Yan Jing never expected his current character to have crossed paths with the girl outside his door.
It made sense now. The door he had seen so often while surviving as a Lesser Wandering Ghost must have been the Cameraman's.
As he watched her steel herself to knock, new memories flipped through his mind like a photo album, quickly piecing together the history between his character and this girl.
The Cameraman had likely moved to Rotten Vegetable Village only a short time ago.
Not long after arriving, he bumped into her while heading out.
She had been resting against a street corner, clutching a Snakeskin Bag full of trash. The Cameraman had walked out holding a Worm Apple, and she had swallowed hard at the sight of it.
The Cameraman noticed. Whether out of kindness or some other motive, he split the apple and gave her half.
From then on, every time he went out, he would hand her half an apple.
Because of this, she grew closer and closer to him.
Since the Cameraman hadn't appeared for several days, she must have worried something had happened and come looking for him.In truth, apart from the Cameraman's memories, Yan Jing already knew something about her.
After seeing her so often from his perspective as a Lesser Wandering Ghost, curiosity about her identity had prompted him to search the player forums for her description.
The search results quickly proved she was no simple character.
To the players, at least, she was a highly significant NPC.
The summary thread read:
"NPC Codename: Cerebral Palsy Girl."
"Appearance: A young woman in tattered clothes with limited mobility. Judging by her speech and gait, she suffers from a condition akin to cerebral palsy and lacks formal education."
"This NPC plays a relatively important role in the Stage A 'destiny meal' quest."
"Execution: After entering the Dungeon, locate the produce section. Find the seventh manhole cover from the east and turn inside. There are three trash cans, and this NPC will likely be standing beside them."
"If you act pitiful and beg her, she is highly likely to gift you a destiny meal."
"There is an extremely high probability this destiny meal is not defective."
"Speculation suggests that due to the NPC's kind nature, she saves spoiled food for herself and gives the good food to players."
"Someone once found this NPC's dwelling and tried to complete the overnight quest, only to discover her shelter was too dilapidated to register as a residence."
"No other uses have been discovered for this NPC at present."
Truth be told, player forum discussions were quite useful at times.
While high-level classified information had to be bought and remained out of reach for ordinary players, basic details about low-tier NPCs were freely available.
Furthermore, because of this girl's specific traits, the Rotten Vegetable Village Dungeon had spawned a new meta known as the 'Sprint Strategy.'
As long as a player reached her before everyone else and obtained her destiny meal, they could essentially clear the first quest.
Unfortunately, that strategy was no longer viable.
Some opportunists had caught a whiff of profit.
Relying on anomalous items or the foundational stats they built before entering the Dungeon, they could consistently reach her first.
While their own strength made them look down on the quality of her destiny meal, they would take it just to sell to the desperate players who had bet their life savings to enter the Dungeon.
If they were lucky, they could sell it for a high price.
Even if they weren't, a free destiny meal was hardly a loss.
That was why Yan Jing hadn't paid her much attention when he first read her entry.
He never expected to run into her today.
As his thoughts raced, the girl outside finally gathered her courage. Dragging her body with a severe limp, she stepped up to the door and knocked.
"Knock, knock, knock!"
What should he do... open it or not?
Yan Jing hesitated for half a second before reaching out to unlock the security door.
If nothing else, her identity as a security officer meant he couldn't just ignore her.
If this was a game of deception, she was the only guiding light he could currently trust.
The door creaked open. Gentle light and a cool breeze slipped through the gap simultaneously, erasing the final barrier between Yan Jing and the girl.
The wind slipped down Yan Jing's collar, but he didn't feel particularly cold. His attention was completely locked onto the girl, watching the subtle shifts in her expression.
Honestly, he hadn't interacted with women much in his past life, but when it came to a metric like Favorability, he had his own unique insights.
Perhaps... it was no different from a dating sim.
Because of this, every movement she made felt incredibly important to him.
Illuminated by the sunlight, her filthy face went blank for a moment upon seeing him. Then, a barely perceptible blush crept up beneath the grime on her cheeks.
Yan Jing looked into her amber eyes—one of the few things about her that could be considered beautiful. Right now, the most obvious emotion swirling in them was joy.
Followed by fear.
What was she afraid of? Unable to parse it, Yan Jing observed her even more closely.
"G-good... morning..."
She finally spoke, dragging out every syllable. It was as if she were trying to force her slurred, indistinct voice to sound clearer.
"I... I... I just... wanted to see... if you were home..."
Yan Jing finally deciphered her fear: she felt that knocking on his door was too presumptuous.
"Good morning."
He nodded, keeping his voice soft to match the Cameraman's memories as closely as possible.
At his words, the girl smiled, seemingly realizing he wasn't angry at her for knocking.
She looked far prettier smiling than she did with a straight face, revealing a set of neat white teeth.
Then her gaze dropped, shifting from his neck down to his hands, her eyes filling with anticipation.
Yan Jing knew she was expecting him to be holding an apple.
Every time they had met in the past, the Cameraman had held an apple and split it with her.
But today, he had nothing.
Or rather, he could have had one, but he couldn't afford to give her half.
He needed to eat it tomorrow.
Whether a halved apple would stay fresh was a major concern, and whether it would still be effective upon consumption was another issue entirely.
The text broadcast in his ears was still ongoing, practically morphing into an omnipresent narrator.
[The girl is anticipating the apple in your hands, yet she doesn't seem to see one.]
[Will she be disappointed? Will she think you've grown distant from her?]
[But what you care about most is: will her Favorability drop?]
[Your sharp wits seem to have realized that making up for a drop in Favorability will be far more difficult.]
[So, how will you choose?]
Yan Jing lowered the volume of the text broadcast in his ears and tried his best to recall every piece of information about her.
Keywords bounced through his mind.
Kind, cerebral palsy, trash scavenger, poorly educated... and her fear just now...
He had his answer.
Perhaps the apple wasn't the crucial part; the key was the act of sharing it.
His mind was made up.
He bent forward slightly and hugged his stomach. His voice dropped a few degrees softer than before, even carrying a trace of weakness:
"I'm so hungry. Do you have anything to eat?"
[...You despicable bastard. You've thought up a brilliant trick, actually planning to deceive a disabled girl...]
[Asking a trash-scavenging girl for food. You've really outdone yourself.]
[And yet, she seems to have completely fallen for it. She has tasted hunger before and knows exactly what kind of agony it is.]
[She has completely forgotten about the apple. You have succeeded.]
Seeing Yan Jing in this state, her expression instantly shifted into a panic.
Her already trembling hands shook even harder as she frantically spoke:
"I... I have... I have something to... eat... I'll... I'll take you... don't... don't go hungry..."
The more anxious she got, the more she stuttered, which only fueled her anxiety.
Just as Yan Jing expected her to lead the way, she rushed right up to him. Reaching out with trembling hands, she grabbed his waist.
Before Yan Jing could react, something sticky soaked through the shirt around his abdomen. Immediately after, a massive force struck him, and his entire world spun.
In the blink of an eye, she tossed him over her shoulder, hoisting him up and carrying him down the street to the right.
Staring at the several pairs of pitch-black tentacles that had split out from her hands around his waist, Yan Jing felt his Video Camera head crash for a second.
The player forums had never mentioned her combat strength. After all, she had always appeared entirely harmless.
Now that he was experiencing it firsthand, the physical power behind those tentacles was definitively far greater than what his current body possessed.
"She truly lives up to the title of a security officer."
Right now, he felt an unparalleled sense of safety.
Soon, they arrived at her "home."
She set Yan Jing down carefully. Leaning against a corner wall, he took in her dwelling.
This place really didn't look like somewhere one could stay the night.
Three walls of cardboard and one actual wall made up the enclosure. In the innermost corner lay a makeshift bed padded with Snakeskin Bags.
Neatly arranged dolls sat by the bed, accompanied by a broken table cluttered with various bottles, jars, and half a shattered mirror.
That was the entirety of this "home." It didn't even have a door.
Aside from the dolls, which had been washed pale, everything else was dirty to some degree. Unsurprisingly, the air carried a foul odor.
After putting Yan Jing down, she hurried over to the "bed" and pulled a few filthy steamed buns from under a Snakeskin Bag. Then, limping as fast as she could, she rushed back to his side.
Without giving him a chance to speak, she shoved a bun into a slit under Yan Jing's camera lens that resembled a photo dispenser.
"Eat... eat... eat..."
Seemingly worried he lacked the strength to chew, she kept her anxious gaze fixed on his face.
She didn't let out a relieved, innocent smile until she saw him force down half the bun.
Yan Jing tasted the mold spreading over his tongue. It tasted like an ancient, unwashed mattress, leaving a bitter edge.
Was this what she had been eating all along?
Yan Jing didn't let his reaction show. He swallowed the remaining half of the bun before looking up at her:
"Thank you."
Her eyes noticeably brightened at those words, and her smile grew even wider:
"You're... you're... welcome..."
At the same time, the 60/100 floating above her head shifted to 61/100.
[You have luckily become the first person to say thank you to the girl before you, earning one point of Favorability.]
"Eat... eat... there's more... eat more..."
She grabbed two more steamed buns and offered them to him.
Yan Jing hesitated.
It wasn't that he felt guilty about tricking a disabled girl out of her food; it was just that these buns tasted genuinely awful.
Just as he was about to refuse, the text broadcast echoed in his ears:
[This reincarnated body is incredibly weak. Although the girl's destiny meal possesses no special effects, it has still restored a bit of your weird energy.]
"Thank you."
Yan Jing accepted the two buns and offered his sincere thanks.