A moment later, Feng Xue felt the pitted, uneven surface of his face. Though he had no mirror to see what he looked like right now, judging by the texture alone, even if he had not achieved the visage of an ancient god, he probably was not far off.
“In any case, as long as no one can tell who I am.”
Muttering with considerable indifference, Feng Xue immediately set off. Yet after only two steps, he felt something extremely awkward. His body weight was only a quarter of normal, but his strength was no different from usual; every step he took felt as though it might send him springing into the air.
Fortunately, the processing ability of the Phantom Dragon Soul Type III was indeed impressive. After advancing a dozen meters or so in this half-hopping, half-walking manner, he had already regained his balance, and even worked out a set of movements that made use of this slight sensation of weightlessness. It was just that if anyone in his previous life had walked like this, they would probably have been taken for some kind of impostor.
Fully aware of how “light” and “hollow” this body was, Feng Xue had no intention whatsoever of exploring the map. He headed straight for the nearest evacuation point. He did not choose to sprint in a straight line, but instead moved stealthily along the “ridges” and “canyons” formed by the mountains of garbage, doing his best to avoid areas that were relatively open and easy to observe.
At the same time, the eyesight he had trained under Old Man Jiang’s guidance began to come into play, rapidly identifying the discarded objects by the roadside.
Unfortunately, night had already fallen, and the most conspicuous and easily obtained “choice cuts” had long since been picked clean during the day.
The casings of electronic devices had been violently pried open, leaving only shattered baseboards where the internal motherboards and core chips should have been; on damaged prosthetics, the power units, sensors, and precise joints had all vanished without a trace; even the cheap meal boxes bearing food delivery logos showed signs of having been licked clean, forcing Feng Xue to sigh that even cheap takeout from the city was a precious “flavor” in the slums.
Smelling the stench in the air, a mixture of motor oil, rusting metal, burning plastic, rotting organic matter, and other odors, Feng Xue suddenly felt that flesh-and-blood abilities were not quite so wonderful after all.
Although night had fallen, the junkyard was not too dark. The lights overhead and the searchlights that swept past from time to time painted shifting patterns of brightness and shadow, and now and then he could hear vague clamor coming from the distance.
There were human arguments, the striking of metal, the crumpling of plastic, and the drip of liquid.
Feng Xue narrowed his eyes, walking carefully through the shadows, striving to catch the warnings carried by sound.
Footsteps that suddenly grew heavier behind a mountain of trash, a flash of reflected light passing through the shadows—any of these was reason enough for him to avoid the area.
He was like a feral cat, swiftly weaving through the gaps in the garbage and the shadows, doing his best to avoid coming face to face with any living thing, while his eyes constantly searched for “prey” he could swallow.
Suddenly, his footsteps paused slightly. A pile of scattered trash entered his sight. It was a heap of equipment remnants that had been violently dismantled, plastic casings of various colors and broken fiber-optic cables tangled together, from which one could vaguely make out the exquisite appearance they had once possessed.
But what attracted him was not the casing that had already been chopped to pieces, but a speck of gray-green at the end of a cable.
“Oh-ho, not bad luck!”
The corners of Feng Xue’s mouth lifted. He quickly stepped forward, yanked away the worthless cable, and pressed down on the baseboard that had snapped from the removal of important components. With a faint click, a gray-green “plastic” sheet only the size of his pinky nail ended up in his hand.
“This looks like a fourth-generation filter sheet. I remember the old man saying the materials used in this version were pretty valuable. But it’s just this tiny bit… Forget it. At least it’s enough for two months’ food.”
Feng Xue reached out, about to stuff this “plastic sheet,” worth roughly fifty credit points, into his pocket, only to remember that the tank top and shorts he was wearing did not have even a single pocket.
“Next time I create a character, I definitely need to wear some clothes… No, the clothes aren’t important, but I absolutely need a bag. Otherwise, there’s nowhere to put the trash I pick up.”
Feng Xue muttered a couple of lines inwardly, but in the end, he still could not make up his mind to stuff the thing into his crotch. He simply held it in his hand and continued his “feral cat steps.”
However, this overly cautious behavior of avoidance, in the junkyard, instead made him stand out a little too much. Leaving aside the fact that he had come out scavenging in nothing but a tank top and shorts, that manner of being terrified of running into people was already very abnormal.
It was not that scavengers lacked wariness, but very few were wary to this extent.
People like this were either rookies with no experience at all, fat sheep carrying valuables, or fellows fleeing for their lives after stirring up trouble.
And no matter which one it was, they were worth a second look.
Not to mention, there was not even any trace of prosthetic modification on him!
Although he hid very well, he did not have the whole map revealed, after all. The terrain of the junkyard was so complicated that even if he could avoid sightlines a hundred times, as long as he failed once…
“Hey! Kid, what good stuff did you find? Take it out and let me have a look!”
A deliberately lowered, rough and hoarse voice entered his ears. Feng Xue’s figure abruptly stopped. Alarm bells blared in his heart, and the muscles throughout his body instantly tensed.
Forcibly suppressing the urge to turn and run, Feng Xue slowly turned around and saw a middle-aged man dressed in wasteland style.
His hair was greasy and clumped together. At his right wrist, a silver-gray metallic sheen could be seen. In his hand, he held a metal bat welded with iron nails, while his eyes kept sweeping over Feng Xue’s body.
“……”
Feng Xue’s gaze swept over the bat in his hand, then landed on the metal structure at his wrist. Judging by the fact that the other party had deliberately lowered his voice, he was clearly also worried about drawing attention. Coupled with that crude prosthetic construction, he probably would not be too strong.
Thinking this, he raised both hands in a White Flag Nation military salute, as though displaying himself, and said,
“Look at me. Do I look like I’d have anything good on me?”
“……”
When the scavenger saw this, however, he revealed an obvious look of disbelief. With Feng Xue acting so sneaky, if he had not found some big score, then he himself was probably the big score!
Although he was a bit ugly, that fine, tender skin made it obvious at a glance that he was not from the slums. Maybe he was some gang’s ransom hostage.
Thinking this, the scavenger’s heart began to pound violently. He even squeezed out a smile, but Feng Xue was startled by that savage grin, and his whole body sprang up as if in a stress response!
The scavenger had not expected that Feng Xue, who was barehanded, would actually dare charge at him, who was armed. He clenched his teeth as well, swinging the bat in his hand toward Feng Xue!
A moment ago, he had still been considering capturing him alive to exchange for money, but now, the scavenger’s habits had already made him strike to kill first. After all, even if he beat him to death, the corpse could still sell for a considerable sum!
However…
“No, this speed!”
The instant the bat was swung, the scavenger’s frontal-lobe chip had already sounded an alarm.
Realizing that the opponent’s speed far exceeded his imagination, the scavenger instantly understood that he had kicked an iron plate. His entire body instinctively tried to dodge.
But this dodge instead played right into Feng Xue’s hands. His light, agile body traced an arc through the air, and taking advantage of the scavenger’s panicked evasion, he pressed one hand onto the wrist that held the bat, while his other arm drove an elbow strike straight into the back of the man’s head.