The scores were in.
The six player-judges followed the same pattern as before — no change there. But the three scores from the Organizer's side were a different story entirely.
Two. Zero. Two.
Two of the Organizer's judges had given out a score of 2 — an astonishing result. Only the Host Mask Man had scored it a zero, a stark contrast to the other two.
"What happened with that dish?"
"Two of the Organizer's judges actually gave it a 2 — that's not supposed to happen!"
"Even a 1 would've been generous from them. A 2 is unreal."
"Wait — I just remembered, Brother Zero went over to that group and tasted their intestines dish. He even gave them feedback and suggestions."
That revelation sent another ripple of shock through the crowd.
A single piece of advice from Zero had convinced two of the Organizer's judges to hand out 2s? Just how powerful was that advice?
The player-judges giving high scores was one thing — that was expected. In theory they could've all given 2s; the only reason they didn't was to manage risk. But the Organizer's judges were a completely different matter.
There was only one explanation: the Nine-Turn Braised Intestines had genuinely won over those two judges. Nothing else could account for it.
Twelve points.
A full twelve points — the highest score of the event, earned by a single dish of Nine-Turn Braised Intestines.
"Brother Zero is insane."
"Brother Zero is on another level."
"This is why you always listen to Brother Zero."
Several players shouted out in excitement.
They had gone in with nothing more than a "let's try it" attitude. At first, they hadn't even believed him — but now, these scores made it crystal clear that Lin Ye had been right all along.
Without Lin Ye, they'd have been lucky to scrape together eight or nine points.
Their overall ranking still fell far short of first place, but nobody was going to complain about earning extra points. Every additional point helped. Every single position gained could translate into a better reward.
They weren't greedy enough to dream of a hundred Strange Coins — but ten, or five, or even just one? Surely that wasn't too much to hope for.
Of everyone present, the most curious was undoubtedly Miss Erina Nakiri.
She desperately wanted to know what Lin Ye had told that group to add to their dish — what on earth could have produced a reaction like that from the Organizer's judges? She couldn't wrap her head around it. The ingredient he'd recommended wasn't anything legendary. It shouldn't have made that big a difference.
"What did they add?" she asked.
Cold Frost was equally curious, glancing over at the two beside her.
"It's... better that you don't know," Lin Ye said.
"You can't say?"
"It's not appropriate to say."
"Tell me."
The more Lin Ye resisted, the more Erina's curiosity burned.
"You'll regret it if I tell you," he warned.
"Hmph. Erina Nakiri doesn't know the meaning of regret."
The golden-haired young girl radiated absolute confidence in herself.
Lin Ye beckoned her over. With a look that was half-skeptical, half-reluctant, Erina leaned in close.
"Do you know what's underneath the masks of those two Organizer judges?"
"What?"
"Dog heads."
"Oh—!"
Erina blinked.
"What's the problem with that?"
"Ever heard the saying?"
"What saying?"
"You can't stop a dog from eating sh*t!"
"..."
Erina's mouth twitched violently.
"You... no wonder you didn't go up there as a judge."
Because he didn't want to eat sh*t. That was the answer.
Everything clicked for Erina. This guy was a complete glutton — always eating, eating, eating — and yet he'd inexplicably refused to go up and judge the dishes. It had seemed so out of character for Zero. But now she understood.
He'd known exactly what was in that dish. That was why he hadn't touched it.
"If I'd gone up there to eat it, wouldn't you have tasted it too?" he pointed out.
"Ah—!"
Erina froze — but she knew he was right.
She and Lin Ye shared Shared Taste.
Whatever Lin Ye tasted, she tasted too. And given her God Tongue, she was fairly certain she would have experienced the full, unfiltered impact of every flavour with far greater intensity.
No. Absolutely not.
How could she, Erina Nakiri, ever eat something like that?! Under no circumstances! This was even more unbearable than eating rat meat. Far more unbearable.
"I only skipped judging to protect you, you know," Lin Ye said.
"Like I'd believe that...," Erina muttered, shooting him a flustered sideways glance. It was the first time she'd ever let that kind of bashful, womanly expression slip.
"A sincere remark, and nobody believes me. What a shame."
Your face does not look like someone who's the least bit sorry.
Erina couldn't help thinking that.
Cold Frost had caught every word.
She was stunned too. She didn't actually believe Lin Ye had been confident the Organizer judges would enjoy it — more likely, he'd just wanted to disgust them. After all, the Host Mask Man had given it a flat zero.
Her guess was that the Host Mask Man had figured out what was in it.
"Why didn't the Host Mask Man give it a 2?" Cold Frost asked suddenly.
"Actually, it's quite simple," Lin Ye said, lowering his voice just enough for the two of them to hear.
"The face under his mask isn't a dog's head."
"Is it human?"
"No."
Under their curious stares, Lin Ye continued, "It's a bear's head. A black bear's head."
A bear's head.
So that meant...
Both of them immediately thought of the black bear they had killed.
Was there some connection between the two?
The Nine-Turn Braised Intestines had been made with the black bear's intestines — and what had been inside those intestines.
The Host Mask Man must be absolutely furious.
Erina shot a quick glance in his direction — and the next instant, she found his gaze locking directly onto hers. She immediately looked away, snapping her eyes back.
Terrifying.
She didn't dare look.
For the first time in her life, the proud queen Erina Nakiri felt genuinely guilty — deeply afraid that the Host Mask Man might sense exactly what was going through her mind right now.
But with Lin Ye here, she had nothing to fear.
"Hmph."
One defiant sound later, Erina had her confidence back.
She had nothing to be afraid of.
"Next group."
The next newcomer group stepped up.
Braised meat.
As before, the players tasted it first. But unlike the composed demeanour of the earlier groups, all four players in this one were trembling — their hands shaking as they held their bowls.
Something was wrong.
The crowd quickly remembered.
This was the group that had refused to follow Lin Ye's instructions, killed the eliminated player for their ingredient, and then blindly selected whatever dish came to hand.
"You eat first. This is your fault."
"Just eat it!"
The one being pressured was the young man who had actually done the killing. He was furious — but he didn't dare eat it either. He wanted someone else to go first.
"Fine," he said.
He nodded, picked up a piece of meat with his chopsticks — and in the next instant, with a motion too fast for anyone to react to, shoved it straight into the mouth of the woman beside him who'd been pressuring him.
"Mmph — mmph, mmph—"
She struggled and whimpered, but under violent force she was made to swallow it.
"Cough, cough, cough—"
She coughed hard, pounding her chest with her right hand — but the meat that had gone in couldn't come back out.
"You — you bastard, are you trying to kill me?!"
"If something happens to me, you — you won't get away with this!"
She kept swearing at him, relentlessly.
Then the Host Mask Man's voice cut through. "A little faster, if you would, guests."
He was pushing them.
But the others in the group were still waiting.
Poisoned or not — that was the question.
Seeing that the woman seemed fine, one of them relaxed. "We're good. We got lucky — our ingredients aren't poisonous."
He raised the bowl to his lips —
And at that exact moment, the woman went blank. Her whole body went rigid and she crashed straight to the floor with a heavy, dull thud.
The change was so sudden that no one had seen it coming.
Poisoned. Was she dying?
The woman on the ground began to convulse. Splotches appeared across her skin — blisters bubbling up one after another.
"Aaaaaah—!"
A scream tore through the air.
She writhed and thrashed on the ground, wailing and shrieking, her eyes bulging as bloody tears streamed down her face — and within moments, all life left her entirely.
Dead.
Completely, irreversibly dead.
The sight made the man who had just raised his bowl flinch so hard that it dropped from his hands and clattered to the floor.
She was dead.
The ingredient was poisonous.
"Guests, please taste your dishes," came the staff member's reminder.
"No — no — we're not eating."
"We refuse."
"We don't want to die!"
Every player shook their head furiously. No one was going near that dish — that lethal, fatal dish.
"Guests, you have five seconds remaining,"
The countdown began.
The Organizer's staff closed in around them.
"Brother Zero — Zero! Help us!"
But there was nothing Lin Ye could do even if he'd wanted to — and truthfully, he had no intention of doing anything.
People must bear the consequences of their own choices. You can't claim all the good outcomes and discard all the bad ones.
"Run!"
"Go!"
The players bolted — but none of them made it more than a few steps before being pinned to the ground.
"I — I won't... eat."
But the dish was force-fed to them.
"Glk — glk glk—"
"No — I don't want to die — sob —"
"I don't want to die!"
The young man who had actually killed the eliminated player was hit hardest of all — overcome with regret, rage, and despair. In his final moments he roared at Lin Ye: "You heartless bastard!"
"This is your fault!"
"All your fault! Why didn't you help us?!"
"We — we deserved to eat— aaargh!"
One by one, they collapsed.
One by one, they went still.
Thud... thud... thud...
The remaining players watching all swallowed hard.
If they hadn't listened to Lin Ye, their fate wouldn't have been any better.
According to the Organizer's own figures, roughly one in three groups had a chance of selecting an uncontaminated ingredient — meaning only about five groups would make it through. And that was assuming the Organizer's numbers were honest. If they weren't, even more people would die. It could have been a complete wipeout.
This fourth event had been the most brutal of all. The first three events, at least, could largely be overcome through effort and determination. But this fourth one — choosing ingredients — was pure, merciless luck.
When it came down to raw luck alone, there was simply nothing you could do.
The pressure now fell on the one remaining group that had selected unusual ingredients.
Every newcomer in that group had their eyes fixed on their veteran player.
The veteran's face had gone a sickly shade of pale.
The previous group had just died so horribly.
What was going to happen to them?
"Hah..."
He let out a slow, quiet breath.
"Plan B."
He wasn't the type to sit and wait for death. Of course he'd prepared a backup plan.
Taste-testing the dish.
The veteran picked up a piece of meat from his bowl and began eating it in small bites.
"Holy sh*t — that's clever! He only used the mandatory ingredient as a garnish. After cooking, he placed it on the side of the plate."
"Even with the garnish touching the rest of the dish, the toxin didn't spread to the other meat."
"You've got to respect veteran players — finding a loophole like that."
"Will the loophole hold?"
Soon enough, the veteran finished eating. The other newcomers followed — and not one of them had any reaction.
The dish was brought to the judges' table.
Now the pressure was on the judges.
What if it was poisonous? What if one bite killed them?
Steeling themselves, the player-judges carefully selected small pieces from sections far away from the suspicious garnish and made a show of putting them in their mouths.
Soon, the scores were submitted.
2 — 2 — 2 — 2 — 1 — 1 — 0 — 0 — 1.
Nine points.
"Phew."
Relief.
They hadn't been targeted — or at least, Lin Ye hadn't gone out of his way to target them.
In that moment, the veteran player felt a flicker of genuine gratitude.
Jumping in to fight during the black bear and rat hunts had been the right call. If they hadn't, even without Lin Ye's explicit instruction, the six player-judges could've piled on and buried them with the lowest possible scores.
The fact that six judges gave them the same scores as everyone else was proof enough that they hadn't been singled out.
"We passed."
His earlier hope of using this round to surge to first place was completely gone. Now his only thought was: pass. That's all. Nothing more.
"Thank you."
The newcomer players, shaken survivors of a near-death ordeal, repeated their thanks over and over.
They understood perfectly well that if the player-judges had decided to target them, passing would have been impossible.
They had been isolated because of the veteran's actions earlier — they all knew that. If they hadn't thrown themselves into the fights against the black bear and the rats, contributing actively throughout — and if the veteran hadn't performed so outstandingly —
It didn't bear thinking about.
Finally, they looked over at Lin Ye, expressions filled with gratitude.
Lin Ye hadn't taken advantage of the opportunity to retaliate. That alone spoke volumes about his magnanimity.
It's such a relief to have someone like Lin Ye here. Genuinely.
Honestly — if the roles had been reversed, they weren't at all sure they would have done the same thing.
Three groups later.
It was finally Group 26's turn.
All three tasted the dish without a moment's hesitation.
After all, during the cooking itself, the three of them had already sampled it repeatedly — and none of them had had any issues whatsoever.
Lin Ye, for his part, had eaten his fill.
Beyond the black bear meat and snake meat, he'd eaten the hamster tail as well.
His Constitution had increased by another point.
Lin Ye thought to himself that there still hadn't been quite enough edible meat ingredients. He felt like there could have been more.
"It'd be great if I could come back to this instance world again."
He wasn't entirely sure whether this was an independent world or just another part of the Inner World. But the meat ingredients this place produced were genuinely remarkable.
"Guests, please taste your dishes..."
Unlike the tasting that had already happened, the dishes now placed before the judges' table each came in a dedicated serving vessel.
The Host Mask Man reached out and lifted the lid.
He was curious to see what Group 26 had prepared. He knew Lin Ye hadn't been particularly involved in the cooking — it had been that golden-haired girl, Erina Nakiri, the girl he had tried to recruit into his bet only to be thoroughly outplayed.
"Let's see what you can produce. Don't disappoint me."
The Host Mask Man seemed, for all appearances, to be focused entirely on the quality of the food. He rested his hand on the lid, applied the faintest pressure — and the cover came off.
And in that instant—
A ray of golden light burst forth.
Golden light.
What did that mean?
The Host Mask Man stood frozen, dumbfounded. And around him, every spectator went utterly still.
They had imagined beautiful colours in the dish. They had anticipated mouth-watering aromas, irresistible flavours.
But not a single one of them had imagined that the moment this dish was uncovered, it would emit golden light.
That was the legendary golden dish — a dish only spoken of in rumour.
This has to be fake. It must be an illusion.
"A glowing dish."
Suddenly, one of the Organizer's staff members spoke in a hollow, distant voice.
"This is... a glowing dish."
"A dish like this... actually exists?"
"This must be fake — it has to be an illusion."
"Only a dish whose level has been acknowledged by the rules can emit gold. Who could possibly reach that standard? It's impossible."
Before the words had even finished —
The other two Organizer judges moved.
Zheng—
Zheng—
Two more rays of golden light blazed out, pouring through the gaps between lids and bowls, searing into every pair of eyes.
Once was an accident. But twice? Three times?
"Let us see as well."
The player-judges quickly lifted their lids.
One shaft of golden light after another bloomed outward — until the sky above this entire space was touched with a faint, ethereal shimmer of gold.
It was real.
Truly, genuinely real — a golden dish in every sense of the word.
Every judge looked down at their dish. Not a trace of gold remained on the food itself.
And that was how every judge understood: this was a true golden dish. No tricks. No artifice.
The players, buzzing among themselves, were piecing together the meaning of a "glowing dish."
For most of them, this was the first time in their lives they had ever witnessed a glowing dish — and quite likely the only time they ever would.
They found themselves even more desperate to eat it than the judges.
They wanted to know: what level had that golden-haired young girl, Erina Nakiri of Group 26, actually reached?
It would certainly be delicious.
The thought surfaced unbidden in all their minds.
The Host Mask Man stared down at the dish before him.
Good food, it is said, must excel in three dimensions: colour, aroma, and taste.
The colour of this dish wasn't exactly stunning — if anything, it was plain. A scattering of spring onions was the only thing lending any contrast to the braised beef chunks. By the standards of a beautifully plated dish, it fell well short.
The aroma, though—
The Host Mask Man inhaled the fragrance flooding toward him and found himself breathing it in again, unable to help himself.
Rich. Deeply fragrant.
On aroma alone, he could have given it a top mark.
And that left only the final dimension — taste.
No matter how beautiful the colour, no matter how intoxicating the fragrance, if the taste fell flat, the dish was a failure.
But a dish that had produced a golden glow — its taste could surely not disappoint.
Let me find out. Let me discover exactly what level this dish has truly reached.
...
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