Another morning dawned with her pillow wet from tears. Chen Xiyao woke from that bewildering dream and, as usual, saw Feng Xue preparing breakfast.
Breakfast was the same strange meat as before. Chen Xiyao hadn't seen any sign of a fire, and she had no idea how he'd cooked the slices.
She quickly stuffed the meat into her mouth, then took the warm water he handed her and gulped down a few mouthfuls. Just then, she suddenly realized something was off.
"Right, at this time of day, he usually opens the door and takes me to the bathroom! Why is he waiting for me to ask today?"
Chen Xiyao furrowed her brow slightly. After living together for several days, they should have developed an understanding about awkward matters like this!
Why...
"Get ready. We're moving somewhere else." As Chen Xiyao pondered, Feng Xue's voice suddenly rang out. She had already begun to get used to him, but she still looked surprised.
"What? Have we been discovered?"
"Not yet. There are just some troublesome things outside the wall."
Feng Xue sighed. Thinking of the Omens he'd seen in the woods that morning made him feel even worse.
He'd been careless before. He'd actually forgotten that someone from the Real World produced True Thing waste, too!
"Troublesome things?" Chen Xiyao's nose twitched slightly as she listened. Then she noticed that the smell of blood on Feng Xue was stronger than before!
And this smell was different from the last one. It was closer to the scent she noticed every month...
It was human blood!
"Are you hurt?!" Chen Xiyao asked anxiously, but Feng Xue shook his head.
"No."
His answer was firm, but Chen Xiyao imagined all sorts of scenarios in which he was hiding an injury so she wouldn't worry. But she was only a high school student, after all, and knew nothing about medicine. Even if he really was hurt, she couldn't help treat him—and might only make things worse.
Thinking of this, Chen Xiyao couldn't help feeling even more self-conscious about being a burden.
"Come on, stop spacing out. We have to move, and after this we'll need to change places every two days. Also, when you go to the bathroom, remember to dig a hole and bury it afterward. I'll make you a shovel in a bit."
"..." The complicated feelings she'd just developed vanished in an instant, replaced by intense embarrassment. The moment Chen Xiyao pictured herself digging a hole, all her earlier sadness disappeared.
Feng Xue had no idea that someone was privately calling him a "mood killer" again. He opened the door and used the map on his Guild ID to look for a new place to stay.
He hadn't been lying. Since he could see the number of manifest elements above an Omen's head, he rarely misjudged the strength of a Weird Tale. And the combination of the nighttime buff, Disassembly Madonna, and stealth was especially effective against biological Weird Tales. He could say with confidence that if the other creature's neck was narrower than Disassembly Madonna's blade was long, he had a good chance of killing it in one strike.
As for the smell of human blood on him... that was because he'd gone to collect corpses before dawn.
Thanks to Old Li's reminder, he hadn't given up his work as a corpse collector just because Chen Xiyao was with him. He was also trying to learn what was going on with the Cross Sword Guild by collecting corpses.
Besides, being a corpse collector also gave him a reasonable explanation for living on the outskirts of the city.
And thanks to disposing of the bodies that morning, he'd spotted the Omen battle over shit outside the city early. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been the only one fleeing that morning—he'd have had to carry Chen Xiyao along while she desperately needed the bathroom.
In fact, after realizing that Chen Xiyao's waste was True Thing, he'd wondered whether he should collect some. Not because he wanted to use it to obtain [Shi], but because it had a more profound use. However, he had no way to conceal True Things. To put the stuff in his Storage Bag, he might have had to shape it by hand, and he didn't have anything convenient like a plastic bag. In the end, he could only set the idea aside for now and decided he'd have Chen Xiyao produce some when he needed it.
Following Feng Xue, Chen Xiyao had no idea that, in his mind, she'd become some kind of strange resource point. Right now, she was just trying to control her sphincter so that the habit of using the bathroom at a regular time—a habit she'd developed over the past few days—wouldn't cause trouble.
"Phew, finally done..." A little while later, Chen Xiyao emerged from a clump of weeds with a shovel in hand, her expression complicated. Seeing her face, Feng Xue frowned.
"It was just digging a hole. Why do you look so miserable?"
"It's not the hole," Chen Xiyao sighed helplessly. "I've run out of the tissues I brought. I'll probably have to tear pages out of a book tomorrow..."
"A book? You brought a book? Why the hell didn't you say so earlier?!"
Feng Xue immediately latched onto the key phrase, his eyes practically bulging. Chen Xiyao jumped at his expression and stammered, "I-It's just a novel. Besides, you never asked..."
"Forget it. I was being shortsighted. I should've checked your things earlier." Feng Xue pressed a hand to his chest and took a couple of deep breaths before asking, "Where's the book?"
"It's in my bag. Are we going to read it now?"
"This place isn't safe. We'll talk once we're back in the city."
Feng Xue shook his head. He hadn't neglected to search Chen Xiyao's belongings out of carelessness. It was because of the doctor who had turned into a Stitched Monster. He clearly remembered that after the doctor underwent Corpse Transformation, the gang members had angrily asked the woman they suspected was an Outsider, "Did you give him something?"
That had made Feng Xue worry that using an Outsider's belongings without permission might turn him into an Omen.
After taking Chen Xiyao back into the city and choosing a new temporary hideout based on their previous experience, Feng Xue looked at her expectantly. Apparently uncomfortable under his burning gaze, Chen Xiyao hesitated for a while before finally blushing and pulling a thick book—about three fingers thick—from her backpack. It was the sort of oversized bootleg novel commonly found in rental shops, with a capacity of seven or eight hundred thousand words.
Only then did Feng Xue understand why she'd been so hesitant. The title of the book was none other than Young Soldier King's Otherworldly Romance...
"..."
"..."
After briefly staring at each other, Feng Xue decided to break the awkward silence. He took a deep breath, then spoke in the teasing tone of one reader joking with another.
"People are free to like what they like..."
The question of whether a real person who ate a False Thing would produce True Thing or False Thing waste didn't need much explanation. After all, real people became Information Aggregates after arriving in the Infinite City. They needed to eat and excrete because their Information Aggregates had settings like "needs to eat" and "needs to excrete."
Likewise, a real person's waste would have a setting like "waste produced by an Outsider." Since it carried information about the Outsider, there was no doubt that it was True Thing.
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