Because their memories had been wiped, the two young thugs fell into a brief coma. Seeing this, Xie Licheng didn't bother with them anymore and returned alone to the Portable World.
He had originally planned to go shopping at the West Market, but considering how conspicuous selling the animal pelts had been today—which was exactly why those two thugs had targeted him—he decided not to go out to buy anything that evening.
After Xie Licheng sent the two thugs out, the quest counter returned to (1/20). Bringing people in for a quick tour was useless; they needed to stay inside for the count to matter.
He was genuinely a bit curious—what benefits would completing this 20-person quest bring?
Would it unlock other maps, or would there be some special reward?
Thinking about this, Xie Licheng picked up a basket and went to the chicken coop to collect eggs.
If eggs were left uncollected for too long, they would go bad sitting in the coop.
He needed to gather the eggs and store them in the warehouse.
His farm had two chicken coops, which he had built in the southernmost corner of the farm.
He had fenced off this area and scattered grass seeds and vegetable seeds inside.
The chickens could eat the wild grass, greens, and insects that grew there.
Sometimes Xie Licheng would also supplement their feed with grain or leftover scraps.
Farming, raising livestock, foraging, cooking… all of these could increase level experience.
But the experience gains were minimal—after working hard for two hours, Xie Licheng's experience bar had only moved a tiny bit.
At eight o'clock the next morning, Xie Licheng took two large meat buns, a bow, and a blade, and headed up the mountain.
He knew this mountain well, moving swiftly and familiarly toward the deep woods.
Along the way, he encountered a wild boar—likely a male—which even made a provocative gesture at him.
But today, Xie Licheng wasn't in the mood to play the hunter-and-prey game with it.
His mind was set on going deep into the mountain, wanting to catch a wolf cub as soon as possible to complete Gu Changyuan's quest.
Once that quest was done, he could focus on his own matters with peace of mind.
Spring was the season when wild beasts gave birth.
At this time of year, it was usually quite easy to encounter cubs on the mountain.
But whether it was bad luck or not, he spent the whole day roaming the mountain without encountering any wolves.
No wolves, though he did run into other wild beasts.
As he was preparing to descend the mountain, he encountered a tiger.
A fully grown tiger—from a distance, he couldn't tell if it was male or female.
Remembering that this season was the breeding period for many beasts, Xie Licheng didn't dare act rashly.
He climbed up a tree and observed for a while, then gave up on the idea of hunting it.
Although he hadn't found any wolves today and hadn't hunted anything on the mountain, he still gained some rewards.
Xie Licheng gathered quite a few mushrooms, wild fruits, and wild vegetables.
Spring was the best time for wild vegetables—many tender shoots were incredibly delicious.
Even though Xie Licheng didn't enjoy cooking, he liked to stock up on various wild greens when he went up the mountain.
Today, he had picked quite a lot to bring back.
Some were best eaten fresh, while others could be dried for later use.
After returning, he simply sorted them—those needing to stay fresh went into the warehouse, while the rest were hung under the eaves to dry.
Having gone into the mountain twice in a row without encountering many wolves, Xie Licheng left Lingzhou City the next day, planning to explore the mountains outside the city.
At this point, Xie Licheng's Health Points had recovered to 69, and his stamina had recovered to 72.
That was a decent state, and with various weapons on him, he wasn't too worried about going into the mountains.
But just as he left the city, he ran into a group of bedraggled refugees.
Xie Licheng gave them some food and obtained quite a bit of useful information from them.
These refugees had come from the south, where torrential rains had caused floods, submerging many farmlands and homes.
On top of that, there were many Sea Barbarians in the South Sea who took advantage of the chaos to come ashore and loot homes. To escape with their lives, the southerners had no choice but to flee north with their families.
However, the north wasn't peaceful either—there were bandits on horseback, outlaws in the grass, and the Marquis of Xubei plotting rebellion.
Even fleeing here, they would find it hard to gain protection.
Xie Licheng said to a young man, "You'd be better off fleeing toward the southwest. There are many great mountains there. Even if things get chaotic, you can hide in the mountains."
The young man didn't quite understand. "Lingzhou is very close to the capital. Even if Lingzhou gets chaotic, it can't get that bad. We want to stay here."
Seeing that the man was unwilling to listen, Xie Licheng didn't continue trying to persuade him.
He wasn't a good person—offering that one word of advice was already quite kind of him.
He had read the books and knew what was to come. Soon, the entire Great Zhou would descend into chaos.
Lingzhou was wealthy, and many would want to seize this place.
In the north of Great Zhou, many would declare themselves kings, and the central region—the Central Plains—would be engulfed in endless war.
Lingzhou sat right on the edge of the Central Plains. While not exactly central territory, it was still a place where wars frequently broke out.
To the south, there were floods and Sea Barbarians—life down south was no picnic either.
Only in the mountains of the southwest, where the terrain was treacherous and unsuitable for growing grain, did the various warlords refrain from expending great effort to fight over it. The common folk living there fared relatively better.
Seeing that the other party wasn't listening to him, Xie Licheng continued hurrying toward the mountains outside the city.
He still had things to do. Now that he'd learned what he wanted to know, there was no point wasting more time here.
To speed up his journey, he eventually bought a horse.
Xie Licheng knew how to ride. In his previous life, before the Apocalypse, he'd had money and leisure, and had once learned horseback riding at a club.
He hadn't wanted to buy a horse before, mainly because he couldn't manage raising one on his own.
His farm had two chicken coops, and the Novice Village had a few ducks and sheep free-ranging around.
He could barely take care of all of them on a daily basis, so he wasn't keen on adding a horse to the mix.
But things were different now—his Portable World could hold people.
Once the world descended into chaos, many of the elderly, weak, women, and children would struggle to survive.
When that time came, he could pick a few people to bring inside. As repayment for him saving their lives, they'd help him tend the livestock and poultry in there.
Since the Portable World could erase memories, even if they later didn't want to stay inside, Xie Licheng could let them out without having to kill them all to keep things quiet.
He wasn't a good man, but he wasn't a murderous maniac either.
If those people had no ill intentions and simply didn't want to stay in his Portable World, he wouldn't kill them over something like that.
After reaching the mountains outside the city, Xie Licheng searched for wolves during the day and returned to his Portable World to rest at night.
Nine days passed like this, and finally, Xie Licheng found a den of wolf pups on the mountain.
During those nine days, Xie Licheng's harvest had been quite bountiful.
He'd completed the task Gu Changyuan gave him, and he'd also caught three rabbits and a wild chicken—all captured alive.
Then he'd discovered something very interesting: killing prey in this world also gave him experience points.
In his previous life, in his world, whether he killed Zombies, humans, or animals—or cooked, gathered, or did anything else—he gained no experience.
If he wanted to level up, he could only do so inside his Portable World.
But this life, who knew why—maybe it was because he'd activated a system quest? While searching for the wolf pups, Xie Licheng had killed a snake, and he noticed that killing that snake had leveled him up.
Over the following nine days, Xie Licheng hunted down a wild boar, two snakes, a rabbit, and two wolves. These kills had leveled him up twice more.
Now Xie Licheng was at level thirty-eight, with 3 attribute points in hand.
Attribute points could sometimes save your life—for instance, if he were gravely wounded, he could put them into Health Points to stay alive.
For the sake of his own safety, he didn't rush to spend all 3 attribute points.
Xie Licheng brought the wolf pup back to Lingzhou City. He didn't hurry straight back to the Gu residence to report, but instead stayed in the city for three days before returning.
During those three days in the city, he'd spent nearly two hundred taels of silver.
Two hundred taels—that wasn't two hundred bucks, nor two thousand. In ancient times, that amount could be called a small fortune.
And he'd blown through all of it in just three days.
The things he'd bought were all piled up in the living room of his house; he hadn't had time to go in and organize them properly.
Xie Licheng planned to return to the Gu residence first, hand the wolf pup over to Gu Changyuan, and then find time later to go in and sort things out.
Xie Licheng had been gone for half a month—Xuancui was starting to think he'd run off with the money.
When he suddenly saw him return, successfully bringing back a wolf pup, Xuancui finally allowed himself to relax.
It seemed their young master hadn't misjudged the man—this stable hand really did have some skill.
Gu Changyuan had always trusted his own judgment. He always felt that Xie Licheng wasn't as simple and ordinary as he appeared.
But every time Gu Changyuan thought Xie Licheng was extraordinary, Xie Licheng would put on a look of utter uselessness, as if he didn't want too many people paying attention to him.
When Gu Changyuan learned that Xie Licheng had returned, he'd been organizing account books in his study. Hearing the news, he happened to feel like taking a stroll, so he brought Yanqiao along and went personally to the front courtyard.
Xie Licheng met Gu Changyuan in a side courtyard of the front compound. Seeing Gu Changyuan come in person with his attendants, he assumed Gu Changyuan placed great importance on the wolf pup he'd brought back, and inwardly felt that Gu Changyuan needn't value that prince so highly.
But seeing that there were others around, he couldn't very well say much in front of them.
Xie Licheng: "Young Master, I've brought back the wolf pup you wanted. Since I came across a whole litter, and I was worried one might die on the road alone, I went ahead and carried back an extra one."
Gu Changyuan leaned in to take a look at it when he heard this. He had never had much contact with wild beast cubs before, and at first glance, he thought it looked just like a puppy.
Gu Changyuan asked, "Is this really a wolf cub?"
If it wasn't, then giving it to that young master later might end up displeasing him instead.
Xie Licheng said, "It's a gray wolf cub. Once it grows a bit bigger, it'll become much more obvious."
Gu Changyuan found it rather adorable and wanted to reach out and gently stroke it.
But unexpectedly, one of the cubs was extremely fierce. Seeing his hand reach out, it opened its mouth and bit at him.
These cubs were still young, so their teeth weren't very sharp.
However, if one were to be bitten by accident, the cub might carry germs on it, which did pose a certain risk after all.
Xie Licheng was standing very close to both the wolf cub and Gu Changyuan. He knew that creatures with wild instincts like this were all fierce, so when he saw the cub biting, he quickly grabbed hold of Gu Changyuan's hand.