Chapter 2: TGCIR

Keeping the little person in the game in mind, Shen Cheng hurriedly returned home and had a few bites of rice before opening the game again.

It had been over an hour since she last played and the main mission 1 had been completed, and the order to build the Noah Base had been issued, changing the scene in the game.

As the sky gradually darkened, the little person sat by a bonfire, silently placing something into the fire.

Wait, where was this now? What was the little person doing?

Shen Cheng remembered just before she closed the game, she had given the little person a 24-hour newbie protection shield. She checked her inventory and saw that the remaining time had decreased even when she wasn’t in the game. It was now less than 23 hours.

So during the time she was away, the little person had left the Yellow Sand area and entered a forested area where he had chopped branches and started a fire?

Wow, that’s impressive!

As Shen Cheng admired the little person’s efficiency, she noticed his right hand still hung limply and seemed to be untreated. She couldn’t help but purse her lips and feel a little worried. Even if the little person was just a game character, shouldn’t the game developers have given him proper care? He was even a disabled person, shouldn’t they have made sure he fixed his hand and secured his broken bones before starting a fire and roasting food? Was the AI’s priority not set right?

Shen Cheng lightly poked the little person’s face, pouting slightly.

Li Weilan felt a faint breeze brush past his cheek and instinctively reached out with his good left hand to scratch his face. He felt a hint of confusion in his eyes: with the perception of an ability user, he shouldn’t have just felt the sensation of being watched as a mere illusion.

Who could it be?

Could it be the person who took him off the shelf and gave him a protective cover before?

A flash of seriousness flickered in Li Weilan’s eyes: being secretly observed without knowing who the person is made him extremely uneasy. This won’t do, he must find this person out.

Lighting the fire, roasting meat, all for this purpose.

At this moment, the roasted wolf meat on the shelf was already cooked, sprinkled with a small amount of seasoning. The mutant wolf meat was fragrant, with a crispy surface and tender interior, a rare delicacy of this era.

Li Weilan reached out to take the wolf meat off the shelf. The slightly yellowed surface was dripping with timely drops of grease, making people’s mouths water.

In the face of this rare delicacy, Li Weilan’s eyes were calm like still water, and a faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. But this rare smile froze when the person secretly observing him rushed at him with a knife.

Although she couldn’t smell the fragrance of the roasted meat outside the screen, Shen Cheng felt as if everything she had just eaten had turned into stones. Her stomach was uncomfortable, and she felt hungry just by looking at the roasted meat in the little person’s hand. Her food is not even as good as that her game character. She could only afford to eat those 10-20 yuan takeouts every day, barely filling her stomach without feeling hungry. She kept eating until she felt nauseous at the smell of the takeout, and her life was still worse than that of the pitiful little person just now.

However, soon, Shen Cheng frowned: she could vaguely hear the rustling sound in her earphones, as if something was lurking at the edge of the darkness where the campfire couldn’t reach, watching the little person roasting quietly.

The next second, perhaps unable to resist the fragrance of the roasted meat, the tracker in the dark suddenly appeared in front of the little person.

It was a ragged man.

He held a dagger in his hand and was followed by a skinny and small girl. Both of them were thin and dirty, hunching over with their spines, looking like two grey mice hiding and sneaking around.

[Main Quest 2: Recruit companions to embark together. Current progress 0/2, Quest Reward: Open System Space]

There were only two people in front of him, could they really be considered companions?

But how could she recruit these two people?

The little figure on the screen stared at them, and suddenly a speech bubble appeared above his head. He sighed lightly and his face drooped slightly, as if he sympathized with the plight of these two people.

Li Weilan was undoubtedly disappointed.

He had thought that the person who was secretly watching him would show up to meet him. After all, no matter why the person helped him, he must have some demands on him. Since this person had made an investment, he must show up and meet him. He had thought of using his cooking skills to attract that person. However, what appeared in front of him were just two vagabonds. Maybe he had misunderstood the other person’s intentions.

However, perhaps his sigh gave the two people in front of him the wrong message. The man suddenly knelt down towards him, the dagger falling with a clang, and he reached out to pull the girl behind him, begging loudly, “My sister and I haven’t eaten mutant beast meat for too long, she’s dying, please, give her a bite to eat, I’ll do anything!”

Li Weilan’s calm and emotionless gaze fell on the girl.

Immediately, a flash of surprise appeared in his eyes.

Although this girl was covered in dirt and her eyes were dull and lifeless, she couldn’t hide the fact that she had the potential to be a beauty.

Even at this point, if the man was willing to sell his sister, he could still get a few meals in exchange even in this era where nothing was more precious than food. The girl watched him swallow the grilled meat incessantly. If you looked closely, the man was even thinner and weaker than his sister. His sister was covered in dirt, but he was clean. Was he a water ability user? Ability users needed to eat some mutant animal meat from time to time. This thing was as important to them as salt. If they couldn’t eat it for a long time, their abilities would go berserk. However, hunting mutant animals alone was like getting burnt by fire, and the danger was extremely high. This man and his sister must be wanderers.

A water ability user had fallen to such a state…

Li Weilan’s brow twitched slightly.

But what did this have to do with him!

Since he didn’t lead out the person who helped him, he would not give away the wolf meat!

However, just at this moment, the other string of wolf meat that had been slightly burnt on the fire suddenly flew up and fell in front of the man, motionless.

But the man didn’t rush to eat it. Instead, he knelt down and loudly said to Li Weilan, “Thank you for saving our lives. My name is Xi Nan, and this is my sister, Xi Bei. I am a water ability user. I’ll be responsible for providing drinking water and bathing water for you in the future.”

The man was overjoyed and knocked his head three times at Li Weilan before taking off the meat strips on the skewer and feeding them to his sister behind him. The girl gobbled down most of the meat chunks and then held the remaining small pieces in her dirty hands and handed them to her brother’s mouth.

Li Weilan was dumbfounded. He rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache coming on.

Suddenly, he felt someone tapping on his back, and then something else poking at him. In that instant, Li Weilan almost jumped up. His intuition was right! The person who had saved him was nearby!

He looked around but couldn’t find anyone.

However, he understood the message from the person hidden in the shadows, and he frowned with forbearance. He said to the man in front of him, “No need to do that. It’s just a small effort. Please get up.”

Shen Cheng watched the classic scene of “the male lead takes in a little brother” and saw Xi Nan, who raised his head to reveal his handsome features, and the little person in front of him who washed off the yellow sand, with the same firm expression, couldn’t help but show a sweet auntie smile.

There was just one small regret. She knew Xie Nan’s name, but she didn’t know the protagonist’s name.

While Shen Cheng was pondering this small question, the little person on the screen had already reached out and helped Xie Nan up.

“I am Li Weilan,” the little person said, revealing his name.

Li Weilan.

Shen Cheng chewed on the name and repeated it twice, and a sweet smile appeared on her face. It sounded quite nice. It seemed that there was no need to continue criticizing the careless game planner.

After the three of them exchanged names, the second task finally showed up as “completed” on the screen.

Translated on ho lo lo novels dot com.

On the screen, Li Weilan, Xie Nan, and Xie Bei sat together eating barbecue, and the atmosphere was quiet and warm. Shen Cheng tapped her phone screen, and a line of small characters appeared at the right time:

“[Main Quest 2 Completed. Enter System Space? Y/N]”

Space eh!

This should be the simulated management mentioned in the game, right?

Excitedly, Shen Cheng immediately clicked “yes”, and in the next second, the game screen changed.

“…” Looking at the empty yellow soil and the decapitated wolf head on the ground, Shen Cheng swallowed a mouthful of saliva and felt her hands and feet stiff even through the screen.

Okay, it seems that there’s no need to worry about where the mutant beast meat of the cub came from anymore, it was cut off from this giant wolf.

Cub, you didn’t even bother to clean up after killing this mutant wolf, leaving blood stains all over the ground. Mom doesn’t know where to start cleaning up.

Shen Cheng didn’t realize that she had unconsciously adopted her mom’s mentality, and started cleaning up the messy system space. Fortunately, the game’s cleaning operations are quite simple. Shen Cheng gently clicked on the mutant beast’s corpse, and the system prompted her to cut the meat into pieces and hang it up.

After processing the wolf meat, Shen Cheng also tanned the remaining wolf skin according to the system requirements. When the whole space was finally clean and tidy, Shen Cheng looked at the time and realized it was already past 12 o’clock!

She didn’t feel like she had played enough yet!

Shen Cheng knew that if she didn’t rest now, she would definitely oversleep tomorrow. With a reluctant heart, she took one last look at the space and the empty ground on the screen, said “good night” to the little person on the screen, and went to bed.

Li Weilan sat by the campfire, keeping watch.

Xi Bei had already fallen asleep.

Xi Nan quietly walked up to him and whispered, “Boss, where are we going now?”

“We’re going to Noah,” Li Weilan replied softly.

“Noah?” Xi Nan’s eyes flickered with doubt. He sat down and looked at the exquisitely carved and even somewhat steampunk-ish Noah base token in Li Weilan’s hand. He shook his head in confusion, “I haven’t heard of this base.” According to the level of technology shown on this token, Noah shouldn’t be a small base. But as a wandering scavenger, he had never heard of the name Noah Base, which was really strange.

Li Weilan lowered his eyelids and didn’t speak.

“Boss, this…” Xi Nan hesitated, his gaze falling on Li Weilan’s broken arm. “According to the map, it will take at least two days to get there, and this journey may not be safe. Boss, do you think we should heal our wounds first before we hit the road?”

“There’s no need to worry,” Li Weilan’s voice was calm, with a hint of mystery in the evening breeze. “Someone is watching over us.”

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Greetings from the translator

What do you guys think of the novel so far, I know it’s only been chapter 2? I really liked the novel I raised a sick and weak prince on NU. Although, its ending was quite abrupt and could have been better, I enjoyed the journey overall.