1225 Joyless Stripping (1/2)
Fatty Ding enjoyed eating, and he loved to taste all kinds of delicious food. He once visited the Nine Revolution Nether Chef Clan just to get a good meal and had even exchanged it with priceless ingredients. In his opinion, if there was no good food in life, there would be no joy. In addition to making money, food and travel were a must in life.
By chance, Fatty Ding learned about the Immortal Cooking Realm, and after the trade route between the realm and the Nether Prison was established, he became the first to visit here.
Outside the normal trading hours of merchants, he spent most of his time looking for food. The Immortal Cooking Realm was truly worthy of being a holy land for foodies that was not inferior to the Nine Revolution Nether Chef Clan. There was a wide variety of delicious food and numerous chefs with amazing cooking skills here, which excited Fatty Ding.
After searching for days and comparing, he learned about a famous restaurant from the people in the realm. The restaurant was called Immortal Chef Little Store.
When he found it and stepped into it, he was surprised to see that the chef was a little girl of seven to eight years old. The owner was away. That made him feel strange and suspicious. He loved delicious food, but... could the dishes cooked by a seven-year-old girl truly move and attract him? He was uncertain. To him, eating awful food was like eating distiller's grains. It was unbearable.
Therefore, Fatty Ding made a deal with Xixi. He told her that if the Leek Blossom she cooked could convince him, he would give her a recipe that he had exchanged with a lot of money from the Nine Revolution Nether Chef Clan. He would also provide her with all the ingredients, so she could cook the dish for him.
When he visited the restaurant again, he didn't smell the Leek Blossom. Instead, his nostrils were filled with a rich meaty aroma, which completely intoxicated him. The fragrance came from a wok of bone soup, and he knew it was not an ordinary soup! From the faint aroma that permeated the air, he could sense the bone used to make the soup was of supreme quality. He was deeply attracted to it, and he wanted to taste it so much!
However, the owner of the restaurant didn't seem to welcome him.
”Brother, there's still a lot of soup in the wok. Let me have a bowl... Great food tastes better when it's shared with others,” said Fatty Ding, grinning. His eyes were fixed at the Black Turtle Constellation Wok on the table as drool kept dripping from the corners of his mouth.
”Oh, I have money. I can pay you for a bowl of soup. You do accept immortal crystals, don't you? Well, tell me the price...” He seemed to have thought of something, and he looked up at Bu Fang, winking. However, the only reply he got was Bu Fang's expressionless face.
Nethery brought her bowl of hot soup to her lips. The edge of the bowl was a little hot from the soup, and when her lips touched it, the warmth refreshed her. She also felt that the aroma of the soup was constantly seeping into her skin. When she took a sip, the thin layer of fat on the surface flowed into her mouth as well. It was not greasy, though.
The light-brown soup was made with a variety of immortal herbs and Qilin Bone. The combination of the essence in the bone and the herbs almost made it a medicinal cuisine. Still, it was a bone soup in essence, a dish that could warm one's body and heart. It was tasty, not too salty nor bland, and when combined with the taste of those immortal herbs, the soup was like a precious treasure.
As soon as the soup entered Nethery's mouth, she felt a warm stream pour through her throat and into her stomach, driving her cold and weariness away. The energy contained in the soup nourished her fleshly body, and for a moment, she seemed to glow. Suddenly, her pale face turned ruddy, and her gray-green hair turned slightly darker. Eventually, the wild cursed snake in her body quieted down and fell asleep. The soup worked well on her.
Nethery gently breathed out a puff of warm air, her eyes looking somewhat blurry. Shaking her head, she blew at the soup and scattered the steam. Then, she took another sip and smacked her lips.
'Delicious! How happy it would be to drink a bowl of heartwarming soup like this every day...' she thought.
Xixi was also holding a bowl of soup. She understood the value of the soup better than Nethery did. Even now, she was still mesmerized by the melodious music played by those mental force threads when Bu Fang was cooking. Her teacher's cooking skills amazed her, so she tasted the soup with reverence. Her eyes narrowed as she drank it, and she was instantly intoxicated by the rich bone soup.
Gulp.
Fatty Ding swallowed as he watched. As a seasoned foodie, he knew how delicious the soup was just by smelling it. However, he couldn't taste it, and it was unbearable for him.
”Brother... How about I pay you ten thousand immortal crystals for a bowl of soup? Money is not a problem for me!” Fatty Ding offered again, but Bu Fang gave him the same expressionless look and rejected him without hesitation.
After that, Bu Fang took out another bowl and filled it with soup. That's for himself, and he drank it right away. The soup warmed the bowl as well as his heart. After finishing it all up, he felt as if his whole body and heart were basked in the sun.
He was very satisfied. The Dark Qilin Bone was indeed extraordinary. The trip to the Abyss was well worth it.
Fatty Ding was restless as he watched Bu Fang drink the soup with a satisfied look. It was as if there was a knife cutting at the fat on his body. ”Please give me a bowl of soup, Brother!” He felt like weeping and almost dropped to his knees. He was a man who could do anything for delicious food.
At that moment, a strong smell of alcohol drifted through the door and into the restaurant.
”Oh? The smell of an eight-hundred-year-old Abyssal Demon Wine?!” Fatty Ding's nose, which was almost hidden among the fat on his face, twitched. He had instantly recognized the origin of the wine, stunning him momentarily as he knew how much the wine cost. He was surprised that he could smell it in this restaurant of all places.
Bu Fang was surprised as well. He raised his head, looked toward the door, and saw a black dog waddling into the restaurant with a leg on his shoulder. ”Lord Dog?”
Xixi, Flowery, and Nethery turned to look at Lord Dog, their eyes lighting up.
When Fatty Ding saw the dog, his fat shivered. At a glance, he knew the dog was an unusual one.
With no visible blush on his dark dog face, Lord Dog entered the restaurant with slow steps, hiccuping. As he walked, his nose twitched. Without a doubt, he had smelled the soup, which had the aroma of the familiar Qilin Bone. He waved his paw, and the Qilin leg on his shoulder immediately flew toward Bu Fang.
”Bu Fang, boy, Lord Dog brought you a present!” he said as he burped. Even the wine's bouquet in his breath smelled wonderfully mellow and intoxicating.
'Even Yellow Spring Helplessness Wine can't match this eight-hundred-year-old Abyssal Demon Wine...' Bu Fang sighed with emotion in his mind. This was the first time he came across a top-grade wine, but it was a pity that he didn't have a chance to taste it.
”This is the top-grade wine of the Abyss, a vintage that is famous throughout the whole Netherworld!” said Fatty Ding as he stared curiously at Lord Dog. ”Legend has it that there are three great wines in the Netherworld, and this eight-hundred-year-old Abyssal Demon Wine ranked third, which is extremely complicated to make... The second greatest wine is called Ultimate Senseless Wine, a vintage that the Wine Saint of the Nine Revolution Nether Chef Clan had spent his life making. It is said that you will forget all your problems with just a small glass of this wine!” Fatty Ding smacked his lips.
”And the number one... It is the most mysterious wine in the Netherworld. People only heard about it in legends and never saw it with their own eyes. It is claimed that a drop of this liquor is enough to knock out a supreme Great Saint. As for its name... I don't know,” said Fatty Ding. He had never drunk any of the three wines he just mentioned. Although he was a wealthy merchant who traded everywhere in the Netherworld, there were things that money could not buy, and some chefs were so eccentric that they couldn't be bought off with money, just like this bone soup and Bu Fang…
Bu Fang took the Dark Qilin leg Lord Dog tossed to him and looked slightly stunned. 'This black dog actually cut off the Dark Qilin's leg? He had just cut off the leg of the Goat Great Saint not long ago, and now he had the leg of the Dark Qilin... Does he have a fetish for legs?' he thought suspiciously. But he didn't think too much about it. The Dark Qilin leg was a good thing, no worse than the leg of the Goat Great Saint. After all, they were both Great-Saint-grade ingredients, which were very hard to come by. And so, he carefully put it in the System's storage space.