Chapter 11 - A Man Called Professor Li

Although the ingredients Ji Yun bought were quite ordinary, the Professor's exceptional cooking skills were far beyond ordinary. Even the pot of typical potatoes and roasted meat the professor made, could whet Qin Wuhua's appetite so much that he ate until he was unable to get up from his chair.

"Professor Li, your cooking skills are superb!" Don't even mention those awful-tasting nutrients he had been forced to eat for days. If possible, he wouldn't eat those ever again, especially after tasting Professor Li's expertise. Eating the food he cooked was absolutely the best.

Professor Li was getting older. As he aged, he became more fond of the younger generation. Wu Ye appeared and behaved like one from an influential family. His honeyed tongue sure could spew out sweet words effortlessly. He might be Xiao Ji's boss, but his rare lack of pretentious air, made Professor Li adore him more.

He laughed and looked much younger. "Well, life is all about drinking and eating well. To be able to cook this well, I studied under a famous chef. My master even said that even if I didn't teach in the future, I would never grow hungry."

"My parents had always said I was a foodie. But compared to you now, I can see I'm still far from such status, Professor," Wu Ye said as he patted his bursting belly. Why didn't he meet such a lovely old man when he was in university? Had he did, perhaps he would have turned into a good student. Wu Ye's personality was like this. To put it nicely, he was pretty laid back. To put it bluntly, he was careless and had no plans for the future. In this world, both points were considered detrimental.

If the person who had transmigrated was someone else, and not Wu Ye, he would have been worried to death, unlike Wu Ye who could still joke around with people.

"Pei, what foodie? I'm a gourmet."

"Wait, there's no difference between the two right, Wuhua?" As thick-skinned as always, he had no qualms in acting familiar with people. He felt that addressing Qin Wuhua using only his first name, sounded more intimate. If you think about it, Wu Ye, Wuhua, didn't it sound like they're from one family?

Qin Wuhua, who had been motionless since the start of the meal, nodded in full view of everyone.

"Haha, see? See?"

Even though Professor Li was old, he could still be petty like a child. He got so angry and glared at them, saying, "Today's children really did not know how to respect their elders. The moral state of the world had been in a real decline!"

Being a troublemaker at heart, Wu was anxious to stir up mischief, that he playfully countered, "You pride yourself on being a senior, when the truth is you're just capitalizing on your old age!"

"Hey, you little brat!"

From time to time, playful bursts of laughter were heard from the slum area, making the cruel night somehow lighter and warmer.

The population in the slum area is quite large. Some people move away when they manage to earn a fortune, some were driven away for not being able to pay for accommodation, while some others were unable to return after leaving the city. In short, there were very few people who could live in this place for a long time. That was why, when Qin Wuhua registered for accommodation near Ji Yun's house number, he easily got the one right next to Ji Yun's house. It turned out, their neighbor had made a small fortune two days ago, and used it to move to an apartment building.

So, after getting the house, Wu Ye pushed open the door and went in. At a glance, the house was much cleaner than Ji Yun's. After all, Ji Yun and Professor Li worked on small inventions tirelessly, so their house was filled with all kinds of fine (broken), dense (copper), and iron (rotten) instruments. Besides, the former owner of the house cleaned up the house well before moving out. It looked like the former owner hit it big since he left almost everything behind, a good fortune beyond Wu Ye's expectation.

Still, he had some grievance. "Why is there only one bed? Where will you sleep?" Actually, the twin bed was spacious enough to fit two grown men.

Qin Wuhua looked at him with an expressionless face. Fine, I couldn't be inconsiderate to my younger brother. He shouldn't have the same judgement that I have, Wu Ye thought with a guilty conscience.

"My sleeping habits are not good. If you don't mind that, you can sleep on the bed." Using an imposing aura of a young master, he generously gestured to the bed, completely forgetting that the owner of the house was not him in the first place.

Maintaining his ice cold expression, he retorted, "Is it merely no good?"

"..." After being hit by countless invisible arrows, the second young master could only kneel down and crumble to the ground.

This man is simply too hateful! He just can't play around at all!

The second young master held his breath and decided to ignore this bastard. But half an hour after the "bastard" laid in bed, a naked fellow crept up into his arms. In the dark of the night, Qin Wuhua finally mustered a slight smile.

Wu Ye slept throughout the night, and did not wake up until 10 the next day. When he woke up, he was alone in the room. While rolling on the bed, bored, he suddenly remembered he had just completed the mandatory mission [Going to Lan Cheng Base]. He pulled up the system control panel and clicked on the task button. The task page indicated that he had completed the mission with and E- rating.

[System, make sure to give me a good reward.] Below the [Do you want to receive the task reward?] prompt, Wu Ye nervously pressed 'accept'.

Points: 50, x 1

Suddenly, obscure texts flashed in his Wu Ye's mind. At a glance, it was obviously an unfamiliar language, yet he was able to understand each word clearly. It was as if these words were engraved in his mind. Wu Ye meditated on the meaning of these words again and again. And while he was doing so, he unconsciously took the standard 'five-mind posture toward the heavens' pose, as he unknowingly adjusted and slowed down his breathing. After a long interval, Wu Ye could feel a weak force wandering around his entire body, sometimes smooth, sometimes sharp. Although he was not aware of the time, he noticed that the already smooth flow became even smoother, the sharp flow had also become smoother, and the weak force flow seemed to have grown a little stronger.

"… Boss, Boss, lunch is ready. Come out for lunch quickly," Ji Yun shouted helplessly as he looked at the scorching sun up in the sky.

Wu Ye opened his eyes and found that his body pains were all gone, just like how he felt better after meditating. He could clearly feel his mental and physical states were exceptionally good.

[My good karma has finally paid off!] Wu Ye laughed so gleefully, he could be considered a 'show off'.

The system knew when to rub salt to an open wound, and at the most critical of times. [Someone once drew out the first-rate reward by completing a G-rank task.] Top rewards are classified into four categories: Heaven, Earth, Mystery, and Yellow. Rewards in the yellow categories can already overturn rivers and seas.

T/N: Overturning rivers and seas means overwhelming or earth-shattering

Wu Ye forced a stiff smile and asked, [What level of skill is the Basic Breathing Technique?] [It has no grade.] [What does it mean to have no grade?]

Coldly, the system spat out three new words it learned. [Common, basic goods.]

F*ck me!

The system 'saw' the way the host choked at this information and did not want to hit him even more. Thus, it decided to explain things. [Before the first gene chain is unlocked, you need to constantly strengthen the gene. By practicing the 'Basic Breathing Technique', you could improve your chances of survival in this world.

Wu Ye's wonderful fantasy was broken and asked feebly, [What is my current rate of survival?]

Less than 1%.

The system sensed that if the real data was given to this stupid host, he would immediately demand to go back to his own world. However, this world had lots of specific energies they both needed. It did not really want the host to leave this world. But according to the third law of operation, keeping the host here now was already interfering with the host's decision. Then again, if it didn't say anything, then it shouldn't be against the law, right?

After the system forced activated, its core program stored some data about cosmic mercenary system. It wasn't sure if it's an illusion or not, but according to the sparse data it had, it seemed that this system was not the same as the others. It seemed to have something more. Could it be infected with a virus program?

Once again, the system was in deep thoughts as it ran a self-check program in utter silence.

Outside, Ji Yun was knocking at the door shouting, "Boss! Boss!"

"Wait a minute. I'll be out after I wash my face."

Although the slum house was not very good, it was at least connected to the water network. The former owner knew how to live a good life and even assembled a shower with tin buckets. Feeling sticky, Wu Ye decided to take a cold bath. However, he realized he had forgotten to bring toothpaste and toothbrush when he was already in the bathroom. Fortunately, trading for these two items were not expensive. A large tube of toothpaste and two toothbrushes, together with a pure cotton towel only cost 1 point and 1 crystal nucleus. Since Wu Yue had saved a small amount, he immediately waved a big hand and bought the whole set, so he could come out clean and refreshed.

When he reached next door, Professor Li and Ji Yun were already sitting at the small table, waiting for him.

"What about Wuhua?" Wu Ye asked.

"Qin-ge went to Zombie Hunters' Union to take some tasks. He had gone out with others to some time ago. He also said that when you wake up, I should accompany you around Lan Cheng Base so you could familiarize yourself with its environment.

Wu Ye was actually curious about Lan Cheng base. After a meager lunch, he watched the student-professor duo debug their 'zombie detectors' for a while, then he set out with Ji Yu around sunset.

Talking to Ji Yun, Wu Ye learned that there was no basic national policy and family planning here like in his own world. People here still follow the olden belief that having more children would bring more prosperity to a family. It's no wonder the population had already exceeded the 2 billion mark, reaching 2.4 billion people.

According to the history book he read, when Opium War started, the Qing Dynasty was overthrown, and the middle-class population took over. After drastic reforms and two world wars, China, with its abundant human resources and massive market, was able to go head-to-head with the elites of the United States. However, the similarities between both worlds could be terrifying. When he found out that Grandpa Mao was also the Chinese president in this world, he exclaimed that some people are always destined to be heroes.

However, history had made cruel twists at some critical points that would cause the entire world to experience drastic changes.

Without even finishing to explore Lan Cheng's trade market, Wu Ye had already concluded that the technology in this world was at least 10 years ahead compared from his own.

While people back in his world were proud of their little discoveries on artificial intelligence, people in this world had already invented artificial intelligence and had even made the technology accessible to the public.

"Hey chap, you've stared long enough. Aren't you buying?" The owner would have kicked Wu Ye had he not been quite a looker. It was still okay to look around his store and touch products like a nerd, but this guy even started playing on the latest model of a tablet computer.

This tablet had a light and compact finish. Wu Ye switched it on and navigated through its interface. He then held its flat panel against the sun for half an hour while playing with it. Surprisingly, the tablet did not even turn warm after playing with it for some time. In fact, the battery was still fully charged. When Wu Ye heard the stall owner spoke, he put down the tablet. However, a hologram of a person sprang out from the middle of the tablet and looked at him tearfully. With a sticky voice, it called out, "Master, buy this prince! This prince is very capable."

Damn, did you now how shameful acting cute is?!

"Master, please, won't you buy me?"

Second young master Wu Ye was speechless.

"Master, this prince have lots of good games saved in it."

"…Boss, how much is this?" The second young master was definitely not attracted to the games. He just felt that this AI was too pitiful.

The stall owner looked around and saw that there was no inspector around. Then he lowered his voice and said, "I don't sell this stuff."