First Arrival

Lin Feng had a nickname that had stuck with him from childhood—Madman. This beautiful “nickname” had driven him mad, and crazy. He gnashed his teeth, and left him helpless had been his biggest nightmare, bar none!

From the angry, aggrieved retorts of a child with clenched fists, to the sarcastic, venomous retorts of a teenager, to the cold, indifference in adulthood, each step had been incredibly difficult. But he had always firmly believed in his heart that he would never go mad! He would only drive those who maliciously mocked him mad!

But at this moment, this belief was deeply shaken. He narrowed his eyes and surveyed his surroundings: the tall, dense trees, the pine trees, the soft, leaf-covered earth, the tangled, twisted roots of trees adorned with crushed fungi. Lin Feng lifted his hand, which had just supported the tree trunk. It was covered with slippery green moss… He sniffed, the fresh air relaxing him…

Lin Feng’s eyes twitched. Where was his shop? Where was the ocean beyond his door? And that salty, humid smell of the sea… Ah, he must have gone mad… Otherwise, how could the scene before him change from ocean to forest in the blink of an eye?

Suppressing a faint unease, Lin Feng sighed to the sky. He felt he needed a good rest. He must have been hallucinating from exhaustion.

 After taking in his surroundings once more, and confirming he truly didn’t recognize the place, he slowly sat down against a tree trunk…

Boom—

Roar—

Lin Feng jolted to his feet. What had just happened? An explosion? Grasping the nearby tree trunk to steady himself from the trembling earth, he finally realized something was amiss. This was a forest, yes, but… it looked like a forest in the middle of a battlefield?

Peering through the leaves, he could faintly see smoke drifting from the explosion. The air carried the faint smell of burning grass and a cacophony of noises he had previously ignored.

Lin Feng frowned. He stood there in a daze for a moment before finally moving towards the source of the sound. No matter how he’d gotten there, he needed to see the person first.

Pushing aside the bushes that blocked his view, Lin Feng took in the battlefield before him… well,  it was a charred, desolate scene, challenging the rather vague worldview and outlook on life that had been formed over the past twenty-one years.

 Through the thorns before him, Lin Feng raised his head expressionlessly, then he met a pair of large, metallic, confused eyes… if this gorilla-like iron creature could truly feel such an emotion.

Lin Feng’s mind was a mess at this moment. He stared blankly up at the gorilla’s shrunken face, his confusion meeting confusion with confusion.

Gorilla, a familiar species.

Metal, a familiar object.

But when these two things came together, Lin Feng felt that this world was a bit mysterious.

A hairless gorilla with silvery-white metallic skin, three meters tall, radiating a cold metallic glow… Lin Feng suddenly felt that his morning cake was a bit greasy, as his mouth tasted bitter and his stomach was twitching.

King Kong gorilla, an unfamiliar forest, earth-shattering explosions, the roar of the beast, and the sudden change of environment… Thanks to the part-time student’s tireless knowledge sharing, he thought he finally understood the current situation.  

Needless to say, you, the time-traveling god he’s never met but are so famous, win! And you, the part-time job girl who loves to tease customers, you can take away all the cakes you’ve coveted from the kitchen… may you die of obesity.

Though his mind was a blur, Lin Feng didn’t avert his gaze from the bewildered gorilla. Animal World teaches us that when confronting a beast, you must never look away first, unless you want to be reborn soon.

As a cake shop owner who deals daily with sweets, Lin Feng still occasionally watches the long-standing show Animal World, so he locked his gaze with an unwavering determination.

One second, two seconds… countless seconds passed. Lin Feng felt the corners of the gorilla’s metallic eyes twitching.

Lin Feng persisted, even though his eyes felt incredibly sore and swollen. Tears slowly seeped from his long-open eyes due to the dryness, and his vision began to blur.

 No! He can’t give up! Lin Feng pinched his palm hard, and the wound from pushing away the thorns began to bleed again. The pain strengthened his resolve. He must win! And then… he won. In his blurring vision, he vaguely saw the metal gorilla slowly and stiffly turn its head, its mouth wide open at the back.

“Commander, something serious has happened!”

Lin Feng’s breath of relief, stifled by the gorilla’s averted gaze, was stagnant. He blinked in shock. The tears that had been blocking his vision slid down the corners of his eyes, and his vision cleared again.

His brain, etched by the cake, had turned into a mushy mess. What had he just heard?! King Kong gorilla spoke? Had he heard correctly?!

In his stunned, bewildered eyes, King Kong gorilla turned his head and glanced at him again. Then, strangely, he bent slightly and slowly retreated with a human-like, cautious gesture, extending his hands (palms?) in a soothing gesture.

“Ah, don’t cry, don’t cry, I didn’t mean to scare you, don’t cry…”

Lin Feng’s eyes widened. The gorilla actually spoke! Really, really spoke! And in perfect Mandarin!

Then something even more terrifying happened. As the gorilla retreated, more and more tall, silvery-white iron figures appeared in his sight in the forest surrounding the charred land.

Gorillas, brown bears, leopards, tigers… Lin Feng stiffly raised his head to the sky… Ah, that iron bird was flying so happily in the sky…

“What’s wrong?”

A cold, low voice drew Lin Feng’s attention back. Amidst the many tall, silent iron figures, a slender figure slowly emerged.

 The man was dressed in a slim-fitting black uniform, buttoned meticulously to the top. As he approached, his black combat boots clicked against the charred branches. Lin Feng looked up, his gaze fixed on the man’s face. Deep features, a hard jawline, narrow eyes, rare silver pupils and silver hair… and a chilling coldness lingered in those silver eyes.

Lin Feng’s scalp tingled, and the slight excitement and joy he had felt at seeing a human vanished. This man seemed even more dangerous than these King Kongs.

His silver eyes scanned him coldly like a scanner, then fixed on his bleeding palm.

Lin Feng noticed his gaze and stiffly put his hands behind his back. He spoke with difficulty, “Hello, may I ask where this is?”

The man’s expression grew even colder. He looked Lin Feng up and down again, frowning. “Female?”

Lin Feng blinked. “What?”