Chapter 877 - 876: Craving Food

Mu Qiu had a great appetite. She drank the soup first, then ate the meat, and halfway through even went for two more servings of douhua.

This douhua wasn’t the usual kind they ate; it was a dessert. A small bowl held a pale yellow bean curd, with a spoonful of grainy red beans on top. It looked more like an egg custard or double-skin milk, but once you ate it, it was a rich, tender tofu pudding flavor.

It was delicious. She happily dug in with her spoon, one bite after another, quickly finishing two bowls. Just as she was about to get another, Cheng Zhirang pressed down on her hand.

"You’ve already had two. Eat your meal first, I’ll save one for you."

She agreed, finished the first plate, and moved the second plate in front of her.

The roast goose, with its crispy, glossy skin, paired with bayberry sauce, was an unexpectedly amazing combo. The glutinous rice and golden chestnuts inside the Eight-Treasure Duck mixed with the duck meat flavor, and the aroma was incredible.

There was also the tender "diving rabbit." When you bit into it, it didn’t feel like eating meat; it was so tender and bouncy, wonderfully so. The cucumber strips and bean sprouts inside were the best thing to go with rice. Eating them with egg fried rice, you could practically hear in your head that final splash of hot oil over Sichuan peppercorns, the sizzling sound.

Mu Qiu was eating so happily that she polished off three small bowls of egg fried rice in a row. The key was that the rice had diced king oyster mushrooms in it, so tasty she couldn’t bear to swallow it too fast.

Since she was eating with such relish, Guan Yu, sitting next to her, was also eating with relish, making Li Yang and Song Weili across from them swallow their drool.

Li Yang’s mouth was watering; he felt like he could down three bowls of rice and a plate of meat right now.

But their agents were sitting right behind the cameras, so none of them dared to choose dishes that were too oily, salty, or spicy. Their staple was just a bowl of porridge.

Li Yang couldn’t help speaking up: "Mu Qiu, Sister Guan Yu... is it really that good?"

Mu Qiu was still buried in her bean sprouts. She first gave a thumbs-up, then swallowed before saying:

"The Eight-Treasure Duck and roast goose are great, but if you want something to go with rice, it has to be this diving rabbit. The sides in it are really so, so good! And the bell peppers in the braised chicken, and the king oyster mushrooms in the egg fried rice—perfection!"

Cheng Zhirang stopped chatting with An Zhou, pulled out a tissue to wipe the corners of her mouth, and placed his untouched lemon water beside her.

"Your lips are red from the spice. Drink some water."

"It’s really so good," she emphasized again after taking a sip. "Diving rabbit with egg fried rice, cold dishes with mung bean porridge, and the rest you just eat on their own. You people dipping shrimp paste into sauce will never understand this kind of happiness."

Guan Yu had just finished her last bite of rice. She lifted her head, looking satisfied: "Good, it’s just good, the kind of good you can’t put into words."

After that description from the two of them, the steamed purple sweet potatoes and plain porridge with pickles tasted like nothing. Shu Ran ate and ate, then started losing her appetite, glaring resentfully at all the meat and various staple dishes on their plates.

Xu Jihua and Zhu Qi were also tempted by their descriptions. They weren’t afraid of eating too much in one meal, so they went together to choose the same dishes and came back to eat them, finding them just as tasty.

Li Yang couldn’t take it anymore and spoke into the camera: "My agent is right over there, but I really can’t hold back. If I go out later to get dishes and don’t come back, it means my agent confiscated my food."

The agent: "..."

A few minutes later, except for Shi Yuhuai, who couldn’t eat meat, and Shu Ran, who was trying her best to keep her legs in check, everyone else was eating the same spread.

Home-style dishes with rice are the ultimate combo. So what if it’s oily and salty? It’s just this one meal!

Mu Qiu had already eaten three bowls of egg fried rice and was now leisurely eating mung bean porridge with cold dishes on the side, utterly content and showing no sign of being full.

Cheng Zhirang was surprised by her appetite, but still stopped her from getting another bowl of rice.

Eating that much when you’re starving was already a lot; any more would be bingeing, which wasn’t good for her stomach.

"Drink some water and eat slowly. Don’t force it if you can’t eat anymore."

"Okay."

Mu Qiu used the public chopsticks to pick out the most tender, boneless piece of rabbit from the diving rabbit, rinsed it in the bottled water she’d found, and placed it in Cheng Zhirang’s bowl.

The piece of meat was white and tender. She’d even rinsed it, so there wasn’t much of the heavy oil and salt flavor left, but you could still taste the tenderness.

Her eyes were bright as she looked at him. "How is it? Like this, you should be able to eat a bit more, right?"

Cheng Zhirang didn’t really care much about eating this dish, but when he thought about how she was willing to share the tastiest bite with him, even going out of her way to rinse it, and then looking at him like that...

"It’s good. I can eat a bit more."

So she happily picked a lot more for him. In return, he scooped all the diced king oyster mushrooms out of his egg fried rice and gave them to her.

Watching them, An Zhou felt his teeth ache from the sweetness.

"You two are really something."

"You and your wife aren’t close?" Cheng Zhirang asked with a smile.

An Zhou raised an eyebrow. "That’s Different. Or are you saying you want things to develop into the same?"

Cheng Zhirang just smiled and said nothing.

He probably did have ideas, but An Zhou didn’t pry and instead switched to talking about filming.

"I heard you’ve locked in a project this year? When does it start shooting?"

"In a couple of days."

"Won’t that clash with the recording of your last episode?"

"It’s fine, the schedule can be adjusted. It’s just one day anyway. They can shoot other people’s scenes that day."

"Tough work. I’ve taken on a project too, gonna be squatting in some deep mountain forest. Why don’t you go on more variety shows? I feel like the pay for this is higher than for filming."

Cheng Zhirang shook his head. "That’s not the path I want. It’s easy to get typecast."

An Zhou said, "Then after your next episode, you guys will have to go your separate ways. It’ll probably be hard to run into each other later; everyone’s paths are Different. I think you guys get along pretty well."

"A variety show is like a Different kind of crew. After spending a long time together, it’s pretty nice. But even after we split, we can still meet up occasionally. It doesn’t interfere."

While they were chatting, the others were talking too.

Guan Yu, full and content, leaned back in her chair and asked Li Yang, "Isn’t your concert coming up? Feels like you’ve mentioned it several times already."

Li Yang said, "Soon. I’ll give you guys tickets then, invite you to come watch."

Song Weili said, "Yeah, everyone can come then."

Guan Yu said, "No problem, no problem, we’ll definitely come and cheer you on. Brother Huai, you’ve still got a show to walk, right? Can you get us tickets?"

Shi Yuhuai was so tired of drinking porridge he felt like he was about to ascend. He replied, "You wish. That’s by invitation from the organizers."

"Then we’ll have to trouble the organizers to take notice of us," she said to the camera. "We really want to watch Brother Huai on the runway. If it doesn’t work, just invite one or two people and I’ll go take pictures and bring them back."

Shu Ran said, "Invite one or two people? Then it definitely won’t be you. You wearing that old-man undershirt this episode, if the organizers see it, the first thing they’ll do is cross you off the fashion list."

"I may not be fashionable, but I can appreciate fashion," she argued, then sighed and added, "Feels like all of you have stuff to do, and I’m the only one idle. Why don’t you give me that Maldives trip for three? Looking at your schedules, you don’t have time to go anyway."

So all this build-up was just to bring out the main topic?

Mu Qiu rolled her eyes. "You went to all that trouble for this? Instead of overthinking, why don’t you think about what the last episode is going to be like."