Playing It This Way, Huh?

What he'd expected—a sparse head of graying hair—was nowhere to be seen. Neither was any greasy scalp buildup, nor some sinister thing squatting on the old man's head.

There was only a smooth, pale... bald scalp!

The skin was evenly colored, like polished cold jade. Under the room's overly bright lights, it even gleamed with an unpleasant, almost dazzling pallor. Not a crease, not a spot anywhere. It was so clean... it was practically uncanny!

Xiao Ran froze on the spot, his breath catching for a moment.

"Well, I'll be!"

He couldn't help exclaiming inwardly, an absurd feeling surging straight to his head.

After seeing Gourmet Lord's disgusting trick of deliberately giving low scores, Xiao Ran had thought that was the limit. He'd never imagined the real master of the craft was right here, pulling such a nasty stunt without warning!

You've got a completely bare head, not even a stubble in sight, and you want me to comb your hair? This wasn't picking a fight—it was performance art!

The air seemed to freeze around this absurd scene. The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Only the blurry Bronze Mirror faithfully reflected the ridiculous, faintly chilling sight.

A young man holding a fú tóu cloth stared, dumbfounded, at the gleaming "hard-boiled egg" before him.

The old man sat in his chair, watching through the Bronze Mirror as every trace of Xiao Ran's astonishment, speechlessness, and barely contained fury registered in his eyes.

The smile on his plump face grew brighter and brighter. The corners of his mouth nearly reached his ears, radiating the malicious delight of a child whose prank had succeeded.

"What's wrong?" His hoarse, grating voice broke the silence, like sandpaper scraping viciously against rotten wood. He made a show of sounding puzzled. "Young