After reincarnation, attack as a female imp!

But in the final analysis, the location here is still too remote. Fifteen years ago, it was all wilderness. The restaurant faces a wild mountain full of beech trees. The leaves of the same tree are different colors, and they look like mixed hair, but they grow densely. At night, the wild mountain becomes shadowy, as if it is hiding ghosts.

Occasionally, there are the calls of unknown small animals and birds. The calls hidden in the wind seem to be crying out someone's name, like sobbing, or the wailing of lonely ghosts in a grave. It makes people feel creepy when they hear it.

After getting off the car, the group was led by a waiter to a small private room, and the waiter quickly left.

The private room had air circulation, and the surrounding walls were lined with thin bamboo grilles lined with honeycomb-like matte sound-absorbing material. Once the door was closed, no sound from outside could get in. There were two solid wood round tables inside, which looked a bit crowded. The electric turntables on the round tables had automatically and slowly rotated since the waiter turned on the lights.

The teachers and principals of the three schools sat at one table, and several students from Ningjiang Middle School and Nanshi High School sat at another. After everyone had taken their seats, Kong Yucheng picked up the leather menu with a gold foil edging and flipped through it. The waiter came over and placed two pots of brewed jasmine tea on the table.

"Just something casual. A creamy yam and longan, a lemon peony shrimp, a honey-sealed vinegar-roasted sea bass, and a truffle roast goose. What is this river fresh thing?"

Kong Yucheng was ordering dishes and couldn't help but ask when he saw the new dish.

"This is our new product. It's made with shredded fresh puffer fish skin, shredded marinated conch, and mixed with sashimi of black tiger shrimp and giant russula mushrooms."

"Last one, did you find a chef who can cook pufferfish? If you have pufferfish, do you have liver and shirako?"

"Yes, it's moongrass. We use cordyceps, snow clam, and saffron to stew the pufferfish roe, and then add olive oil to the slow-cooked pufferfish liver."

"Okay, okay, go ahead. Principal Wang, what else do you want? I only ordered some fish and shrimp. This stuff won't fill you up."

Kong Yucheng thought it sounded good, waved to the waiter to write it down, and handed the menu to the principal of Ningjiang Middle School. The principal looked at it for a while and ordered "Hand-shredded Black Chicken with Pepper and Spicy Sauce", "Dry-fried Ringworm" and "Golden and Silver Thread Water Shield Soup", and then gave the menu back to Qiao Chunmu.

Qiao Chunmu flipped through the menu. Even the most insignificant dish cost over a hundred yuan. After flipping through several pages, he realized even a simple dish of lettuce cost over forty yuan. The high prices made him gasp. But while muttering, "These prices are outrageous," he ordered four of the most expensive dishes. Seeing his behavior, Kong Yucheng rolled his eyes.

"You look like a dead mother. Waiter, bring two more bottles of Jinlingchun. Ask the students over there what they want to drink. Serve up any dishes they want."

Jinlingchun, a local liquor from Nanling City, isn't expensive, typically costing around 200-300 yuan a bottle, making it a reasonably affordable staple. It's a typical Jiangnan region-style light-fragrant liquor, with a grainy aroma and a slightly fruity flavor. Its taste is slightly sweet, with a sour and astringent aftertaste. It's easy to drink but not particularly appealing.

The waiter went to Qin Zhixin's table and asked what she wanted to order and drink. Qin Zhixin looked at Zhou Xinshu, and Zhou Xinshu looked at Lu Baiyin.

Lu Baiyin felt a little uneasy when being stared at, so he simply looked at the three people from Ningjiang Middle School. As a result, the three people looked at Qin Zhixin, so Lu Baiyin simply looked at Qin Zhixin as well.

"Schoolgirl, girls first, you order."

Qin Zhixin was speechless. She took the menu and flipped through it. The dishes were at least edible. Compared to the timidity of the other well-behaved children at the table, Qin Zhixin seemed much calmer. After all, she had seen many similar situations in her "previous life," especially at these remote, soundproof restaurants. If she drank too much, she would definitely have sex with a beautiful stranger. And in this life, her appearance was the only thing she could do.

"Then let's have one green and two white dishes. Drinks are optional. Senior, you have the college entrance exams coming up soon. You should try something else to replenish your body."

Qin Zhixin smiled gently, handed the menu to Lu Baiyin and said nothing, lowering her head to concentrate on playing with her phone.

"One Clear and Two White" means fish balls, tofu and chicken greens in a clear soup. The broth from ham and old chicken that has been swept with minced lean meat is as clear as water. Use it to simmer eel balls and tender tofu. Bring to a boil for five minutes, then turn off the heat. Add the chicken greens and simmer them in the residual heat of the soup.

Nanling's economy had already flourished in the early 1990s, and now boasts renowned high-end restaurants like Jiangnan Zaozhong, Nanling Meiyuan, and Longyin Shanfang, many of which have been around for quite some time. Michelin and Black Pearl ratings hadn't been implemented in mainland China until 2013, otherwise these restaurants would likely have received these ratings.

If Qin Zhixin were to choose, she'd prefer Chinese cuisine, preferring restaurants with experienced chefs and no fussy rules. Established restaurants might lose their flavor due to the loss of experienced chefs. And those newly opened "high-end" restaurants, especially those ridiculous Japanese ones, were nothing more than meat wrapped in rice wrapped in inexplicable rules and nonsensical names, according to Qin Zhixin. They were pure swindlers.

Obviously, Qin Zhixin, who has memories of being an "upper-class gentleman", is not very interested in the current popular eating habits of these "upper-class gentlemen".

In her impression, a high-end restaurant only represents an absolutely upscale environment. It is the high-end restaurants that need "upscale" guests, not that the guests become "upscale" after going to a high-end restaurant.

She'd read online about a restaurant with the most outrageous reviews. A dish was served on a white porcelain plate as big as a washbasin, with a single, woman-sized portion placed right in the middle, garnished with a meager amount of sauce. Yet, the price was hundreds of dollars, as if the purchasing power of the RMB as a universal currency had magically vanished. If diners raised questions, they were often mocked by the condescending waiters, who mocked them as unfashionable. This kind of blatant exploitation was aimed at the new middle class in China, who, having suddenly become wealthy, desperately needed emotional validation.

Lu Baiyin held the menu with a confused look on his face and didn't order anything. In the end, Li Jing ordered a dish of Dongpo pork with preserved vegetables.

The three students from Ningjiang Middle School across the street seemed to have mustered up the courage to order a few craft beers, and even asked the teachers at the table next to them if they wanted any. Kong Yucheng didn't care. He thought it was better to mix drinks than to drink them all, so he waved his hand and asked the waiter to bring over two kegs of pale ale.

Chapter 74: Using Objects to Compare People

The teachers at the table were talking about school matters, and the students at the table were a little reserved at first. But after the food was served and everyone started drinking, the atmosphere became much more lively.

Qin Zhixin scrambled through the food on her plate. She took only one bite of the honey-sealed vinegar sea bass before leaving. While the ingredients and cooking were quite fine, the taste wasn't particularly good. It was sour and fishy, ​​not salty at all. It had a sweet taste at first, but the fishy flavor quickly returned.

Qin Zhixin swished at the half-eaten fish on the plate. She thought it looked rather pathetic. How could such a good fish be cooked to such a terrible taste? But Li Jing seemed to enjoy the taste. He kept picking up the fish with his chopsticks, turning it over after finishing it and continuing to eat the Dongpo pork, his mouth full of grease.

Qin Zhixin was picking at her chopsticks, and the fat guy was smacking his lips.

Lu Baiyin, who was sitting next to her, wanted to talk to Qin Zhixin, but he couldn't open his mouth. He just secretly watched Qin Zhixin playing with the food on the plate. He looked cowardly and twisted with his hunched back.

One of the three students from Ningjiang Middle School across the table was quite good at handling things. After pouring some wine, he pulled the other two over and moved to the next table to toast the teacher and the principal. After the three of them finished their toast, they returned, ate, drank, and started chatting.

Qin Zhixin was also craving for wine, so she poured herself a glass of light ale.

The turbid, dark yellow liquor emitted white vapor. She took a sip and tasted the unique bitterness of the light ale mixed with the exotic fruit aroma of the original liquor. The liquor felt refreshing and cool when it went down her throat, but soon a faint blush appeared on her face.

Pale ale wasn't cheap water beer; it was thicker and easier to swallow than "glass sticks." Qin Zhixin downed half a cup in one gulp. It was sweet with a hint of sourness and bitterness, like some flavored yogurt at home. She soon felt a bit dizzy, but her thoughts seemed to race even faster. This tipsy feeling seemed to take her back to her "previous life," where "he" had a more refined private room, without these foolish so-called classmates, but with more refined and respectable dishes and a strange, beautifully made-up young woman who had been prepared long beforehand to spend the night with him.

Qin Zhixin burped lightly. She felt like her brain was doing push-ups in her skull. It was a strange state between dizziness and excitement. She drank the remaining half glass of beer and poured herself another one.

Zhou Xinshu pulled out his phone and checked the school bulletin board. Seeing Qin Zhixin drinking, he joined in. He felt that she looked lonely while drinking. He wanted to ask her, but he knew it was pointless. Everyone keeps things to themselves, and what comes out after drinking is often not what's truly hidden.

He saw a post on the BBS from a school user with the ID "Glutinous Rice Little Tangyuan" about a Korean girl group.

He had come across this glutinous rice dumpling on the school BBS many times. He was an avid K-pop fan. While other people on the BBS were either chatting about holidays, or who got caught in a premature relationship, or just chatting about "Qin Zhixin," this guy's posts were all about raving about Korean boy bands.

Zhou Xinshu didn't know who this person was, but he was certain they were a freshman, most likely in the key program. The first post they made on the Nanshi High School BBS was in mid-August, when the key program for freshmen would have been taking make-up classes. For some reason, he pushed his phone toward Qin Zhixin and showed her the post. Qin Zhixin glanced at it and frowned.

"What the hell are you looking at?"

"It's the school's BBS. Someone posted this."

Qin Zhixin had a look of disgust on her face, and the blush from the alcohol on her face was as bright as a plum blossom growing beside the snow.

"Don't tell me you like watching Koreans with rotten silicone crotches wiggling their hips. What kind of aesthetic is that?"

Lu Baiyin, who was sitting next to Qin Zhixin, seemed to be choked and kept coughing. Zhou Xinshu also looked at Qin Zhixin in shock.

"No, what kind of description is that? How could I possibly like a Korean girl group? I'm not a pervert. But what you said is too vulgar."

"What? Holy shit, this person is my classmate, Glutinous Rice Glutinous Rice Balls. She's in my class group."

Qin Zhixin dug her phone into her pants pocket but couldn't find it. She was a little clumsy from the alcohol, so she continued searching. She put the phone in the pocket of her sweatshirt. As she pulled it out, she lifted the sweatshirt up, the bottom corner stuck in it, revealing her slender, snow-white waist. Her skin was as smooth and white as fine jade in the sun, white without a trace of impurities and so lustrous it seemed to glow.

Zhou Xinshu and Lu Baiyin watched secretly, their faces flushed, but Li Jing was still eating.

Qin Zhixin pulled out her phone, unlocked it, and opened Penguin. The first account was from "Hunyuan Dachu," and the interface was still in "Chusheng's Home." Inside, "Laofang" was posting photos of himself using the Fiji Monument, startling Qin Zhixin soberly. She quickly logged out, but Zhou Xinshu still saw something.

Zhou Xinshu didn't know what the Fijian Monument was, but it was obvious that he was a man. More than 99% of men have Jiba, and the one in Qin Zhixin's group seemed to be Jiba.

So weird.

Zhou Xinshu opened his eyes wide, and suddenly he felt that his mind was filled with a lot of messy thoughts about "strong men" and "strong women". In his mind, Qin Zhixin should be a strong woman, but to put it bluntly, Qin Zhixin and he had only known each other for less than a day, and a strange sense of absurdity emerged in his heart.

Qin Zhixin changed her account and found the class group. She searched for "glutinous rice dumplings" in the "group members" section and found "Tan Peiyue." Qin Zhixin showed Zhou Xinshu her phone.

"Here, these are the glutinous rice dumplings from our class."

Zhou Xinshu had a strange look on his face. He thought Qin Zhixin's blushing expression, half-smile, was very subtle.

A pair of dark eyebrows drooped slightly, her round eyes narrowed, and her small, rosy lips curved slightly. She looked gorgeous, as if she had just finished a prank. But her eyes also gave people the feeling of sarcasm. This complex expression and demeanor made her look like a poisonous mandala, bright and full of malice.

"In your class, Tan Peiyue. Nice name. Is she a girl?"

"Hey, you like her? I'll set you up with her. Just tell her that the top student in the grade has a crush on her. Maybe she'll give you a chance to pursue her."

"Come on, your expression is too weird. If you want to laugh, just laugh. You look like you can't hold it back."

"Okay. She's quite famous in our class. I've always thought her online name shouldn't be "Glutinous Rice Dumplings," but "Pork Dumplings."

Lu Baiyin, who was sitting next to Qin Zhixin, heard that he was coughing again. Zhou Xinshu's facial features also frowned. He took a bite of puffer fish liver and swallowed it with beer.

"What the hell are you talking about? Giving people nicknames is bullying."

"No, I'm using objects to illustrate people, understand? You're not paying attention in class, are you? You still have your phone, and it's obvious that you're secretly playing with it during class."

Qin Zhixin smiled sweetly, and her slightly drunk face and seductive eyes made Zhou Xinshu so attracted that his soul almost flew away. However, what Qin Zhixin said was inexplicably irritating.

"What a ridiculous metaphor! You don't have a cell phone? You'd better stop talking now. When you're drunk, your words are just irritating."

"If you knew her, you'd know. If you were in our class, and I said pork dumplings, you'd definitely get what I meant and laugh. Besides, she's already crazy about Koreans. How can you treat her like a normal person? The moment she sees a silicon-based humanoid product, she starts screaming, 'Aa ...

Qin Zhixin mumbled with a blush on her pretty face. Li Jing looked up blankly. He was eating happily when he heard something about "dumplings". But when he saw that it was Qin Zhixin and Zhou Xinshu chatting, he buried his head and continued eating.

"Just because you like K-Pop doesn't mean you're that mean. There's a girl in my class who also likes K-Pop. The girl sitting in front of me told me about her CRUSH and all that. Anyway, she likes girl groups. Do you think it's crazy for a girl to like girl groups?"

Qin Zhixin felt sick when she mentioned this.

"Do you know what CRUSH means? It's a secret crush, which is directly transliterated as crotch wetness here. I'm so annoyed by this. Even the poorest rednecks on Reddit look down on Korean fans. Koreans use all these K-POP marketing and concepts to make it look sophisticated, but the core idea is to sell sex. Once you tear open the packaging, you see two things being sold: one is attractive to men, and the other is disgusting to men."

"Ah? Where's your contradictory theory of relativity?"

"You can't view people as singular. Actually, it's a bit counterintuitive: the core audience of Korean girl groups isn't men, but women. The image they portray in their performances goes something like this: 'I'm cool, handsome, beautiful, and sexy, but I don't give a damn about men. But because I'm cool, handsome, beautiful, and sexy, men have to like me.' I'd rather watch the high-definition, uncensored version of Neon Hot than watch you strike a pose."

"Hiss, that's true. The girl group outfits and dance moves she showed me were definitely on the edge, but my female classmate got really anxious when I mentioned it."

Zhou Xinshu fell into deep thought. After removing the parts worth complaining about from Qin Zhixin's words, he felt that what Qin Zhixin said was quite interesting.

“I call this a seller’s show.”

Qin Zhixin was drunk, with a ghostly smile on her face. Slightly tipsy, she exuded a pure yet alluring fragrance, delicate as a hibiscus and languid as a peony. Zhou Xinshu lowered his eyes, his heart clenched.

"They have to dress and dance to impress men, because otherwise they can't prove they're cool, handsome, beautiful, and sexy. But they also have to be man-hating in certain details, like saying, 'Men are no good, men are trash, we sisters are the only ones who are good.' Because their bread and butter are brainless little girls who look up to them as role models. All they're selling is the dream of being cool, handsome, and sexy."

"Who dreams like this? Your description makes me feel like, uh... I'm at a loss for words, but if you want me to describe it, then, uh... forget it."

"It's really hard to describe this kind of people, because if you describe them seriously, people will just think you're describing witches who deserved to be burned at the stake. An accurate description, to them, would be like pointing fingers at them and calling them cancer cells that have unintentionally formed in the process of social development. But if you abandon your own qualities and say they're just reserve soldiers eager to become Biaozi, it would seem quite accurate."

"Fuck? Junior, your statement is scary!"

Lu Baiyin really couldn't hold it in any longer. He choked and his face turned red. After he finally recovered, he heard Qin Zhixin's "Biaozi Theory".

When he first saw Qin Zhixin, he thought she was a gentle and considerate girl. But it hadn't even been a day yet, and she had revealed her sharp-tongued nature after drinking a little bit of wine.

But while he usually focused on his studies, in 2013 and the years leading up to it, Korean pop music was making a huge inroads in China. Even if he tried to be completely oblivious to the world outside, his classmates, especially some of the high-pitched, clique-forming girls, loved to talk about Korean boy/girl groups. Given his values, he'd probably be disgusted by that, but he had the inner qualities.

"What's so scary about that? Just look at the percentage of young women selling their bodies in South Korea. With a population of 50 million, there are over a million streetwalkers. Breaking it down by age, the percentage is even higher. Over 10% of women of childbearing age are streetwalkers. And South Korea also has the highest per capita investment in the sex industry globally. It's truly rotten."

"I think you're just firing a map cannon."

Lu Baiyin blushed and spoke after a long while.

"What's with all that map-based cannon? What's wrong with Qin Zhixin looking down on a colony that made its fortune by selling hooks?"

Zhou Xinshu was amused by what he saw and even joined in the conversation. Although he also felt that Qin Zhixin was using her tipsy nature to make a rhetorical statement, if the rhetoric was based on data and reasoning, it was no longer a rhetoric, it was the facts.

"The fact that there's a market for dream-making means there are plenty of people who want to do it. Korean girl groups, as a whole, are, well, a projection of a certain postmodern psychopathology. It's quite similar to their mental state: they need to charm men to prove their allure, and they need to show disdain for men to establish their status. While the internet is now calling them independent women to flatter this psychopath, the reality is that whether they're misogynistic or charming, they're still revolving around men, and are a far cry from the core idea that women hold up half the sky."

"I don't refute that. But isn't it too much to say that K-pop artists are commodities?"

"Boy and girl groups have become commodities. Look at their names. The last names are Lee, Kim, Park, Ahn, Choi, Yoo, and Kang. The first names are Min, Ho, Ji, Hyuk, Young, Sook, Na, Sang, and Woo. And then there are random permutations and combinations like Lee Kwon Woo, Choi Min Hyuk, Kang Sang Woo, Choi Ji Min, Kim Min Sook, and Lee Su Na."

"Why do I feel like you're saying similar names? Can you tell them apart? Why do I feel like you've seen them before and remembered them?"

Zhou Xinshu touched his nose.

"I'm really sick of hearing this. Can you tell the difference? That Tan Peiyue has been talking about this with another idiot during breaks. I've been listening from halfway across the classroom for weeks now."

"alright."

Honestly, naming dogs in China isn't as easy to spot as naming celebrities in Korea. In fact, they don't want you to be able to tell the difference. This is what a complete commodity is: the names are similar, the looks are similar, but the clothes and the persona are slightly different, which is considered product differentiation. Standardized, assembly-line-produced silicon-based dolls. Under capitalism, the persona of an artist is merely a tool of capital. Using these commodities to express one's emotions is pathetic.

"If I tell others what you said, I think my female classmate will beat me up."

Qin Zhixin looked drunk and silly, with her hazy eyes squinting as if covered with a layer of moisture. She looked at Zhou Xinshu with watery eyes, and Zhou Xinshu felt a little drunk by the look on his face.

He felt that he had fallen in love with her. This was not a simple liking, nor was it a possession based on physical desire.

"Even if they had the guts, they wouldn't be so foolish as to dream for themselves. Believe it or not, if you broke up with her, the most she would do is to slag you on the BBS, saying that someone with a human face and a beastly heart was harassing her."

Chapter 75: A Zun is precious

September 23, 2013 was a Sunday. As the joint school sports meeting was approaching, the school administration of Nanling No. 9 Middle School needed to coordinate related matters and gave the students a day off, which was extremely rare.

It's called a day, but in reality, it's only twenty hours. Students will be on campus at 5:30 PM on September 22nd, and must be back on campus by 2:00 PM on September 23rd, for a seamless transition to their first afternoon class. Excluding the time for commuting and getting ready, the remaining time is just enough for two good meals and a good night's sleep.

Tang Manwen returned home, washed up briefly, and fell asleep. She didn't wake up until around nine o'clock the next morning.

The autumn sun filtered through the slits in the curtains, shone on the stool at the foot of the bed, and made the gold-plated and silver-plated buttons of her windbreaker, which she had carelessly tossed there the previous night, sparkle brightly, almost blindingly. Tang Manwen stood up and stretched. The beauty had just woken, her hair disheveled, her face still slightly flushed, perhaps from the heat. She was truly as fragrant as a brocade flower, her breasts and hands as fragrant as white lotus.

Her graceful and slender figure, her plump, snow-white breasts, as plump as a honeydew melon, were faintly visible beneath the silk crew-neck pajamas, bulging and inviting. A hint of black silk peeked through the hem of the crew-neck pajamas, revealing the secret garden beneath her slender waist. She always liked to wear this loose silk dress to bed, completely bare underneath. The satin blouse was ideally large enough to double as a nightgown. The glossy plain crepe satin satin was smooth against the skin and had a slightly cool, comfortable feel.

This glossy plain crepe satin dress was made of fabric her father bought when he was on a business trip in Zhejiang Province. It was quite expensive, and she had tailored the dress herself. She also made a tight-fitting top for Qin Zhixin at the time, but the damn girl had worn out the dress within a year.

Tang Manwen had never worn pajamas in the past. Her skin was delicate, and she'd always slept without a single tear, which she found more comfortable. But once a year, Qin Zhixin would come over to her house and sleep in the same bed with her, which gave her a reason to wear pajamas.

That dead girl's hands are not honest at all. Not only her hands are not honest, but her mouth is not honest either.

Every time Qin Zhixin slept with her, she would hug her and talk to her about a bunch of random things. All sorts of weird and obscene things came out of her rosy cherry mouth in a strange tone. She looked so obscene that no one knew what kind of things she watched on the Internet every day.

If Qin Zhixin really annoyed Tang Manwen, she would simply pin the damned girl down and give her a good beating. Every time Qin Zhixin tried to resist, it was in vain. Her body softened in a moment. She was a pure bitch. The more she scolded the girl, the more comfortable she felt. But she would not give in verbally.

Tang Manwen undressed completely and got out of bed naked. The room was warm enough that she wouldn't be cold even without clothes. She drank a bottle of milk for breakfast.

There were dozens of unread messages on the phone charging on the bedside table. Qin Zhixin, Qin Zhifeng and Liu Yujin were listed as people of special concern to her.

Qin Zhixin had been pestering her a few days ago to go to Tangshan Hot Springs with her over the National Day holiday. It took a lot of persuasion before she finally agreed. Last night, at around 11 a.m., she'd even sent her a video of a corn snake having diarrhea. Luckily, she'd fallen asleep and hadn't seen it, but now she had. Just looking at the cover made Tang Manwen nauseous. She long-pressed the screen to delete the video, sparing her the nauseating sight of the girl, and replied with a "kitchen knife" emoji.

The remaining unread messages were all sent by boys.