Chapter 50: Sun Erniang, the Goddess of the Kitchen

Moreover, above the small square, there was another statistic—a line denoting upgrade points. It read: “Mink Cicada, Male Fish, Level Three, Thirty Combat Points.”

“Hobby: Riding Fish!”

“I say, System, why don’t you revoke this skill you’ve given me? It’s making me uncomfortable.”

“This ability was granted freely after system binding and cannot be removed. Even I, the System, am incapable of undoing it.”

The System’s words made Lin Qiu close his eyes in pain.

Under the escort of Splitwater Pike, he was brought into the city lord’s mansion.

“Old Crab, take him to the kitchen and hand him over to Sun Erniang for preparation. I’ll go report to the city lord about today’s lunch.”

“Okay, Electric Brother!”

Old Crab was a young man with slightly bulging eyes. When he walked, he moved sideways, casting a sidelong glance at others.

Lin Qiu naturally understood what kind of creature he was—a domineering crab. And the so-called Electric Brother was none other than the famous electric eel of the ocean.

These creatures used to be his favorite food. But ever since the ocean mutated, their bloodlines had become quite impressive—certainly superior to his own.

Lin Qiu felt like cursing his ancestors. His ancestor had been a Bucky Beast, a land creature fond of hunting marine life. Over generations, through reckless adaptation, they had devolved into a marine species themselves. As an invasive species, they weren’t considered native, so talk of noble bloodlines was out of the question. In the ocean, they held no status at all.

If the Ice Age hadn’t arrived, allowing this branch to survive by sheer luck, there wouldn’t even be modern orca overlords. That’s how it came to be: with no true dragons in the sea, the orca became king.

Now, with the ongoing mutation of the oceans, those ancient noble bloodlines were awakening, and even more terrifying monsters were brewing in the deeper waters.

The more Lin Qiu thought about it, the more disheartened he felt.

His ancestors were useless!

Now he was down on his luck!

He’d been sold when he was with humans, and now that he was back, he was about to be served as a meal!

He sighed softly, only to hear a gentle, feminine voice behind him: “What are you sighing about, young man? Is there something troubling you?”

Lin Qiu’s body shuddered, and he became instantly alert.

He was already locked inside the kitchen. Outside, shrimp and crab soldiers stood guard, making escape impossible. Now, a woman’s voice had sounded silently behind him, indicating her skills surpassed his own.

He felt uneasy, a sense of foreboding growing within him.

Turning around, he saw a stunningly beautiful woman dressed in a white chef’s uniform, sporting a high hat atop her head.

At the sight of her, his heart quivered.

“She’s so beautiful! So incredibly beautiful! How can there be such a breathtaking woman in this world?!”

Lin Qiu’s eyes nearly bulged out, and drool unconsciously trickled from the corner of his mouth.

The woman laughed, her laughter blooming like a hundred flowers.

In his mind’s eye, Lin Qiu saw an endless sea of blossoms, countless flowers bursting into bloom.

“She’s so beautiful! So beautiful! She’s far more breathtaking than Xiaoze and the others!”

“If I could just spend a night with her, even dying in a vat of oil would be worth it!”

His heart was in complete turmoil.

What had he been in his past life?

A loser.

A miser.

But his greatest hobby had been hiding in his rented room, turning on the computer, and watching Xiaoze, Saito, Hojo, and others perform their passionate scenes for him up close.

In the end, he’d eat instant noodles and dab at his tears with tissues—moved by the spectacle.

How could a man like that, when faced with such a peerless beauty, not have a single impure thought?

He was no Liu Xiahui, at best he was Pan An!

“Tell me, what kind of fish are you? So I know how to cut you.”

The woman’s teasing smile faded as she took a sharp knife from the rack.

The moment the blade spun in her hand, its polished surface reflected the light, shining directly onto Lin Qiu’s face.

A palm-sized patch of white light enveloped his eyes, nose, and half his mouth, the interplay of light and shadow casting his jaw in darkness.

“Lin Qiu, Orca clan,” he blurted out his name and species, his heart skipping a beat.

He then stepped forward, slipped an arm around the woman’s waist, and softly exhaled by her ear.

“You must be Sun Erniang. Truly, you are a rare beauty.”

“To become a dish at the hands of someone as lovely as you—well, that’s a death worth dying.”

Sun Erniang was taken aback. Feeling the impertinent hand on her waist, her cheeks gradually flushed.

In the deep sea, fish lived in a paradise of their own. Here, they only knew how to vie for power, curry favor, scramble for survival—never had any of them tried to sweet-talk a female for her affection.

After the ocean’s mutation, the ancient memories left by their ancestors held nothing of male fish wooing female fish with ambiguous words. All those memories were rough and brutal—either fighting or shouting, never a trace of tenderness.

Their world of fish, for all its technological advancement, had never evolved the gentleness of humankind.

But just because they hadn’t evolved gentleness didn’t mean they couldn’t feel it.

Lin Qiu’s gentle words slipped straight into Sun Erniang’s heart, making it tremble.

This strange sensation was entirely new to her.

Lin Qiu’s hand tightened, drawing her into his embrace. With his other hand, he lifted the one holding the knife and pressed the blade against his own throat, a tender smile on his lips.

“Slice here, and the blood will flow, dotting your white uniform with crimson plum blossoms.”

“No!” Sun Erniang cried out, the knife slipping helplessly from her grasp.

“Are you reluctant?” Lin Qiu murmured in her ear, holding her gently. “Aren’t you afraid the city lord will punish you?”

“I…”

“Ah…”

Before she could answer, a soft cry escaped her lips and her body went limp.

A peculiar feeling arose in Sun Erniang’s heart. Her limbs turned to jelly, and it felt as though thousands of ants were crawling over her skin. It was a sensation she had never experienced before.

Meanwhile, Lin Qiu was full of surprise: “To think the deep-sea whitefish clan could be so breathtakingly beautiful!”

“What a pity, what a waste!”

He lamented inwardly. Back when he was an orca, he’d eaten countless whitefish. If he’d known these girls were so lovely, how could he have ever borne to devour them? Wouldn’t it have been better to keep them as dancers?

As his hand slid over the scales on Sun Erniang’s forehead, her body collapsed completely in his embrace.