Chapter 4 – Exploring the Other World Again

Cheng Zhou counted the money he has on him. He has been working for almost a year. Now he has about 12,000 left on him, and the rent is about to expire.

The room that Cheng Zhou chose was dilapidated and small, and the rent was not cheap. He chose this place before was because it was close to the company, but now that the job is gone, Cheng Zhou does not want to renew the lease.

Cheng Zhou intends to change his accommodation. In the coming future, he reckons that he will be frequently shuttling between this world and the other world. If a tenant like him that keeps appearing and disappearing is discovered, it may become the biggest paranormal event of the 21st century. At that time, he is afraid that a bunch of Internet celebrities will come to check it out, and his mugshot may appear on the front page of the news headlines.

Cheng Zhou brought back a lot of meat. He put aside 30 catties of fresh meat for his own consumption, and the remaining 90 catties were made into jerky.

The jerky tasted very good, fragrant and chewy. Cheng Zhou knew very well that his own craft was average. The reason the jerky could be so delicious was mainly attributed to the meat brought back from the other world that was of relatively high quality.

Cheng Zhou kept more than 30 catties of jerky for himself, and the remaining 60 catties were couriered back to his hometown.

Cheng Zhou spent a few days tidying up the room, returned the room, and then left the residence in the capital of devils (a reference to Shanghai) where he had lived for nearly a year. He moved to Q City, a small third-tier city near the capital of devils.

In recent years, the country has been vigorously developing the real estate industry, and all kinds of high-rise buildings and villas have sprung up.

A few years ago, a developer giant launched a large-scale project in the coastal area of Q City, dedicated to building a Venice of the East with a feature on the water theme.

The entire project is very huge. The developer has established an enormous residential development with more than 40,000 units by the seaside and is committed to creating a new coastal city.

Most of the people who come here to buy properties are investors, and the occupancy rate is extremely low. Lately, the housing market has not been very good. After the turbulence in the market comes to pass, no one cares about the houses here.

Cheng Zhou rented a place with three bedrooms and one living room in the suburbs for a rent rate of 1,800 per month. The water and electricity expenses are borne by him. He paid the deposit, paid three months’ rent in advance, and purchased some necessities. The money Cheng Zhou left on hand is only 5,000.

After moving homes, Cheng Zhou decided to conduct a fourth exploration of the other world as soon as possible.

Cheng Zhou carried his mountaineering bag, confirmed that the stun baton is fully charged, and entered the foreign world for the fourth time.

Cheng Zhou followed the mountain path guided by several indigenous people last time and entered the village. Most of the villagers worked within the village. Many people were somewhat wary when they saw Cheng Zhou appear again.

Maine, the child who gave Cheng Zhou the four-leaf clover worm last time, saw Cheng Zhou and his face flushed red. He walked up to Cheng Zhou and bowed, seemingly admitting his mistake.

Two years ago, due to lack of food, the village had to organize the villagers to go hunting in Black Stone Ridge. As a result, Maine’s parents had an accident there.

Since then, Maine had struggled growing up by scraping food from around the village.

Previously, when Maine had gotten the wild boar leg from Cheng Zhou, he traded it with more than 200 catties of grain with the villagers. This amount is more than enough to sustain Maine for a long time.

In Maine’s view, Cheng Zhou is his great benefactor.

In the past few days, Maine has been living in a tangle. It is rare to have enough to eat, which makes Maine elated. On the one hand, Maine is worried that Cheng Zhou will come to him to settle accounts when he finds out he has been cheated.

After Cheng Zhou left that day, the villagers talked about it one after another.

Black Wheat Village belongs to Plate Stone Island. Normally, 50% of the grain in the village should be handed over to the Viscount of Plate Stone Island.

Black Wheat Village is poor. Even if they don’t pay taxes, the villagers often can’t get enough to eat. If they have to pay taxes, it is estimated that half of the people will starve to death.

A few years ago, there was an earthquake on Plate Stone Island. After the quake, the road between the village and the outside world was cut off, so no one came to collect taxes. The villagers were happy for a while.

When Cheng Zhou first appeared, the villagers in the village thought that the other party was a tax collector sent by the Viscount of Plate Stone Island. This made them afraid.

However, the villagers later discovered that Cheng Zhou didn’t understand their words at all, and the Viscount of Plate Stone Island would never send a person who cannot communicate with them to collect taxes. Cheng Zhou is likely to be a foreigner from elsewhere.

Cheng Zhou single-handedly killed a strong wild boar. All the villagers believe that Cheng Zhou should be a noble knight. Only a knight can have such amazing strength.

The villagers don’t know much about the outside world. However, a villager who has been out and about said that many nobles like to go on adventures. Cheng Zhou is likely to be such a noble. He is young and energetic. He leaves his family behind and wanders out. Cheng Zhou may have stumbled into this place because he encountered a storm at sea.

This is a world with distinct hierarchies. Noble knights have absolute rule over the people in the territory. Cheng Zhou is mistaken for a great noble, which makes the villagers very scared.

Cheng Zhou took out a piece of bread from his backpack and tossed it to Maine.

Before Cheng Zhou came, he bought some buns online. It was very cheap, only two yuan each. Maine was at a loss when he got the bun.

Cheng Zhou thought that Maine doesn’t know how to eat it. He took another bun out of his backpack, tore open the packaging, and took a bite.

Maine blinked, then quickly understood, tore open the packaging, and took a bite at the bun.

With a bite of the bread, Maine’s eyes immediately lit up.

Several children in the village looked at Cheng Zhou and Maine with anticipation, but they didn’t dare to come forward.

Cheng Zhou was led around the village by Maine. The people in the village were so poor that they were scantily clad and had sallow skin with scrawny bodies.

Cheng Zhou and Maine passed by a clover field and saw some villagers clearing up the clover.

Cheng Zhou observed that the clover cleared by the villagers was not much different from the wild alfalfa in his world.

It may be that Cheng Zhou’s four-leaf clover insect sensed the villagers were clearing up the clover that it was a little restless, as though a little angry, and a little lost.

Alfalfa is known as the king of pasture grass, but the villagers here do not seem to have the practice of raising livestock. Alfalfa may be like weeds here, so his Little Lucky is regarded as a weed insect, which is naturally different from grain insects.

“Little lucky” suddenly jumped out, puffed up, and radiated light.

A large number of clovers grow like wildfire, including the special four-leaf clovers, which grow directly to two meters high. All the clover fields that have just been cleaned up have been for naught.

Several villagers looked at Little Lucky with trepidation and even seemed a little panicked.

Cheng Zhou sighed and patted Little Lucky to comfort it.

Little Lucky lowered its head, a little dejected, and retracted back into Cheng Zhou’s body.

After visiting the village, Maine again took Cheng Zhou to explore, this time to the seaside.

Having a little guide like Maine saved Cheng Zhou a lot of effort. After more than half a day’s survey of the site, Cheng Zhou learned that the small village is called Black Wheat Village. The village is surrounded by three sides sea and one side mountain, which isolates the communication between Black Wheat Village from the outside world.

The big mountain outside Black Wheat Village is called Horned Boar Ridge. There are many horned boars in the mountain.

It takes at least 10 hours to cross Horned Boar Ridge from the village to the outside. This is still under the condition of a smooth journey. In fact, there are poisonous snakes and wild animals in the mountains, and there are no knights in Black Wheat Village. It is easy for villagers to encounter accidents if they want to cross Horned Boar Ridge.

Cheng Zhou stood on the beach. He sees scattered abundantly the mud snails, mantis shrimps, colorful-tailed prawns, crabs …… his heart was pounding.

Cheng Zhou realized that Black Wheat Village is surrounded by the sea on three sides and is rich in marine resources. Cheng Zhou thought that if the seafood here is similar to that of his world, he may be expected to soon become a seafood tycoon.

Maine looked at Cheng Zhou and made some nervous gestures.

Cheng Zhou stared at Maine for a while and probably understood what Maine meant.

People in Black Wheat Village had eaten seafood before when they were in hunger. However, some villagers fell ill after eating seafood, and the villagers no longer dared not eat seafood.

Cheng Zhou guessed that some people in Black Wheat should be allergic to seafood and can’t eat seafood, or the seafood is not thoroughly cleaned or properly cooked, therefore causing diarrhea.

The more scientifically backward this place is, the more likely people are to fall into panic. Seafood allergy is also common in his world, but it is regarded as possessed by the devil here.

In the medieval times of Europe, people regarded patient zero of the epidemic as evil, thought that he was a sinner who brought disaster to the world and would be brutally executed. It is not known whether such a practice would exist here.

Cheng Zhou gestured with his hand and let Maine know that he had understood, but it didn’t matter.

Cheng Zhou hired ten villagers to collect the seafood for him at the price of five pineapple buns per person.

Many villagers dare not approach Cheng Zhou, but they are very concerned about his every move.

They saw the scene of Cheng Zhou giving Maine a bun before.

Unable to resist the temptation of pineapple buns, several villagers yield to Cheng Zhou’s request and scramble to collect all kinds of seafood for Cheng Zhou.

Soon all kinds of seafood were piled up in several wooden basins. The wooden barrels taken out by the villagers were somewhat tattered.

Cheng Zhou tells Maine to watch over the seafood and then he left first on his own.

As soon as Cheng Zhou left, several villagers started discussing.

The villagers all felt that Cheng Zhou’s action of collecting seafood is very strange. However, as long as Cheng Zhou doesn’t let them eat these seafood that would make them sick, the villagers don’t care.

Several villagers opened the pineapple bun packages and ate them.

The villagers usually eat coarse bread. Because rye is limited, when making rye bread, the villagers will add bran to it. In case of famine, the villagers will also add sawdust to it. In this way, the taste will naturally not be appetizing at all.

The pineapple buns given by Cheng Zhou tastes very good, and it is soft and delicious. For the villagers, eating this bun is a rare luxury.

Several villagers were unwilling to eat the buns and gave the buns to their children.

Previously, when Cheng Zhou was looking for someone to collect seafood, several villagers were afraid of getting snared and hid away.

At this time, those villagers watched the other villagers eat the buns. Each and every one of them drooled with envy. They secretly made up their minds that if Cheng Zhou asked for someone to work next time, he must rush for the job.

“That strange outsider must be an aristocrat.”

“He definitely is an aristocrat. Only aristocrats can afford to eat such fine buns.”

“Ordinary aristocrats only have white bread, but this bun is much more delicious than white bread.”

“You say it as if you’ve eaten white bread before.”

“I haven’t eaten white bread, but I worked as a helper in a bakery before!”

“But why didn’t the aristocrat know about the spiritual insects!”

“Maybe he was born in a great noble family and only knew of the higher-ranking spirits and had never seen spiritual insects.”

“It’s possible. It is said that some great nobles are disdainful towards spiritual insects very much. The lower-ranking spirits don’t enter their eyes. They are only interested in major spirits.”

“……”

The spiritual insects evolve upward to become the minor spirits. The spiritual worm looks like an insect. When they advance to become lower-ranking spirits, it breaks out from their cocoon and metamorphoses into a butterfly, turning into a little person with butterfly wings. After the evolution of spirits, their ability to grow crops will be greatly enhanced. If the spiritual worm of the village head evolves, it can affect hundreds of acres of wheat fields. At that time, the villagers of Black Wheat Village will not have to go hungry.

However, if the village head’s spiritual worm really evolved, it will certainly attract the attention of the nobles. The Viscount of Plate Stone Island will then no longer turn a blind eye to their village but will try to seize it.