Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Fallen City

The middle-aged man before him knew the very word bracelet, which immediately revealed his identity: a player.

His face was twisted with terror, his expression bordering on hysteria. Before long, he had even thrown aside all dignity and begun pounding his head against the ground.

After the 1.1 era update, players’ bracelets would drop upon death, while the items in their backpacks would remain intact and pass directly to whoever obtained them. For a time, this did indeed tempt some players with ill intent to covet others’ belongings... but such a situation should not have emerged so quickly.

Zhao Nan lowered his hand and shook his head. "I have no interest in your bracelet."

The moment the middle-aged man heard that, he immediately stopped bowing, glanced at Zhao Nan and Phinna with confusion, and then let out a long sigh. Pain and struggle surfaced across his face. Suddenly, he took a small pouch from his backpack and, with trembling hands, opened it.

In a voice thick with reluctance, he said, "This is all the food I have... please, please let me go. There's still a child at home, and my wife is already dead... so please, let me go! My child is still so young. There's no way he can go out and fight monsters for food. He's only seven!"

Zhao Nan was stunned.

The middle-aged man's sorrow did not seem feigned, which only deepened his confusion. What puzzled him was this: he and Phinna had only been hunting monsters to obtain fairy biscuits because the teleport crystal did not record this area's coordinates, leaving them with no other option for the time being.

But this man... could fairy biscuits really be more precious than other items?

"I don't want your biscuits either," Zhao Nan said, unable to help but smile. "That kind of thing only costs a silver coin."

"But I have nothing else to eat!" The middle-aged man's face showed a trace of bewilderment. "No, that's not right... is there still somewhere selling fairy biscuits now?"

"What did you say?" Zhao Nan frowned, his expression darkening.

The sharpness in his tone changed the man's face at once; his heart lurched, and he began to tremble all over.

Something unpleasant suddenly occurred to Zhao Nan. He drew a breath and asked in a grave voice, "Did Drifting Wind City fail to withstand the monster siege?"

"Huh? Isn't that obvious?" The middle-aged man looked utterly astonished.

As expected...

Zhao Nan's heart sank in an instant.

At that moment, his bracelet buzzed with an incoming message. Zhao Nan looked down and saw that it was from Gao Mingyang.

"I've found out that before the catastrophe, Drifting Wind City was at least a thousand kilometers from East Source City... and I also heard that Drifting Wind City did not survive the first monster siege. The remaining players are still barely hanging on, and the situation there seems extremely chaotic. Brother Nan, how on earth did you get to that place? Is there any way back? Do you need our help?"

As for Gao Mingyang's questions after that, Zhao Nan merely replied with a simple, "Don't worry."

Even if they were worried, there was probably nothing they could do to help effectively before the city's teleportation function was activated. And even once that function was available, a city already fallen into enemy hands would naturally be beyond anyone's aid.

"We accidentally entered a strange place a month ago. Only after we came out did we run into you," Zhao Nan said calmly. "We only heard that there was a monster siege, but we didn't know the outcome."

"What place could still remain open during a monster siege?"

"It's already gone," Zhao Nan said with a sigh. "Tell me about Drifting Wind City's situation now... so I can make my own plans."

Having said that, Zhao Nan kept two of the fairy biscuits from the small pouch he had just obtained and tossed the rest to the middle-aged man. "Take this as payment."

The burly man’s face lit up. Carefully tucking away the remaining biscuits, he said gratefully, "Thank you! Thank you! You don't know this, but my level isn't high, and it's really too hard for one person to go out alone and fight monsters for food!"

"Let's talk over there," Zhao Nan said, pointing to a vacant patch of ground ahead.

Even though the city had fallen, the temporary safe zone in the suburbs still remained; it was simply not very large.

The middle-aged man's name was Huang Huaiming. Before the catastrophe, he had worked as a mechanic at an auto repair shop. He did not have much else going for him except strength. His wife died in the catastrophe, and he survived with his seven-year-old son. Because he had to care for the child, he had not spent much time leveling up in the early days. He was currently level 17, a berserker.

"After Drifting Wind City fell, we could only rely on the narrow safe zones within the city as places to survive. Once the city fell, all the native residents disappeared, so naturally we had no way to buy grain from them. Everything, absolutely everything, had to be obtained from monsters after leaving the safe zones."

By this point, Huang Huaiming was nearly in tears. "It's been almost a month! I don't know how many people have already starved to death because they couldn't get food. I even heard that in some safe zones, people have started eating one another!"

At those words, Phinna anxiously clutched Zhao Nan's arm. The idea of cannibalism was far beyond anything she could bear to imagine.

"How many players are left in Drifting Wind City now?" Zhao Nan asked after a long silence.

"I'm not too sure..." Huang Huaiming hesitated. "As far as I know, there are only ten safe zones left in the city. I don't know how many people there are in total yet. But the one I'm in has about a thousand people. If you average it out, not counting the smaller safe zones near the edge of the city, there should be around ten thousand people, more or less."

Zhao Nan sighed. Drifting Wind City's situation was far worse than he had imagined. With only about ten thousand players left, survival would be terribly difficult.

Monsters could not be eaten, but the water sources on the map were fine. The problem was food. The monsters here were stingy indeed, with a very low drop rate for food. No wonder that at the beginning, the man had valued a small pouch of fairy biscuits above everything else.

"Um... do you have any other questions?" Huang Huaiming asked cautiously.

Hiding behind a boulder, he had seen the two of them slaughter monsters with their own eyes. It had been utterly awe-inspiring. Against level 15 monsters here, a single skill from them could bring down a whole swath at once.

"I'm a little worried about my child. I want to go back and take a look," Huang Huaiming said softly.

"Be careful on the way," Zhao Nan nodded.

A level 17 berserker, so long as he was careful, would not find it difficult to cross the monster territory and return. After Huang Huaiming left, Zhao Nan and Phinna sat in silence, both seeing the same worried look in each other's eyes.

"This really isn't some paradise," Phinna said, forcing herself to perk up with a self-mocking smile.

Zhao Nan, meanwhile, kept twisting a lock of hair at the back of his head, his brow never relaxing after Huang Huaiming's departure.

Seeing Zhao Nan lost in thought, Phinna sensibly did not disturb him. Instead, she let the little ice phoenix fly beyond the safe zone, while she herself quietly headed toward the monster territory ahead.

"Where are you going?" Zhao Nan asked suddenly.

Phinna turned back with a smile. "I was thinking that before you come up with a solution, we might as well gather some food and water. You won't think clearly if you're hungry."

Zhao Nan waved a hand and beckoned her over, taking her hand as he said, "That's not really a problem. Actually, we can have Mingyang mail some over. I just didn't think of it earlier."

"This can be done?"

"Of course. The postage is a little expensive, but that's nothing." Zhao Nan laughed.

Having food mailed over was, whether in his past life or this one, likely a first for him. No wonder it had not occurred to him right away.

He even felt a bit embarrassed.

...

Not long afterward, Zhao Nan shook his bracelet, and dozens of bags of fairy biscuits fell to the ground, along with several water skins.

"One bag lasts a day. This is enough to eat for half a year!" Phinna said with amusement.

Zhao Nan had Phinna put the food and water on the ground away herself, then stood and said, "Let's go and see what Drifting Wind City is like. If we're going to stay here, we need to get familiar with the surroundings."

Still, faced with the devastated, ruined expanse of Drifting Wind City, Zhao Nan found himself at a loss for a moment. He could only proceed one step at a time.