Chapter 197: You’re Lying
Roman Rowe watched her roll one, then picked up a wrap himself, piling on the ingredients as if he’d done it a hundred times before.
Once it was rolled, Roman stuffed the entire thing into his mouth. The textures were incredibly rich, from the softness of the wrap to the crispiness of the duck skin.
The fresh aroma of the cucumber cut through the richness perfectly. Roman’s eyes squeezed shut in delight as he ate. After swallowing, he nodded furiously.
No one even had to ask; his expression said it all. It had to be delicious, even if he was hamming it up a little.
Still, no one doubted how good it was. They all started making their own rolls. There were two platters of each ingredient, placed on either side of the table.
With so many people, there were a lot of chopsticks reaching out, but everyone could get what they needed. It was all surprisingly orderly, with each person focused on their own creation.
Of course, besides the Peking duck, there were many other dishes: blanched shrimp, morel and old chicken soup with fish maw...
...braised chicken with black truffle and abalone, desert-style roasted lamb chops, and steamed turbot. They were all hearty dishes that filled the entire table.
It was ostensibly a meal to welcome Seth to the group, but in reality, it was just a list of all the dishes Lily Hart wanted to eat.
By the time Seth had fumbled through making his first duck roll, everyone else had already moved on to the other dishes without a hint of ceremony.
He felt a little more at ease. What he feared most was being the center of attention. The crowd of people surrounding him earlier in the day had been deeply uncomfortable...
He made a quiet decision to cut a small opening next to the roll-up door in the future, so he could just hand over food and trade for Crystal Cores from there.
After finishing the duck roll in his hand, Seth looked up to see that the entire plate of blanched shrimp was already gone.
He glanced down and saw two shrimp in his bowl. He hadn’t put them there himself, which could only mean...
Seth met the eyes of Easton, who was sitting beside him. Easton whispered, "Seth, you can’t zone out while you’re eating, or Roman Rowe will finish all the good stuff!"
He nodded blankly and looked across at Roman Rowe and Frost Shaw. The pile of shrimp shells next to them was the largest.
The only difference was that one was peeling them for himself, while the other was peeling them for Lily Hart.
His gaze shifted to Lily Hart. Her bowl held three or four perfectly shelled shrimp.
Frost Shaw was wiping his hands with a napkin, his expression calm, as if this was something he did often.
Lily Hart was completely unfazed, eating her own food along with the bowlful of shrimp Frost had peeled for her.
"..." Seth watched, speechless for a long moment. ’This group’s relationships are... a little complicated, aren’t they?’
He looked away and focused on his own food, but his ears were pricked, secretly listening to everyone’s conversation.
Lily Hart ate the last shrimp and said, still wanting more, "Should we get another order?"
Frost Shaw silently glanced at his freshly cleaned hands and said nothing. Roman Rowe, however, was quick to agree.
When they were mostly done eating, Lily Hart glanced at the Auspice Base progress bar. It was less than halfway to one hundred thousand points.
She sighed to herself. ’At this rate, when are we ever going to reach one hundred thousand points?!’
’Damn that Base Commander! All he does all day is stir up trouble!’ Lily cursed him up and down in her mind.
Frost Shaw sharply sensed that the mood of the person next to him was off. He tilted his head to look at her, a thoughtful expression on his face as he gazed toward the gates of Auspice Base.
After the meal, everyone went their separate ways. Seth followed behind Leo Colby back to the hotel.
Roman Rowe came out of the bathroom after a shower, a towel slung carelessly over his shoulder. He paused as he passed Frost Shaw’s room and peeked through the slightly ajar door.
’Is he taking out that... black cloak he hasn’t worn in ages?’
Roman was bewildered. ’It’s the middle of the night. Surely he’s not about to play dress-up, is he?’
He kept watching, feeling not a shred of guilt for spying. In fact, he pressed his whole body against the crack of the door, and with one careless move, pushed it open...
Frost Shaw whipped around at the sound, meeting Roman’s unapologetic stare. "What is it?" he asked impatiently.
"Are you going out? Where to?" Roman squeezed through the opening and darted to his side, practically hanging off him as he asked with wide eyes.
Frost shoved the hands off his neck, but the next second, the shameless man was clinging to him again. His face darkened as he told an unnatural lie. "I’m not going out."
Roman looked at him with total disbelief, clinging even tighter. "You’re lying! If you’re not going out, why are you getting dressed!"
"..." Frost was at a loss for words. He wasn’t good at lying, so he could only offer a clumsy excuse, "This cloak hasn’t been worn in a long time. It needs to be washed," accompanied by a deadpan expression.
It had a sliver of credibility, but not much...
...and based on what Roman knew of him, none at all.
But Frost’s gaze was too resolute, and Roman knew that arguing was useless. An idea struck him, and he feigned resignation. "Fine, fine. I’m going back to bed then."
Frost gave a faint nod. After seeing him out, he personally locked the door from the inside. Only after hearing the sound of another door closing outside did he relax, turning to put on the black cloak.
He then turned off the light and sat alone at the foot of his bed for a long time, waiting until the lights in all the other second-floor rooms went out and silence fell.
Only then did Frost rise, leaping down from the second-floor balcony. His figure moved like a phantom as he sped toward Auspice Base.
Roman hid in his pitch-black room, his body concealed behind the curtains, staring at the figure rushing through the night.
He knew it was Frost. ’But what is he doing at Auspice Base?’
His curiosity always got the better of him, so he immediately changed into all-black clothes and followed, keeping his distance so Frost wouldn’t notice him.
Ahead, Frost had no idea he was being followed. He circled to the side of the base and scaled the wall.
He smoothly made his way to the base’s core area, where the Base Commander would typically reside.
Frost carefully avoided the patrolling Guardian Corps, cautiously approaching Base Commander Shane Wilder’s residence.
Strangely, the number of Guardian Corps members in this area had multiplied, almost more than there were guarding the main gate.
’Just how cowardly is this Base Commander?’
Unless the Guardian Corps members were lined up shoulder to shoulder, forming an airtight seal around the house, there was no way they could stop Frost.
They couldn’t even stop Roman... Both of them entered unimpeded.
Roman was confused. ’Why is Frost looking for the Base Commander? Whatever! I have to keep up!’
Meanwhile, Frost was still trying to figure out which room the Base Commander was in.
While layers of the Guardian Corps stood guard outside, there wasn’t a single shadow of a guard inside the three-story building itself.
Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks, his ears pricking up as he listened intently.
"Ngh... ah..." A man’s faint groans came from within a room.
Frost blinked a couple of times, confused. It sounded both painful and pleasurable. ’What are they doing in there?’
When he realized, he wished he could cover his ears and kick that sound right out of his head.
He quickly composed himself and moved closer to the crack of the door, where he could faintly hear fragmented speech from inside.
"Louder! Didn’t you eat?" Shane Wilder’s voice was both cruel and mocking.
Immediately after, the sound of a whip cracking through the air was followed by a man’s agonized scream.
Frost’s expression darkened as he listened. His hand was already on the doorknob, about to push the door open.
Just then, he felt a weight on his shoulder, and a familiar, hushed voice spoke by his ear. "What are you doing?"
"?" Frost rolled his eyes and turned around. As expected, he met Roman Rowe’s questioning gaze.
He shrugged his shoulder to shake off Roman’s hand and said disdainfully, "Why are you so nosy?"