Chapter 4210: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Part 28)

The fire in the fireplace was no longer so vigorous, and the charred marks burned into the stove were hidden in the dim light. The candlelight on the huge chandelier falling in the center of the tavern swayed without wind. The night outside the windowpane revealed a faint blue, which was the weak light reflected by nearby planets.

Pride finished a day's work and returned to the tavern on the last work boat. As soon as he pushed the door open, he found that Greed, who should have gone to rest long ago, was still sitting behind the bar counter.

At this time, dozens of cups of various sizes were placed on the bar counter, some containing wine or drinks, and some not. And the wine bottles that were originally placed in the back as decorations were also taken down and placed on the side of the bar counter.

"This better not be some mysterious welcome ceremony." Pride walked over and sat down. He picked up a cup at random, found that the drink inside was blue, and then put it down with some disgust.

Greed glanced at him and said: "Don't think too highly of yourself, this isn't for you."

"Then what are you doing?"

"I'm just trying the taste."

"What?"

"Can't you see? I'm tasting the taste of these alcoholic drinks one by one." Greed pointed to the cups in front of him, then picked up a bottle of wine from the side, poured it into a cup, drank it, and pursed his lips.

"Oh, damn it, this is too spicy." Greed frowned and put the cup on the other side.

Pride glanced at the wine bottle and said: "Because that's white tequila used for mixing; it would be strange if it weren't choking. Didn't you drink a Matador before? I think that's the best-tasting tequila mixed drink."

"Did I drink it?" Greed thought for a while and said.

"You drank it when you went to the West Coast for vacation before."

"Then I must have forgotten." After speaking, he put the bottle he had tasted behind him, and then picked up another one.

Pride took a simple look; there were probably more than 100 bottles of wine near the bar counter, with slight differences in varieties. A small half had already been put behind him, it seemed he had tasted them, and a large pile was messily placed around.

"Are you planning to export Earth's wine?" Pride asked. He thought so because he had also learned recently that there was basically no wine culture in the universe. Alcohol was banned within the jurisdiction of the Three Great Empires; although the ban wasn't very complete, everyone only dared to drink secretly, and if they were discovered, the whole family would be in trouble, so naturally, it was impossible to study as many varieties of wine as Earth.

However, now the ruling power of the Three Great Empires was weakening, and they could only make compromises in this regard, which naturally was a good opportunity for Earth to export wine. Although Earth's production wasn't very good, it could also take the high-end route, and it could earn quite a bit in the early stage.

"This isn't a long-term business." Pride said, "The brewing method of wine is very simple; if it weren't for the control of the Three Great Empires, aliens would definitely be able to brew more good wine. And if it's opened up now, it won't take long for them to mix wine that suits their taste, and human wine will just be for tasting."

"I didn't want to do this business," Greed shook his head and said, "The shelf life of wine is very long, and it's more suitable for giving as gifts than bulk export. Things are precious because they are rare."

"Then what are you doing?"

"Didn't I say? I'm just tasting."

"Not to mention when you only do one thing, you've drunk all these wines," Pride said, "Adding two lifetimes together, we've almost drunk all the wine on Earth, what are you tasting now?"

"Don't you notice that the memory of the wines I've tasted has some problems?"

"What problems?" Pride's movements paused, and then he went to flip through the previous memories. Flipping like this, he really found some problems.

Sensory memories are classified separately; visual, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory all have their own separate records. Pride searched for the keyword "Tequila".

Pride hadn't drunk this kind of wine because distilled spirits were a bit too strong, and even if it was a mixed drink, the alcohol taste would be very heavy. In non-essential situations, he wouldn't drink this kind of wine. However, he remembered that when Greed and the others went to the West Coast for a wedding, they had drunk it; it seemed they had ordered a tequila mixed drink in a bar in Los Angeles.

This keyword was searched, and what popped up wasn't feelings like taste, but a long string of irrelevant keywords like "Non-Ordinary Dragon", "Wedding Gift", "Tony Stark", "Sanatorium Lawn", "License Plate Number", "Shi'ar Empire", etc.

Pride checked simply and found that they were all large segments of plans; the memory marked that these were all thought of when Greed was drinking.

After flipping for a long time, he finally found a line "The ice cubes seem to be a bit too much" in a pile of irrelevant information, and that was all; he couldn't find any memory about tequila, especially regarding the taste.

The taste of all highly distilled spirits is spicy and choking, the kind you can remember after one sip; Pride dared to be sure, but if Greed had put even a little bit of attention on the wine at that time, he wouldn't have been choked for the second time today.

Pride flipped forward again, and then he noticed that many of the foods Greed had eaten didn't have many annotations about taste; there might be sporadic records like "too salty", "too much oil", but they weren't very specific; on the contrary, there was a long string of memories unrelated to food, which couldn't be finished flipping through for a while.

Following that, Pride went to look for Greed's thoughts when cooking; after all, how could someone who wasn't keen on the taste of food be keen on cooking?

And then he found that Greed couldn't be said to be keen on cooking; he just found something to do when he was busy thinking about many things in his brain, and cooking was very suitable for thinking about things; the time for washing, cutting, and stir-frying was enough for him to bury half of the universe's life in the soil.

It couldn't be said that he couldn't taste the taste, it was just that because the information volume of these endlessly proliferating plans was too large, almost occupying all the threads of thought, the traffic left for the current real world was naturally not much.

However, what was a bit peculiar was that the small space that wasn't there was mostly left for negative reviews. He might not necessarily remember something that was particularly delicious, but if something was very unpalatable, he would definitely have a deep impression.

Because Pride found "white people food is unpalatable", "cold sandwiches are unpalatable", "biscuits with sauce are unpalatable", "this broken potato chip is too unpalatable" and similar thoughts in Greed's memory more than once.

Pride suspected that this was a safety program he set for himself, which could prevent him from eating poisonous food if he wasn't careful, but unfortunately, white people food wasn't poisoned but was better than poisoned, and Greed's memory was piled with a large pile of similar warnings.

It was also possible that it was precisely because there were too many such warnings that Greed had to cook for himself to prevent these error reports from occupying too much thinking traffic.

In general, Greed wasn't someone who could focus on the present; he had certain dissociative fugue symptoms, leading to a lack of sense of experience for reality most of the time, and a lack of impression of many sensory experiences.

However, Pride flipped through the latest memories again; just now, Greed recorded the taste of all the wines he tasted truthfully; for example, the white tequila was marked as "this wine can really choke a person to death, bad to drink".

Although it was still a bit short, at least there was an evaluation. Of course, it might also be because the wine was indeed choking, he didn't feel any taste other than choking, so it was relatively short, while some relatively good-tasting ones would be longer.

Pride's thoughts returned to reality, he looked at Greed and said: "Who won between the two of them?"

"What? Who?"

"Stark and Strange."

"What happened to them?"

"Which one of them cured you?"

"What do you mean by cured me, I'm not sick." Greed paused and said, "However, if you mean making me more passionate about life..."

"That's right, that's what I mean, who is it?"

"Reed Richards."

"Hmm???"

"This is really interesting," Greed stopped his movements, he sat opposite Pride, and then said, "I feel like I'm looking in a mirror, seeing myself from the eyes of others. Anatoly back then didn't give me this feeling."

"He is completely opposite to you," Pride said, "But I don't think Reed is very like you either."

"Yes, because everyone's path is different." Greed said, "The path to pursuing truth always has differences, but if a person's speed can't keep pace with me, then I have no way to see what I look like running on this path."

"So you saw it from Reed?"

"That's right. And I think, running is a bit too fast."

"This is really rare," Pride said with some surprise, "I thought you would never realize this point."

"I said, there must be someone whose speed is the same as mine, so I can see him, but it might be because I run too fast, no one can catch up with me, so I have no way to understand what I look like in such a posture of speed. But Reed Richards, his speed is at the same level as mine, so I can see it."

"Do you think this is bad?"

"Of course. You can't call someone flying at three times the speed of light an ordinary person, right?"

"You aren't that slow."

Greed laughed, he handed Pride a beer. The two clinked glasses gently, and Greed said: "This is my favorite beer."

Pride took a sip, frowned, and then said: "Sure enough, we will never drink together." ===== CHAPTER 4211 =====

"I said, there must be someone at the same speed as me for me to see them, but perhaps it's because I run too fast that no one can catch up to me, and I have no way of knowing what I look like in a state of such speed. But Reed Richards, his speed is on the same level as mine, so I can see it."

"You think that's not good?"

"Of course. You can't call someone flying at three times the speed of light an ordinary person, right?"

"You aren't that slow."

Greed laughed. He handed Pride a beer. The two clinked glasses lightly, and Greed said, "This is my favorite beer."

Pride took a sip, frowned, and then said, "Sure enough, we will never be able to drink together."