At those words, Sister Ma flew into a rage. What little punk dared stand at her front door and act so arrogant?
With a bang, the front gate was flung open hard. Before Sister Ma could even get a clear look at the people inside, she was already cursing up a storm. “Screw you, you’ve got some nerve making trouble on my turf!”
Ye Yi watched the gate swing back and forth and listened to Sister Ma’s voice. Although this was a good moment to slip away, she didn’t know whether the plump auntie and the others might be in danger. After a moment’s hesitation, she followed them in anyway.
Stepping into the courtyard, she saw one man and one woman standing there. The instant her eyes landed on the gorgeous woman, Ye Yi’s pupils contracted, it was her!
The very woman whose conversation she’d eavesdropped on at the airport that morning. She instinctively backed up a few steps. Then she looked at the man and realized he was exactly the one the gorgeous woman had called “Brother Li.”
That Brother Li had a gun. At the thought, she was about to step forward and warn the plump auntie to call the police at once.
Sister Ma was still shouting up front. “A pack of brats who haven’t even grown all their fur, didn’t your mothers teach you not to steal other people’s things?”
Hearing this, the man called Brother Li—Li Feng, instantly turned his previously careless gaze cold. “Old hag, who do you think you’re talking to? Are you sick of living?”
What Li Feng hated most in his life was people bringing up his mother. This old hag was stomping right on his sore spot [1]his most sensitive nerve jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2933352_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2933352_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. If he didn’t draw a little blood today, there’d be no cooling the fury she’d stirred up.
Silently chanting “gun” in his mind, he gripped the gun and raised his arm to fire.
The gorgeous woman standing off to the side, Li Lian, until now aloof, as if none of this concerned her, saw things going wrong and quickly grabbed his hand. “Brother Li, what are you doing? Drawing blood on the very first day seems a little unlucky, don’t you think?”
Inwardly she rolled her eyes without pause. What an idiot, really, hadn’t figured out the situation at all, only knew how to use violence. She genuinely couldn’t imagine how he’d survived the last world. Reminding herself that she still needed to pump some useful information out of his mouth, she suppressed her impatience and said with a smile, “Brother Li, let’s talk this out nicely. I’m sure they won’t dare refuse to hand the place over.”
“You really think you’re some big shot, wave a fake gun around and expect to scare me? Let me tell you, I dare you to fire it and see.” Looking at the gun in their hands, Sister Ma wasn’t the least bit flustered. These days, with gun control so strict, how could it possibly be a real gun?
Hearing this, Ye Yi got a splitting headache. Auntie, that’s a real gun!
She hurried forward and pulled the auntie back, urging her, “Auntie, let’s just let the police handle this! If that’s a real gun, then it’s dangerous.”
She looked at the other man and asked in a low voice, “Did you call the police?”
The man was Sister Ma’s husband, Lin Hai. He answered at once, “Called them. Police said they’d be here soon.”
Li Feng, gun in hand, was fed up with their muttering. He snarled outright, “Heh. Since you don’t believe it’s a real gun, old hag, why don’t you try it yourself?”
With that, he pulled the trigger. Bang—
Ye Yi shuddered all over in fright, her heart clenching instantly, and she instinctively yanked the stunned plump auntie aside.
It was the first time she’d been so close to death. Terrified, she squeezed her eyes shut, dreading the sight of some tragedy, only to hear, next to her ear, a man’s blood-curdling scream.
A man’s voice? Had the shot gone wide?
She quietly opened her eyes, and saw that the so-called “Brother Li” seemed to have shot himself in the leg. He was lying on the ground, trembling all over as if he’d been electrocuted.
“What just happened?” The thought spilled straight out of her mouth.
She was simply too curious. How, in the time it took to shut her eyes, had Brother Li ended up like this?
Sister Ma clutched at her wildly pounding heart and answered, still shaken, “I don’t get it either. I just saw him fire a shot into his own leg, and then he dropped to the ground.”
“Right, like he was possessed.” Lin Hai said it in disbelief too. He’d never seen anything so bizarre. A man who a second ago was screaming about killing someone, the next second shoots himself, there was no explanation other than being possessed.
Watching the eerie scene before her, Ye Yi secretly guessed: could it have been the doing of that consciousness that had sent them into the map?
If so, then it all made sense.
They, the people who had barged into this world, carried abilities, while the natives were still ordinary people. Without some restraint, the natives of this world would surely be crushed by them without mercy.
But if there was a mysterious consciousness holding them in check, then the natives’ lives were protected to some degree, and people like her who entered maps wouldn’t be able to act with total impunity.
Li Lian, standing to the side, was startled too. She immediately retreated far away and, ignoring the wailing Brother Li on the ground, made straight for the gate.
For a while everyone was dazed, not one person dared go up to check what was really going on. Then came the wail of a police siren, drawing nearer from afar, and in no time a car pulled up outside.
A group of police came in, stunned for a moment at the sight before them, then quickly took control of the scene. Sister Ma gave her husband Lin Hai a brief account, how Ye Yi had saved her, and told him to look after the girl well, then went off with the police to the station to give a statement.
The moment Lin Hai heard that Ye Yi was his wife’s savior, he began hosting her with great warmth. He set her up in the best room, brought out piping-hot food, and gave her no chance at all to refuse.
The whole thing felt to Ye Yi like it lasted only a few minutes. By the time she came back to herself, she was already lying on the bed in her room, well fed and well watered.
The warm down quilt was so soft. Lying on it, she suddenly felt utterly exhausted.
After a busy day, only now was she truly resting. Lying in bed, she didn’t want to move a muscle.
Then she remembered the “Ability unlocking complete” prompt she’d heard earlier in her mind, and her curiosity got the better of her. Excited, she sat up, went to wash her hands again, sat down, silently prayed to gods of every stripe, and only then pressed the wristband.
The wristband opened:
Time: Day 1, 8:00 p.m. Location: Yudu Town, Happy Inn Weather: Light rain Temperature: 15°C Humidity: 75%
Name: Ye Yi
Sex: Female
Age: 26
Survival Points: 150 (100 points frozen)
Current Map: Extreme Cold Blizzard
Random Teammate: Hidden (When your teammate is in danger, their location is automatically sent to you. Rescuing your teammate earns double points.)
Ability unlocking complete, please open.
At the very bottom she saw a small icon shaped like a gift box.
Heart racing, Ye Yi pressed her palms together. Please, please, let me roll something good, my days from here on out are all riding on you.
She pressed the gift-box icon. With a pop, virtual confetti scattered through the air, and at the same time the mysterious voice rang out in her mind: “Congratulations, you have unlocked the Gathering-and-Crafting System. Please accept it!!!”
“The Gathering-and-Crafting System is installing. Please wait patiently.”
Ye Yi was stunned. The Gathering-and-Crafting System, was it the kind she was thinking of?
Looking at the installation progress bar, which had only reached a third, Ye Yi could only wait patiently.
After about five minutes, the Gathering-and-Crafting System finished installing.
She tapped open the page that popped up. The system had just three functions: Gather, Craft, and Backpack.
She didn’t expect it to include a Backpack. Ye Yi was so thrilled she stood up and stamped her feet, then remembered this was someone else’s house and hurriedly held herself back.
Still, she couldn’t rein in her joy. A perpetual non-chief had rolled the emperor’s luck [2]gacha slang: “non-chief” = the chronically unlucky, “European emperor” = the blessed-with-luck jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2933352_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2933352_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. Sure enough, all her luck had been saved up for this very moment.
She flopped onto the bed, grinning from ear to ear, and couldn’t help rolling around on it.
After rolling for a bit, she scrambled back down off the bed in a hurry. Picking up the three starter backpacks she’d left on the floor, she tentatively moved them toward the system’s Backpack.
The next second, the starter backpack in her hands vanished into thin air, and an icon identical in shape to the backpack appeared inside the system Backpack.
How did she take it out? She searched for ages but found no button to withdraw it.
Recalling the “willpower” trick written about in the novels she’d read, and not knowing whether it would work, Ye Yi closed her eyes, concentrated, and silently thought: “Take out.”
Her hand suddenly felt heavier. She opened her eyes, and the starter backpack really had appeared in her grip. It seemed the trick worked.
“Put back.” Her hand lightened, and the starter backpack returned to the system Backpack.
She checked: the system Backpack had ten slots, just like a game’s inventory. Identical items could stack, like the three starter backpacks she’d stacked in one slot, which showed a tiny “3” at the bottom-right corner.
Next she looked at the Gather function, wondering what it did.
She walked to the wall, put her hand on the desk, and silently thought, “Gather.”
“An ordinary desk detected. Gather?” the system’s mechanical voice immediately sounded in her mind.
Ye Yi thought about it, then decided against gathering.
After all, the desk wasn’t hers. If it vanished, she’d have a hard time explaining. Better to go out tomorrow and see if there was somewhere she could run a test.
The Craft function was all grayed out, nothing there at all. Ye Yi had knocked herself out all day and truly couldn’t hold on any longer, her eyelids kept drooping and she yawned without stop.
Mustering the last of her strength, she washed up and collapsed into bed, asleep in an instant.
The sound of fine rain tapping the window mingled with the morning clamor of the townsfolk.
Ye Yi was pestered awake by the string of noises. She pulled the quilt over her head, but it was no use, the sounds still pushed through the glass and the down quilt and into her ears.
Fine. There was no getting back to sleep, so she might as well get up.
Once she’d tidied herself up, before heading out Ye Yi opened the wristband to check today’s information:
Time: Day 2, 5:32 a.m. Location: Yudu Town, Happy Inn Weather: Light rain Temperature: 20°C Humidity: 80%
Name: Ye Yi
Sex: Female
Age: 26
Survival Points: 150 (100 points frozen)
Current Map: Extreme Cold Blizzard
Random Teammate: Hidden (When your teammate is in danger, their location is automatically sent to you. Rescuing your teammate earns double points.)
Ability: Gathering System (Gather, Craft, Backpack)
Light rain today, and the temperature had dropped 5°C from yesterday, with the humidity higher too. It seemed she needed to get moving fast.
Thinking that she still hadn’t found lodging and hadn’t bought a single supply yet, Ye Yi couldn’t help feeling an urgent, anxious pressure.
What little drowsiness remained vanished. She went downstairs, found Sister Ma, and planned to ask her to inquire about renting a place nearby.
“Renting? You’ve come to exactly the right person.” Sister Ma had been wearing a displeased face at hearing the girl planned to leave, but at this she cheered up again.
She’d said it, she and this girl were fated. Just yesterday she’d finished cleaning out a house, and today the girl came asking about a place to rent. On top of that, the girl had saved her yesterday. It really was a bond written in the stars.
“I’ve got another place, at the very south end of town. Cleaned it up just yesterday, all ready to rent out. And today here you are, now tell me that isn’t fate.”
“What a coincidence.” Ye Yi hadn’t imagined such a coincidence either. “Could I go take a look?”
References[+]