Jiang held on to the table that was beside her as the ground violently shook. But the cause wasn't an earthquake. Or an aftershock of one.
No, the shaking was caused by MK's own severe case of the hiccups. Everytime he hiccup'd, something bad or strange happened, and he's been having them all morning. Jiang had her guesses as to what caused the hiccups in the first place, but she didn't have the faintest idea as to why they were so powerful.
"This is the worst case of hiccups I've ever seen! How'd it happen?!" Pigsy cried as Tang, who seemed completely unaffected by everything, continued to eat his usual noodles. "So, remember how you told MK not to enter that beef ball eating contest?" Mei said as she pulled out her phone, making Jiang's suspicions grow. "Under no circumstances, yeah" Pigsy said as he remembered that moment.
Mei showed him and Jiang the pictures on her phone of MK stuffing beef balls in his mouth with Mei beside him. "Five hundred - hic - beef balls in five minutes!" MK said before spinning around in a bar chair. Then he hiccuped again, which sent him through the roof.
Jiang looked at the whole in the ceiling for a moment before looking at Mei and Pigsy. "So, we discovered the cause for his hiccups, but that doesn't explain why their so powerful" she said. "Yeah, we think the beef balls might've been cursed" Mei said, looking a little apologetic.
Jiang facepalmed. "Of - fucking - course they were" she said, mentally cursing whoever cursed the beef balls. "- hic - So good though" MK said from wherever he was, making Jiang roll her eyes in slight amusement.
"MK, of all the thoughtless adventure set ups you could think of, this takes the cake" Pigsy said. "We tried everything! I've tried rubbing his belly, scaring him with a good story, and hitting all his pressure points! But nothing worked!" Mei cried. MK let out another hiccup that flung him into something that, based on the sound of it breaking, was rather fragile.
Jiang then had an idea. "Have you guys tried tea?" She asked. Everyone gave her a strange look.
"What? Tea always helps me when I have the hiccups" Jiang defended herself. "Granted, I never had hiccups like MK's before" she added. Mei turned to the scholar.
"Mr. Tang! You gotta know some ancient techniques for, uh, food poisoning curses, right?" She asked. "Right noodle guy? Huh? Huh?" MK joined in. Both kids were knocked away by Sandy, who didn't seem to notice.
"I'm not fun when I'm not feeling so hot. A special brew of tea perks me right up!" He said. "Oh thank gods I'm not the only one" Jiang said, sounding relieved. "Oh, Sandy is in this one I see" Tang said with a slightly emotionless tone that made Jiang giggle a bit.
A giggle that was quickly cut off by a hiccup that seemed to release a shockwave, throwing everyone to the ground. "Ow" Jiang muttered as she pushed a chair off of her. "Uh, Sandy, Jiang? Somethin tells me that a bit of loose leaf, ain't gonna help us in this particular scenario!" Pigsy said as he stood up.
"Keep an open mind when it comes to Sandy's tea, could you?" Jiang deadpanned at him. She had experienced the amazing properties of Sandy's tea herself. The first time she tried the sleepy time leaves, she slept all the way through the night without any nightmares.
And one time, when she was sick with the flu, Sandy had given her a tea that didn't cure the flu, but it made her feel a whole lot better. Not to mention all the times he let her borrow certain tea leaves to cure her cases of the hiccups. "Don't underestimate the power of the tea leaves. Besides, I'm not talking about any old tea" Sandy said before pulling a literally book out of his orange beard.
At this point, when it came to Sandy, Jiang learned to never really question anything about him. The blue skinned demon opened his book to show them what he was talking about. "I'm talking about the tea made from the leaf of the wild Crimson Jimsonweed, an ancient and powerful flower said to have influence over mortality itself! In the wrong hands, deadly. In the right ones, deadlier!" Sandy explained.
