A Zhong, the Young Boy

A Zhong, the Young Boy

"What should I call you, little brother?"

The little boy shook his head. "I'm not called Little Brother."

Ye Weiming continued asking, "Then what's your name?"

"Dog Bastard."

Sure enough, only bears appeared in these desolate mountains. How could there be any children?

Even if there were, they would be bear brats!

An ungrateful bear brat who ate meat with his mouth open and cursed people as soon as he closed it!

Ye Weiming flew into a rage. "You little bear brat, how dare you insult me?"

The little boy looked extremely aggrieved. "I'm not called Bear Brat. My name is Dog Bastard. Besides, you asked me, so I told you. I wasn't insulting you."

Ye Weiming calmed down and gave the boy a thumbs-up. "Your name is truly distinctive. But someone as refined as me finds it a little hard to say. How about we simplify it? I'll call you A Zhong, and you can call me Big Brother. How about that?"

Although that really was the child's name, as a civilized person, Ye Weiming still felt unable to say those three words aloud. Deep down, he had the unsettling feeling that if he said them, he would be censored.

"Okay." A Zhong's answer was simple and direct.

"A Zhong." Having settled on a form of address, Ye Weiming immediately took out the dozen or so pieces of wolf meat he had gathered earlier. After spreading a sheet of paper on the ground, he piled all the wolf meat onto it and suggested, "Judging from what you said, anything you roast must taste better than what I make. How about this? I provide the ingredients, you provide the skills, and we split the cooked food evenly. What do you say?"

"No need to split it. I can't eat that much." Even as he spoke, A Zhong picked up a piece of wolf meat and skewered it with a dead branch. "If we want to roast all this meat, the firewood we have now definitely won't be enough. I need to gather more dry wood first."

"I'll go." Ye Weiming said with a cheerful smile, "We agreed that I'd handle the ingredients."

Gathering dry wood was somewhat troublesome. Unlike wet wood, which could simply be chopped from trees, it required patience and a slow search. But good cooks were hard to come by. For the sake of his future meals, Ye Weiming spent nearly an hour gathering a large bundle of dry wood.

He had originally wanted to gather more, but an incredibly enticing aroma drifted over. Unable to endure the protests from his stomach any longer, he hurried back to the campfire.

By then, the wolf meat had been roasted until it was crisp on the outside and tender within, its surface golden brown. As agreed, the little boy handed one portion to Ye Weiming and said with a smile, "It's ready. You can eat it now."

Ye Weiming accepted the roasted meat, but after taking one look at it, he nearly dropped it onto the ground.

Roasted Wolf Meat: Quality 65. Consuming it reduces Hunger by 50 points and increases Arm Strength by 97 points for one hour.

Was this food?

No!

This was practically a buff!

And the kind that could nearly double his combat power in an instant!

The tempting aroma of roasted meat wafted into his nostrils, stimulating his olfactory nerves. Drool nearly trickled from the corner of his mouth.

If he had anything else to eat, Ye Weiming would have loved to save this wolf meat for before a battle, using it to boost his combat power. But now, feeling the protests from his stomach, he could no longer hold back. He raised the roasted meat to his mouth and bit down.

The instant the meat entered his mouth, Ye Weiming felt its fat melt across his tongue. The rich fragrance stimulated his taste buds, making this impoverished constable—who had not touched meat since entering the game—almost weep with excitement.

It was delicious! Absolutely delicious!

It smelled so good!

Despite having no seasoning whatsoever, A Zhong had brought out the meat's natural flavor to its fullest. After one bite, it made people want to swallow their tongues.

A Zhong was very diligent. Just as they had agreed, he roasted all the remaining wolf meat one piece at a time, then handed it all to Ye Weiming. "I'm not a player, so I don't have a system backpack that can keep food fresh. If I carry it with me, the roasted meat will spoil within a day. Since you like it, take it all with you. I'm sleepy. I'm going to sleep."

Ye Weiming was moved to tears. What a good child!

"A Zhong, what are you planning to do next?"

"Zzz..."

A Zhong kept his word. He was already asleep...

According to the system introduction Ye Weiming had read before logging into the game, the higher an NPC's rank, the greater its intelligence.

Yet this little boy knew the difference between players and NPCs. He even knew that players' backpacks could preserve food indefinitely. His intelligence was probably close to the highest level, wasn't it?

Still, he had casually given Ye Weiming a few pointers and raised his cooking skill by an entire level. Calling him a high-level NPC was certainly not wrong. But...

What kind of high-level NPC had such an awful name?

In some respects, this game really was made rather carelessly...

After hesitating for a while, Ye Weiming still held himself back from eating a second piece of roasted meat. His current condition was enough to get him to Luoyang anyway. Good steel had to be used on the blade's edge!

Nothing happened that night. Early the next morning, when the little boy woke up, he discovered that Ye Weiming was still sitting nearby, idly tossing a piece of dry wood into the campfire.

A Zhong stared at him with wide eyes. "You actually didn't leave this place all night?"

He did not ask why Ye Weiming had not slept, because players entered the game in a semi-dormant state. They did not need to sleep in the game, and there was no problem even if they stayed active around the clock.

"You're awake." Ye Weiming smiled. "Out here in the wilderness, I was afraid nearby wild beasts might carry you off while you slept. Besides, with a campfire nearby, you wouldn't catch a chill, right?"

A Zhong did not thank him, but Ye Weiming vaguely saw the words indicating an increase in favorability in his eyes.

After two seconds of silence, the little boy suddenly said, "Actually, you don't need to protect me, because those wild beasts won't attack me at all. Even if players kill them, they'll respawn. Other than not remembering who killed them, they retain all their memories."

Was this kid becoming a monster? How did he know more about the game's settings than Ye Weiming, an actual player?

After patting the dust from his clothes, A Zhong stood up. "Big Brother, I'm going to continue looking for Mother and Ah Huang. Goodbye."

"Wait."

Ye Weiming stopped A Zhong and took out the tinderbox he had used to start the fire from his backpack. "I'll give you this tinderbox too. With your skills, you shouldn't go hungry no matter where you go once you have it."

A Zhong accepted the tinderbox. He did not thank him either, but instead handed Ye Weiming a book.

"Beggar's Chicken Recipe": A recipe recording the method for making "Beggar's Chicken."

With a casual slap, the Beggar's Chicken recipe turned into white light.

Ding! Congratulations, you have learned how to make Beggar's Chicken.

"Big Brother, using a skill book directly like that is very wasteful. If you can patiently read it word by word, not only will you learn how to make Beggar's Chicken, you can also gain some extra cooking proficiency."

"There's such a thing?" Ye Weiming was somewhat surprised, but he still said, "I don't know who your mother and Ah Huang are, but I'll do my best to keep an eye out for them."

A Zhong looked at Ye Weiming excitedly and nodded hard before running off into the distance.

Ding! You have accepted the hidden quest Find Mother.

Find Mother

Quest Level: Unknown

Help A Zhong find his mother.

Quest Reward: Unknown

Ding! You have accepted the hidden quest Find Ah Huang.

Quest Level: Unknown

Help A Zhong find Ah Huang.

Quest Reward: Unknown

An explanation regarding chapter comments.

Due to system limitations, once a passage is edited, all chapter comments after it disappear as well. They could previously still be found among the final chapter comments, but now they cannot be found at all.

Therefore, chapter comments correcting mistakes or typos in the text automatically disappeared after Dong Liu edited the original. Dong Liu absolutely did not delete them deliberately.

There was nothing that could be done about it. After all, once a problem was discovered, it had to be corrected, didn't it?

Dong Liu hoped all readers would understand.