The remaining third was divided into three sections. One held nutritional foods of every flavor and brand, arranged like an encyclopedia of jelly pouches. Qi Jun checked the prices. The cheapest were ten points per pouch, while the most expensive cost more than two hundred. Unfortunately, he could not understand the listed flavors at all. Broadleaf-fruit flavor, Maqi-fruit flavor, and so on… none of them meant anything to him, and regrettably the original Qi Jun had no memories of them either. What a pitiful child. He had not even been able to try many varieties of nutritional food.
Another section contained cultivated food. Qi Jun frowned at the bizarre assortment of plants. What in the world were all these things…? He recognized only a few leafy greens that he had eaten at the Qi household, and those had tasted so bitter and astringent that all he could do was silently question heaven. Judging from the prices, however, those were merely midrange items. By now, Qi Jun clearly understood that in this world, nutritional value determined a food’s price and grade. Something nutritious did not necessarily taste good. So he decided that in the future, he could begin experimenting with the cheapest “vegetables,” which cost twenty points per kilogram.
The third section was devoted to drinks. To Qi Jun’s surprise, although the food in the beast world was terrible, there were countless varieties of alcohol, and none were cheap. Even the least expensive bottle cost five hundred points. Without grains or fruit, how did they brew alcohol? Qi Jun could not understand it. Looking at the ingredient lists on the bottles only confused him further. Then again, if alcohol did not exist, how could Father Qi and the original Qi Jun’s biological mother ever have made that so-called one-night mistake…
After noting the prices of the various foods, Qi Jun went to the third floor and bought a frying pan and a set of tableware. He scanned the product tags and then his chip at the automatic checkout, picked up the two large boxes, and paused outside the supermarket. In the end, he decided to visit the school cafeteria and check its prices before returning to the dormitory, saving himself another trip. Only then did he realize how foolish he had been. Knowing he planned to buy cooking utensils, he should have gone to the cafeteria first and then come to the supermarket.
When he reached the cafeteria, Qi Jun was dumbfounded. Compared with that enormous supermarket, the West Campus student cafeteria was unbelievably small. In his eyes, it was no more than a small restaurant, not even as big as one cafeteria from his old university. There were pitifully few tables and chairs and only four food windows. Each one bore a category sign: Natural Food, Cultivated Food, Nutritional Food, and Drinks.
Qi Jun walked up to the counters and carefully examined the electronic price boards beside each window. His heart ached when he discovered that, aside from nutritional foods costing the same as in the supermarket, everything else was at least four times as expensive as the raw ingredients because it had been prepared. Buying that frying pan had definitely been the right decision! Still… he did not want to make another trip today. To celebrate moving into his new home, he would indulge a little and buy one pouch of nutritional food plus a serving of sliced green fern from the cultivated-food section. He remembered that green fern had a particularly strong earthy flavor, but at least it was not bitter…
The cafeteria prepared food only after someone ordered it, but the cooking speed was shockingly fast. From the moment he paid the points to the moment he received a disposable eco-friendly lunch box filled with sliced green fern, not even thirty seconds passed. If Qi Jun had not personally watched the cafeteria worker put an entire green fern into a food-processing machine, he would have suspected the dish had been made in advance and left to go cold before being sold. And yes, this box of “vegetables” was cold! What a waste of 110 points! At least the Qi household served hot dishes!
By the time Qi Jun returned to the dormitory, he was starving. When he left the Qi home that morning, he had only drunk one pouch of nutritional food Qi Tian had pressed into his hands. At noon he had been busy finding the school and arranging the dormitory, and now it was already after four in the afternoon. If he did not eat soon, he would collapse from hunger.
To be fair, the cafeteria’s sliced green fern was not unbearably bad. Perhaps the food-processing machine was of a better grade, because much of the earthy smell had disappeared. It simply had almost no other flavor. The texture strongly resembled celtuce. Qi Jun thought that if the earthy taste could be covered with a rich savory sauce, it might actually be pretty good. Unfortunately, that enormous supermarket had contained only two seasonings: sugar and salt. What a sin.
Only after eating his fill and finally having nothing urgent to do did Qi Jun notice how exhausted he felt. The moment he saw the soft bed, he dropped onto it. He lay on his back staring at the ceiling, intending only to stretch for a moment before getting up to shower. Instead, he fell asleep.