66 - At Qin Yange

Translated by rabbitrisu

Qin Yange is a restaurant that started in Yandu. It had been in business for decades before it opened its first branch in Shoushan.

The restaurant was famous in Yandu for the simple reason that the food is really delicious. It’s said that the owner of Qin Yange was a chef praised by all the great figures in Yandu. Not long after opening Qin Yange, the restaurant became famous not only for its dishes, but also because it had a membership reservation system, which was special in many famous restaurants.

He didn’t know why Qin Yange opened a branch in Shoushan instead of the more prosperous Jiangdu, but since the branch opened, people had reserved seats through various channels. For a group of ordinary university students to gather there, it must be because of an unusual skill among the people meeting.

“Wan Yu, who are you waiting for?” A young man in a suit, leather shoes, and hairspray walked out of the door of Qin Yange and walked up to a girl in a purple qipao. “The set number of people have already arrived.”

“Another student said that he might come, so I want to wait and see.” Wan Yu pulled the white gauze shawl around her body and looked at the entrance of the plaza. She had changed her style from what was popular during her student days, and looked like a lady. “In fact, the self-service buffet option is very good, and all the students can be invited to participate together. There are many good foods and it’s quite unrestricted.”

“This is after you determined the number of students who decided to participate, and then discovered that the seating here was just right?” The young man in a suit looked at Wan Yu, who was slim and fit. “One of my father’s partners booked a room for twenty people after learning about this branch being opened, but he didn’t expect to have to wait for two months. He couldn’t come back abroad himself, so he asked me to come over and paid a large membership fee.”

“I don’t understand you. Everyone is still a student, they aren’t that well off economically.” Wan Yu spoke with her back to the young man in a suit. “I never thought, Qi Yang, that even though you haven’t graduated from university, you would already be a successful person.”

“It’s just that my family has done some real estate business in the past few years.” Qi Yang brushed back his hair. “I know that not everyone is well-off. Although it’s said that everything would be evenly split, if it’s just the price of the buffet, I just want to get together with everyone.”

“Thank you.” Wan Yu still didn’t seem interested.

“By the way, which classmate were you talking about?” Qi Yang suddenly remembered what Wan Yu mentioned before.

“Su Zimo, do you remember?” Wan Yu turned around. “I found his old phone number on the school’s contact list.”

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“Him?” Wan Yu hadn’t said anything yet, but Qi Yang’s face was a little unpleasant. “He transferred to another school a long time ago, why would you suddenly think about looking for him?”

“I didn’t think of it at first.” Wan Yu frowned slightly at Qi Yang’s attitude. “But didn’t I post my intent on the Shoushan No. 1 Secondary School forum? A classmate named ‘Snake’ said they wanted to see Su Zimo.”

“Snake? That name is strange. But he shouldn’t be able to come. After all, he’s such an insociable person.” Qi Yang snorted coldly.

“But… it was Su Zimo himself who answered the phone. He said he may come.” Wan Yu shook her phone. “I was also taken aback when it connected. I didn’t expect him to never change his phone number. I don’t know why we haven’t contacted him over so many years.”

“Ah! Isn’t that?-“

Following Wan Yu’s line of sight, Qi Yang saw a clear figure walking out of the supermarket entrance in the plaza. Except for the glasses he wore which were different from his original ones, the figure walking towards Qin Yange from a distance wasn’t too different from high school. It hadn’t become weak, ugly, or fat, but instead looks more…

Qi Yang couldn’t tell. He just didn’t want to be near that guy very much anyway.

*

And Su Zimo, who just bought some junk food from the supermarket that wasn’t available on the mountain, then walked over to Qin Yange with his backpack. He didn’t have the words ‘classmate reunion’ in his head. He was thinking about Mr. Fang Qin’s invitation. Although he noticed someone standing at the door to Qin Yange, he didn’t recognize that the man and woman had anything to do with him.

“Su Zimo!”

So when the girl in the purple qipao ran up to him and called his name, Su Zimo was stunned. He tilted his head in doubt, then hesitated and said, “Hello?”

“It’s great that you could come! Our classmates have been looking for you!”

Su Zimo looked at the smiling girl in front of him, reacted quickly, and spoke with a smile. “It’s been a long time, Class Leader Wan, but I happen to be here today to meet with an elder. I may not have time to attend the class reunion.”

“Oh, is that right?”

Su Zimo felt that the girl in front of him was surprised for a moment, but he didn’t know why. After all, he had an inexplicable feeling of remoteness from his high school days. The girl in front of him had suitable makeup, and it was difficult to associate her with the young students from his memories.

“Sorry, I’ll get together again next time.” Su Zimo nodded slightly, then walked around the two of them.

But before Su Zimo walked into Qin Yange, he heard the boy’s voice behind him–

“Didn’t Su Zimo transfer schools because he was so poor that he could only drop out of school to work? How could he come to such a place to meet his elders?!”

“……” Su Zimo walked silently into Qin Yange. Although he didn’t know what happened in school after his car accident, he felt that rumours had surrounded him invisibly ever since then.

Su Zimo could feel the two old classmates, a man and a woman, not far behind him. But when he reported his name and was taken upstairs by Qin Yange’s staff, the two classmates were still whispering about him by the stairs on the ground floor.

The content was nothing important. It was nothing more than that the man felt that Su Zimo was bluffing, while the woman felt that he shouldn’t be gossiping behind his back.

But as soon as Su Zimo walked up the corner of the stairs, he heard a very strange voice come from the ground floor.

“Excuse me, are you classmates from Shoushan No. 1 Secondary School? Is the class reunion being held here?” It was a voice that Su Zimo didn’t recognize, but he immediately asked another question. “Has Su Zimo come yet?”

“Excuse me, but you are?” Wan Yu’s voice sounded a little confused.

“Don’t you recognize your old classmate?” The strange voice gave a particularly choked feeling. “I sat in the fourth seat of the fourth row in the classroom.”

“Ah?” Wan Yu couldn’t react for a while.

“I also asked about student Su Zimo on the school forum.” The hoarse voice spoke again.

“Ah, so you’re the snake?!”

Wan Yu’s voice caused Su Zimo’s upward steps to stop.

“Yes, isn’t my new name particularly interesting.” There was an inexplicable smile in the hoarse voice. “Is student Su Zimo here?”

“He arrived, but…”

Su Zimo, who was on the second floor already, no longer hesitated. After asking about the room Elder Fang Qin invited him to, he asked the staff not to reveal his location, then ascended to the third floor as fast as possible. That is, the highest floor of Qin Yange. He walked into the private room arranged by Elder Fang Qin.

Qin Yange was under Elder Fang’s ownership. There was no need for Su Zimo to face anything. Even head-on, there was no one to take advantage of him.

“Why are you in such a panic?”

When Su Zimo entered the private room, Elder Fang was arranging the table. After seeing him shut the door so quickly, he questioned strangely.

“The snake may have come here.” Su Zimo told the truth.

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“That snake?”

“En. That snake.” Su Zimo nodded.

“It should be fine. Guests who haven’t made an appointment can’t go upstairs.” Elder Fang’s face was dignified. After all, the snake was a veteran trainer with the ability to disguise himself, so it was difficult to know who in front of them was the snake. It was also difficult to know if the snake that appeared in front of them was the real one.

“Elder, I don’t know if there is a convenient place to stay here.” Su Zimo thought for a while. “Today we’d better stay here overnight, then take a good look at the restaurant’s monitoring equipment.”

“I see.” Elder Fang nodded, then pointed to the delicacies prepared in the case. “This private room itself is specially designed. There is a direct route to the office and the lounge behind the cabinet. But before that, try this old man’s craftsmanship first, alright?”

As Elder Fang spoke, he walked over and locked the door to the room.

“Your grandfather and I knew each other when we were young, but at that time he was the noble young master of the Su family, and I was the son of a chef. If I stayed with the Su family, I may have at best been the Su family chef.” Supported by Su Zimo, he sat down again. “So I left the Su’s house early on and went to Yandu to study. At first, I thought that I was able to worship such a famous chef as a teacher because I had talent. Later, I realized that your grandfather asked the family to say hello.”

“For that matter, I quarreled with your grandfather for a long time about whether that wasn’t necessary and he was disagreeable, but now I think about it as if it was just a mess.”

“In the end, your family’s smelly old man didn’t eat the dishes I cooked.” Elder Fang spoke, then looked at Su Zimo. “These dishes are cheap to you.”

Su Zimo poured a cup of tea for the old man, then began to marvel at his table of dishes.

He could be regarded as having seen many exquisite displays. Even for the Su family’s normal lunches and dinners, the chef would use some fancy styles. But Su Zimo rarely got to see that meat was meat and the quantity was the quantity when the dishes were impeccable presented. The color alone made people hungry, not to mention the tantalizing fragrance.

“Nowadays chefs pay too much attention to presentation.” The old man spoke with a smile while drinking tea. “In reality, the ultimate goal of any chef’s cooking is to make customers feel happy and full.”

“I also prepared a snack in advance. You can take it with you and eat it slowly when you leave.” The old man pointed to the huge food container placed to the side. “I accidentally made too much. You have to eat it quickly. You look so thin that you’ll hurt yourself if you fall to the ground. It’s better to eat a bit of fat.”

“Thank you, Grandpa.” Su Zimo himself had no hesitance. He just ate a bite of meat, very satisfied.

“If there’s no nightmare world or something, it’ll be fine.” The old man said, and after thinking about it, took out the wooden Tai Chi sword that he always carried with him from the corner. “This sword was also granted to me by chance from your grandfather. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to keep with you than with me.”

Then, the old man grabbed the hilt of the wooden sword and pulled, as if unsheathing it from a scabbard, and revealed the sharp rapier hidden inside the wooden sword!

Prior to this, Su Zimo never felt that the sword the old man carrier was special, but when the rapier was unsheathed, he couldn’t help but adjust the glasses on the bridge of his nose and look at the rapier in surprise. The text boxes–

[Bao Xie, Fake (Three Stars)] ¹

[Sale Price: 200 yuan]

[Description: An imitation by the outstanding craftsmen of the nightmare world who sacrificed and refined ghosts. The ghosts in the sword flew away, leaving behind only a layer of evil spirits to coat the body of the sword and cause great damage to malicious spirits. It is also known as ‘Ghost Slasher.’]

[Limitations: The power of Bao Xie is proportional to the willpower of the holder. Those with hostile minds may be injured by accident if they hold this sword.]

Su Zimo was surprised. Firstly, because he had never seen a ghost tool with so few descriptions, and secondly, because this was the first three star ghost tool that Su Zimo had seen without a ghost!

“In the nightmare world, this sword helped me a lot.” The old man handed the sword to Su Zimo without hesitation.

Su Zimo shook his head and decisively refused, saying, “Elder, you have good intentions, but I can’t take this sword. Please be sure to bring this sword with you when you enter the nightmare world.”

“Moreover even without this sword, I have the ability to protect myself.” Su Zimo stretched out his hand to hold the sword and pushed it back carefully. “How should I say this… I’m Su Heng’s grandson, I never speak exaggerated words.”

Elder Fang Qin looked at Su Zimo for a long time, then took the sword back.

“Be happy today. Eat more meat.” The old man turned to fill Su Zimo’s bowl with the public chopsticks. “Your grandfather thought the food at home wasn’t very good when he was young, so he always came to the kitchen to let me stew meat for him. But the Su family chef was my father, and I always thought that his craftsmanship was better than me, who couldn’t even season properly. Maybe that smelly old man had bad taste ever since he was young.”

Su Zimo smiled and didn’t speak, but he obediently took another bite, thinking that the old man’s skills must be better than when he was a child.

“Most of the people who eat in this country are ordinary people, so I don’t like to use ingredients that ordinary people don’t eat much.”

The old man and Su Zimo talked about the past between him and Grandpa Su for a long time. Although the two gradually moved apart after getting married and starting businesses, Su Zimo felt that the relationship between the two had never broken, and that they had actually known that themselves.

Su Zimo’s stomach was rarely more than 80% full. He went to the office with Grandpa Fang and watched the surveillance videos for a while, and found that the one taling to Wan Yu was a man with an ordinary face that didn’t tell them anything. Although they started investigating the people in the surveillance video, they didn’t think it was the snake’s real face.

After talking to Su Hewen about staying at Elder Fang Qin’s place for the night, the other side of the conversation answered that the elder was very trustworthy.

Early in the next morning, the car Ye Ning had prepared stopped at Qin Yange, where Su Zimo was leaving with an oversized box of food prepared by Grandpa Fang. If Su Zimo put the box of food into the hiking backpack, it may be enough for the trainers in the nightmare world to sit down and eat from morning til night, and never want to leave the luxurious camp.

After seeing Mu Feng and learning that he was the madman from the nightmare world, Grandpa Fang exchanged cell numbers with enthusiasm, saying that he would send a car from Qin Yange every few days to bring Su Zimo’s order and snacks. He said that the old man’s hands were always busy and make a bunch of things for no reason, and that it wasn’t an easy problem to solve since it was all non-menu foods.

But in Su Zimo’s eyes, it was just an old man’s kindness.

But…

It may be that the old man’s kindness was indeed a bit ‘heavy.’ When he entered the nightmare world again, Su Zimo really did stuff a lot of snacks into his bag.

There were also various drinks that Su Zimo brought after the ghost umbrella bottled them.

After making sure to get everything together, Su Zimo officially set off to go camp… No. It was to enter the nightmare world.

Footnotes

<ol>Bao Xie means Smiting Evil. Keeping its name in pinyin because it’s a sword and deserves its name unchanged.¯_(ツ)_/¯</ol>