for three days.

A Food God had just appeared, and now another one came! The noodle shop boss’s mood at this moment was simply like being totally screwed!