Journey to the West: Starting by taking Sun Wukong as my disciple!-Chapter 451: Xuan Feng Finds Out Chen Nuo’s Exact Location
Hearing Xuan Feng say this, Nuwa paused before saying, "Alright then, go ahead and buy some, but remember what you said—you won’t talk nonsense after buying."
"Got it, got it." Xuan Feng ran over joyfully and said to the vendor, "Boss, I’ll have a serving."
Xuan Feng was very cute with a pleasant voice, and when the vendor saw such a charming little girl, he said to the other children queuing up, "Hold on a moment, I’m going to serve this little miss first."
"Why is that though?" the group of children were somewhat unconvinced, "We’ve been waiting for so long, and now she arrives and you serve her first, that’s not fair!"
The vendor glanced at the group of children, their clothes covered in dust, some even with runny noses, and thought to himself, why don’t you understand?
Still, the vendor kept a smiling face and said, "This little miss obviously comes from out of town, while we are all from this small town, we have to know how to be hospitable. Maybe she’ll eat this once and never come again, while you can get it anytime. Can’t you even let her have this one time?"
The vendor was good at sweet-talking, and his words made sense to the other children, so they nodded, "Alright then, we’ll let this out-of-towner go first, we’ll wait for the next batch."
The vendor skillfully placed the fried potatoes into a box, then asked Xuan Feng, "Little miss, can you handle spicy?"
"Yes!" Xuan Feng immediately replied, "Of course I can handle spicy, I want extra chili peppers."
"Okay." The vendor drizzled chili oil over the fried potatoes, "My chili oil is quite hot, be careful when eating."
Xuan Feng was defiant, "Are you underestimating someone here? I can handle my spice."
"Little miss, you’ve just come to our town and don’t know, but my chili oil, it’s really hot," the vendor said, "It’s fragrant, numbing, and spicy. It’s because of this chili that my stall has so many customers."
Indifferently, Xuan Feng replied, "You’re just like Old Lady Wang selling melons, praising your own goods. You’re bragging too much, it’s just chili oil, what’s there to boast about? Be careful not to talk big and then not be able to back it up."
As she spoke, she put a piece of potato in her mouth—the skin was crispy and fragrant, while the inside was soft and fluffy.
The aroma and flavor of the potatoes were sealed by the crispy skin fried in oil, and as soon as she took a bite, they burst out from the broken skin into her mouth.
Xuan Feng’s eyes lit up immediately; she hadn’t expected this unknown vendor to make a simple potato taste so good; it was really something special.
After tasting the potatoes, Xuan Feng was impressed by the vendor’s skills, especially since he had bragged so much about his chili peppers.
If she had initially thought little of it, she was now prepared to seriously try the chili oil the vendor had mentioned.
The chili oil atop the potatoes was a bright red glistening with oil, contrasted with the golden yellow of the steaming potatoes—it was a delight to the eyes even before tasting.
With a bamboo skewer, Xuan Feng picked up a potato and put it in her mouth, where the scent and flavor of the chili were so dominant they immediately covered the previous aroma of the potato—her mouth was filled with the fragrance of chili.
The chili hadn’t been finely ground, instead retaining the grainy seeds.
As she chewed, the spicy fragrance in her mouth grew stronger, not just chili, but also the numbing of Sichuan pepper, numbing her tongue until it almost lost sensation.
The chili’s heat surged up soon after, and Xuan Feng wanted to open her mouth and gasp, but remembering what she had said to the vendor earlier, she stubbornly held it in.
She could only endure it for a moment before she couldn’t stand it anymore, but not wanting to lose face, she pretended to want more potato and put a piece that wasn’t covered in chili oil into her mouth.
At this point, only the spiciness of the chili lingered, and once the soft and mushy texture of the potato followed, it immediately alleviated much of the chili’s bite.
She ate while taking small breaths, and if one paid just a bit of attention, it was obvious she was putting on a brave face.
The vendor laughed, "What do you think, my chili is quite powerful, isn’t it?"
Xuan Feng stubbornly turned her head away, "It’s alright, just, it’s just a little bit spicy."
"This is the Chen family’s secret chili oil recipe, not shared with outsiders," the vendor said.
Xuan Feng caught on to one particular word, "Chen family? Do you share the surname Chen?"
"I’m not surnamed Chen; it’s the person who makes the chili, he is surnamed Chen." The vendor said with pride, "Lucky for me to have him around, otherwise my stall might not have lasted a few years."
"This Mr. Chen, is he a local in your town?" Xuan Feng promptly asked the vendor; she thought to herself, no wonder this chili is so potent.
Initially, she had thought the vendor made it and did not want to admit the chili was indeed very potent, but if the person making the chili was him, then it wouldn’t be surprising at all.
"He’s not from our town."
"He’s not from your town?" Xuan Feng felt the answer was getting closer to the person she had in mind, "Then where is he now?"
"Oh, he is currently in our town, but he’s not a local. He only came to our town these past two years," the vendor explained, "This man, he’s quite remarkable. Our little town wouldn’t be so prosperous without him; we’ve got Mr. Chen to thank for that."
Xuan Feng felt that the vendor was describing the person she was looking for, so she hurriedly asked again, "Uncle, what does Mr. Chen do in the town? Where is he now?"
"You’re also here to find Mr. Chen, aren’t you?" the vendor gradually understood why Xuan Feng was asking so many questions.
"We seldom had visitors from outside in the past. Since Mr. Chen arrived at our small town, we have had many visitors every day. They don’t come for anything else, just to buy his oil."
"Buy oil?" Xuan Feng was stunned for a moment. Wasn’t Chen Nuo supposed to be running a restaurant in the mortal world?
Hearing Xuan Feng’s question, the vendor was also taken aback, "What, you’re not here to buy oil from Mr. Chen?"
Nuwa, who had been waiting on the side for Xuan Feng to return, was getting impatient. She walked over to the stall and asked Xuan Feng, "Why has it taken you so long to buy a snack?"
"Mom..." Xuan Feng wanted to say ’Your Majesty’, but she feared exposing Nuwa’s reputation and swallowed the rest of her words after the first syllable.
She explained, "This vendor, when I was buying just now, I found this chili oil really tasty, so I asked him. He said a Mister Chen taught him how to make it, and I suspect that Mr. Chen and the person we’re looking for might be the same."
"What, you and your daughter aren’t here to buy oil from Mr. Chen?" The vendor, having only caught one word that Xuan Feng uttered, thought they were mother and daughter. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢
He’d been puzzled at first, thinking the mother looked quite unassuming for such a beautiful daughter, but when Nuwa approached, her exceptional demeanor was impossible to ignore, and the vendor instantly stopped finding it strange.
"Mother and daughter?" Nuwa was taken aback, "You mean me and her?"
"No, not at all?" the vendor was confused; it seemed they were not mother and daughter. Now that he looked more closely, each of the women seemed quite young.
Great, he had misspoken, mistakenly referring to an unmarried girl and another woman as mother and daughter.
His brain worked quickly, and then he looked up with a smile, "I misspoke, you two must be sisters, right?"
