Looking at the advertisement cutting into the television broadcast, the expression on Ye Tianxie’s face was a sight to behold. He turned his head, arranged his words, and said very carefully, “Ahem… Miss Su, there’s really no need to worry. Medicine is so advanced these days that infertility hasn’t been a medical difficulty for a long time… Though I’d still advise you to avoid having any more abortions in future. That sort of thing… really isn’t good for the body. And besides, children are… well, innocent, after all.”
“What— what are you talking about, what abortions… Ah!” Su Feifei lifted her head and immediately saw the ad playing on the television. She froze for a moment, and then wished for nothing so much as death.
“That’s not it, I was—”
“Cough, cough, cough. I understand, I completely understand. There’s no need to say it out loud.” Ye Tianxie nodded with an air of earnest, casual, magnanimous forgiveness, then pointed a finger at the bathroom door. “You can go take your bath now… Don’t worry, I absolutely will not peek.”
“You’re insufferable!” Su Feifei snatched up a cushion, hurled it hard at the television, and stormed off to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her with a bang. Looking at the television, which had suffered so unjustly, Ye Tianxie couldn’t help reflecting that women really were unreasonable creatures… What had the television ever done to her?
Bang! The bathroom door, only just shut, was flung open again from the inside. Su Feifei shouted, her face full of fury, “For your information, this young lady is a virgin, and I’ve never even been in a relationship! Hmph!”
Bang. The bathroom door slammed shut again.
Ye Tianxie: “…”
Two minutes later, the television had returned to the tear-jerking scene of a mother and daughter parted by death. Ye Tianxie understood everything at once…
……
……
“Ding… Your level has risen to Level 12. HP +10, MP +10. You have gained 5 free attribute points.”
The Windfall Plains, the Little Raccoons’ territory. Having slaughtered raccoons all morning, Ye Tianxie finally heard that pleasant chime. He opened the Level Rankings: a full night without leveling had seen him knocked out of the top ten by the twenty-four-hour leveling fanatics, but a single morning had carried him back to the summit, and made him the first player in the entire Huaxia region to reach Level 12.
What is a gap in ability? When one man’s efforts over two or even three times the hours still fall short of another man’s over one, what you are looking at is a gap, plain and naked.
As a three-no monster — no skills, no speed, no intelligence — the Little Raccoon had to be counted among the weaker creatures of its level, its sole advantage being health above the average for its tier. Raccoons are, after all, a kind of bear, and bears tend to be rather thick-skinned.
That day, Ye Tianxie killed Little Raccoons all day.
The next day, Ye Tianxie killed Little Raccoons all day.
The third day, Ye Tianxie still killed Little Raccoons all day, and the look in his eyes as he regarded them had grown nearly numb.
The fourth day… Having spent so long on the same map facing the same monster, with nothing around him but Little Raccoons, the occasional one- or two-star elite, and the rarer three-star elite, he was the only human being there. No one spoke to him, no one competed with him for kills, not even a passerby came through. And today, facing raccoon after raccoon lunging at him, he finally felt like throwing up. Even their once tolerable dying whimpers had become unbearable to hear.
And so, on the fifth day, Ye Tianxie at last set out on the road south to complete the city lord’s Unique quest. He summoned the Blood-Sweating Steed and rode hard for the south.
By now his level was 14 — the only Level 14 player on the rankings. He was confident that even if he didn’t level for an entire day, no one would surpass him.
Worth mentioning: Su Feifei’s level in the World of Fate still hadn’t risen, and she hadn’t yet left her novice village. She had spent these days carefully and thoroughly putting her new home in order, and had, by all appearances, come to regard herself as its mistress. Having finished the living room and the kitchen, she had spent these days cleaning, alone, all the rooms that had stood empty for so very long, leaving little time for the World of Fate. She would occasionally log in, wander about, and log out again shortly. And she had not one word of complaint about Ye Tianxie, who thought of nothing but his game and never lifted a finger to help… From the state the house had been in before, she had already gathered that getting a lazy man like him to move was roughly as difficult as climbing to heaven.
The Windfall Plains were vast, their monsters mostly animals of various kinds, ranging from Level 10 to 30. Past the Little Raccoons’ territory lay the territory of the Level 17 Black Sheep; past the Black Sheep, the Level 20 Plains Starving Wolves. And along the southern edge of the Windfall Plains roamed the Level 30 Fire Foxes.
Ye Tianxie didn’t stop anywhere along the way, riding the Blood-Sweating Steed around wave after wave of monster packs. The road south to the blood phoenix’s nest passed through the territories of countless immensely powerful monsters — with Ye Tianxie’s current attributes, a single casual blow from any of them would send him straight back to the City of Heaven’s Stars.
The difficulty of a Unique quest is beyond question, and this one’s very starting point was formidable: reaching the target location intact. At the players’ current average level, merely beginning this quest required setting foot in one region after another where they had no business going and no ability to survive.
For Ye Tianxie, this was not a difficult matter. But it was certainly not an easy one either.
Skirting the territories of every sort of monster along the way, several hours later he finally left the Windfall Plains behind. South of them lay a small town that shared their name: Windfall Town.
Besides the Imperial City at its center and the five main cities of Sun, Moon, Starlight, Stars, and Mystery, the Lost Continent held countless towns great and small. A town’s scale couldn’t compare with a main city’s, but small as the sparrow is, it has all five organs: every shop one might need could be found here. Some towns that ordinary players struggled to reach even sold special items unavailable in the great cities. And naturally, they concealed a great many mysterious NPCs waiting to be discovered.
As almost certainly the first player ever to set foot in Windfall Town, Ye Tianxie naturally didn’t forget to make a suitably impressive circuit of the place. Having picked up a handful of odds-and-ends quests, he continued south — and there, at the town’s southernmost exit, a little girl crouched on the ground weeping caught his eye. Perhaps it was the aggrieved sound of her crying; whatever the reason, Ye Tianxie found himself unable to keep walking. He dismissed his mount and went over to her.
“Little sister. Why are you crying? Has someone been bullying you?” Ye Tianxie produced a kindly smile of a sort that almost never appeared on his face, and spoke gently to the weeping girl.
“Boo-hoo-hoo… my marble, my marble fell down there… boo-hoo…”
The little girl went on crying miserably, and as he drew closer Ye Tianxie noticed what lay in front of her: a hole perhaps a dozen-odd centimeters across, of unknown depth. He understood at once — the marble she’d been playing with must have fallen in.
Only now did the girl turn around, gazing at Ye Tianxie through tear-filled eyes. “Big brother, my marble fell in there. Can you get it out for me?”
“Ding… The little girl asks you to retrieve the marble that fell into the hole. Quest type: Random. Time limit: five minutes. Reward: Unknown. Penalty for failure: None. Accept?”
A quest… Even this could produce a quest — and a Random quest at that.
(End of Chapter 92)