Xu Jialu asked curiously, "What question were you about to ask?"

"Public welfare".

"..." Such a concise answer; she couldn't even steal a bit of the solution.

With Shao Dong gone, Qi Yin no longer needed to perform with fervor, so he used a prop to spit out the first bite of meat he had eaten.

Li Jiaoyang and Huang Shanhe, who were sitting opposite him, were stunned. They looked around and found that of the 11 people at the table, only the two of them were eating.

Even Chen Shu, who was also a newcomer, only put the food in his bowl and didn't eat it at all.

"No...can't I eat it?" Li Jiaoyang panicked, slowing down her chewing, unsure whether to swallow.

"Be careful with the food in dungeons. Not all of it is necessarily bad, but if you encounter something bad even once, you might die," Sherman warned, seeing her pitiful, on-the-spot look.

Snap.

Li Jiaoyang's tears fell instantly.

Huang Shanhe, standing next to him, grabbed a handful of his hair in distress, his hairline receding once again.

At the dinner table, no one ate, and no one left.

Not everyone has the means to fill their stomachs, and it's impossible to go five days without eating. They are all waiting to see if Li Jiaoyang and the other person will show any unusual behavior so they can decide whether to have a normal meal tomorrow.

At the quiet dining table, Sher stared at the pot of stewed chicken for a long time.

She didn't care what these people were saying and silently looked at Shi Jinzhe.

He conveyed his desire to eat perfectly, and Shi Jinzhe even held her hand under the table, picking up a piece of chicken with one hand.

Seeing that Sheh didn't intend to do it herself, the meat that was originally going to be put into her bowl was instead brought to her mouth by the chopsticks.

Shekh took a bite, didn't chew, and swallowed it directly. After finishing, he looked at him again, as if to say, "Continue."

"..."

She sometimes dresses in human clothes, but doesn't eat like a human.

Shi Jinzhe lowered his head and whispered, "Chew it a couple of times..."

The clinking of chopsticks drew everyone's attention to the table, and a third person who dared to eat appeared.

Sherman: "You two have such a good relationship. You don't let go of each other's hands while eating, and you even have to feed each other yourself."

Shi Jinzhe didn't explain. He let go. He didn't know if Shekh would scare them, but he certainly couldn't stand it.

Sigh, if only he weren't afraid of snakes.

Compared to Sherman's deliberate attempt to be friendly, the burly man's expression was one of disillusionment.

Whether this stuff is edible is debatable, but to just feed it to someone like that, shouldn't you first check if there's a problem? Is this guy using his girlfriend to test the food?

He thought it was true love that conquered all, but it turned out to be a stepping stone in a game.

Shekh's mind and eyes were only on the chicken at that moment. He ate one bite after another, finishing the whole serving in front of him. After finishing, he even licked his lips, still wanting more.

Sherman: "Would you like some water...?"

This person doesn't chew her food at all; doesn't she choke?

Even when swallowing, you can see that some pieces of chicken with bones are so large that they cause obvious foreign object protrusions in the throat when swallowing.

No matter how good-looking someone is, it can't hide their strange behavior.

Li Jiaoyang was a little scared. The beautiful blindfolded woman kept staring at the plate of chicken in front of her. She pushed the plate towards Shekh.

But Shehe didn't eat; instead, she tried to stand up. Shi Jinzhe had no choice but to put down the steamed bun she had just picked up and take her back upstairs to their room.

The people downstairs looked at each other, wondering what they were thinking.

Inside the room, Shi Jinzhe stood at the door and turned on the light. There was a bed against the corner, a desk, and a wardrobe placed against the wall at the foot of the bed. That was all the furniture in the room.

He asked Shekh, "You were walking around the room just now, did you find anything?"

Shekh didn't reply, but withdrew his hand and sat down on the edge of the bed. "That was delicious. I want to eat more."

Shi Jinzhe forced himself not to notice the snake tail under his feet, stiffening his back. "Those downstairs have all been touched by others. If you want to eat them, I can make them for you in a dungeon."

He coaxed, "I know a lot of things. I can make whatever you want to eat. I can make boiled dishes, salt-baked dishes, steamed dishes, stewed dishes, and many other dishes. They are all better than this. As long as I can leave here safely, I will make it for you."

Shi Jinzhe was not lying; during the years when Cheng's mother was in poor mental condition, he learned to cook quite a few dishes.

It sounds strange, but the truth is that Cheng's mother's condition would improve significantly after eating his cooking, so his culinary skills were indeed quite good.

Although he doesn't have any money right now, he can draw the cake for Shekh first, and then deal with it after he safely clears this dungeon.

Sheh doesn't like to talk to people, but when Shi Jinzhe sees that she doesn't speak and doesn't explicitly refuse, he knows that there is a possibility of negotiation.

He didn't need Sheikh to make a promise to protect him; promises could be broken. He was just testing her attitude.

"I need to go out and check out the house. Can you stay here by yourself, or do you want to come with me?"

Shekh remained silent.

Shi Jinzhe had already guessed her reaction, so he didn't say much. He stood at the door and told her before leaving, "Come find me if you need anything."

After closing the door, he carefully observed the second-floor corridor. There were paint marks left from painting on the tiles in the corner, but nothing else was unusual.

Downstairs, there wasn't much furniture, just a few cabinets. Shi Jinzhe rummaged through each one, finding only a few empty plastic bags inside.

The kitchen of this house is not in the building, but in the yard. He went in, and the kitchen light was broken. He could only see the situation near the door with the help of the light emanating from the small building.

A standard rural kitchen, with an earthen stove and a large iron pot. He half-squatted down, and at the very back of the stove were two pieces of burnt charcoal.

Shi Jinzhe reached out and pulled out the charcoal. It wasn't big, and there were signs that it had been swept away. These few pieces must have been left behind.

A breeze picked up in the mountains, and the wooden door to the kitchen swayed a few times.

Scattered light streamed in through the door frame, elongating shadows. The damp night breeze felt clinging uncomfortably to my skin.

He heard a sizzling sound behind him, like someone gnawing on a wooden board with their teeth.

Shi Jinzhe doubted that he had misheard. He calmed his breathing, confirmed that the voice was still there, and slowly turned to look at the corner.

The sound came from a place where no light shone; it was completely hidden in darkness. It was as if something was staring back at him there, and the sound of gnawing on the wooden planks was still echoing.

He slowly retreated towards the door, pondering whether this instance contained other elements, such as the supernatural.

Footsteps sounded in the yard, and a beam of light shone in from the kitchen doorway.

Shi Jin turned around and saw Huang Shanhe, Chen Shu, and Qi Yin huddled together, the light from their flashlights illuminating the kitchen.

Against the innermost wall, there were several black plastic bags weighed down by bricks. There was a narrow window in the wall, through which the wind came in and made the plastic bags make a sound.

By the light, he could see that there were broken marks on the wooden post of the narrow window, but they were not marks from wind and rain erosion.

Qi Yin nodded to him, "Did you discover anything?"

While asking questions, he shone a flashlight on the kitchen ceiling, and Chen Shu stayed close by his side, searching for clues together.

Shi Jin shook his head: "It's very clean, there's nothing there."

Huang Shanhe squatted down next to him, picked up the two pieces of black charcoal, and tried to cover his mouth to hide the smile that he couldn't suppress.

Thinking that the light was dim and no one would notice him, he quietly put the two pieces of charcoal into his pocket, then got up as if nothing had happened and continued to follow Qi Yin.

From Shi Jinzhe's vantage point, looking down from above, he could clearly see a hint of smugness on Huang Shanhe's face.

He glanced meaningfully at Huang Shanhe; so those two pieces of charcoal were props after all…

The game truly doesn't give cheaters a chance; even when you get an item face-to-face, there's no notification and you can't activate it.