Chapter 100: Stirring Up Trouble on Purpose

Although the kitchen had air conditioning, it was still stiflingly hot.

For an ordinary person, just standing in there would have been nearly unbearable, yet Su Qingli was inside bustling about, busy preparing meals for the customers.

The sight made Jiang Hao’s heart ache with bitterness.

After returning from the restroom and sitting back down in his seat, Jiang Hao was overwhelmed by mixed emotions, feeling deeply unsettled.

“What’s wrong? Why do you look so miserable? Is the food in our shop not tasty?”

The part-time female college student serving as a waitress asked him, utterly puzzled.

Jiang Hao shook his head. His voice was a little low. “No, the food is pretty good. I’m just not in a very good mood.”

“You don’t look like someone who came here to eat,” the waitress said with a shrug. “You look more like you came here looking for someone.”

Jiang Hao paused slightly when he heard that.

But she was right.

He had not come here for the meal. He had come to find Su Qingli.

Yet now that he had seen her, he did not know how to speak to her, so for the moment he still did not want to face her.

“You’re not heartbroken, are you?” the waitress asked again.

“None of your business,” Jiang Hao snapped, irritated by her words striking a sore spot.

“I was just asking,” the waitress said, and seeing his displeasure, she walked off to the other side.

Jiang Hao picked up his chopsticks again, preparing to finish the food in front of him. After all, it had been made by Su Qingli in the kitchen, and he could not bring himself to waste it.

Just then, Jiang Hao suddenly saw that the young man with glasses sitting at the neighboring table had secretly taken a small box from his trouser pocket.

Sneaking glances around to make sure no one was watching, he opened the little box and took out a dead cockroach.

Then he dropped the cockroach into the rice bowl in front of him and even stirred it around with his chopsticks.

What on earth was this guy doing?

Putting a dead cockroach into his bowl—what was he planning?

Did he come out to eat with a little extra side dish of his own, to go with the meal?

But who in their right mind would be twisted enough to eat a dead cockroach?

The next moment, the young man put the box away, slammed the table hard, and shouted, “What kind of place is this? There’s a cockroach in my bowl! This is outrageous!”

At those words, every customer in the restaurant was stunned into setting down their chopsticks.

There was a cockroach in the bowl?

What on earth was going on?

One customer after another hurriedly turned to look at the four-eyed fellow, while the only two female waitresses in the shop rushed over to him.

“Sir, please don’t get upset first...”

“How can I not be upset? I was almost done with this bowl of rice, and then I found a cockroach in it. I’m so damn disgusted I could vomit!”

As he spoke, the four-eyed man grabbed his chopsticks, picked the cockroach out of the bowl, and placed it on the table.

The two waitresses’ faces changed drastically when they saw the dead cockroach on the table.

The surrounding customers also looked utterly horrified at the sight. Two young women even hurriedly took out tissues to cover their mouths, as though they were about to be sick.

“Sir, are you sure this cockroach was already in the bowl when you got it?” the waitress who had just been speaking to Jiang Hao asked cautiously.

“Isn’t that obvious? I just picked it out of the bowl. Didn’t you see? Are you blind?” the four-eyed man roared furiously as he slammed the table again and again.

“But... our shop is very clean... we’ve never had cockroaches...” the waitress said, sounding wronged.

The four-eyed man let out a cold laugh. “What kind of nonsense is that? Are you trying to deny it? Besides, your shop only opened yesterday. What right do you have to say you’ve never seen cockroaches? Do you think this is a centuries-old establishment or something?”

The customers around them were all frowning deeply, each of them looking displeased.

“Get the owner out here!”

“This has to be dealt with!”

“You have to give us an explanation!”

“This is disgusting, damn it!”

The surrounding diners began shouting one after another, all taking the four-eyed man’s side.

With so many people joining in, the four-eyed man grew even more swaggering, his face full of smugness.

And the two waitresses, surrounded by the crowd, had turned deathly pale, too frightened to even lift their heads.

“I’m the owner. What happened?”

The commotion in the front area was so loud that Su Qingli in the kitchen could not possibly have failed to hear it, so she immediately came out.

The four-eyed man studied Su Qingli from head to toe and asked, “You’re the owner of this place?”

“That’s right.”

Su Qingli nodded.

“Good. Since you’re the owner, then explain to me what the hell is going on here.”

The four-eyed man pointed at the dead cockroach lying on its back on the table.

Su Qingli looked at the cockroach, then frowned. “Are you sure this dead cockroach is what you found in your bowl?”

“Of course!” the four-eyed man said proudly, even pointing at the customers around him. “They all saw it. They can all testify for me!”

Without hesitation, Su Qingli bent down at once and used her chopsticks to pry the cockroach apart.

Seeing what she was doing, the customers around them all stepped back several paces, staring at her in disbelief.

“What is this woman doing?”

“She’s dissecting the cockroach?”

“Damn, that’s disgusting!”

“I’m never coming to this place to eat again!”

Even the four-eyed man was dumbfounded. It took him quite a while to come back to himself, and then he said furiously, “What are you doing? Are you trying to destroy the evidence?”

After inspecting the cockroach’s shattered body, Su Qingli turned around and said to the four-eyed man with great seriousness, “Sir, I don’t know where the cockroach you ate came from, but it was definitely not from our shop.”

“On what grounds do you say that?” the four-eyed man demanded immediately.

The customers around him started cheering him on as well. “Yeah, on what grounds are you saying this cockroach wasn’t from your shop?”

“What, are the cockroaches in your shop different from the ones everywhere else?”

“Lying with your eyes wide open—disgusting!”

“Admit your mistake and compensate him already!”

Su Qingli said earnestly, “Everyone, please be quiet for a moment, and please stay calm. This cockroach really was not from our shop, or at least it was not dropped in while we were cooking.”

“Look, only the outer shell has soup from the dishes on it, but the inside doesn’t. It’s still raw inside!”

“If it had really fallen into the bowl while we were cooking the soup, then this cockroach would have been cooked through from the inside out, and the flavor of the soup would definitely have gotten in as well!”

“So this cockroach was definitely put into the bowl only after the food was finished. In other words, someone may very well have deliberately placed it there to frame our health food restaurant!”

Su Qingli’s analysis was clear, logical, and well-supported, instantly silencing everyone around them.