Having created such an evil creature like Lin Li, Bai Bufan felt that God must be an evil god.
One look and it's Dingzhen, feels like Jesus needs a thimble to suppress the lord.
"You bastard, Lin Li, when it comes to not acting like a human, the only ones in this world who can even see your back are Hitler and his Nazis."
Bai Bufan imagined the skin-peeling scene in his head, and then couldn't help but laugh and curse.
"Hitler? Not enough." Hearing this, Lin Li looked disdainful, sticking out his index finger and waving it left and right: "Bufan, you are definitely wrong to say that. You need to know a piece of trivia: any random French soldier is four times more cruel than Hitler's top generals."
"Oh? How so?" Bai Bufan was thirsty for knowledge.
"The Hitler salute is one hand raised at 45 degrees, while the French military salute is two hands raised at 90 degrees. Isn't this a very simple math problem? It takes four spicy crispies to equal one Frenchman. The winner is obvious."
Lin Li shrugged.
As a top student with a math score of 150, he instantly solved it at a glance.
Bai Bufan: "(；☉_☉)?"
Eh?
"Fuck, it's true! Are French soldiers that strong? Then their combat record in World War II must be very glorious, right?" Bai Bufan felt admiration, raised the French military salute, and started jumping around.
This \0/ action made Lin Li laugh. Calculated this way, the Sun worshippers are not only the same as French soldiers, but they can jump even more, and their entire population is like this, so they are even more amazing.
Have to be loyal.
The two of them stood at the entrance of the stalls, chatting divergently. Any random sentence of theirs, if leaked to the Glued Nations as a topic, would be enough to have them executed repeatedly.
When the three girls finished browsing the shop and came out, Lin Li asked: "Go buy something to eat?"
The five of them didn't plan to eat a formal lunch today. There was already a lot of food at the daytime market, and a batch of night market snack carts would arrive in the evening, so today was just about strolling and eating all the way.
It was now close to noon. Those who woke up early, like Lin Li, had almost digested their food, while those who woke up late, like Bufan, hadn't eaten anything at all.
"Sure." So the girls nodded.
"I want to eat that large sizzling iron plate squid."
Bai Bufan pointed to a stall emitting white smoke not far away and said.
"Then let's go. If you want to eat it, everyone will definitely accompany you to eat it."
Lin Li looked at Bai Bufan dotingly, the most doting episode ever.
It was absolutely not because Lin Li also wanted to eat it.
"Take a look, what would you like to order?"
Business was pretty good. The stall owner and his possible apprentice or employee were both grilling at the moment. Noticing the five people approaching, the stall owner took a moment to look up and ask, then lowered his head and continued to be busy.
"One for each of you three, or what?" Lin Li turned around and asked the girls.
Ding Sihan looked at the goods and the price list for a while, chatted with Qu Wanqiu and Chen Yuying, and waved her hand:
"No need, the three of us can just share one portion of squid, and then get a portion of tofu and shrimp paste. If you two also want to eat, just grab a spoon and a skewer later, and we'll all share."
"Okay," knowing that they weren't trying to save money but just saving stomach space to eat other things, Lin Li didn't try to persuade them, and turned to repeat to the stall owner:
"Boss, three portions of squid, one portion of sizzling tofu and sizzling shrimp paste. And for one of the squids, after you grill it, could you use the iron spatula to cut it into small pieces and put it in a box for us?"
"Of course, no problem. The total is 65. Just let me know when you've paid."
The market prices were a bit expensive, but acceptable.
When the previous batch of customers' food was served, the stall owner cleaned the iron plate, poured on the base oil, and looked up to ask:
"Do you have any dietary restrictions, like chopped green onions, cilantro, and onions? And do you want it spicy?"
"We eat chopped green onions and cilantro. One squid not spicy, ask them about the rest."
They had eaten many meals together before, so they already knew about dietary restrictions, so Bai Bufan answered immediately.
Bai Bufan couldn't really eat spicy food.
The classic theory he had told Lin Li before was that persuading someone to eat spicy food is the same as persuading someone to be gay: regardless of whether you like it or not after trying it, your butt will hurt the next day.
"Trash." So Lin Li didn't persuade him, just expressed disdain.
"Boss, he's not trash. He wants the perverted spicy for his. Remember, it must be perverted. If it's not perverted enough, he won't eat it, hehe." The scolded Bai Bufan didn't retort, but just calmly said to the stall owner.
From an identity perspective, perverted spicy was indeed a match for a pervert like Lin Li.
So Chen Yuying nodded slightly in the back, considering it an approval.
"The rest can all be mildly spicy." Ding Sihan spoke up.
Bai Bufan wasn't completely unable to eat spicy food, so even though it was mildly spicy, he could still eat it later if he wanted to.
"Alright!"
Receiving the information, the squids were placed on the iron plate, instantly emitting a sizzling sound of popping oil, and bursts of white smoke drifted up.
"However, young man, do you really want perverted spicy for yours? My chili sauce is a secret recipe, the upper limit is very high. I have to tell you first, lest you can't handle it while eating."
The stall owner asked Lin Li, feeling it necessary to emphasize.
"Ah? Is that so? Then I'll just have medium spicy, no need to be perverted." Lin Li chickened out very quickly.
Are you kidding? Being able to eat spicy food and being able to eat perverted spicy food are two different things. Since the stall owner said so, it was even more unedible.
"Okay." The boss nodded, divided the things into three portions, and grilled them separately.
"The sizzling enoki mushrooms smell really good too, do you guys want to eat them?" Ding Sihan looked at the things the other apprentice was grilling and spoke up again.
Ding Sihan was always like this, wanting to eat everything, wanting to order everything, but in the end, most of what she ordered went into other people's stomachs.
But going out with this kind of friend was very reassuring. Just ask her what to eat and that's it. You rarely step on a landmine, and if you do, you just scold her bloody.
"Forget about the enoki mushrooms."
Dead memories began to attack him, and Lin Li waved his hands repeatedly.
(TN: Enoki mushrooms are often jokingly called "see you tomorrow" because they pass through the digestive system intact).
"Haha, trash, you don't dare to eat this." Bai Bufan finally found a chance to counterattack and mocked.
Lin Li took out his phone, copied, and sent.
Bai Bufan glanced at his phone, his face instantly turning pale, and waved his hand: "Fuck, Lin Li, you still kept this fucking message? After I copied and sent it to you, I deleted it myself. Damn, I'm not eating it either."
Brain, think of something else right now, no imagining!
Ding Sihan: "?"
"What is it?" Ding Sihan was curious.
Bai Bufan blinked, this isn't appropriate, right?
He looked at Lin Li.
"Ding Sihan."
"Eh."
"Jiumi~ Ciallo～(∠▽<)⌒☆~" When Ding Sihan looked at him, Lin Li suddenly pouted, winked, and spoke in a pinched voice.
He even made a fist next to his cheek, doing a lucky cat pose.
Ding, Chen, Qu: "(；☉_☉)?"
Bai Bufan: "o. O?"
So cute.
Sorry, missed a few words, cute your fucking stinky mom.
Bai Bufan's expression was complex. Can Yuzusoft fans tone it down a bit? If you keep acting like this, I won't be able to resist Cia-ing into you from behind-llo.
(TN: Yuzusoft is a Japanese visual novel studio, "Ciallo" is a greeting from one of their games).
As for Ding Sihan, one could only say her pupils were experiencing an earthquake.
"No!!! Ahhhhh Lin Li! What kind of crazy fit are you having?"
Ding Sihan, her facial features scrunched together, couldn't believe her ears and eyes. Her face was pale, and even her battle cry was a bit weak.
"It's not important. What's important is that the content on the phone is something even more disgusting than what I just did. Do you still want to see it?" Lin Li smiled calmly.
"...Forget it, I still want to eat." When the disgust suddenly materialized, Ding Sihan instantly gave up.
Too persuasive, Lin Li.
Just as he was feeling smug about his own brilliance, his arm was poked. Lin Li turned his head, looked at Chen Yuying, and asked softly: "What's wrong?"
"I want to see it even more now." Chen Yuying blinked and said seriously.
Alright, stop spoiling me baby, I won't be able to resist turning into a stubborn Chen Tianming.
"Then I have to add, what's on the phone has nothing to do with me. You can understand it as, what's on the phone is Bai Bufan doing the action I just did." But he definitely couldn't show it to Chen Yuying, so Lin Li answered.
"Oh, oh, then I won't look."
Chen Yuying hugged her fruit tea and nodded gently.
Bai Bufan: "..."
Eh, fuck, when you two are whispering, especially when speaking ill of someone, can you keep your voices down?
Forget it. Realizing that Ding Sihan and Qu Wanqiu could clearly hear but pretended not to, Bai Bufan also pretended not to hear the two of them talking.
Time passed, and the aroma gradually became richer.
The stall owner wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel and let out a long breath.
The weather in mid-November was naturally not hot, but at this kind of stall, even in winter, one would still sweat profusely from the grilling.
Bai Bufan frowned slightly, not because it was unhygienic, but simply out of confusion:
"Boss, if you're so hot, why are you wearing so much and carrying a bag? Wouldn't it be much more comfortable if you put it down?"
At this moment, even though it was very hot, the stall owner was indeed still wearing a jacket and a crossbody bag, tightly wrapped up.
"Sigh, speaking of this makes me angry!" The boss, who had already started brushing on the sauce, got angry upon hearing this, and even his brushing movements became a bit more forceful: "Let me tell you, at the market, you really have to take good care of your belongings!"
"What's wrong, are there thieves?" Bai Bufan asked upon hearing this.
Performance? Where is the performance?
(TN: Lin Li is looking for "performance" or "KPI" for his system task).
Lin Li looked up reflexively, looking at the stall owner expectantly.
Are there thieves around here?
Then White Silk Hero Lin Li requests to fight!!
"There are no thieves," the stall owner waved his hand, but his face was still gloomy: "Fucking hell, but there's a psycho!"
"Last night, in the time it took me to go to the bathroom, when I came back, I found my clothes, bag, phone, and everything else were all gone."
"I was so anxious at the time. I thought I had been robbed and almost called the police. I saw there were surveillance cameras at the intersection here, so I thought I'd go check them first. But when I got to the street management office, I found out that all my things had just been taken to the lost and found!"
Lin Li: "(；☉_☉)?"
Eh, no, uncle, wait a minute.
Lin Li's gaze slowly moved towards the crossbody bag on the stall owner's body. Hiss... don't say it, really don't say it, it does look a bit familiar, awfully like the 'lost item' he found last night.
"..."
"..."
Fuck, the psycho is actually me?
Yesterday I was still rejoicing over this rare 'big order', so it wasn't a lost item at all?
"Boss, that doesn't count as being a psycho, right? Maybe the other party just had good intentions but did a bad thing?" Bai Bufan raised his eyebrows and asked back.
Bai Bufan is man's best friend!
Lin Li cheered for Bai Bufan in his heart. Love you, mwah, I'll take a big dump for you tonight, eat to your heart's content!
"No," the stall owner waved his hand, "I originally thought so too, but the staff member at the lost and found must have been tortured quite a bit by that person last night. So after meeting me, a fellow victim, he treated me as a sounding board and poured everything out.
That's when I found out that the kid was looking for 'lost items' everywhere last night, handing in all sorts of things to him, even digging up a fifty-cent coin from the dirt and asking him to find the owner..."
"The staff member tactfully told the guy to just take it and use it himself, but the guy even elevated the moral value, saying his ideology was incorrect! It made me laugh just hearing it."
The boss shook his head speechlessly.
"Hilarious, there's actually this kind of person? How are they as sick in the head as Lin Li." Ding Sihan, who was also listening on the side, gave a sharp comment upon hearing this.
"Indeed, if you said it was Lin Li, I would believe it." Qu Wanqiu also chimed in to tease.
Lin Li: "..."
They really weren't being deliberately sarcastic after knowing the truth.
They were just taking the opportunity to scold him since they had nothing better to do.
"Ah? In that case, that is indeed a bit psycho." Bai Bufan changed his face very quickly, switching sides on the spot and standing with the stall owner.
Dog thing.
Dog meat is the most delicious meat in the world.
Lin Li felt that Bai Bufan was sick, and prescribed a dose of traditional Chinese medicine for Bai Bufan in his heart: star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, fennel...
(TN: These are spices used for braising meat).
Fuck, can this world ever get better? Why is there so much malice towards a pure and kind child like himself.
He was clearly doing a good deed, yet he had to be gossiped about like this. Lin Li was depressed, he needed kisses from Chen Yuying to get better.
At this moment, as the stall owner and Bai Bufan started attacking the 'psycho', the psycho himself began to think.
Last night, when the bag and phone were handed in, the progress of "Metal" advanced rapidly. So, is the task's requirement of returning lost money actually a very subjective concept?
Or is it that, after stealing something, overcoming the thought of keeping the stolen goods for oneself, turning oneself in, and 'repenting and returning to the shore' also counts as the trial of "Metal"?
Fuck, baiting myself, right?
However, this is still just a deduction for now. At the very least, he had to test it.
Bai Bufan was the most suitable victim, but he didn't bring much today: a phone, and a crossbody bag used to hold a power bank and charging cable.
Right now, the phone was in his hand and the bag was on his back, making it hard to steal.
He would look for an opportunity later.
"Stop scolding, boss, I feel like it should be ready by now, right?"
Having sorted out his plan, Lin Li interrupted the conversation between Bai Bufan and the stall owner, pointing at the food on the iron plate to remind him.
"Oh, oh, right, almost forgot," the boss finally stopped talking, "I'll give you the squids first. This skewer is not spicy, this skewer is medium spicy, this box is mildly spicy. The shrimp paste and tofu will take a little longer."
Lin Li took the flat paper bag containing the squid. The dark red sauce completely coated the squid, emitting a spicy aroma. It actually looked quite appetizing.
"Mmm, delicious." Bai Bufan's squid was bright red, coated with sweet chili sauce. At this moment, he was chewing and nodding in satisfaction.
"The mildly spicy one is also just right~" The girls also expressed their satisfaction after sharing it with skewers.
Lin Li was even more expectant.
Without further hesitation, he immediately took a big bite of a part full of sauce.
The crispy outer skin wrapped around the bouncy, tender meat. The savory aroma of the sauce mixed with the spiciness exploded on the tip of his tongue and rushed straight into his nasal cavity.
The texture of squid is truly invincible, it tastes good no matter how it's cooked.
The sauce was only slightly hot at first. Lin Li narrowed his eyes and chewed happily, then swallowed.
"Indeed…" Lin Li took a bite and started chewing his second big mouthful, while preparing to express his praise.
But before he could finish his sentence, Lin Li frowned slightly, closed his mouth, and swallowed the secreted saliva.
Wait, something feels wrong.
Why does my throat feel like I swallowed Sister Yu's black-silk big foot, with a spicy to burning sensation?
(TN: "Sister Yu" refers to a popular internet meme/streamer).
He felt his mouth, nose, and throat all getting hot.
A few seconds after closing his mouth, Lin Li couldn't suppress opening his mouth to pant. Feeling the tip of his tongue go numb, he swallowed the squid meat in his mouth whole, having only chewed it halfway.
"What's wrong?" Seeing Lin Li stop halfway through his sentence, the four of them asked.
Lin Li looked down at the squid in his hand. Because the spiciness stimulated his trigeminal nerve, the muscles around his eyes contracted, and his eyes were half-closed: "Hiss, ha—hiss, ha—fuck, this is a bit spicy."
"Really? Our mildly spicy one tastes just right. Is the medium spicy really that spicy?" Ding Sihan questioned suspiciously.
If it was Lin Li, the suspicion was reasonable.
Chen Yuying also pursed her lips, her small face tense, tilting her head slightly to look at Lin Li, as if trying to find some clues. Then she looked down at the fruit tea in her hand.
This guy... deliberately not buying water, and not letting Bai Bufan buy water either. Could the reason be for this performance right now, so he can trick her out of hers to drink later?
Such an evil Lin Li.
Chen Yuying slightly extended the hand holding the fruit tea forward, so he could 'super casually' snatch it away later.
"I'm also a bit confused, fuck, why is the aftertaste so strong," but Lin Li was truly wronged this time. Being so spiced up that he was hissing and sucking in saliva, he looked at the stall owner:
"Boss, is this really just medium spicy, which is a little more than mildly spicy? It doesn't taste... like it."
Stall owner: "☉_☉..."
Eh, eh.
The stall owner looked at Lin Li with a guilty conscience and disbelief, slowly confirming: "Young man, so... what you asked for just now was medium spicy? Not... heavy spicy?"
Lin Li: "(；゜○゜)?"
"I can't do it! I can't do it!" Lin Li, who originally wanted to save face and suppress his instinctive reactions, completely stopped acting now.
It's too embarrassing to cry out from being spiced by medium spicy, but crying out from heavy spicy isn't embarrassing.
So this fucking thing is heavy spicy!
It's out of bounds!!
Bro, the first tone and the fourth tone, 135 degrees, that's a difference of three whole spicy crispies!
The girls and Bai Bufan were stunned for a moment upon hearing this, and then burst into laughter.
"Fuck, I was wondering why this sauce was red with a hint of black! Damn it, I was just saying that guns are clearly banned in China, but why did it feel like my mouth was shot and burning! Hiss ha—"
Lin Li regressed into a monkey, swaying back and forth on the spot.
"Water, I need water! Fuck, Bai Bufan, why didn't you buy water, you idiot!"
Bai Bufan: "?"
Eh, you guy...
"Class Rep! Water!"
Kicking Bai Bufan hundreds of millimeters away, Lin Li settled for the next best thing.
Chen Yuying smiled and handed the fruit tea in her hand to Lin Li.
So it was real this time, she had misunderstood him.
"Boss, do you have a straw?" Lin Li looked at the stall owner.
"Yes, yes." The stall owner found a straw and handed it to Lin Li.
Lin Li immediately inserted the straw into the fruit tea, used all his lung capacity to take a fierce suck. As the ice-cold fruit tea entered his mouth, Lin Li felt like he had come back to life a little.
Using a new straw naturally wasn't because he was disgusted by Chen Yuying having used it, but because Lin Li still had chili sauce in his mouth now. If he used Chen Yuying's straw, it wouldn't be suitable for her to drink from it later, the flavors would mix.
—Super detailed Lin Li.
"Thanks, boss." Taking another sip, Lin Li exhaled hot air and thanked the stall owner.
Facing Lin Li's thanks, the stall owner's expression became even more complex.
Actually, he had another sentence he was too embarrassed to say.
Just now... when he was brushing on the sauce, he happened to be chatting with Bai Bufan about that psycho from last night.
He got a bit too engrossed, so when his emotions surged, he treated the squid he was brushing sauce on as that psycho, and brushed it with a little bit of ruthlessness, forgetting his feelings, and risking his life.
So this squid, barring any accidents, had actually exceeded the level of heavy spicy and reached his stall's perverted spicy, perhaps even perverted squared, perverted perverted spicy.
And his stall's chili sauce was specially made to begin with, this... was indeed a tiny bit spicy.
Sigh, at the time, his brain subconsciously felt that brushing these chili sauces was for that psycho who took his things last night to eat, to make him eat until tears came out, getting a satisfying revenge. But now that he came back to his senses, he realized he had accidentally injured this innocent child in front of him.
Sorry, child.
It's all that psycho's fault. If he ever saw him, he would definitely stuff a perverted perverted spicy squid into his mouth!
"Child, this is my fault, I didn't hear clearly, how about I grill another one for you..." So the stall owner said guiltily.
The cost of a squid is only six yuan, Lin Li and the others bought so much, giving one away is not a loss.
"Since you put it that way…" Lin Li was about to answer.
He paused again.
Eh.
On the system panel.
The progress of "Fire" was moving forward.
Lin Li: "?"
(End of Chapter)