No wonder the other party was so fearless; it turned out they had someone backing them up. The dark-skinned stall owner finally felt relieved and reached out to grab another piece of grilled chives from Lin Yiran's stall, eating it casually and naturally, just as if the two of them had always been this harmonious.

While eating and chatting, one of them said, "Actually, you should really apply for a chef position at a big restaurant. Your skills are truly exceptional. Anyone who has tasted your barbecue will never forget it. It's just that you have too few varieties. If you could add a few more, even more people would come to eat your barbecue."

Currently, Lin Yiran's stall only offers four types of barbecue: the common grilled chives, grilled corn, grilled okra, and grilled green beans.

Among them, green beans are the best-tasting, and the black-skinned stall owner ate one skewer after another.

Then he transferred ten Star Coins to Lin Yiran's QR code.

[Ding! 1 popularity point added]

Lin Yiran: "These ingredients are not easy to obtain, so I don't have any plans to increase the variety of ingredients for the time being. After all, business is not very good and I don't make much money. Besides, I just went to buy more goods yesterday. Right now, I only have enough of these four kinds of vegetables at home for about a week. They are all processed, so it would be a waste not to eat them."

The dark-skinned stall owner nodded, "That's true, but you're not getting enough customers. Why don't you try calling out a few times?"

Lin Yiran thought so too. But before she could even open her mouth, a customer came in.

"Are your chives really non-toxic?" the plump woman asked.

Another woman nearby said, "Oh dear, why bother with all this? Two skewers of grilled mutant vegetables for one star coin, and they're supposedly non-toxic? Have you ever eaten anything like that? Non-toxic stuff like that is beyond the reach of people like us. It's just a claim she made; it's not believable."

"Come on, give me ten skewers of green beans, eight skewers of chives, and two skewers of corn! Anyway, eating so little won't kill anyone, it's just to try a flavor."

The woman next to him said, "That's true. Then give me the same things as her, okay?"

Hearing the two women's explanation, Lin Yiran didn't offer any explanation. After all, she hadn't had her food tested, nor could she, because if the test results came back, she'd be utterly unable to explain why her food didn't contain any berserk energy. So she could only accept it. However, Lin Yiran believed that once they actually tasted it, they would definitely love it!

This wasn't just something Lin Yiran said lightly, because she discovered that anyone who had eaten her barbecue the first time would come back to her stall the next day, or at most a day later.

Actually, her stall gets a pretty high customer return rate. If she keeps at it a little longer, she should have a stable customer base, and she can just sit back and wait to collect her popularity points.

Setting up a street stall is only difficult at the beginning.

Another woman ordered the same thing as the first woman. After Lin Yiran finished cooking and packing the barbecue, she said, "Take care," and then the customer arrived immediately.

Whether it was because these two women were lucky for her or not, Lin Yiran grilled chives until her hands were sore for a while.

More than a dozen customers came in one after another, each ordering a dozen or twenty skewers, keeping her extremely busy. However, her grill could only cook a maximum of thirty skewers at a time, which greatly reduced her speed.

She was busy for quite a while when these dozen or so customers came together.

After everyone had left, Lin Yiran wiped the sweat from her face.

Hearing the pleasant voice from the system: [Ding, twelve popularity points have been credited. Host, do you wish to repay? Note: The system still needs 38 popularity points. These will double every night; the more you owe, the higher the doubling rate.]

Lin Yiran has now witnessed firsthand what usury is.

However, I was truly desperate when I was in debt, so it wasn't entirely unjust.

"Confirm repayment, full repayment"

[Ding! Repayment successful. Host, you still have 24 popularity points left to repay. Remember to repay as soon as possible!]

Lin Yiran replied irritably, "I know."

Then she started grilling chives with great effort. Fortunately, there were still quite a few people around. Even the barbecue stall next door sold more than seventy servings of barbecue. Her business was doing well too. After this surge in business, she earned another 27 popularity points. After clicking to repay all of them, her debt was finally paid off!

Lin Yiran was overjoyed; finally, she was no longer in debt!

With no debt, Lin Yiran suddenly felt motivated to make barbecue skewers.

After all, this wasn't a debt, but a decline in her abilities.

Lin Yiran knew all too well that it was impossible to succeed without strength.

So starting today, with the debt paid off, every bit of popularity she earns from now on is hers. In other words, she has her own savings now. The more skewers she sells and the more customers buy from her, the more popularity points she earns! After that, she can freely exchange her popularity points for crystal cores to improve her strength!

Let's fight our way back to the capital!

Avenge the real Lin Yiran!

Lin Yiran has not forgotten her promise. Sooner or later, she will go back and tear off Lin Fei's hypocritical mask. Not for any other reason than that Lin Fei should not have taken over Lin Fei's place, and Lin Fei should give Lin Yiran justice!

So the most important thing right now is to make money, make lots of money!!

Earn popularity points, earn lots and lots of popularity points. Of course, the more popularity points the better!

[Host, that's not how it works. Your debt has been paid off, but you'll need to obtain the ingredients yourself from now on, including seasonings. This system will no longer provide them to you; you'll have to get them yourself.]

A bucket of cold water was poured over it.

"Do I have to find the seasonings myself from now on?" Lin Yiran knew that the system used to provide seasonings. She had even seen seasonings for sale in the system's shop before, such as fennel, lemon, cumin, chili powder, salt, and cooking oil.

She was wondering why her barbecue stall provided its own seasonings.

"That's because I felt sorry for you, so I didn't ask you for money. But now that the host is so capable, you probably don't need my charity, right?" System 101 said provocatively.

Lin Yiran: "Okay, but what if these interstellar plants look so ugly that I can't tell what kind of plants they are?"

System 101: [Here is an interstellar plant encyclopedia. You can use this encyclopedia to select edible foods, including plants that can be used as seasonings. You can obtain them by referring to the plant encyclopedia, or...]

[You can also purchase it from the system shop; one popularity point equals one gram.]

Lin Yiran: "I refuse!"

One popularity point equals one gram, why wouldn't it just steal it? Knowing that the system was eyeing Lin Yiran's little bit of popularity points, Lin Yiran wasn't angry.

After all, the system had helped her a lot from the beginning, and the barbecue stalls hadn't even charged her for the seasonings; that was already a huge favor. Lin Yiran was someone who knew when to stop while she was ahead.

"Alright then, give me the plant guide, I'll go to the Forest of Hope to find them myself." Anyway, she only comes to set up her stall in the evening, so she has plenty of time during the day to find edible mutant plants in the Forest of Hope.

Lin Yiran hadn't forgotten that her newbie protection period wasn't over yet—a whole month of newbie protection, which she should make good use of.