Chapter 14: The First Meal in the Otherworld Ends in Disaster

Fortunately, other players were cursing loudly as well.

The two glanced around and felt a sense of balance.

Good, no one had drawn anything particularly valuable.

The daily supplies box was truly a messy assortment.

The bad news: the storage ring was cluttered with all sorts of random items.

The good news: the group managed to gather several sets of cooking utensils, including barely enough bowls, plates, chopsticks, and spoons.

Oh, and there were several kitchen knives and peelers, as well as four sacks of rice weighing fifty pounds each.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief—luckily, there were a hundred players. Had there been fewer, they wouldn’t have been able to gather enough food to eat and would have starved, dazed, at the respawn point.

The most ridiculous part was why hunger didn’t reset upon death and respawn!

Listening to their endless complaints, Qingyue sighed silently, “Heh, otherwise you’d keep dying just to reset your hunger! You’d be exploiting bugs!”

Undoubtedly, these guys were capable of such antics.

The players rubbed their hands eagerly, itching to try.

Ancient, pollution-free ingredients must taste wonderful! Especially since they had caught them themselves!

“Steamed fish, braised fish, sweet and sour fish—oh, good thing someone got a full set of seasonings: oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, chili, cumin, Sichuan pepper, and thirteen-spice blend!”

“Enough about fish, pork is the tastiest! Roasted pork ribs, braised pork!”

“You don’t get it! Wild pheasant is the best—tender yet firm!”

“Come on, bear paws are the most delicious!”

“If you ask me, tiger meat wins. Who here has ever eaten tiger?”

“Good point, I vote for tiger!”

“Pheasant! Eating chicken is the happiest!”

The crowd erupted into a heated debate, completely forgetting the prior condition—they first needed to know how to cook and, crucially, be able to properly cook the food.

As for them… a group of modern young people, mostly new to cooking, having long relied on takeout.

They might very well manage to mess up even the simplest dishes and end up eating themselves back to the respawn point.

Unable to bear it any longer, Lanling grabbed Xiao Mo, who was about to fight over whether to eat fish or chicken, and said, “Is there any chance we should start a fire first?”

How else could they cook or steam rice? Rely on the air?

“…”

“Ahem, that’s simple—friction fire.”

Lanling rolled her eyes, “Then why don’t you all start rubbing together?”

Fire by friction is slow, and if everyone worked together, they might eat sooner—otherwise, they’d just get hungry again at the respawn.

The crowd scattered to find wood and small branches, earnestly attempting to start a fire by friction.

Qingyue hesitated to speak, then decided to stay silent.

After a while, everyone’s eyes glazed over, fingers reddened, wrists aching.

It’s just rubbing sticks to make fire! Help, my hands are killing me! And why is there still no fire?

A closer look revealed everyone’s health bars had dropped slightly.

Just as the players began doubting their existence, Qingyue quietly said, “Um, the Fire Spirit Root skill can ignite flames.”

Right! The players slapped their foreheads, almost forgetting this wasn’t an ordinary ancient world but a cultivation realm—fire-attribute cultivators could naturally summon fire.

Damn it, why didn’t we think of that?

Several players with the Fire Spirit Root skill quickly raised flames.

“Why didn’t the sect leader say so earlier?”

Qingyue looked innocent, “Well, I thought you all had your reasons for trying, so I wanted to respect that.”

Players: “…”

The goofy, ever-cheerful player exclaimed, “Whoa, my wife’s actually a dark horse? This trait is so cute! I love her even more!”

Qingyue: “I heard that.”

Wait a minute, no way…

[System: Player “Goofy Ever-Cheerful” –10 favorability with NPC Qingyue. Warning: This is a highly free game with highly intelligent NPCs. Please watch your behavior!]

Goofy Ever-Cheerful wailed and collapsed, “Ahh! My goddess’s favorability dropped to -40! Ahhh! My bad mouth!”

Flying Dragon in the Sky chuckled maliciously.

Though they were friends, this was a bit unfair—but fair-weather friends were still friends.

Handling the ingredients went relatively smoothly, though the meat and vegetables were cut unevenly in size and thickness. Still, as long as they were edible, who cared about neatness?

Of course, there were some problems.

Peeling the skins off large beasts like tigers and bears took ages, barely managing to rip off the claws, and the meat was tough—after much effort, they only got a small amount.

“Now I get why no one eats tiger meat anymore!”

“Fire Spirit Root brothers’ skills form razor-sharp blades—could we use those to slice the meat?”

“The real issue is, even if we cut the tough meat, can our teeth handle it?”

“Alright, forget that! Let’s decide whether to braise or barbecue the bear paws!”

Bear paws had been made into dishes before, so they were definitely edible! Big thanks to the Fire Spirit Root brothers.

A few players who could cook started preparing the dishes, and everyone was bustling with excitement. The aroma was incredible, tempting everyone’s appetite.

Of course, it might also be because everyone was starving.

They had entered the game at noon, bounced around like mad, fought tirelessly until evening—how could they not be hungry?

Lanling was almost capable of everything except cooking. When Xiao Mo brought out a plate of pan-fried fish, she eagerly picked up her chopsticks and took a big bite.

“…”

After chewing, she fell silent, holding back under her sister’s expectant gaze.

“How is it? How is it?”

“Ugh!” She couldn’t hold it in any longer. It was too awful to eat, even if her sister made it!

The taste defied description—the seasoning floated on the surface, the fish was half-raw, mixed with scales, and the overpowering fishy stench assaulted her Spiritual Root. It was terrifying!

Eating it would be guaranteed food poisoning, a deadly mistake!

The only redeeming feature was that even in this state, the fish’s inherent freshness could be tasted.

“This fish died in vain. It was delicious before, but you made it like this.” Lanling sighed.

Xiao Mo coughed nervously, “It’s okay, the fish soup will definitely taste good!”

Lanling took a sip and nodded, “There’s a lot of water—fish bath water. Also, if you rescue this fish a bit more, I think it could come back to life.”

“No way!” Xiao Mo protested, but just then the fish’s tail in the pot twitched.

“…”

Other players’ dishes were coming out one after another, but as for the taste… well, barely edible at best—cooked, but hardly delicious.

Turning such precious ingredients into this was a source of collective gloom.

The players’ first self-cooked meal in this otherworld was a disaster, their taste buds in torment.

They truly couldn’t eat it! It was the kind of awful that could kill you from poisoning after barely surviving it!

China was a nation of food lovers—food was life!

Good ingredients cooked poorly were essentially ruined!

Everyone looked to Qingyue with hope. “Our all-around fairy surely can help!”

Qingyue: ??? What are you looking at me for?

“Even I can’t cook.”

She really was just as much a cooking novice as they were, a homebody who could only make a pot of burnt charcoal!

If the players wanted to eat it, she wouldn’t mind.

But it was obvious no one had such tastes.

Were they really going to starve to death?