Before Second Lady came to visit the prison.
Master Zheng was buzzing about like a busy little bee, quickly logging out and back in to start a new game.
Compared to before, a new phenomenon had appeared on the table. A green flame now floated outside the map's outline.
Faint words flickered within the flame.
Master Zheng reached out and, with a grabbing motion, pulled the cute little green flame into his palm from a distance.
'I wonder when I'll be able to pull off a move like this in real life?'
'So cool and stylish.'
Master Zheng was in a good mood.
The Incarnation [Zheng Shan] could only be equipped with five Traits.
In a previous round, Master Zheng had diligently and carefully observed footprints to comprehend [Tracking], but because his Incarnation had reached its limit, the Trait was left unequipped.
[Tracking (Slightly Knowledgeable)]: At opportune moments, by carefully observing, the faintest traces left by your prey in the environment will appear clearly before your eyes.
Evidently, [Tracking], like [Scouting] and [Medical Principles], was a Trait that required a Dice roll to succeed.
He checked the [Zheng Shan] Incarnation.
Zheng Xiu felt as if he had returned to the moment he first created the Incarnation.
He could freely adjust the Incarnation's Acquired Traits.
After a moment of thought, Zheng Xiu unequipped [Intimidation (Slightly Knowledgeable)] and replaced it with [Tracking (Slightly Knowledgeable)].
The activation chance for Intimidation was simply too low. He would have to find a chance to raise it to the Entry level or higher before equipping it again.
Thus, the five Traits equipped on [Zheng Shan] were:
[Scouting (Some Accomplishment)], [Medical Principles (Some Accomplishment)], [Intuition (Entry)], [Taunt (Entry)], and [Tracking (Slightly Knowledgeable)].
"This is the joy of playing on a smurf account!"
'Though, this 'smurf' might be even more powerful than my main account.'
[Zheng Shan] opened his eyes. His gaze flowed downward as he strode like a dragon and pounced like a tiger into the Ghostly Realm.
Act Two began.
Zheng Xiu once again tossed aside his saber and rolled in the mud as a disguise.
Now, he was just an ordinary, distressed Mighty Painter.
Watching the time and casually grinding the Experience Levels for [Scouting] and [Medical Principles] out of boredom, Zheng Xiu stepped into Baili Village.
This time, under the pressure of his impending "release" from prison in reality, Zheng Xiu was determined to bid farewell to the Treasure King Commander and achieve a speedrun of Baili Village.
A true speedrun.
The last time, the strange reactions of the village chief and the villagers had made Zheng Xiu wary.
'This village definitely has a problem.'
First, the surrounding mountain bandits hadn't touched this place.
If one had to argue that Baili Village had no wealth other than its abundance of carp—no real gold or silver—and that the bandits looked down on it, that reason was barely plausible.
Then, the carp were so plentiful, breeding for generations without end, that it was perfectly reasonable for the villagers to be well-fed and plump.
But why was that sneaky child so scrawny, looking like a starved ghost?
The first time Zheng Xiu saw the little girl, he had only felt a sense of dissonance. Now, after sorting through the clues, he understood where that feeling came from.
While the village chief was attending to Wang Cangyun and his men, Zheng Xiu went to the spot where he had run into the little girl last time.
Without needing to Scout, Zheng Xiu focused his attention and waited.
The moon was hidden by clouds, casting the world in dim, murky light. A small, disheveled head, with only its lips visible, peeked out from behind a wall, spying on the Mighty Painter.
Just as Zheng Xiu was about to raise his hand and use [Taunt], the other party scurried away.
'Huh?'
'Did they predict my prediction?'
"Quickly, make a Tracking roll!"
A Dice emerged from between Zheng Xiu's brows, glowing with a faint light, and tumbled in the Void.
In an instant, the number settled.
[Fourteen.]
[Greater than fourteen, Tracking successful.]
A minor success for Tracking.
[The faintest traces are now clearly discernible to your eyes.]
Under the effect of [Tracking], among the deep and shallow marks on the muddy ground, the footprints belonging to the child lit up, as if covered by a faint fluorescent glow.
Anyone who wasn't blind could see them.
Zheng Xiu followed the "fluorescent footprints" in his vision and soon saw the child's back.
[Taunt]!
It hit!
The roll this time was exceptionally smooth. A direct hit.
The child whipped her head around and stopped in her tracks. But her reaction wasn't what Master Zheng had expected. Instead of rushing over to bite and curse at him, she just stood there dazedly, not moving an inch.
Master Zheng stepped forward, closing the distance between them.
"Sorry, I don't mean any harm..."
"Y-y-you, don't come any closer." The child looked up, her messy hair revealing her left eye.
Zheng Xiu met her gaze and was stunned for a moment. The child's eyes held an obvious indifference and calm.
That look instantly stirred a long-forgotten memory in Zheng Xiu. In his past life, he had only ever seen such an indifferent gaze in photos he browsed online of children in war-torn regions.
"You should leave. Quickly."
The child lowered her head and mumbled.
It was hard to tell the gender of a child this age, but after a few glances, Zheng Xiu thought it was most likely a girl. He was about to take a few steps closer to shorten the social distance, but unexpectedly, this friendly gesture made the child cry out in alarm, "Don't come near me."
Zheng Xiu stopped, wondering to himself, 'With my heaven-defying good looks that I rolled a critical hit on, I should be universally appealing to men and women, young and old, even animals.'
"Don't misunderstand. My name is Zheng... Zheng Shan. I am just passing through your esteemed village and wish only to stay for one night in peace. I mean no harm."
Zheng Xiu put on a smile that wouldn't harm a fly.
"Feng... Feng Bei."
"Fengfeng Bei?"
". . . Feng Bei."
"Oh, so it's Little Feng Bei! What a nice name!"
Zheng Xiu thought of "Feng's Meat Shop." 'Looks like that's her family's place,' he mused.
"If you don't want to die, leave now."
The child named Feng Bei reached up and pulled down her messy hair to cover her eyes.
"Go."
Little Feng Bei was about to leave, but there was no way Zheng Xiu would let such an obvious clue go. To avoid spooking her, he followed at a distance, deliberately pretending to be ignorant of Baili Village's dangers. He bantered, "The mountain bandits are running rampant out there. On a dark and windy night like this, I'd die if I went out."
Little Feng Bei shook her head. Soon, as if she sensed something, she lowered her head again.
Zheng Xiu suddenly felt his hair stand on end as [Intuition] triggered. He looked back and saw that the tightly shut village houses had once again opened into thin cracks, with pairs of hungry eyes staring at him.
Just then, a series of hurried footsteps approached. The village chief, followed by several equally plump and pale villagers, arrived carrying torches to search for him.
From a distance, those villagers pointed in Zheng Xiu's direction.
Wang Cangyun was still behind the village chief. While drinking fish soup with the chief, Wang Cangyun had heard that an outsider had entered the village. He grew vigilant, certain that no matter who the newcomer was, if they were even slightly suspicious, he would chop them up first and ask questions later.
In fact, Zheng Xiu knew that Wang Cangyun was a ruthless man of few words, fully capable of lethal force.
Hiding was not an option. Many people were hidden in the village houses, all of them staring at this spot. Zheng Xiu could only face them head-on.
Having prepared his lines in advance, Zheng Xiu didn't use [Taunt] this time, nor did he waste words. He just said that he had been attacked by bandits, but thanks to his usual martial arts practice, he had escaped disaster. He had been hiding and surviving in the jungle, fleeing and being pursued, and had accidentally stumbled into Baili Village.
As expected.
Wang Cangyun, following the village chief, merely frowned for a moment before his brow relaxed. Given his status, he wouldn't just kill someone on sight.
Otherwise, this village would have been slaughtered clean the moment he arrived.
Wang Cangyun sized up Zheng Xiu warily for a moment. He saw that although Zheng Xiu was tall and imposing with an extraordinary air, he wasn't carrying any sharp weapons, and his build didn't resemble that of a sneaky Assassin. So, he simply remained cautious and led the pale youth and his subordinates to a vacant, open area near the village entrance, intending to camp for the night.
Zheng Xiu watched the Treasure King Commander walk away, feeling a bit wistful. He closed his eyes.
'There's definitely something up with Wang Cangyun and that youth's identities, but I don't understand this world well enough to figure it out yet.'
He still found it hard to believe that this place was Daqian.
'If this were a typical local setting, a child protected by an Imperial Commander... could he be the old Emperor's illegitimate son or something?'
Full of speculation, Zheng Xiu, under the village chief's arrangement, was given an empty house that a villager had cleared out for him to sleep in.
The bedding in the house gave off a musty smell. Master Zheng hadn't endured such hardships in a long time and wasn't used to it, so he planned to sleep on the floor.
After entering the house, Zheng Xiu habitually performed a [Scouting] check, but found nothing unusual.
However, the roll wasn't high. To be safe, Master Zheng glanced at the Scouting result and then did a personal search of the room himself.
The furniture inside was old, firewood was piled against the wall, and some farm tools were so rusty they were no longer usable.
The paper on the window, however, had been newly pasted on and was perfectly intact.
As the saying goes, "nothing ventured, nothing gained." Zheng Xiu decided to first see where the next death crisis would come from after parting ways with Commander Wang, and then make a decision.
He took the opportunity to case the joint and noticed something strange.
Logically, given Baili Village's location, with bandits running rampant and the main roads difficult to travel, the villagers should be self-sufficient and planting some crops.
But in the places Master Zheng passed, although it was too dark to see clearly, the vast stretches of land were empty, obviously having been abandoned for a long time.
This meant that the villagers of Baili Village did not rely on crops for sustenance.
'Could they really support the entire village just by fishing?' Zheng Xiu wondered, remembering that pot of delicious fish soup.
For now, aside from Commander Wang, Zheng Xiu hadn't detected any other dangers in the seemingly peaceful Baili Village.
The village chief and villagers, with their delicate and tender skin, were so weak that in terms of pure martial strength, not to mention Commander Wang, even Zheng Xiu could take on ten of them.
Recalling the child Feng Bei's warning, Zheng Xiu felt a lingering sense of unease.
'Bandits on the roads, Baili Village, carp meat, Feng's Meat Shop, Feng Bei, the plump white villagers...'
If Zheng Xiu hadn't personally seen the village chief scoop fish bones out of the pot, he would have suspected this village of eating "white meat."
"White meat" was another name for human flesh.
He'd heard that in times of war and chaos, there were roadside inns that would target and slaughter unsuspecting travelers, cook them, and sell the meat to make a living.
This was something Zheng Erniang had vividly told him as a bedtime story when he was young. She thought it would scare the piss out of him, but unexpectedly, Zheng Xiu had slept even more soundly that night.
But that was a chaotic era from over twenty years ago, before he was even born.
Just then.
"ACHOO!"
'Just standing around here isn't a solution, and I can't find a place to die anytime soon anyway,' Zheng Xiu thought, sensing a strange noise from his real-world prison cell. He simply decided to go AFK.
Opening his eyes, Zheng Xiu saw Second Lady standing outside his cell, holding a multi-tiered, gold-inlaid food box in her left hand, while her right hand was pulling the collar of her Cotton jacket tight.