38: Chapter 38 The prince's facial expressions completely collapsed while eating duck intestines.

Guests at the Burj Al Arab gradually stepped onto the helipad from the safety doors.

Leading the way was an elderly British couple. As soon as they stepped out, they were hit in the face by that sky-high spicy scent. The old lady covered her nose, her British accent rising by three degrees—"Good heavens, is this food?"

The old gentleman was composed; he adjusted his glasses and studied the two-meter-wide pot for five seconds.

"My dear, I think this is a weapon."

But they sat down anyway. Curiosity is a thing that transcends culture and borders.

Following closely behind was a group of Arab businessmen, their white robes billowing. As they sat down, they collectively adjusted their headscarves backward and stared at the mini Hotpot in front of them, their faces wearing the same question—how do you use this thing?

Director Pei Zhao walked at the front of the Production Team, wearing all three of her lucky charm bracelets on her wrist. She scanned the helipad—the two-meter-wide pot, 180 dining seats, the sunset over the Persian Gulf hitting the white tablecloths, and the Prince himself sitting on a folding chair with his legs crossed.

She turned her head and said to Old Zhou, "Don't set up the big cameras. Just take the portable ones and follow along to film."

The guests came down from their respective rooms.

Yin Ruoying stepped in wearing high heels; upon smelling that spicy beef tallow fragrance, her footsteps faltered for a moment. She said nothing and chose the seat furthest from Li Li.

Fang Ruowei said "It smells so good" to the camera, but the comments were already flooding in—[Sister Wei, who are you pretending for? Didn't you see it when the officer saluted earlier?]

Gu Zeyan glanced at the induction cooker for the mini Hotpot in front of him. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something cultured, but after holding it in for two seconds, he blurted out two words: "Pretty good."

Han Xubai's gold-rimmed glasses were fogged up by the spicy air. He took out a cleaning cloth to wipe them and said to the camera—"I must state first that as a legal professional, any evaluation I make regarding this soup base does not constitute a professional endorsement."

Comments: [Lawyer Bai, please, just shut up.]

Shen Jue rushed up last. He slammed on the brakes in front of the prep station, leaned his head toward the two-meter-wide pot, and took a deep breath. He froze in place.

He turned to look at Li Li, his eyes practically popping out. "Brother Li—you, did you stir-fry this soup base yourself?"

"Yes." "Hand—hand-fried? Using that pot?" "Yes."

Shen Jue took another breath. "I've lived for twenty-seven years, and the biggest pot I've ever seen was the clay pot my mom used to stew pig trotters."

He walked two steps toward the large pot and leaned in to look. The red oil was churning, with chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns at the bottom, and the rich scent of beef tallow hit him directly in the face. He didn't say any polite pleasantries, just blurted out three words: "This is too fragrant!!!"

The comments exploded: [Little Jue's reaction is my reaction!]

Cen Ye squatted in the ingredient area, ignoring everyone. He was doing something more important—checking the freshness of the duck intestines plate by plate. He picked one up, stretched it out, and held it up to the sunset to check its translucency. He nodded. "Fresh! Truly fresh!"

Qi Wanyin sat in the quietest spot in the corner, her long, straight black hair blown to one side by the sea breeze. She twirled the simple silver ring on her finger, glanced at the two-meter-wide pot, and then at the Persian Gulf. She didn't speak. But the corners of her mouth moved by a millimeter.

Of the 180 seats, 70% were occupied. The total number of viewers in the livestream—surpassed 120 million.

Fahd stood up. He walked to the center of the helipad, his white robe billowing in the sea breeze. Behind him was the sunset over the Persian Gulf, with golden-red light spilling out from both sides of his shoulders.

The helipad fell silent. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Burj Al Arab helipad."

He paused for a beat. "I am Fahd bin Deputy Prime Minister Mohammed Al Maktoum."

The Arab businessmen below sat up straight in unison. The guests looked at each other—a Prince?

"Tonight, my good friend from China has prepared an extraordinary experience for us."

He turned to the side, extended his arm to the left, palm facing up, and pointed at Li Li. "This is Li. He is the one who mobilized the royal motorcade today. Now—he has used his own hands to prepare an authentic Chinese Hotpot on my helipad."

The attention of the two hundred or so people present slammed onto Li Li. The comments turned white—[The Prince is personally introducing Brother Li!!] ["My good friend from China"—just how close is their relationship??]

Fahd gestured for Li Li to come over. "Li, come here, teach them how to eat this—what do you call it—Hotpot."

Li Li stood behind the prep station with a slotted spoon resting on his shoulder. He didn't move. He turned his head to look at Shen Jue. "Shen Jue, what's your English level?"

Shen Jue was stunned. "Huh? I spent four years in the US..."

"That's enough." Li Li set the slotted spoon on the prep station, "You go."

"??? Me???"

"You go introduce how to eat Hotpot."

Shen Jue panicked, his voice cracking. "Brother Li, what are you doing! This is your home turf! It's a global livestream! Over a hundred million people are watching! You're sending me??"

Li Li had already pulled out a chair and sat down. "I'm hungry."

Shen Jue opened his mouth to speak again. Jiang Rumu added from the side: "Go. Your English is better than his."

Shen Jue stared at her for a second, then looked at Li Li, then at that spot in the center of the helipad. His livestream—3.9 million viewers online. The whole audience was watching. The Prince was waiting. The world was waiting.

Shen Jue swallowed hard, shoved the half-eaten energy bar into his pocket, and took a step forward.

He walked to Fahd's side and waved at the crowd. "Hello everyone, I'm Shen Jue." He paused for a second. "Tonight's Hotpot was made by my buddy Li. He's too modest to stand here, so—I'll explain how to eat it."

He turned to point at the mini Hotpot. "Step one, turn on the heat and wait for the pot to boil." He pointed to the dipping sauce area. "Step two, choose your dipping sauce. If you're brave enough—try that dish of dry chili powder." Finally, he pointed to the ingredient station. "Step three, throw whatever you want to eat into the pot, wait a moment, fish it out, and eat." He paused. "If you cry while eating, don't worry. It's a normal phenomenon."

The audience laughed. The comments exploded—[Little Jue's all-English introduction! It was so fluent I want to check his educational background!] [Brother Li gave the center spot to his brother, this level of character is amazing] [Shen Jue's livestream follower growth is taking off!!]

Li Li sat down and adjusted the angle of the livestream camera. The lens shifted to the right—Fahd was walking over.

"Your Highness, do you mind being on camera? We're live."

Fahd sat down and straightened his robe. "Of course not. I have 43 million followers on social media."

Li Li took an empty bowl, scooped in minced garlic, drizzled sesame oil, added a spoonful of oyster sauce, and sprinkled on sesame seeds and cilantro. In thirty seconds, a standard Chongqing dipping sauce was ready. He pushed it in front of Fahd. "Eat the meat first."

Using communal chopsticks, he picked up three slices of fatty beef and swished them in the boiling red oil pot for ten seconds. The meat turned from pink to greyish-white, the edges curling slightly. He fished them out and placed them in Fahd's dish.

Fahd didn't know how to use chopsticks. He used a fork to pick up a slice, rolled it in the dipping sauce, and put it in his mouth. One second. Two seconds. Fahd put down his fork and rested both hands on the table. "This—this is incredible."

Comments: [The Prince is hooked, hahahaha!]

Li Li ignored the comments. He swished two more slices of lamb and put them in the Prince's dish. Fahd skipped even the pleasantries and forked them straight into his mouth. Three slices of fatty beef, two slices of lamb—he cleared the plate faster than he could sign a document.

Li Li waited for him to finish chewing, then picked up a slice of beef tripe. White. Honeycombed. It trembled between the chopsticks. Fahd stared at that thing. His fork didn't move.

"Li." "Yes." "...Which part of the cow is this?" "The stomach."

Fahd leaned back three centimeters.

Li Li didn't give him a chance to back out. The beef tripe went into the pot, seven ups and eight downs—Cen Ye's classic technique—and was fished out after eight seconds. The texture changed from soft to crisp and springy, with a layer of red oil coating the surface. He rolled it in the dipping sauce and placed it in front of Fahd. "Try it."

70 million people were watching the livestream. Fahd bin Deputy Prime Minister Mohammed Al Maktoum, the seventh prince of Dubai, forked up that piece of beef tripe. He closed his eyes. He took a bite. A crisp "crunch" sounded. Fahd opened his eyes. He chewed three times. He stopped. He chewed twice more. He looked down at the dish, then looked up again. "...It tastes even better than the meat."

The comments went nuclear—[The Prince truly succumbed to the temptation!!!!] [Beef tripe has conquered the Middle East royal family! Recorded in the annals of Hotpot history!]

He had already started helping himself. He used his fork to pick up a fresh duck intestine from the ingredient plate and held it up to his eyes to inspect it for two seconds. "This is... intestine?" "Duck's."

The fork trembled. But he still threw it into the pot. He fished it out after fifteen seconds. Dipped it. Put it in his mouth. He closed his eyes, his shoulders relaxing. —That was the moment when gourmet food defeated prejudice.

From the fourth round on, Fahd stopped asking "What is this?" Yellow throat, beef heart tube, sweet potato vermicelli, duck blood—he forked them up, swished them, ate them, and then reached for the next one immediately.

His white robe was splattered with two drops of red oil, but he didn't notice. An attendant walked over to offer a wet wipe, but he waved him away. "Don't disturb me." While swishing, he muttered a sentence in Arabic. Li Li understood it. "I am going to introduce this thing to Dubai."

Cen Ye was shuttling back and forth between the ingredient area and his seat, his fourth trip. Passing by Li Li, with his mouth stuffed with tripe, he mumbled a sentence. "Soup base, eighty points."

Li Li looked up. "Where are the twenty points deducted?"

"Not spicy enough." He chewed on the tripe and wandered back.

Jiang Rumu sat on Li Li's left, the mini Hotpot in front of her bubbling away. She used a spoon to fish out a piece of tofu, dipped it in the garlic and sesame oil sauce, and ate it slowly. Her tablet was face down on the table. She picked up a slice of lotus root and put it into Li Li's dish. "Eat your fill first."

Li Li swished the lotus root slice into the pot. She flipped the tablet over and then face down again. "The fifth one." "Yes." "Still not revealing it?" "Wait a little longer. Let her play all the cards she can."

Fahd on the right was on his sixth round. His plate was piled with a small mountain of duck blood, yellow throat, tripe, and beef heart tube. Li Li fished the last piece of tripe out of the pot and placed it in his own dish. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He didn't take it out.

Jiang Rumu took out her own. The screen lit up for two seconds. Her chopsticks paused in mid-air. "The sixth one." "What's the content?" "It's different."

Jiang Rumu handed over the phone. Su Wantang's new Weibo post—it wasn't a chat screenshot. It was a video. The caption had only one line: "Everything he promised me with his own mouth, the whole world can see how he treats me."

The number of retweets—was jumping at a rate of 300 per second. Li Li stared at that line of text for two seconds. He locked the screen. "The bullets have changed." Jiang Rumu's voice was very low. "She's starting to play for real."

Over a hundred people on the helipad were eating enthusiastically. In the two-meter-wide pot, the red oil was churning, and steam wrapped in the spicy scent soared into the sky. Fahd's dish was already empty, and he was gesturing to the waiter for more food. The number of global livestream viewers—140 million. And the phone in Li Li's pocket, its screen was dark, but the retweet count wasn't. 150,000. 160,000. It was still jumping.