Chapter 114: Chapter 114: Arrogant and Domineering
Little did they know that in his previous life, Ye Xuan had seen countless imperial capitals of empires and dynasties, to say nothing of the royal capital of a mere kingdom. How could the likes of this tiny Liuyun Kingdom ever compare?
"We’ve been on the road for so many days, everyone must be tired. Let’s find a place to sit down and get something to eat."
"Alright, alright!"
At the mention of food, the fat on Chen Xing’s face quivered like waves, and he immediately started to drool.
After days of non-stop travel, subsisting on nothing but dry rations, he was so backed up he could barely take a shit. The thought of eating at a restaurant had him instantly hyped, as if he’d been shot full of adrenaline.
Hua Luoxuan looked around and found a restaurant just a few steps away. They tied up their horses and went inside.
As they entered the restaurant, the counter was to their left. In the center of the first floor was a large rockery with a water feature, filled with various plants. A ring of scattered tables surrounded the rockery.
The first floor was already packed. The second floor was a mezzanine, open to the floor below, offering a pleasant view of the rockery and its water feature from the railing.
An attendant immediately appeared to lead Ye Xuan and the others to the second floor.
The four of them ascended the teak staircase to the second floor. The atmosphere here was much better than downstairs. Curiously, despite the many diners, there was no noisy chatter; instead, the room was remarkably serene.
"The restaurants in the Royal City really are something else." Chen Xing’s drool intensified as he took in the fragrant aroma of the food.
Even Feng Rouyi’s eyes sparkled. She had never seen such a quiet and elegant restaurant in Blue Moon City.
"What can I get for you all?" the attendant asked with a smile, leading them to a table by the window and handing them a menu.
"Order whatever you’d like. It’s my treat," Hua Luoxuan said with a faint smile, passing the menu to Ye Xuan and the others.
"Lord Xuan, let me! I’m an expert at ordering. How could I trouble you with such a trivial task?" Chen Xing snatched the menu, his eyes gleaming as he rapidly flipped through the pages.
"This one, this one, and this one... hmm, this one looks good too, and we’ll add this one..."
Chen Xing’s hands were a blur. In the blink of an eye, he had ordered seven or eight dishes, leaving Feng Rouyi and the others completely dumbfounded.
’This chubby guy can really pack it away, can’t he?’
Ye Xuan couldn’t help but crack a smile.
After ordering a grand total of fifteen or sixteen dishes, Chen Xing reluctantly placed the menu on the table and said magnanimously, "If you want anything else, feel free to add a couple more."
"That’s enough! That’s enough!" The looks on their faces were full of utter contempt.
"That will be all for now," Hua Luoxuan said with a smile. "But please also bring two jugs of your best wine and a pot of fine tea."
"Right away, sirs. They’ll be out shortly."
The attendant gave a quick "yes" and walked away with a smile.
While they waited, Ye Xuan observed that the restaurant was indeed booming. Guests streamed in one after another, and as the dinner rush hit, it wasn’t long before there wasn’t a single empty table left on the second floor.
Even then, more customers kept arriving. Some came upstairs only to find no seats, at which point they had no choice but to shake their heads and leave.
Seeing this, the attendant downstairs began proactively informing new arrivals at the door that there were no seats left upstairs.
A short while later, servers began bringing out plate after plate of steaming hot food. The dishes were a feast for the senses—perfectly colored, fragrant, and appetizing.
Once the food arrived, Chen Xing, naturally, didn’t stand on ceremony. He dug right in, his eyes narrowing into happy slits with every bite, his face a picture of pure bliss.
"Folks, there really are no more seats upstairs. Could I ask you to please wait downstairs for a bit?"
Just then, the attendant’s voice suddenly came from the stairwell. Everyone turned to look and saw several figures slowly ascending. The one in the lead was a young woman in an elegant, deep-purple dress. She was quite beautiful, but her face was a mask of extreme arrogance, her nose held high in the air as she leisurely made her way up under the crowd’s watchful eyes.
Behind the young woman were two young men dressed in martial robes. The robes were made of a lustrous, sapphire-blue silk, giving them an air of nobility. One glance was enough to tell they came from either a rich or powerful family.
Both wore riding boots and had longswords hanging from their waists, giving them a rather dashing appearance. Their gazes, however, were as piercing as an eagle’s.
The group reached the second floor and their eyes swept across the room.
"As you can see, there really are no seats left," the attendant said in a low voice.
"Is that so?" the young woman said coldly, suddenly pointing to a prime table by the railing. "What about that spot over there?"
"There?" The attendant turned to look. At the table the young woman was pointing to, two customers were already seated. Their food hadn’t arrived, but there were certainly no empty seats.
"But there aren’t any," the attendant said, completely bewildered.
Just then, the two young men behind the girl strode up to the table. One of them lightly tapped the tabletop with the hilt of his sword and said indifferently, "You two. Didn’t you hear her? Now get out."
The two customers were baffled, and their expressions stiffened. "Young man, have you never heard of ’first come, first served’?"
"First come, first served?" One of the young men’s gazes hardened, a disdainful smirk playing on his lips. "So you’re refusing to move?"
A chill ran through the two customers. Seeing the arrogant, cold glint in the young man’s eyes, they couldn’t help but feel a flicker of fear. But with so many people watching, how could they just give up their table? They forced themselves to speak. "We..."
Before he could finish, the two young men moved. The crowd heard two loud SMACKS. The two seated customers were sent flying from their chairs by the force of the slaps, and they crashed to the floor in a heap, blood trickling from the corners of their mouths.
"See? Now there are seats," the young woman said with a cold smirk, walking straight to the table and taking a seat.
’So fast.’ The speed of the two young men’s movements was astonishing, causing many of the Martial Artists present to narrow their eyes.
’Those two look no older than sixteen or seventeen, but their strength is at least at the Third Layer of Samurai. I wonder which family produced such geniuses.’
"How can you just steal another customer’s table?!" The attendant’s face turned ugly as he rebuked them in a low voice.
’How can I just stand by and ignore this? If word of this gets out, how will this restaurant stay in business?’
"Steal?" one of the young men said with a thin smile. He walked over to the two battered customers and asked in a low, menacing tone, "Why don’t you tell him? Did we ’steal’ this table, or did you two offer it up willingly? Hmm?"
A cold, dangerous light flashed in the young man’s eyes.
"We... we gave it up willingly," the two customers mumbled, their faces beet red. They scrambled to their feet and hurried downstairs without a backward glance, not daring to look at the group again.
"Hahaha! Waiter, you heard them! They gave it up willingly. We didn’t steal anything. Now hurry up and get us a menu. You’re delaying our meal. Can a lowly errand boy like you afford that responsibility?" the young man sneered as he sat down.
The entire second floor fell silent, the atmosphere thick with tension.
Helpless, the waiter had no choice but to step forward and serve them.
"Is this really the Royal City? How can things be so lawless? It’s even worse than Blue Moon City," Feng Rouyi said in disbelief.
Ye Xuan gave a faint smile. "What does being the Royal City have to do with it? The law of the jungle—the strong devouring the weak—is simply taken to its extreme in the most prosperous places."
He had seen this sort of thing plenty of times back in the Profound Domain, supposedly the most supreme region of the Celestial Profound Continent.
Hua Luoxuan and the others simply shook their heads. Such incidents were hardly surprising.
The three youths were clearly disciples from some major clan. The great clans of the Royal City were on a completely different level from those in Blue Moon City; they could be affiliated with a prince or a high-ranking minister. The two customers from before were obviously commoners, so how could they possibly dare to oppose them?
Swallowing their pride and leaving in humiliation was about the only thing they could do.
Chen Xing, however, was completely oblivious. His attention was focused solely on the feast before him.
A server brought out a platter of large, meaty bones and a big bowl of soup. He hadn’t even started eating, but the rich aroma was already enough to make one’s mouth water.
"Haha, meaty bones and Lingzhi soup!" Chen Xing’s eyes lit up with the excitement of a man seeing a naked woman. He grabbed a large bone and began to gnaw on it like a savage.
"Mmm, so good, so good!"
Chen Xing’s mouth was soon covered in grease. He then picked up the bowl of soup and began to slurp it down noisily, completely unconcerned as it splashed onto his clothes.
He looked like a glutton reincarnate.
He might not have cared, but someone else certainly did.
The newly seated young woman’s eyes filled with disgust. She sneered, "What is wrong with this restaurant? How can you let just any sort of person in? Look at him, his table manners are so vulgar. It’s an insult to the eyes, utterly disgusting. I can’t imagine what kind of garbage dump he crawled out of."
The young woman’s voice was quite loud, immediately drawing the gazes of many other customers toward Ye Xuan’s table.
Ye Xuan sneered inwardly. ’This girl really thinks she’s something special.’
In truth, while Chen Xing’s actions were a little unrefined, he was still being relatively restrained. They could hardly be called vulgar.
Besides, her table was near the central railing, while Ye Xuan’s group was by a window on the far side of the room. Several tables separated them; they weren’t bothering each other in the slightest.
It was simply a case of this girl being unable to tolerate anything that remotely displeased her.
"We’re vulgar? Some people think they’re so high and mighty, but their actions are disgusting. No different from a common village shrew."
A voice suddenly rang out, making Ye Xuan pause in surprise. The speaker was none other than Leng Yingying. She clearly couldn’t stand the girl’s tyrannical behavior, and being called "trash" had finally set her off.
"Who are you calling a village shrew?!" The girl’s voice turned sharp and shrill. Her almond-shaped eyes locked onto Leng Yingying, radiating a cold, disdainful light. "I can tell you’re not from the Royal City by your accent. No wonder. So you’re just a pack of country bumpkins. How utterly shameless. You must be reincarnated hungry ghosts who starved in your past lives. If you want to make a spectacle of yourselves, don’t come to *my* Royal City to do it. You’re tainting the very air here."
Leng Yingying sneered back, "I’m no match for someone who steals tables and acts like an arrogant, domineering tyrant. That’s the behavior of a thug—worse than an animal."
