The moment Feng Xue heard the words "feed her," his mind immediately filled with all sorts of indecent thoughts. But even if the girl fit his tastes to a T, they were still in the middle of a crisis. He snapped out of it almost at once and understood what Old Li had meant.
"You mean people from the outside can't eat food from Infinite City?" Feng Xue guessed. Chen Xiyao, who had been zoning out beside him, suddenly lit up at his words. She'd thought of a scenario that fit their situation perfectly—
Spirited Away!
That's right, Spirited Away.
She'd passed through a door and immediately been spirited away.
After crossing over, she'd run into a scary man.
And ordinary people couldn't eat the food here.
But as those thoughts crossed her mind, Chen Xiyao began looking at Feng Xue strangely—
Could it be...
Feng Xue had no idea that Chen Xiyao's imagination was running wild. On the other end of the phone, Old Li's voice came through again:
"That's not it. But did you forget that people from the outside still need to eat and drink?"
"Oh, right!" Only then did Feng Xue remember that he hadn't had any water in ages. As for food... Bran Brick could practically break your teeth, but it was technically edible. If he didn't worry about getting balanced nutrition, it should work in a pinch for a little while.
Old Li clearly wasn't the sort to just point out a problem and leave it at that. He didn't waste time mulling it over and went straight to the question:
"How do you solve it?"
"The wilderness." Old Li gave him two words. Before Feng Xue could object, he continued, "When people from the outside arrive in Infinite City, their bodies are digitized too. But unlike us, they aren't [Nothingness]. They have their own social ties and understanding of the world, so they aren't easily tainted by [Shi]. In other words, they can eat Omens. Of course, if you can get over the mental hurdle, you could eat people, too.
"As for water, you can pretty much forget about finding any in the Landfill Area. Before a Door Pusher is found, every gang in the Landfill Area keeps a close watch on it. You should know there aren't many places in the Landfill Area where water is useful."
"So, to keep this Door Pusher alive, I need to go out into the wilderness, find a lake for water, and hunt Omens for food? Don't you think you're overestimating me a little?" Feng Xue said, the corner of his mouth twitching. Old Li simply gave an unconcerned grunt.
"Don't make Omens out to be so terrifying. Didn't you kill that Bone Woman before? If you could take that thing down, ordinary animal-type Omens shouldn't give you much trouble. Of course, if you're not worrying about balanced nutrition in the short term, you can just feed her bricks. People from the outside don't eat in Infinite City for nutrition anyway. After they're digitized, they just have a 'need to eat' setting."
"How do you know I killed it?" Feng Xue frowned. No one should have known he'd killed that Weird Tale.
"Isn't it obvious? If you hadn't killed it, why would you have moved to another Landfill Area for no reason? Unless you were just like me... Ahem."
Old Li cut himself off with a forced cough. Feng Xue was curious about what he'd meant to say, but now wasn't the time to get distracted by that.
"This thing's starting to sound more and more like Digimon..." Feng Xue sighed. Keeping the call going, he opened the map and checked the wilderness nearby.
The Main Body of a Landfill Area was like a giant ball. Wherever there was a garbage dump, it simply dropped down over it. If there had been water along the original route, the waterway would be diverted, flowing alongside the Landfill Area in another direction. It looked just like a moat.
The Landfill Area Feng Xue was in clearly didn't have that kind of perk. And even if it did, the water in such a popular dumping spot probably wouldn't be drinkable.
After roughly planning a route to get water, Feng Xue nodded slightly, then asked:
"What else should I watch out for?"
"Plenty. For example, when the person from the outside needs to use the bathroom, remember to take her out into the wilderness. We don't need to use the bathroom. Also, don't take her near the Employment Agency or the Garbage Dump. People from the outside don't look any different on the surface, but some professions that can inspect traits will spot the problem. And..."
Old Li rattled on for a while. To sum it up, Feng Xue needed to watch out for the telltale signs of an outsider's ordinary life, beware of appraisers, and handle any problems out in the wilderness if possible.
Feng Xue carefully committed every word to memory. Only after Old Li finally stopped did he speak up:
"If I want to send her back, any advice?"
Old Li paused briefly on the other end. Then he replied in a more serious tone than before:
"There are things I can't spell out too clearly. But you can think about it in terms of how professions work. If a corpse collector goes too long without collecting a corpse, they lose their job. Some professions have even stricter restrictions than that."
"Got it!" Feng Xue immediately understood what Old Li was getting at. Hearing that, Old Li's tone relaxed a little, and he said, "That's about it, then. If anything comes up, just call me. I've got something to take care of here, so I'll hang up."
With that, Old Li ended the call without giving Feng Xue a chance to say anything else.
Feng Xue could only shake his head helplessly, then turned his gaze to the girl—
"All right. You can ask now."
"Um, that, White Dragon... Ahem, ahem, ahem!"
"What the heck is a White Dragon?" Feng Xue looked at the girl as she suddenly began coughing like crazy and felt a little helpless. After an awkward moment, during which she looked as if she wanted to dig herself a whole three-bedroom apartment with her toes for letting something slip, she finally came up with a question—
"Your name?"
"Huh?"
"What's your name?" the girl repeated. Then, as if she'd thought of something, she introduced herself. "I'm Chen Xiyao. What about you? If you don't want to say, a codename is fine too."
"It's nothing I can't tell you." Feng Xue shook his head. "Feng Xue. That's my name."
"Sounds kind of... ahem, kind of like an Yan Kingdom name, too." Chen Xiyao had almost said it sounded like a girl's name, but she'd changed her words at the last second out of politeness. To Feng Xue, though, it seemed like something was wrong with the girl's throat. She'd only said a few words, yet she was already coughing like that.
The atmosphere grew a little awkward, and Chen Xiyao felt slightly flustered. After all, she was only seventeen, and this was her first time crossing over. She'd read plenty of novels about people crossing into another world, but she hadn't gotten a Golden Finger. For the moment, she really didn't know what to do.
"Everyone else who crosses over gets a system and a girl delivered to them. I got no system, and I even... well, at least they sent me a handsome guy..."
Just as Chen Xiyao was wondering how to get on good terms with this man who might be her guide to the world she'd crossed into, he suddenly stood up and said:
"Let's go..."
About the mechanism behind the protagonist's Golden Finger: explaining it would spoil too much. But in short, all you need to know is that he can see the traits of dead things, Phantom Objects, False Things, and Omens, as well as the amount of [Shi] contained in True Things that have been cut off from reality. But he can't see the traits or Tags of [Nothingness].
Before you continue