"Whoosh—"
A whimpering, icy wind mixed with the hum of electronic devices, jolting Xu Feng awake from the darkness.
He sat up in bed, only to realize that somehow, he had fallen asleep.
As expected, textbooks were the best sleeping pills.
He got up and saw that the lamp on Xiao Dan's desk was still giving off a faint, cool glow.
The little girl was scribbling away at her homework.
The lamplight swayed gently.
It cast all sorts of clawed, snarling shadows of the room's furnishings onto the walls.
Xu Feng rubbed the cold alloy bedsheet and felt distinctly uncomfortable.
The scene was somewhat heartwarming, yet also a little absurd.
"Clack—"
"Tap—"
The alloy door knocked intermittently against the frame, making a heavy, strange sound.
Xu Feng glanced at the little girl, who had turned her head. "You keep working."
With that, he climbed out of bed by the light and headed for the door.
When he reached it and took a closer look, he saw that the lock's mechanical parts had broken.
"Damn, what rotten luck."
Muttering under his breath, he reached for the alloy door.
But—
Just then—
A wet arm suddenly shot in from outside.
It grabbed the edge of the alloy door!
The hand had appeared out of nowhere, in a thoroughly eerie manner, but Xu Feng reacted just as quickly.
In an instant—
Xu Feng lifted his foot without hesitation and kicked the alloy door as hard as he could!
His movement was swift and decisive!
"Bang!"
The alloy door slammed heavily against the frame.
The arm instantly pulled back!
The next moment, a shrill cry rang out from outside. "Ah! Xu Feng! What the hell are you doing?!"
Xu Feng and Xiao Dan, who was sitting at the desk, both jumped in fright.
Then, amid the cold wind—
A slender figure suddenly pushed the door open and came into the room, clutching her arm as she glared at Xu Feng. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"
Only then did Xu Feng get a good look at the newcomer. He frowned and snapped, "Don't you know how to knock?
How many people have died around here lately? You scared the hell out of me. Who wouldn't be afraid?"
"Oh? Now you're acting like you're in the right! You're not usually like this."
As she spoke, the woman casually took off her cloak, revealing a full, curvaceous figure that concealed explosive strength.
A hint of surprise crossed her face as she looked at Xu Feng.
Xu Feng immediately fell silent.
He glanced over the woman's impressive cleavage, then frowned. "Since it was a misunderstanding, want me to rub it for you?"
The woman rolled her eyes and ignored him.
Then she closed the door and turned, walking toward Xiao Dan with long, swaying legs and a sincere smile. "Have you finished your homework?"
"Sister Lu, I finished ages ago!"
Xiao Dan got up happily and threw her arms around the woman. Lu Fei gently lifted her onto her neck.
"That bastard didn't hit you today, did he?" Lu Fei asked quietly in Xiao Dan's ear.
"No. Dad seems to be sick," Xiao Dan whispered back.
As he watched the two of them talking affectionately, Xu Feng stood far away by the doorway, not daring to approach.
That was because this woman had an extraordinary background.
Lu Fei.
A graduate student and martial artist at Sky Moon Martial University.
They said her strength was considerable and her talent was good. She held a high standing throughout the entire settlement.
This "three-no" female student had met Xiao Dan through a teaching volunteer program.
After that, she came by their place every few days.
Of course—
This woman definitely wasn't visiting because of Xu Feng.
As a forty-year-old, unkempt middle-aged man with a slightly pudgy build, Xu Feng knew full well what his "social standing" was these days.
After chatting with Xiao Dan for a while, Lu Fei turned to Xu Feng. A hint of disgust and coldness flickered in her eyes. "I came to see you today because there's a job. Are you taking it or not?"
"No."
Xu Feng rejected her without a second thought.
In his memories, most of the jobs this woman brought up were the kind that got people killed.
Lu Fei glanced at the messy room and sighed.
She turned to the table, picked up a cup, poured in a sachet of some unknown powder, then turned back and handed it to Xiao Dan.
"What's that?" Xu Feng got to his feet warily, but didn't dare approach.
Lu Fei shot him a glance. "A nutritional supplement. What, can't afford one, or have you never seen one?"
Xu Feng's lips twitched. If I'd seen one, would I be asking you?
Maybe graduate students aren't that smart after all.
Must be all that martial arts training.
"This job isn't like the ones before. Are you sure you won't take it? The exploration team organized by the settlement came back the day before yesterday.
"There really is rare vegetation essence in the spirit cave along the Red Water River, but two members of the Golden Wing Clan are hiding in there too.
"The exploration team suffered heavy losses. A lot of bodies were left behind, and there's still some vegetation essence in the cave.
"If you're willing to go, I can recommend you for a body-retrieval job. Three thousand a day. If you're lucky, you might even find a stalk of vegetation essence. That'd be worth hundreds of thousands—"
Before Lu Fei could finish, Xu Feng shook his head and cut her off. "Not taking it. I'm not done living yet."
"Tch. With a useless wreck like you, living such a miserable life, you might as well be dead." Lu Fei didn't hide her disappointment.
As she spoke, she ruffled the little girl's hair.
"I'm leaving."
Then Lu Fei put on her coat and turned to Xu Feng. "Oh, and I'm warning you again: if you ever hit Xiao Dan, I'll tear your arm off."
She gave Xu Feng's arm another cold look.
Then she held out her own arm.
The spot that had just been crushed hard by the alloy door—
There wasn't even a red mark. She was strong as a beast.
"If you don't believe me, go ahead and try."
With that, Lu Fei opened the door and walked into the cold wind, disappearing from sight.
"Tch. Big boobs, no brains."
Xu Feng grumbled, completely unfazed by her threat.
As for the job she'd mentioned, he didn't even need to think about it.
If it were a good job, all those "well-connected people" would have snatched it up already.
Would it ever be his turn?
"Dad, Sister Lu's pretty smart. She's just a bit of a hopeless romantic," Xiao Dan said quietly.
Xu Feng rolled his eyes, turned around, and pinched the little girl's chubby cheek.
"You're too young to know what a hopeless romantic is. Time for bed."
"Oh."
Xiao Dan pouted, then obediently got up to wash.
After seeing the woman of ill omen out, Xu Feng blocked the door with a table.
Then he went back to the desk, sat down, and sighed. "Phew. Back to reading. At least there's still a little knowledge left in my head. I should be able to absorb it pretty quickly."
Before long—
Xiao Dan finished washing and quietly went to bed.
Xu Feng pulled the makeshift bed curtain he had put together a couple of days earlier around her.
Only then did he sit at the desk and begin reading in earnest.
More than three hours later—
Xu Feng put down the books in his hands: Antenna Principles for the Hundred-Gigabyte Mobile Terminal and Fundamentals of Microcrystalline Energy Circuit Principles and Repair Techniques.
Then, following the diagrams in Small Communicator Wristband Repair Manual, he carefully compared them with the broken communicator beside him.
He rubbed his brow, tiptoed over to get his repair kit, and began the hands-on work.
"Good thing this is the simplest kind of communicator. If it were a mid- or high-tier smart wristband, I'd be completely helpless."
He muttered to himself as he started fiddling with it under a magnifying glass.
Repairing microdevices like this required a great deal of patience and care.
He also needed a steady hand.
Even with repair tools far more advanced than anything from his previous life, it was still a major project for Xu Feng.
Fortunately, he was an engineering type who'd done pretty well in school, and he'd worked at several communications companies.
Whether it was mobile phone antennas, vehicle-mounted antennas, or radio-frequency engineering, he had some experience with all of them.
The technology here was vastly different from what he'd known in his previous life.
Still, at least the knowledge in the original owner's mind gave him a foundation.
Before long, Xu Feng finally managed to fix the first communicator.
He glanced at the sky. Outside, it was already growing gray with the approaching dawn.
The cycle of day and night in Dimension 13 was about the same as on Earth.
So Xu Feng was especially eager to see whether his all-night repair work would pay off.
He took a deep breath and pressed the power button, his heart full of trepidation.
"Beep—Welcome to 'Weihua Technology.' Communicator reset and self-check complete. Have a pleasant day!"
Xu Feng excitedly swung his arm, only to slam it into the corner of the table with a "bang."
"Gah—"
He sucked in a sharp breath from the pain, clamped his hand between his thighs, and bounced around silently, gritting his teeth so hard he couldn't make a sound.
He glanced at Xiao Dan, who was still sleeping soundly.
Xu Feng walked over to the bed, grimacing as he took a few deep breaths.
His face twisted up.
He was both delighted and in pain.
After a long while—
He finally recovered, then turned to look at the communicator in his hand.
But just then, he froze.
A few neat lines of text appeared before his eyes:
[Name: Xu Feng] [Qi and Blood: 172c] [Age: 40] [Skills: Nine-Star Body-Tempering Art [Free Edition] · Proficient (29/100) Communicator Repair · Beginner (1/5)]
Xu Feng: "(ω)!???"
As he stood there in a daze, the text silently disappeared.
Xu Feng stared for a while, then sat on the bed, a flicker of excitement in his heart. He focused his thoughts.
The text panel appeared again.
After trying to open and close it a few times, Xu Feng finally confirmed that he hadn't imagined it and wasn't going crazy.
He ignored the age listed on the panel.
He was more than ten years older now, sure.
But even so, his physical condition was stronger than it had been when he was young and vigorous in his previous life.
He could pick up cargo weighing hundreds of pounds without a second thought.
The important part was what those last two lines meant.
To make sure his guess was right—
Xu Feng returned to the desk and picked up another broken communicator.
This time, he kept working until full daylight.
Xu Feng stretched and started the self-check on the second communicator.
"Welcome to Weihua Technology. Communication device resetting."
Xu Feng's heart lifted. At a thought, the lines of text appeared once more.
[Skills:
Nine-Star Body Refining Art [Free Version] · Proficient (29/100)
Communicator Repair · Novice (2/5)]
"This repair went much more smoothly than the last one.
The number changed too, just as I expected. Is this what they call proficiency?
So if I repair three more, I'll reach the next level? From novice to proficient? That makes sense."
Xu Feng let out a long breath and collapsed onto the bed.
He probably wasn't going to starve to death in this world, was he?
At least now he had a skill he could rely on to survive.
Compared with everyone else, he could always see his own progress.
And these stats wouldn't go down.
Wasn't this what they called "once proven, proven forever"?
"Time to sleep!"
It was as if a great weight had been lifted from Xu Feng's heart. He finally relaxed.
For a moment, his vision went dark, and his heart pounded. He couldn't tell whether it was from excitement or a warning that staying up too late might kill him.
Anyway, he'd barely been lying in bed for two minutes before he started snoring.
The new book's setting off—ah, no, the new book's getting underway. Charge!
Before you continue