Chapter 40

Chapter 40

Bai Fuling stood bolt upright in the middle of the road, with a backdrop of lingering smoke and crimson flames. He had one hand on his hip and the other holding a hamburger high, like a smug little cat.

His health bar was currently at a middling level. After the explosion, he had quickly eaten those hamburgers to restore half of his health, and there were no bleeding debuffs.

The damage from jumping from a high building and from an explosion was similar—both caused his health bar to plummet to the bottom in an instant, but there was always a sliver left.

Bai Fuling thought that the game system probably had some kind of protection mechanism. No matter how severe the damage, it would always leave a tiny bit, giving the player a brief reaction time to heal.

That was really player-friendly. Players wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally triggering some trap while walking around and suddenly dying, forcing a reload.

Come to think of it, if this mechanism worked like that... couldn’t players survive a missile hit with their body? Bai Fuling pondered. After all, there would always be a sliver of health left.

That was just too cool! Instantly, more gameplay ideas sprouted like bamboo shoots after rain in Bai Fuling’s mind.

Of course, Bai Fuling also understood that this didn’t mean he could recklessly do any dangerous things in the game. In a short period, this safety net mechanism would probably only work once. He couldn’t push his luck endlessly.

In any case, stocking up on healing food was the most important strategic resource.

These thoughts flashed through his mind quickly, and Bai Fuling soon refocused on the present. He swiveled his view, taking in the surroundings.

He saw NPCs standing frozen in place, with exclamation marks popping up above their heads like fluctuating radio signals.

"You... how are you completely unharmed!?!" Finally, someone spoke up, yelling in disbelief. "That’s impossible!!"

Seeing the dialogue box pop up from the passerby, Bai Fuling was a little annoyed. "What do you mean, wishing I was hurt?"

To run into such an evil NPC on the road!

If this continued, the player would have to mete out justice and loot the NPC's entire inventory.

"No, no, it’s not that, it’s just you—" The person quickly shook their head, indicating they meant no harm. But they opened their mouth, unable to articulate a sentence that better expressed their thoughts.

Of course, they didn’t wish harm upon the brave rescuer; they had been praying for a miracle just moments ago.

But for the other party to be completely unscathed was just too exaggerated! So exaggerated that the desire to snark overwhelmed all other thoughts.

"Oh, I get it." Bai Fuling observed the hesitant NPC for a few seconds, then his face lit up with understanding.

He took two steps forward, full of anticipation. "Do you want to buy my Flaming Burger? Don’t worry, it’s not expensive, not a scam. Not 9998, not 998, just 98 to take it home!"

He held high the freshly "baked" Flaming Burger in his hand, trying to promote it to everyone around him to fill his wallet.

"Pure black, pure charcoal burger, original natural flavor, freshly exploded and ready!"

Bai Fuling confidently spouted his lines, swearing that not a single word of his advertisement was false.

The passersby in front of him were stunned by the burger being thrust before them. Everyone stared at the black lump, lapsing into an eerie silence.

...Hold on, if the burger was burnt to a crisp like that, why was the person completely fine?

Could it be that the explosion only precisely targeted this burger, perfectly avoiding the person? Decades of scientific understanding were being ground into the dirt!

Seeing that the kid was fine, Guan Jizhong, lying on the stretcher, slowly settled back down. Noticing the stiffness of the people around him, he spoke up. "No need to be so shocked." He paused, then said, "—Because, he is an angel."

The surrounding people: ?

Guan Jizhong thought: Saving people from fire and flood, unharmed by an explosion—only [not being human] could explain everything before his eyes... Plus the Angel Halo, alright, so Fresh Cabbage really was an angel!

Childhood memories gradually resurfaced, and old memories flashed before Guan Jizhong’s eyes like slides.

He remembered the first snow of winter when he was little.

The house was cold. His young sister, wrapped in a blanket, held a pencil and clumsily drew one winged spirit after another in her notebook.

Back then, his sister looked up with a smile, dimples in her cheeks. She pointed at the drawings in the notebook. "Brother, look, I drew a guardian angel for you! I’m going to draw lots of them, so brother won’t be in danger anymore."

Even now, he could still remember his sister’s voice.

If angels really existed in the world, it was as if his sister’s blessings were still by his side.

Guan Jizhong’s heart slowly softened, and the folds of his cerebral cortex relaxed bit by bit, becoming smooth.

Once he decided Bai Fuling was an angel, he suddenly felt at ease with Bai Fuling’s previous strange behaviors.

It was normal for angels and humans to behave differently.

Climbing up and down, jumping around was due to not being accustomed to the gravity environment on Earth.

Eating raw river fish wasn’t about eating the fish; it was actually about connecting with nature.

While Guan Jizhong calmly accepted this, the people around him did not.

—What do you mean, ‘he is an angel’?

How could such a thing exist in the world? Wait, don’t just accept it so credulously!!

The passersby were still bewildered, while Bai Fuling had already started promoting his Flaming Burger. He controlled his character to walk past the surrounding NPCs, clicking to interact, trying to find a sucker (just kidding) who would take this burger off his hands.

Unfortunately, the surrounding NPCs seemed to be loading. When poked, they only produced exclamation marks and colons above their heads.

Only the young girl he had first rescued grabbed his hand, looked up, and a dialogue box popped up: "...Are you really an angel? An angel who can save everything?"

"Hmm..." Bai Fuling hesitated about whether to respond.

There was no prompt for corruption value on the screen, but who knew if the game system would silently judge something?

Actually, whether the player was an angel or a beagle was hard to say. In the end, it all depended on the quests issued.

The young girl tightly held Bai Fuling’s hand, as if clutching a lifeline. She asked softly, "Can I... entrust you with something?"

New plot! Bai Fuling caught the prompt. He decisively and confidently replied, "Yes, I am the angel Fresh Cabbage."

"I just passed Heaven’s civil service exam a week ago and got a slot for an assignment to the human world. What help do you need?"

That’s how players were—quick with words, adaptable.

The young girl held Bai Fuling’s hand. She originally wanted to say something, but the main driver who had been with her groaned and regained consciousness beside her, so she swallowed her words. She quickly whispered, "I’ll find you again, Angel."

Then she took the black burger from Bai Fuling’s hand, thrust something along with money into his hand, and said loudly, "I’ll buy this."

The person beside her slowly woke up. He squinted, hearing the commotion around him, turned his head, and coughed. "...What... what happened?"

"Father." The young girl leaned over. "It’s alright now. We’ve been rescued. The doctors are about to take us to the hospital."

"Wh-what." The man muttered, seeming not very lucid. "What are you holding?"

"This is a Lucky Burger, Father. Have some to regain your strength." The young girl decisively stuffed the Flaming Burger into his mouth.

The steel burger, reeking of gasoline and char, was crammed straight into his mouth. The man couldn't catch his breath, his eyes rolled back, and he blacked out again.

The girl threw herself beside him, tears streaming down her face. "Dad! Daddy, what's wrong? Somebody get a doctor! We need to get to the hospital right away!"

As she cried out, the attention of everyone around and the doctors shifted to her.

Bai Fuling leaned to the side, looking down at what the girl had slipped into his hand.

The player had received a sizable sum of money—now holding 500 bucks, he was quite pleased.

Under the money was a crystal pendant.

"Crystal Pendant: A man-made crystal polished into a teardrop shape, looking somewhat worn (it's not worth much)."

This must be a new quest item. Why even mention it's worthless? Afraid the player might skip the quest and sell it off?

Bai Fuling wasn't that hard up for cash—if everything could be sold, the player's first instinct would be to loot the school. Like the flowers and trees on campus, the desks and chairs in classrooms, or even the computers in the office.

...Huh, maybe that's not such a bad idea? The player had just unlocked a new line of thinking!

Not far away, the wailing sirens of fire trucks and police cars finally pierced through the congested traffic, finally arriving.

As everyone's attention turned to the arriving rescue teams, Bai Fuling took the chance to slip out of the crowd, planning to continue driving to the library.

But as he elbowed his way through, he realized the crowd was way too packed. There was no way to drive in these conditions; he'd still be stuck here.

Bai Fuling frowned, recalling the other modes of transportation he'd tried before.

Once, he'd maxed out all his stats and zipped around at high speed in a wheelchair.

No wheelchair was available at the scene.

However—Bai Fuling's gaze fell on a discarded stretcher beside the ambulance.

It seemed to have been damaged earlier, so it was set aside. The doctors had switched Guan Jizhong to a new stretcher.

Bai Fuling walked over, picked up the broken stretcher, and yanked out one of its long aluminum bars.

"Hey, don't touch that—oh, it's you?" A paramedic turned to stop him, but upon seeing the miracle survivor from the explosion, he couldn't help but stare a little longer.

That face was clear-skinned and handsome, with big, round eyes... and not a single scratch on him!

"Do you... need any help?" the paramedic asked politely, his eyes drifting again to the halo above Bai Fuling's head.

An angel? Really? Is that for real?

"Oh, I just need to borrow this," Bai Fuling said, gripping the aluminum bar. "For transportation."

Transportation? How is a metal bar going to help with transportation??

The paramedic looked utterly confused.

Bai Fuling paid no mind to the NPC's reaction. Holding the bar with both hands, he raised it overhead and began spinning it at high speed!

A "whoosh-whoosh" sound filled the air as Bai Fuling maxed out his stats again, spinning the bar so fast it became a blur, matching the rotational speed of helicopter blades!

—On the screen, the character's feet left the ground, then slowly began to rise.

The player was actually hovering in mid-air!!

Paramedic: ?

Bystanders: ? ? ?

What in the world is this!?

How is he just flying like that???

Lying on the stretcher, Guan Jizhong watched Bai Fuling hovering in the air, his remaining eye softening with affection for his sister's sake. "Oh, angels can fly."

Probably couldn't unfold his wings in the human world, so he's spinning the bar to mimic a helicopter's takeoff. He wasn't surprised at all.

Spinning the bar to rise, Bai Fuling felt quite pleased.

Haha, taking to the skies means no traffic jams. What a genius I am!

Though flying this way wasn't as fast as driving, in a traffic jam, it was definitely the quickest way out.

And so, the player, relying on a single high-speed horizontally spinning bar, as if equipped with an oversized bamboo-copter, drifted leisurely away from the accident scene.

The NPCs below all looked up, mouths agape, frozen like stone statues.

"...What is that?! Ah, what the heck is that?!"

"Truly, heroes emerge from the young. He acted bravely without seeking fame and just left like that."

"No, no—the point isn't that he left without seeking fame! It's that he flew! He flew like a helicopter!!"

Back where it all started, the car owners whose vehicles Bai Fuling had scraped with his red car stood together. They'd finally caught up to him, intending to settle the matter properly.

But since he'd gone to rescue people, they couldn't just chase after him, so they waited, planning to discuss the situation once everything was over.

Knowing he'd been in a hurry to save lives, the car owners weren't being petty and had already forgiven him. Still, they needed to talk about the insurance.

But they never expected Bai Fuling wouldn't return at all—he just left, and moreover—

A police car pulled up nearby, and an officer in uniform stepped out. "Who reported the traffic accident earlier?"

"Me, it was me," the first caller said, stepping forward. "Just a minor scrape."

"Where's the other driver?" the officer asked.

"Uh. Uh." The caller stammered, "The other driver—the other driver, he—"

"What's so hard to say? First, we need the parties involved present," the officer said sternly, scanning the other car owners standing around. "Which one is it?"

"He's not here," the caller waved his hand, then pointed toward the sky. "The other driver—uh, he's up there!"

The officer instinctively looked up, seeing only blue skies and white clouds. "...What?"

"That guy, the other driver... seems to be an angel. He, he just flew away!!"

Officer: ?

Author's Note:

Bai Fuling: Unlocked a new mode of transportation.