ALL NOVEL 0042 – Mental Power Could Influence Reality!
Benny's tone was particularly flattering. The girl next to him covered her mouth, laughing. Even Zoe rolled her eyes helplessly.
Next, having confirmed the practical usefulness of her emotion perception ability, Zoe lost interest in continuing the card game. Benny also had his temper subdued by the game. The three of them then engaged in a discussion about famous works and quotations. Despite lacking artistic talent, Zoe utilized her excellent memory to pretend she had an artistic inclination.
After about an hour, the bookstore owner had to leave urgently. She quickly took a taxi after they escorted her downstairs.
When they returned, Benny soon admitted defeat in the card game but claimed that Zoe couldn't outdrink him. With enthusiasm, he opened the red wine he had brought. After some necessary preparations, he poured some for both himself and Zoe.
"This bottle of red wine is from Chablis in northern Burgundy, France, dating back to 1942. It’s made from Chardonnay grapes, known for being non-oak aged," Benny said elegantly, then sipped from his glass.
Seeing this, Zoe also tasted the wine in front of her. Curiously, although all food tasted bland to her, and only plain water somewhat retained its original taste, her keen sense of smell and taste could still discern the flavors of the wine. The wine was very light-bodied, with high acidity and flavors of apple and pear. The raw material was undoubtedly authentic Chardonnay grapes. This was indeed a genuine bottle worth twenty thousand dollars, by the current inflation, it would be worth more than 100,000 euros!
Zoe could still detect and recognize these flavors, even more acutely than before. However, it wasn't that she couldn't taste the details, but rather that she had lost interest in these flavors. Her natural desire for delicious food was fading, and her body instinctively wanted to reject eating.
Zoe vaguely understood that this might be because her body, now containing endless energy, no longer needed food, indirectly causing this change. This realization made her a bit melancholy. As an intelligent being, losing the innate pleasure of eating might be tolerable in the short term, but in the long run, it would make her seem out of place with others, potentially causing family and friends to notice and leading to self-doubt.
Moreover, her possibly long lifespan would require many fulfilling activities to prevent her mindset from becoming antisocial, inhumane, or immoral. Good hobbies and appropriate pleasures can keep a person positive and joyful in the long term. Perhaps she should find a hobby? No, it wasn't a husband she's pursuing right now but rather something interesting and time-consuming.
While thinking this, Zoe noticed Benny refilling his empty glass with another third of wine, raising his eyebrows provocatively before tasting it again. Realizing Benny was trying to drink her under the table after losing at cards, Zoe calmly refilled her own glass by another third. She would accept the challenge.
What followed was a series of toasts. After Zoe drank half a bottle without any noticeable reaction, Benny went back to his home next door to bring over a dozen bottles of his treasured 1942 Chardonnay from the Chablis winery in northern Burgundy.
After a few more rounds, they had nearly finished nine bottles. Benny’s face was flushed, and his words became increasingly incoherent, as he subconsciously began boasting about his past.
"Back in the day, when I was in the States..." Benny began, his words slurred and punctuated by hiccups. "I... I borrowed some ancient oak artifacts from the Natural History Museum... wax-sealed manifests, and... emmm... oh right! A soil sample from a French botanist..."
"And then... I used these items to create a convincing fake of Franklin's treasured... hahaha... hiccup~" Benny laughed, struggling to continue. "Stolen French red wine."
Zoe, who had long expected to remain sober no matter how much she drank, looked at Benny with interest. "And then?" she prompted, curious about Benny's past, which she'd never heard about before.
"They used carbon content to verify the cork's age, molecular analysis for the wax, and spectrophotometry for the glass bottle," Benny continued. "All those tests... hiccup~ my fake passed them all, no different from the real thing."
"But what I didn't expect was that due to large-scale nuclear tests by humans in World War II, there was a new element in nature after 1945: Cesium-137. Any wine bottled before 1945 wouldn't have Cesium-137 in it," he explained. "But after radioactive testing, they found this element in my counterfeit wine, and it was exposed."
"That pissed me off... hiccup~ so I went and bought a dozen genuine bottles of French Burgundy Chablis from 1942."
As Benny recounted his failed venture, his speech quickened, though it was still interrupted by occasional hiccups. He sounded less drunk despite his condition.
Zoe shook her head in exasperation and poured more wine into Benny's mouth to comfort him. She didn't know how to console people with words, but she believed everything that needed to be said was in the wine. Seeing this, Benny, who never admitted to being drunk, waved his hands repeatedly. "I give up, I give up! I really can't drink anymore... glug glug glug..."
Clearly, Benny's resistance was futile, and he could only emit glugging sounds as Zoe easily made him drink more wine, holding him like a little chick.
"That's nothing, kid. You wanted a drinking contest, so don't blame me now," Zoe said with a kind smile while pouring more wine, watching as Benny, who was almost completely drunk, downed nearly another bottle.
Soon, Benny, who usually held his liquor well, was rolling his eyes and passed out. Only then did Zoe stop, carry Benny next door, and toss him onto his own bed.
Returning to her house, Zoe stood by the window, feeling the sobriety in her body. She realized she not only lost her desire for gourmet food but also the ability to get drunk. Even after drinking over four bottles of the highest quality red wine, she felt nothing. Unlike Benny, who was dead drunk, Zoe remained clear-headed.
Gazing at the moon rising outside, Zoe turned back and started cleaning up the scattered wine bottles on the table. As her mind's enhanced perception swept over the messy table, she froze in surprise.
The cork in the corner of the table had moved slightly when her mental power touched it. Zoe was sure there was no wind from the window, and the cork definitely moved.
Thinking this, Zoe tried to touch the cork with her mental power again. The next moment, the cork moved again. The movement was subtle but undeniable.
Clearly, her mental power could do more than just perceive emotions; it could also slightly influence reality. It could exert some force on the physical world!
