Reading Lots of Tomato Novels Really Can Save Your Life

[The wild boar pawed at the ground across from you a dozen or so times, then turned and left.]

[You watched the boar turn and leave, without the slightest feeling of victory.]

[One pig.]

[Just one wild boar had chased someone at the Middle Stage of the Body Tempering Realm around like a refugee.]

[You had thought that once you left the Black Tiger Gang, even if you couldn't swagger around as you pleased, at least you wouldn't have to bow your head and watch other people's faces anymore.]

[This wild boar had raised a hoof and slapped you across the face.]

[An expert in a mundane gang dropped straight down the ecological ladder upon entering mountains filled with Spiritual Qi.]

[At the mine, you were a slave.]

[In the Black Tiger Gang, you were a pretty boy.]

[In the mountains, you might be nothing more than an extra meal.]

[You changed course.]

[You no longer followed ridges or animal trails, and stayed away from the edges of water sources.]

[You sought out damp, shadowy low ground, where venomous insects ran rampant and rotting leaves piled up.]

[Ordinary beasts were unwilling to go near such places.]

[The Heavy Tomato User trait continued to do its work.]

[Miasma, poisonous mosquitoes, toxins in stagnant water, poisonous wild fruit—all of them were ineffective.]

[For the first time, you realized that reading lots of Tomato novels really could save your life.]

Lu Ping nearly lost it when he read that.

In his previous life, his boss had berated him for slacking off and reading novels at work.

Well, look at him now.

Novels saved lives.

If he could go back, he would definitely screenshot that line and slap it in his boss's face.

[But just because poison couldn't kill you didn't mean starvation couldn't.]

[On day 11, you ran out of dry rations.]

[Several thousand taels in banknotes couldn't buy you a single hot meal deep in the mountains.]

[In your hands, a low-grade Spirit Stone was nothing more than a hard lump.]

[You didn't know how to absorb a Spirit Stone.]

[You tried taking a bite.]

[Your teeth hurt.]

[You gave up.]

Lu Ping closed his eyes briefly.

Get rich overnight, then starve to death in the mountains.

This script was way too much like working a job.

The year-end bonus hit your account, and you got laid off.

The money was still there, but you were gone.

[On day 12, you dug up wild greens with your short knife.]

[Heavy Tomato User helped you weed out the poisonous ones.]

[On day 13, you caught a snake.]

[The snake bit you, and you bit it back.]

[You were fine. The snake wasn't.]

[On day 14, you made it through on one snake and three handfuls of wild greens.]

[On the night of day 15, you spotted firelight in a valley.]

[Beside the fire lay three corpses.]

[The corpses wore matching short robes of blue-gray.]

[Their wounds were at the throat, the cuts clean and neat.]

[Options appeared.]

[A: Leave immediately. Don't touch the dead or get involved in unfamiliar trouble.]

[B: Go over and search the corpses. Maybe they have dry rations and a map? What if there's a fortuitous opportunity...]

[C: Stand by the fire and host a morning meeting, asking the three corpses to report their causes of death one by one.]

This time, Lu Ping hesitated for a long while.

In a place where one pig could chase him across half a mountain, three corpses had appeared.

That was undoubtedly one big red triangle with a red exclamation mark in the middle.

For a man with a simulator, lying low and accumulating traits was the way to go.

So option A was clearly the safest choice.

But option B said there might be dry rations and a map.

He had been wandering around the mountains for fifteen days like a headless fly.

The last thing he needed was to be trapped in the mountains for half a year or more and have his work history interrupted.

As for the so-called fortuitous opportunity? Lu Ping could only scoff.

Lu Ping decided to choose B.

[You chose B.]

[Using the grass as cover, you crouched low and crept over to the fire.]

[You began searching the three corpses.]

[You went over all three corpses thoroughly, from their collars to the tops of their boots.]

[Their gray robes looked plain, but felt exceptionally fine and tough to the touch. The fabric was far more expensive than even Qian Cuihua's silk clothes.]

[But after searching for ages, all you found was a map on one of them.]

[Other than the map, you found nothing else.]

[No Spirit Stones, no banknotes, not even a scrap of silver.]

[These people were obviously cultivators, so how could they not have a secret manual or something on them?]

[Even a basic Cultivation Method or a fragment of a cultivation manual would have done, letting you pick it up and begin a life of turning the tables. Wasn't that the usual process for transmigrators?]

[Even more infuriatingly, they hadn't left so much as a mouthful of dry rations or half a hard biscuit!]

[Didn't they need to eat when traveling far from home?]

[After cursing for a while, you had no choice but to unfold the map.]

[One name caught your attention: Greenwood Sect.]

[This map was useful.]

[As long as you made contact with the Greenwood Sect, you would have a chance to join the Greenwood Sect and resume accumulating work experience.]

[Besides, it was a cultivation sect.]

[You had just tucked the map into your clothes when footsteps came from deep in the valley.]

[One step.]

[A pause.]

[Another step.]

[The footsteps were slow.]

[But with every step that fell, the Qi and Blood in your body sank along with it.]

[The newcomer's cultivation far surpassed yours.]

[You retreated three steps.]

[The rotting leaves beneath your feet suddenly crumbled soundlessly.]

[A current of icy spiritual power spread up from the ground and coiled around your ankles.]

[You couldn't move.]

[A woman walked out of the darkness.]

Jiang Mutian

[Her white robes were stained with blood, her hair was disheveled, and the mountain wind gently stirred the hem of her robes.]

[Her face was abnormally flushed.]

[She had a sword wound on her shoulder, a palm print on her abdomen, and a thin line of blood on her neck.]

[Even so, she did not look disheveled.]

[Her face was aloof and breathtakingly beautiful, her brows and eyes as though covered in fresh snow from a mountain peak. Even blood could not hide the detachment and nobility in her bones.]

[The blood on her white robes looked instead like lingering plum blossoms in snow.]

[Her injuries and the effects of the drugs had not diminished her bearing. Instead, they had opened a crack in her chill, revealing a touch of tragic, shattered beauty.]

[They also revealed a trace of a living person's warmth.]

[With every step she took, the Spiritual Qi lingering around her trembled gently.]

[Heavy Tomato User activated.]

[The effects of drugs including Hehuan Powder and Soul-Confusing Incense lingered in the air.]

[The woman raised her head and looked at you.]

[Her gaze was cold at first.]

[Then, after pausing for half a breath, she looked like a drowning person who had spotted a piece of driftwood.]

[Friend of Women activated.]

[Note: Friend of Women is substantially more effective on women whose emotions are extremely unstable.]

Lu Ping went rigid.

No way.

Again?

The last person to trigger Friend of Women had been Qian Cuihua.

This time, she had been replaced by a bloodstained female cultivator in white.

The category had been upgraded.

So had the danger level.

And what did it mean, Friend of Women was substantially more effective on women whose emotions were extremely unstable?!

Was this lousy simulator even serious?!