Yu Peng looked somewhat surprised: “Eh, have we met before?”
“She’s seen you, but you haven’t seen her,” Xue Ling said impatiently. Seeing Xue Ling being impatient, Yu Peng didn’t dare to ask any more questions.
Xiaoqing and Xiaolun also stood up.
Xiaoqing casually asked: “Master Yu Peng, you are quite dashing. If it wasn’t for your voice sounding like a regular man, I would’ve thought you were a woman in disguise.”
Meanwhile, Xiaolun asked: “Master Yu Peng, didn’t you mention showing us some delicious food? Is that true?”
Despite her elegant appearance and dress, Xiaolun had a voracious appetite. From sweet candied haws to a large roast chicken and duck, she found nothing uninteresting.
…
In Provincial City, Xiaolun was quite the food connoisseur. Along the way, she introduced the food, even asking if everyone wanted something spicy. Nan Feng had no issues with it, neither did Xue Ling. Even Xiaoqing was fine with it. But no one asked Yu Peng since everyone subconsciously thought that Xue Ling would represent his preference.
Xiaolun led everyone to a restaurant owned by people from Xiangli. She ordered a table full of dishes, excluding the greens, everything else was spicy.
As soon as the dishes arrived, the girls rolled up their sleeves and started eating voraciously. There was no formal dish like boiled fish or skillet duck available at the restaurant back then, just some chili peppers in all of the dishes, but all the food was natural and tasted amazing to Nan Feng.
“Sister Xue Ling, try this fish. It’s extremely tender. My mother used to bring me here.” Xiaolun served a piece of fish into Xue Ling’s bowl.
Xue Ling served a piece of fried tofu into Xiaolun’s bowl in return: “Try this as well, it’s quite delicious.”
Seeing everyone serving food, Xiaoqing also served a piece of fish for Nan Feng as she thought Nan Feng might not be able to reach it.
Soon everybody was serving the dishes to the person sitting opposite them.
But nobody had served anything for Yu Peng.
This created a fair bit of awkwardness. After all, Yu Peng was here for Xue Ling. The other girls could hardly turn the tables on him. Since none of them could serve Yu Peng, all eyes were on Xue Ling.
Innocently, Xue Ling responded, “Why are all of you staring at me?”
Xiaoqing, being straightforward, reminded Xue Ling: “Aren’t you going to serve Yu Peng?”
“There’s no need. Yu Peng has long arms. I only served you guys because your hands are short.”
Yu Peng chuckled, speaking on behalf of Xue Ling: “Right. My arms are long. I don’t need Xue Ling’s help, I can serve myself.”
Xiaoqing then asked: “Then why haven’t I seen you eating anything yet?”
Picking up a vegetable, Yu Peng stated: “I… can’t handle spicy food, so I’ll have vegetables instead!”
Nan Feng immediately swapped his plate of vegetables with the spicy fish dish in front of Yu Peng.
Instead, Xue Ling ended up plaining about Yu Peng: “Why didn’t you mention earlier that you can’t handle spicy food? We wouldn’t have e here if you had. You’ve e such a long way, but due to us, all you could enjoy are vegetables.”
Hurriedly correcting himself, Yu Peng said: “Well, it’s not like I can’t stand spicy food, I just hadn’t tried it before, so I am actually quite interested to taste it tonight.”
Having said that, Yu Peng grabbed a piece of fried tofu, which was also spicy.
Nan Feng watched as Yu Peng stuffed an entire piece of tofu into his mouth and started chewing vigorously. His fair face turned beet red soon, but he held it in, while Xiaolun quickly poured him a glass of tea.
“Thank you, I’m fine,” Yu Peng managed to swallow the tofu with difficulty, then gulped down the tea. Soon, beads of sweat popped on his forehead.
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