Chapter 344 - 191: Have I Been Too Easy on You?

Chapter 344: Chapter 191: Have I Been Too Easy on You?

The hallway was dimly lit. The voice-activated light overhead sensed his footsteps, flickered on, and let out an electric BUZZ.

Just as Wan Ze reached the turn in the staircase, he ran right into someone.

The man was burly, half a head taller than Wan Ze, with shoulders as broad as a door panel. He wore a military-green jacket.

He had a square face, thick eyebrows, and large eyes. His cheekbones were a bit high, and his skin was tanned dark from the sun.

"Junior Brother Wan, what a coincidence!" Tan Xiao’s voice boomed the moment he spoke.

He looked Wan Ze up and down, but just as he was about to speak again, he froze.

"Your... why are your eyes so red?" Tan Xiao scratched his head, so hard it was as if he were trying to claw the answer out of his brain.

"Didn’t sleep last night," Wan Ze replied casually.

"Didn’t sleep?" Tan Xiao’s brow furrowed even tighter, his face a mask of confusion. "How could you not sleep? How can a person go a whole night without sleeping?"

In his world, eating and sleeping were as natural and necessary as the sun rising in the east—they required no explanation. The idea of someone not sleeping was as bizarre to him as someone not breathing.

Wan Ze glanced at him, momentarily unsure how to explain.

Tan Xiao tilted his head in thought, then slapped his thigh as realization dawned. "Oh! Do you have insomnia? My mom has insomnia too. She drinks that... uh... sour jujube seed soup. Yeah, sour jujube seed soup! It works!"

Wan Ze’s mouth twitched slightly. "It’s not insomnia. I was cultivating."

"Cultivating?" Tan Xiao blinked, his expression shifting from confusion to even deeper confusion. "What kind of cultivation takes all night? How are you supposed to build muscle without sleep? Master said muscles grow when you rest, not when you train!"

Wan Ze looked at him. ’Brother Xiao actually has a point,’ he thought.

But he didn’t pursue the topic, instead patting Tan Xiao on the shoulder. "I’m going to grab breakfast. Talk to you later."

Tan Xiao stood at the top of the stairs, watching Wan Ze descend. Suddenly, it hit him. "Wait, what did he just say? He was cultivating all night?! Holy crap!"

...

Outside the martial arts school’s main gate, the early morning air rushed to meet him.

It was just after six o’clock in the Holy City, and the streets were still mostly empty.

The light from the breakfast stall was the brightest on the street, an orange-yellow glow spilling from its window. A few plastic tables and chairs were set up out front, the chairs still stacked on the tabletops, not yet arranged for customers.

The air was filled with the aroma of fried dough sticks and steamed buns, mixed with the scent of a burning coal stove. ’It smells... strangely good.’

Wan Ze stood by the side of the road and pulled his communicator from his pocket.

The screen lit up, displaying the time: 6:23 a.m. He scrolled through his contacts and dialed his home number.

BEEP... BEEP... BEEP...

After three rings, someone picked up.

"Hello?" His mother’s voice came through the line, sounding like she had just woken up.

"Mom, I’m passing by the breakfast stall, so I’ll bring something back for you guys. What fillings do you want?"

"Your dad wants meat, and I’ll have the chive and egg... Your sister... your sister isn’t awake yet, just get her whatever."

"Got it."

Wan Ze mentally noted the order as his mother asked another question. "See if they have any fried dough sticks."

"Fried dough sticks?" Wan Ze glanced up at the stall. Behind the glass counter, rows of them were neatly stacked, still dripping oil. "They do. How many?"

"Get ten. Your dad and your sister both love them."

"Okay."

After hanging up, Wan Ze put the communicator back in his pocket and walked over to get in line at the stall.

Three or four people were ahead of him, all local residents dressed in pajamas and slippers. They yawned, holding lunch boxes or plastic bags.

An old man in front of Wan Ze glanced back at him. His gaze lingered on his bloodshot eyes for a second before he turned away without a word.

In the Holy City, people with bloodshot eyes weren’t a rare sight.

There were many martial arts schools and many martial artists. It wasn’t uncommon for them to pull all-nighters cultivating, so the local neighbors were used to it.

As Wan Ze was waiting, someone suddenly approached and stood beside him.

The person had made almost no sound while walking over, their steps as light as a cat’s on a carpet.

Wan Ze caught the figure in his peripheral vision, and his body instinctively tensed. It was a conditioned reflex from long-term training—when someone entered his alert radius, his muscles would automatically prepare for a fight.

But the person didn’t get too close, stopping about five feet away from Wan Ze. It was a socially acceptable distance—not offensive, but certainly not intimate.

"Boss, one bowl of hui mian, please." The man’s voice was gentle and his tone even, as if he were speaking to an old friend.

Wan Ze turned his head slightly to look.

It was a man, likely in his thirties, of average build. He wore a dark gray jacket zipped up to his chest, revealing a black crew-neck shirt underneath. His features were plain—the kind you wouldn’t notice in a crowd. The only thing remotely special about him was his eyes. They were long and narrow, with a slight upturn at the corners, giving him a look that was perpetually half-smiling.

Wan Ze didn’t say anything and looked away.

The man smiled at him. It was a faint smile, just a slight twitch of his lips, so small it was as if he didn’t want to be noticed.

The hui mian was served first.

It was a large, steaming bowl. The noodles were hand-pulled, wide and thin, curling in the broth. The soup base was a milky-white bone broth, garnished with a few sprigs of cilantro and chopped scallions.

The man carried his bowl to a plastic chair on the side. The chair legs scraped against the concrete, making a harsh, grating sound.

He sat down and blew on the steam rising from his bowl.

"Many years ago, when I first came to the Holy City, your family’s noodles were the best," the man said to the owner.

The owner was frying dough sticks, turning them in the hot oil with long chopsticks. He looked up when he heard this and said with a chuckle, "We’ve been open for many years. We’re an old, established brand."