A Taste Like No Other

"Dinner's ready!"

If the atmosphere at the various branch venues across the base had been like a pot of oil already heated to a boil,

then the announcement from Li Jue that dinner was ready had been like a piece of meat dropped into the pot:

the instant it hit the oil, the whole pot had erupted in a sizzling frenzy.

And then—

the aroma of meat had filled the air.

"That smells amazing."

At the site of the Ninth Branch Factory, which was also the fourth branch venue for tonight's New Year's Eve dinner,

a young man with a crew cut sniffed greedily.

"Rich and savory, with that muttony smell. This has to be a pot of lamb dumplings!"

"Oh, come on!"

Watching him put on such an expert act, the tall, skinny man sitting beside him rolled his eyes.

"Wang Chong, we're at Table 137. The cooking area's over a hundred meters away. What the hell can you smell from here?"

"And 'rich and savory, with that muttony smell'? I don't know what you're smelling, but that muttony smell is probably your own stinky feet."

The young man named Wang Chong didn't get mad. He just chuckled.

"Hey, Old Zhou, it's New Year's. Don't make a big deal out of it."

"This is our first communal New Year's Eve dinner since we got to the base, and they're even serving meat dumplings. Who the hell could stay calm?"

"Remember this time last year? The two of us got one fish to share. We found a pile of rocks, started a fire, and made do with that bottle of Fenjiu you treated like it was a treasure. It was somewhere around here, wasn't it?"

Hearing Wang Chong say that,

the tall, skinny man known as Old Zhou fell silent.