236: Chapter 236 The aroma of the cheater's food filled the camp

Jiang Rumu disappeared into the night, and Li Li stood there for a while, holding an empty insulated food container.

The mountain wind rustled the leaves, and Xiao Chai appeared at his feet, nudging his trouser leg with a wet nose.

Li Li bent down, grabbed the dog by the scruff of its neck, and hauled it back into its kennel.

"What are you looking at? Your mom has to train, your dad is going to be globally broadcast, and not a single one of us in this family is easy."

Three days later, at the training base in central Hainan.

Yellow sand filled the sky.

Sixty reserve contestants in uniform training gear stood in a square formation, grimacing from the heat.

The people in the very front row were clearly ahead of those behind them.

A two-meter-tall giant was adjusting the backpack strap of the person next to him, then pulled a pink insulated cup from his pocket. "Drink plenty of water to prevent heatstroke."

The girl with twin tails next to him didn't take it, instead doing high-frequency short steps in place, staring fixedly at the sand dune ahead.

A lean, dark-skinned man squatted on the sand, teasing a sand lizard with a blade of grass.

A girl with dreadlocks chewed gum, her eyes scanning the training ground as if calculating the coolest angle to leap from.

Beside her, a girl in sun-protective clothing wearing glasses pressed a micro-calculator and muttered: "Based on the instructor's step frequency and surface temperature, there's an 80 percent chance of a twenty-kilometer weighted cross-country run..."

On the very edge, a burly man with a buzz cut cracked his knuckles, looking at everyone as if they were sandbags.

Behind the formation, the few from the entertainment industry looked a bit out of place.

Shen Jue was grinning stupidly at the edge of the training ground, the tattoo on the neck of the dark-skinned Cen Ye was blurred by sweat as he flipped someone off, and Yin Ruoying, with her red lips, finished applying sunscreen, closed her mirror, and remained expressionless.

Everyone was in the formation.

Except for Li Li.

He had brought a small folding stool and sat in the shade of the only crooked tree by the training ground.

Three high-definition cameras were set up on three sides, their red tally lights on, pointed directly at his face.

Ten meters away, the supervisors from the US and Israel were holding a notebook and staring at a watch, respectively.

A sharp whistle blasted.

"Attention, everyone—"

"Twenty-kilometer armed cross-country run! Start now!"

The formation broke apart with a roar.

Lin Shuyin ran ten steps, tripped over her own feet, and fell with a thud into a sand pit.

Chu Lingfeng turned back, grabbed her by the collar with one hand, and hauled her up. Lei Zhen ran over, took off the heavy pack on her back, and hung both packs on his own chest.

The team kicked up dust and charged into the vast Gobi Desert.

Li Li picked up his small stool.

The two foreign supervisors immediately stepped forward.

"Where are you going?"

Li Li pointed to the red-brick bungalow in the distance where smoke was rising. "It's mealtime for the kitchen squad, someone has to cook."

The supervisors exchanged a glance and didn't stop him.

In the kitchen squad's back kitchen.

Li Li tied on an apron and stood in front of a half-meter-wide iron wok.

The oil in the wok sizzled, coating the pork belly chunks in caramel color as they tumbled, glossy and fragrant.

With a flick of his wrist, the entire pan of food flipped into the air and landed steadily back in the wok.

The comments section went wild.

[Is this a military training camp? Or an Oriental culinary school?]

[He's slicing potato shreds! My God, the knife is so fast it's just a blur!]

[CIA analyst reporting: I've watched him chop vegetables for two hours, there's no trace of military movement, he's purely a cook.]

[So when exactly does he train?]

Noon.

Under the scorching sun of the Gobi Desert, the reserve contestants dragged their falling-apart bodies back to the cafeteria.

On the table sat large basins of boiled cabbage, brown rice, and boiled chicken breast.

A chorus of wails went up.

Li Li walked over carrying a three-tiered stainless steel insulated food container and placed it precisely in front of Jiang Rumu.

He opened it.

The first layer: sweet and sour pork ribs.

The second layer: steamed sea bass.

The third layer: broccoli with garlic and boiled shrimp.

The rich aroma of "mortal life" instantly overwhelmed the bland smell of boiled vegetables in the cafeteria.

Shen Jue swallowed hard.

The cabbage in the chopsticks of internet fitness godfather Lei Zhen dropped back into the basin.

Professional boxer Huo Yan snapped his plastic spoon with a "crack."

"Li Li!" Huo Yan slammed the table and stood up, his face red to the roots of his neck, "This isn't fair!"

Li Li pushed a bowl of rice mixed with black sesame seeds to Jiang Rumu's side without lifting his eyelids. "This is a private chef service exchanged for the twenty million that my Boss Jiang spent to build the dormitory building. Want to eat? Pay up first."

Huo Yan choked, sat back down with wide eyes, and viciously poked at the chicken breast in his bowl.

Jiang Rumu didn't spare a single glance for those around her. She picked up her chopsticks and devoured the food like a storm. In two minutes, the layer of ribs was finished.

She wiped her mouth and stood up.

"I'm full." She looked at the instructor standing by the wall, "Where do I pick up the thirty-kilogram load for the afternoon?"

The cafeteria fell silent.

Gu Ya lowered her head and began shoveling the brown rice into her mouth, her cheeks bulging high. "Extra training!" "I want extra training too!"

Night.

On the hard bed in the dormitory.

The red lights of the three cameras were still on, like three unblinking eyes.

Li Li was browsing the foreign internet via special permission, and the number one trending topic on Twitter was: [Big Reveal of Backgrounds of Contestants from Various Countries!]

USA: Internet company CEO.

Israel: Nuclear weapon expert.

Russia: Brown bear wrestling champion.

France: Popular football director.

Eastern Country female contestant: Top celebrity, wealthy heiress.

Eastern Country male contestant: Li Li. Occupation: Orphanage director, chef, former construction worker.

Comments on the foreign internet exploded.

[Liar! A cook can make a superpower change its rules?]

[Fox Exclusive: Li Li once used a spatula to kill eight terrorists in Hong Kong!]

[Wall Street Journal: Li Li's true identity might be the Eastern Country's super weapon codenamed "Dragon"!]

In the CNN broadcast room, the anchor was spouting off.

"We have sufficient reason to believe that the Eastern Country is openly violating the rules!" "Li Li has definitely received brutal military training!"

The screen cut to a slow-motion close-up of Li Li slicing potato shreds.

"Look at this angle! Look at this wrist strength! This perfectly fits the biomechanical principles of close-quarters assassination!"

Li Li turned off his phone.

These bastards can really make things up.

He looked up at the camera. The number of people online in the broadcast room was jumping past fifty million.

He stood up, walked to the corner, and picked up the acoustic guitar that Cen Ye had brought to show off.

He pulled over a chair, sat down, plucked the strings, and tuned it.

"Good evening, friends on the foreign internet." He waved at the camera, "I heard you are particularly curious about my former profession."

"Insisting that I'm some kind of secret agent."

"Even if I talk until my lips are worn out, you won't believe me."

He strummed a chord, the tone crisp.

"Forget it then. I'll give you a song."

"The song is titled 'Gunfire'."

"Dedicated to all the Western media spouting nonsense in front of the camera, and those 'gentlemen' behind you who dare not show their faces."

The guitar sound suddenly became intense.

Li Li spoke the first lyric into the microphone.

The voice wasn't loud, but like a bullet, it smashed into the silent night.