[461] Once You Eat My Food, You're Mine

Yu Xian stopped eating. He got up and walked over to the young girl. She immediately shrank back, lowering her head with a look of pure social anxiety. "Where did all these come from?" Yu Xian picked up a gem, examined it, and asked curiously. The girl answered in a small voice, "I... I saved them up bit by bit." "Saved them up bit by bit?" Yu Xian echoed in surprise. Still, he did not suspect her of lying. After all, though she was a foodie, she was clearly socially phobic to the bone—not to mention a five-foot-tall, surprisingly well-endowed foodie at that. "Let's add each other as friends." Yu Xian sent her a friend request directly. He was mainly intrigued by her situation—how on earth had she managed to hoard so many enhancement gems? After hesitating for quite a while, the girl still could not resist the temptation of delicious food, obediently accepting Yu Xian's friend request. Yu Xian immediately—and rather shamelessly—opened her status panel to check. [Name: Fang Qinghao] [Level: 30] [Class: Agricultural Herbalist] [Skills:] [Herb Gathering: Appraise wild plants and determine which can be harvested as medicinal ingredients.] [Medicine Refining: Summon an alchemy furnace to refine medicinal herbs, yielding 10 to 20 pills.] [Healer's Benevolence: Pill efficacy increased by 50%; healing pill efficacy increased by 100%.] [Pill Poison Bomb: Launch a toxic pill to attack a target, with a 100% chance to inflict poison.] A textbook healer. Moreover, she seemed to have possessed zero combat capability in the early levels, only unlocking the Pill Poison Bomb skill at Level 30, which gave her at least a smidgeon of direct fighting ability. Yu Xian found it hard to imagine how Fang Qinghao had managed to grind all the way to Level 30. "'The water's sheen sparkles on a sunny day'? Can you tell me how you leveled up to 30?" Yu Xian asked, looking at Fang Qinghao with curiosity. Fang Qinghao trembled at Yu Xian's question, momentarily seized by the urge to ditch the food and flee. Right then, however, another plate appeared out of thin air beside her. Catching the mouthwatering aroma, she smothered the thought of running away and murmured, "I have a chance to gain EXP from gathering herbs and refining medicine. I just kept gathering herbs and refining medicine over and over, and then I leveled up." "..." Yu Xian was speechless. So what she was saying was... she had never fought a single monster? "You've never killed a monster?" Yu Xian always asked directly when he had questions. Fang Qinghao shook her head, indicating she had not. Yu Xian frowned. "Then what about these gems?" "Sometimes they just fly over to me out of nowhere. I kept stashing them away, and over time, I ended up with this many," Fang Qinghao answered honestly. Yu Xian paused, then thought of a possibility. "Do you sell your pills?" "No. When I have more than I can use, I just quietly leave them in noticeable spots outside the city." Fang Qinghao would never dare do business. She gathered herbs and refined medicine purely to level up, and the excess pills she left outside the city as freebies for whatever lucky class-holders stumbled across them. Yu Xian understood. Clearly, someone fighting an enhanced beast had used Fang Qinghao's pills, allowing her to leech contribution points. When the enhanced beast was defeated, she had received a share of the rewards. The problem was that leeching like this should yield an infinitesimally small amount of contribution. "How long have you been playing this game?" Yu Xian could not help asking, glancing at the colorful gems in Fang Qinghao's hands. Fang Qinghao blinked, then whispered, "I'm not sure... but it should be about a hundred years. Maybe two hundred." "All right, that explains it." Yu Xian almost laughed. Spending centuries leveling up to 30 just by gathering herbs—what kind of bizarre oddball was she? He picked out a gem useful to him from among the hoard, then turned around. "That's enough. If you want to eat, go ahead." "Ah... thank you," Fang Qinghao said softly after a momentary daze. In the next second, she squatted down, picked up a dish of fish, and took a bite with her chopsticks. In Fukang City, money could indeed buy anything to eat, but she had never dared set up a stall to sell pills, terrified of talking to people. As a result, she was penniless. At night, she slept curled up in a dog hole near the city wall, slipping away at the break of dawn to gather herbs in desolate, uninhabited places. When hungry, she ate medicinal pills; when thirsty, she drank stream water. She had almost forgotten how long it had been since she last tasted human food—and this was not even ordinary human food, but a heavenly delicacy cooked by the God of Cookery! It was so delicious! After that first bite, she began devouring it in huge mouthfuls, weeping as she ate. Not from sorrow. She was moved to tears by pure deliciousness. Yu Xian glanced back and sighed softly. Though he was no bleeding heart, seeing such a helpless little wretch occasionally stirred his charity. Besides, a healer would actually come in handy. Having made up his mind, Yu Xian went back to eating with Little Nora. Twenty minutes passed in the blink of an eye, and all three were still eating. It was completely normal for Yu Xian and Little Nora to have massive appetites, but Fang Qinghao turned out to be quite the big eater as well. While she could not match Yu Xian and Little Nora, she was exceptionally hearty by normal standards. Of course, that was partly because she ate slowly. While everyone was still savoring the gourmet feast, the Wolf King, Bolaiye, bounded over from the far distance, landing with a thunderous crash. "Watch out!" Seeing this, Fang Qinghao immediately called out a warning. She then jogged forward to shield Yu Xian and Little Nora behind her. After all, she was a Level 30 'expert,' while Yu Xian was only Level 25—theoretically, she was definitely stronger. Yet after facing off against Bolaiye for a moment, she noticed something was amiss. Yu Xian and Little Nora were still munching away, and when she looked back, Yu Xian was giving her a speechlessly bewildered look. "What's going on?" "Aren't they afraid?" "And why is this monster just standing there?" Fang Qinghao's little head was filled with question marks as she stared puzzledly at the motionless Bolaiye. "That's my summoned beast," Yu Xian said drily after polishing off a plate of fish skin. Fang Qinghao's face turned visibly red. Already plagued by social anxiety, she felt so utterly mortified that she wished she could dig a whole castle out of the dirt with her toes and hide inside forever. Just as she tried to bolt, however, Yu Xian snagged her by the clothes. "Still, you're not bad. Commendable courage. Want to join my team?" Yu Xian offered. Fang Qinghao was about to refuse when Yu Xian smiled and said, "Since you're not speaking, I'll take that as a yes. From now on, you're one of my teammates." "I..." Fang Qinghao tried to object. Yu Xian cut her off, "In the future, you can stick with Little Nora. Little Nora, say hi." "Hello, Big Sister!" Little Nora greeted with a grease-smeared mouth, looking up with a grin. Fang Qinghao desperately wanted to refuse, but she realized she had already missed the ideal window to say no. Now, she simply could not bring herself to utter the words. "Are you full?" Yu Xian asked then. Fang Qinghao shook her head. Yu Xian picked up a dish of diced-fish fried rice and handed it to her. "Thank you." Fang Qinghao took the dish, picked up a spoon, and had a bite. Sure enough, it was delicious. "Very good. Once you eat my food, you're mine. No backsies!" The moment Fang Qinghao swallowed that first mouthful, Yu Xian beamed like an unscrupulous merchant. Fang Qinghao froze completely, staring at the diced-fish fried rice in her hands, caught in a total quandary over whether she should keep eating or not.