The Favored Son of Heaven

Just who was Qin Fen? He lived his entire life at the lowest social class. He had eaten many a food more disgusting than this. The first mouthful felt disgusting only because he became used to eating the military meals in recent times. This was the only reason why he was a bit unused to it.

He recalled those bleak days of the past, and Qin Fen ate this meal with incomparable happiness. He even felt thanks for this cook and his assistant, for this meal had reminded him the arduous life that he must not ever forget at all times. That stage of his life was his life’s treasure.

He cleaned his plate of the nutritious meal and stood once more before the cook. “Is there more?”

“Are you sure you can keep on eating?”

“Yep! I can eat a bit more for dinner, then go for a bit of exercise.” Qin Fen beamed as he said, “Is there more?”

“Yes, there is….”

Two servings of the nutritious meal. Three servings of the nutritious meal….

The cook’s expression turned from initial shock to that of horror, while the assistant cook had his expression gradually turned from shock into delight then finally ecstasy.

“Hey, master. Do you still remember the bet we made on this one who came in? You lose if he’s able to eat one serving of the nutritious meal. If he’s able to eat two servings, you pay up double. Three servings, triple. Four servings, then….” The assistant cook laughed with pleasure. He was going to win big this time around.

Qin Fen suddenly stopped eating mid-meal. He raised his head to look at the assistant cook. “Can you split half the money you win with me?”

“Split some of the money with you?” The cook’s assistant was very surprised. He had spoken very softly, yet this person, who was engrossed in eating, had actually heard him.

“Yep.” Qin Fen nodded. He wouldn’t let go any opportunity to make money. “I can eat five servings for you, if you agree.”

“Five servings….” The cook’s eyes were practically bulging out from their sockets. “Don’t you wreck your body just for the sake of making money.”

“I won’t.” Qin Fen spoke with the utmost confidence, “Five servings won’t harm my body. Any more than that would be harmful. I know my body well, and I’m not the type of person to kid around with my body.”

The assistant cook studied Qin Fen. He had never seen such a money loving recruit, someone who wasn’t the least bit angry to hear that he was the object of a bet. Instead, Qin Fen was very interested to get in on it. How very strange.

“I’m not splitting the money.” The assistant cook’s was very straightforward as well, “You won’t feel good if you don’t eat till your full, which you won’t if you don’t eat five servings. Why should I split the money with you? I won’t split! The five hundred dollars is mine!”

Qin Fen raised his spoon in silence for a few seconds. He turned his attention to the cook. “Did your bet include the customer vomiting the food from disgust? Did it include this case?”

“Yes!” The cook’s face burst with happiness. He knew what Qin Fen was asking, “If you throw up, he’ll have to pay me five times the original bet. I’ll split half the winning with you, kid, if I win!”

Qin Fen now placed all of his attention on the young assistant cook, “Now what about you?”

The young assistant cook stared blankly at Qin Fen. Had this recruit gone crazy from being poor? There were very few places where one could spend money in this military camp. Why did he look so thirsty for money? Why did he make the situation so serious just to make a few hundred dollars?

“You’re really something!” The young assistant cook sighed heavily, “Then I’ll split half with you as well.”

Qin Fen gently shook his head. He slowly opened his hand and re-clenched his fingers into a fist. He slowly said, “I want it all.”

“What?” The young assistant cook’s voice suddenly went loud, “Are you crazy? Why should I give all my winnings to you?”

Qin Fen laughed. His calm nature didn’t mean that he possessed a slow brain.

He definitely was in no way lacking to be looked upon by geniuses such as Enzo Rota and Lin Liqiang!

Living often just above the poverty line, Qin Fen had an intuition and foresight that was incomparably sharp when it came to money. He ate a mouthful of his nutritious meal before saying, “You can choose to not make any money, or you can choose to lose five hundred dollars. The choice is yours.”

The assistant cook was simply stupefied, while the cook himself had his eyes bloom with a radiance of admiration. This young man’s counter attack was quite sharp and fierce. He cut through to the most crucial spot in an instant.

Qin Fen took another bite of the nutritious meal. His tone was very indifferent as he said, “How long are you going to think about this for?”

His indifferent words possessed no urgency, but an incomparable threat seeped them.

The assistant cook really wanted to go grab a kitchen knife and give Qin Fen a good hacking. His rare chance of making money was actually all going to go towards this cheap fellow.

The assistant cook thought about how Qin Fen had walked out from the gravity chambers, and he thought about how he wasn’t a match for Qin Fen. He nodded in hate, “You’re really something!”

“Give up the money.” Qin Fen extended a hand.

By asking for the money before the meal was finished, the assistant cook didn’t even have the chance to back out of the deal.

The assistant cook could only first put up the five hundred dollars. Qin Fen took out a hundred dollars from among the bills and placed them in the assistant cook’s hand. “I’m the object of the bet. You should be paying me for my labor when you use me to make money. Next time don’t refuse to pay what I am owed. Thank-you very much.”

The assistant cook held the hundred dollars stunned. He gave Qin Fen a very bizarre look. What in the world was going through the mind of this young recruit?

“I know it’s hard to make money, and gambling is also high risk. I know this very well.” Qin Fen grabbed his fourth serving of the nutritious meal and said, “This money is what you should get as the return for your risky investment.”

The cook wasn’t frustrated from losing money. Instead, he looked at Qin Fen with great interest and asked, “Kid, whose soldier are you?”

“Second Squad, First Platoon, Third Company, Second Battalion, Seventy-Fifth Brigade. My squad leader is Squad Leader Hao.”

“So your Old Hao’s soldier~~” The cook smiled in great delight, “No wonder. Such an interesting recruit could only be under the tutelage of those few scum.”

Qin Fen laughed but didn’t answer. Anybody who stayed in recruit boot camp long enough would easily know of Squad Leader Hao, especially for his personality and strength. Dreadfully, the cook might know Squad Leader Hao because he had been tricked by him in the past.

“Have you been tricked by Old Hao before, kid?”

Qin Fen looked at the clock on the wall, discovering that there was still a few minutes till midnight. “He tricked me three times today.”

“Three times.” The cook had a bit of an exaggerated expression, “This means that Old Hao thinks quite favorably of you.”

Qin Fen was quite speechless. Didn’t this mean that Squad Leader Hao loved someone to death if he tricked that person a hundred times in a day? It’s really too pitiful for the tricked person, right?”

“Interesting. How interesting.” The cook walked out of the kitchen and sat besides Qin Fen. “You have a decent head on your shoulders, kid. Are you interested in learning how to cook with me?”

Qin Fen shook his head toward this friendly cook, “I’m afraid I don’t have the time.”

“You don’t have the time?” The cook found it strange. “Even if you’re busy with recruit training, you should still have some time at least.”

“Really, I’m quite busy.” Qin Fen groped for an excuse.

Though the drill instructors didn’t forbid Qin Fen from leaking the matter of his special training, Qin Fen didn’t want to bring unnecessary troubles upon the drill instructors.

“You’re this busy?” The cook sized up Qin Fen for quite a while, feeling very strange about it. In the end, he simply dialed a number on his cell at quick speeds.

“Hello, the owner of this number has yet to answer the phone, so why not hear a commercial first? Are you dreaming a lot? Suffering from insomnia? Is your heart rate irregular?

The voice that came out of the receiver was a new business launched by modern mobile communication companies. They inserted commercials within the time it took to make a call. Qin Fen really admired this business decision.

The commercial suddenly stopped, and a familiar roar exploded from the telephone’s receiver, “Which bastard is this who dares disturb this boss’s late night sleep!”

As Squad Leader Hao roared, the cook very used to such things, had already placed his cellphone on the table. He waited until Squad Leader Hao stopped roaring. “It’s me, Old Hao! Cookster!” The cook immediately said when the roaring stopped from the telephone. “I met one of your soldiers. He’s a very interesting young man. I want to have him learn culinary arts from me. The kid says he’s very busy, that he doesn’t have the time. I wanted to ask you for an order to have him learn from me.”

“Cookster? When did you come back? One of my soldiers? A busy one? What’s his name?” A series of questions rang from Squad Leader Hao without end, illustrating the extremely close relationship the two had.

“His name?” The cook paused and looked at Qin Fen.

“It’s me, Squad Leader….”

Qin Fen hadn’t spoken loudly, but he knew that Squad Leader Hao could distinguish his voice even with his distance from the microphone.

“Qin Fen? Cookster, he’s Qin Zhan’s little brother. I gave up on finding you after I heard you went out to teach some folk. That’s the only reason why I didn’t go looking for you. If you’re interested, you can join the rest of us scum in allocating the time. This boss is very busy, having just dreamed of beautiful women when you woke him from a beautiful dream. Remember! You owe me a meal! Also, this boss won’t eat the pig feed you make. We’re doing the Golden Pavilion Restaurant! And so it’s decided!”

Crack….

On the other end of the call, Squad Leader Hao didn’t give the cook any chance to bargain at all. He simply hung up the phone.

Cookster stared idly at Qin Fen as he held the phone in his hands. So this was Qin Zhan’s little brother? Qin Zhan, a prideful son of heaven, had a little brother?

Qin Fen felt a few of his hairs raise from being watched by Cookster. W-What sort of recruit training camp was this? From Squad Leader Hao’s tone, this cook seemed to be a bullish person as well.

There should be a limit to crouching tigers and hidden dragons, right? Even in this kitchen, Qin Fen had encountered a bull of a man. It seemed like he should go try out some lottery companies with this luck.

“So your name is Qin Fen, kid?”

“Yes.”

“And Qin Zhan is your older brother.”

“I have an older brother called Qin Zhan….”

“Though Old Hao loves to trick people, but his eyes are amazingly fierce. He’s not the type to place importance on names, so you must be talented.” Cookster’s happily extended one of his large hands and smacked Qin Fen on the soldier. “You will learn from me tomorrow, kid! They monopolized you for so many days, so it’s my turn….”

“Oh,” Qin Fen responded, upon which, he decided to carefully inform Cookster. “Phoenix said she’ll be the one teaching me tomorrow.”

Cookster, whose bearing was overflowing with an impressive confidence just now, suddenly had his complexion freeze. “What? Tomorrow is Phoenix’s class? Then I’ll do the day after….”

Indeed…. Qin Fen new knew that not only could Phoenix intimidate others, Phoenix could intimidate this cook with equal effectiveness as well.

The cook was a blunt person, so he didn’t chat too much with Qin Fen. He walked Qin Fen toward the gravity chambers after the Qin Fen finished eating. “It’s best for you to sleep in the gravity chambers at your age. You’re at the age of rapid growth in strength.”

The cook’s thoughts happened to lined up with Qin Fen’s. Qin Fen didn’t raise any objections as he headed back to the hall to the gravity chambers.

“Which gravity chamber were you using? 1.2 times? 1.3 times?”

The female soldier servicing the desk whispered, “He was using the 1.5 times gravity chamber.”

“1.5 times?” The cook studied Qin Fen, “Amazing, kid!”