Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Chen Nuo looked at Tang Ying and saw her brow furrowed tightly. Clearly, she was far from certain.

Tang Ying had naturally understood Che Dongming’s strategy. But she was probably thinking the same thing as Chen Nuo: could victory truly be that simple? What if Liang Chen had prepared for the loophole and chosen the name of a dish he could guarantee everyone knew?

More importantly, Tang Ying was their last line of defense, the person who would decide the outcome of the game. If she randomly named one of dozens of dishes and they lost, she would have failed both herself and everyone else.

The problem was that even as a food blogger, she could not think of a single dish whose name everyone indisputably knew. She racked her brain. Did such a dish truly exist?

No. I have to help her. I can’t leave her to fight alone. This is our last chance! Chen Nuo thought.

The buffet restaurant offered a dazzling variety of food. If even Tang Ying, a food blogger, could not think of a dish with an utterly indisputable name, Liang Chen could hardly know more about the names of dishes than she did. Where did his confidence that everyone would know the name of a particular dish come from?

Could he have secretly watched people selecting food in the restaurant and noticed that everyone ate the same dish? No. Even if they had all eaten something, that did not mean they could all name it…

Wait. One dish every one of them had eaten?

Chen Nuo’s heart jolted. He suddenly saw a possibility they had all overlooked. Or rather, Liang Chen’s answer had misled every one of them.

Shu Yanjun had asked, “Is this dish one of the dishes served in the hotel’s buffet restaurant?” Liang Chen had answered yes.

They had all been confined to the hotel for the past several days. On hearing that answer, they naturally began recalling all the food that had appeared in the hotel’s buffet restaurant and found themselves facing hundreds of possibilities.

In reality, however, the question and Liang Chen’s answer had created a psychological trap: a dish that appeared in the hotel buffet did not necessarily appear only there.

The instant Chen Nuo realized this, he understood what the dish was, or rather, which four Chinese characters Liang Chen had written. There was only one possibility.

But Chen Nuo had already used his question. Now it was Tang Ying’s turn. How could he signal her? Only seventeen seconds remained.

There was no other way. He would have to…

Tang Ying thought desperately as the seconds slipped away. Unable to come up with a better answer, she was about to name a dish at random.

Then she saw something astonishing. Chen Nuo stepped onto his podium and stood upright on top of it. He stretched his arms out to either side, forming the shape of a cross.

Next, keeping his arms extended, he slowly crouched, then jumped down from the podium and looked at Tang Ying.

Everyone stared at him in shock, Tang Ying included.

Some had no idea what his performance meant and thought he had lost his mind. But the instant Tang Ying met Chen Nuo’s eyes, she understood that he was trying to signal something.

What did his outstretched arms mean? A cross? No. He had slowly crouched and then jumped down, like an airplane landing.

An airplane?

Tang Ying suddenly understood. She spent the remaining seconds searching her memory. With three seconds left on the countdown, she asked,

“Is it Wujiang Pickled Mustard?”

Liang Chen froze without answering.

Tang Ying repeated the question more clearly. Liang Chen still said nothing, as if he had turned to stone. His reaction itself gave away the answer. It was tantamount to an admission.

Someone shouted excitedly, “Did she get it right? Is it really Wujiang Pickled Mustard?”

“Why… how could you say those four characters at the very last moment?” Liang Chen asked in a trembling voice filled with bottomless sorrow and despair.

“Because all of us have one thing in common,” Chen Nuo said. “We arrived on Xiangji Island aboard the same flight. And the only meal we all ate ‘together’ was the in-flight meal. Whether a passenger chose the chicken and rice or the beef and rice, the flight attendants handed everyone a box containing yogurt, bread, and side dishes. One of those items was a packet of Wujiang Pickled Mustard.

“Whether or not a passenger ate it, no one could have failed to notice the packet. In other words, every passenger on that flight must have seen it. That’s an undeniable fact.

“And because the product is so common and sold throughout the country, it unquestionably qualifies as common knowledge. Even if someone lied shamelessly and claimed never to have seen it, the organizers probably wouldn’t believe them. That’s why Dr. Che’s strategy wouldn’t work against it.

“For the past two days, we’ve eaten every meal in the hotel restaurant. The moment someone mentioned the name of a dish, everyone instinctively assumed it had to be one of the buffet dishes. Now that I think about it, the hotel also provided packets of Wujiang Pickled Mustard at breakfast. But beside such an enormous selection of delicious food, they were too insignificant to notice and easy to forget. You exploited that. You believed that faced with hundreds of dishes, we’d never remember one tiny packet of pickled mustard, so you chose those four characters!”

“Correct! The four characters Mr. Liang Chen wrote were ‘Wujiang Pickled Mustard’!” Tina held up the iPad to show everyone Liang Chen’s handwritten answer. Then she exclaimed, “What an incredible contest! You identified it with the very last question. Even I found it thrilling!”

Tina lowered the iPad and addressed Liang Chen with regret in her voice.

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Liang Chen. You lost, so you must be eliminated.”