Chu He said to Xia Yao, "Hurry up, get down. Your uncle's calling me!"
Xia Yao clung to him, her legs wrapped around his waist. She didn't budge—instead, she leaned closer until the tips of their noses nearly touched.
"Kiss me, and I'll get down!"
At those words, the entire Dragon Country livestream chat exploded.
[Dragon Country Official Livestream]
"Holy crap! No way! Demanding a kiss in front of her family? Xia Yao, do you have some kind of misunderstanding about the whole 'meeting the family' thing?"
"I can't believe this! Xia Yao is incredible!"
"Look at her uncle's face! It's practically black as the bottom of a pot! And he's clenching his fist so hard I can hear his knuckles cracking through the screen!"
The temperature in the cafeteria plummeted.
Xia Yan's pitch-black eyes bored into Chu He. It was as if he had already Lingchi-ed Chu He a thousand times with his gaze.
Veins bulged across the back of the hand gripping his bone knife, twisting like dragons rising from underground.
The two Multi-armed Monsters still working nearby moved with extra care, afraid that the slightest noise might draw the furious chef's attention.
The pressure descended like a mountain.
Chu He merely sighed helplessly. With the whole of Dragon Country watching, and Xia Yan glaring at him murderously, he cupped Xia Yao's face and gave her lips a gentle kiss.
They parted at once.
Only then did Xia Yao release him and hop down, unable to hide her delight.
She straightened her clothes, then turned to the volcano about to erupt and said, as if she had every right to, "I'll wait for you. Don't take too long!"
Then she tilted her head up toward Xia Yan. "And, Uncle, don't make things too hard for Chu He!"
Xia Yan's chest heaved. He ground out the words through clenched teeth. "Yao Yao, your uncle knows what he's doing. Go eat the Demon Lion Liver I made for you before it gets cold!"
"Okay." Xia Yao immediately gave him a sweet smile, then obediently hurried over to a long table and sat down. Picking up her knife and fork, she began delicately savoring the plate of Demon Lion Liver, eating with such elegance that you'd never guess she was the koala clinging to a man just moments ago.
Xia Yan took a deep breath, then spun around, his shadow completely engulfing Chu He.
"Come with me!"
His voice held back a towering fury.
Chu He followed him through the door leading to the kitchen.
The two sides of the door were like different worlds.
Blood, thick as paint, streamed down from a massive worktable and into grooves in the floor that had long since turned dark red.
The air was filled with a terrifying mixture of overpowering odors: the stench of blood, the rank smell of viscera, and the pungent aromas of all kinds of unknown spices. It could have knocked an ordinary person unconscious on the spot.
Unrecognizable creature remains hung upside down from hooks on the walls. Some were still twitching faintly.
In one corner lay mounds of meat piled as high as hills, their surfaces still covered in writhing scales and tentacles.
There were two more S-rank Multi-armed Monsters working in the kitchen.
Their dozens of arms moved with astonishing efficiency as they skinned, deboned, and minced, sending blood and flesh flying.
[Dragon Country Official Livestream]
"Ugh... I can't take it anymore. I just threw up my breakfast. This kitchen is way too hardcore!"
"This isn't a kitchen—it's a slaughterhouse and a biochemical lab rolled into one!"
Xia Yan stopped at the far end of the kitchen and pointed to a huge mass of flesh chained to the wall. It kept writhing, as if it had been woven from countless nightmares.
The mass was pitch-black all over, with no skin—only exposed muscle fibers that twitched constantly.
"This is meat from a Nightmare Giant Python."
"Yao Yao loves the Thousand-Threaded Shredded Meat made from it."
He turned his head, his pitch-black eyes filled with undisguised malice.
"Its flesh is infused with the purest fear in the world."
"Forget touching it with your bare hands. Get too close, and anyone with a weak mind will have their soul dragged into an endless nightmare until their mind completely collapses, leaving them a living corpse that can only breathe."
He paused, then bared his teeth in a grin.
"The test is simple. Make shredded meat from this within an hour—something I and Yao Yao will both approve of."
"If you can't do it, or... go mad," he drawled with a cruel smile, "I don't need to spell out what happens, do I?"
This wasn't a test at all.
It was murder!
Even the two S-rank Multi-armed Monsters kept well away from this corner while handling the other ingredients, their eyes full of wariness.
Only Xia Yan dared to handle this stuff!
Chu He stood where he was. He hadn't even approached, yet an intangible chill had already pierced his brain.
Countless horrific visions flooded in like a dam breaking, instantly crushing his consciousness!
He saw skyscrapers collapsing in blazing fires, familiar cities reduced to ruins, and scorched corpses covering the ground!
He saw his family surrounded by countless bizarre creatures, crying out to him in despair before being torn to pieces!
The next moment, he found himself surrounded by mountains of corpses and seas of blood, with countless monsters circling him as cold, slimy hands dragged him into a bottomless abyss...
"Ugh..."
A pained groan escaped Chu He's throat. His face turned deathly pale, cold sweat soaked his back, and his body swayed uncontrollably, as if he might collapse at any moment.
Xia Yan stood off to one side with his arms crossed, watching coldly.
He wanted to see how this ignorant brat would wail in terror, break down, and finally turn into a drooling idiot.
He wanted Yao Yao to see for herself just how utterly helpless the man she'd chosen was!
Yet just as Chu He's consciousness was about to be swallowed by the endless darkness, a cool, graceful figure and a stubborn gaze abruptly appeared in his mind.
It was Xia Yao.
It was the fierce way she had stood in front of him and told her uncle, "He's mine now."
It was the pure, bashful yet demanding way she had asked him for a kiss.
No! He couldn't fall here!
The thought struck like lightning, cleaving through the layers of nightmares! Chu He bit down hard on his tongue. The pain cleared his muddled mind for an instant.
He forced his head up. His eyes were bloodshot as he stared at the writhing "mass of flesh"!
"Break!"
He roared in his mind, pouring all his Spiritual Power into his eyes!
Buzz—!
The world before him changed in an instant.
The bloody, terrifying scenes lost their color, turning into the barest outlines of black, white, and gray.
The fear energy flowing through the air appeared as wisps of black mist wrapped around the snake meat, clearly visible to his eyes.
And the true nature of the so-called "Nightmare Giant Python" meat came into focus.
It wasn't flesh and blood at all!
It was a mass of energy formed from countless negative emotions and lingering mental obsessions, compressed into a dense whole!
The fear, the illusions—they were all just psychic radiation it unconsciously gave off!
The sneer at the corner of Xia Yan's mouth froze.
He saw that Chu He's face was still pale, but his eyes shone astonishingly bright.
This brat... had actually resisted the nightmare's influence through sheer willpower?!
Xia Yan's massive body gave an almost imperceptible tremor. His crossed arms loosened slightly, and for the first time, his pitch-black eyes showed shock and scrutiny.
This brat really did seem... a little unusual.
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