Chapter 14

Chapter 14

That evening, Xie Licheng had originally planned to return to his personal world to continue leveling up.

The higher his level, the more attribute points he would have, allowing him to become stronger.

Knowing full well that a chaotic era lay ahead, Xie Licheng felt an urgent need to grow stronger.

Just then, Miss Xuan Cui suddenly came looking for him.

Last time, Xie Licheng had completed his task quite well—he had caught a striking bamboo viper for Gu Zhangyuan.

Gu Zhangyuan felt the man had some skill, so he planned to send him to the mountain outside the city again in the coming days.

This time, he didn't ask Xie Licheng to catch a snake, but instead to find a way to bring back a wolf cub.

The wolf cub was still a gift for the prefect's son. This prefect's son was also a young man, but his tastes differed somewhat from those of ordinary young men. He didn't just like venomous snakes—he also liked wolves, tigers, and the like.

If Gu Zhangyuan wanted to become friends with him, he needed to play to his tastes. Sending just one venomous snake wasn't enough; he wanted to send several gifts to show his sincerity.

Gu Zhangyuan sent him into the mountains to catch a wolf cub, and this time he didn't set a deadline. He was probably well aware that catching a wolf cub would be troublesome and even more dangerous than catching an adult wolf.

Gu Zhangyuan didn't insist that Xie Licheng catch it himself—this time he gave him one hundred taels of silver.

It didn't matter whether he went up the mountain himself or found others to help, as long as he could bring back a wolf cub in the end.

Xie Licheng accepted the task and left the Gu estate that same night.

He didn't leave the city immediately but entered his personal world right after leaving the Gu residence.

Since Gu Zhangyuan hadn't set a time limit, there was no reason to hurry.

He felt that the prefect's son seemed to have been mentioned in the original novel.

The Gu family was extremely wealthy, and they also had relatives in official positions.

But a prefect's son—and a young man who rarely left his home at that—Xie Licheng couldn't help but feel that Gu Zhangyuan had no need to go to so much trouble to curry favor with him.

He felt he might be missing something, so he planned to enter his personal world to search through that book.

Xie Licheng lit the oil lamp and sat by the window, carefully searching through the book.

In the novel, Gu Zhangyuan was a supporting character, and not much was written about his life before he met the protagonist.

Xie Licheng searched for a long time and finally found the identity of the prefect's son in the protagonist's section.

He wasn't actually the son of the Prefect of Lingzhou—he was a prince of the Great Zhou imperial family, hidden among the common people.

This prince had been raised by a hunter and only found out about his imperial bloodline at the age of eleven.

Because of his unruly nature and having no reliable mother to care for him, he didn't adapt well to palace life.

His grandmother, the Empress Dowager, worried that he couldn't grow up safely in the palace.

So she arranged for him to be raised in Lingzhou under the guise of being the prefect's son.

The prefect's family knew his true identity and treated him with both respect and indulgence.

Moreover, the Empress Dowager doted on him greatly, which made him quite spoiled.

Gu Zhangyuan had likely also learned of his true identity and wanted to befriend this prince to secure the Gu family's future.

No matter how wealthy the Gu family was, they couldn't compare to actual members of the imperial family.

Gu Zhangyuan was a man, and if he wanted to lead the entire Gu family as one, he would need many allies.

Actually, Gu Zhangyuan's thinking wasn't unreasonable—if he, as a man, could befriend a prince, it would indeed bring him considerable support in the future.

As long as anyone brought up his status as a man, Gu Zhangyuan could invoke the prince's name.

That prince was also a man, so no matter how dissatisfied they were with Gu Zhangyuan's status, they wouldn't dare continue criticizing him about that.

However, that prince was something of a lovesick fool—in the novel, after following the protagonist, he often got jealous of others.

Because the Empress Dowager and the prefect's family spoiled him, he lacked cunning, and before long, he was done in by the schemes of the protagonist's other harem members.

He was a demanding and not very clever master to serve.

Having learned the true identity of that young master, Xie Licheng wanted to talk to Gu Zhangyuan and tell him not to bother with this person.

Why bother currying favor with someone like that? Once the Great Zhou descended into chaos, he couldn't even protect himself, let alone the Gu family.

Moreover, his personality was childish and lovesick—even in a chaotic era, all he could think about was romance.

If the protagonist had been devoted to him alone, being lovesick wouldn't have been a problem—at least he'd have ended up with a good outcome.

Unfortunately, the protagonist clearly wasn't into pure love, yet he loved him desperately—wasn't he just asking for heartbreak?

Xie Licheng closed the book, blew out the oil lamp, and lay down to rest.

He really should talk to Gu Zhangyuan, but now wasn't the time.

For now, he still wanted to use the excuse of working for Gu Zhangyuan to come and go as he pleased, and Gu Zhangyuan probably wouldn't listen to the advice of a horse slave anyway. He'd bring it up with him later.

Early the next morning, Xie Licheng left his farm and headed into the mountains with his tools.

There were also wolves in the mountains of his personal world—not just wolves, but tigers, bears, wild boars, and other animals.

These beasts lived deep in the mountains and generally didn't appear near the mountain's edge.

Xie Licheng took his time entering the mountains and spent the entire day there.

He hunted a wild boar and caught two plump rabbits, but saw no trace of wolves.

He wasn't too worried about it. He carried his prey down from the mountain and took several animal pelts out of his personal world.

Hunting at night in the mountains would be dangerous, so he had no intention of continuing after dark.

He brought out several pelts to sell in the city of Lingzhou.

After selling the pelts, he could buy supplies to store in his personal world.

Xie Licheng's pelts were all intact—when he hunted prey in his personal world, the system automatically processed them.

Even if the prey had severe wounds when killed, the pelt would still be a complete one after processing.

These pelts fetched higher prices. The pelts Xie Licheng brought out included one tiger pelt, three bear pelts, one wild boar pelt, and three wolf pelts.

These were all hunted by Xie Licheng back in his prime, when he'd go up the mountain to hunt for sport in his spare time.

The beasts on the mountain in his pocket world respawned daily, so there was no need to worry about wiping them out.

If he didn't hunt them for a long time, they'd multiply on their own.

If their numbers got too high, it would cause problems for the village below.

Luckily, there was no one in the village at the foot of the mountain now, and Xie Licheng didn't keep any livestock there either, so no need to worry about them coming into the village and wreaking havoc.

Xie Licheng sold one tiger skin for forty taels. Although that sounded like a lot, it really wasn't that pricey.

Rich families liked to buy them as collectibles.

Since they were a symbol of status and class, once something's a collectible, the price is never cheap.

A bear skin went for thirty taels, so three came to ninety.

A wild boar hide sold for eight taels.

A wolf hide went for eleven taels, so three were thirty-three.

All those hides together netted Xie Licheng over a hundred and seventy taels.

After selling the skins, he took his heavy pouch of silver and headed to the West Market to do some shopping.

Then, what caught Xie Licheng off guard was that since he'd sold a bunch of hides back to back, it got him noticed by a couple of small-time punks.

Xie Licheng noticed them and deliberately entered a narrow alley, clearly intending to lure them in.

Seeing this, the two idiots were thrilled, figuring they'd hit the jackpot today.

Little did they know, after they followed Xie Licheng into the pitch-dark alley,

the would-be robbers ended up getting robbed themselves.

After Xie Licheng effortlessly tied them both up, one of the thugs said with a face like he was about to cry, "Brother, brother, we really didn't know you were in the same line of work. Give us a break 'cause we're young, and please just let us go this time."

Hearing this, Xie Licheng put a finger to his lips, telling them to keep their voices down.

The thug who'd spoken immediately dropped his voice and kept begging, "Really, we really know we were wrong. We didn't even lay a finger on you, and you still beat us up. Bro, I mean—boss, boss, please let us go."

The thugs played along not because they were nice guys.

Mostly because... Xie Licheng had a knife to their throats, and he'd also popped both their arms out of their sockets.

Moreover, Xie Licheng hit hard and mean, clearly not messing around, so they were scared shitless of him now.

Hearing this, Xie Licheng said gently, "Don't worry. If I went through the trouble of tying you up, it means I'm not gonna kill you."

The other thug quickly asked, "Then... what do you want? What do you need us to do?"

Xie Licheng: "I don't need you to do anything. Just sit tight and keep your mouths shut."

As he said this, Xie Licheng pulled their clothes over their heads.

Seeing this, the one who wouldn't shut up earlier immediately cried and whispered to Xie Licheng, "Bro, bro, you're not gonna try to take advantage of us, are you? I'm ugly, and my ass ain't pretty either. If you're into pretty boys, I can tell you where to find some."

Xie Licheng snapped, "Shut up!"

Xie Licheng captured them to bring them into his pocket world to run experiments.

Last time he'd brought in a corpse, and this time he wanted to test it with two live people.

He hauled them into a secluded corner, then took them into his pocket world with him.

The moment the three of them went in, Xie Licheng's quest panel updated.

It changed from (1/20) to (3/20).

He grabbed them, ready to take them back out, when a prompt popped up in front of him.

"Erase all memories of the game world? Yes/No"

Choosing yes would wipe all memories of Xie Licheng and the game world from the person's mind.

Once wiped, the game world would automatically refuse to let that person in again.

In other words, the game world was Xie Licheng's pocket world.

In his past life, Xie Licheng had never let anyone into his pocket world, so he never found out it was called the game world, let alone that his space had all these features.

Choosing no meant the memories stayed, and Xie Licheng could keep bringing that person into the game world later.

Xie Licheng couldn't help chuckling at that, thinking this thing was pretty neat.

He picked yes and then took the two of them back out of his pocket world.