Dropping Out and Heading to the Wilderness

The next day.

Lin Fan slowly opened his eyes. He stared at the dilapidated ceiling before him, his mind finally clearing from its initial haze.

It seems everything from yesterday wasn't a dream.

He had truly transmigrated.

Lin Fan shook his head and called out in his mind.

"True Self."

Instantly, he appeared once again within the Bronze Hall.

Watching the True Self continuously practicing in front of him, Lin Fan scratched his head.

"Does this thing just practice forever? What does that have to do with me?"

Seeming to perceive Lin Fan's thoughts, the True Self stopped its movements instantly. Then, with a flicker, it merged into Lin Fan's body before he could even react.

Suddenly, a wealth of understanding and insights regarding the 36 Basic Martial Arts Forms flooded into his body.

It felt as if he had practiced them himself for an entire night; he could feel muscle memory forming throughout his body.

He even vaguely felt that his brain... had become a little sharper as well.

"So that's how it's used."

Lin Fan looked at the True Self avatar as it condensed once more, his eyes lighting up.

"It's an absolute AFK-grinding artifact."

Lin Fan marveled at the sight, then gave an order.

"Continue practicing the 36 Basic Martial Arts Forms."

Immediately, the True Self before him began to practice again.

"Nice, very nice."

As his consciousness withdrew from the Bronze Hall, Lin Fan wanted to sit up, but he arrived at a desperate conclusion.

No matter how well the True Self avatar practiced, that was all happening in his mind.

The True Self didn't consume energy, but his physical body did; his stomach was still hungry.

Lin Fan touched his rumbling stomach, glanced at the pitiful balance on his phone, and made a decision that defied his ancestors.

The Academic Affairs Office.

The air was thick with a mixture of overnight tea and cheap tobacco, pungent enough to make one's head ache.

The head teacher, Old Zhang, was holding his chipped thermos. Before he could even take a sip of hot water, he was choked by a piece of paper Lin Fan slapped onto his desk.

"Cough, cough, cough... Dropping out?!"

Old Zhang widened his eyes, staring at Lin Fan as if he were looking at an idiot, spraying spit all over the desk.

"Lin Fan, did your brain get caught in a door? The college entrance exam is in a month! You're telling me now that you want to go embrace society?"

"If you were a genius like Luo Feng, that would be one thing, but with your grades, what kind of 'society university' would take you besides the University of Sitting at Home?"

"Wouldn't it be better to just study hard and get into a military academy to become a soldier?!"

Facing Old Zhang's roar, Lin Fan calmly pulled a crumpled tissue from his pocket and wiped the spit off his face.

"Teacher, I need money."

This single sentence blocked the ten thousand words of moral education Old Zhang had prepared.

"Need money? If you need money, you can apply for a grant. If that doesn't work, I can lend you some..."

Old Zhang paused, his tone softening a bit.

"It's not that kind of need."

Lin Fan sighed.

"It's the kind of need where... if I don't go risk my life, I might not even live to see tomorrow's sun."

"...What does that mean?"

"I'm going to the wilderness."

"What the hell? The wilderness???! Are you going to deliver takeout?" Old Zhang asked, half-angry and half-amused. "With your build, monsters wouldn't even spit out your bones after chewing you up!"

"I'm going to scavenge for trash," Lin Fan said truthfully.

"Scavenge your..."

Old Zhang took a deep breath, holding back the rest of his words.

He was about to continue lecturing Lin Fan, but looking into those eyes—which were unnervingly calm—he suddenly felt that this kid wasn't joking.

Old Zhang opened his mouth, then finally let out a deep sigh.

"Get out, get out, get out! Sign the paper and get out of here!" Old Zhang waved his hand. "Don't go dying in the wilderness and have no one to collect your corpse."

"Alright, thank you for your support, Teacher."

Lin Fan wasn't angry. He signed his name efficiently and turned to leave.

Watching Lin Fan's departing figure, Old Zhang sighed once more.

"Kid, good luck."

As he walked out of the school gate, Lin Fan happened to see Luo Feng chatting with some friends nearby.

Luo Feng seemed to sense something and looked back.

Their gazes met in the air for a moment before Lin Fan's eyes drifted away.

He pulled down the brim of the five-yuan baseball cap he had bought and turned to blend into the bustling crowd of housewives buying groceries on the street.

Two o'clock in the afternoon.

Lin Fan arrived at the north side of Yi'an District, a place resembling a logistics distribution center.

The area was filled with black smoke from heavy trucks and the sour, pungent smell of fermented, unidentified liquids.

Within this logistics center, there was a freight exit labeled C3, known by scavengers as the "Rat Hole." It was a safe passage specifically for scavengers.

Lin Fan stood at the end of the line, wearing a cheap camouflage uniform he had scavenged from a general store. He carried a half-empty canvas bag on his back and held a woven plastic bag in his hand.

He didn't look like a scavenger preparing to head into the wilderness at all.

On the index finger of his left hand, he had wrapped a circle of white bandage.

Beneath that bandage was the space ring that could buy countless Earths.

Lin Fan touched the bandage, feeling a sense of melancholy.

The ring was simply too conspicuous. Although others didn't know it was a space ring, its appearance alone made it clear it wasn't a cheap item.

So, for his own safety, Lin Fan had no choice but to wrap it in a bandage to hide it.

"Hey, you student kid! What are you spacing out for!"

A rough roar interrupted Lin Fan's thoughts.

A modified heavy truck, welded with steel plates and looking like it had been pieced together from a scrapyard, pulled up in front of him.

The truck's body was covered in dark red rust—or perhaps it was just dried blood that hadn't been washed off.

The man shouting at Lin Fan was a fat guy with a face full of jowls, holding a steel pipe and banging it against the iron side of the truck like he was herding pigs.

"Anyone going to Outpost 023, get on! 200 per person! You're on your own if you die! No insurance! Don't come looking for me in my dreams if you kick the bucket!"

Hearing this, Lin Fan didn't hesitate to pay the fare, then slithered into the truck bed like a loach.

The truck bed was already packed with people.

The smell of sweat, foot odor, cheap tobacco, and someone's leek dumplings mixed into a toxic gas that would make a chemical weapons expert frown.

Lin Fan rolled his eyes from the stench, but he endured the discomfort, huddled into the innermost corner of the truck bed, and hugged his canvas bag tightly.

Surrounding him were hardened veterans with fierce eyes and callous faces.

They looked at Lin Fan, this fresh face with delicate skin, as if they were looking at a lamb that had wandered into a wolf pack.

"Heh, these days, students don't study properly and come to steal our rice bowls too?"

A burly man next to him, missing two front teeth, sneered and bumped into Lin Fan with malicious intent.

"Kid, have you even grown your hair out yet? Do you know how to write the word 'death'?"

Lin Fan kept his head down and said nothing.

He silently reached into his canvas bag and gripped the rusty fruit knife he had bought at a two-dollar store, specifically prepared to keep up appearances.

As for Calamity and Sky Splitter, they were lying quietly inside the space ring. With a single thought, he could pull them out.

But until he encountered real danger, Lin Fan didn't intend to take them out.

Firstly, they were too heavy to carry, and secondly, they were too flashy.

If he were targeted, he wasn't sure he had the strength to defend them.

"Hello, brothers, I'm just here to scavenge some trash to make a living."

Lin Fan looked up, revealing a fawning smile full of "innocent stupidity."

"Tch, coward."

The burly man curled his lip and lost interest.

"Rumble—"

The broken truck started up, and with a truckload of desperadoes—and Lin Fan, the "pauper" carrying a fortune—it plunged into the wilderness, a place filled with both death and opportunity.

At this moment, Lin Fan's phone vibrated.

He opened it to check.

[Your account ending in 3308 is overdue by 6,700 yuan. Please repay it promptly.]

Lin Fan closed his eyes, a tear of poverty tracing the corner of his eye.