"What is your name?"
Yan Jing asked. He had just finished two mantou and politely declined the girl's offer of a third.
"Na... me..."
The girl looked at Yan Jing and repeated the word, tilting her head in her electric vehicle helmet as if thinking.
Yan Jing assumed she didn't understand the concept of a name and was just about to explain:
"It's what people usually call you—"
"Gar... bage... La... dy..."
As usual, the girl dragged out every single syllable.
She didn't seem to understand what those words actually meant. She smiled happily after saying them, baring her teeth once again.
Yan Jing looked at her joyful expression and nodded.He had intended to drop the subject, but on a sudden whim, he spoke up again.
"That name isn't bad, but have you considered changing it? To something simpler, for example."
He knew it was a bit abrupt, but he remembered how helping characters pick names in galgames would increase their favorability, and he wanted to give it a try.
It certainly wasn't out of sympathy for the girl or anything like that. Definitely not.
"Sim... ple..."
The girl froze for a moment. Then, looking a bit embarrassed, she lowered her head, her voice dropping to a whisper.
"I... I don't... know how..."
"I can help you," Yan Jing said, seeing that she had no resistance to the idea.
He fancied himself a genius at naming things.
As an orphan in his past life, he had chosen his current name for himself when he grew up.
If he hadn't picked such a good name, how could he have gotten the chance to transmigrate into a body with the exact same name?
Hearing this, the girl looked up in pleasant surprise, her eyes filled with joy and a trace of disbelief.
[The girl in front of you has been completely deceived. With her lack of intelligence, she naturally cannot tell that the body before her is occupied by someone else.]
[She only feels that her "good friend" is exceptionally warm today, and she is happy that her relationship with her "good friend" has grown a step closer.]
"How about Mantou?"
Yan Jing ignored the text broadcast ringing in his ears and smiled, pointing at the mantou in the girl's hands:
"The mantou you gave me is delicious."
"Man... tou..."
The girl laughed happily:
"Man... tou..."
She repeated her new "name" several times before looking at Yan Jing:
"Thank you..."
This "thank you" was much more fluent than her previous "you're welcome." Yan Jing smiled and waved a hand:
"You're welcome."
The girl grew even happier. The excitement seemed to give her a bit more courage, and she looked at Yan Jing:
"I... I want to... call your... name... too... is that okay?"
Those last few words almost slipped silently from her lips, vanishing into the wind the moment they were spoken, like a game of hide-and-seek.
After speaking, she didn't quite dare to look Yan Jing in the eye.
She knew his name because she had secretly hidden near his stall in the vegetable market and heard others call him by it many times.
But she had never said it herself.
She had never been so nervous. She felt her heart pounding wildly in the left side of her chest, almost ready to jump right out.
Sitting across from her, Yan Jing was detached from the situation and could see it much more clearly—because that heart was literally about to jump out.
Its pitch-black blood vessels had spread several inches outward through the girl's skin. At the same time, the black tentacles in her hands grew out involuntarily, dancing in the air.
He grew tense as well.
"Of course you can."
Risk and reward went hand in hand. The moment he said those words, he readied his photo-freezing ability, just in case his safety officer ended up threatening his safety.
But nothing happened. Only the favorability above the girl's head quietly increased by 3.
[You really are a smooth talker. With just a few words, you have utterly captivated this ignorant young girl.]
[You are gradually understanding the significance of a safety officer. A safety officer with high favorability will absolutely not cause you any harm.]
"Yan... Jing..."
To Yan Jing's surprise, the girl called out his name very smoothly, with only the last syllable drawn out.
"Here."
Yan Jing raised his hand, and the girl's eyes narrowed into happy little crescents.
The two chatted for a bit longer, mainly with Yan Jing indirectly asking the girl questions about the local residents' destiny meals.
Although he already had the Worm Apple as a safety net.
But one could never have too many safety nets.
Unfortunately, the girl actually spent very little time in the vegetable market area. Even when she did go, she just stayed on the outskirts, listening to the Cameraman chat with others.
Thus, Yan Jing suggested they go for a stroll through the vegetable market area.
He also planned to use his eyes to trigger this body's lost memories along the way.
He didn't expect the girl's expression to change immediately after he finished speaking.
His words seemed to remind her of something important. She looked at him with an anxious face:
"Yan... Jing... your... your stall... was... was taken by... by someone else..."
...
The two hurried to the vegetable market area together.
Along the way, Yan Jing didn't miss the chance to awaken his memories, observing his surroundings as much as possible.
The folders in his mind, filled with photos and videos, gradually increased one by one.
They finally arrived in front of a giant archway made of woven iron frames. Welded onto it in crooked iron were a few large characters:
"Rotten Vegetable Market"
Yan Jing saw a blackboard hanging beside the archway.
Written on it in careful chalk strokes was:
[Rotten Vegetable Market Regulations:
1. The high-quality rate of any vegetable stall must not fall below 20%.
2. A stall left unattended for more than five days is considered abandoned property.
3. Operating hours are from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM. During this time, fighting between stall owners is strictly prohibited.
Violators of the above regulations will face severe punishment from the Market Management Organization!
Customers with complaints, please drop your grievances into the iron box to the side.
If the complaint is verified as true, we will penalize the personnel involved.]
This was the vegetable market area that the players talked about.
The entirety of Rotten Vegetable Village was roughly a quadrilateral urban village wrapped around this single vegetable market street that cut straight through from east to west.
Yan Jing looked at the rules on the blackboard.
On the surface, none of these rules seemed aimed at players; they were entirely directed at the stall owners.
But he knew this exactly demonstrated the difficulty of this Dungeon.
Based on the existing memories in his mind, if it weren't for the first rule, some of the vendors in this market would love nothing more than to replace all the destiny meals they sold with defective goods.
As for the green, rust-covered complaint box next to the blackboard...
Yan Jing only glanced at it before shifting his gaze away.
That box was somewhat famous on the forums.
Players could indeed choose to submit a complaint letter.
But the price was one jin of the player's own flesh.
And if it was ultimately found that the complaint was unfounded...
The player would be punished. Usually, this meant stripping 50 jin of flesh from the player, though sometimes it was 48 jin.
He and Mantou quickly found his stall, as it wasn't far from the archway.
This was the back gate, facing the interior of the urban village.
The front gate was the one facing the main street outside the village.
Vegetable stalls like this near the back gate were mostly the bottom-tier ones. To be more precise, their high-quality rate wouldn't exceed 25%.
It was already approaching evening. The dim yellow sunlight shone on the stall owners, and the ground around them was littered with vegetable leaves, cigarette butts, and wrapping paper.
It looked no different from a vegetable market in the Surface World.
If it weren't for the fact that these stall owners all had such distinctively grotesque features, Yan Jing would have genuinely thought he was back home.
"Kid! You haven't been here in a while. Want a pancake? It's absolute high quality!"
A fat man whose body was plastered with various pieces of human skin tore a face out from under his armpit and slapped it onto the round iron griddle in front of him.
As he spun the iron griddle, the human face gradually expanded, contorting as it grew.
Lettuce and sauce were spread on top, one after another...
"No thanks, I've already eaten."
Yan Jing waved his hand in refusal. He suddenly felt that Mantou's destiny meal was actually pretty good.
He walked to the fourth stall on the left. That was his stall.
Or rather, it used to be.
Now, there were several baskets of vegetable stalks sitting on it, twisting and squirming like earthworms, alongside half a putrid, foul-smelling foot wearing a crystal sandal.
"Hello, I'm here to buy vegetables."
Yan Jing led Mantou over to the owner of that foot. His tall figure cast a shadow over her.
The gray-haired old woman originally thought business had arrived, but she shuddered the moment she poked her head out.
She hadn't expected Yan Jing to suddenly show up.
After all, Yan Jing hadn't shown his face in three or four days.
At first, she had been quite cautious, merely shifting her own stall slightly toward his side.
But after noticing that he hadn't appeared for several consecutive days, she grew bolder. Not only did she place all her vegetables on his side, she also expanded her stall to take up more than half of Yan Jing's space.
"Oh, you're back."
Pretending that nothing was wrong, the old woman pulled back the squirming vegetable stalks and her foot. She spoke with a heavy accent:
"You weren't around these past few days, so I watched your stall for you! Otherwise, it probably would have been stolen!"
She kept yammering on, acting as though she had truly done Yan Jing a massive favor.
Yan Jing laughed.
"Putting it that way, I should be thanking you."
"You bet! Look at me, my foot has cramped up multiple times these past few days from watching your stall."
Hearing this, the old woman seemingly thought she had an opening. Feeling delighted, she pushed her luck and stuck out her foot, which was suffering from a severe case of fungal nails:
"Come to think of it, you ought to pay me a stall-watching fee."
Yan Jing didn't even glance at it. His smile faded.
"No. Now hurry up and move your things out of the way. Stop taking up my space."
The undisguised coldness in his words made the old woman resentfully shut her mouth and start gathering her things.
During this time, the surrounding vendors all cast watchful gazes their way. For these vendors who spent their entire days selling vegetables, this was a rare piece of entertainment.
Feeling the mocking stares from the people around her, the old woman felt a burning heat on her cheeks.
Feeling that she had lost face, she moved all her things back. Then, taking advantage of the moment Yan Jing walked toward his stall, she hawked and spat a wad of saliva right at him.
"You shameless brat! Taking my good intentions for donkey liver and lungs! Bullying an old lady like me, and you even brought a Garbage Lady along!"
Yan Jing's camera hadn't grown just for show. The moment the old woman spat, it caught the action. With a quick step back, he sharply dodged it.
"Hah, so you know fear, you fucking little shit!!"
The old woman spat without worrying about Yan Jing fighting back. The vegetable market's rules were clear: no fighting during business hours.
Looking at the triumphant old woman, Yan Jing didn't say a word.
He merely smiled and borrowed two small chairs from the old man reading a newspaper to his left, pulling a slightly fuming Mantou down to sit with him.
Seeing that the entertainment was likely over, the vendors withdrew their gazes and prepared to go back to their own business.
Right at that moment, a man who was obviously an inner world resident walked over from a distance and stopped in front of the old woman's stall.
He had half a goat's head and was probably planning to buy some vegetable stalks to eat. He asked the old woman for the price.
"It's cheap today, cheap today! How many jin do you want? I'll give you a little extra."
The old woman's wrinkled face scrunched up into a smile, looking like a blooming chrysanthemum.
"Of course it's cheap today. She added some extra ingredients to it."
Suddenly, Yan Jing's voice drifted over from the side.
The old woman's heart tightened. She instinctively tried to yell at him to stop, but Yan Jing had already spat out a few photos from the photo slot on his head like a magic trick.
Clearly displayed on them were photos of the old woman spitting into her vegetable stalks.
The few photos were taken from different angles, all perfectly clear.
The goat man's face instantly turned green.
"Fraud! This is fraud!"
The old woman jumped in a panic, pointing at Yan Jing and hurling abuse:
"You forged these photos yourself, you fucking little shit!"
Yan Jing ignored her, simply pasting the photos one by one onto a bamboo pole beside his own stall.
Only then did he leisurely speak to the goat man:
"It's true that I might be deceiving you."
"But how about you take a gamble?"