Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Intent on filling the red bar, and seeing its progress rising, Bai Fuling happily continued spamming the attack button with his wooden stick, curious to see what would ultimately happen.

A string of ellipses popped up above the Dark-circle Pixel Character's head. After blocking a few times and pushing him away, repeated several times, the character finally seemed to lose his patience and retaliated—though seemingly not with full force, as the health bar dropped very little.

Although the Dark-circle NPC made his reluctance very clear, Bai Fuling, seeing the red bar above its head still increasing, didn't stop.

Whether the NPC was enjoying it or not, the player certainly was.

Bai Fuling chuckled without any moral burden.

But as the interaction continued, and it looked like the other party was going for his knife, Bai Fuling was greatly startled and decisively opted for a heavy attack with the wooden stick, attempting to trigger a stun.

Trading blows back and forth was fine, but pulling out a weapon was a different story! After all, the player currently had no protective gear equipped and had run out of healing items. A real fight risked getting him killed.

The wooden stick had a built-in passive stun skill; a heavy blow had a 5% chance to trigger it. Earlier, the red-named NPC lying on the ground had been knocked down by this stun effect.

Now, the Dark-circle Pixel Character before him, after consecutive heavy blows, also as hoped triggered the stun effect, toppling over.

Seeing the Dark-circle NPC fall, Bai Fuling let out a sigh of relief and withdrew his wooden stick.

After this round of 'farming,' the red bar above the NPC's head was now half full. Generally speaking, once a stat is high enough, you get a response from the NPC.

Whatever that red bar specifically represents, raising it high enough should trigger something new, right?

Next time they meet, giving him another beating should almost fill the red bar. Then we'll see what happens. Bai Fuling nodded in satisfaction. This is exactly the kind of exploratory spirit players have! Thinking about it, he felt a little excited.

He controlled his character to crouch down, reached out, and with familiarity born of repetition, began searching Liao Zhiqiu's body—after all, they had just fought, so of course he had to test if this NPC could drop loot.

He hadn't seen anything drop from the beating just now, but as a player, he couldn't let all that effort go to waste.

Passing by, grab a handful, perfect!

Bai Fuling first searched the upper body. A prompt appeared before his eyes:

Obtained [Grain Bird Feed ×2]

Bird feed? This item didn't seem very useful... But since it specifically emphasized "grain," maybe it was plantable.

So Bai Fuling decisively stuffed it into his backpack, planning to try planting it later.

Then he continued searching. After finishing with the upper body, he moved to the pants—*Slap!*—his hand was suddenly grabbed.

It was a bit difficult to discern small movements on the pixel character, but here there was a brief flash of a CG image.

The Dark-circle NPC lying on the ground suddenly stirred. He half-opened his eyes, grabbed Bai Fuling's wrist, his blood-stained hand tightening around the equally blood-stained wrist.

"..." The Dark-circle NPC's dialogue box showed a tangled mess of lines, as if he hadn't fully recovered from the stun effect of the heavy blow. Yet he still held on tightly, stopping Bai Fuling's next move.

By this time, Bai Fuling had already touched the knife sheathed at the other's waist. The item information prompt had already popped up on the screen.

[Dagger: A sharp dagger of unknown origin, seemingly with some story behind it. Are you sure you want to take it?]

From the earlier fight where the Dark-circle NPC took on those three red-named NPCs, it was clear the dagger was a good item, dealing much more damage than the wooden stick. So of course he wanted it.

Bai Fuling thought that a player never passes up good loot. He used the "Unstick" function to free himself from Liao Zhiqiu's tight grip, then reached out his arm again—but the NPC once more grabbed his wrist.

...Not allowed to take it?

The NPC is already down, yet still won't let you take an item? How can this be?

Bai Fuling was stunned for a moment, his gaze gradually sharpening.

If an NPC won't let you take something, do you take it? Take it! Even if it kills you, take it!

What if you accidentally get caught? Hah, no problem. The levels are different; the NPC can't possibly kill the player. If killed, just reload a save!

The more he wasn't allowed to take it, the more Bai Fuling wanted to try and glitch his way to obtaining it.

When you spot new gear, you go for it no matter what—you just can't let it go!

He clicked "Unstick" again, pulling his arm free from the other's tight grasp.

This time, however, Bai Fuling didn't rush to reach out again. Instead, he first picked up the rose-adorned bird's nest he had discarded earlier.

Generally, you can only hold one item at a time. Bai Fuling thought seriously. So before the fight started, the Dark-circle NPC gave him the bird's nest, switching his held item to the dagger.

Therefore, now, as long as he forcibly gives the other a held item, the Dark-circle NPC won't be able to stop him!

Thinking this, Bai Fuling prepared himself and, like a snake, reached out towards Liao Zhiqiu's waist.

The moment the Dark-circle NPC moved to grab him, he shoved the rose-and-dry-grass bird's nest forward—taking advantage of Liao Zhiqiu's momentary lack of reaction, he used his lightning-fast hand speed to snatch the dagger and stash it in his backpack, then retreated and stood up.

The Dark-circle Pixel Character on the ground, holding the bird's nest, had a "?" pop up above its head, which then turned into a tangled mess of black lines, and finally a string of "......".

Thinking? Is it thinking about the item the player shoved into its hands? Admittedly, that rose stuck in the bird's nest looked quite nice.

So this person who refused to accept the rose earlier, now that it's shoved at him, isn't rejecting it and is even thinking in ellipses... he actually likes it, doesn't he? Just a tsundere who won't admit it!

Bai Fuling came to a new conclusion: Oh, so [Liao Zhiqiu] has this kind of character setting!

—In that case, before leaving, he might as well boost the favorability a bit. Logically, no matter what, a flower gift shouldn't lower favorability!

Bai Fuling took out the last remaining rose from his backpack that he hadn't given earlier. While the other was still under the semi-stun debuff, he tossed the flower to him.

Then he turned and left without looking back.

Bai Fuling: All the loot that could be grabbed has been grabbed. Time to head to the next location!

"..." Leaning against the wall, Liao Zhiqiu gasped softly. The dizziness from the blow to his head finally subsided a bit after a brief rest, though what he saw were still scattered patches of color.

He held the dry-grass bird's nest in his hand. The sprightly black-haired youth had thrown something down beside him.

Liao Zhiqiu frowned, released his grip on the bird's nest, and grabbed the blurry object the other had just thrown down.

The first sensation transmitted to his cerebral cortex was a stinging pain. Then, he looked down and saw a spreading stain of blood in his palm.

His vision gradually cleared. He saw—the red wasn't just blood.

It was a flower. A beautiful, thorny red rose, no different from the one before.

...

The soiled map obtained from looting the earlier red-named enemies filled in some of the blank parts shown on the upper-left initial map.

Now, Bai Fuling's map not only had Pelland Academy but also other basic landmark buildings.

White Poria glanced at the map and decided to head to the trade market first to purchase starter supplies—since he had chosen to pursue the farming build, he needed to prepare the necessary agricultural tools.

But before that, he had to deal with the bloodstains on his clothes. Otherwise, walking around with so many NPCs on the streets would definitely trigger his passive skill.

He opened his character status screen.

After consuming the green grass and bird eggs, his health had recovered by half, and the debuffs for severe injury, blood loss, and fracture had all disappeared.

However, the clothing section still read: [Bloodstained Raincoat (Passive Skill: Chance to Trigger Alarm/Hospitalization)]

There didn’t seem to be a one-click cleaning option, and there was no place nearby to wash it… What a shame. He actually thought the raincoat with its irregular red accents looked quite nice. For now, he could only take it off.

White Poria removed the raincoat and stored it in his backpack. Underneath, he was wearing the default white T-shirt.

Although the white short-sleeved shirt was also stained with blood, default clothing could be refreshed. After refreshing, it would be as clean and new as ever—the ultimate money-saving trick.

After refreshing his clothes, he followed the map’s directions and prepared to take the bus to the trade market.

No bus was parked at the stop, only a few pixel characters (NPCs) standing around.

“Strange, why isn’t there a bus?” White Poria muttered.

In theory, a bus should always be waiting at the station in the game, ready to depart once the player boards.

White Poria first walked over to the nearby bus stop sign and clicked on it to view the bus schedule and operating hours. It showed that the bus was currently in service.

So it wasn’t a timing issue—there must be some missing interaction.

White Poria circled the bus stop sign several times, touching and tapping everywhere, jumping up and down, and even crouching to search, but he couldn’t find any prompt for a [Depart] button.

Noticing White Poria’s restless movements, the few people at the bus stop turned to look at him, each with a question mark popping up above their heads.

So White Poria walked over to the pixel character NPCs, trying to trigger a dialogue interaction.

The NPCs stared back at him, wide-eyed. Silence, silence.

White Poria: “Say something.”

NPC: “…Huh?”

White Poria: “I didn’t tell you to say ‘huh.’”

NPC: “…Huh?”

It seemed this NPC wasn’t very intelligent and wasn’t a special interactive NPC. White Poria gave up on the dialogue and decided to test whether the NPCs’ positions held any special significance.

He pushed aside the NPC closest to him and stood in that NPC’s original spot.

“…Hey, hey, why are you pushing me?” the NPC blurted out in confusion.

White Poria turned a deaf ear.

After waiting a few seconds without seeing any prompts, he walked over to the next NPC’s spot and repeated the same action.

The second NPC, who had been shoved aside, shouted, “Hey! What are you doing?!”

White Poria blandly ignored him.

When no prompts appeared, he turned and headed toward the remaining two NPCs.

The bespectacled young man NPC in a light blue shirt adjusted his glasses and voluntarily stepped aside before White Poria could approach.

The elderly NPC spoke up: “Young man, instead of waiting properly for the bus, what in tarnation are you doing?”

Finally hearing a dialogue related to the bus, White Poria stopped. He thought for a moment and then had a sudden realization: [Waiting properly for the bus] was a hint!

No wonder these people weren’t standing in an orderly line—this was the quest. What he needed to do was line up these NPCs, and then the bus would arrive!

Convinced he had solved the puzzle, White Poria confidently pulled the NPC closest to him over to the front of the bus stop sign. Then he reached out to pull the other NPCs, placing them behind the first one.

These NPCs were quite uncooperative, constantly moving around and spouting very robotic lines like “What are you doing?” and “Why are you pulling me?”

But White Poria remained patient. He knew the reason: it must be because he hadn’t arranged them in the correct order, which was why they kept moving around.

As everyone knows, in sorting puzzles, if the order is wrong, the pieces won’t fit properly!

So White Poria persistently pulled the moving NPCs back, trying various positions and orientations in an attempt to fit them in correctly.

Until he noticed one NPC walking farther and farther away, seemingly about to leave the bus stop area.

What was going on? Had too many incorrect attempts caused a bug? White Poria was shocked. How could an NPC leave the task area!

What if an NPC bugs out and grows legs and runs off? Of course, you catch them!

The key item for calling the bus couldn’t be missing!!

Author’s Note:

From others’ perspective: A weirdo appeared at the bus stop, manhandling people this way and that. They tried to run away but couldn’t escape—talk about despair!