Compared to

 women, it wasn’t that complicated when men needed to put on makeup. Lin Qiusheng finished his makeup after around ten minutes. Meanwhile, Xiao Zhao and the other assistants had already prepared the ingredients on the stage. 

Lin Qiusheng walked 

on

 the stage and talked to his beautiful co-host. Facing the camera, he smiled tenderly. 

I found a place nearest to Lin Qiusheng as I was afraid that something would happen during the broadcast. 

T

he camera 

didn’t

 capture me in this corner. 

As the cooking show started, Lin Qiusheng began to introduce each of the ingredients, including their nutritious values and how to cook them. From time to time, he joked with his co-host

 and gave

 more interesting touches to the show. 

After the introduction of the ingredients came the part I was worried about the most – the review of dishes! There were three dishes that the program crew had prepared. To increase the 

effectiveness

 of the show, they had sent three staff who didn’t have outstanding appearances to bring out the dishes

. They 

placed them in front of Lin Qiusheng

 and said 

that they were cooked by the audience. 

Lin Qiusheng took a bite of every dish and gave some comments. This section was finally over. 

After that, Lin Qiusheng wanted to cook a dish right 

on

 the stage. Since he had to process his ingredients, the crew members moved the previous three dishes away and made more room for him. Seeing the staff carrying the 

food

 out of the screen, I thought I could heave a sigh of relief. 

But

 when the staff was taking his last step out of the screen, Lin Qiusheng, who looked normal in the previous second, suddenly dashed forward and snatched a dish out of the staff’s hand. He grabbed the food and shoved that handful of 

it

 into his mouth

.

 I immediately 

went

 to pull him. My left hand wasn’t within the camera frame, so I held the red chopsticks and grabbed his middle finger. 

Unexpectedly, this trick didn’t work. Lin Qiusheng struggled harder and harder. He had almost swallowed all the food in his hand. I immediately threw the chopsticks aside

, 

took out a painting of Taotie, 

and stuck

 it on him!

Taotie was the name of ancient mythological creatures famous for their greedy and gluttonous character. They were big foodies

 as t

hey were the 

ancestors

 of 

all

 foodies. Legend said that only Taotie

’s head remained

 because it had eaten its own body! 

That

 was enough to see how gluttonous it was

.

I had borrowed this painting of Taotie from Chuyi a long time ago. I thought that if 

the spirit

 was something that liked to eat a lot, it would be afraid of Taotie or

show respect to Taotie at the very 

least

! 

Indeed, it worked. As soon as I had stuck the Taotie painting on him, Lin Qiusheng shook as if he was a sieve. After a few seconds, he r

eturned to his senses

. He immediately knew what had just happened. His face

 grimaced

. 

I wanted to comfort him, but I caught a glance 

at

 Xiao Zhao’s signal. I followed her instruction and pulled Lin Qiusheng away from the camera

’s

 frame. 

As soon as we got off the stage, the

MC of the show immediately took the stage and made 

a

 joke about Lin Qiusheng’s awkward situation, driving the audience to 

think

 that it was the bridge section the show had planned. One of the dishes he had tasted was deliberately prepared with spices they shouldn’t have used for the dish. The show producer wanted to see if Lin Qiusheng could recognize it. 

Previously, they said that the food was cooked by the audience and now they said that it was planned by the program crew. Although the loophole was obvious here, they could cover Lin Qiusheng’s awkward situation. It wasn’t too difficult for him to get back to the stage later. 

For the latter part of the show, Lin Qiusheng introduced nutritious foods that could be great supplements during the 

wintertime

. The show 

was able to

 finally 

end

 smoothly. 

Since he had

 the painting of Taotie with him, he could continue and finish his show without any new problems. After the show was done, I wanted to go to Lin Qiusheng’s house to see if there were any clues. 

“I’m tired. Can you visit me another day?” suggested Lin Qiusheng. 

I remembered the conversation between him and Lin Xia in the hospital. I knew he was afraid that I could find something in his house. I wanted to go and see, but if he said so, I

 had to give up on that thought

. “All right, if you encounter something, call me immediately.” 

After Lin Qiusheng left, I remembered that my car was still at the hospital. When I was about to leave with Li Mazi, Xiao Zhao honked 

at us

 to go with her. 

After g

etting into the car, Li Mazi teased her. “Why 

didn't you

 leave with your boss? You don’t want to 

see

 your salary reduced, do you?” 

Xiao Zhao had a faint smile. “How could it be? My boss asked me to see you off.” 

I chuckled. Liu Qiusheng was interesting

, quite the attentive type

. 

However,

he still

 didn’t want to tell me the truth. 

I asked Xiao Zhao to take us to the hospital. 

After

 Xiao Zhao left, we immediately drove after her. Li Mazi sat 

i

n the passenger sea

t and asked

, “Why do we have to follow Xiao Zhao?” 

“Do you still need to ask? Of course, we want to know what Lin Qiusheng has messed with!” I rolled my eyes at him. 

I then told him what I had eavesdropped on this afternoon in Lin Qiusheng’s patient room. Li Mazi’s eyes opened wide. “

It’s n

o wonder I 

felt 

that Lin Xia look

ed

 strange. He knew everything right from the start! He knew his father 

had a

 problem!” 

After around half an hour, Xiao Zhao drove into a high-end residential area. In 

these

 luxurious neighborhoods, non-registered cars weren’t allowed to enter. I stopped at the entrance and got out with a pack of good cigarettes. I 

wanted

 to make 

friends

 with the security guard.  

The security guard was a middle-aged man around forty years old. He looked nice, but he was tough

to entice. I had offered him several packs of cigarettes, but I got nothing from him. Feeling 

h

elpless, I had to drive away. 

Li Mazi was somewhat mad

. H

is foul mouth 

moved

 fast. “I was 

an idiot to get involved in

 this case. There’s nothing good about 

this, only

 a lot of troubles!”

I thought it wasn’t that bad. Although Lin Qiusheng hadn’t told me the truth,

he was 

willing to let me help him

. I kept thinking about it for quite a long time, but I hadn’t figured out how to make him tell me everything. 

Since I had a lot of things 

o

n my mind, when I turned my car into the alley of my antique shop, I had almost run someone over. I craned my neck to check

 and saw

 that it was Lin Xia. The young man 

looked

 pale as he had 

been

 out in the cold. It seemed he had been here right after the cuisine show ended. When he saw me, he looked both touched and excited. “Master Zhang…” 

I waved my hand and motioned that he should 

go

inside

 the shop to talk. It was freezing out

side

. I didn’t want to become 

a

 human ice cube by standing here 

with 

him. 

Li Mazi was mad at Lin Xia, so he went directly into the shop after getting out of the car. He poured himself a cup of hot tea

 and quickly gulped it down

. After I 

brought

 Lin Xia to the shop, Li Mazi slammed the cup on the table and dashed upstairs, leaving Lin Xiao with an embarrassed face. 

I poured Lin Xia a cup of hot 

tea and

 comforted him. “Li Mazi is a straightforward man. You don’t need to 

overthink it

.” 

“No, 

don’t worry

.” Lin Xia shook his head. He held the cup of tea

 and looked 

reluctant. After a long moment, he made up his mind

and started to talk. “Master Zhang, I guessed you heard our quarrel this afternoon.” 

I almost spat out the sip of tea I had just drunk. It turned out they had seen r

ight through 

my performance this afternoon. Even Lin Xia, an immature young man, got it. 

It would be

strange

if

 Lin Qiusheng didn’t get it.  

Feeling e

mbarrassed, I nodded. “Yeah, I overheard you guys. If you know 

anything

, you better tell me. That’s how I can help your father.” 

Lin Xia sighed. Slowly, he started to talk

.

 “I don’t know how it started. All I know is that one week ago, my father mysteriously told me that he bought something very nice. After that, he has turned into this…” 

When he said that, I got 

an idea

 in my head, more or less. The 

“

nice thing

”

 he mentioned could be an otherworldly item. It seemed Lin Qiusheng also knew that it wasn’t something 

normal

. But still, he wanted to use that item to achieve his purpose! 

As I had kept silent for quite a long time, Lin Xia 

got

 anxious. “

Will

 something bad happen to my father?” 

I nodded. “If he continues this way, bad things 

will

 happen soon. Let alone 

other complications

, your father’s body 

won’t be able to

 endure his wolfing habit of eating.” 

“Do you know how to help my father?” Lin Xia’s eyes reddened. 

I patted his shoulder to comfort him. “Don’t worry. If you are too worried, you will 

make

 mistakes. Anyway, I need to know what 

this thing

 is and gather more details about it

to know how to deal with it.” 

Lin Xia implored me. “You must help my father!”

Then, he placed the cup down onto the table and rushed outside. I was left with a puzzled face. 

Li Mazi 

came down

. He sat opposite me then said despicably, “That young man must have gone to see his lover. He ran even faster than a rabbit.” 

I rolled my eye

s and scoffed.

 “Don’t think that everybody is like you. I think Lin Xia’s a good man.” 

Li Mazi laughed and asked, “Now, what is your plan?” 

I pretended to be surprised. “Oh, I thought you wanted to ditch this case

.

” 

Li Mazi made 

a

 fake cough and cleared his throat. “How could I do that? 

I was 

just angry when I 

faced

 some injustice…” 

Lin Xia’s appearance tonight made me somewhat worried. I always felt that something would happen. After 

chatting with

 Li Mazi, I went upstairs to prepare some magic tools I would possibly use. 

After p

reparing everything well, I eased my mind and went to bed. 

I thought that I 

would be able to

 have a nice sleep that night. However, at the break of dawn, I was awoken by Li Mazi’s screaming downstairs. I thought something big had happened. After 

p

utting on more warm clothes, I hurried to go downstairs, but then, I saw that Ru Xue was chasing after Li Mazi around my house. 

I leaned against the handrail of the staircase and watched the fun for a while. Eventually, I knew what had happened. Rue Xue had come home last night from her mother’s house. She 

knew Li

 Mazi was 

at

 my place since he wasn’t home. Early this morning, she came to my shop to find him

 and 

found him drooling at 

a

 beauty wearing a bikini in the magazine. 

Li Mazi threw me a send-hel

p

-look. I waved at him

 and signaled 

that he should pray for his welfare. Then, I went out to have breakfast. I rarely went out to have breakfast

 b

ut today, judging from the fact that it would take a lot of time 

for

 Ru Xue 

to calm

 down, I quickly 

m

ade up my mind to go out to have some peace and fresh air. 

I slowly moved along the antique street to find a restaurant and order something. When I had finished half of my meal, I saw someone anxiously rushing past the restaurant

. That person 

looked like Lin Xia. It was weird that he had come here so early in the morning. 

Feeling worried

, I p

laced

 the money for the breakfast on the table and left the restaurant

. I dashed 

after him. 

However, when I ran 

in

 his direction, I didn’t see him. This street was straight

 and 

there 

was

 one turn two hundred meters ahead of me. It was just a short moment, so he couldn’t have just 

disappeared

 that fast! 

Did he visit 

a nearby

 shop? 

With that thought, I walked along the street and checked each shop. Still, when I reached the turn, I hadn’t found him yet. I knew it was strange, so I decided to call Lin Xia. The phone rang twice 

before

 the line 

went

 through. 

“Good morning Master, have you figured out 

a

 solution?” greeted Lin Xia. 

I found an excuse and hung up the call. I guessed my eyes were just blurred for a moment. After this interruption, I 

was in

 no mood to eat my breakfast outside. I bought some fried dumplings and returned to my antique shop. 

Li Mazi and Ru Xue were sitting on the sofa, showing their affection to each other. I gave Li Mazi 

a

 pack of dried dumplings. Then, I started to search for Lin Qiusheng’s information 

on

 my phone in hopes that I could find the reason why Lin Qiusheng had to depend on 

an

 otherworldly item. 

After two hours 

of 

staring at 

my phone 

screen

,

 I finally found a clue amongst 

a

 bunch of fake and real information about him. 

Three months ago, there was a blog post about Lin Qiusheng on Weibo, which gradually bec

a

me a hot topic. The blog 

was

 written nicely 

and had

 pictures

. It was about 

a cooking show that had invited Lin Qiusheng as a special guest. To enliven the show, the program crew had prepared a bowl of braised pork rib with three spoons of sugar added 

as a 

prank to Lin Qiusheng. 

Unexpectedly, Lin Qiusheng didn’t change his face when he ate two 

bites

 of the braised por

k

. Moreover, he 

gave an

 excellent assessment 

of

 the dish. 

P

eople assumed that Lin Qiusheng’s sense of taste had 

a

 problem. 

Anyway, this blog post 

did not affect 

Lin Qiusheng’s career that much because Lin Qiusheng’s company timely posted an explanation that it was just 

part of

 the show.

However, 

Lin Qiusheng had another strange performance in a few shows afterward. The news that he had lost his sense of taste spread out fast. The other cuisine shows he had 

attended

 were willing to pay the

compensation and break the contract with 

him

. Lin Qiusheng’s career had plunged to the bottom… 

Until one week ago, he had signed a new TV program with a small company. After the first episode, his reputation was slightly recovered. 

Lin Xia had said that Lin Qiusheng had gotten the otherworldly item one week ago. The times matched. It seemed his report was true. Now, I knew why Lin Qiusheng didn’t want to tell me his real situation. A gourmet without 

a

 sense of taste 

was

 like a deaf musician. Not many people could accept this shocking news. 

I decided to call Lin Qiusheng. I thought it was the right time to talk to him. Before I could make a call, my phone rang. 

I

t was a call from Lin Qiusheng. 

Oh well, as soon as I mention Cao Cao, Cao Cao comes! 

I picked up the call. Before I cou

ld speak.

 Lin Qiusheng’s panicked voice came from the other end of the line. “Master, my son is missing!”