Not only did Yun Yuwei fail to purchase a straw hat, but he also got beaten up by Shen Xin. He returned to Jing Yan’s side, sobbing. “Shifu, what are you doing? You know I’ve already thoroughly offended her, and you still made me ask her to sell me one?”

Jing Yan chided him sternly, “This is a form of training!”

Yun Yuwei was baffled.

“Because you’ve offended her, buying something from her will provide you with greater training opportunities.” Jing Yan began his sermon. “Imagine this: If you can convince someone who hates you to willingly sell you something, how much personal charm would that prove you have? In the future, when you encounter someone who doesn’t hate you, wouldn’t they be falling over themselves to give you their goods for free?”

“That…sounds kind of reasonable?” Yun Yuwei felt like something was off here. “But Shifu, didn’t I come here to learn the blade?”

“Cultivate the heart before cultivating the blade.” Jing Yan sighed. “Ay, since this is your first mission, this master will negotiate on your behalf.”

“Many thanks to Shifu!”

Jing Yan walked over and asked Shen Xin, “What do you think? Is there anything particularly exhausting or laborious? I’ll convince him to do it.”

Shen Xin was speechless. “I just want him to stay away from me.”

“Let’s have some fun together.” He glanced at the newly repaired animal shelter. “Oh right, do the animals need food? How do we get their feed?”

If not for Jing Yan’s reminder, Shen Xin might have forgotten she had livestock to feed.

She set down her tools. “We need to cut grass with a sickle. I forgot to feed the chickens—let’s go add some feed first.”

“Wait.” Jing Yan borrowed her sickle, and then returned to report to Yun Yuwei. “Your Shen-ji has agreed to sell straw hats, but you need to demonstrate your sincerity first. Go on, go harvest 1000 units of feed from the mountain, and Shen-ji will generously forgive you.”

Yun Yuwei was baffled.

“Shifu, let’s forget about the fact that my backpack has only ten slots—I can’t carry 1000 units of feed with a sickle in hand.” He began to suspect Jing Yan was pranking him. “Harvesting 1000 units of feed from the mountain—I’m going to die from exhaustion or get killed by monsters, am I not?”

Yun Yuwei had never expected that the seemingly foolish man would actually have some brains. “This master also thinks it’s unreasonable,” Jing Yan said, face unchanging. “So, I’ve helped you bargain them down to only a hundred feed units.”

Yun Yuwei was speechless. He felt like he’d boarded a bandit’s ship…

After successfully coaxing Yun Yuwei into feeding the animals, Jing Yan entered the livestock shelter to barter with Shen Xin, then casually told her about the island’s monster spawning patterns.

Shen Xin filled the wooden troughs with feed, and the three little animals each chose a trough, diving in to devour the food without disturbing one another.

“So that’s how it is. Then have you thought of a way to get across the lake?” Shen Xin asked.

“Not yet.” Jing Yan explained his idea. “I was thinking of constructing a boat out of stronger materials, but I’ve never smelted ore before. Do you think metal would work?”

“I don’t think copper would, and I’ve yet to successfully smelt iron. If it’s possible, I’ll let you know when the time comes.”

“Okay.”

With the ore smelting, Shen Xin didn’t waste the simple furnace from before and continued to smelt copper. The copper ingots he produced this time, Shen Xin planned to save for making tackle boxes and advanced fishing rods.

He also planted all the seeds he had in his inventory.

Out of the 41 bags of seeds, he identified 37 types of crops, some of which could be planted in the spring: potatoes, spring wheat, cabbage, and melons.

The market did not sell cabbage seeds (which matured in six days) or melon seeds (which matured in seven days). It seemed that the random seeds contained a wider variety than those available for purchase, and Shen Xin’s collecting instinct skyrocketed.

After planting the seeds in a corner of his field, Shen Xin took some fish out to sell.

Many players had formed groups to go fishing at the beach as Chen Xingyun had done in the past few days, so the fish he caught were difficult to sell.

However, recently, several human-sized stone monsters began spawning inside the forest. Without good weapons or knowledge of these monsters’ weaknesses, players stood no chance against them. The situation had once again become dire for many.

Thus, Shen Xin’s fish became a hot commodity once more.

After purchasing new animals with the money from the fish, Shen Xin didn’t see Yun Yuwei return with the sickle.

Just as Shen Xin thought that the sole heir of the Cloud Sea Group had decided to pocket a mere sickle, Jing Yan dragged Yun Yuwei over the next day.

Yun Yuwei arrived in tears.

“What happened to you?” Shen Xin asked gleefully, “Oh? Head full of bumps? Were you trying to rob a beehive?”

“Shut it! I got beat up!” Yun Yuwei’s tears were those of pure innocence.

“I was just minding my own business, cutting grass, when someone suddenly hit me with a rock! And, I mean, they all aimed for my head! I stood up to look, and those guys ran off.”

“I was so mad, I cursed them out a bit, then moved to a different spot to keep cutting. But this time, it was even worse—the rocks thrown at me came in greater numbers! There were definitely four of them! How come there’s a whole team ganging up on me?”

“Tell me what’s going on here…”

Jing Yan chimed in, “That’s right, so after he got beat up, he cried about it for an entire night, then caught a cold from the rain and fever from the stress. He almost died.”

That sounded quite pitiful.

“Maybe you offended someone,” Shen Xin pondered aloud, then suddenly asked, “Were the first two [attackers] a boy and a girl? And the girl super skinny?”

Yun Yuwei stared blankly. “Huh? How do you know?”

Shen Xin paused again, then said, “And the other four—three boys and a girl, right? And one of the boys is super buff?”

Yun Yuwei stared at her in confusion.

Why did this woman know so much?

“Fuck!” Yun Yuwei blurted, alarmed. “Don’t tell me you’re the one who sent those assassins? You wicked woman! Shifu, something’s fishy here.”

Jing Yan pushed Yun Yuwei behind himself. “You know who did it?” he asked Shen Xin.

Shen Xin gave him a meaningful smile. “An old friend.”

Yun Yuwei immediately knew that she meant Zhang Yunyun and Chen Xingyun. If anyone was going to attack her, it would definitely be them, but why had they mistaken Yun Yuwei for her?

Shen Xin pondered this briefly. The most likely scenario was that she had been seen cutting grass a few days ago, and when Yun Yuwei went to do the same yesterday, combined with the rain and fog, visibility was poor, leading to this unfortunate misunderstanding.

Though Shen Xin wasn’t the one who’d been assaulted, this didn’t stop her from holding a grudge. She marked down a strike against Zhang Yunyun and Chen Xingyun, then returned to her usual business with Jing Yan.

This time, in addition to food items, Shen Xin supplied five iron ingots.

Jing Yan’s eyes widened. “You’ve managed to forge iron?!”

“Iron ships!” Jing Yan took the ingots, instantly unlocking a whole array of iron tools and machinery, including ships.

Delighted, Jing Yan opened the blueprint for an iron ship. After confirming he had all the necessary materials saved for the iron ingots, he grabbed Shen Xin’s hands in both of his and shook them. “When are we setting off?”

“Right now,” Shen Xin replied. She still needed Jing Yan to lead the way; without him, she would surely suffer through the labyrinthine caves of the first level.

Yun Yuwei’s whole face fell when he heard his master say he was leaving with that wicked woman. “Shifu! Where are you going? What about me?”

“Go find your own place, kid.”

Yun Yuwei stared at him, stupefied.

Forget it, Jing Yan thought. This little Yun boy is actually pretty fun; I can keep him around a little longer.

He handed Yun Yuwei the ordinary longsword he had used before, saying, “Here, have some fun with this.”

Yun Yuwei’s discontent evaporated, and he reached out both hands with a grin. “Now we’re talking.”

Having gotten what he wanted, Yun Yuwei became exceptionally agreeable. After swiftly dispatching his foolish disciple, Jing Yan, and Shen Xin hurried off to the northern mountains once again.

The Bioluminescent Lake was as tranquil and treacherous as the last time they’d visited. Shen Xin crafted an advanced fishing rod with a copper ingot, then stood on a rock far from the shore to fish while Jing Yan built a boat on the spot.

The iron ship was made with a frame of wood and grass, and its exterior was constructed from iron plating.

Once the ship was completed, Jing Yan called to Shen Xin, “Can you fit inside?”

Shen Xin shook her head. “I don’t feel like fighting. I’m fine with just completing the fishing quest.”

With that, Jing Yan pushed the boat into the lake. The man-eating fish sensed something foreign and swarmed to take a bite, only to crash into the iron plating and sink back down to the bottom of the lake, blood streaming from their mouths.

Jing Yan sighed in relief, then climbed aboard and rowed to the opposite bank.

Legend had it that the fish in this lake were difficult to catch, and whatever one caught might not even be a fish.

After catching plastic bags, beer bottles, and rusty metal, Shen Xin finally got a fish.

It was a man-eating fluorescent fish.

The moment the fish was reeled in, the fluorescent fish seemed to lose its ability to bite, instead docilely flying into Shen Xin’s backpack.

[Fluorescent Man-Eater]: A fish that eats anything except garbage. Its confidence in its own awesomeness allows it to fearlessly glow in the dark. It is a poor ornamental fish, however, as it tastes disgusting and is not recommended for consumption.

“This is the legendary fish?” Shen Xin thought that the difficulty of catching a fluorescent fish was rather low.

In essence, catching a fluorescent fish was no more difficult than catching an eel; it was simply harder to find this lake.

But since this was a level-2 water body, it must have had other special qualities.

Shen Xin continued fishing, and after his bag contained some ten fluorescent fish and even more garbage, Shen Xin attached a box bait to his upgraded pole.

“Maybe the chests in the second-level area are stronger…” Shen Xin cast her fishing line once more, ready at any moment to consume food and replenish her strength.

What she didn’t expect was that the first thing she reeled in wasn’t a chest, but a swiftly swimming creature.

“The legendary fish?”

In that instant, Shen Xin realized this fish was no ordinary foe, but when she tried to reel in her line, the System delivered a notification:

【 The level of this fish is too high. You must have at least one player assist you in catching it. 】

“Assist? How do I get assistance?!” Shen Xin had never heard of needing help to catch a fish.

She immediately shouted to the other side, “Jing Yan, Jing Yan, Jing Yan! Come help me!”

Jing Yan hadn’t ventured too deep into the water, and upon hearing her cries, he ran over right away. He saw the dark shadow swimming in the water.

“What’s that?!”

“The legendary fish! The System says I need a player’s assistance!”

Shen Xin felt numbness in her hands as she felt the force pulling on her fishing line, threatening to drag it into the water. Even so, she followed the legendary fish with her line, not daring to blink.

Assistance? How would he assist?

Jing Yan knew Shen Xin couldn’t afford to explain, so he figured he’d just get on the ferry and figure it out later.

He leapt onto the boat, rowing halfway across when Shen Xin said through gritted teeth, “I can’t hold it anymore! Be careful!”

The legendary fish’s shadow was as long as a man, swimming past Jing Yan’s boat. Its silhouette loomed even more menacingly against the low glow of the pool below. Without another word, Jing Yan pulled out his knife and stabbed the legendary fish a few times. It struggled violently in the water for a while…before it croaked.

Shen Xin stared, dumbfounded. “Is that how you ‘assist’?”

Still catching his breath, Jing Yan mumbled dumbly, “I didn’t know!”

Then Shen Xin dragged the legendary fish—now deceased, as dead as a fish—up onto the shore.

The UOL techs watched on in silence. What exactly did they mean by “assist”? They had envisioned someone helping to pull in the fisherman’s line, not some player stabbing a fish!

How could this happen?!