Does the taste of the food matter when dining in a shopping mall?
Not at all.
If you really want to try local specialties, who would choose to come to a place like this?
For a mall to boost revenue, what matters is table turnover.
Simple, fast, and decent enough in taste—that’s all it takes to qualify as a decent mall eatery.
Du Ruxue asked Chen Qimeng for a recommendation, putting her in a tough spot.
Chen Qimeng rarely ever dined here.
Which place was good, which had a nice ambiance, which was suitable for chatting…
Chen Qimeng had no clue about any of it!
She could only look at Lin Yu with pleading eyes.
Lin Yu immediately stepped in and said,
"Aunt Ruxue, we hardly ever come to Wanda Plaza."
"But I know a chain hotpot place with great service."
"How about we go there?"
"It’s straight ahead, the one at the end."
"Hotpot… what does everyone think?"
What to eat didn’t matter much to Lin Yu.
He only needed to consider where they could chat quietly.
The hotpot place he mentioned was a bit pricey for students.
But at least it guaranteed they wouldn’t run into any acquaintances.
Otherwise, they might bump into someone like Xiang Tiange right after sitting down.
Good grief, no wonder he’s not paying attention to Xiao Chi—he’s got someone else by his side~
How awkward would that be?
Chen Qimeng: "Xiao Yu’s suggestion is great. It’s been a while since I’ve had hotpot."
Du Ruxue: "Fine by me, no objections."
Maomao: "Mm, I’ll go with everyone."
...
Before long.
At a four-seater in [a certain hotpot chain].
"Say goodbye to all your troubles~ Say hello to all your happiness~"
"Dear~ dear~ Hap-py Birth-day to you!"
"Make every day wonderful~"
Chen Qimeng and Du Ruxue were busy ordering.
Lin Yu hummed the tune under his breath.
Every time he came to this hotpot place, if he didn’t hear this song, it felt like a wasted trip.
Too bad it was still 2014.
This chain hadn’t rolled out its birthday singing program yet.
Even The Birthday Song hadn’t been written!
The hummer had no ulterior motives, but the listener read too much into it.
Maomao, sitting beside Lin Yu, stared at him intently, her eyes brimming with unspoken words.
Lin Yu: "What’s up?"
Maomao: "I’ve never heard that song before. What’s it called?"
Lin Yu: "..."
From Maomao’s expression, Lin Yu could guess—
She wasn’t actually curious about the song!
She was worried it might turn into a "test question" someday, leaving her clueless!
She’d even take an interest in a random tune someone hummed.
Yet she couldn’t recognize such an easy route?
Lin Yu studied her for a moment before whispering:
"Ohhh~"
"So Maomao hasn’t heard this song? That makes things easier next time!"
"Such a secret—why would I tell you?"
His teasing tone dredged up Maomao’s memories of their last defeat…
Maomao glanced at the two aunts across the table.
Making sure they were engrossed in ordering with the server,
she mustered the courage to lean closer to Lin Yu and say:
"Ah Bin, I watched…"
Lin Yu: "!!!"
She actually went and watched it?
Fine, she watched it—but why bring it up here?
Did she want a medal or something?
If the aunts asked what they were talking about, could her terrible lying skills even cover it?
Even so.
Lin Yu couldn’t suppress his curiosity…
"And then?"
Maomao murmured faintly:
"Yu, I suggest… you watch less of that stuff."
Lin Yu: "..."
He asked for her thoughts.
She advised him to reform.
It wasn’t like he watched much anyway!
Wasn’t this just…
teenage hearsay among peers?
Back then, a single thick novel could be torn into a dozen parts for alternating reading.
He definitely wasn’t the originator, just one of the relayers.
Lin Yu knew this wasn’t the time or place for a deep discussion.
He’d have to wait until after dinner to properly explain things to Maomao.
Before the hotpot arrived, the four chatted about light topics—
mostly the two aunts’ shopping experiences that day.
The real conversation only began once they started eating…
"Maomao, is there anything you’d like to say to me?"
Du Ruxue’s question came out of nowhere.
Maomao, who was scooping a fish ball, nearly dropped her spoon into the pot.
She stiffened as if facing a crisis, about to stand up and speak—
but Du Ruxue’s gaze pinned her back down before she could rise.
Lin Yu, sitting beside her, could clearly sense her tension.
Yikes!
Was the interrogation starting now?
He thought they’d gotten through the day without this.
Turns out…
what’s coming will come.
Too brutal!
Lin Yu wanted to mediate, but there was no opening.
Aunt Ruxue had singled out her "younger daughter."
What right did he have to interrupt?
He could only shoot Maomao a good luck look and wait for her response.
After a long pause, Maomao finally spoke:
"I’m sorry, Aunt Ruxue."
"I should’ve discussed moving into Aunt Qimeng’s apartment with you first."
"It was wrong of me, and I deserve to be punished… I’ll accept any punishment willingly."
Her head was bowed, hiding her expression.
But the way she said "willingly" made it clear she was anything but.
Silence followed.
Du Ruxue acted as if she hadn’t heard, continuing to eat unhurriedly.
Chen Qimeng nudged her lightly with an elbow.
In Lin Yu’s [Aunt Database], this kind of interruption was strictly forbidden!
It wouldn’t serve as a reminder—it might even provoke Du Ruxue’s irritation.
Maomao’s half-hearted apology clearly hadn’t hit the mark.
At the very least,
it didn’t satisfy Du Ruxue.
Her silence meant she expected Maomao to keep talking.
Qimeng shouldn’t have touched her!
But then again…
when it was Qimeng doing the nudging, all rules seemed to vanish.
Du Ruxue finished chewing, wiped her mouth with a napkin, and finally addressed Maomao:
"The mistake’s already made. Punishing you won’t turn back time."
"Tell me what you really think, Maomao…"
"How do you like Qimeng’s apartment?"
"Are you planning to stay for a few days, or settle in long-term?"
Maomao looked up at her, startled.
When Aunt Ruxue first questioned her, she’d felt like she was back under her strict household rules.
But now…
Aunt Ruxue was actually asking for her opinion?
Was this a dream?
...
(Second update for today. More coming soon!)
ions, keeping it grounded and realistic】 After quitting his job, office worker Su Yang accidentally binds with the "Enjoy Life System." As the name suggests, simply by indulging in life's pleasures, he can earn random rewards from the system—no need to spend money on beautiful women or grovel before anyone. Just enjoy, and the money follows, making it all about effortless fun. The system comes with a scanning feature, allowing him to establish a favorability bond with women rated 85 points or above. Every 20-point increase in favorability unlocks additional rewards. After suffering through over twenty years of hardship, Su Yang trembles with excitement, his dull eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound hope. "Enjoy life? How hard could that be?"
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
