On South Market Street, crowds of people bustled about.
Lady Rong's curious comparison made everyone around laugh.
Some slapped their thighs and shouted, while others hurriedly joined in: "What kind of pancake is even better than what Rong Laosi stole for his wife? How delicious must it be? Scholar Long, don't be stingy, let us all taste these pancakes too!"
"Yes, let everyone try! We'll trade small dishes with you."
"Right, I'll trade this handful of shepherd's purse for your pancake, but let's be clear—if the pancake doesn't taste good, you don't get the shepherd's purse either."
"Go away, you won't even part with a handful of shepherd's purse, so stingy! Why don't you scrape the dust from the brick cracks under your feet and scatter it in your field?" Rong Siniang scolded with her hands on her hips, causing another round of laughter.
Long Jun stood at the street entrance, maintaining his composure as he distributed the egg pancakes piece by piece. As more people tasted them, exclamations of surprise rang out.
"It really is delicious, my goodness! This scholar truly knows how to cook."
"Didn't the scholar say something about the five flavors in the cauldron being like... what was it about life?"
"It's the five flavors of life, mother of mine, it's truly fragrant!"
...
[Like +1]
[Like +1]
...
As the likes appeared one after another, Long Jun's anxious heart finally settled.
Initial victory, excellent!
[Cooking Value: 30]
When the total Cooking Value reached 30, Long Jun simultaneously received his third round of Blood Qi +1.
And that wasn't all—South Market Street had numerous stalls on both sides.
Long Jun didn't even need to walk far; he only needed to conduct his "egg pancake exchange" at the street entrance to find twenty or thirty exchange partners simultaneously.
With each person providing five likes, before long Long Jun had pushed his total like count past 100 in one go.
His Blood Qi increased by 1 for every 10 likes gained, so in this short time, his Blood Qi had increased by a full 8 points, and soon, new prompts appeared.
[Total likes reached 100, Essence Gate opened, Spirit Gate opened.]
[Attribute monitoring activated.]
On the busy street, Long Jun couldn't examine his specific attributes in detail.
He only felt hot currents flowing throughout his body, and gradually, even his breath seemed to emit heat.
His body had a swelling sensation, while his injured right leg both itched and hurt, as if ten thousand ants were crawling, tunneling, gnawing, and biting there.
Damn it!
Long Jun nearly cursed out loud in the street.
But seeing that the likes were still increasing, he forcefully suppressed the urge to curse, fearing he might interrupt the current enthusiastic mood of the market people.
Long Jun knew well that the reason he could so easily obtain many likes today wasn't really because his egg pancakes were so delicious.
Perhaps they were tasty, but were they really so delicious that everyone would praise them nonstop?
Not necessarily, not necessarily.
The reason people were so enthusiastically giving likes was mainly due to the contrast and novelty.
After all, which scholar would publicly offer food they had cooked to exchange with vendors for ingredients?
Add to that this first exchange and the "wise sayings of the ancients" supporting his reasoning, how could people not be eager?
But such things could work once or twice, rarely a third time.
After several more attempts, it wouldn't be so easy.
Long Jun would certainly need to put in more effort and devote more thought.
Opportunities once missed never return—Long Jun had to seize today's good start and strive to accelerate his initial accumulation, making it faster and stronger!
Damn it—
But it really was too painful, too uncomfortable.
Long Jun's expression uncontrollably twisted slightly. He used almost all his energy to suppress the pain and thus didn't notice a youth in gray clothes and a small hat at the edge of the street, who was watching him while pursing his lips.
A moment later, the youth dressed as a servant boy squeezed through the crowd and rushed into a teahouse on the side of the street, heading to the second floor.
By the window sat a young scholar wearing a lake silk robe.
The servant approached with a grin and quietly reported: "Young master, that fellow seems to have gone mad. He's actually selling those so-called egg pancakes to those stinking commoners, and when they praise him, he's happy like a fool..."
"Shut up!"
The servant boy was stunned, suddenly facing an ashen face.
"That is my fellow student and good friend. How dare you insult him like this? Do you look down on him? Or do you look down on your young master?"
Lin Qi angrily stood up and left, sweeping his sleeves.
Long Jun finally returned home fully loaded with a total of 183 likes and Cooking Value.
By the end, some of the likes came from passersby, and some came from vendors further down the street.
These people didn't necessarily all taste Long Jun's egg pancakes—some just had a tiny taste, and others merely observed.
But whether due to herd mentality or curiosity, even those who only smelled the aroma couldn't help but comment: "It does smell good, quite a curiosity, hey, this scholar must have gone mad..."
Yes, some people would praise the fragrance of the egg pancakes while secretly gossiping and criticizing Long Jun.
Long Jun also didn't receive the maximum five likes from everyone. Similarly, though the egg pancakes were distributed, some vendors pretended they hadn't eaten them despite having done so, or stubbornly claimed they didn't taste good.
In short, they were unwilling to trade items from their stalls with Long Jun.
With so many people and such chaos, Long Jun didn't concern himself with these minor details.
He had proposed trading food for ingredients from the beginning, not out of stinginess or a desire to profit. He simply didn't want people to assume his food should be given away for free.
The precedent of giving things away for free couldn't be set. Once established, it would not only make it easy for people to look down on him but also more likely to foster ill intentions.
There was also a small incident—Long Jun passed a stall selling lamb and saw the vendor snatch a small piece of egg pancake from someone's hand, stuffing it into his mouth for a taste, then spitting: "Pfft, too awful!"
A neighboring vendor looked at him with disdain: "It clearly tastes good. Hei Laoliu, you're just pretending it tastes bad because you don't want to spare some lamb for our Scholar Long, right?"
Hei Laoliu laughed: "A mere pancake in exchange for my lamb? You're so generous—why don't you give him your entire stall?"
The neighboring vendor, who sold pork, immediately and generously gave Long Jun a piece of pork bone with meat still attached, pounding his chest loudly: "Let Scholar Long know that not everyone making a living on South Market Street is petty—only this Hei Laoliu is stingy!
Come exchange with me again next time you have something delicious. I am known in the martial world as Zhao Yiliang, never short on weight. Unlike some black-hearted fellows..."
Zhao Yiliang pointed directly at Hei Laoliu, who refused to be outdone.
With each one speaking over the other, they left Long Jun behind and began quarreling loudly.
Long Jun walked past the meat stall, feeling that Hei Laoliu's lamb smelled countless times more rank than Zhao Yiliang's pork.
A white sheep's head hung upside down on a black iron hook, with a disturbing bloody smell wafting over, vaguely mixed with an indescribable stench and nausea.
Strangely, Long Jun only glanced at this sheep's head once, yet its appearance seemed to brand itself into his heart like a hot iron.
The blood-red eye sockets, protruding pupils, and the dried matter like tear tracks at the corners of the eyes... every detail was crystal clear.
Even the flies swarming around the sheep's eyes seemed to fly into Long Jun's heart, impossible to forget.
Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz—
The sound of decay followed like a shadow.
What was there to think about regarding a sheep's head?
Long Jun returned home, forcibly dispelling the discomfort in his heart, and summoned the Food Cauldron Scripture.
He wanted to quickly see what new changes would appear in the Food Cauldron Scripture after unlocking the Essence Gate and Spirit Gate?