Chapter 288: Chapter 63 Discouragement of Ice_3
"Honored guests, we’ve come to serve your meal; please open the door," a respectful voice spoke from outside.
Yan Li opened the room’s door to see three servers outside, each holding a large tray covered with a lid. They first bowed respectfully to Yan Shi, with the leading server saying, "This is your dinner."
Yan Shi merely nodded, allowing them in and instructing them to place the food on the table.
The head server said, "Please dine, honored guests. Manager Jin has instructed that an hour from now, you all are to proceed directly to the fourth floor, where you will be received."
Yan Shi acknowledged this with a nod, saying, "Understood, you may leave now." After the servers left, Yan Shi removed the lids from the trays to reveal three portions of exquisitely prepared food. The inviting aroma tantalizingly wafted into his nose, prompting him to reach for a bite. However, a sudden thought stopped him.
Perhaps the aromatic allure of the food was too strong as both Ah Dai and Yan Li awoke from their practice. Ah Dai looked at the food in front of him, involuntarily swallowed, and asked, "There are so many delicious dishes! Big brother, why haven’t you eaten yet? Are you waiting for us?"
Yan Shi shook his head and held back the drooling Yan Li, saying, "Let’s wait to eat. We should be cautious here. If the food is poisoned, we’ll be at their mercy. It’s better to be hungry for one meal. However, this might arouse their suspicions."
Yan Li frowned and retorted, "Big brother, this food looks so delicious and there isn’t any strange smell. There shouldn’t be any poison, right? Look, there’s wine. If there’s poison, it’ll be in the wine; we just won’t drink the wine. We still have to eat. The snacks we had in the afternoon have been consumed long ago."
Yan Shi shook his head, "Better safe than sorry, it’s better not to eat. It’s a pity that we don’t have a method to test for poison, otherwise we wouldn’t be frightened."
A thought struck Ah Dai. He recalled the silver spheres he had created to control the Water of Non-Duplicity within Owen’s body. Although Sheng Xie had consumed some, a few remained. Those should be the best tools for testing for poison. They contained a substance that could absorb all sorts of poisons, and the silver itself was the perfect material for detecting poisons. With this in mind, Ah Dai recited the Spell of Dragon’s Blood and took out a silver sphere.
Yan Shi was stunned. He was about to ask Ah Dai what the sphere was when Ah Dai demonstrated its purpose. With careful control of the strands of energy spun from the sphere, he probed each dish on the plate. After testing each dish, the sphere showed no reactions. He frowned uncertainly before glancing at Yan Shi and saying, "Big brother, there’s no poison in the food."
Yan Shi mulled it over and proposed, "That can’t be right! We won millions of Gold Coins today, so the old man you fought against should know how strong we are. If I were the boss here, I would definitely add some lethal poison to deal with us. Ah Dai, test the wine for poison again."
Ah Dai nodded and sank the silver sphere into the wine. Unexpectedly, the sphere remained unchanged. Yan Shi asked, "Little brother, are you sure this silver sphere can detect all kinds of poison?" Ah Dai responded without hesitation, "There should be no problem. Big brother, you should know about the colorless, odorless, deadliest poison in the world, the Water of Non-Duplicity. Even that can be detected by this sphere."
Yan Li laughed and interjected, "So we’ve been overly suspicious. Let’s eat quickly. Only with a full stomach can we handle everything later!"
Just as Yan Shi was about to start eating, he found Ah Dai frozen in place. Ah Dai had merely placed his silver sphere inside one of the trays, causing it to gently roll and bump against a spoon. Instantly, the entire sphere transformed into a completely black color.
With a swift movement, Yan Shi slapped away Yan Li’s hand that was reaching for the utensils, and with wide eyes, asked Ah Dai in astonishment, "What just happened?"
Ah Dai said seriously, "It seems you were right, big brother; the people here are indeed treacherous! There’s no poison in the food or drink, but it’s on the tableware." Speaking, he ripped a piece of cloth from the bed sheet, wiped the black off the sphere, and cautiously tested each piece of tableware. Finally, he discovered, to his shock, that all the utensils except the food plates and wine jugs were heavily poisoned. Especially the spoon and the wine glass. After smelling the toxic gas absorbed onto the silver sphere and recalling the records of Goris, he solemnly said, "This seems to be a slow-acting lethal poison, made from mixing various poisons. Although it won’t act immediately, it poses an ever-present threat. How insidiously cunning they are!"
Yan Li huffed in anger, "Damn it! Thanks to big brother’s wariness, otherwise we wouldn’t even know how we died. Forget about eating, let’s stick to being hungry."
Both Yan Shi and Ah Dai exchanged a glance, and both burst into laughter. Ah Dai said, "No problem. Just because we can’t use tableware doesn’t mean we can’t eat. The food itself isn’t poisoned! We can just use our hands, then wash afterwards, right?" Yan Shi nodded and confirmed, "Ah Dai is right. We must eat. Not doing so might arouse suspicion. Plus, it’d be a great pity to miss such a delicious meal!" With that, he picked up his portion and started eating. Yan Li’s eyes lit up, and after exchanging a glance with Ah Dai, they both attacked their meals.
In order to keep their minds sharp, they refrained from drinking the wine. When they were almost finished eating, they stirred the remaining rice with the poisoned utensils, making it less likely to arouse suspicion.
