Classroom Snacking Adventures—The Latiao of Death

The first class of the morning was Mr. Lin's Politics class, just as it always was. Xu Mang didn't care much about it. After all, whatever class was the same to him, but… Xu Mang was different today. He was about to do something big!

Snacking in class!

Ordinary students would only snack in class under extremely specific conditions, such as if the teacher was an elderly old man who could barely see five feet in front of him. Teachers like those would never stop you as long as you didn't make a sound or eat anything with a strong smell. The sky was the limit with what you could do.

However, Xu Mang wasn't an ordinary student,

He had always had quite a lot of courage and he was stubborn too. He knew how to get away with things much better than your average kid.

Snacking during your homeroom teacher's class! Normal people would never dare to even dream of such a thing, but not only had Xu Mang dreamt about it, he had even made plans to enact his dream already. Not only that, but he was also going to challenge the hardest ranked snack in the Classroom Snacking series!

Regarding the Classroom Snacking series, there existed a strict ranking system for all snacks—food such as candy… they were at the beginner level, and anyone could eat them in any class without getting caught, but of course, if Lady Luck had it out for you that day, the possibility of being exposed was still there.

For example, there was once a student that tried to secretly eat a piece of candy in class, but as soon as the sweet snack had entered their mouth, they were immediately called on by the teacher to answer a question. As you'd expect, they were kicked out of class.

A mid-tier snack would be something like potato chips. Now, although chips didn't have a strong smell, the crispy crunch they made when you chewed them was lethal, one wrong step and you would be brought to the gates of judgment.

Only a person with over three years of experience snacking in class could successfully eat snacks at this tier level because their knowledge of the secret art of snacking would help them stay quiet even when munching on the crunchiest of chips.

The technique was quite simple. First, you would place the massive potato chip into your mouth, then, you applied pressure with your lower jaw and used your saliva to quickly soak and soften the chip, allowing it to easily slide down your throat and into your stomach. The key point to this technique's success was one's courage. If one could not keep as calm and still as a lake, please refrain from such an activity! 

High-tier snacks were composed of foods like Wei Long's Latiao, as its pungent scent could permeate the entire classroom. Snacks like these were terrifyingly dangerous, and even the grandmasters of the snacking world would have trouble overcoming such an obstacle, let alone the advanced-level enthusiasts.

(T/N: Wei Long's Latiao is a brand-name, sticky, spicy, fried stick of flour. It tastes better than it sounds)

Legendary-tier snacks… the mythical pot-cooked ramen! Only legends of such a snack had been told, but no one had ever seen anyone do it in real life, not even Xu Mang.

Today, Xu Mang was going to eat the upgraded version of the Wei Long Latiao—the Latiao of Death.

Honestly, Xu Mang was a little nervous because he couldn't handle spicy foods all that well. The only reason he was attempting this was due to the fact that he had seen videos of people eating it online and had wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

"Hehe!"

Xu Mang quietly took a red box with skull markings on it out of his bag. Seeing their tag line "The spiciest around, do you dare take the challenge" written boldly across the packaging, Xu Mang's desire to win the challenge was once again reignited.

"Yang Xiaoman? Did you bring water?" Xu Mang asked under his breath.

"Aren't you the school's water dispenser administrator or something?" Yang Xiaoman whispered back, not even turning her head. "There's a huge gallon of water behind you."

"Have you never used a water dispenser?" Xu Mang sighed. "When you use it, it'll make a 'glug glug glug' sound. I always knew you lacked such basic general knowledge."

"Idiot!"

Yang Xiaoman scoffed quietly before taking out an opened bottle of water and passing it to Xu Mang under his table. "Remember to buy me a new one."

"No problem!"

With the water of life in hand, Xu Mang carefully tore open the Latiao's packaging, finding a lone Latiao in the silver bag.

What the h*ll!?

Xu Mang had paid good money for this, and yet, he only got one!?

Xu Mang was furious. Had he gotten scammed by the seller? Giving him a single Latiao for that high of a price, had capitalism truly poisoned today's society?

'System, how many points will I need to eat this?'

[System has detected, secretly eating a Latiao of Death will require: 500 points (Secretly Snacking During Class Skill )]

It was that expensive?!

Xu Mang felt his heart ache a little. Although this skill was an accidental byproduct of his natural habits, he had already accumulated over a thousand skill points. Eating this one Latiao would take away five hundred points, it was totally not worth it!

Yang Xiaoman started to wonder what the boy behind her was doing. He had taken her water, but he wasn't drinking it. Instead, he had only taken the cap off and set it aside. What was he up to this time?

She discreetly turned to check, but she could only see a Math textbook standing upright on Xu Mang's desk, completely blocking her view.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Yang Xiaoman asked. "Playing Mobile Legends?"

"Nothing… Go back to doing your Math." Xu Mang didn't want to waste his energy trying to please his flat-chested classmate as he was busily deliberating a question—whether or not he should spend these 500 points!

At long last, Xu Mang decided to go for it!

After paying the steep fee, Xu Mang quickly did away with the silver wrapping, placing the blood-red stick of spiciness into his mouth.

Under the system's influence, Xu Mang's tongue made quick lapping motions over the Latiao of Death, using his furred tongue to clean off the flavorings that coated the Latiao in order to subdue its odor.

However, before he could see it to the end, Xu Mang passed out…

Since he had always given people the impression of a humanoid version of a dead fish, no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary about Xu Mang's situation, leaving him to peacefully lie on his table, wondering if they should occasionally check if he was breathing.

[New skill detected, Spicy Eater Skill has been unlocked]

Spicy Eater +1

Spicy Eater +1

Spicy Eater +1

***

"Wha… What in the world did you eat?" Yang Xiaoman nudged Xu Mang awake, planning on getting him to go buy lunch for her when she saw his lips had swollen to the size of sausages. She couldn't help but worry for him. "Are you having an allergic reaction?"

"I ate some… Argh, I can't take it, my entire mouth is numb!" Xu Mang said through his suffering. "I'm gonna go tell the teacher that I'm leaving early, good day!"

"Wait! I haven't eaten lunch…" Yang Xiaoman put on her puppy dog eyes. "No one's going to fall in love with you either way, so what does it matter if your lips are swollen? If you go, I'll be hungry for the whole day."

Did you hear that… Was that something a normal person would say?!

Sometimes, Xu Mang thought that Yang Xiaoman made completely unreasonable demands. She placed herself high upon a pedestal and needed everyone to listen to her, but was that true?

It was!

Because she knew kickboxing, plus, she had white knights littered across the school.

Xu Mang went straight to the nurse's office after he had bought Yang Xiaoman her lunch, but honestly… the teachers there were pretty useless. All they did was give Xu Mang some ice bags and called it a day.

"Dr. Tian? This is it?" Xu Mang shook the ice bags in his hand.

"What else do you want me to do? Perform surgery?" Dr. Tian knew Xu Mang well. Every so often, Xu Mang would run into his office to skip a few classes, and after a while, they had grown somewhat close.

"You quack!"

"Come back, you punk!"

Xu Mang ran, leaving behind the frustrated doctor who was wondering if he should perhaps start reporting Xu Mang's tardiness to his teachers.

Xu Mang spent the afternoon getting to know his ice bag quite well, and during the healing process, Xu Mang felt a pang of regret toward his rash actions. Another failed experience. Even though he had spent his skill points and had received a motor-powered tongue, he hadn't anticipated this outcome… He had licked all the spiciness of the Latiao clean off, it was a tragedy!

Luckily, God was fair in his actions, and Xu Mang had unexpectedly activated the Spicy Eater skill.

Spicy Eater…

Spicy…

Xu Mang suddenly remembered something. Almost every year on the third Saturday of November, their school would organize a so-called Gourmet Festival, with one of the main attractions being the spicy eating competition.

Xu Mang did the math…

There wasn't much time left.

[New Quest: Hottest Man Alive (School Level)]

[Description: Become a flaming hot man, please win first place]

[Reward(s): Upgrade Cards * 2]

Hold on, a new quest had appeared!