Chapter 51: Hot Pot with Friends

[Ding! Boss items cannot be taken!]

Mo Yubai gave an awkward smile at the prompt, vanishing from the spot just as the furious aunt’s rolling pin came crashing down!

When she came to her senses, the dark, oppressive sewer had been replaced by the wide, open highway, and the damp, sticky air was now bone-dry.

Mo Yubai squinted slightly, shielding her eyes with the back of her hand. The tension that had gripped her mind all day finally began to ease, and she let her mind go blank, simply enjoying the cool evening breeze.

After standing still for a moment to calm down, Mo Yubai retrieved the Pickled Pepper Fish Head, opened the door, and tiredly climbed inside to take stock of today’s haul.

She opened her personal information:

Name: Mo Yubai

Health Value: 7/10 (Mentally Exhausted)

Strength: 8/10 (Strong as an Ox)

Agility: 11/? (Exceeded Racial Limit)

Luck: 6 (+1) (Schrödinger’s Luck / Wearing Lucky Item)

Total Mileage: 5,100 km (1st on the Mileage Leaderboard)

Gold Coins: 86,331 (32,193 + 54,138)

Class: (Locked)

Looking at her stats, Mo Yubai’s lips curled upward. Though she tried to restrain her emotions, her eyes shone like stars, making her good mood obvious to anyone.

This is amazing! My intuition back then was spot on! That parkour run on the ice rink, that sudden moment of enlightenment… it really did push my agility past the limit!

And it was a good thing she had only drawn this minigame after training in the Service Area. If she had gotten parkour right at the start of Highway Survival, she probably wouldn’t have made it past the first stage.

Sitting in the driver’s seat of the Pickled Pepper Fish Head, Mo Yubai looked at her newly acquired 54,138 gold coins and comfortably patted the throwing knives tucked in her sleeve.

As expected, only gold coins and throwing knives could give her a true sense of security.

She opened her inventory to check the loot she had gathered along the way:

Rabbit Meat x 150, Mutton x 180, Pork x 190, Chicken x 120, Duck Meat x 140, Beef x 135, Wooden Bucket of Water x 12, Plastic Bucket of Water x 2, Small Ice Ball x 252, Large Ice Ball x 32, Sausage x 3.

Mo Yubai’s eyes lit up. While the aunt’s items couldn’t be taken, she hadn’t expected the three remaining sausages to come along with her!

She tapped to view the details of the sausages:

Energy Sausage: An important item from an unknown minigame. Delicious and juicy, eating one instantly restores all stamina.

Haha, I’m rich! Having these three sausages is basically like having three extra lives!

Especially in a battle of attrition, when everyone else was exhausted, she could instantly recover. It was an incredible advantage.

Even though she had eaten a sausage to restore her stamina earlier, running parkour all day had left her feeling drained. Her energy and health were low, and she felt an indescribable exhaustion.

She checked the time on her game panel. It was 7:10 PM, and the temperature had already plummeted.

Since it was dinner time anyway, she decided to treat herself to hot pot tonight!

In a great mood, Mo Yubai brought out her Workbench and placed the High-Tech Mandarin Duck Pot blueprint onto it.

High-Tech Mandarin Duck Pot Blueprint: Iron Block x 8, Fiber x 4, Battery x 12

The Workbench immediately displayed a ten-minute countdown. While waiting, Mo Yubai opened the group chat to send an invitation.

“I’m having hot pot tonight. Send your bowls over, and I’ll share some with you.”

Zhu Ou: “Awesome! I haven’t eaten dinner yet!”

Wen Ruyan: “I just got sesame paste, bird’s eye chilies, handmade beef meatballs, and spicy hot pot soup base from a chest.”

Zhu Ou: “I’m drooling. You know what, Sister Wen, I got four Tracking Gold Coins today. I’ll give you one, and we can just go to Sister Mo’s place to eat together!”

Wen Ruyan hesitated. She wondered if it would be rude to just show up like that.

But Mo Yubai agreed immediately. “That would be great! You two can help me wash the vegetables and slice the meat when you get here!”

Zhu Ou: “Oh yeah! We’ll be right there!”

Mo Yubai: “Hurry up!”

Sure enough, before Mo Yubai’s High-Tech Mandarin Duck Pot was even finished crafting, Zhu Ou and Wen Ruyan arrived right next to the Workbench.

Mo Yubai watched in pleasant surprise as Zhu Ou pulled out cola, frozen tofu, and dried tofu skin, silently swallowing her saliva.

“You actually have these? I’ve missed cola so much!”

“Hehe, I got them from a Bronze Treasure Chest today. It was full of food, and there are enoki mushrooms too!”

Wen Ruyan smiled and took out the ingredients from her inventory, placing them all together.

Looking at the mutton, beef, pork, duck meat, potatoes, beef meatballs, frozen tofu, dried tofu skin, romaine lettuce, and enoki mushrooms piled on the table, Mo Yubai sighed. She might as well start washing them one by one.

First, she took the completed High-Tech Mandarin Duck Pot off the Workbench. This high-tech device utilized electrical energy to the absolute limit; twelve batteries could last for a hundred years!

It was truly a pot that could be passed down for three generations. The owner might pass away, but the pot would still be going strong!

Next, Mo Yubai began delegating tasks. She took out a wooden bucket and sent Zhu Ou to wash the vegetables, then pulled out a cutting board and a kitchen knife, telling Wen Ruyan to slice the meat.

She then retrieved another wooden table, laid a waterproof cloth over it as a tablecloth, and placed the High-Tech Mandarin Duck Pot right in the center.

She added the spicy soup base, dried chilies, Sichuan peppercorns, green onions, ginger slices, bird’s eye chilies, and rock sugar. After stir-frying them until they slightly melted, she poured in purified water.

On the other side, she added the shiitake mushrooms Wen Ruyan had previously contributed, along with salt, green onions, ginger slices, and purified water to make a mild, clear broth.

Meanwhile, she diluted the sesame paste until it reached the consistency of yogurt and poured it into three bowls. After asking the other two about their preferences, she added sugar, cilantro, vinegar, bird’s eye chilies, and chili paste accordingly.

Before long, all the ingredients were ready. The three of them happily sat around the table, ready to enjoy the feast!

Looking at the feast before her, Zhu Ou’s eyes shone as she asked Mo Yubai and Wen Ruyan, “Hey, can I take a picture and post it in the chat channel? Haha, it’ll make everyone so jealous!”

Mo Yubai and Wen Ruyan exchanged a helpless look and nodded in unison. “Go ahead, as long as it makes you happy.”

“Hehe, professional photographer Ou Ou is on the case!”

Zhu Ou nodded in satisfaction at her nine-grid photo collage of the food, then opened the chat channel and hit send.

“Hehe, the ultimate formula for happiness: hot pot and my girls!”

Right after posting, she closed the chat channel and immediately started grabbing food.

“Sister Mo, did you just eat the beef meatball I just put in?”

“It’s fine, it’s cooked.”

“Waaah, I only put in three meatballs, and now they’re all gone!”

Wen Ruyan silently chewed on a springy meatball, keeping her head down to pretend she had nothing to do with it as she calmly scooped up a slice of beef.

Mo Yubai helplessly dropped eight more beef meatballs into the pot. “Don’t worry, this batch will be ready in a bit.”

While they were enjoying their peaceful, playful meal, they had no idea that the chat channel had already erupted into a frenzy.

“Holy crap, am I hallucinating?”

“Hot pot! That’s actually hot pot!”

“It’s only been a week since I last had hot pot, but right now it feels like ten years.”

“I’m so poor that I only have Iron Blocks, and I’ve been starving for two days. Meanwhile, they’re eating hot pot!”

“Hehe, I see Boss Mo!”

“Wait, there’s only a single finger in the shot. How on earth did you recognize Boss Mo from that?”

“You don’t understand the keen eyes of a fan!”

“Speaking of Boss Mo, what did she do today? Her gold on the Wealth Leaderboard suddenly jumped by over fifty thousand!”

“Looking at the three gold coins in my pocket, I don’t even have the strength to hang myself.”

“I seriously suspect she went and did something illegal! How else could she get so many gold coins?”

“Sigh, the wealth gap is just too massive. The other nine people on the Wealth Leaderboard combined don’t even have as much as Boss Mo’s pocket change!”

“Trading steamed buns for resources. If you eat these buns while looking at the hot pot photo, they’ll taste like hot pot. PM me if interested.”

“Is this the Highway Survival version of ‘slaking thirst by thinking of plums’?”

…

Zhu Ou stared with wide, indignant eyes at Mo Yubai. “How is that fair?”