As the steam rose from the pot, he wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his hand, staring at the almost-cooked food. Suddenly, he blurted out, "I win if I can afford to eat."
Dinner was simple: a bowl of spiritual rice and a few pieces of spiritual beast meat, hard as stone, barely greasy. Bai Zang gnawed on the dry meat, his gaze vacant as he gazed out the window at the garbage dump. He muttered incoherently, "Will eating too much spiritual beast meat cause me to regress? What if I ever grow a tail? I'll be completely useless."
After finishing his meal, he patted his empty stomach, burped, and casually tossed the empty bowl into the corner. The pile of bowls had nearly formed a small mountain, but he had no intention of clearing it away. "Life is tiring enough, washing dishes? Forget it." He lay down on the bed, his hands behind his head, and looked up at the ceiling, which was made of several transparent psychic screens, allowing him to barely see the stars outside.
He sighed and said self-deprecatingly, "What a life I've been through. In the virtual world, I'm just stealing and cheating, and in reality, I can't even get enough to eat. I'm truly a role model in the world of immortal cultivation."
Late at night, the wind from the garbage dump blew through, stirring up a cloud of dust and tattered paper. Shirozo sat at the doorway of his hut, leaning against the remains of a discarded mech, an old psychic screen in hand, flipping through the day's battle log. He stared at the bright red "victory" and "defeat" on the screen, his lips curling up slightly, but that smile betrayed endless fatigue.
"One day, I will find my own way out," he muttered to himself, with a hint of determination in his tone, "Even if I have to pick up trash, I can still make a living."
In the night wind, his figure seemed particularly lonely, but his eyes always revealed unwillingness and stubbornness. This was Bai Zang's world, a life full of embarrassment and hope.
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