At task 50, Ye Zhizhou got stuck.

【Kill Zerg captain in Stone Forest's danger zone. Take back the villager's stolen goods. Return the stolen goods to the villagers to obtain the villager's gratitude and Rushing Thunder Rabbit meat. Then, make a plate of spicy rabbit stir fry with the meat.】

Stone Forest's danger zone?

He opened the world map, found the danger zone and then discovered that it was level 60 instance that required a team of 5 players to enter it. It just so happened that he was level 60. After leveling up to level 50, the experience reward for each task was no longer enough to completely level him every time. That is to say, the him right now definitely couldn't successfully do this instance alone.

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

He thought about it for a bit and then opened the marketplace window to search for Rushing Thunder Rabbit meat. It was fruitless.

【Friendly Reminder, task reward can't be bought.】

Then, it looked like it was necessary to run the damned instance? But it takes five players... Taking everything into account, he could only get two more people by himself at best... He doesn't even know if the GM brother could solo the instance...

He opened up his friend list. GM Lu's name was greyed out so he wasn't online. He tentatively messaged some other GMs, and only got a bunch of automatic replies.

Ye Zhizhou became angry. GM Lu had said that if there was a problem to go find a GM! That liar!

The players who were always paying attention to the quest's progress also noticed his problem and began to spam the chat crazily.

Great God! Open your friend function! That level 60 instance is very simple, I'll carry you through it ah ah ah!

Add me too! Great God, I'll take you around to brag! I'll take you around to fly! Keep doing the quest and don't stop!

Ye Zhizhou, add me. I can carry you solo.

Ah, ah, ah, Xing baby! Xing baby, why are you online? Didn't you go participate in a fragrance contest? Xing baby, I love you!

Once again, seeing the bad characteristics of brain dead fangirls! Brother Ye, add me. I'll bring my union siblings to help you grind this instance.

Ye Zhizhou glanced at the time and saw that it was still early. After thinking about it, he sent I Married for Wealth a friend request and a private message.

Ten minutes later, a rough man wielding a big sword appeared in front of him, followed by three other people, two men, and one woman.

"Brother Ye, you can rest assured. Our union's strength is enough to run through almost all the instances in the game. Guaranteed to let you painlessly complete the task!"

"Thank you so much." Ye Zhizhou's initial impression of him was good. He greeted him and his friends with a smile, and then said with embarrassment, "I don't have anything of value to thank you. As thanks, if you guys don't dislike it, then please take the rabbit meat dish later on. They'll all have buffs."

Big Brother Married for Wealth cleaned his sword and made a face as he waved his hand. "You don't need to be so polite. Us helping you is also helping ourselves. Jing Shu, that damned profiteer, uses her exclusive food buff everyday as a joke. She sells it for so much. Furthermore, eating her food results in negative effects, I don't know how many of our little brothers have been scammed. It's very unlucky! Those ranked players around her also have a problem with their heads, helping her bully other players. Like the case with Sister Xia, wjo was killed down to level 0 back then, she must've been wronged, but no one believed her. It's really enough to make someone angry!"

Hearing this, Ye Zhizhou was startled and asked, "Brother, how are you so sure that Sister Xia was wronged?"

"That was a coincidence. My daughter-in-law is a chef, and her mouth is very sharp. She was curious and made several dishes according to the leaked recipe and compared their taste to the dishes sold by Gentleman Pavilion. She discovered that there were problems with those leaked recipes!" As Married for Wealth talked about his daughter-in-law his expression softened before darkening as he remembered something. "But, those people on the forums didn't believe my daughter-in-law and said that it must be because my daughter-in-law's skills weren't good enough! Those pig-brained people! That profiteer said it was because she unlocked the cooking skill first, so she was able to make buffed foods. The people actually believed this damn reason! I asked the GM and they said there was no such setting in the game! Players who would rather believe that profiteer and not the GM, have played too many games that they've become stupid."

So, someone has already questioned it before. Ye Zhizhou became pensive.

The process of running through the instance was very smooth. After he finished the task, he gave I Married for Wealth the big wok of rabbit stir-fry that he made. The next task also required him to complete an instance. Married for Wealth and the rest who had tasted his skills were very enthusiastic to take him through the next instance.

Four hours later, he reached task 55 and it had already gotten late. Ye Zhizhou thanked Married for Wealth and his friends before logging off, satisfied.

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

After exiting the game pod, he went to his desk and opened his computer. He looked through all of the old gossip posts from back when the recipes had been leaked. He then found the posts made by Married for Wealth's daughter-in-law, moved his fingers, and pushed the old post back onto the front page.

Once they woke up, the game forums exploded. The only post back then that questioned if Jun Shujing leaked her own recipes was pushed back up once again—Last night, an expert recreated the real recipes by sampling Gentleman's Pavilion's dishes, and posted them all!

When the thread had first been pushed back up to the front page, there were still a bunch of trolls posting. However, after a few players, who had unlocked the cooking skill, decided to try the recipes and successfully made Royal Feast dishes with buffs, the thread's direction changed dramatically.

Just now, using the expert's recipe, I was able to make a dish with the Auspicious Dragon Pair buff. There's a genuine buff! Those who say that the expert is deceiving people, and those trolls who said they couldn't make a dish with a buff after following the recipe, better go practice your cooking skills! If you really made the dish strictly following the expert's recipe, then the finished product would definitely have a buff! If you couldn't make it then it's your skills that are the problem!

: So back then, Sister Xia really was wronged? The leaked recipes are all fake. At that time, was Great God Jing Shu's tearful complaints just to trick us?

Impossible! My family's Jing Shu baby wouldn't lie to others! Back then, that Sunlight Rays Over the Sky was the one who stole the recipes from my family's baby and leaked it. She was the one who foolishly got the leaked recipes wrong, why are you blaming my family's baby?

More than 10 of the recipes were all wrong, and the mistakes were all small mistakes that aren't easily discoverable by others. Is this really because the person who leaked the recipe was stupid? Brain dead fangirl, you might want to go find some IQ.

I remember when Sunlight Rays Over the Sky came to the forum and shouted about how she was being wronged, but how did those trolls reply at that time? 'You're just jealous that Great God Jing Shu can make money. Jealous that she has a lot of male gods loving her. You have a bad heart. You're not human'. She's a young lady of a wealthy family in real life. What is she jealous of? And then, there are those great gods. All those men surrounding one woman. I'm dead. What's there to love about these so-called great gods who are brain dead and have no shame? They're all fucking blind.

: Now that upstairs mentioned it, I also remembered that back then, those trolls mouths were really dirty. It was also reported that Great God Jing Shu had posted a message saying that she didn't blame Sister Xia, blah blah blah, but it was "deleted" right after it was posted. Ha ha ha, those brain dead fans actually even praised Great God Jing Shu for being kind.

: Weakly raising my hand. I have a screenshot of that post.

Can anybody tell me the story of Jing Shu and her seven "good brothers"! Asking the old users to take care of the new user! Looking for the gossip!

: Isn't Great God Jing Shu fond of pretending to be a kind-hearted person on the forum to respond to fans? Why hasn't she appeared yet? Jing Shu, come out, let's fucking meet face-to-face~

Bang!

Jun Shujing smashed the mouse.

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The comments were still rolling in, but the wind had completely shifted in Sunlight Rays Over the Sky's favor. She stared at the recreated recipes, and her eyes darkened. Who was it? Who was it? Wasn't the buff effect caused by the secret ingredients she added? Why were these people able to make buffed foods by just following the real recipe! Why?

Could it be... Could it be that the buff effects weren't because of her secret ingredients, but because of the Royal Feast Recipe? At the thought of this, her heart skipped a beat, her forehead gradually began to sweat and she became flustered and angry. She always thought that the buff effects were from her secret ingredients, so that's why back then when she was setting Fu Xia up, she had just changed the recipe a bit before leaking it out... If she had known that the buff effects had nothing to do with the secret ingredients, how could she have sent such an important recipe out to the public!

Her phone suddenly rang. She glanced at the phone and had a flash of panic in her eyes when she saw it was Qi Xing who called her. She took several deep breaths before she answered the call. "Hello, Qi Xing, why are you calling me right now? Did you finish your business?"

"Shujing, what's going on with that post on the forum? Did you really wrong Xiao Xia back then?" Qi Xing's tone was serious for once, and his words were extremely fierce. "Originally, Xiao Xia argued that she didn't leak the recipe, but you insisted that she did. You even swore that it was the real recipe that was leaked out and that you had only ever shown the real recipe to Xiao Xia. At that time, I chose to believe you. Now, this was the result? You lied to me?"

"I didn't..." Jun Shujing bit her lip, softened her voice and said with a distressed air, "I don't know why it's like this. I really did only show her the recipe... Qi Xing, the recipe was something my mother left me. How could I use it to lie and trick people..."

The other side was silent for a bit before directly hanging up.

Jun Shujing angrily threw her cell phone, looked at the computer screen and clenched her fist. "Better not let me find out who dug this pit for me, otherwise..."

Ye Zhizhou closed the game forum and went downstairs, finding Fu Xia bent over in the kitchen, making desserts. He used his phone to search up the forum post and showed it to her and asked, "What exactly happened back then?"

Fu Xia doubtfully took the phone and looked through the post. Her expression became blank for a moment. Suddenly, she helplessly smiled and quietly responded, "What else could it be? Just blame me for being stupid. Back then, I was practicing outside the city and met Jun Shujing. I saw her fighting a monster and no matter how she hit it, she couldn't beat it, so I helped her. She then stuck to me, saying how pitiful she was as a life skills player, and how difficult it was to level. I was too soft-hearted and took her to play with me, thinking of her as a good friend... It turned out to all be a sham. Through me, she got to know Qi Xing, and then after getting to know him, she used several dishes to try to provoke my and Qi Xing's relationship. Then, she went to find someone to kill her account back to level 0 and accused me of doing it, forcing me to quit the game."

Ye Zhizhou had already guessed that there was something wrong with the original plot, but he didn't expect that the events that occurred were almost the complete opposite of what was described in the plot information. He confirmed and asked, "Jun Shujing got to know Qi Xing through you? She was the one who got close to you?"

"En." When speaking of Qi Xing, Fu Xia's eyes became dim. "After being wrongly accused, I went to find Qi Xing to tell him what really happened, but he chose to believe Jun Shujing, who he had only known for a few months... Ha, how ironic."

Ye Zhizhou soothingly patted her on the shoulder and said, "Don't be too sad, his brain is damaged." Damaged by the protagonist's cooking, need to properly treat it.

After Ye Zhizhou returned to his room, he paid attention to the thread's progress for a bit before taking out his phone to call Qi Xing. He asked him out for dinner, saying that the reason was to discuss the issue of Fu Xia being bullied in the game previously. Qi Xing, on the other side of the call, stayed silent for a while before agreeing to his dinner invitation.

Although he would've loved to experience the pleasure of pulling out all seven flags at once, making a hole in the protagonist's defense was still a very good choice.

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

At 7:30 pm, Qi Xing, a refined and elegant looking man, punctually pushed open the door of a private room in Fu Yuan. Ye Zhizhou looked him up and down, pointed to a dozen clearly separated dishes on the table and said, "On the left are the signature Imperial Feast dishes from Gentleman's Pavilion, and on the right are the new dishes of my Fu Yuan. Come and have a taste."

Qi Xing, who thought that he was going to be questioned and then scolded, stared for a bit before walking to sit down opposite of Ye Zhizhou. After a pause, he directly said, "Brother Fu, if Xiao Xia was truly wronged, I will apologize. You needn't act this way, Shujing is Shujing. Gentleman's Pavilion is Gentleman's Pavilion. You need not..."

"Need not what? Didn't you help Jun Shujing suppress the Fu family just recently? Moreover, what do you mean 'if Xiao Xia was truly wronged'?" Ye Zhizhou soon realized that he wanted to partially protect Jun Shujing's actions. His expression became cold, and he directly tossed what he found in the afternoon onto the table. "Back then, when Xiao Xia was being bullied, I didn't play games, so I didn't know about it. If I had known about it, I would've broken your leg. And that Jun Shujing, it's the first time in my life to see such a malicious person."

Qi Xing's brows furrowed after hearing his words. He regretted coming to this dinner. He pushed the documents that had been tossed to him away with a dark expression and said, "It seems that Mr. Fu didn't invite me here in good faith. In that case, I'll take my leave."

"I'm Ye Zhizhou in the game."

Qi Xing froze in the middle of getting up and turned his head to look at him.

"Can you guess what I found out after I triggered the Holy Level Quest?" Ye Zhizhou pointed at the dishes on the table and smiled. "Try them, even if it's just for your precious Jun Shujing."

He and Qi Xing were deadlocked for a few seconds until Qi Xing sat down in a compromise and picked up the chopsticks to reach for Gentleman's Pavilion's dishes first.

Ye Zhizhou raised his eyebrows when he saw this and slowly said, "Lotus Bean Curd, with three kinds of insect poisons added to it. Does your brain feel very comfortable after eating it?"

Qi Xing stopped chewing and frowned. "Insect poison, what do you mean?"

Ye Zhizhou didn't answer. Instead, he pushed one of his own dishes forward and said, "Eat a bite of this, and I'll explain to you what it means after you finish."

Qi Xing looked at him defensively, hesitating a bit before stretching out his chopsticks and taking a bite. After a few seconds, his expression became a little ugly.

Ye Zhizhou let out a slight laugh. He got up and took out a mortar and pestle and several Universal Qingwan Pills. Under Qi Xing's eyes, he slowly ground them into powder and then sprinkled them into Gentleman's Pavilion's dishes bit by bit. He said, "This pill in my hand is called the Universal Qingwan Pill, I had someone specially make them to combat the insect poison in Gentleman's Pavilion's dishes. This was also added to the Fu Yuan dishes that you just ate. Does your mind feel more clear-headed right now?"

Qi Xing stared at Ye Zhizhou's hand, which was sprinkling the powder, with a calm face, not speaking at all.

Ye Zhizhou once again pushed over the lotus bean curd that had been sprinkled with the powered Universal Qingwan Pills, and then pushed forward a Gentleman's Pavilion dish that was untouched by the pills. He continued, "In case you feel that just now was a mistake, you can confirm it again."

"No need." Qi Xing was naturally very sensitive to smells. After eating Fu Yuan's dishes, he had already realized that something was wrong with the smell of Gentleman's Pavilion's dishes. Moreover, he had recently felt that his mind was covered with a hazy feeling. But just now, the hazy feeling vanished and his recently dulled sense of smell had returned to normal...

He raised his head and looked deeply at Ye Zhizhou before sincerely apologizing, and then picked up the document he had pushed away earlier.

[The probability of Qi Xing and the protagonist falling in love has dropped to 50%, may the host persist in his efforts. ]

Ten minutes later, Qi Xing remained silent after he finished reading the documents. He let out a deep sigh, leaned back in his chair and laughed at himself. "I was actually deceived by this kind of scheme..."

[The probability of Qi Xing and the protagonist falling in love has dropped to 20%, may the host persist in his efforts. ]

Ye Zhizhou sat back in his chair, his attitude becoming more relaxed. "Now, can we have a proper discussion?"

Qi Xing looked at him and listlessly nodded his head.

The author has something to say:

Thank you Weeping Autumn for the grenade! Thank you Iceberg for the two mines! Thank you Jun Shi, Du Zhuan, 1° Pudding, Laotan and Plum Blossom Spirit for the mine! Love you all very much! =3=

PS: It's the weekend~(≧▽≦)/~happy weekend everyone!

PS: And then the bear child came QvQ