His golden finger only granted him three character draws a day. Yan Jing never expected to hit the jackpot on his final attempt.
Judging by the man's appearance alone, it was obvious he was worlds apart from the weakest Inner World creatures like the Lesser Wandering Ghosts.
If his guess was right, this man with a camera for a head had to be a resident of Rotten Vegetable Village.
Sure enough, the pop-up character profile confirmed it.
[Character Name: Yi Ji]
[Character Quality: Originally designated as white (normal). Due to unforeseen events, it has been upgraded to Green (good).]
[Character Level: Equivalent to the First Tier by Surface World standards.]
[Character Abilities Overview:]
[Automatic Recording:
The amount of memory you can retain depends on your available storage space.You will automatically record everything you see and hear, storing it in your mind. Additionally, you can edit, print, delete, and clip your stored memories.]
[Freeze Frame Moment:
You may take a single photograph of a target in front of you. Once the picture is taken, they will be frozen in that exact pose for about two seconds. The exact duration depends on the power gap between you both.
(Note: This ability has been upgraded because the character is a creation of Fear.
Added Effect: When you tear the photograph, the target will suffer a tearing injury. You can hold a maximum of two photographs at a time.)]
[Character Summary:]
[You were once an accidental creation of Fear and a minion of desire, but now you are just an ordinary resident of Rotten Vegetable Village... aren't you?]
[For certain reasons, you were murdered a few days ago. Upon this resurrection, you lost most of your memories.]
[To regain them, you must see and hear those things once more. Good luck.]
Yan Jing read the character profile over and over. It took a long while for him to calm down from his excitement and let out a long breath.
Drawing this character vastly increased his chances of clearing Stage A of this Dungeon.
Suddenly, as if recalling something, he ignored the [Enter Inner World] prompt hovering before him. Instead, he opened the forum on his computer and typed the word "weird" into the search bar.
He remembered seeing a post that seemed to be about this exact character.
Where is it... Where...
Scrolling continuously down the page, Yan Jing finally stopped. He had found that familiar thread.
The title read: [A Weird Inner World Resident].
The original poster's handle was "Surviving One Day at a Time."
"Eye candy for the thumbnail."
"Thank god, boys. I cleared it! Hahahaha!"
"I almost died in there this time. This Dungeon is seriously brutal to broke guys like us!!!"
"Those good destiny meals start at hundreds of thousands when converted to our money. I'm poor, so I could only test my luck in the worst district."
"And somehow, I actually hit that twenty percent chance for a good quality one."
"Honestly, when I saw the guy next to me eat his jianbing and instantly shrivel into an empty human skin, I nearly pissed my pants."
"Anyway, back to the point. After finishing the first task, I couldn't find a suitable person to spend the night with and almost went crazy. Thank god I got lucky later on."
That was the end of the original post.
Below were comments and replies from other players.
"Read the first few sentences and already knew this is just another scammer trying to sell a course."
"Turned into human skin... Bro, how did you even keep eating after that..."
"OP update quickly! Hurry, hurry!!!"
Soon, the OP replied.
"I'm back. Just went to celebrate with my family. Continuing now!"
"I couldn't find anyone suitable back then, so I had to leave the market area and go straight into the residential district. That's where I met an incredibly weird Inner World resident."
"He had a camera for a head."
The moment he said that, over a dozen replies popped up in unison.
"A camera for a head? Like the kind of camera I'm thinking of?"
"No way, bro... Are you serious?"
"Course sellers can go die."
"Are these kinds of copypastas that popular now? Time to drop the store link, folks."
Seeing himself being doubted, the OP grew anxious and immediately jumped back in to clarify.
"I'm a dog if I'm lying!"
"It was really a camera, right on his neck."
"He was carrying a bag and about to leave his house. I went up and asked him just to try my luck, and to my surprise, he looked at me and actually agreed."
"He didn't make a single demand. He just brought me into his house, and then left straight away."
"Nothing happened that night. I slept like a baby."
That statement failed to clear things up and completely backfired.
The replies were unanimously skeptical. No one had ever heard of such a figure, nor had they heard of such an easy way to clear the task. Everyone assumed the OP was full of shit.
If such a person really existed, the OP's ass must have been brutally sacrificed.
However, the OP didn't post again to defend himself, and the thread simply vanished into a sea of other posts.
Yan Jing checked the date. It was posted over two months ago.
He had only stumbled upon it by pure chance back then.
Clicking the search bar again, he looked up keywords related to "camera," but the results were sparse.
After some thought, Yan Jing opened the profile for "Surviving One Day at a Time" and sent him a private message.
"You there, bro?"
He waited a moment. When no reply came, Yan Jing dropped the matter and turned his attention back to the System Panel.
[Enter Inner World]
The moment he selected it, an intense wave of dizziness washed over his mind.
The world in his vision seemed to spin and violently shake. At the same time, the system's broadcast rang in his ears.
[The Inner World journey is about to begin. The reward mechanics for this journey are:]
[1. Find the murderer who killed your role-played character.
Reward: The ability to switch character identities when officially entering the Dungeon.]
[2. Fulfill your role-played character's deepest wish.
Reward: Fully unlock the character. The host may choose to acquire one of the character's abilities.]
[3. Because this character is of Good quality, the "Safety Officer" option is unlocked.
The Safety Officer has initial Favorability toward you and is trustworthy. Please make good use of this.
When the Safety Officer's Favorability reaches its maximum, the host may choose to acquire one of the Safety Officer's abilities.]
[Have a pleasant journey.]
[Loading Character...]
The darkness before his eyes was gently wiped away.
Yan Jing opened his eyes. A perfectly ordinary room came into view.
The place looked very clean; it was likely cleaned often.
A single bed sat against the inner wall. By the door on the outer wall was a desk, and half a mirror hung by the window.
The only thing that could be considered strange was a small sapling actually growing out of a tiny patch of bare ground near the foot of the bed.
Its dark red leaves drooped listlessly. It didn't look like it was growing very well.
It was daytime. Soft light spilled through a parted corner of the curtains, casting a blood-red sheen over the little tree.
Yan Jing walked over and spotted a single fruit hidden among the withered branches.
"A destiny meal..."
The moment he saw the fruit, the corresponding memories of the Cameraman surfaced in his mind.
In a flash, Yan Jing felt as if he had entered a unique space.
This space was much like a computer's hard drive, filled with rows of titled folders.
Except now, most of those folders were completely empty, their titles changed to "???".
The few remaining folders that still had titles didn't contain much either.
Yan Jing looked at the folder where the new memories had just appeared. It was labeled "Cognition and General Knowledge."
Originally, there had been nothing inside, but now it held a pile of photos and video recordings about destiny meals.
Just as the character summary stated, whenever Yan Jing saw or heard crucial information again, the relevant memories would revive.
Through these records, Yan Jing learned information he could never have found on the forums.
As it turned out, Rotten Vegetable Village was an area with rules that had to be strictly obeyed.
And the first public rule here was that every resident of Rotten Vegetable Village needed a self-sustaining food source to serve as their destiny meal.
For the Cameraman "Yi Ji," his destiny meal was this very tree.
This tree produced an apple known as a "Worm Apple."
And the fertilizer it required was fresh blood.
Yan Jing even found footage of the previous Cameraman watering the tree with blood, though he didn't know whose blood it was.
The way to tell a good Worm Apple from a bad one was to check if the worm on it was alive or dead. If the worm was alive, then even if the apple looked rotten, it was still of good quality.
And vice versa.
Yan Jing carefully inspected it. To his pleasant surprise, he found a worm with a mouth full of sharp fangs at the base of the apple.
When Yan Jing looked at it, the worm actually stretched its long, narrow body out of the hole, trying to take a bite out of him.
"Good quality!"
Yan Jing's eyes lit up with joy.
When he was a Lesser Wandering Ghost, he had exhausted himself just trying to climb out of the sewer. But after drawing a Green character, the quest item was basically handed to him on a silver platter.
He never expected the destiny meal task to be solved this easily.
Now he just needed to figure out how to let his future self grab the apple tomorrow.
He turned his head toward the desk and quickly found the solution.
There was a key resting on the desk, about as thick as an index finger. It was the key to this room.
The second of the three public rules in Rotten Vegetable Village:
One could only enter another person's home using that room's specific key.
Yan Jing walked over and pocketed the key, preparing to head out and find a place to hide it. That way, when he entered the Dungeon tomorrow, he could just come and retrieve the apple.
He stepped up to the door and peered through the peephole of the old-fashioned security door, wanting to make sure no one would notice what he was doing.
He hadn't forgotten that the situation of the character he was playing was far from safe.
The Cameraman had already been killed once a few days ago.
Although a few days had passed since the murderer struck, there was always a risk, and he couldn't help feeling a bit anxious.
What if the killer was incredibly stubborn, or especially cautious, and was still camping outside...
With that in mind, he slowly looked out.
In an instant, he froze.
Her?
Through the distorted, magnified lens of the peephole, a rather familiar figure was staggering back and forth outside the door.
She had shoulder-length hair and wore a pitch-black electric scooter helmet. Her clothes were filthy and torn.
It looked like there was something wrong with her body, especially when she walked. Her head hung askew, her hands shook uncontrollably, and she trembled with every step.
Wasn't this the girl he had seen back when he was a Lesser Wandering Ghost?
What surprised Yan Jing even more was the heart icon floating above the girl's head, followed by the numbers 60/100.
Right at that moment, the long-absent text broadcast echoed in his ear:
[You have been reborn. After finally grasping your situation, you find a familiar figure lingering at your door. You have seen her more than once from places where she couldn't see you.]
[What you didn't expect was that she shares a faint bond with the life you are playing this time, becoming your "Safety Officer."]
[Conquer her, use her, or butter her up to grind her Favorability—this seems to be quite the question.]
[However, you have no time left to think.]
[Because it seems she is about to step up and knock on the door.]