Chapter 13: The Mastermind Behind The Scenes

“This…I really am still hungry…”

Qin Fang was very embarrassed. His stomach was still like one that had not eaten anything yet.

“You…your appetite is really ridiculous, is it not? Go and make another bowl again then. Go go!”

Tang Fei Fei didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Two big bowls of ramen, already in his stomach. And yet, this guy still said that he had not eaten enough yet. This kind of appetite…

Regardless of how surprised she was, Qin Fang still being hungry was a fact. Thus, she pressed Qin Fang to go and make more noodles to eat.

Qin Fang really was quite embarrassed and immediately stood up and went to make noodles with a ‘whoosh’. His gait became stronger and his body’s uncomfortableness had completely disappeared, leaving him feeling refreshed and energised. The only thing was — he was still hungry.

Qin Fang’s [Noodle Making] skill’s EXP had already increased by a lot, and was not far away from Beginner 100%. He believed that in a few days, his proficiency would be able to rise.

Naturally, his noodle making speed also rose, and the quality of the noodle made had also increased. Recently, the regular customers would occasionally say as such too, and Qin Fang would only smile.

Yet another big bowl of fresh ramen was ready, and the properties were the same as the one before, without any difference. The Qin Fang at this time already had full HP, and his physical ability was also at its peak.

*slurp*

After taking a big mouthful, Qin Fang could clearly feel that his empty stomach was immediately filled up a little by the food.

Qin Fang was surprised, but his mouth did not stop and he continued to finish off the big bowl of noodles. Gradually, the sense of fullness in his stomach became clearer and clearer.

“So it was like this…”

This discovery, while surprising Qin Fang, also allowed him to understand why even after eating two bowls of ramen, he did not feel full. His intuition told him that the two big bowls of ramen before were converted into his lost HP, until his HP had fully recovered.

And now that he was eating with full HP, he was really filling up his stomach with food.

“Qin Fang, do you think we can continue on with this stall?”

Looking at Qin Fang who was eating his noodles, Tang Fei Fei couldn’t help but ask worriedly. This stall was a joint venture by the two of them, and could be said to be the result of their blood and tears. She didn’t really care about the money earned, but having to stop this business due to such a disturbance was quite a pity.

“Yes, why not?” Qin Fang said resolutely.

This stall was of utmost importance to Qin Fang. He was planning on earning his school fees and daily expenses through this business, and he also wanted to give some allowances to his mother. Now that he still had close to a month of time to do this business, Qin Fang did not plan to let his business be toppled now by a disturbance made by three hooligans. If he stopped doing business here, then wouldn’t it be to the will of a certain person who harboured malicious intents?

As his line of thought reached there, Qin Fang couldn’t help but to turn his gaze towards Fatty Chen’s stall. It was unknown whether was it because Fatty Chen had a guilty conscious, or was it because of some other reasons, but when his eyes met Qin Fang’s, Fatty Chen immediately averted his gaze. Furthermore, in Qin Fang’s eyes, the red glow from Fatty Chen’s body had not fully dissipated yet.

“Tang Fei Fei, do you feel that there was something weird with what happened today?”

“Weird? Was there anything weird?”

Tang Fei Fei was startled when asked, and asked with puzzlement. At the same time, she also knitted her eyebrows and started thinking too, but she couldn’t think of anything that was out of the ordinary.

“Don’t you think that the three hooligans were purposefully making trouble here?”

Qin Fang immediately started directing Tang Fei Fei’s thoughts towards the extortion incident.

“I can see that.They were just targeting us as due to our good business, no?”

Tang Fei Fei nodded her head. Anybody could see that. When Big Sis Fan talked to her just now, she also talked about the misdeeds that Strong Rat and co. had committed before.

“You see, there are at least 10 stalls here, but why didn’t they go extort other people, and purposefully chose ours? Was it because we were young and seemed easy to bully?”

Qin Fang couldn’t help but laugh coldly. Perhaps Strong Rat really wanted to extort money, but there was obviously an ulterior motive in choosing his stall.

If one wanted to extort money, especially from the moving food stalls, hooligans would try to choose those who were easily pushed around. They especially avoided youths and didn’t dare provoke them too as they tended to be more impulsive and violent. Thus, their extortion targets were mostly those who were much older, as they were more easy to bully.

But out of all the many food stalls, Strong Rat didn’t go to anybody else’s stall and directly came to Qin Fang’s stall to extort him.

“Are you saying…that there was somebody who requested for them to deal with us?”

Tang Fei Fei’s ability to understand was very strong, and just by hearing what Qin Fang said, deduced Qin Fang’s suspicion without the need for an explanation. And following Qin Fang’s line of thought, and comparing it with her own, Tang Fei Fei immediately thought that it was really like that.

“Yep, I was thinking that too.”

Qin Fang nodded his head, and his gaze uncontrollably moved towards Fatty Chen. Now, Fatty Chen was hiding in a corner and talking over the phone suspiciously, and would even look at Qin Fang’s direction every so often.

“Then who do you think will do this type of thing?”

Tang Fei Fei also noticed Qin Fang’s gaze, and looked at the direction where Qin Fang was looking at. But compared to the focused observations that Qin Fang was making, Tang Fei Fei could only observe 6-7 suspicious stalls.

“We open stall the earliest, make delicious noodles and with the best business around to top it all off. Since we are all food stalls, if our business were to become good, then it would definitely affect other people’s business, the only difference being a small or big impact on their business.

Since Qin Fang was sure that Fatty Chen had his hands in this incident, he naturally thought along the line of establishing him as the mastermind.

There were a lot of food stalls here. Ramen, soup noodles, fried rice, hot spicy soup, BBQ etc.. Basically, there were a myriad of varieties of food here. A normal food stall would have many options to choose from, so that they would be able to appeal to a greater number of customers. However, Qin Fang’s stall was much simpler, and only had one type of ramen.

As they say, if one had an excellent specialty, then one could survive anywhere.

Qin Fang relied on his good noodle making skills which made many customers who liked eating noodles to come to his stall. This naturally resulted in the other noodle stalls to suffer a decline in business. (T/N note: Referring to the dish itself, not the raw noodles)

And, Fatty Chen’s stall mainly dealt with noodles…

“Forget it, I will settle this problem myself…”

However, after thinking for a while, he still felt that not involving Tang Fei Fei was a wiser choice. Since Fatty Chen dared to mess around with him behind the scenes, then Qin Fang would definitely not let him off the hook easily.

“Qin Fang, I think we should forget about it. It’s better to have one less problem than one more after all.”

When Tang Fei Fei saw the sharp gaze that Qin Fang temporarily gaze, Tang Fei Fei was slightly shocked, and fearing that Qin Fang would do something excessive, advised against taking revenge.

If it really was a stall owner who, being envious of their sales, requested for hooligans to raise a disturbance at their stall, then now that Qin Fang had already beaten the hooligans black and blue, the hooligans should be more fearful and stop causing a disturbance. Thus, this matter should be resolved there. After all, they were only opening this stall until school starts, and was not going to be here for a long time in the end. There was was no need to go to such extremities.

Staff List:

Saquacon (Translator)

Kerrigan (PR)