Let's take a gamble...
The goat-headed man stared at the ultra-clear photos. He could count every wrinkle on the old woman's face, and his expression soured by the second.
Ignoring the old woman's desperate pleas behind him, he turned and marched straight off.
Seeing a customer lost for nothing, the old woman glared at Yan Jing. Pure malice practically materialized on her weathered face, and her eyes blazed with fury.
The gazes of the surrounding vendors converged once more.
They all wanted to see just how filthy and explosive the curses flying out of her mouth would be next.
Yan Jing ignored them all. He simply raised his hand, checked the time, and muttered to himself, "The market closes in half an hour."
With that, he offered the old woman a faint smile.
That seemingly gentle smile snuffed her fury right out.
Like a viper meeting its natural predator, the resentment on her face vanished, instantly replaced by fear."What... what are you going to do?"
Her local dialect wavered with a heavy tremble. She pointed a frail, shaking finger at Yan Jing:
"I'm just an old woman... Are you going to hit me?!"
"Help! He's hitting me! Help!"
She shrieked at the top of her lungs, glancing wildly around in hopes of rallying support from the nearby vendors.
But everyone here knew exactly what she was like. There was no sympathy to be found; they only watched with amused, mocking eyes.
Left with no backup, the old woman acted like a defeated hen. She slunk back to her own stall, mumbling indistinct curses under her breath.
After that, she didn't make another peep.
[You have successfully resolved the stall occupation incident and experienced a certain charm of the Inner World.]
[At least the problem-solving methods here are much more diverse.]
The notification buzzed in his ear, but Yan Jing merely stared at the small wooden table on his stall, deep in thought.
The older man reading a newspaper to his left finally lowered it, rolled the paper into a tube, and rapped it against Yan Jing's wooden table.
"Where have you been these past few days?"
Yan Jing snapped out of his thoughts. He turned his camera head toward the Old Man, his tone relaxed.
"Just taking care of some things."
"Sorted them out?"
With the newspaper out of the way, the old man's surprisingly trendy outfit was on full display.
He sported long silver hair and sunglasses. Underneath a green military overcoat, he wore a leather jacket layered over a plain undershirt.
At first glance, no one would mistake him for an ordinary old man selling eggs. He looked more like the lead singer of a senior citizen rock band.
"I did."
Yan Jing nodded.
The normally taciturn Cameraman didn't have many friends in this area, but this older man, surnamed Liu, was one of them.
"I thought about keeping an eye on your stall for you. But last time we spoke, you said you were leaving soon, so I assumed you'd already set off."
Old Liu pulled a pack of Hongtashan from his military overcoat, lit one up, and blew out a cloud of smoke, looking every bit the ruggedly handsome elder.
"You know I never like meddling in these trivial things. Too much trouble."
"It's fine. Between us, there's no need to mention it."
Memories regarding Old Liu gradually surfaced in Yan Jing's mind.
In those memories, the Cameraman really had told Old Liu that he planned to leave this place in a while.
Leave here... To go where? And why?
No expression could be seen on his camera head, but Yan Jing wanted to unravel the mystery of the Cameraman's death as soon as possible.
Old Liu continued puffing away, bringing up the latest news just like he always did.
"The papers have been boring lately."
"They keep reporting on the same two things. If it isn't that fabricated serial killer, it's the Rotten Vegetable Festival."
"All flash and no substance. They've completely abandoned the essence of journalism."
Hearing this, Yan Jing recalled the two subjects Old Liu had just mentioned.
The Rotten Vegetable Festival he spoke of actually held quite a bit of fame on the player forums.
Once a year, Rotten Vegetable Village held a grand festival to crown the "best rotten vegetable" in the entire urban village. The winner usually received a mysterious reward.
However, the festival wouldn't start for another two weeks, and Yan Jing was officially entering the Dungeon tomorrow. The two events shouldn't intersect.
On the other hand, the mention of the serial killer piqued his interest.
According to rumors, this was a fugitive the Order Management Bureau had been hunting for years. Recently, the killer had started striking again, right next door in Sleepland.
Rumor had it that the killer was a master of disguise who usually dispatched his victims with a single, lethal strike to the throat.
He remembered his task to find the Cameraman's murderer.
Could it be the work of this serial killer?
He took the newspaper from Old Liu and scanned it, asking casually, "Didn't you say a while back that you were going to catch this serial killer yourself, Old Liu? Got any leads yet?"
Old Liu instantly perked up at the question and flipped his white hair back.
Just as he opened his mouth, an incredibly frail voice drifted over from the front of his stall.
"What leads could he possibly have? He watched the entire Detective Conan series and hasn't made a peep since."
Yan Jing looked up to see an emaciated man wearing a face mask standing by his stall.
The man wasn't much shorter than Yan Jing's current body, but he was painfully thin, looking as though a stiff breeze could blow him over.
The skin visible above his mask was shockingly pale, entirely devoid of any healthy color.
At a glance, he was the picture of chronic illness.
He was the owner of the canned food stall diagonally across from them, a man named Chen Nian.
With him here, all of the Cameraman's friends were gathered in one place.
Yes, there were exactly two of them.
The Old Man wasn't having any of it after hearing Chen Nian's jab. With a dramatic flourish, he reached beneath his stall and slapped a thick stack of books onto the table.
"Who said I only watched Conan?! I've got the complete collection of Sherlock Homes too!"
"It's Sherlock Holmes,"
Chen Nian corrected.
"Whatever Homes it is!"
The Old Man waved his hand dismissively, his military overcoat sweeping through the air like a grand cape.
"If that killer dares to step foot in our village, just watch how this Old Man teaches him a lesson."
"I'll have you know, back in the day, I was reciting poetry at three and had mastered the scriptures by eight. Even the Master Household said I..."
Halfway through his boasting, the Old Man suddenly clammed up.
Yan Jing and Chen Nian were already used to this. Old Liu always acted like this. From his manner of speaking, it was obvious he wasn't a local of Rotten Vegetable Village.
He seemed to be guarding a deep secret, always remaining tight-lipped about his past and where he came from.
Yan Jing was just about to press him for more details, but Chen Nian walked away. A customer had approached his canned food stall.
More accurately, a "human" had approached.
A human from the Surface World.
Before returning to his stall, Chen Nian ruthlessly exposed the Old Man:
"This old guy actually wanted to help you watch your stall earlier. But the moment that old woman yelled at him, he didn't even dare to fart."
"He was so afraid you'd notice that he spent the whole time hiding behind that newspaper."
"Cough, cough, cough—"
The Hongtashan smoke suddenly seemed to catch in Old Liu's throat.
He broke into a violent coughing fit, his ruggedly handsome image instantly shattering into dust.
He waited until Chen Nian was out of earshot before dragging his chair closer to Yan Jing. Sneakily, he pointed at the human player covered in a faint halo in front of Chen Nian's stall.
"You know what that is?"
Yan Jing shot him a speechless look, thinking that Old Liu's attempt to change the subject was painfully stiff.
"Isn't that a human?"
Old Liu nodded, then leaned in with a mysterious air.
"You ever eaten a human, kid?"
This time, Yan Jing glanced at him in genuine surprise.
Without waiting for Yan Jing's response, Old Liu boasted, "Never had one, have you? Just looking at you, I can tell you've never tasted such a rare delicacy."
"You have?"
Yan Jing played along.
He was genuinely interested in the topic; he wanted to know exactly how inner world residents viewed human players.
"Of course."
With Yan Jing playing along, Old Liu puffed up with pride once more and gave his military overcoat a dramatic flick.
"You're in luck today, kid."
"I've traveled all over, seen countless things, and visited countless places. Eating a person is child's play for me. Today, I'll let you in on the biggest secret regarding these humans."
"Please, do tell."
Hearing there was a major secret, Yan Jing's interest deepened. He respectfully cupped his hands and switched to a polite honorific.
He knew Old Liu absolutely ate up that kind of respect.
Sure enough, Old Liu grew even more enthusiastic. He pointed at the faint halo surrounding the human in front of Chen Nian's stall.
"We all know that those covered in a halo like that are humans."
"As long as that halo is present, we can't just attack them."
"But there are three ways to make that halo disappear."
He was right.
Yan Jing was slightly surprised. He hadn't expected Old Liu to actually be telling the truth instead of just blowing hot air.
Indeed. The halo surrounding the players was, as far as Yan Jing knew, the initial protection granted to them upon entering the Inner World. It was also known as the Mental Immunity Value.
As long as a player's Mental Immunity Value remained above sixty, inner world residents couldn't initiate an attack against them.
And there were exactly three ways for that Mental Immunity Value to drop.
"First, if these humans' own mental fortitude gets shaken by the things they see or hear."
Old Liu held up a single finger.
"This is the method we use most often. We show them something horrifying to shatter their mental state."
With that, he held up a second finger.
"Second, if these humans fail their so-called 'missions.'"
"Whenever they fail to complete a mission, the halo protecting them weakens."
"And lastly, it's when they take the initiative to attack us."
At the mention of that last point, a dark gleam flashed through Old Liu's eyes.
"Some of these humans, for the sake of their cultivation, don't hesitate to attack us. They try to capture us and drag us back to use in their so-called Rituals to boost their own strength."
"But doing so also gives us the perfect opening to strike back."
Completely accurate.
Yan Jing truly saw Old Liu in a new light.
This information was the culmination of countless players' combined experiences on the forums, yet this Old Man had deduced it all flawlessly on his own.
"Impressive."
Yan Jing gave him a thumbs up.
"Do you have any other brilliant insights to share?"
Old Liu practically glowed with pride, grinning broadly.
"All of that was just child's play."
He popped another Hongtashan into his mouth. This time, Yan Jing was quick to grab the lighter from the table and light it for him.
Old Liu blew out a puff of smoke and let out a long, contented sigh.
"Look over to the west."
Yan Jing followed his gaze down the street. The western section housed the high-tier stalls, completely dwarfing the meager setups on this side. Business was booming over there, with stalls shrouded in steam and bustling crowds.
"See the stall selling spicy hotpot?"
Yan Jing narrowed his eyes to take a closer look.
"You mean the girl with two heads running the malatang stand?"
"That's the one."
The Old Man took another drag of his cigarette.
"What do you think of her?"
"Curvy front and back, great figure. As for her two heads, one's a mature beauty and the other's a loli, each with its own unique charm."
Yan Jing gave an honest assessment.
"Heh. Superficial."
The Old Man tossed his cigarette butt onto the ground and crushed it under his heel.
"First of all, her best feature is her legs."
"Second of all, she isn't one of us. She's from the outside."
He leaned in close and lowered his voice next to Yan Jing's camera lens.
"She's one of those foolish humans in disguise."