A bright moon hung in the sky, illuminating Hunter Town at night.
Inside a small tavern on the west side of town.
Angie Turner held his beer, looking speechlessly at the young hunters gathered around him!
Normally, this would have been his time to enjoy a drink, but today the town's young men had surrounded him.
Naturally, they wanted to hear Li Xing's story.
Ever since Alex had come to see him, the young people in the village all seemed to have grown nervous.
They had all come to ask him about Li Xing's background!
"Uncle Turner, you can't just let that pretty boy move into our town like this!"
"That's right, Uncle Turner! If you ask me, that pretty boy must have stirred up plenty of romantic trouble elsewhere and come to our village to hide from it. We have to make sure the girls in our town don't fall victim to him!"
"Yeah, that makes sense. Looking at him, he could well be a spy planted in our town by bandits!"
"Right, right!" × N
Hearing the young men before him constantly slander and smear Li Xing, Angie Turner could no longer stand their wild fantasies. He finally lost his patience!
Angie Turner angrily slammed the wooden mug he had been holding in front of his face onto the table and shouted at the young man leading them.
"Enough! Yilaikesi! You and your friends are just like children! What, am I wrong? Look at yourselves! I'm ashamed to call you the next generation of Hunter Town!"
Seeing the young man about to argue back, Uncle Turner cut him off.
"I know you're wary of an outsider who suddenly appeared, but are we people in Hunter Town the sort of scum who reject outsiders for no reason? You lot are always saying how proud you are to be members of Hunter Town! Is your pride really so narrow-minded? You won't even take the initiative to get to know him, and just reject him on instinct. How are you any different from immature little brats?!"
"But, Uncle Turner, we..."
Just as the young man leading them was about to say something, the tavern door was pushed open. The person who entered was none other than Li Xing, the very subject of their argument.
"Boss! Are you here? I'd like something to eat..."
As soon as he entered, Li Xing saw that everyone in the tavern was staring at him! Quite a few of them were people he had only met that day.
"Um... good evening, everyone! I just came to buy some food to fill my stomach. Don't mind me, carry on, carry on! Haha~~"
Sensing the inexplicable silence that had fallen over the tavern, Li Xing could only make an awkward joke.
His intense hunger left him no choice but to brace himself and slowly walk toward the bar, uncomfortable under the gazes of the people around him!
Li Xing then placed the few loose silver coins he had left on the counter.
"Boss, this is all the money I have. Could you... give me whatever food you think it's worth? As long as it fills me up!"
Looking at the few loose silver coins, the owner involuntarily glanced toward Uncle Turner in the distance.
After seeing Uncle Turner give him a nod,
the tavern owner said to Li Xing,
"Young man! This is a tavern, and ordinarily we don't serve food. But since you're new here, I'll make an exception today."
"That little bit of silver will only get you a few pieces of stale black bread. Don't expect anything else!"
When Li Xing heard this, he didn't care what the food was like.
All he cared about now was whether he could immediately satisfy his powerful urge to eat!
So he replied to the tavern owner,
"All right! Thanks, boss. But I'm really starving right now. Could you give me a cup of water?"
Just as the tavern owner was about to nod in agreement, a whole gold coin suddenly flew toward him!
By instinct and force of habit, the owner casually caught the coin in midair. Then he looked in the direction it had come from!
At that moment, a young man nearby looked at his companion in surprise and said,
"Yilaikesi! What are you doing?"
The young man beside him cut off his companion's question and explained to the owner,
"Boss! Take that gold coin as payment for a proper meal for our newcomer. Keep the change and put it toward his drinks! Whatever else you can say about Hunter Town, we haven't sunk so low that we'd let one of our own go hungry!"
Hearing this, the owner and Uncle Turner both nodded with satisfaction.
Then the owner looked at Li Xing and joked, "You're lucky. Someone's paying your bill now." Without waiting for Li Xing to reply, he opened the door to the back room behind the counter and went inside to prepare his food.
After seeing what had happened and hearing the tavern owner's joke, Li Xing thanked the young man in the crowd called Yilaikesi.
"Yilaikesi, thank you. I was so busy today that I almost forgot to eat. I don't have any money on me now, but I'll repay you! After I've eaten, I'll do it! You only need to wait a little while... I won't say any more. I'm so hungry it hurts!"
Angie Turner, who had watched what happened from the side, spoke to the young man leading the crowd with satisfaction.
"I have to say, Yilaikesi, what you just did has really changed my opinion of you. I always thought you were still as willful as a child, but what you did showed me the pride and spirit a man of Hunter Town should have!"
The young man in the middle of the crowd replied, "I've always been proud to be a member of Hunter Town. The pride of us Hunter Town men is neither narrow-minded nor cheap!"
"That's right, Yilaikesi's right! I feel the same way!"
"That's right, me too!"
"Same here!" × N
Seeing the men of his own generation suddenly become so fired up left Li Xing puzzled.
Just then, the tavern owner came out of the back room carrying food!
"Boss, is something going on in town lately? Why is everyone so excited?"
"It's nothing. Don't mind them. Young man, here's your dinner. Eat up. I can see you're practically drooling!"
Joking as he spoke, the owner pushed a plate and some soup in front of Li Xing.
"Go on, eat. If it's not enough, there's more."
"All right, then I won't stand on ceremony!"
Li Xing then began wolfing down the food, devouring it as though possessed by a starving ghost!
Watching the way Li Xing ate,
even the tavern owner couldn't help swallowing! He thought to himself, Is my cooking really that good? Did I choose the wrong line of work? Damn it, no! Watching him has made me hungry!
One person's appetite really could be contagious. As a result, after serving the food, the owner went into the back room and started eating too!