Simps Are Everywhere

Simps Are Everywhere

Huo Yuhao followed Xie Huanyue out of the academy. The moment they stepped outside, Huo Yuhao was taken aback. There were no longer any students registering, but the sides of the main road beyond the east gate were indeed packed with vendors. They sold everything imaginable, a dazzling array of goods. Most of them, however, were food stalls. Their cries of advertisement rang out without pause. Clearly, they had gathered here to do business with Shrek Academy's students.

Naturally, Xie Huanyue was not about to linger with Huo Yuhao at those snack stalls. The two headed west after leaving the academy and arrived at Shrek City's food street.

The brightly lit street was crowded with people coming and going, giving Huo Yuhao the feeling that he had returned to his previous life.

"Yuhao, let's eat here!" Xie Huanyue excitedly shouted, pointing at an all-you-can-eat barbecue restaurant.

"All-you-can-eat?" Huo Yuhao smiled to himself. He had to admit that the merchants in this other world had some brains—they had even come up with buffets.

Xie Huanyue had clearly been here before. The restaurant was bustling, with both floors already full. He familiarly went straight to the counter, carried over a folding table and two stools, and set them up outside the entrance.

"This place has pretty fresh ingredients, and their seasonings are excellent too." After directly scanning the ingredients brought out from the kitchen with Spiritual Detection, Huo Yuhao praised them sincerely.

"Hehe, tonight, we won't go home until we're drunk!" Xie Huanyue somehow brought over two jars of fruit wine and set them on the table. As the descendant of a military man himself, drinking was as commonplace to him as eating.

"Isn't it a little inappropriate for minors to drink?" Due to his physical condition before his death, Huo Yuhao had always been somewhat averse to alcohol. In particular, the vulgar rituals and pretenses of drinking parties had made him deeply dislike drinking culture.

However, the original owner's body in this life was practically a wine barrel. Later in the original plot, Huo Hang's legs and one arm were frozen by World Origin Energy, and he used drinking to help his body absorb origin energy. During that time, he practically lived in a wine cellar.

"If you don't say anything and I don't say anything, who'll know?" Xie Huanyue chuckled and immediately tore off the seal on the wine jar. A rich, mellow fragrance rushed toward them.

As Huo Yuhao inhaled the peculiar scent of the fruit wine, his body actually became intoxicated on its own. Sure enough, the original Huo Hang had been a wine barrel!

"Fine, we won't go home until we're drunk tonight!" Huo Yuhao also slapped off the seal on his own jar, lifted it, and laughed boldly.

At that moment, the restaurant staff brought over a large grill, along with several huge plates of fresh meat. They clearly knew Xie Huanyue, their regular customer, very well.

Don't let Xie Huanyue's slimmer figure fool you. His glorious feat of once eating a hundred people's worth of food by himself was still talked about in the restaurant.

"Fatty, do you like grilled fish?" Staring at plate after plate of fatty meat, Huo Yuhao felt his stomach churn. He was no big eater, and besides, could an ordinary person really handle eating so much greasy food? That was why he recalled the grilled fish skills etched into the original owner's bones and could not help asking.

"Grilled fish? I like that too, but this place is all-you-can-eat and grill-it-yourself. I can't get the hang of making it." Xie Huanyue skillfully placed slices of fatty meat onto the grill as he replied casually.

"If you like it, then it's easy. That's my specialty." Huo Yuhao had often made the original owner's best grilled fish back when he was at the Ducal Palace, and its taste was beyond question. He immediately called for the waiter to bring them fresh black carp.

The restaurant was thoroughly prepared. It had metal grilling stoves specially made by craftsmen, iron racks, all kinds of seasonings, and cleaned black carp that had already been slaughtered.

Huo Yuhao first checked the seasonings before beginning to prepare the fish. There really were quite a few spices, and the kitchen had put in some effort—they had even found some perilla. Huo Yuhao shredded the perilla, mixed it with several other seasonings, stuffed the mixture into the carp's belly, skewered it with bamboo sticks, and placed it on the specialized rack to roast.

"I never would've guessed a noble family disciple like you had skills like this." Xie Huanyue's eyes nearly popped out. Huo Yuhao's every movement flowed as smoothly as water; even an expert would have found nothing to criticize.

What a joke. Back then, Huo Hang had relied on this grilled fish skill to successfully conquer the taste buds of Tang Buddha's little princess.

A faint sheen of oil ran over the golden-brown grilled carp, while a rich aroma continuously burst from its belly. When teeth met the grilled fish, there was even a faint crackling sound. The skin had been roasted completely crisp without the slightest bit of burning. Beneath that crunchy skin lay tender, juicy fish meat thoroughly infused with flavor.

Xie Huanyue's appetite was thoroughly aroused. He no longer cared about the meat on his grill and simply stared at the fish Huo Yuhao was turning over, drooling nonstop.

Xie Huanyue finally received the first skewer of grilled carp. He blew on the rising steam, then, to Huo Yuhao's ghost-stricken disbelief, opened the huge mouth that could expand at will after his Martial Soul awakened and stuffed the entire fish inside, leaving only a thin bamboo skewer behind.

After chewing a few times, Xie Huanyue's eyes lit up instantly. He chewed fiercely a few more times, swallowed it in one gulp, then spat out a complete fish skeleton, making Huo Yuhao's eyelids twitch wildly.

Good grief, at that eating speed, I can't possibly make grilled fish fast enough to keep up with you.

"That's delicious! Another one!" Xie Huanyue shouted excitedly, drawing the attention of diners all around them. The scent of Huo Yuhao's grilled fish drifted on the evening breeze, attracting the notice of many passersby as well.

One grilled fish after another came off the rack. Huo Yuhao grilled them with great care and did not lower the quality just because Xie Huanyue ate so quickly. Every time he received a fish, Xie Huanyue ate it with utter satisfaction. Meanwhile, the barbecue he had once loved most had been left on the grill for so long that it had turned into charcoal.

After eating more than a dozen grilled fish in a row, Xie Huanyue finally realized that Huo Yuhao had barely eaten any. He raised his wine jar and drank as punishment to show his apology.

Huo Yuhao laughed helplessly. This fatty was truly straightforward, so he raised his own jar and took a swig in response.

Just as the two were heartily feasting on grilled fish and barbecue, several female students in purple uniforms walked over from the direction of Shrek Academy. The moment the female student at the front appeared, she drew countless gazes.

She looked only fourteen or fifteen, with a tall, well-proportioned figure. Her long golden hair fell in large waves down her back, her skin was whiter than snow, and her eyes resembled a clear pool of water. Every glance she cast carried an air of elegant refinement. Like a crescent moon veiled in mist, like snow piled upon flowering branches, she was soft and graceful yet breathtakingly beautiful. Her beauty seemed to dim everything around her.

"Sister Nan, it smells so good. What is that?" another female student beside the peerless beauty asked in surprise. Her looks were not bad either, but how could a firefly beside the bright moon have any radiance?

The peerless girl had clearly caught the scent as well, and the girls could not help turning their gazes toward Huo Yuhao's grill.

Perhaps the leading girl's beauty was simply too dazzling. The passersby who had been lingering before Huo Yuhao's grill actually moved aside on their own, opening a path. She and the other female students walked directly up to the grill. Yet rather than acting arrogant when people voluntarily gave way, the peerless girl smiled gently and nodded in thanks to the passersby. Anyone who saw her smile flushed red, their faces full of infatuation.

Seeing the peerless girl's face, Huo Yuhao was momentarily stunned. He instantly guessed her identity. The Worldline had converged again!

This female student in purple was not inferior to Ning Tian and the others in appearance. Yet she also possessed a gentle, warm temperament, and the trace of sorrow that never seemed to fade between her brows made one pity her at first sight.

Of course, perhaps because of her age, she was still somewhat inferior to an unparalleled beauty like Zhongli Yu.

"Junior, did you make this grilled fish?" The peerless girl glanced at Huo Yuhao's outer courtyard uniform and asked softly.

"My brother made it with the restaurant's ingredients. Senior, would you like to share a table with us? That way, you can try my brother's cooking." Xie Huanyue waved the grilled fish in his hand. He was clearly the type who was not interested in women. Rather than wagging his tail like some simp and offering up the fish with both hands, he explained the rules of the all-you-can-eat barbecue restaurant to her.

"How much is an all-you-can-eat seat per person?" The girl stared intently at the fish in Xie Huanyue's hand, its meat glistening with oil, and asked unconsciously.

The waiter at the side hurried forward and answered, "Hello, beautiful. Other than this student Xie, every all-you-can-eat seat in our restaurant costs fifty Gold Soul Coins."

You definitely could not eat without paying, especially at a buffet-style restaurant like this.

The peerless girl frowned slightly, but in the end, she shook her head. "That's too expensive. Forget it."

"Fatty, add a seat for her." At that moment, Huo Yuhao spoke. He did not have much of a favorable impression of Jiang Nannan, who possessed the same rabbit Martial Soul as Tang Buddha's sword sheath. In the original work, she was also the sort of self-righteous yet ordinary girl who kept simps hanging. Not only did she take someone's money, she did not even help him complete his Martial Soul awakening. She had no sense of honor whatsoever.

Still, her future husband, Xu Sanshi, who possessed the Black Tortoise Martial Soul, would not be brainwashed by Shrek's glory due to his family ties, setting aside his simp tendencies. If his character was decent, Huo Yuhao would not mind using Jiang Nannan to get in touch with Xu Sanshi and make a friend.

"Little brother, you're quite something." Just then, a deep and mellow yet somewhat frivolous voice suddenly sounded. Huo Yuhao's gaze shifted slightly as he saw a figure who had somehow appeared behind him.

The man wore a black school uniform and was actually a sixth-year student. He looked about the same age as Beibei, whom Huo Yuhao had met once before. He was tall and broad, with thick brows, tiger-like eyes, a straight nose, a square mouth, and handsome features. His fair skin was flushed slightly red because of someone's presence, while his somewhat chubby cheeks were filled with a smile.

"You're following me again!" Jiang Nannan snapped, her delicate brows rising sharply.

"How could that be, Nannan? The world is full of chance encounters. Since this perceptive little brother has spoken, why don't we share a table? This meal is on me!" Xu Sanshi shook the folding fan in his hand, leaned against Huo Yuhao's shoulder, and struck the pose of a spoiled young master.

"Xu Sanshi, you really do show up like a ghost." At the same time, a refined voice tinged with helplessness rang out. The group looked toward its source and saw two figures slowly approaching from the side of the street.

They were none other than the Tang Sect's two plagues, Tang Ya and Beibei.

Beibei and Tang Ya had merely happened to pass by. Seeing Jiang Nannan here, they did not need to think to know that the simp Xu Sanshi had to be lurking nearby.

Tang Ya had actually been drawn over by the aroma of grilled fish. However, when she slowly lifted her gaze and met Huo Yuhao's helpless face, she could not help blurting out, "You?"

Dear readers, don't ask me why I always call those two plagues. With Great God-King Tang's abilities, it would be effortless for him to use certain methods to notice the Tang Sect members still present on the continent. If the protagonist had too much contact with Tang Ya, the luck surrounding him would inevitably be noticed by Tang Buddha—and then it would all be over.