Shen Yuxin nodded in understanding, as she could understand how he felt. After all, he wasn’t some old monster who had seen through life.
He was only a young man, still learning the ways of life. She spoke to change the topic, “Alright, since we can’t find anything here, we should leave and explore the rest of the city.”
Huo Rong and Bing Rong nodded in agreement as Huo Rong spoke, “Yeah, there are many more establishments all around the city. Even if we don’t find anything here, maybe we can find something at another place.”
Bing Rong then spoke up, “The chances of that are quite low—almost negligible.”
Huo Rong shot her a glare as Bing Rong turned her face to the side. She then looked at Shen Yuan only to see him smiling toward her. “We should indeed explore another place, and I don’t have any more expectations of finding anything worthwhile here.”
The female attendant from before came at this time and asked, “Did you find anything to your liking, dear guests?” she asked with a polite smile on her face, ignoring all the drama that had happened previously.
Shen Yuan replied in a polite tone, “Unfortunately, we couldn’t find something that would catch our eyes. We will visit next time if we need anything else.”
The attendant politely nodded and led them back down the stairs, escorting them toward the exit of the pavilion.
Shen Yuan and the others talked about the various weird treasures they found, Huo Rong, in particular, laughed at his bad luck of finding the most worthless treasures on the whole floor.
“Alright, let’s go to a restaurant to eat some food. We should taste what the food here is like,” Shen Yuxin suggested as she saw it was time to eat.
Even though, at their levels, they didn’t need to eat any food, they still had the habit of eating daily on time due to Shen Yuan.
Shen Yuan and the others nodded as they asked around for the best restaurant. After a while, they concluded that the ‘Jade Pavilion’ was the best restaurant around.
“Let’s go there then,” Shen Yuan said as they moved toward the inner part of the city. After some time, they saw a large pagoda-type building with multiple floors on a busy street.
“Looks like this is the Jade Pavilion. Let’s go and see what their food tastes like,” Bing Rong said as they all moved toward the building.
The guards opened the gate as they entered the pagoda, and a waiter came toward them. “May I ask where esteemed guests would like to eat?”
Shen Yuan raised an eyebrow at his strange question, “What do you mean? Don’t you have empty tables?”
The waiter made an ‘ah’ sound as if realizing something and spoke with a polite smile, “It looks like esteemed guests are not from Shadowveil City. Our Jade Pavilion is the most famous establishment when it comes to food in the entire city and the surrounding region.”
He paused to see their reaction as he continued, “There are five floors in our pavilion. Each higher floor has higher-quality and more expensive food. So my question is, on which floor would you like to eat?”
Shen Yuan nodded in understanding, “Then we shall eat on the 5th floor,” he answered straightforwardly without much thought, as he wanted whatever the best was there for his family.
The waiter awkwardly smiled, “This—Th—Guest needs to make a special reservation to enter the 5th flo—”
Before he could even finish, Shen Yuan threw a small bag filled with spirit stones toward the waiter, who caught it hurriedly and spoke with a hint of anger in his voice, “Sir, we have a reputation here. We don’t take bri—”
Shen Yuan interrupted him before he could finish speaking, “Look inside the bag before speaking.”
The waiter, who was still fuming, took a deep breath as he slightly opened the bag to see how many coins Shen Yuan had given him to show off this much.
But his eyes nearly bulged out as he saw nearly a dozen Spirit Stones lying inside.
He hurriedly closed it as he looked to his left and right. His face showed the same polite smile that he had before. “I forgot you had a reservation here already, Young Master. Please follow me to the highest floor.”
The waiter even changed his tone after Shen Yuan gave him Spirit Stones, leading him politely through the higher floors.
Meanwhile, Shen Yuxin, Huo Rong, and Bing Rong stayed silent the whole time, looking at how Shen Yuan would handle it.
And they weren’t disappointed one bit as they saw him dealing with the butler without any trouble.
Bing Rong asked curiously as they walked up the stairs, “Where did you learn that, Yuan’er?”
Shen Yuan smiled lightly as he tried to reply in a low voice so the waiter wouldn’t hear their chatter, but Shen Yuxin waved her hand and spoke with a smile, “You can speak freely, Yuan’er. I have created a soundproof barrier around us.”
Shen Yuan nodded his head toward her with a smile as he began, “I learned this in my last life from reading countless novels. If money can solve an issue, then it’s not an issue. It was an iron-clad rule in my last life.”
Shen Yuxin and the others nodded in understanding as he had already explained the novels to them.
Shen Yuan then inwardly thought, ‘I also wonder, do those ancient gods in xianxia novels or other mythology exist somewhere?’
He didn’t ask Yue Lan, as even if they existed, he couldn’t interact with them for now.
They soon reached the top floor and selected a particular private roof. It was lavishly decorated, deserving of its reputation.
Flower pots, candles, ornaments, and a lot of other things were neatly arranged there as decoration.
Shen Yuan and the others entered and sat down on it. The waiter took out a pen and a small book and asked, “What would you like to eat? You can see the menu on the table and tell me.”
Shen Yuan opened the menu and looked through the food. Shen Yuxin, Huo Rong, and Bing Rong also picked up menus to see what was in it.
They looked for quite some time, asking each other what they wanted, and ordered some of the most expensive dishes on the menu to try them.
The waiter happily took their orders as he went back to bring the food.
Shen Yuan and the others started chatting while waiting for the food.
Huo Rong asked as she looked at Shen Yuan, “What do you want to do now, Yuan’er? After leaving this city? There don’t seem to be many more things left to try here.”
Shen Yuan thought for quite some time, wondering what else he could do before he responded, “There isn’t anything left to do. We will leave after eating food and strolling the market one last time. We will head back home afterward.”
Huo Rong nodded, as this was what she wanted as well. This city was slightly gloomy for her due to the concentration of shadow elements in the surroundings.
Shen Yuan didn’t feel any discomfort, so he didn’t know what they were feeling.
