"Yes Sir." The waiter sounded a bit too enthusiastic in his reply.
"The couple set is the best." Li Ling tried to defend himself and Zhihao nodded awkwardly.
"With the looks of it, I think anything from here would be delicious." Zhihao had suddenly become a sweet talker.
"I can't argue with that. We have really great chefs."
The waiter was gone for a couple of minutes and returned with a jug of water and filled their glasses with water.
The water was important.
It was very important as Li Ling immediately emptied the whole glass. He was very thirsty. The waiter was polite enough to refill his empty glass once again.
"I'll be back with your order." The waiter took his leave only after he sent a knowing smile towards Li Ling.
At this point, Li Ling felt like Zhihao was the only one blind to something so apparent.
Li Ling took the glass again and chugged the water down his throat, feeling as if no matter how much he drank, he was still thirsty.
Zhihao chuckled out of nowhere, "This is like a perfect date all girls dream about."
cough~ cough~
Li Ling choked on the water and Zhihao handed him a napkin.
"Drink slowly."
"..."
Li Ling averted eye contact as if he was guilty of being found out. He wiped his mouth and placed the napkin and glass down on the table.
"Does A-Zhi also dream of having such a date?"
Zhihao thought about it for a while and then frowned, "I've never had such a dream but a perfect date for me would be sitting at home and playing games all day. That would be really romantic."
Li Ling made a mental note and scolded himself for coming up with such a lame idea. Of course, Zhihao wouldn't be interested in such a cliché date. A gaming date was always better.
"We'll have a gaming date later when T.I.A.D's server is back on." Li Ling mumbled and Zhihao heard him.
"Hmm?"
Li Ling smiled and smoothly changed the topic like butter, "I wonder what the second stage of T.I.A.D. will be like."
Zhihao's enthusiasm couldn't go hidden as his body visibly jolted awake. His shoulders straightened out and he leaned in with eyes that shimmered with interest.
"Do you have any ideas?" Zhihao asked eagerly.
Li Ling wanted to laugh when he saw such a reaction, "I don't know. Does A-Zhi have any expectations?"
Zhihao bobbed his head up and down, "I do. I have a lot but I don't think they will come true."
Li Ling also leaned in as he rested his head on his cupped hands, "I would love to hear it."
"We only got one notification saying they'll need ten days to prepare for the second stage, I find that questionable. This can't be a server maintenance thing so what could it be?" Zhihao asked as if trying to make the atmosphere a bit more detective-like. He looked like a man trying to copy Sherlock Holmes.
Li Ling, "What does ten days have to do with it?"
Zhihao pursed his lips and nodded his head, "I don't know."
Zhihao didn't want to word out his thoughts and expectations with stage two.
Li Ling cracked up, "So A-Zhi has nothing?"
"I don't know" Zhihao pouted, "But I want T.I.A.D. to improve their storylines. I mean I love them all but they are all so twisted. I want some of them to have a happy ending."
"How do you know they don't have a happy ending? What if they do but the players don't satisfy the conditions it takes to make the storyline end happy?"
Zhihao was suddenly amazed. He had never thought of such a thing. Actually, he had but he was also the one who pushed the idea aside because no matter how pacifist he was in a level, the story was always so twisted that it was impossible to have it end on a happy note.
"If a happy ending exists, there's probably a one in ten chances of fulfilling it, and that one chance is as difficult as finding a needle from a haystack."
Li Ling looked at the man with an undecipherable expression. Mastermo was very sharp. He had guessed it correctly. The chances of ending a level with a happy ending was one in ten but that one chance was affected by a lot of factors and if any of that factor was different than the planned happy plot, the story would be redirected towards the tragic/normal ending and at that point going back to the path of the happy ending was impossible.
So far, all levels Mastermo played ended with the normal ending, this also meant that there were endings more tragic and there was also a happy ending that Mastermo had somehow missed.
Li Ling wanted to change the topic because the more Zhihao indulged in this topic, the more he'll uncover and the more spoilers Li Ling would give out by mistake.
"It doesn't matter if there is a happy ending or not. In the end, our mission will remain the same. Maybe Bu Hui just has a sadistic personality."
Li Ling received a glare for calling Zhihao's god a sadist.
"He's not like that."
Zhihao was a blind man with a perfectly healthy pair of eyes.
"Yeah. He is not a sadist, he just enjoys creating cruel stories." Li Ling lightly rolled his eyes.
Zhihao looked up at Li Ling with a shocked expression, he remembered the latter part of this line but he couldn't remember where he remembered it from.
It was so familiar, as if, Zhihao were the one who originally said the line.
"I think it's great." Zhihao commented and Li Ling looked at him with great interest, "It is unpredictable and different from the rest."
Li Ling smiled, "Did you know that whenever you talk about Bu Hui, you have that look in your eyes. That crazed fan look."
Zhihao was a bit embarrassed. He leaned in closer and indicated Li Ling to do the same.
Li Ling leaned in, wondering how important the thing Zhihao wanted to whisper to him was.
"Don't tell anyone this." Zhihao whispered, "He looks more handsome when he's slaughtering beasts."
"..."
Li Ling didn't know what he felt about this. Should he really be hearing this?
He felt like he was invading Zhihao's privacy. He wanted to laugh but he couldn't. He really shouldn't be the one who heard Zhihao share such information.
"Is that so?" Li Ling moved back to his originally straight posture, looking like a well-mannered nobleman.
When Zhihao saw the man sitting in front of him, he couldn't help but feel that this man just belonged. He belonged to such extravagant rich places. Zhihao admired the man for this. For Zhihao, he hated such places. When his father called him to attend the lavish business parties, he would decline, not being polite at showing his disinterest. He felt like his room was a lot more fun than such boring places. But now that he saw Li Ling, he could understand the aesthetic reason behind why people would want to attend such events.
If Li Ling attended old Huang's business meetings, Zhihao would have considered going to them.
Li Ling scratched his neck as he saw Zhihao looking at him, "You know, I look handsome while slaying beasts too."
"..."
The waiter had perfect timing. He had a complicated expression on his face filled with smiles. This waiter was a spy for Li Ling's mother and Li Ling knew it.
"Here you go. A non-veg couple set." The waiter set down the food on the table.
There was a lot and when Zhihao saw the delicious looking and smelling food, he couldn't help but gulp down his saliva.
This was food-heaven on earth.
Li Ling was satisfied to see Zhihao's reaction.
"Have a great date, sir" The waiter commented before he left.
Zhihao didn't hear the words so he replied with an absent-minded "Thank you."
It was Zhihao's habit. He was a well-mannered gentleman.
Li Ling chuckled, "Thank you."
The waiter bowed and left the two lovebirds alone.
There was so much on the table that Zhihao didn't know what he wanted to eat first. The aroma that filled the air was enough to make Zhihao droll at a whiff. The food looked so appetizing that Zhihao felt like it would be a waste if he let his knife cut into the perfect looking steak.
Li Ling, "Everything is delicious, choose whatever you want."
Zhihao couldn't agree more. Everything looked delicious but now Zhihao was in a state of confusion, what was he supposed to eat first?
Li Ling was more than happy to help Zhihao get out of this dilemma as he took Zhihao's plate and served him.
"I hope A-Zhi is not allergic to seafood."
He wasn't. In fact, Zhihao loved seafood and that was the reason why Li Ling served the black pepper tossed shrimp first.
"I love seafood." Zhihao exclaimed happily as he eyed the delicious looking shrimp.
"That's good to hear." Li Ling sat back down on his seat and served himself some of it too.
The two ate happily, so indulged in savoring the food that they didn't care if they talked or not. Li Ling was like a mother who would fill her son's plate every now and then with mouth-watering food and force him to eat it, but in this case, Zhihao wasn't being forced at all. He had never eaten so much in his life. This restaurant was certainly amazing, so amazing that Zhihao wanted to meet the chef and give him a job at Zhihao's house as the head chef.
Time has passed away so fast that they were already down to the dessert.
There were actually many verities of dessert present in front of them, but no matter how much Zhihao wanted to eat them, he couldn't because his stomach felt like it was ready to explode at any given moment.
Zhihao looked down at the ice cream, cake, tiramisu, and the white stuff that was decorated with crushed dry fruits. He didn't know the name of most of these because they weren't game items but if they were, Zhihao would've remembered the name and taste of each and every dish that was served in this restaurant.
Li Ling saw through the dejected look on Zhihao's face, "Let's pack the rest and have them delivered to your house."
Zhihao frowned, "I don't think such restaurants have packing and delivery services."
Li Ling laughed at the man's simple mind, "But if I want it, I'm sure I can have it packed."
"Tch- flaunting off your wealth?"
Li Ling smirked, "What? Jealous?"
"Sure, I'm jealous." Zhihao played along.
"Then you can marry into my family and have all this."
"..." Zhihao was taken back once again and looked at the man with eyes wide open, "Your sister is so young, I don't want to go to jail."
"Huh?"
It took Li Ling a whole minute to process what was being said and just as he did, he wanted to bang his head on the wall and knock himself out.
That wasn't what he meant at all!
"..."
Li Ling looked at the man and sighed in disbelief, "A-Zhi has a wild imagination."
Zhihao tilted his head, "Then what do you mean? Do you want me to marry you instead?"
"..."
Yes, that was exactly what Li Ling wanted to say.
Li Ling was silent for the next few minutes as he drank another whole glass of water, feeling as if his thirst was hard to quench. At this point, it would be more shocking if he didn't pee a ton after drinking all that water.
Li Ling looked into Zhihao's eyes and decided to chant his mantra in his mind.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Slow and steady... To hell with slow and steady. Li Ling can win the race with his looks alone and if he can't, he'll get the other opponents disqualified!
"If I wanted A-Zhi to marry me, would you?"