novelraw Chapter 8 Are you a reincarnated starving ghost?
Chapter 8 Are you a reincarnated starving ghost?
Ah Kuan's appetite is considered large for his age.
He can eat two large bowls at every meal, and the aunties in the clan all say he is growing.
At this moment, Ah Kuan was holding his second bowl of rice, staring dumbfounded at the small mountain in Zhuge Yan's bowl.
"Yan-ge'er, how many bowls is this...?"
"The third bowl."
Zhuge Yan didn't even look up.
Ah Kuan said "Oh," and then lowered his head to eat a couple of bites of his own rice.
After a while, I looked up again and found that Zhuge Yan's third bowl was almost empty.
"No, you're eating so fast, aren't you chewing?"
Zhuge Yan did not answer.
He was indeed chewing, but he was chewing half as many times as usual.
The fourth bowl.
When Zhuge Yan stood up, A-Kuan's gaze followed him all the way to the wooden table and back.
This time, Zhuge Yan not only served rice, but also scraped the last bit of broth from the garlic sprouts and cured meat into his bowl.
Sit down and start eating.
A-Kuan put down his chopsticks and focused on watching Zhuge Yan eat.
Not only Ah Kuan, but also the eyes of several disciples on both sides of the long table were drawn to it.
Eating alone isn't anything special, but when someone eats at this speed and in this quantity, it becomes a sight that's hard to look away from.
Zhuge Yan's chopsticks moved back and forth between the bowl and his mouth at an almost constant speed. He would pick up a clump of rice, stuff it into his mouth, chew it three or four times, swallow it, and at the same time, his chopsticks would reach for the next clump.
The entire process was smooth and fluid, without any unnecessary movements.
The fifth bowl.
A disciple next to Ah Kuan whispered, "Is he... a reincarnation of a starving ghost?"
The sixth bowl.
The noise in the kitchen subsided considerably, and more people stopped eating, looking at Zhuge Yan with an expression that was somewhere between shock and confusion.
The chef at the wooden counter also peeked out, his spatula hovering in mid-air, forgetting to put it down.
Zhuge Yan knew everyone was watching him, but he couldn't stop.
It's not that I don't want to stop, it's that my body won't let me.
The hunger began to subside after the sixth bowl, but it hadn't completely disappeared.
His stomach was like a bottomless pit; food would go in, spin around a few times, and then it was gone.
The seventh bowl.
Ah Kuan had completely given up on eating. He propped his arms on the table, supporting his round cheeks, and looked at Zhuge Yan as if he were a god.
His mouth was slightly open, and his eyes were full of pure, childlike curiosity.
There was no mockery, no questioning, just a simple thought: "How can this person eat so much?"
The eighth bowl.
Zhuge Yan finally slowed down his pace of picking up food.
It wasn't because he was full, but because the vegetable bowl was empty.
The bowls of garlic sprouts and cured pork were empty, the bowls of stir-fried bamboo shoots were empty, and even the bowl of tofu and vegetable soup had only a thin layer of broth left, with a few lonely vegetable leaves floating on top.
The chef stood by the stove, the spatula already put down, his hands resting on the edge of the stove, his expression as if he had just witnessed the entire process of an empty granary.
The ninth bowl.
The rice bucket is almost empty.
Zhuge Yan tilted the wooden bucket over, scraped off the last layer of rice with a rice scoop, and put it into a bowl.
There were no vegetables in the bowl, only white rice. He ate the rice mouthful by mouthful, and then put down the bowl and chopsticks.
The kitchen was quiet for three whole breaths.
Zhuge Yan raised his head, and at least twenty pairs of eyes were staring straight at him from both sides of the long table.
Ah Kuan's mouth opened into a perfect circle.
The chef's lips moved several times, as if he was mentally calculating whether there was enough rice and vegetables for today to make another batch tomorrow.
Gradually, Zhuge Yan felt his ears starting to burn.
As a time traveler, and as an adult who had attended meetings, given presentations, and experienced countless socially awkward situations in his previous life, he thought he was immune to the emotion of "awkwardness."
But at this moment, sitting at the long table in the kitchen of the Wuhou Sect, with nine empty bowls stacked in front of him, and being stared at by more than twenty fellow disciples, his face involuntarily turned red.
"I……"
He opened his mouth, then awkwardly began to explain:
"I'm quite hungry today."
The disciple next to Ah Kuan who had said "a hungry ghost reincarnated" silently pushed his untouched bowl of rice towards him.
"Brother Yan, if you're not satisfied... I'll give you this bowl too."
Zhuge Yan looked at the bowl of rice, remained silent for a moment, and suddenly felt as if he wanted to cry but had no tears.
"No need... I'm full."
As he said this, a long-lost, warm, and satisfying feeling finally came from his stomach.
But he knew that this feeling of fullness was not because he had eaten enough, but because there was nothing left to eat in the kitchen.
Zhuge Yan stood up, stacked his nine empty bowls together, and carried them to the stove.
The cook looked at him, his lips moved a few more times, and finally he only managed to squeeze out, "Prepare two more buckets of rice tomorrow..."
Zhuge Yan's ears burned even hotter.
"Thank you for your help."
He walked out of the kitchen with his head down.
Behind me, the silence in the kitchen lasted for two more breaths, then it was as if someone had flipped a switch, and a burst of chatter erupted.
"Holy crap, what's going on with Yan-ge'er? First, his magical abilities improved by leaps and bounds, and now he's eating like a starving ghost!"
"Could he be possessed by some unclean spirit?"
"Surely not? If there were something unclean, wouldn't the elders in the clan notice?"
……
Ignoring the various discussions behind him, Zhuge Yan did not choose to return to the West Wing.
He walked along the path behind the kitchen to a clearing deep in the bamboo forest on the back mountain.
This is his "secret base." For the past two years, whenever he suffered a setback at the training ground, he would come here alone to stay.
In the center of the open space was a large, flat rock, which had been worn smooth and shiny by his buttocks.
Zhuge Yan sat down on the stone, and the afternoon sunlight filtered through the bamboo leaves, scattering dappled light across the ground.
The wind in the bamboo grove was cooler than in the courtyard, carrying the scent of earth and bamboo leaves.
He took a few deep breaths and felt the heat on his face gradually subside.
Nine bowls of rice! He ate nine bowls of rice all by himself!
A normal meal for a disciple of the Wuhou School is two bowls of rice, while a boy like A-Kuan, who is still growing, eats at most three bowls.
He ate nine bowls and still wasn't satisfied!
Zhuge Yan looked down at his stomach, which was not swollen.
After eating nine bowls of rice, his abdomen remained flat, showing no signs of having just eaten.
He knew exactly where the food had gone.
brain.
The human brain accounts for only about two percent of body weight, but consumes more than twenty percent of the body's energy.
This is popular science knowledge I read in my previous life.
Under normal circumstances, the brain consumes about 300 to 400 kilocalories of energy per day, which is roughly the calories of two bowls of rice.
However, overclocking in the "mystery" state obviously multiplied this number several times.
Fifteen breaths of overclocking, three times, totaling less than a minute of brain overload, his body consumed the energy of nine bowls of rice to support this less than a minute of operation!
This doesn't even include other expenses!