A Special Era (1)

After the lesson from last night, Jiang Feng decided not to court death by making Wang Shitou's pure meat wontons anymore.

Those weren't wontons, they were biochemical weapons!

Men who ate them would fall silent, and women who ate them would weep.

The sonic wave attack from Jiang Jiankang and Wang Xiulian last night still echoed in his ears, and Jiang Feng felt lingering fear just thinking about it.

After finishing the lunch service, Jiang Feng opened his status panel to check his quest progress. "Gain a Foothold" had reached (700/1000). He hesitated, wondering if he should use his experience points to upgrade Mathematics, Physics, and English to advanced to cope with his studies, or if he should use them to level up and see if the game would unlock any new features.

"Forget it, it's better to upgrade Mathematics, Physics, and English. If the game updates for half a year directly, Jiang Feng will have nowhere to cry."

He felt unmotivated without the system notification sound for increasing proficiency while chopping vegetables.

After upgrading all three subjects to advanced, he still had over 30,000 experience points left. The status panel now read:

Mathematics (Advanced): You have fully mastered all knowledge at the undergraduate level. (Cannot be upgraded)

Physics (Advanced): You have fully mastered all knowledge at the undergraduate level. (Cannot be upgraded)

English (Advanced): You have fully mastered all knowledge at the undergraduate level. (Cannot be upgraded)

Jiang Feng: "..."

Becoming a top student all of a sudden felt so unnatural.

Scrolling down the status panel, Jiang Feng noticed the mist-like item in his inventory.

What was this?

A memory from Li Mingyi?

Jiang Feng suddenly remembered that this was a reward from a previous side quest, and it could be viewed repeatedly.

After viewing Jiang Huiqin's memory, the game had directly entered an update state, which lasted for over a month. It had been so long that Jiang Feng had forgotten he even had this item.

He clicked on "A Memory from Li Mingyi" and selected "Yes" on the prompt.

In a daze, Jiang Feng found himself in a dilapidated shack.

Or rather, a dilapidated tent.

A few wooden poles supported a tarp made of some material, either plastic or something else, which was so dirty it was hard to tell. It had many patches, with fine stitches, showing the skill of the person who mended it. Even though the cold wind outside howled and hit the tarp with loud thuds, no wind leaked in.

It was winter, and the light inside the tent was dim.

Although Jiang Feng couldn't feel the temperature, he could still tell the season.

Strange, where was everyone?

The tent was small, with messy items piled up like a garbage mountain. It looked like discarded junk nobody wanted, emitting a suffocating stench. The ground was covered with straw; there was no furniture, not even the most basic tables or chairs.

Most importantly, Jiang Feng couldn't see Li Mingyi.

With his previous experience in Jiang Huiqin's memory, Jiang Feng knew that Li Mingyi must be nearby.

Was he hiding in the garbage pile?

Avoiding enemies?

It couldn't be that bad.

"Mingyi, look, look what I found!" A hoarse female voice came from the other side of the garbage mountain.

Li Mingyi and Jiang Huiqin were hiding on the other side of the garbage mountain. Li Mingyi lay on the pile of straw, his whole body filthy, his hair and face covered in mud, and a tattered quilt draped over him. His cloudy eyes stared blankly at the straw.

Jiang Huiqin looked slightly better than Li Mingyi. She was wrapped in layers of worn-out single clothes, her hair loose and matted with dirt. They only had one quilt. Jiang Huiqin had wrapped herself in straw, curled up, and struggled to strike a damp, almost unusable match with her frostbitten hands.

This was a middle-aged Jiang Huiqin and Li Mingyi, but they looked like two elderly people on the verge of death.

Jiang Feng could hardly believe that those rough hands, covered in frostbite, cracks, oozing pus, and struggling to strike a match, could belong to Jiang Huiqin.

Jiang Huiqin struggled for a few minutes before finally getting the match to light. She carefully shielded the flame, skillfully pulled out a few pieces of wood from the garbage pile, cleared a patch of ground, and soon a fire was burning.

"Today is your birthday, I made you something delicious." Jiang Huiqin carefully pulled Li Mingyi closer to the fire and retrieved a clean clay pot from the straw pile. "Those guys searched here this morning, but they must have found it too smelly to bother with. The wind is so strong outside, they won't come now. Blind Wu next door said it would snow in two days, so I'll go pick up our rations. It's almost New Year, and we might get some meat."

"How is Blind Wu?" Li Mingyi asked weakly.

"He's not doing well. His leg is festering and infected, he doesn't have many days left." Jiang Huiqin rummaged through the garbage mountain again and managed to find some tremella and a few bird eggs. "I'll make you a good meal. Your leg needs to get better quickly. Don't end up like Blind Wu. His wife and children are all dead, and he's given up on living. We still have Junming. Who knows how things are in that place in the northwest."

"Where did you get the tremella?" Li Mingyi coughed twice, not directly answering Jiang Huiqin.

"I traded it for a gold bracelet."

Li Mingyi fell silent.

"Don't look so lifeless. Tremella is so precious now, it was worth trading a gold bracelet for. If your leg can recover, let alone a gold bracelet, I'd even trade the two gold bars I hid in the well." Jiang Huiqin fumbled around and actually found quite a few good things in the pile of trash.

"You're still as good at hiding things as ever," Li Mingyi finally showed a hint of life on his face.

"That's right." Jiang Huiqin said proudly. "Those guys want to find what I hid? Dream on! Even the bandits during the War of Resistance couldn't find it. They dug up the whole area but didn't find the silver dollars I buried. Them? Humph."

A trace of life appeared in the gloomy shack.

Because of the fire, the temperature in the tent rose. Li Mingyi shifted slightly, trying to see what Jiang Huiqin had found. Unfortunately, his glasses had been broken a long time ago, and he had been suffering from long-term malnutrition. In the flickering light, he couldn't see clearly at all.

"What are you making?"

"A secret."

Perhaps because she was in a good mood, Jiang Huiqin even hummed a little tune.

Li Mingyi chuckled and looked at the fire, suddenly feeling like it was almost New Year.

This was the first time he had felt this way since his eldest son died.