Transmigrator

In a dilapidated room that was more like a ruin—with drafts blowing from all sides and a gaping hole in the roof—Feng Xue, dressed in an Assassin's Creed-style white robe, leaned against a wall that was barely sturdy. He gripped a short blade in his hand, while cold sweat trickled down his temples.

Outside the wooden door, which offered no real protection, the harrowing sounds of battle and screams rose and fell. Even just listening to the commotion was enough to imagine the carnage unfolding on the street.

Fortunately, Feng Xue did not belong to those being killed or those doing the killing.

Unfortunately, he could not guarantee that he wouldn't be dragged into it soon.

He had transmigrated to this strange world three days ago. Not only had Feng Xue failed to grasp the basic situation of this world, but he hadn't even fully figured out the capabilities of his own Golden Finger.

Although he could drink water, he didn't feel thirsty even after three days without it. Although he could eat, he didn't feel hungry after three days of fasting. In that sense, it wouldn't be wrong to say that Feng Xue was no longer a living person at all.

Feng Xue even wondered if his xp in his past life had been too unrestrained, to the point that he had to fall into such a hell after death to suffer punishment.

That's right, hell—that was his most intuitive impression of this world.

Ever since he inexplicably transmigrated to a garbage dump and was told by a scavenger, "What's so strange about transmigrating? Get lost," he had been shrouded in confusion.

He only knew this place was called the Landfill Area, but he didn't know if that referred to this specific garbage dump, the surrounding slums, the city where the slums were located, or if the entire world was simply called the Landfill Area.

But he knew that within just two hours of his arrival, he had seen people fighting to the death over dog excrement found in the trash, with only one survivor out of a dozen.

The dog excrement wasn't a metaphor; it was actual feces—well, Feng Xue didn't know what kind of creature left it, but it was definitely feces!

Later, he scavenged some items that looked useful but turned out to be useless, trading them for five bran bricks that were harder than stone. He risked breaking his teeth to swallow a few bites, only to discover that the people here didn't use their mouths to "eat." To obtain that information, he had been swindled out of a brick by a guy who claimed he would demonstrate how to eat.

The awkward part was that the "nutrition" provided by one brick was only enough to sustain his existence in this world for one day, and now, it was already the third day.

This meant that if he couldn't find a way to make money by tomorrow, he would disappear completely because he couldn't get a supplement. On his second day after transmigrating, Feng Xue had the misfortune of witnessing the entire process of a person disappearing on the execution platform outside the Garbage Mountain.

The agonizing wails and the sight of a body withering, collapsing, and finally turning into smoke and dust bit by bit had kept Feng Xue awake all night, despite his modern upbringing.

Perhaps tomorrow, I will be like those people outside, making a final struggle to survive?

Feng Xue glanced at the icon in the top-left corner of his vision and sighed helplessly. Although he did have a Golden Finger that came with his transmigration, he hadn't even fully grasped the functions of this thing.

This object, similar to a game interface, could neither store items nor issue quests, and it lacked achievements or even the most basic user manual.

Although it passively provided an ability similar to a game's appraisal skill, it only gave two lines of information: one was the item [Name], and the other was called [Element], displaying words like [Weapon], [Tool], [Food], and a string of garbled code.

However, there were actually two active abilities: one called [Smelt] and the other [Reforge]. The former required the consumption of energy called [Shi], while the latter only displayed a central interface with a crosshair, surrounded by slots similar to a game inventory that couldn't hold anything, and a grayed-out [Confirm] button. He didn't even know what it required to function.

As for the energy called [Shi]... it was actually the "nutrition" needed to sustain life in this world.

The unit for [Shi] was "Ta," which was also the base currency unit of this world. A person consumed 100 Ta of [Shi] per day, and each [Smelt] cost 5 Ta. That is to say, every time he smelted, he consumed 72 minutes of his lifespan.

Of course, to test this Golden Finger, Feng Xue had painfully spent 5 Ta to activate the ability, but he didn't get the answer he wanted because the Golden Finger told him—

[Smelt Failed].

Although he wanted to tell himself that this failure should just be a matter of probability, the [Shi] he had on hand didn't give him the luxury of squandering it.

Just as Feng Xue was wallowing in self-pity over his situation, the shouting and painful cries on the street gradually ceased, and the street seemed to return to silence.

But just as he wanted to lean against the wall to sleep for a while, a rhythmic knocking suddenly came from the rotting wooden door.

Feng Xue's heart tightened. He immediately gripped his short blade, but a moment later, he hid the knife behind his back.

His current residence had almost no defensive capability. Pretending no one was home or barricading the door was merely deceiving himself. As a shut-in from a peaceful era who had never received any combat training, he could only prepare for the worst while forcing himself to be comforted by the fact that the person at the door was at least willing to knock.

"Creak—"

The uncomfortable sound of rotting wood friction accompanied the opening of the door. Standing outside was a middle-aged man with a well-proportioned build and a slightly mature appearance. He glanced at Feng Xue and said without emotion:

"Come out to help collect corpses. 100 Ta per corpse!"

There's such a good deal? Feng Xue didn't even react for a moment, but after the man finished speaking, he immediately turned and walked away. Similar knocking sounds echoed from time to time in the surroundings.

Unsure of the situation, he didn't go out immediately. Instead, he peeked at the street and saw five or six people walking out of the surrounding dilapidated houses—though more chose to pretend they hadn't heard.

The faces of those who came out were filled with fear and struggle, which made Feng Xue feel a sense of unease. But with only one day of life left, he didn't seem to have the capital to refuse.

After a brief hesitation, he ultimately chose to walk out and stepped onto the blood-stained street with those people of complex expressions. At the same time, an impatient voice came from not far away—

"Move faster, don't dawdle! If you delay things, no one will have it good!"

It was a man holding a large machete. Behind him was a table with pieces of familiar bran bricks placed on it.

It seemed the man's words worked. The slum-dwellers, who had been dragging their feet, quickly walked toward the corpses, which were in various states of death, and loaded them onto the carts provided by the man's subordinates.

Seeing that the process didn't seem to require any technical skill, Feng Xue immediately stepped forward. Enduring the pungent smell of blood mixed with the stench of rotting internal organs, he dragged a corpse that looked relatively intact onto a cart.

Although his body had undergone strange changes after transmigrating, he hadn't become a Strongman. Forget about drawing a heavy bow; even dragging the corpse made him pant.

Fortunately, there were over forty corpses, and including him, there were only nine corpse collectors called out. By the time Feng Xue dragged the third corpse to the cart, the others were already pulling their carts to queue up in front of the table.

Watching the first person to receive a bran brick pull their cart and walk quickly into the distance, Feng Xue realized that this job clearly didn't end with just tossing the corpses onto the cart.

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