Chapter 5

Chapter 5

After that, Xie Licheng got down to leveling up, hoping to squeeze in a few more levels before the next day.

His body right now was seriously weak—nowhere near what it used to be.

He needed to prep more for tomorrow's plot point.

So he spent three hours fishing and managed to level up twice.

Yesterday he caught six fish, today seven—thirteen total over two days.

The fish in his pond reset every day. No matter how many he pulled out in one sitting, the pond would be fully stocked again after the refresh.

But even with plenty of fish, fishing was boring and tested your patience.

Xie Licheng didn't really like fishing; three hours was already his limit.

He carried the fish home in his bucket, planning to cook a few for himself.

Cooking also gave experience points, just not as many as fishing.

But it was better than nothing, right?

Since he had to cook for himself anyway, he might as well level up while he was at it.

Xie Licheng steamed one fish, braised another, and simmered a pot of fish soup.

He could only eat one fish per meal. He made so much at once mostly because he was lazy.

Plus, he had a preservation zone where food stayed fresh forever.

Since he rarely cooked, he figured he might as well make a bunch.

After eating the steamed fish, he cleaned the rest and sent them, along with the two cooked ones, down to the storage room under the kitchen.

This storage room was special—it was his preservation zone for hoarding food.

Only the player—the host of this world—could set up this zone.

He could only designate one zone, choosing an area or a room to turn into a preservation warehouse.

This warehouse was even better than a fridge because time was frozen inside.

You couldn't store anything alive—fish, shrimp, crabs, chickens, ducks, cattle, sheep—everything had to be killed first.

If you put warm food in there, it would stay exactly as it was, even days later.

Back in the apocalypse, Xie Licheng was pretty lazy and used to cook huge batches of food at once.

Since the food never spoiled, he could just grab some whenever he felt like it.

Because the zone was so handy, Xie Licheng had stocked up a ton.

There were meals he'd made himself, semi-prepared stuff he'd hoarded from supermarkets, and snacks he'd grabbed when the apocalypse started.

Besides the ready-made meals, there were plenty of fresh ingredients and meds that needed to be kept fresh.

After putting the fish away, Xie Licheng stood at the entrance, glanced inside, and saw the shelves packed with all kinds of food. Only then did he turn around, feeling at ease.

Food meant security. No matter what this world turned into, he could still live comfortably.

Xie Licheng ate a fish and had a bowl of hot porridge. After a short rest, he headed to the chicken coop on the farm to gather eggs.

Collecting eggs counted as gathering, so it also gave a bit of experience.

Since he hadn't cleaned out the coop in a while, a bunch of eggs had piled up. A quick trip to both coops leveled him up twice.

It was already late, and Xie Licheng still needed to heal, so he didn't stay up.

Between the fishing and cooking, Xie Licheng had leveled up four times in total.

His player level was now 7, with 4 attribute points left to spend.

He dumped all 4 points into luck, finally getting it to 10—hopefully he'd stop being so unlucky.

With that, Xie Licheng went back to his room and quickly fell asleep.

The next morning, he headed out of the stable yard.

The garden where Gu Zhangyuan's sister would get into trouble was in the outer courtyard, and as a low-ranking male slave there, Xie Licheng could enter it.

But the original owner had rarely gone there, so he had to check the place out during the day to avoid being totally lost at night.

Xie Licheng limped along, moving pretty slowly.

By the time he found the garden, it was almost noon.

He hadn't expected the Gu family's outer courtyard to be this big.

Getting here from where he lived had taken a lot of effort.

Not wanting to waste energy hobbling back and forth with his injured leg, Xie Licheng found a hidden spot in the garden and entered his personal world.

He planned to come out at night to save himself the trouble.

If he ran into the male guest going crazy, he wouldn't be too worn out to handle him.

His stamina was 29, which was honestly still a bit low.

As for whether anyone would notice he was gone from the stable during the day?

He wasn't worried about that now. As long as he messed up the plan this time, he trusted that someone like Gu Zhangyuan wouldn't let anyone bully him.

So even if he got super unlucky and was spotted coming out, he wasn't scared of anyone causing trouble.

That afternoon, inside his personal world, Xie Licheng went to the foot of the mountain near the starter village.

He wanted to level up by digging up wild veggies, picking wild fruit, and gathering wildflowers.

But surprisingly, after gathering for a while, he still hadn't leveled up.

Just then, he spotted a bright green bamboo viper slithering near a bamboo grove not far off.

Xie Licheng hadn't planned to attack it; he was just curious how a snake could show up this early in the season.

But when he saw it wasn't scared of him and kept slithering around the bamboo grove, he couldn't help but chuck a cleaver at it.

His strength wasn't great, so he put some technique into the throw, and with one strike, he cut the snake in half.

The level that hadn't budged in ages shot up two whole levels with this kill.

Xie Licheng smirked at the sight. So... hunting really was the fastest way to level up.

Just one little snake, and it let him level up twice in one go.

If he ran into a few more, he could level up a bunch in a single afternoon.

Too bad this wasn't the season when snakes were active.

He looked around the area again, and only after confirming there were no other snakes did he go collect it.

After killing prey and collecting it, the prey would automatically break down.

It would usually break down into a full animal hide, some meat, and a few bones.

Today he'd hunted a snake, and it broke down into some snake oil, some snake meat, and a gall bladder.

He picked everything up and tossed it into his basket.

At that moment, he suddenly felt a bit sleepy. He'd probably been out for a while, so he was getting tired.

Xie Licheng checked his stamina and saw it had dropped to 7 points, so he hurried back with his stuff to rest.

He hadn't even done much, so why had his stamina dropped this fast?

Once he got back, he immediately started resting.

To make sure he didn't oversleep, he set an alarm.

Miss Gu's incident happened during the Hai hour, which was roughly between nine and eleven at night.

As long as he went out and waited during the Hai hour, he wouldn't let her get bullied like the book said.

With that thought, Xie Licheng quickly fell asleep. When he woke up, it was already completely dark outside.

He checked the alarm and saw it wasn't nine yet.

He got up, put on his dirty clothes, and made himself something to eat.

Before heading out, Xie Licheng checked his health and stamina.

His health was now 39, and his stamina was 31.

The book said the male guest was a scholar.

He figured that in his current state, dealing with a scholar shouldn't be too much of a problem.

With that in mind, Xie Licheng left the pocket world.

His hiding spot was way out of the way, and with it being so dark out, it was pitch black the second he stepped out.

He fumbled his way out of his hiding spot.

The novel didn't say exactly where Miss Gu's incident happened. Xie Licheng only knew it was near the rockeries, but this outer garden was huge, and there were several spots with rockeries alone.

The place Xie Licheng was hiding was one of those rockeries. After confirming no one was around, he quickly headed to the other spots.

Miss Gu was brought out by her aunt, who would team up with the male guest to strip her clothes off.

To avoid getting caught by patrols before the deed was done, they'd definitely cover Miss Gu's mouth.

The outer courtyard did have patrols, just not as often as the inner courtyard. They usually came around once every half hour.

Xie Licheng had scouted the area during the day and confirmed the locations of several rockeries in advance, so he wasn't in any rush now.

The garden was full of flowers, trees, and plants, along with several pavilions and rockeries. Even if he ran into a patrolling houseguard on the way, he could use cover to hide.

Since he wasn't sure of the exact time, Xie Licheng took a couple more laps around the garden.

He moved like a night cat, not making a sound despite his heavy injuries.

Then, around ten-something, when he got near the biggest rockery, he faintly heard a soft cry of surprise.

The voice was so low, it was impossible to tell if it was a guy or a girl.

If Xie Licheng hadn't been right next to the rockery, he probably wouldn't have heard that cry at all.

He held his breath and quickly slipped inside the rockery.

It was pitch black inside the rockery and extremely narrow. Midway through, Xie Licheng bumped his head but didn't make a peep.

After squeezing through the narrowest part, the space opened up a lot more, and there was more light inside.

The light came from a candle. Someone must have lit one inside, otherwise it wouldn't be brighter in here than out there.

As soon as Xie Licheng entered, he saw a figure with their back to him.

Since the figure looked pretty tall, he assumed it was that lecherous male guest.

He quickly closed in while pulling out his combat knife.

Just as he grabbed the person's shoulder and forcefully spun them around—

By the faint light inside, Xie Licheng saw a beautiful, startled face.

Xie Licheng asked in surprise, "Why is it you?"