The Game of Life

After last night’s lesson, Jiang Feng decided he would not make the mistake of creating Wang Shitou’s pure meat wontons again.

Those were not wontons, they were practically biological weapons! Men who ate them would fall silent, women would burst into tears.

The combined sonic assault of Jiang Jiankang and Wang Xiulian from last night still echoed in his ears, and even now, the memory made Jiang Feng’s heart tremble.

After finishing the midday business, Jiang Feng opened his attributes panel to check his task progress; “Stand Firm” had reached (700/1000). He hesitated over whether to use the experience points to upgrade his Mathematics, Physics, and English to high level to cope with his studies or to upgrade his level and see if the game would unlock new features.

Forget it, I might as well upgrade Mathematics, Physics, and English. If the game goes straight into half a year of updates this time, Jiang Feng would have nowhere to cry.

When chopping vegetables, not hearing the system’s proficiency increase notification sound felt like a lack of motivation.

After upgrading all three subjects to high level, he still had over 30,000 experience points left. The attributes panel changed to:

Mathematics (High Level): You have fully mastered all the undergraduate knowledge. (Non-upgradable)

Physics (High Level): You have fully mastered all the undergraduate knowledge. (Non-upgradable)

English (High Level): You have fully mastered all the undergraduate knowledge. (Non-upgradable)

Jiang Feng:…

Suddenly becoming a top student was really an adjustment.

Scrolling down the attributes panel, Jiang Feng noticed the item that looked like a mist in his inventory.

What was this again?

A piece of Li Mingyi’s memory?

Jiang Feng suddenly recalled that one of the rewards for a previous side quest included this, and it was something he could review repeatedly.

After viewing Jiang Huiqin’s memory, the game had instantly entered an update phase, and one update lasted for more than a month, so long that Jiang Feng had almost forgotten he had this item.

He clicked on “A piece of Li Mingyi’s memory” and selected “yes” from the options.

In a daze, Jiang Feng found himself in a dilapidated room.

Or rather, a rundown shed.

A few pieces of wood supported a filthy tarp, made of plastic or some other material that was so dirty its true nature was indiscernible, patched up in many places. The stitches were fine and meticulous, showing the skillful handiwork of the person who had mended them, preventing any wind from whistling through the patchwork despite the harsh cold wind rattling it outside.

It was winter now, and the light inside the shed was very weak.

Although Jiang Feng couldn’t feel the temperature, he could still figure out the season.

Strange, where are the people?

The shed was small, cluttered with mounds of garbage that looked like stuff no one wanted anymore, emitting a suffocating stench. The ground was laid with a lot of straw, without any furniture; not even the most basic table or chairs were present.

Most crucially, Jiang Feng didn’t see Li Mingyi.

With his previous experience in Jiang Huiqin’s memory, Jiang Feng knew Li Mingyi had to be close by.

Could he be hiding in the pile of trash?

Running from creditors?

Surely not.

Mingyi, look, look what this is!” A hoarse woman’s voice came from the other side of the trash mountain.

Li Mingyi and Jiang Huiqin were hidden on the other side of the garbage mound. Li Mingyi lay on a pile of straw, filthy and unkempt, his hair and face covered with mud, and a tattered cotton quilt draped over him. His eyes were dull as he stared blankly at the straw.

Jiang Huiqin looked slightly better than Li Mingyi, wrapped in layers of tattered clothes, her hair disheveled and clumping with grime. They had only one quilt between them, and Jiang Huiqin had wrapped herself in straw, curling up, her hands full of frostbite struggling to strike a damp match that was nearly useless.

This was a middle-aged version of Jiang Huiqin and Li Mingyi, but they looked like two old people on the brink of death.

Jiang Feng could hardly believe that these hands, swollen with frostbite, cracked, bleeding, and oozing pus, struggling to light a match, were Jiang Huiqin’s.

Jiang Huiqin laboriously struck the match for a few minutes, eventually getting it to light. She carefully shielded the flame, expertly pulled out a few pieces of wood from the trash, scraped out a space on the ground, and suddenly there was a fire pit.

“Today is your birthday, I’ll make you something tasty,” Jiang Huiqin carefully pulled Li Mmgyi closer to the fire, and from under the straw, brought out a clean clay pot, “Those thugs turned everything over this morning, they probably thought it was too stinky to bother with this spot, and with the wind blowing like this, he’s not likely to come. Blind Wu from next door said it’s going to snow heavily in a couple of days, I took the chance to pick up our rations before the snow, and with the holidays coming, we can even get a share of the meat.”

How is Blind Wu doing?” Li Mingyi asked weakly.

“He’s not faring well, his leg is festering, he hasn’t got long.” Jiang Huiqin rummaged through the trash again, and incredibly, she pulled out a piece of tremella and a few bird eggs, “I’ll make you a nice feast, so your leg gets better soon. You don’t want to end up like Blind Wu; his wife and kids are gone he has been longing for death. We still have Junming, though. As for that place’in the northwest, I don’t know how things are there.”

“Where did you get the tremella from?” Li Mingyi coughed twice, not directly answering Jiang Huiqin’s words.

“Traded it for the gold bracelet.”

Li Mingyi fell silent.

Don’t look so forlorn; tremella is so precious these days, it’s worth the gold bracelet. If your leg heals, not to mention a gold bracelet, even trading those two little yellow fish I hid in the well would be worth it,” Jiang Huiqin fumbled around, and indeed, she found quite a few valuables in that pile of trash.

“You’re still as good at hiding things as ever,” Li Mingyi finally showed a hint of vitality on his face.

“Of course,” said Jiang Huiqin proudly, “Those thugs think they can find where I hide my stuff? Dream on. The bandits during the war never found it, even after they dug up the ground, they couldn’t unearth the silver dollars I buried. Them, pshaw.”

A hint of vitality began to emerge in the dismal shack.

Due to the fire, the temperature inside the shack rose. Li Mingyi managed to move slightly, wanting to see what Jiang Huiqin had taken out, but unfortunately his glasses had been crushed a long time ago. As he had been malnourished for so long and with the fluctuating light, he couldn’t see clearly at all.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s a secret.”

Perhaps because she was in a good mood, Jiang Huiqin even started humming a tune.

Li Mingyi chuckled as he watched the flames, but suddenly felt as if it was almost New Year’s.

This was the first time he’d felt this way since his eldest son died..