The System is Abstract, Luckily, So Am I

Chapter 191 : Let's Toast to Ourselves

Qu Wanqiu's cooking skills were indeed quite good. Leading four complete novices, she actually managed to bring out bowl after bowl of steaming hot food right at mealtime. They looked pretty good and were even plated nicely.

Actually, among the disciples, Ding Sihan was the most impressive. Starting from zero, under Qu Wanqiu's guidance, she single-handedly made four dishes and two soups.

They were: Tomato Stir-fried with Egg, Egg Stir-fried with Tomato, Tomato and Egg Stir-fry, Egg and Tomato Stir-fry, Tomato Egg Soup, and Egg Tomato Soup.

"Lin Li, the drinks are here. Go get them. I'll give you a little more of the snacks later." After the five of them sat down at the tatami-style "dining table," Ding Sihan's phone rang, and she bossed Lin Li around.

"Bufan, the drinks are here. Go get them. I'll give you a tiny bit more of the snacks later," Lin Li turned his head and said to Bai Bufan.

Bai Bufan: "..."

You're outsourcing this too? And acting as a middleman right in front of me?

But Lin Li was just being a troll out of habit. While saying this, he had actually already stood up and walked toward the door.

Lin Li brought the drinks back and distributed them to the five people.

"The milk and tea flavors in this milk tea are so weak. As expected, ordering milk tea from a shop you've never heard of before is a huge gamble." After taking a sip through the straw, Ding Sihan frowned and commented.

The other two relatively professional girls also nodded.

"Maybe the shop owner is just very clean," Lin Li said upon hearing this.

"Huh? Why would being clean make the flavor weak?" Ding Sihan didn't understand.

"Before selling the milk tea, they washed it with water to make sure it wouldn't be dirty when we got it," Lin Li explained.

Ding Sihan: "..."

"If it's watered down, just say it's watered down!!"

"Can we start eating?" Bai Bufan reached out as he spoke, but his hand was immediately tapped by the end of Lin Li's chopsticks.

"Do you deserve to eat first?" Lin Li sneered, then without waiting for Bai Bufan to counterattack, he gestured forward with his head: "Even humans don't deserve to eat first, the phones eat first."

Seeing the three girls preparing to take pictures of the fruits of their labor, Bai Bufan behaved.

Wait, why did Lin Li say 'even humans'? Why the extra 'even'?

Damn it.

"Alright, we can eat now." After the girls' phones had eaten their fill, they finally issued the edict.

"Let's toast first." Lin Li raised the fruit tea he had poured into a glass.

"Cheers!" The four of them immediately understood, raised their glasses, and clinked them together.

Sometimes, all the hard work is just for this moment of toasting.

"Today, we gather here to celebrate the 17-year and 340-day anniversary of Lin Li's birth. On this special and important day, I am deeply honored to give a speech to everyone..." After clinking glasses, Leader Lin Li said with gratification.

Unfortunately, no one paid attention to him.

Bai Bufan even started eating directly, deliberately tapping his chopsticks hard against the side of his bowl while shoveling rice.

"Ahem, we won't celebrate this then. Skip me. Let us thank the God of Wealth in ancient Greece—Chen Yuying!" Lin Li had to change his tune.

"Oh, oh!"

The three people other than Chen Yuying immediately chimed in, raised their drinks, and clinked them together.

"Let us also thank the King of Culinary Arts in ancient Greece—Qu Wanqiu!" Lin Li spoke again.

The crisp sound of glass clinking together rang out.

"Why not call her the God of Culinary Arts?" Ding Sihan asked subconsciously.

Lin Li stared at Ding Sihan without speaking.

"Sorry." Ding Sihan realized her mistake and apologized sincerely.

"Alright, next let us thank the God of... Tomatoes and Eggs in ancient Greece—Ding Sihan!" Under Ding Sihan's threatening gaze, Lin Li could only change his tune.

Everyone clinked glasses again, and Ding Sihan reluctantly accepted it.

Bai Bufan rubbed his hands expectantly.

My turn, my turn.

"Finally, thanks to Bai Bufan for working hard playing with poop all afternoon. Alright, let's eat," Lin Li said lackadaisically, and finally even curled his lip: "Tsk—"

He started shoveling rice, his chopsticks clattering loudly.

"Fuck! Why did it turn into this when it got to me?! The format is all wrong! I'm not even a god?! Clink glasses! Clink glasses! What do you mean by just starting to eat, Lin Li?! Show me some respect!"

Bai Bufan punched Lin Li a few times, roaring angrily.

This was also a kind of boomerang.

The three girls opposite them, who originally wanted to complain that they should speak more elegantly while eating, were completely amused by the two of them playing off each other.

They officially started eating. The dishes Qu Wanqiu was the head chef for tasted quite good, and the ones Chen Yuying and Ding Sihan were mainly responsible for weren't bad either.

"Let's just try this once. Otherwise, with our efficiency of taking a whole afternoon to prepare one dinner, we'll be cooking for the entire National Day holiday."

After expressing her approval of the taste, Chen Yuying asked for everyone's opinion.

Naturally, no one objected.

It was just for the novelty anyway, and for Qu Wanqiu, it wasn't even a novelty.

At this moment, Lin Li bent over slightly.

The five of them weren't sitting on chairs to eat, but on the floor covered with mats. And right now, Lin Li's target was the feet under the table.

Ding Sihan was wearing socks, Qu Wanqiu was sitting cross-legged, and only Chen Yuying had her legs stretched out straight under the table.

Fair and slender, with round, healthy toes. The toenails, without any polish, showed a faint pink color. The skin was delicate and white, revealing the cyan veins underneath.

During the meal, perhaps because their owner was happy, they were swaying slightly from side to side, revealing youthful vitality.

Bai Bufan was right, jade feet don't have dead skin.

Lin Li took a deep breath and stealthily reached his hands over.

Three, two, one, zero point five, zero point four...

After counting down three seconds over the course of ten seconds, at a moment when Chen Yuying wasn't eating and didn't have her bowl and chopsticks in her hands, Lin Li's left hand pressed down hard, clamping onto the girl's ankle, while his right hand formed a claw and started tickling her frantically.

"Ah—" The startled girl first let out a cry, then subconsciously hugged her thigh, wanting to pull it back. But finding it caught, the prickly, itchy sensation began to spread from the sole of her foot to her whole body.

So she couldn't help but start laughing.

"What's wrong?" Ding Sihan and Qu Wanqiu beside her were both startled.

"Lin Li, haha, what are you doing, haha—" After confirming that the offending hand belonged to Lin Li, the shock and panic disappeared. Chen Yuying fell backward onto the mat, struggling helplessly.

The progress bar moved. Although it didn't go up very fast, it did move. Seeing this scene, Lin Li didn't know how to evaluate the damn system.

—"Damn" wasn't an evaluation, it was a fixed collocation.

"Class Rep, nowadays, those who are barefoot aren't afraid of those wearing shoes, but they are afraid of people like Bai Bufan who open their mouths and people like me who have hands," Lin Li's right hand didn't stop moving as he explained verbally.

"No, what do you mean 'people like Bai Bufan who open their mouths'? Insulting me like this, just wait for a lawyer's warning letter!" Bai Bufan, who didn't expect to be involved here, widened his eyes and retorted.

"You foot fetishists are truly dishonest," Lin Li shook his head in disdain.

"Don't talk about fetishes so loudly!

"Also, what I like are 2D feet. In reality, the only feet I like are the size 45 sweaty, smelly feet of someone like Sister Yu, revealed after taking off her pitch-black socks and sitting on the heated brick bed after a day of farm work. Family, who gets it? Women, the older they get, the more charm they have, like mellow old wine, that alluring, clear fragrance."

Hearing this, Bai Bufan leaned close to Lin Li's ear and whispered.

Lin Li: "..."

You motherfucker.

Bai Bufan also knew that saying this out loud would disgust the girls and be inappropriate, so he whispered it just to disgust Lin Li.

"If you put this on a small website, it would have to be in the bizarre section," Lin Li also gave his evaluation.

"Lin Li, stop tickling," Chen Yuying, slightly out of breath, scolded playfully.

Lin Li didn't continue and let go.

Tickling for too long was truly a punishment. It was best to complete the task with all three of them simultaneously, in small amounts, multiple times.

After finally pulling her leg back and stopping her laughter, Chen Yuying took a few deep breaths, sat up, rubbed the tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes, then tilted her head and stared straight and fiercely at Lin Li.

Unhappy!

Lin Li and Bai Bufan immediately kowtowed three times, bang, bang, bang, to apologize.

—Of course, this had nothing to do with Bai Bufan. He was purely forced to kowtow bang, bang, bang by the hand pressing hard on the back of his head.

"Class Rep, my animal instincts suddenly took over just now, I couldn't hold back," Lin Li's face was full of self-blame and guilt, and his voice even carried a hint of crying.

"Bad pervert..." Spitting softly, seemingly realizing that her glare didn't have much power, Chen Yuying snorted and said: "Go wash your hands and eat properly."

Her legs were firmly crossed.

The scene seemed a bit silent.

"Do I really have to wash my hands before I can eat..." So Lin Li's faint sentence sounded exceptionally clear.

The scene immediately erupted in chaos. Ding Sihan and Qu Wanqiu started egging Lin Li on to eat with his hands, while Chen Yuying crumpled the wrapper of her milk tea straw into a ball and threw it at Lin Li with a blushing face.

After washing his hands and returning, the first thing Lin Li did upon sitting down was look under the table.

All crossed.

So after Lin Li's undisguised regret was discovered, he was mocked again.

"My feet aren't ticklish. Lin Li, do you want to try?" Only Bai Bufan didn't despise Lin Li.

"I'm eating, don't talk about such disgusting topics," Lin Li looked disgusted.

"Can you not make your differential treatment so fucking obvious?"

...

The food on the table was basically eaten clean—because they were afraid of wasting it if it tasted bad, and they had a lot of snacks as a backup, the portions were small. The initial plan was just enough for everyone to barely get full.

"Alright, the main course is over. I suppose it's time for the post-meal dessert segment everyone has been looking forward to the most?" Lin Li stood up, his face full of anticipation.

Of course, he was the only one anticipating it.

Lin Li left briefly and returned with a porcelain bowl containing several pieces of fruit coated in syrup.

Lin Li placed it on the table. Everyone took a look. The syrup was full of the caramelized brown color that Michelin three-star chefs love the most.

Although it wasn't a briquette, it didn't stop everyone from looking wary.

"It's really edible, no problem. Qu Wanqiu, I ate the most of your dinner today. Returning the favor, you—at least have to give me some face, right?" Lin Li tried to prove himself, looking at Qu Wanqiu first.

"Lin Li, it's one thing for you to eat my dinner, but you want my life too? You want all the good things for yourself? I don't want it!" With the briquette as a precedent, Qu Wanqiu firmly refused.

Briquettes were fine to play with, but not to eat.

Lin Li sighed, his right hand pressing down on Bai Bufan, who was slowly inching outward, trying to leave silently.

"Bufan."

Bai Bufan sighed, picked up a candied strawberry, bit off a piece with his back molars, and started chewing.

Before he even swallowed, he convulsed and fell to the ground, pointing a trembling finger at Lin Li: "Help me... call... an ambulance..."

Then his neck twisted, his eyes rolled back, and he died.

"Ambulance! Ambulance! Ambulance!" Lin Li immediately shouted loudly.

Bai Bufan: "?"

Is that how you call one?

The revived Bai Bufan once again raised a trembling hand toward Lin Li: "Hurry, call 120..."

"Okay! Right! Bufan! What's the number for 120?" Lin Li took out his phone and asked.

The dead Bai Bufan raised his middle finger.

In the end, it was Ding Sihan who was kind-hearted.

To be honest, the Tomato Stir-fried with Egg she made was a bit too salty. She admitted this herself.

But just now, Lin Li really ate all the Tomato Stir-fried with Egg while complaining about it.

The same went for the dishes Chen Yuying was the head chef for, except Lin Li complained a few times less than he did about hers.

Although after eating, this bastard started pretending to dry heave and repeatedly despised her, Ding Sihan was still quite touched.

So, with the determination to face death, Ding Sihan reached out and took one.

"It's not bad," under Lin Li's expectant gaze, she took a bite, chewed, swallowed, shook her head, and evaluated.

Lin Li was already satisfied, cheering as if he had successfully bid for the Olympics.

"Win, win, win!"

"But it's not good either. It's probably somewhere between good and bad. It's so bad (hao nan chi)." Ding Sihan finished her sentence.

(Translator's Note: "Hao nan chi" can mean "very bad" or "good [and] bad").

She wouldn't be like Lin Li and Bai Bufan, whose first thought upon eating something bad was to share it, so she didn't plan to lie.

The cheering stopped abruptly.

Lin Li: "..."

So it's very bad?

Lin Li picked one up and put it in his mouth. The syrup indeed wasn't cooked well.

Mhm.

It was slightly bitter.

A very large amount of slightly.

(End of Chapter)