"However, a batch of goods was recently smuggled into Jiangnan, so I had someone get a little. Doesn't Ning Chen often eat at that barbecue restaurant? Let's fix him up with a little something, heh heh heh..."
Afterward, several of the underlings dragged a stray dog in from outside.
Yang Kai put on his gloves, crushed the Ghost Hand Qing, mixed it into the dog food, and fed it to the stray dog.
Before long, the stray dog began foaming at the mouth and collapsed dead.
Its entire body turned a terrifying greenish-black, blood pouring from its seven orifices, dying a very wretched death.
"Hiss! It's that poisonous?" Ma Kun, standing to the side, changed his expression slightly.
Bai Xiao laughed heartily, instructing Yang Kai to handle this matter well, making sure it was done without a sound, and ideally framing Li Mei for it.
"Ning Chen, oh Ning Chen, open your eyes a bit wider when you are reincarnated in your next life! Not everyone is someone you can afford to cross!"
Chapter 20: The Soup is Poisonous
7:00 PM.
Ning Chen took a taxi to the InterContinental Hotel, where a waitress led him to a luxurious private dining room on the sixth floor.
Xu Jingshan, Aunt Qiao, Xu Shuyan, and Jiang Tang had all arrived, along with Butler Fan Yi.
"Hi, Big Guy!" Jiang Tang waved excitedly.
"Little Tang." Ning Chen replied with a smile.
But upon seeing Xu Jingshan and Xu Shuyan, the father and daughter, the smile on his face faded noticeably, and he merely offered a polite "Uncle Xu."
"Little Chen, sit down."
Aunt Qiao had specifically saved a seat for Ning Chen right next to Xu Shuyan.
Then she began to complain to her daughter, "Why didn't you bring Little Chen along with you? You made him take a taxi."
"Why would I bring him along!" Xu Shuyan said petulantly.
"You child, where are your manners?"
Aunt Qiao glared at her with annoyance, then turned to Ning Chen with a smile, "Little Chen, don't mind her. This child is completely spoiled by us."
"Mommy~!"
Xu Shuyan stomped her small foot in anger.
She even suspected whether Ning Chen was Mommy's illegitimate son from outside, otherwise why was she treating him so well.
"Alright, let's serve the dishes."
Xu Jingshan gave the word, and Butler Fan behind him gave the waitress a sign, who promptly contacted the kitchen to serve the food.
"Little Chen, I heard about what you did at school today." Xu Jingshan looked at Ning Chen with a smile.
"Uh..." Ning Chen frowned secretly. How did Xu Jingshan find out?
"Darling, what happened?" Qiao Jing asked curiously.
"This kid beat up several upperclassmen on his very first day of formal classes. I heard they were from the sanda club, and several of them ended up in the hospital," Xu Jingshan chuckled.
"What?" Qiao Jing was taken aback.
"..." Ning Chen felt he had worried for nothing.
The whole affair involving Duan Shuiliang and Iron Foot Seven had already been suppressed by Elder Wen.
If such a matter got out, the impact on the school's reputation would be very bad.
Xu Shuyan and Jiang Tang exchanged shocked glances.
"Didn't you say you ran into the principal and they let you go?" Xu Shuyan asked Ning Chen.
"Obviously, I lied to you." Ning Chen said.
"You..." Xu Shuyan's temper flared.
Jiang Tang, on the other hand, was amused by Ning Chen's attitude.
"Little Chen, how could you fight at school?"
Qiao Jing put on a stern face and criticized, "You worked so hard to get into Qingzhou University. If you get expelled, how heartbroken your mother will be."
"Aunt Qiao, they provoked me first..." Ning Chen smiled bitterly.
"That still doesn't give you the right to fight!" Qiao Jing said.
"..." Ning Chen offered no defense.
"Hahaha, it's fine. Nowadays our country promotes martial arts, and practicing martial arts is the trend. It's completely normal for young people to fight."
Xu Jingshan waved his hand dismissively. "Wife, I was thinking, with Little Chen's martial arts skills, wouldn't it be great if he became Shuyan's bodyguard?"
*So he hasn't given up yet.* Ning Chen shook his head inwardly.
"I don't think that's very appropriate." Qiao Jing frowned. "For a college student, studying is the primary task."
"Jingjing, you have to consider our daughter too. Shuyan is so pretty, how many male pests have harassed her from childhood to now?"
Xu Jingshan turned serious. "Here is what I'm thinking: Little Chen's family background isn't great either. Now that he's grown up, he needs to know how to earn money himself and ease the burden on his family."
"I'll offer him a salary of twenty thousand a month. This salary instantly beats 90% of white-collar workers in Qingzhou. After he graduates, he can even come directly to work at the Xu Corporation."
"Mainly, Little Chen is someone whose background we know inside and out, so he's much safer to use. What do you think, wife?"
After listening, Qiao Jing felt that Xu Jingshan's words did make some sense.
Shuyan was pretty, loved to dress up, and loved to play, attracting her fair share of creeps from a young age.
However, she was afraid of hurting Ning Chen's self-esteem, so she tentatively asked, "Little Chen, what are your thoughts on this?"
"Aiyah~ Mommy, Daddy, I don't need any bodyguard!" Xu Shuyan pouted unhappily.
"Shut up! You have no say here!" Xu Jingshan glared at her fiercely.
Ning Chen pretended to ponder for a long time before finally shaking his head.
"Sorry, Uncle Xu, I'm still not interested in the bodyguard position for your daughter."
"Little Chen, can you tell me why? If it's a matter of salary, we can still negotiate..." Xu Jingshan still refused to give up.
"It's not about the money, it's mainly that Shuyan and I don't get along." Ning Chen replied truthfully.
"..." Jiang Tang was somewhat speechless. Big Guy was way too honest.
"Correction, it's I who don't get along with you!" Xu Shuyan said angrily.
"Well, but if it were someone with Little Tang's personality, I'd be her bodyguard for free, no salary needed." Ning Chen added.
"Big Guy, you... why are you suddenly flirting with me? Annoying." Jiang Tang's little face turned red and adorable.
Ning Chen was, of course, just joking.
Even if the ruler of Earth came, they wouldn't be qualified to make him a bodyguard.
"You... you're actually driving a wedge between us best friends! You're shameless!" Xu Shuyan pointed at Ning Chen and scolded, almost crying from frustration.
"Shuyan, is that any way to speak?" Qiao Jing reprimanded.
"Sigh, forget it, forget it." Xu Jingshan waved his hand, putting the matter aside, though in his heart he always felt that Ning Chen did not know what was good for him.
Soon, the dishes were served.
Ten dishes and one soup, every single one of them complete with color, aroma, and flavor.
Xu Shuyan was so angry she couldn't eat a single dish, but Ning Chen was eating with great relish.
At that moment, a waitress pushed a small cart and brought in another dish.
"We didn't order this dish."
Butler Fan glanced over and saw that it was a very fragrant mushroom soup.
"Sir, this is a complimentary dish from our hotel, available only when spending reaches a certain threshold." The waitress smiled.
"Alright, bring it over." Butler Fan nodded.
The waitress complied.
Since the soup happened to be relatively close to Ning Chen, he immediately ladled himself a bowl.
"Huh?"
The moment Ning Chen took a sip, he sensed something was wrong.
The savory fragrance in the soup was actually mixed with an intense poison!
"Wait!"
Seeing that Xu Shuyan was also about to ladle herself a bowl, he snatched it away with a deadpan expression.
"What are you doing??"
Xu Shuyan glared at him in bewilderment. "Why are you snatching my soup? There's plenty left, can't you ladle your own?"
"There's poison in the soup." Ning Chen said solemnly.
"Pfft!" Jiang Tang laughed so hard she spat out her food.
"Are you out of your mind?!"
Xu Shuyan had tolerated Ning Chen for a long time and lashed out immediately, "I think you're the one who's poisonous! Hand it over!"
Ning Chen poured the soup out with a flick of his wrist.
"You..." Xu Shuyan was almost angry enough to faint.
Chapter 21: You've Finally Dropped the Act
"Little Chen, what is going on?" Qiao Jing looked over with a puzzled expression.
"Aunt Qiao, Uncle Xu, this bowl of soup really is poisonous. Trust me." Ning Chen looked completely certain.
Qiao Jing and Xu Jingshan exchanged glances, both feeling somewhat awkward and incredulous.
"Sir, please rest assured."
At that moment, the waitress stepped forward to reassure them, "The raw ingredient for this mushroom soup is Jian Shou Qing from Lingnan. It indeed carries a certain toxicity, but after professional processing by our head chef, the toxins have been completely removed. You can enjoy it with complete peace of mind."
"Little Chen, you heard that. It's fine." Qiao Jing smiled comfortingly.
"Such a country bumpkin who has never seen the world. Pufferfish is poisonous too, but doesn't someone still eat it..." Xu Shuyan muttered with annoyance as she ladled herself another bowl.
Unexpectedly, this bowl was snatched away by Ning Chen once again.
"You... give it back to me!" Xu Shuyan cried out in anger.
Ignoring her entirely, Ning Chen walked straight over and handed the soup to the waitress. "You said there's no poison? Fine, you drink this bowl."
"This..."
The waitress showed a very troubled expression. "I'm sorry, sir, our restaurant has regulations..."
"I don't think it's a regulation; it's that you don't dare..."
Ning Chen stared intently at the waitress.
Just now, when Xu Shuyan was ladling the soup, a trace of abnormality had unmistakably flashed through this woman's eyes.
"Alright, Little Chen!"
Xu Jingshan was somewhat displeased and said, "InterContinental is a five-star hotel. The head chef wouldn't make such a low-level mistake. Sit down, eat properly, and stop stirring up all this trouble!"
"Big Guy, didn't you just drink a bowl earlier? You didn't look like anything happened to you." Jiang Tang asked curiously.
"..." Ning Chen was at a loss for words.
Before entering the Pure Yang Wuji Palace, he had studied medicine for four hundred years, and he was quite certain that the poison in this bowl of soup was potent enough to kill an elephant.
As for why he was fine: first, a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator possessed a formidable physical body; second, he had once consumed the snake pill of a Moyu Snake Emperor, which had granted him a body immune to all poisons.
However, if he explained it that way, he would definitely be treated as a madman.
"I think he's a court jester hired by a monkey!"
Seeing Ning Chen rendered speechless, Xu Shuyan sneered.
At that moment, Ning Chen shifted his gaze to Xu Jingshan, scanned him a few times, and said, "Uncle Xu, you must have had a nosebleed within the last three days, right?"
"You... how do you know!"
Xu Jingshan was stunned, feeling it was utterly incredible.
The morning before yesterday, when he got up to wash up, he indeed had a nosebleed, but he hadn't mentioned such a trivial matter to anyone else.
Even the person sharing his pillow didn't know about it—how did Ning Chen know?
Could he tell fortunes by pinching his fingers?
"Because, Uncle Xu, you're a bit deficient!" Ning Chen dropped a bombshell.
The expressions of Xu Jingshan and Qiao Jing both shuddered in unison, and their gazes began to look unnatural.
"What are you talking about? You're the one who's deficient!" Xu Shuyan scolded angrily.
"If I'm not mistaken, you've recently been taking a tonic, and a very precious one at that."
Completely ignoring Xu Shuyan, Ning Chen continued on his own:
"But you overdid it, leading to an excess of internal heat. Aside from nosebleeds, you also have symptoms like swollen and painful gums, insomnia with vivid dreams, a bitter taste in your mouth, and a dry tongue. Am I right?"
Shock washed over the faces of Xu Jingshan and Qiao Jing!
Every single symptom Ning Chen mentioned was spot-on!
"Little Chen, how on earth did you know all this?" Aunt Qiao asked incredulously.
"I've studied traditional Chinese medicine."
As he spoke, Ning Chen's gaze fell back onto the mushroom soup. "Therefore, I can state with one hundred percent certainty that this soup is poisonous! And it's a lethal, deadly poison!"
"..." The couple was somewhat dumbfounded.
The waitress's eyes flickered a couple of times.
"Daddy, Mommy, what he's saying isn't true, is it?" Xu Shuyan's pretty mouth gaped open.
"The symptoms really do match..." Qiao Jing still couldn't believe that a child who had just entered college could possess such profound medical skill.
"Old Fan!"
Seeing how certain Ning Chen was, Xu Jingshan decided to have Fan Yi thoroughly investigate the matter. "Find a laboratory and analyze the components in this soup."
"Yes, Chairman." Fan Yi immediately took the bowl of soup away.
"I still don't believe it!"
Xu Shuyan crossed her slender arms, leaned back in her chair, and said to Ning Chen, "Since you say the soup is poisonous, why are you completely fine? You just drank three big mouthfuls of it."
"I didn't expect Miss Xu to pay so much attention to me, even noticing how many mouthfuls of soup I drank." Ning Chen teased.
"Who... who's paying attention to you? Don't flatter yourself!" Xu Shuyan's pretty face flushed, and she petulantly turned her head away.
"Alright, back to the point. The reason I didn't get poisoned is because..."
Ning Chen was trying to figure out what excuse to use.
Suddenly, the waitress's voice rang out. But instead of her previous timid demeanor, it carried a chill: "Young man, your medical skills are impressive indeed, to actually be able to neutralize the toxicity of the Ghost Hand Qing."
"Oh? You've finally dropped the act." Ning Chen looked at her.
"Everyone is leaving, so naturally there's no need to pretend anymore."
As she spoke, the waitress reached out, pulled a silencer-equipped pistol from beneath the food cart, disengaged the safety, and aimed it straight at Xu Jingshan.
"Ah!" Seeing the gun, Xu Shuyan shrieked in terror.
"Don't make a sound, or I'll blow his brains out!" The waitress threatened.
"Okay, okay, okay, I won't make a sound, don't shoot! Don't shoot my daddy! Wuwuwu..." Xu Shuyan cried out.
Jiang Tang and Qiao Jing nearby were also frightened pale with terror.
Xu Jingshan remained slightly composed; bracing his hands on the table, he said with a dark face, "Luring the tiger away from the mountain!"
"Precisely!"
The waitress jammed the pitch-black muzzle of the gun against the back of Xu Jingshan's head.
"Iron Fist All-Conquering Fan Yi is an Internal Force martial artist. Going head-to-head with him would incur an unknown, heavy cost, so we could only resort to some underhanded tricks."
"Don't move!"
The waitress was also an expert; as she spoke, her eyes constantly tracked the movements of the others.
She swung the muzzle toward Xu Shuyan and said viciously, "Take out your phones!"
Xu Shuyan didn't dare refuse to comply.
"And yours!"
One, two, three, four phones were tossed onto the table.
Only Ning Chen remained standing right where he was.
"Little brat, didn't you hear what I said? Take out your phone!" The waitress pointed the gun at Ning Chen.
"Shuyan! Run, you guys!!" Xu Jingshan suddenly surged upward, lunging forward fiercely.
However, he had no martial arts training, whereas the waitress was an External Force Martial Artist and kicked him four or five meters away with a single blow.
"Daddy!"
"Darling!"
Xu Shuyan and Qiao Jing cried out in alarm.
Unfortunately, the private dining room was exceptionally well soundproofed; even if a gunshot went off inside, people outside wouldn't hear it.
"A reckless creature seeking death."
The waitress sneered, walked up to Ning Chen holding the gun, and demanded, "Phone! Hand it out!"
"As an assassin, you're really quite unqualified." Ning Chen spoke up abruptly. You're reading translated works at ReadNovelFull.com
"What did you say?" The waitress looked extremely surprised.
Death was staring him in the face, yet this kid was talking nonsense.
"You talk too much; you must not be a professional assassin." Ning Chen's tone was indifferent.
"None of your business!" The waitress sneered, holding the gun. "As long as the mission is accomplished, what's wrong with having a little fun first?"
"Then I'm sorry, you won't be completing this mission."
As soon as Ning Chen finished speaking, he opened his hand and lunged straight for her pistol.
Chapter 22: Ghost Hand Qing Reappears
"You're courting death!"
Seeing Ning Chen dare to disarm her, a cold glint flashed in the female assassin's eyes, and she pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Bang!
A gunshot echoed inside the private room.
Unlike in the movies, despite the silencer, the sound of the pistol was still quite loud.
"Ah!!" Xu Shuyan, Jiang Tang, and the others let out terrified screams.
Yet the scene of flesh and blood flying everywhere that they had imagined did not happen.
Ning Chen cupped his palm around the barrel of the gun. His entire palm remained completely undamaged, with only wisps of gunpowder smoke drifting out between his fingers.
"How is that possible?!" The female assassin's eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets.
"This..." Xu Jingshan couldn't make sense of it either.
How could a human hand possibly block a bullet?
"What the hell!"
Without hesitation, the female assassin pulled the trigger again.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three shots in rapid succession. The female assassin was certain the bullets had fired, but for some reason, Ning Chen's hand was completely fine, and his expression remained utterly expressionless.
The female assassin tried to yank the gun back, but Ning Chen's strength was immense, making it utterly impossible.
"I don't believe it!!"
The female assassin tried to pull the trigger yet again, but the pistol suddenly went "bang!" and backfired, blowing her right hand into a bloody mess as she fell to the ground screaming.
"Ahhh... my hand, my hand!!"
Clutching her bleeding right hand, the female assassin shrieked endlessly on the floor.
The Xu family and Jiang Tang were completely dumbfounded. What... what was going on here?
"Don't look."
Ning Chen walked over and covered Jiang Tang's eyes.
Jiang Tang's delicate body trembled slightly, a sudden wave of warmth welling up in her heart.
"L-Little Chen, are you alright?!"
At that moment, Qiao Jing finally snapped back to her senses and rushed over to check on Ning Chen's injuries.
Yet on Ning Chen's clean palm, let alone bleeding, there wasn't even a scrape.
Once the crisis was resolved, Xu Jingshan immediately picked up a chair, knocked the female assassin unconscious, and only then came over to check on Ning Chen's condition.
As for Xu Shuyan, she grabbed her phone to contact Fan Yi.
"Little Chen, your hand..."
Xu Jingshan turned Ning Chen's hand over and over, his eyes filled with shock.
"Uncle Xu, Aunt Qiao, luckily this fellow's gun jammed. I'm fine." Ning Chen took the initiative to explain, putting on a relieved expression on his face.
"Silly child! If something had happened to you, how could I ever face your mother!" Qiao Jing cried out directly, pulling Ning Chen into a lingering hug of fright.
"The situation was urgent back then, I didn't have time to think about all that..." Ning Chen smiled bitterly.
After a short while, Fan Yi hurried over breathlessly, his face written all over with remorse.
"I'm sorry! Chairman, this is my dereliction of duty!"
Sitting in his chair, Xu Jingshan waved his hand dismissively. "It's not your fault. I was the one who fell for their trick of luring the tiger away from the mountain. By the way, Old Fan, that mushroom soup."
"It is indeed deadly poison!"
Fan Yi glanced at Ning Chen nearby. "According to the laboratory staff, the mushrooms in the soup were Ghost Hand Qing from Lingnan. That's the most toxic kind of mushroom! In recent years, they stopped letting it be sold locally; even the locals in Lingnan wouldn't dare touch it..."
The entire family stared at Ning Chen in shock.
Especially Xu Shuyan. Remembering what had been said just moments ago, her face burned as if on fire, turning a deep shade of crimson.
"Little Chen, it turns out everything you said was true. I'm sorry, Uncle Xu misunderstood you." Xu Jingshan wore an apologetic expression; he now believed that Ning Chen truly possessed real abilities.
"Heavens, Big Guy, you are too amazing!" Jiang Tang felt even more admiration for Ning Chen.
"Just a coincidence." Ning Chen smiled faintly.
"No way! Such a poisonous mushroom—Little Chen, I have to take you to the hospital for a checkup!" Qiao Jing strode over, preparing to take Ning Chen away.