The little furball was much smaller than an adult cat, and looked incredibly cute. It tilted its head and stood in mid-air, staring at Ye Xu for a long time, seemingly assessing something. After a while, it finally trotted over and landed on Ye Xu's shoulder.
Ye Xu was flattered. He thought that guardian deities would be arrogant, but he didn't expect them to be so approachable.
“The store manager should have an affinity for time-space elements,” Shuangshuang said in a mature tone. “Time-space trees like their own kind.”
So the system specifically chose this guardian deity because of his elemental affinity? Ye Xu pondered for a moment and decided to treat his system father better from now on.
The atmosphere in the shop was completely different after a "cat" appeared. Although it was a fake cat, it was adorable.
At first, the little furball meowed as "meow," but Ye Xu thought that if it meowed like that, it would cause trouble when they went to the modern world. Since everyone mistook it for a cat, it might as well meow like a cat.
The kitten actually agreed to such an outrageous request and soon started meowing. Ye Xu was prepared to get scratched all over his face, but seeing this, he felt a little regretful. He had heard that even qualified cat owners get scratched a couple of times by their feline overlords, cough.
Shuangshuang spent money to buy a book called "The Complete Guide to Guardians" and found the answer in it.
It turns out that the Time-Space Tree is a different kind of guardian; it has two forms. One is a tree shape, and the other is a shape that it can freely transform into whatever it likes.
The mature Time Tree is an SSR-level guardian deity, while the sapling is an SR. Guardians are not counted together with ordinary cards. The reason why some cannot be UR is simply because UR guardian deities are too powerful, with a huge gap between them. Unfortunately, there are no other categories above UR, so they can only make do with this.
The little fluffball doesn't transform into a cat, but rather into a UR-level guardian spirit called "Fluff Beast," which also possesses the attribute of time and space. Of course, the smallest form of the real Fluff Beast is still as large as a one-story building; this one is a miniature version.
Ye Xu immediately started dreaming of the fluffy beast. He believed that as long as he persisted in building a good relationship with the system and became its most lovable subordinate, he would definitely get his hands on the fluffy beast one day.
Let's put aside the seemingly endless UR for now and turn to the next page of the "Complete Collection".
Ye Xu urgently needs to know what the "Time-Space Turbulence" that Little Fur Ball needs every day is, and more importantly, how expensive it is. As for the two skills, he can roughly understand what they mean from their names, but he doesn't know how to use them.
"It really does mean exactly what it says. One can adjust the flow of time, and the other can perform group teleportation. Each plane of the Infant Time Tree can only use it once. However, there are no restrictions on the system's waiting space, so it can be used multiple times." Shuangshuang solemnly recited the contents of the book.
Ye Xu nodded: "If the time flow is good, we won't need to adjust the time difference ourselves when changing dimensions. If we change the flow so that the time in the waiting space is the same as that in the target dimension, we can go directly there to do the mission."
It's a very practical idea, a use that Shuangshuang hadn't even considered.
She paused, then continued, "You can buy it in the Time-Space Turbulence System Shop. It's the Time-Space Tree's daily food, born from the chaotic spacetime rifts. It's said that the Time-Space Tree grows in these rifts, so it needs to eat this to grow. The small animals that the Time-Space Tree manifests can eat any food, but only the spacetime turbulence can give them the energy to grow."
Ye Xu understood again: "If you feed this to the little furball, it will slowly grow up and transform from an SR sapling into an SSR adult."
If SRs are this good, wouldn't SSRs be invincible? Hey! You have to! He just checked, and the Time-Space Turbulence skill only costs 100,000 points, which isn't expensive at all, while employee coupons cost 10 million.
Ye Xu's daily turnover was just over 100,000 before, so of course he couldn't afford it. But things are different after the store expansion. With the buff from Little Fur Ball, the profits will definitely double. He can definitely afford one dish a day, and maybe even feed it more.
Shuangshuang numbly closed the book. Oh well, the store manager's focus is always the same. Hasn't she gotten used to it?
"How about we give you a name? It's inconvenient to call you 'Little Fur Ball'." Ye Xu didn't notice Shuangshuang's change in mood. He hugged the kitten and rubbed it a few times. "How about Xiaoyu? It's more unique."
The topic jumped so abruptly that by the time Shuangshuang realized something was wrong and tried to stop it, the little furball had already happily meowed and accepted its new name. Shuangshuang looked at it with a pained expression, as if watching a silly little fool who had been sold out and was still helping to count the money.
The store manager is terrible at naming things; how can anyone dare to let him come up with a name?
Ye Xu was satisfied and let Xiao Yu go to the pet park to play with Tang Tang. The two were quite different in size, but as long as they were happy, they didn't necessarily have to be the same size to get along. He also reminded Xiao Yu not to levitate in front of people in the future, as it would scare the natives of this kind of world, both modern and ancient.
Xiaoyu meowed in agreement and trotted into the space. Worried that Tangtang wouldn't open the door to let it in, Ye Xu, unusually, took the time to build a shared playground in the public area, followed by Xiaoyu's private space.
Ye Xu looked around and felt something was still missing. After thinking for a moment, he finally added a wish-to-eat snack shop to the public space, allowing pets to buy what they wanted to eat. This shop shared the same purchasing panel channel, allowing them to buy food with currency without spending their meager points wages.
Therefore, Ye Xu specially modified the pets' wages, adding a large amount of extra currency. Then he distributed this month's currency wages in advance to all the beings living in the park, allowing them to spend it as they pleased.
Shuangshuang was surprised to find herself in a share. She was a little shy and fidgeted for a moment before clutching the little money bag and hiding it in her nest.
From then on, every time Ye Xu opened the Pet Paradise panel, he would always see several pets happily gathered together in the public area, eating snacks and playing on the slide. Now all that was missing were toys, and since toys were cheap, Ye Xu bought a lot and piled them up in the corner.
After finishing his shopping spree, Ye Xu fell silent as he looked at the new "Time-Space Turbulence" food he had just bought.
Wait a minute, this feeding system for growth sounds a lot like card raising? Does this third-rate card drawing module of the system actually have a card raising function?
Ye Xu felt as if he had been deceived, yet also as if he hadn't. After agonizing over it for a long time, he finally tossed the turbulent rations to Xiao Yu and gave up on thinking about the problem.
The day's business proceeded smoothly without anything particularly unusual happening.
Ye Xu originally wanted to announce that the closing time would be moved to 10 o'clock, but the news was too sudden and many customers who had rushed over couldn't accept it, so he had to stay open one more time. With today's announcement, the store should be able to close at 10 o'clock tomorrow.
The shop being open until midnight didn't stop Ye Xu from sneaking off to his room to sleep, leaving the robot to watch him before disappearing without a trace. He slept soundly all night, and the shop opened again at around 8 a.m. the next day.
After yesterday's breakfast event, the entrance should have been even more crowded today. But Ye Xu was surprised to find that people were standing far apart, leaving a vacuum area at the entrance.
What's going on? Ye Xu looked closely and saw Han Yingchen standing by the streetlight at the front. This guy was dressed in all black, blending perfectly into the streetlight pole; it was really hard for those people to spot him.
This is the mark of a top assassin! He doesn't try to hide it, yet he makes people subconsciously ignore his presence. If his reputation weren't so terrible, he wouldn't be the center of attention.
"Looks like you're the first one here today," Ye Xu greeted Han Yingchen in a friendly manner.
Han Ying's brows twitched slightly as he glanced at the crowd in the distance, seemingly worried that appearing to be on good terms with Ye Xu would lead to others ostracizing him. This wasn't unheard of; it had happened before, and he had lost his few friends because of it.
"It's nothing." Ye Xu winked at him and said deliberately, "Come in. Guests are guests. I don't care what grudges or grievances you have. I'm just a businessman. I smile at whoever pays me."
After Ye Xu finished speaking, he turned around and said to everyone, "Welcome! Everyone is here early today, so please choose your own seats."
As expected, Han Yingchen chose to sit in a corner, a place where he felt very comfortable. Moreover, there were far fewer people talking about him today, which was the most gratifying thing.
Ye Xu figured that the guests had probably been freezing outside for half a day, and now they were cold and hungry, so they had no interest in gossiping and weren't discussing anything. They just wanted to eat as soon as possible, and didn't care about anything else.
When getting the skewers, Han Yingchen remained calm and ignored the way people around him were trying to avoid him. He walked as if Moses parted the sea, and even though the area in front of the refrigerated display case was crowded, everyone automatically and consciously made way for him.
As expected, Han Yingchen was the first to finish getting his skewers and start eating, while the others had to squeeze in.
Having learned from yesterday's experience, many people started eating the skewers first before ordering breakfast. Breakfast was crowded, and the amount prepared in advance by the kitchen wasn't enough; everything had to be steamed fresh, so it wouldn't be served quickly.
When Ye Xu checked the backend, he discovered that even though the meat buns were cheap, Han Yingchen hadn't ordered them. Instead, he ordered a bunch of cheaper and more substantial breakfast items. He was a thrifty person, but his life seemed rather pathetic.
Unable to openly cater to this suspected Chinese descendant, Ye Xu could only privately instruct the kitchen to serve Han Yingchen a plate of steamed buns. After all, no one else knew what Han Yingchen had ordered, and he himself wouldn't be foolish enough to announce it.
When the steamed buns were brought over, Han Yingchen was indeed stunned for a moment. He wanted to say something, but it all vanished when the waiter said in an unquestionable tone, "Your steamed buns are ready, sir," and he realized that this was the restaurant's way of being considerate.
Han Yingchen frowned slightly, then quickly relaxed his brow. He had heard that the shop owner worshipped a very kind deity, so it wasn't surprising that he would take special care of him.
Silently eating a large steamed bun, Han Yingchen felt he had to do something; he couldn't just take someone's kindness for nothing.
Ye Xu didn't think too much about it; he was just particularly compassionate towards his compatriots. Offering a little help when traveling abroad was nothing special, and he wasn't short of money.
Ye Xu suddenly had a craving for seafood hot pot this morning. He looked around and decided to sit down at the table next to Han Yingchen. He ordered a robot to bring over a large pot of seafood broth, followed by more than twenty plates of various kinds of seafood.
The restaurant currently has a wide variety of ingredients available, but most of them are inexpensive, and they are worried that customers might not be able to afford them. Ye Xu's table, however, is different. He has never eaten expensive seafood before and is craving it, so he specially asked Shuangshuang to buy some delicious, top-quality seafood.
It is said that these seafoods come from interstellar planes. Due to the exceptionally developed aquaculture industry and abundant marine resources in interstellar space, ordinary seafood there cannot fetch a high price.
No matter how expensive modern seafood is, it's considered "common" in interstellar space. The truly luxurious items are a few species unique to interstellar space, currently not available for purchase. Even the shop manager can't eat them; he'll probably have to visit interstellar space to experience them.
Thinking of this, Ye Xu paused in his chopsticks.
Are there any special ingredients in the Western fantasy world? Like monster meat? Maybe magical vegetables? He doesn't sell them in his shop, and I haven't seen them on the purchase panel either?
Now that we're in the Western fantasy genre, there's no reason not to unlock this for him. Ye Xu frowned slightly, deciding to go upstairs after dinner to have a proper discussion with the system and see if he should complete a task or spend money to unlock it.
Putting aside these unhappy things, Ye Xu looked at the seafood in front of him again and began to eat.
Because Han Yingchen was attracting so much attention, Ye Xu's table also drew a lot of attention. Everyone quickly realized that the restaurant manager had prepared a special meal for them, serving up a bunch of top-quality seafood that none of them could afford. Was he really trying to tempt them?
Everyone looked at Ye Xu with resentment. One regular customer couldn't help but ask urgently as he saw the seafood pot boiling and Ye Xu starting to blanch the fish slices, smelling the overflowing aroma: "Boss, why don't you sell these kinds of seafood in the store?"
"Do you want some?" Ye Xu asked casually as he cooked the fish slices.
Actually, Ye Xu had never tried eating fish slices in seafood broth before; he learned this method from watching food vloggers' videos. It's not really a hot pot; in the southeastern coastal areas, it seems to be called "shabu-shabu."
Fresh fish fillets are quickly poached in a flavorful fish bone broth or seafood soup for just a few seconds before being scooped out and placed in the mouth. The fish fillets are tender and smooth, and the broth is fragrant and delicious—a double delight.
The fish slices are delicious on their own, but dipping them in sauce adds another layer of flavor. After eating, a bowl of hot seafood soup immediately warms up this chilly morning, dispelling all the gloom.
Ye Xu strictly followed the uploader's instructions, pairing several dipping sauces with the ingredients, and then took a bowl to serve the soup. She savored each slice one by one, trying different flavors, finding them all delicious. Occasionally, she would sip the soup, feeling so comfortable that she broke out in a light sweat.
The regular customer who had just asked the question couldn't resist the aroma and kept glancing over here.
Chapter 22 Care
Biyue City is located by the sea, and the people here are used to eating seafood. However, after the cold wave hits, the coastline freezes, making it extremely difficult to obtain seafood. They can occasionally eat ordinary seafood, but top-quality seafood is almost impossible to find, and they have been craving it for a long time.
"Boss, give me a straight answer! When will you be able to get these ingredients? No matter how expensive they are, I'm going to buy a few plates. I've been craving this so much!"
Upon hearing this, everyone agreed, saying they also wanted to buy some, and didn't mind spending a little more money to eat seafood.
Ye Xu was somewhat surprised; he hadn't expected everyone to be so wealthy. Since that was the case, he didn't hesitate and nodded, promising to add those seafood items tomorrow.
I can't explain why I prepared so much stock in advance. It's not like I'm the one who can't get it; making these people wait another day might allow me to create a sense of scarcity. I'll also help him promote it; that way, business should be even better tomorrow.
After receiving confirmation, everyone stopped bothering Ye Xu. He was happy to relax and slowly savor his meal.
Ye Xu felt a little regretful that he wasn't cut out for mukbang, relying solely on the aroma of the broth itself to attract customers; otherwise, today's promotional effect would definitely have been better. Speaking of mukbang, Ye Xu subconsciously looked up at Han Yingchen sitting at the table in front of him.
The sight of Han Yingchen eating is enough to whet the appetite of others. If it weren't for the negative impact of his bad reputation, he could be hired by many restaurants just by looking at him eat. He wouldn't have to do anything; he could just sit at the entrance and eat every day. He has a big appetite, so there's no question of him forcing himself to eat when he can't. Just thinking about it makes me feel really good.
It's a pity that now everyone avoids him like the plague, and standing at the door might only scare away customers.
Ye Xu felt a slight pang of regret. If Han Yingchen were a member of the gacha pool, he could be taken to other dimensions. Those places wouldn't have any rumors about him, and having him do a mukbang would definitely be a hit.
Although Ye Xu only glanced at it, Han Yingchen quickly caught that gaze. It wasn't entirely because his senses were too sharp, but because he, like everyone else, was staring at Ye Xu's seafood hot pot.
Others stare because they can't eat it, so they just want to look and satisfy their craving. Han Yingchen stares because he can't afford it, so he can only look at the plums and quench his thirst.
Ye Xu could ignore the gazes of others, but for some reason, he couldn't ignore Han Yingchen's. His gaze was too intense, making it impossible for Ye Xu to ignore. Feeling immense pressure from his stare, the tender fish slices in his mouth suddenly lost their flavor.
Perhaps sensing Ye Xu's unease, Han Yingchen quickly averted his gaze and continued eating, looking down at his food. However, he looked utterly pitiful, like a little puppy that hadn't gotten any food, which made Ye Xu even more uneasy.
Ye Xu thought to himself, "I can't openly eat alone outside anymore." An honest man like himself simply couldn't bear the pangs of conscience. If he weren't still rational, he would have rushed back to the kitchen to serve someone a few plates of seafood.
Ye Xu quickened his eating pace, quickly filling his stomach, and then went inside to swap Shuangshuang and Luna. Xiaoyu, though not a cat, was also very interested in seafood, abandoning her playmates and running out to freeload.
Ye Xu entrusted the task of feeding the tempting seafood to the two ladies, but in the end, Xiao Yu was the one who ate the most and enjoyed it the most. Taking advantage of the fact that she wasn't a real kitten, she ate the most and with the most relish.
Everyone kept glancing at the seafood, then at it, their mouths watering uncontrollably. How annoying! They wanted to eat seafood, but they also wanted to play with the wool ball!
Ye Xu waited until they finished eating before coming out, intending to instruct the waiters to inform the later guests about the new ingredients for tomorrow. They couldn't rely solely on the current clientele to spread the word; the more people who knew, the better.
When Ye Xu went upstairs to explain things, the waiter was serving a table of regular customers. The waiter overheard something and then grabbed Ye Xu.
"Boss, I've been wanting to ask you this for a while now, why don't you sell monster meat?" a regular customer reminded him. "Your shop is really the only one in Biyue City that only sells regular beast meat and not monster meat. Regular beast meat doesn't contain any energy, so you have to eat a lot of it to feel full. Why don't you stock up on more monster meat?"
Previously, the other party was worried that Ye Xu didn't have a way to obtain Warcraft meat, and even considered supplying the shop with it. Later, they realized that the little Warcraft meat they collected each day wasn't even enough for their own consumption, so supplying it was just a pipe dream.
Now that Ye Xu can supply top-quality seafood without limit, monster meat shouldn't be a problem either, right?
Hearing this, Ye Xu suddenly understood why adventurers ate so much at each meal, yet their long mealtimes didn't interfere with their quest progress. It turned out they ate monster meat regularly, saving them time by not eating too much at each meal.
If the restaurant had monster meat, customers could finish their meals much faster and the queue time would be significantly reduced. However, figuring this out is pointless, since there's no monster meat among the ingredients to be unlocked...
[Ding! The keyword "Warcraft" has been triggered. The specialty products section of the Western Fantasy World has been unhidden, and the shopkeeper can now start selling Warcraft ingredients!]