Chapter 47

47. Tanghulu

While He Jin was still cursing silently at Fire, the two of them walked closer to the gate. However when they were about to enter, the two city gatekeepers suddenly changed posture. He Jin was startled. He thought they were about to be stopped, but the two guards flew up to the sky instead.

Near the city gate, 10 or so players who saw this scene were left gaping at the sky. Without anyone knowing why, the two guards started waving their spears and stabbing at a dark spot in the sky. That dark spot immediately fell to the ground in an extremely fast speed, accompanied by an “Ah Ah ah” screaming sound.

BAAM something dropped in front of the crowd—it was a player, one who had fallen to his death.

A few seconds later, the two gatekeepers flew back to their original positions. Only then did someone respond: “Ah, it’s a fool who wants to ride a flying mount into the imperial city…”

He Jin felt stunned, turns out these two soldiers aren’t mere decoration ah!

Inside the city, they were greeted by the sight of busy streets. It was noisy, there were shops everywhere, and the place was really crowded…

“Come in, sir, try the freshly baked osmanthus cake, sesame cake…”

“Selling steamed stuffed bun, dumplings! Filled with meat, fresh vegetables, mushroom… A stuffed bun with a thin crust!”

“Sir ~ Why don’t you take a look at our new silk clothes? Come and make a new robe!”

…… A dazzling array of shops with yelling NPC vendors, everything was so realistic and full of life. He Jin truly felt like he was an incarnation of the young “Ah Jin” who had crossed over into an antique book…

After a while, He Jin also realized that most of the players who passed by this place were handsome and beautiful. Walking among these flowery beauties made him somehow feel a bit blinded. His own ordinary system profile seemed to be in unique contrast with these people’s attractive images.

The aroma of the food attracted He Jin and Fire into a shop. They sat down at an empty table, and soon a small NPC approached them: “Two Sirs, our shop has noodles, we have dandan noodles, daoxiao noodles, dalu noodles, fried noodles…” the NPC took a breath, “There are variety of sauces, as well as bacon, spiced beef and other dishes. What would you like to order?”

[T/N: Dan dan mian (noodles)] [T/N: Dao xiao mian (noodles)]

[T/N: Da lu mian (noodles)]

Fire answered: “Two bowls of dalu noodles and one spiced beef.”

“Alright, for dalu noodles, it’ll be 1 gold coin per bowl, spiced beef is 3 gold coins. Your total will be 5 gold coins altogether!” That small waiter held out a hand and smiled once Fire had dropped the coins in his palm, “Please wait a moment, Sir!”

Two seconds later, the waiter brought over the food Fire had ordered. Upon smelling the food’s aroma, He Jin was surprised: “What’s the use of eating these noodles? Does it taste good?”

The waiter immediately explained: “A bowl of dalu noodles will give 500 points blood supplement, 200 points aura supplement, and 100 points energy supplement; while a portion of spiced beef will give 100 points blood supplement, and 50 points energy supplement. Of course, the taste is also excellent, please enjoy, Sirs!”

……Blood, aura, and energy status can really be supplemented by foods? This game is really going against the heaven ah!

Fire held up his chopsticks and said to He Jin: “Try it.”

He Jin ate a mouthful of noodles. Except for the lack of chewing needed, the taste of meat and soup were extremely real! Too amazing, we can taste the food and eat in the game without having to worry about getting fat?

He Jin looked around. Sure enough, he saw that most customers there were female players. There were two of them eating and chatting from the table behind theirs-

Woman one: “The noodles in this shop is as delicious as the one in my favorite neighborhood shop…”

Woman two: “Right, you weren’t here yesterday. I went to eat from noon to night yesterday. I tried everything on the street, and when I was about to go offline the system reminded me that my energy accumulation had exceeded the limit. The system said that if it wasn’t consumed, the excess part will be reflected in my character image as gaining weight. I began to feel uneasy, but I never expected that I’d really become fat when I came online today!”

He Jin: “…” So the character image can also become “fat” from eating too much! -_-#

Woman one: “No! I have been eating all day too, and my energy accumulation limit… Damnit, it’s going to break!”

He Jin glanced at his energy limit, only 2000. Orz, just how many things have this person eaten?

Female two: “Then let’s not eat anymore after we are done in this shop . How about going to other places to fight monsters and waste some energy? We can also use this chance to pick up some rubbish to sell, otherwise I will soon become poor from eating!”

Female one: “Ah, why is this so hard, this is only a game ah. It’s painful enough trying to maintain my body shape in reality, I don’t want to have to care about that stuff even in games! Let’s just indulge ourselves, who cares if we become fat in here? We can always go to the game shop to buy coupons to restore our appearance for 500 yuans!”

Woman two: “You are right…”

After that, the slurping sound could be heard once again…

As they ate and ate, one of them suddenly said: “I realized that this game is a bottomless pit ah. Since playing Demon God, all my pocket money has been spent here!”

He Jin also felt the same. In this Imperial City, eating would require money, going to theater also required money, the same with making clothes… Anyway, you needed money for everything!

Fire had given him 5000 gold before and he had yet to use much of it. He also followed a walking super wallet (Fire) here, so he wasn’t afraid of having no money to spend. But still… He Jin wasn’t comfortable in this situation.

Woman one said: “Hey, how nice will it be if we have a golden thigh to hold!”

Woman two: “In fact, our condition here is not much different than in real life ah. We are not beautiful in reality, meanwhile in here we don’t really have advanced gaming skills, who can fancy us ah!”

Woman one: “Why did I suddenly think of Xiao Xian-Jin when you said this? Someone said she was merely a level 30 small player last month, yet look at her yesterday. She actually appeared with Ruthless and Dead Water on TV for clearing out a dungeon!”

Woman two: “It’s because she married a good husband! Say, maybe she saved the world in her last life, otherwise how can she have such good luck to marry Fire Ruthless? ”

Fire laughed quietly and whispered to Ah Jin: “Did you save the world in your last life?”

Ah Jin: “…” (￣_￣| | |)

The two girls soon finished eating and went past Fire and Ah Jin’s table on their way out. He Jin saw them touching their stomach and sighing: “Good God, the full belly feeling in this game really makes me feel satisfied ah!”

Woman two exclaimed: “Gee, you are right. Oh, the sugar stuffed plum cake on West Street is coming out, I want to eat!”

Woman one: “Let’s go!!”

After saying this, the two girls went out of the shop and disappeared in the crowd.

He Jin grasped onto his chopsticks and thought: Those two girls still want to eat, really mighty ah…

After eating until they were “full”, Fire and Ah Jin walked out of the shop with a satisfied feeling. Fire asked whether He Jin wanted to try something else. He Jin took a look at his blood, and said in his heart: eating cost money, so if it’s only for the sake of testing the food, there is no use to do that.

He said: “My blood bar is full, forget it.”

Fire: “Just think of it as experiencing the taste, pick something else?”

Just then, a man holding a tanghulu tree happened to pass by them. He Jin said: “Then I want a string of tanghulu.”

[T/N: Tanghulu]

Fire called the hawker, this time He Jin insisted to pay (although his money was also given by Fire, hehe). But unexpectedly this tanghulu costed 10 gold a string. Although 10 gold coins were nothing when converted to RMB, but compared with the price of dalu noodles it was still so damn expensive!

After accepting two strings of tanghulu from the hawker, He Jin gave one to Fire. Fire took a taste and suddenly widened his eyes. He Jin also took a taste and felt a strong cool and sugary Hawthorn taste which instantly spread in his tongue. It was sweet and sour, the taste filling his whole mouth with sweetness. Once eaten, it made their body feel so refreshed, like their whole cells were being activated. This is so cool!

He Jin saw something was added to his status and realized that this tanghulu could be used to increase player’s enjoyment! Different from the blood-supplement foods, a sugar ball could make the players feel “cool” for 10 minutes and improved all their status by 1%!

Well, this is really worth the money…

The two men held onto their tanghulus as they walked along the way. He Jin suddenly heard a sweet flute sound in the depths of the streets. Out of curiosity, he pulled Fire to the direction of the sound. They stopped at the intersection between Changle Street and Wen Temple Lane. There were a few ancient-clothed beauties sitting in the Heavenly Music Stage at the lane, playing an unknown music. The music was melodious, sometimes crisp and sometimes sharp, flowing like water in a river. It was fascinating.

After listening for a while, He Jin was unwilling to go. Seeing his longing face, Fire asked: “Like it? There are flutes on sale here.”

He waved his hand: “I can’t play the flute.”

Fire laughed:” This is in the game, you are not really blowing on it. You’ll have to learn the skill from the skill roll.”

Ah Jin’s eyes turned bright. He hurriedly walked over to the NPC and asked: “How much is this flute?”

NPC: “One bamboo flute is 200 Gold, and one Jade Flute is 1000 gold.”

He Jin: What! It’s so expensive!

Fire noticed the hesitation in Ah Jin’s face. Regardless of whether Ah Jin accepted it or not, he chose a jade flute and bought a “primary flute skill roll” along with it, before giving it all to him.

He Jin felt too embarrassed to accept it, but not accepting would seem hypocritical. He ended up standing still for a long time before finally saying: “Buying a bamboo flute is enough.”

Fire: “I know you are reluctant because you think this is too expensive. But you’ll only buy one of it, since you want it, why not just by the best?”

He Jin: “…” Ah, Fire was so good toward him, he almost forgot that he had just been killed by this guy multiple times. (=_=)

While holding the jade flute, He Jin learned from the NPC musician that players could learn different “music scores” to play a variety of music. The flute skills would increase gradually according to the number of times the player practiced it. As for the music scores, they would drop occasionally from fighting monsters, or the players could also buy them in the game shop. In addition, there was a chance of boosting the status of friends around the player playing the flute. The chance of stimulating that boost effect was higher for jade flute than bamboo flute, but the specific effect of the boost depended on the properties of the player playing the music.

Fire: “Learn the skill quickly, then play for me. I want to hear it.”

He Jin read the skill book, and when he picked up the flute and put it to his mouth, he could naturally blow out a simple minor! He never learned any musical instruments. At this moment, he was holding the flute like a kid holding a new toy. He couldn’t put it down, and kept on playing basic minors back and forth without stopping.

After a while, he was worried that Fire would feel bored and had to reluctantly put the flute into his inventory. However, putting the flute into his inventory didn’t make it disappear, instead it appeared on his character image – on Ah Jin’s waist, a jade flute was now hanging.

Proofreader: Cat

T/N:

Do you guys prefer I leave the pictures up there, or should I move them here?

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