Chapter 65: Self-Service Double Value Meal

The setting sun retreated from the edge of the sky, and night had already fallen.

Lu Ming took Chuxue by the hand and found an apartment with a pleasant environment.

He expended 20 specialized crystals to reinforce all the basic infrastructure.

In truth, given his current specialization level and overall foundation, the Tyrannical Owl King was no longer an object of dread.

However, an anomalous species like the Owl King was, after all, an E-class king that would appear in the outer rings of the region.

No doubt existed as to whether its appearance was an emperor traveling incognito or the patrolling retinue of a D-class mighty species.

When dealing with the D-class, if one had not perused the information of a true complete entity, one had to maintain rationality and caution at all times.

Everyone knew how to fly high—some people flew high and turned into a sandstorm, while others flew high and turned into ashes. As for him, he wanted to be solid rock.

He drew the blackout curtains.

He laid out Chuxue's favorite luxurious three-piece bedding set.

He went to the bathroom to assemble the multi-functional water heater.

Just as he was about to pour enough purified water into it for both of them to bathe, Lu Ming inexplicably felt somewhat bizarre.

Every single step of this process was completely normal; why did they carry a distinctly pink undertone when combined together?

No, he must keep his composure.

If his mind was tinted pink, everything he looked at would appear pink. He was, after all, a proper, decent human being.

After setting the temperature, Lu Ming returned to the living room.

Perhaps it was because of the day's growth, which had gradually made his physical state more robust.

Or perhaps it was the excitement after the midday rest, following a thrilling hunting operation.

Chuxue was currently sitting on the edge of the bed, swinging her little feet while looking at the coffee table beside it.

Several hundred specialized crystals that he had placed there were gathered in a pile, their crystalline light transforming into an ambient glow of decent brightness.

Sensing his approach, Chuxue stopped swinging her feet and returned to her original, tranquil state.

Lu Ming could not help but smile slightly. Having been born just a day ago, this girl seemed to have an image burden when facing him.

"Xiao Xue, would you like to have dinner first, or take a bath first, or..."

?

Why did these words sound somewhat familiar?

Wasn't that last phrase... the line Xiao Xue was supposed to say?

Cough! No, he had to be elegant and keep his mind clean.

"Let's eat dinner first."

Using this decision to mask his inner turbulence, Lu Ming produced a few tubes of ordinary variant blood.

Speaking of which, protein blocks could be eaten bite by bite, but was this stuff supposed to be drunk directly?

He looked at Chuxue's tender, pink little lips, then looked at the name "variant blood," and found it somewhat difficult to accept.

Fortunately, although the blood in the test tubes emitted a cyan halo, it was extremely clear, somewhat resembling Sprite packaged in a green bottle.

Curious, Lu Ming pulled out the test tube stopper and brought it to his nose to sniff, his expression instantly turning strange.

Was it psychological suggestion, or was there something wrong with his sense of smell?

The test tube labeled "variant blood" carried not the slightest fishy stench; instead, it had a faint, sweet fragrance that could only be detected when brought close.

Come to think of it, when he fed the Owl King's saber earlier, he hadn't smelled any pungent odor either. Was this stuff... really blood?

Gulp...

Swallowing his saliva, Lu Ming felt that he was corrupt.

He actually felt a strong appetite for this tube of blood.

It seemed even more enticing than the luxury set meal he had eaten.

He quickly pulled it away to avoid falling into the abyss. That was blood, not a beverage, and primarily, his physical condition did not permit consumption; he needed to level up first.

He handed the test tube to Chuxue. Chuxue took it quite naturally, her little mouth parted slightly, her hands raised upwards, and the variant blood flowed into her mouth.

Graceful and serene.

Lu Ming swallowed his saliva once more—not because he was tempted by the blood, but because he felt that both things in his sight were extremely delicious.

Sigh, let's eat dinner first. There was work to be done after eating.

Steadfasting his mind and looking away, Lu Ming took out a bucket of instant noodles.

In the morning, he had eaten the packaged version, which transformed into a luxury instant lunchbox after sublimation.

Now that he was sublimating the bucket version, he wondered what he would get.

"Ultimate Sublimation."

[Prompt: Please select the sublimation tier.]

[Tier 2.]

[Prompt: Sublimating "Spicy Come-a-Bucket" requires consuming 7 specialized crystals. Confirm consuming 7 specialized crystals to sublimate "Spicy Come-a-Bucket" into the "Self-Service Dual-Enjoyment Set Meal"?]

Self-Service Dual-Enjoyment Set Meal?

What kind of thing was that?

It was just food; could it stop being so riddlesome after sublimation?

The crucial point was that this thing actually cost two more crystals than the luxury instant lunchbox.

And according to the First Law of Planet Kalan, anything expensive definitely had a reason for being expensive!

"Confirmed!"

A whirring particle cutting beam emerged from the table, and the bucket of Spicy Come-a-Bucket instant noodles decomposed and dissolved.

Reassembling once more, its volume suddenly expanded more than tenfold.

The first thing to enter his field of vision was a pot.

A pot divided into two realms, one that any citizen of the Blue Star could recognize at a single glance!

That's right, it was a hotpot!

Who could have imagined that the so-called "self-service dual-enjoyment set meal" referred to a mandarin duck hotpot?

Beneath the pot was a small single-person stove, which looked identical to the multi-functional water heater, featuring a crystal-energy-driven insertion port.

A small skimmer, chopsticks, bowls, and saucers were all included.

Following that came the main event: ten fresh-keeping boxes and two packets of hotpot base.

The soup bases needed no introduction; the crucial part lay in those ten fresh-keeping boxes.

Lifting them aside one by one, they revealed five meat and five vegetable hotpot side dishes.

Beef rolls, mutton rolls, tripe, duck blood, quail eggs.

Baby cabbage, enoki mushrooms, oil-romaine lettuce, bamboo shoots, and tofu.

There was no shrimp paste and no beef honeycomb tripe, but what did that matter?

In the apocalyptic era, being able to eat hotpot—who would even care about a bicycle?

Let's begin.

He set up the mandarin duck pot, poured in purified water, adjusted the temperature, and brought it to a boil.

A minute later, the water was warm. He dropped in the hotpot base and began dealing with the fresh-keeping packaging.

Three minutes later, Lu Ming was already eating the steaming-hot dishes, his eyes curved into smiles while he chewed.

True to being an upgraded version of bucket noodles, the three-minute instant characteristic was completely inherited by the hotpot. There was only one regret: there was no dipping sauce to go with it.

Chuxue sniffed the aroma of the hotpot, her worried expression turning into one of helplessness, as if she were already beginning to get used to it.

Just at that moment, Lu Ming held up his bowl again, turned his head, picked up a slice of scalded beef, lifted it slightly toward Chuxue, and asked if she wanted to eat.

Chuxue shook her head rapidly, took a ball of protein from her storage space, and slowly and gracefully ate it while sipping the variant blood.

Lu Ming shrugged, feeling that it was truly a regret that Chuxue could not experience the joy of a Blue Star native, leaving him no choice but to trouble himself and finish this entire pot of food.

...

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Jintian District, Chen Hai was sitting in a room within a villa.

In one hand, he held a dry piece of compressed biscuit; in the other, he held a photograph.

His thumb brushed gently across the face of the woman in the photo, deep apology and tenderness welling up in his eyes.

"Uncle Chen."

Suddenly, a voice called out from outside the door.

Chen Hai properly put away the photograph, stood up, and opened the door.

Standing outside was a somewhat tall young man, around twenty-one or twenty-two years old, wearing a humble smile as he looked at Chen Hai and said, "I thought you had already rested."

Chen Hai stepped aside to let him enter, chuckling softly, "I'm middle-aged, not old yet. Can I fall asleep at this hour? How is Brother Bao? How is he doing?"

The young man sat on the edge of the bed, let out a light laugh, and said, "After being disinfected, his fever broke, and now he's sleeping. There's a bunch of people taking care of him next door, so I couldn't even manage to lend a hand."

He then added a complaint laced with a joke: "He's already getting up there in years, yet he doesn't know how to keep a low profile and look out for himself. Whenever we kill larvae, he always rushes to the very front, terrified he won't get a chance to die; when resources are divided, he's content with just enough to eat, terrified he'll take too much."