After that, Xie Licheng began to work hard on leveling up, wanting to gain as many levels as possible before the next day.
His current physical condition was truly weak—nothing compared to what he had before.
For tomorrow's plot point, he needed to make as much preparation as possible.
So he spent three hours fishing, and through this fishing session, he managed to level up twice more.
Yesterday he caught six fish, today he caught seven—thirteen fish in total over the two days.
The fish in his pond refreshed once a day. No matter how many fish he caught in a single day, after the refresh, the pond would still have just as many fish as before.
But even if the pond was full of fish, fishing was still a boring and patience-testing activity.
Xie Licheng didn't particularly enjoy fishing. Three hours of it was already his limit.
He carried his bucket of fish home, planning to cook a few for himself.
Cooking—that is, culinary arts—also gave leveling experience, just not as much as fishing.
But it was better than nothing.
Since he needed to cook for himself anyway, he might as well level up along the way.
Xie Licheng steamed one fish, braised another, and made a pot of fish soup.
He could only eat one fish per meal. The reason he made so much at once was mainly because he was a lazy person.
Plus, he had a preservation zone, so no matter how much food he made, it could be kept fresh and guaranteed not to spoil.
Since he rarely bothered to cook, he naturally wanted to make as much as possible while he was at it.
Xie Licheng ate the steamed fish, then butchered all the remaining fish. Along with the two cooked fish, he sent them all to the storage room beneath the kitchen.
This storage room was special—it was his preservation zone for stockpiling food.
This preservation zone could only be set up by the player, who was also the host of this world.
And only one could be designated. He could choose an area or a room and set it as his preservation warehouse.
This warehouse was even better than a refrigerator, because time inside it was frozen.
Living things couldn't be placed inside. Fish, shrimp, crabs, chickens, ducks, cattle, sheep—all food had to be slaughtered before being stored.
If warm dishes were placed in the preservation zone, they would remain exactly as they were when put in, even days later.
Back when he was still in the apocalypse, Xie Licheng had been a lazy person, so he often cooked large batches of food at once.
Since the food wouldn't spoil, he could just go in and grab whatever he wanted whenever he felt like eating.
Because this preservation zone was so useful, Xie Licheng had stockpiled quite a lot of food.
There were dishes he'd cooked himself, semi-prepared foods he'd hoarded from supermarkets, and food he'd bought when the apocalypse first arrived.
Besides these ready-made meals, there were also plenty of fresh ingredients and medicines that needed to be kept fresh.
After sending the fish inside, Xie Licheng stood at the warehouse entrance and glanced around. Seeing the shelves fully stocked with all kinds of food, he finally turned around and left with peace of mind.
With food came confidence. No matter what this world became in the future, he could still make his life enjoyable.
Xie Licheng ate a fish and drank a bowl of warm porridge. After resting for a bit, he went to the chicken coop in the farm to collect eggs.
Collecting eggs counted as foraging, which also gave some leveling experience.
Since the chicken coop hadn't been cleaned out in a while, quite a few eggs had piled up. Xie Licheng made a round of the two coops and leveled up twice.
By then it was already quite late, and since Xie Licheng still needed to recover from his injuries, he didn't stay up any longer.
Combining the fishing and cooking from earlier, Xie Licheng had leveled up four times in total.
His player level was now 7, with 4 remaining attribute points to allocate.
He put all 4 points into luck, finally bringing his luck up to 10. Hopefully, he wouldn't be as unlucky as before.
With that thought, Xie Licheng returned to his bedroom and quickly fell asleep.
The next morning, he went out through the stable yard.
The garden where Gu Changyuan's sister had her accident was in the outer courtyard. As a low-ranking male slave of the outer courtyard, Xie Licheng was allowed to enter the garden there.
However, the original owner hadn't been there much, so he needed to check the place out during the day to avoid being completely in the dark at night.
Xie Licheng limped along, his walking pace somewhat slow.
By the time he found the outer courtyard garden, it was almost noon.
He hadn't expected the Gu family's outer courtyard to be this large.
Getting from where he lived to this place had taken him considerable effort.
Not wanting to drag his injured leg back and forth, Xie Licheng found a hidden spot in the outer courtyard garden and entered his Portable World.
He planned to come out again at night, which would save him a lot of energy.
If that male guest went berserk, he wouldn't be too exhausted to deal with him.
Xie Licheng's stamina was currently 29, which was honestly still a bit low.
As for him not returning to the stable during the day—would anyone notice?
He wasn't worried about that now. As long as he stirred up trouble this time, he believed that with Gu Changyuan's character, no one would dare bully him casually.
So even if he was extremely unlucky and got discovered the moment he came out, he wasn't worried about anyone causing him trouble.
Earlier in the afternoon, while inside the Portable World, Xie Licheng had gone to the foot of the mountain near the Novice Village.
He wanted to level up by digging wild vegetables, picking wild fruits, and gathering wildflowers.
But unexpectedly, after gathering for quite a while, he still hadn't leveled up.
Just then, he spotted a vibrant green bamboo viper slithering outside the bamboo grove not far away.
Xie Licheng hadn't originally planned to attack it—he was just curious why a snake would appear so early in this kind of weather.
But when he saw that it didn't seem afraid of him and kept crawling back and forth outside the bamboo grove, Xie Licheng couldn't resist throwing a hatchet at it.
His strength wasn't great right now, so he deliberately used some skillful force with that throw. One strike and the snake was cut down.
His level, which hadn't budged all along, jumped up two levels in a row with that kill.
Xie Licheng curled the corner of his mouth at the sight. So… hunting really was the fastest way to level up.
Just one little snake had let him jump two levels at once.
If he could run into a few more, he could level up many times in a single afternoon.
Unfortunately, this wasn't the season when snakes were active.
He wandered around the area a bit more afterward, and only after confirming there were no other snakes did he go over to harvest the one he'd killed.
When you harvest a slain prey, it automatically decomposes.
Usually, it would break down into a complete animal hide, some meat, and a few bones.
Today, since he'd hunted a snake, it decomposed into a portion of snake oil, some snake meat, and one gall bladder.
He picked up the items and placed them into his basket.
At that moment, he suddenly felt a bit drowsy. He figured it was because he'd been out for a while—this was fatigue setting in.
Xie Licheng checked his stamina and found it had dropped to 7 points, so he hurried back with his things to rest.
He hadn't even done much—he hadn't expected his stamina to drop so fast.
After returning, he immediately began resting.
To prevent oversleeping, he even set an alarm.
Miss Gu had gotten into trouble during the hai hour, which was roughly between nine and eleven o'clock.
As long as he went out and waited during the hai hour, he wouldn't let her be bullied the way she was in the book.
With that thought, Xie Licheng quickly fell asleep. When he woke again, the sky outside had already turned completely dark.
He glanced at the alarm clock and confirmed it wasn't yet nine o'clock.
He got up, changed into his dirty clothes, and fixed himself something to eat.
When he went out, Xie Licheng checked his Health Points and stamina.
Right now, his Health Points were 39 and his stamina was 31.
The book had said that male guest was a scholar.
He figured that in his current condition, dealing with a scholar shouldn't be too much of a problem.
With that thought in mind, Xie Licheng left the Portable World.
His hiding spot was very secluded, and with the sky already pitch black, he couldn't see his hand in front of his face the moment he came out.
He fumbled his way out from his hiding place.
The novel hadn't specified exactly where Miss Gu had gotten into trouble. Xie Licheng only knew it was near the rockeries, but the outer courtyard's garden was very large—there were several places with rockeries alone.
The place Xie Licheng had hidden himself was one such rockery. After confirming no one was around his spot, he quickly moved toward the other locations.
Miss Gu had been brought out by her aunt, who would join forces with the male guest to strip her clothes off.
To avoid being discovered by the patrols before the deed was done, they would definitely cover Miss Gu's mouth.
The outer courtyard did have patrols, just not as frequent as the inner courtyard—usually once every half hour.
Xie Licheng had scouted the terrain during the day and confirmed the locations of the rockeries in advance, so he walked now without any rush or anxiety.
The garden was full of flowers, grass, and trees, along with several pavilions and rockeries. Even if he ran into patrolling guards along the way, he could use cover to hide himself.
Since he wasn't sure of the exact time, Xie Licheng circled the garden a couple of extra times.
He moved like a night owl—even with his heavy injuries, he made no sound at all.
Then, around ten-something o'clock, as he approached the largest cluster of rockeries, he faintly heard a soft gasp.
The voice was muffled extremely low, completely indistinguishable as male or female.
If Xie Licheng hadn't been so close to the rockery at that moment, he probably wouldn't have been able to make out that gasp at all.
He held his breath and quickly slipped into the rockery.
Inside the rockery was pitch black and extremely narrow. Midway through, Xie Licheng bumped his head but didn't make a single sound.
Once he squeezed through the narrowest section, the inside opened up much more than the outside, and there was also more light within.
The light came from a candle. Someone must have lit a candle inside, otherwise the interior of the rockery wouldn't have been brighter than the outside.
The moment Xie Licheng entered, he caught sight of a figure with their back turned to him.
Because the person looked rather tall and slender, he assumed it was that lecherous male customer.
He closed in quickly while pulling out his military knife.
Just as he grabbed the person by the shoulder and forcefully spun them around—
By the dim light inside, Xie Licheng saw a stunningly beautiful face filled with panic.
Xie Licheng asked in surprise, "It's you?"