Restaurant

New York, Chinatown.

After buying a large amount of dry food and bottled water from the supermarket, it was nearly noon. Li Feng parked the RV in the lot, carrying all his possessions—less than ten thousand dollars—and slinging a Shoulder Bag containing spellbooks and scrolls over his back before casually picking a Chinese restaurant that looked like it served good food and walking in.

As for how Li Feng could tell that this Chinese restaurant served good food, naturally, he had guessed from the number of customers. After all, a restaurant with bad food could hardly attract business.

Pushing open the restaurant door, Li Feng looked over the clean, orderly, retro-decorated interior with satisfaction.

As Li Feng surveyed the restaurant and searched for an empty seat, a Chinese woman in a black leather jacket walked up to him and asked in Chinese, "Just one, sir?"

Hearing the familiar Chinese made Li Feng feel especially warm, giving him the urge to spend every last cent he had in the restaurant.

While wondering why a restaurant server was wearing a black leather jacket instead of a uniform, Li Feng nodded. "Of course."

The leather-jacketed server craned her neck to look at the packed dining hall and said with a smile, "The first floor is full. Please dine upstairs."

Li Feng did not care where he ate. These past days, he had first escorted Demon alongside Mordo through a world ravaged by Plague, where he had neither eaten nor slept well. Then, without stopping to rest, he had rushed to the world of Demon Slayer to mess with Demon.

After all, Gargoyles were essentially stone. What did stone eat? So Gargoyles did not cook at all. During his time at the monastery, Li Feng had drunk plain water and gnawed on cheap supermarket bread every day.

Now, he just wanted a proper Chinese meal to comfort his abused stomach.

Led by the leather-jacketed server, Li Feng headed toward the second floor. As they passed the kitchen entrance, a Chinese chef glanced at the server and cried out in surprise, "May? Why are you here?"

May looked at the chef and said helplessly, "Mom's coming to New York for a few days, but you know how terrible my cooking is. So I came to buy some half-prepared dishes from you, take them home, heat them up, and enjoy Chinese food with Mom."

The chef shook his head with a smile. "You really should put work aside and practice your cooking. A girl should—"

May and the chef said in unison, both looking helpless, "As long as she has good cooking skills, she can keep a man's heart."

After saying that, May drooped her head and pouted. "You've said that hundreds of times. My ears are growing calluses from hearing it. I'm done talking to you—I'm taking this customer upstairs to order."

Li Feng glanced speechlessly at the fake server. He had figured it out: this woman named May was not a server at all, but a customer just like him. The difference was that Li Feng intended to eat at the restaurant, while May planned to take food home.

Ma'am, you're not even a server, so how are you going to take my order? What if I order Peking Duck, you say "just a moment," then run to the kitchen and find out there's no Peking Duck? Wouldn't that delay my meal?

The chef also realized something was off. Frowning, he said, "Where did that girl Xiao Hui run off to? How could she let a customer play server? This is outrageous."

As May motioned for Li Feng to go upstairs, she said to the chef, "Xiao Hui has a stomachache. She went to the restroom and asked me to cover for her for a while."

Amid the chef's low grumbling of "Lazy people always need to shit and piss," Li Feng followed May to the second floor. He chose a seat by a street-facing window and said, "Braised pork, stir-fried greens with shiitake mushrooms, an egg soup, and a big bowl of rice."

After thinking about it, Li Feng decided he could have a little drink in the RV that night. "Fried peanuts, sweet-and-sour spare ribs, and do you have White Cut Chicken? Pack those three dishes to go."

Seeing May nod so briskly and decisively, Li Feng grumbled inwardly, You said yes without even asking. Does this restaurant get its ingredients from your family farm or something?

Before May could head downstairs, a woman screamed from the direction of the restroom. Without a second thought, May rushed toward it. She recognized Xiao Hui's voice.

Curiously, Li Feng leaned over to look toward the restroom. Faintly, he caught the scent of blood. Scratching his head, Li Feng got up and headed over.

When he reached the restrooms, Li Feng looked up at the one marked "Men," then at the "Women" restroom beside it.

Li Feng was certain that both the smell of blood and the woman's earlier scream had come from the men's restroom. So did this server named Xiao Hui run into the men's room, or is Xiao Hui actually a man? Did his voice and name fool me? Damn it, a man named Xiao Hui? What were his parents thinking? Were they so desperate for a daughter that they went crazy?

Li Feng pushed open the men's restroom door and saw Xiao Hui slumped on the floor. Meanwhile, May held a pistol in both hands, aiming it at a hulking, monstrous man whose back was covered in bones with a metallic sheen. The creature was savagely beating a man in a black suit as May shouted, "Don't move!"

Li Feng looked suspiciously at Xiao Hui, who wore a skirt suit, and asked curiously, "Bro? Sis? Are you a man or a woman?"

Xiao Hui: "..."

May gave Li Feng the look one gave an idiot and said, "Call an ambulance."

After saying that, May returned the pistol to its holster, rubbed her fists, and walked toward the monstrous man while gritting her teeth. "I told you to stop, didn't you hear me?"

The monster seemed not to hear May at all. His eyes remained bloodshot as he continued focusing on viciously beating the suited man, who had long since stopped moving on the floor.

Is this freak chewing gum or something? He just can't stop, huh?

Li Feng had originally thought he would get to watch a fight between a beauty and a beast, then heroically save the beauty. But what did he see instead?

May dropped into a horse stance and smashed her fist hard into the monster's cheek. Then?

Then Li Feng looked contemptuously at the monster, who had passed out on the spot, and could not stop himself from ranting inwardly. You ignored May's gun, and your back is covered in bones. I thought you had the Shikotsumyaku bloodline limit and were confident because of your skills. But what happened? You're such a weakling that a woman knocked you out with one punch?

No, that's not right. A hulking monster like him doesn't look weak at all, so it must be that May's fist is hard enough. Say, Sister May, what kind of martial art do you practice? I want to learn it.

As he grumbled inwardly, Li Feng quietly cast a spell and looked at the monster's Astral Body. The man's characteristics were so obvious—if Li Feng still could not recognize him as an Inhuman, then all those years of watching Marvel movies had been for nothing.

After a while, Li Feng smacked his lips and muttered softly, "Legend has it that Inhuman genes have defects. Since the body and soul are closely connected, once Inhumans awaken their powers, their souls are affected as well."

Scratching his head, Li Feng thought with a curl of his lip, So although this Inhuman's Astral Body is as colorful as a rainbow, the colors are somewhat dull, like how someone with color blindness sees a rainbow.

May pulled out handcuffs from behind her waist and cuffed the Inhuman's hands. As she checked whether the suited man was dead, she snapped at Li Feng, "Didn't you hear me tell you to call an ambulance?"

Li Feng glanced at the suited man. He had long noticed that the man's Astral Body was beginning to dissipate—a sign that only appeared in the dead. He grumbled inwardly, Why call an ambulance? They should call the morgue instead.

Spreading his hands, Li Feng looked innocently at her. "I don't have a phone. You can search me if you don't believe me."

May had already discovered that the suited man was beyond saving. Gritting her teeth, she shot Li Feng a glance and said, "Please leave the restroom."

Li Feng curled his lip disdainfully. "Fine, I'll leave. But can you get my food ready first? Otherwise, there'll be another corpse in this restaurant—one that starved to death. A customer starved to death in a restaurant. How do you think tomorrow's news will report that?"

May felt like she was going insane. What kind of person was this? He could still calmly think about eating at a restaurant after seeing a corpse? Never mind whether he could stomach it—the restaurant could not possibly stay open as usual.

He's sick.

May could not be bothered to deal with Li Feng. After holding him at gunpoint and making him leave the restroom, she took out her phone and made a call. "Chief, you'd better come to Chinatown. I'll send you the address. There's a big guy here with bones growing out of his back. Come see for yourself."

May lowered the phone and helped Xiao Hui up. "Go out and have some water first, but don't leave the restaurant. My colleagues will be here soon."

May helped Xiao Hui out of the restaurant and instinctively looked for Li Feng, but there was no trace of him anywhere inside.

"Damn it." May's eyes nearly burned with fury as she muttered viciously under her breath, "That bastard said he was starving and waiting for food—all lies. He just wanted me to subconsciously assume he'd stay in the restaurant, when he'd actually slipped away long ago."

Li Feng was no fool. He knew there had been an Inhuman murder case at the restaurant, so why would he stupidly stay there waiting? He knew that the people coming later would not be the police, but S.H.I.E.L.D.

Sure enough, when Li Feng drove his RV past the restaurant from the parking lot, the place had already been sealed off. Several black SUVs were parked at the entrance, and several helmeted, fully armed soldiers stepped out, along with a few researchers in hazmat suits carrying instruments and scanning the area.

With his sharp eyes, Li Feng even spotted Fury, who still had hair. However, compared to the last time they had met, Fury now wore an eyepatch and had become a one-eyed man.

Li Feng floored the gas pedal and sped toward the suburbs, grumbling inwardly, Once you shave your head, you'll be the Feiqiu I remember.

As Li Feng passed by, Fury sensed someone watching him and instinctively looked around. Before long, finding nothing, Fury frowned and headed up to the restaurant's second floor.

Seeing May comforting the waitress, Fury clapped his hands to signal for May to come over and report the details. As for Xiao Hui, professional psychological personnel would naturally guide her, at the very least ensuring that she would not spread word of what she had seen today.

In a corner of the restaurant, after May gave Fury a detailed account of everything that had happened in the restroom, she hesitated. She did not know whether she should tell Fury about Li Feng.

From a certain perspective, Li Feng was indeed highly suspicious. First, there was how calm he had been upon seeing the corpse. Then, during their brief conversation afterward, May had noticed that Li Feng did not seem curious about the strange man at all. Instead, he gave her the impression that he was used to such things.

That was far from normal. When ordinary people saw such a bizarre human, they might not scream like Xiao Hui had, but at the very least, they should show some fear.

Seeing May hesitate, Fury asked, "Did you discover anything else?"

After thinking it over, May decided to tell Fury about Li Feng's behavior.

Once May finished describing Li Feng's clothes and appearance, Fury narrowed his eyes. "You said he was Chinese, and had a little belly?"