Chapter 42: First World: Swapped Dinner

If this world had a weather service channel they would have issued a warning to the citizens to stay clear as hurricane Qie Ranzhe was approaching. A dark aura invisible to the naked eye was permeating from his body attracting vicious resentful energy from all over town. Anyone who passed him could feel their muscles tense up in fear with every hair on their body standing on end perceiving danger. This was only the beginning, just a drop in the ocean compared to how Qie Ranzhe felt when he got to the shelter only to find the cat that he provided refugee to hadn't arrived yet.

With his entire body rigid, Qie Ranzhe sat on his bed waiting for Lin Jingxie to show up vowing not to eat dinner until he made his appearance but with each passing moment the likelihood for that happening was becoming bleak. Qie Ranzhe clenched and unclenched his fists numerous times deducing what could have happened. The more he sank deep into a sea of negative thoughts the angrier he became that Machu had to come in and calm the crazy.

"Ran-ge its probably nothing just eat first maybe he will show up after you are done. You can always wait till morning to speak to him otherwise you might expose yourself if you see him with a girl," said Machu with one foot at the door just in case his words stimulated Qie Ranzhe.

To his surprise, Qie Ranzhe agreed and suddenly stood up heading for the dining room clenching his jaw while stomping all the way. The dining table was set with all kinds of exquisite mouth-watering foods that could easily pass off as five-star dishes made by the finest chef. Qie Ranzhe paused with his chopsticks hovering above the table with his brows creased together. Though appetising the food was not to his taste something had definitely changed."What is this?" asked Qie Ranzhe with a solemn tone as he slammed his chopsticks back on the table.

Machu was scared stiff unable to annunciate a single word. Lin Jingxie had dropped by as usual and left carefully packed dishes for Qie Ranzhe. Right after he left, Zhao Huangzhi showed up looking for Qie Ranzhe only to find out that he had left for the mountains to practice. She had clearly seen Lin Jingxie's disappearing figure before she entered the gate and so asked one of the boys what Lin Jingxie was doing here if Qie Ranzhe wasn't there.

Bewitched by her beauty, the boy divulged the details mentioning how Lin Jingxie brings food for Qie Ranzhe every single day dishes especially prepared for him. A familiar stinging pain poked at her chest green with envy. This duty should be why Lin Jingxie was treated better she thought while looking around for the kitchen. She strongly believed Qie Ranzhe felt indebted to Lin Jingxie because of the food he brought for him each day.

A light bulb suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree in that clever brain of hers proceeding to ask in a gentle sweet tone, "May you please show me to the kitchen. I am really thirsty and would like to drink some water?" The boy didn't suspect anything especially when he had seen Qie Ranzhe and Lin Jingxie hang out with her before and so showed her the way. With the cup in her hand, she looked around the room looking for anything that resembled packed food as she initiated her plan to sabotage it.

She was confident that once Qie Ranzhe got a taste of the food their family chef made he would automatically demote Lin Jingxie and eat her food instead. The corner of her mouth rose up slightly in a smile when she found the elegant wooden triple deck bento box settled at the end of the table. It was clearly separated from the rest of the packed food indicating its importance. She had no doubt in her mind that she had found the right one and so staggered forward pretending to have tripped over. Her hip bumped the table and the box came crashing down with a loud bam.

The two people froze with their entire bodies tensed up gaping at each other. Zhao Huangzhi apologised ever so sincerely but the more the boy stared at that broken box with all the contents split to the floor the paler his face looked. He placed both his hands either side of his head looking like a mourner at a funeral muttering, "He's going to kill me, he's going to fucking kill me."

Machu heard the noise and came rushing to see what had happened and his face sank with endless streams of black lines staring at the split contents of what should have been Qie Ranzhe's dinner, one of the few things he always looked forward to. Zhao Huangzhi couldn't understand why they had an extreme reaction to this, wasn't it just food? Machu was about to run over to the Lin Mansion and somehow convince Lin Jingxie to make more when his path was blocked by Zhao Huangzhi.

To her, any fruit was a fruit, what was the point of being fussy but to Qie Ranzhe you couldn't give him an apple trying to pass it off as a pineapple. They were clearly different thus Qie Ranzhe's reaction to the star quality food right in front of him. Machu had a slight inkling that her plan wouldn't work because Qie Ranzhe hadn't eaten anything that wasn't cooked or given to him by Lin Jingxie in a very long time which turned him into a picky eater. Basically, if it wasn't from Jin-ge, he wasn't eating it.

This was like trying to feed him horsemeat while passing it off as beef. "Ran-ge ple-please don't get mad your dinner fell to the ground and.....um....Zhao Huangzhi replaced i-" he stammered but didn't get to finish when the sound of a chair scraping the floor grasped his attention. Qie Ranzhe stood up with dark poisonous eyes that spelt murder as something snapped within him.

'Oh shit!' thought Machu with weakened legs shaking like a leaf as he watched Qie Ranzhe storm out of the door heading towards god knows where.