The silent forest was filled with bare trees.
A few Red-beaked Sparrows were pecking at the ground.
Tang Wen crept closer, hiding behind a large tree not far away.
He bent down, drew his arm back gently, then whipped it forward—as if skipping a stone across water!
SWOOSH!
A pained cry.
The fist-sized Red-beaked Sparrow tumbled on the ground, flapping its wings.
'A hit!'
He couldn't afford to pay attention to his excitement. Tang Wen immediately ran over and snatched up the still-twitching Red-beaked Sparrow.
The little thing's beak was sharp, its struggles and spasms pricking his palm painfully. It didn't go still until he wrung its neck, and its life finally ebbed away.
'Meat!'
Tang Wen swallowed hard and stuffed the Red-beaked Sparrow into the cloth pouch at his waist. Then, he immediately pulled another stone from his waist.
"CHIRP, CHIRP."
He saw the remaining Red-beaked Sparrows fly to a nearby tree, just a stone's throw away.
They chirped noisily, flapping their wings at Tang Wen from the branches.
Tang Wen smiled. The harsh environment had taught even these birds to conserve their energy.
'That certainly makes things easier for me.'
SWOOSH!
THWACK!
The stone hit a branch. A miss.
Startled again, the Red-beaked Sparrows took flight and flew into the distance.
Tang Wen sighed.
'Chasing them is out of the question. A waste of energy.'
The Experience Panel changed:
[Skill: stone throwing, Master (0→17/1000)]
'17 Experience Points?'
'Hitting a living creature really is different!'
He felt a surge of excitement and continued exploring the forest, treading lightly.
There were fewer Red-beaked Sparrows in the forest. Out on the black grasslands, more of them were eating grass seeds.
But there were also many people out there—people from the camp, as well as Scavengers.
Tang Wen would rather search slowly in the forest than expose his stone throwing Skill.
CRUNCH, CRUNCH. He stepped on a thick layer of dead branches and withered leaves, the metallic scent of damp earth filling his nostrils.
"CHIRP."
After walking for a while, a familiar cry drifted toward him on the wind.
He stopped, quietly determined the direction, and headed forward and to the right.
"CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP."
Four or five Red-beaked Sparrows were calling from the branches.
For the first time, Tang Wen found their red beaks so vividly beautiful and their chirping so pleasant to the ear.
'Even the sweetest melody couldn't compare!'
SWOOSH!
The stone cut off the bird's cry, replaced by an even more beautiful shriek of pain.
The Experience Panel flashed.
[Skill: stone throwing, Master (17→33/1000)]
THUD.
The Red-beaked Sparrow, killed by the stone, fell to the ground, but Tang Wen didn't go to pick it up right away.
He stared at the other sparrows as they took flight, scattering in a flurry and quickly landing on different trees.
'Not far, and they've split up.'
Tang Wen smiled, picked up the dead bird from the ground, and walked toward the next tree.
Even when these Red-beaked Sparrows were silent, their bright red beaks were more conspicuous in this desolate, dark-brown forest than the thinning hair on his former company boss's head from his past life.
SWOOSH. THUD.
A Red-beaked Sparrow fluttered as it fell, quickly going still.
[Skill: stone throwing, Master (33→51/1000)]
This didn't startle the birds in the other trees.
Bending down to pick it up, Tang Wen pulled out a new stone and stealthily approached another tree.
SWOOSH! THWACK!
The stone hit a branch with a sharp crack.
"Damn!"
Before Tang Wen's cry of frustration faded, the few nearby Red-beaked Sparrows all flew away.
He took aim with the stone in his hand and threw it into the air.
As expected, he hit nothing but air.
In the forest, the sky grew dark much faster.
He couldn't help but quicken his pace as he searched...
More than half an hour later, the sun had completely set.
Tang Wen hurried back toward the camp. There were no streetlights here; night was synonymous with danger.
Along the way, many people were returning in a hurry just like him, while a few men holding clubs squatted by the roadside, staring at the crowd.
Several pairs of shifty eyes scanned everyone from head to toe.
The bulging pouch at Tang Wen's waist naturally drew their attention.
Fortunately, Tang Wen had also noticed their hostile intentions.
'What kind of world is this!'
He cursed silently but didn't quicken his pace. Instead, his foot suddenly stumbled, and the heavy pouch at his waist made a loud CLATTERING sound with the movement.
It was stones!
'This unlucky kid!'
'And here we thought he'd dug up something edible.'
Hearing the noise and seeing Tang Wen's small, thin frame, the men lying in wait by the road knew this kid hadn't had many full meals.
They immediately categorized him as easy to bully, but with no profit to be made.
'If there's no profit, why bother bullying him?'
Seeing them look away, Tang Wen slightly adjusted his stride and walked toward the camp, his expression unchanged.
Only after entering the camp did he secretly breathe a sigh of relief.
'I'm safe!'
'The ten jin of Maize was worth it.'
He passed the entrance to his own shack without stopping and headed straight for the market.
On the eastern side of the camp were several rows of houses built from stacked stones.
The road here was wide, and people were setting up stalls on the ground.
Most of the stalls displayed items dug up from who-knows-where.
As Tang Wen walked past, a quick glance told him it was all junk that even a scrap collector back on Earth wouldn't bother looking at twice.
This was the outer camp, after all. The people living here were only slightly better off than the Scavengers outside.
He continued walking inward until he saw a stone perimeter wall with a large iron-bar gate in the middle, flanked by bunker-like stone houses. Only then did he stop.
From his memories, Tang Wen knew that the area inside the iron gate was called—the Inner City.
According to the people in the outer camp, the Inner City was a place where you could eat your fill of Maize every day.
Everyone wanted to live inside, but no one was qualified.
Brother Li, the one who collected rent in the camp, had said, 'The Inner City isn't a place you can get into just by paying a few extra jin of grain!'
Tang Wen peered through the iron gate for a moment, curious.
The original owner of his body had arrived here as a wanderer with his parents and had lived in the camp for several years, but it seemed he didn't know a single person from the Inner City.
The thick city wall, built from stacked stones, made Tang Wen wonder: 'These huge stone blocks must weigh hundreds, if not thousands, of jin. Could a wall stacked so neatly really be built by human hands?'
'By people like me, who can't even get enough to eat?'
'Or maybe the Inner City has preserved some products of civilization?'
RUMBLE...
His stomach growled.
Tang Wen laughed at himself. 'I'm someone who can't even get enough to eat. Why am I worrying about this?'
He turned his head to the right, toward a stone house with a triangular flag hanging from it, embroidered with the character for "rice."
The rice shop.
It was said to be owned by an important figure from the Inner City.
"If you're empty-handed, get lost!"
Tang Wen had just taken two steps inside the door when an impatient voice barked in his ear.
A man appeared from around a corner at the entrance, clad head to toe in Leather Armor and a leather cap, holding a cocked Crossbow.
The steel arrowhead glinted coldly.
"I-I have something. I have Red-beaked Sparrows."
Tang Wen hastily pulled a dead bird from the cloth pouch that held his stones.
"Go on in."
"O-Okay."
Around the bend, a long table several meters in length was set up with a scale on it.
The courtyard was filled with large black pottery rice vats. Each one was more than half a man's height and as wide as two people could encircle with their arms. A rough count revealed there were more than twenty of them.
'Is that all grain?'
Having starved for two days, Tang Wen's breathing grew ragged and his eyes turned red.
'If I had this much... no, even if I just had one vat of grain, I could survive the winter!'
"Red-beaked Sparrows are a rare sight. Let me see."
Behind the long table, a small, old man on a lounge chair slowly pushed aside the Beast Skins covering him and stood up.
Tang Wen handed over the Red-beaked Sparrow.
"Oh, caught it alive? Then wrung its neck right after?"
Before the old man could finish, Tang Wen gave him a thumbs-up. "Boss! You've got a sharp eye! How much Maize can one bird get me?"
The old man smiled faintly, tossed the bird on the scale, and weighed it: less than two liang.
About 80 or 90 grams.
"Once it's plucked, it's only about one liang of meat. But it's in good shape—heart, liver, and brain are all there. I'll give you 1.3 jin of Maize for it!"
"Sir, can you give me a little more? It's been a long time since I've had a full meal," Tang Wen said with an obsequious smile. He had heard about the exchange rate for meat to Maize; it was roughly 1 to 10, meaning 1 jin of meat for 10 jin of rice.
"Is there anything else in your pouch?"
"Yes, two more."
Tang Wen pulled two more Red-beaked Sparrows from his tunic.
"Hoh, you're quite capable!"
"Just got lucky, that's all."
"Heh, they're all in one piece," the boss said, looking at Tang Wen. "Seeing as you're so thin you're almost a skeleton, I'll make it one and a half jin per bird. If you catch any more in the future..."
"If I get more, I'll bring them all to you! Thank you, Boss! Thank you, Sir!"
"Alright. You're a sharp one." The boss gave him an extra glance.
Scooping the Maize, weighing it...
Tang Wen tucked the coarse cloth bag of Maize into his tunic, thanked the man profusely once more, and turned to leave the rice shop.