Fishing

The scholar was ready to continue, but Su Ming yawned and said, "Can we talk more after I wake up? I really can't stay awake any longer."

"...Good night, Su Ming."

"Good night, Miss Zijin."

Su Ming quickly settled down, and before long his breathing grew steady.

Zijin sat in bed for a while. She calmed her excitement and had a skeleton servant bring her handwritten notebook.

She opened it to a page plainly marked as her last words, but she had only managed to write that Su Ming should seek out Shattered Light Sword Saint Atiya after her death. If he was at sea, he could look for Xiwo Leize.

She erased those words and began writing anew:

October 21, year 272 of the Stellar Calendar. Thanks to the efforts of Su Ming, a visitor from another world, and the miraculous technology of Earth, I survived.

Great Oghma, god of knowledge, and Fharlanghn, god of roads and travel, I'll never curse you behind your backs again.

By the time Su Ming woke, it was already evening, and Zijin had long since fallen asleep again. He gave her an injection of gamma globulin as the doctor had instructed.

Su Ming was hungry, but he couldn't bear to eat the three remaining sausages. They really didn't have much food left. He mixed two packets of powdered fruit drink with water and drank them. Then, amid a hunger unlike any he had ever known, he began pondering the most important thing in life-eating.

Come to think of it, he had faced one crisis after another ever since he crossed over. The food crisis was actually the mildest one so far.

At least the Zhiyuan had plenty of water. They had collected a lot of fresh water during the torrential rain the day before yesterday. And they were out at sea now, which looked like a fallback food source no matter how he thought about it.

As for transferring food, that was pointless. Simplest Form: Summoning of All Things required materials to combine-if he wanted to get food, he needed food first. It was a vicious cycle!

Su Ming walked onto the Zhiyuan's deck. The night sky in this other world was exceptionally clear, and the bright moonlight was dreamlike. He went to the railing and looked out at the sea rippling gently in the night breeze, thinking about how to get food out of those dark depths.

Fishing?

This world had no fishing enthusiasts, but Earth had plenty, and fishing gear and techniques had been developed to an impressive level. If he summoned a set of gear from Earth, he could surely give this world's sea fish an unforgettable beating with that technological advantage.

But Little Spiky Head was in the mountains and forests right now, more than a hundred kilometers from the nearest city. There were only a few small mountain villages nearby, and the only convenience store sold just one flavor of instant noodles.

Besides, Little Spiky Head was indeed highly mobile in the fused state, but Miao Xin, who served as the battery, used up a great deal of psionic energy and needed time to recover.

In short, that incredibly tempting cheat was unavailable for the time being. He had also checked Zijin's library and found spells for catching fish, but they all belonged to other elemental schools. Fishing was a blind spot for necromancers.

Su Ming found himself at a loss. He thought it over from every angle but couldn't come up with a solution.

Going hungry for a bit wouldn't kill him, so he might as well wait until tomorrow morning and see how much Zijin had recovered. That was what he thought, though he did rather want to show off by serving the girl a plate of fragrant, sizzling fried fish when she opened her eyes in the morning-no, thinking about it any more would only make him hungrier! He hurried toward the cabin, deciding to go to sleep.

A large fish leaped out of the sea in the moonlight, landing with a splash. Then it swished its tail and vanished beneath the water.

Was it taunting me? Su Ming stopped.

An angler never goes home empty-handed!

Zijin woke to an aroma.

She opened her eyes. Her body felt much lighter, and the faint scent of fish in her nose carried the homely smell of cooking she had missed for so long.

The girl sat up and saw Su Ming cheerfully humming a song as he fried pieces of fish on an iron griddle set over a wood-burning stove. He had made a chimney to vent the smoke through the top.

"Good morning, Miss Zijin!" Su Ming tasted the fish. It was cooked. He took out a clean bone plate and served the pieces, fried golden brown on both sides.

"Good morning." Zijin moved her body a little. "Please just call me by my name."

"All right, miss. You can get out of bed if you want," Su Ming told her. "The doctor said you're doing pretty well now, but you still need to be careful. Oh, and I took some seasonings from your storeroom."

In fact, he had taken far more than a little seasoning. He had searched through everything the day before yesterday for materials to summon medicine. For example, he had used up almost all the liquor she had hidden away most carefully-how else could he have transferred so much medical alcohol?

But he could tell her about such a small matter later.

Zijin took a moment to adjust, then began getting out of bed.

Su Ming brought over a pair of slippers and placed them by her feet. "Put these on."

The girl had only one set of clothes, and only one pair of shoes. Her clothes had been hung out to dry after she got caught in the rain the day before yesterday, but Su Ming had overlooked her shoes, and now they were completely unwearable.

"You can use my washroom," Su Ming said. "There's a new towel and toothbrush in there. They're the kind we use back home, but they're not much different to use. I also put a set of loungewear on the shelf, so you can change out of your clothes."

Zijin caught a whiff of the sweat on herself and decided to do as Su Ming suggested. She got up and took a few steps, feeling a little dizzy but still able to walk.

"It's been so long since I was human that I forgot to prepare anything," she told Su Ming. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Su Ming said. "Oh, and you can only wipe yourself down with warm water. No baths-that's what the doctor said."

It took the girl a while to come out. She had changed into a set of red cotton pajamas with a tiny floral print, an utterly authentic northeastern Chinese country style.

"The clothes are beautiful," Zijin said. She walked over to the table, where a plate of fried fish and a cup of warm fruit drink were waiting.

Su Ming badly wanted to make a snarky comment, but he held back. When it came down to it, the heavens had already smiled on them for Miao Xin to find something like that in a ten-square-meter mountain village store.

Zijin sat down and began to eat.

"Twenty-seven years." Her voice was full of emotion. "It really has been so long since I last held a plate and ate a proper breakfast like this."

Su Ming took a freshly fried plate of fish and sat down opposite Zijin, spearing pieces with a fork and eating. It tasted a little fishy, but it was good enough. He felt he ought to fry another plate.

He suddenly caught the scent of body wash. "I said no baths," Su Ming said.

"Sorry. When I saw that bath fragrance of yours, I really wanted to try it," Zijin explained. Su Ming had been riding in a truck with his luggage when he crossed over, so his clothes and everyday supplies had come with him.

Su Ming thought for a moment and suddenly realized something was off. How had Zijin known that oddly shaped pump bottle contained body wash? She hadn't even asked how to use it.

A guess suddenly occurred to him. "Zijin, don't tell me you've watched me bathe?"

"Of course. I have Omniscient Vision. I can see everything that happens inside the White Bone Fortress," Zijin replied as though it were only natural.

Su Ming sprang to his feet. "Wait, couldn't you have looked away?" he demanded of the girl angrily. "Your world has a concept of privacy, doesn't it?!"