Bronze City

When Yuan Qian received the comic update notification from D-009, he had already arrived outside the Bronze City.

Strictly speaking, according to the time of the comic world, the content of the fourth episode of "The Incomplete" was released in the real world a few hours after he showed Xiaoman the beastly form of the fox boy Sumei that night the day before.

But D-009's system prompt at the time was this:

[Comic content update completed]

[Due to insufficient emotional value balance, the automatic purchase of updated content and bullet screen function cannot be effective, and the purchase has been canceled]

[Emotional value will be settled at 10:00 the next day]

——If he wants to watch the play he performed, he has to pay for the ticket. D-009 has to understand the copyright awareness.

Yuan Qian felt sad about the prospect of having to cooperate with this kind of skin-stripping attribute system, but there was nothing he could do.

He put more firewood into the campfire, then gently woke up his companion who had agreed to keep watch: "Xiao Man, it's your turn."

Xiaoman, who was not soundly asleep in the wild, immediately opened his eyes in response, and looked awake in the blue.

In fact, Yuanqian could certainly guard the whole night alone, but anyone would feel sorry for Xiaoman, who is at this age, who cannot get a full night's sleep after a whole day of traveling.

But he also understood that as a companion, it was very important to abide by the rules agreed upon beforehand. Being overly kind to a new companion would destroy the fragile trust that had just been accumulated. She was a young girl, but she was also a traveler who could walk alone and did not need any self-proclaimed sympathy.

All Yuan Qian did was to give Xiaoman his coat while she was resting, to add a little more warmth to the traveler's coat, and to plan to wake up at dawn before daybreak so that Xiaoman could rest a little longer.

As expected, he did the right thing. Xiaoman was obviously more reassured with a companion who kept his word. When he returned the coat to him, his expression was almost close to the relatively relaxed state he had when he lived with his mother.

Afterwards, they continued to rush towards the Bronze City. The horseshoe-shaped city that once stood among the mountains but had flattened the mountains gradually emerged in front of them, and carts carrying ore and other goods began to pass by frequently.

From the tiny perspective of a mortal standing on the ground, the towering walls of the Forged City are so majestic, as if showing off their might to every unfriendly guest.

The fox boy walking on the road had a delicate face, snow-white clothes, and was spotless, as if he was not affected by the world. He was out of tune with the merchants, travelers, farmers, miners, and poor people passing by, and attracted a lot of attention.

Xiaoman, who concealed his appearance by looking extremely dusty, looked very ordinary in comparison, just an ordinary traveler of short stature.

He had specially applied this disguise to Xiaoman this morning. Although she had a pair of wolf ears that looked almost real and a fake tail hidden under her coat just in case, it couldn't withstand careful scrutiny. It was still very rare for a teenage girl to leave her hometown, so it was inevitable that others would look at her a few more times, whether out of good intentions or bad intentions.

So he suggested that he should just attract other people's attention himself, and it would be safer for Xiaoman to dress more casually.

Xiaoman had no opinion on this. She had never liked to show off. With her status, she had certainly faced many people's evil intentions, whether explicit or subtle, before. Even the readers had seen it a few times.

So she could understand that Su Mei said this out of kindness. Otherwise, even if one has golden blood, it is not a good thing for a person who is alone to be noticed for his appearance.

At this moment, D-009's cold reminder sounded.

[Today's income sentiment value has been credited.]

[Debts and interest have been automatically deducted. Details can be found in the balance. The settlement is complete. Please continue.]

[New emotional value received: 1293 points; balance: 208 points.]

[Detected that there are comic updates that have not been subscribed, do you want to purchase 1 episode: 195 emotional points (original price 200 points/episode, special offer countdown 10:00)?]

[Confirm/Not Purchase]

“…”

Faced with this pile of system messages that were so devastating that it almost made him anxious, Yuan Qian was silent for a moment, but finally chose to confirm.

The young man in white bent down and picked up a rusted scrap part from the dust on the side of the road. He wiped off the caked-on dirt with his sleeve and tried to make out the markings engraved on the part.

Yuan Qian was able to fully understand the language of the world of "The Incomplete" because D-007 at least gave him a translation plug-in. The common characters here are simply a combination of deformed letters, and the numerical symbols are closer to the ancient inscriptions used for counting in some civilizations in reality.

A vertical line slanting toward the □□ represents "5", and the T-shaped line at the back represents "2", which together make "7".

This part was produced in the seventh city in front of us.

The next row of two concentric circles and a pair of slightly spaced crossed thin eights are factory marks, while smaller symbols indicating the manufacturer have been corroded and are difficult to discern.

The gray-yellow parts lay in the boy's palm. Xiaoman watched the stains that got stuck when he wiped them fall off from his white sleeves by themselves, confirming that he was not mistaken before. His companion's clothes were not ordinary.

Of course it is not ordinary, it is worth dozens of emotional points. Yuan Qian had already criticized it before trying to use this identity to appear in front of Xiaoman.

Although it is well known that the clothes of comic characters will not get dirty except in battle, he has been caught in the world of comics. For him, this is the real world where every blade of grass and every tree is within his reach.

Even though the common contrast attribute of "wearing white clothes that look very stylish but actually having to do her own laundry every day" is not bad, due to his imagined background of the character, Yuan Qian still resigned himself to his fate and spent his limited emotional value when creating the character, adding a magical additional setting to Su Mei's white clothes.

Magic fabrics with powerful functions such as waterproof and dustproof, low-level magic resistance and automatic cleaning are worthy of every modern person who is used to washing machines. Praise magic and at least the world view of comics that still have magic.

He pretended to walk while looking at the parts with his head down and pondering, scanning the contents of Chapter 4 at a glance, deliberately skipping the "Su Mei" screen, and only paying attention to the barrage and Xiaoman's psychological portrayal, looking for some useful information.

Most of the first few pages were as expected. The painting style of Pink Star Studio, the author of "The Incomplete Person", was as delicate and elegant as ever. The classic beautiful boy face he designed was particularly beautiful in the two-dimensional picture and was basically impeccable. Not only did it successfully earn him the emotional value to repay the loan in time, but it also caused the barrage to increase significantly compared to the previous three chapters.

There is a clear difference in appeal to a certain audience between works in which the protagonist has only one adventure on his own and works that have good-looking supporting characters suitable for all ages appear as companions.

With popularity, the author should also gain some benefits. Yuan Qian's guilt was slightly alleviated - although he had no choice, he still felt sorry for messing with other people's serialized works for his own benefit.

The last few pages about the kidnapping case were the ones Yuan Qian read carefully word by word during the update. He repeatedly looked at the most valuable panoramic view of Bronze City, even though it was only from one angle. Who told D-009 not to sell the map? And now that he had it, he couldn't afford to buy it.

In an instant, Mr. Yuan Qian was left with only 13 points of emotional value - and he still owed the system 10 points every day for his own survival and the rent of "Su Mei"'s character. Fortunately, during the period before the first emotional value was settled, D-009 would not directly cancel his account due to arrears - he no longer had to act deliberately. His profile when looking at the Bronze City was already solemn enough to tell the story.

Fortunately, there is no limit on the number of comic readers, and I will probably be able to deposit some money into my account at 10 o'clock tomorrow. Yuan Qian left the balance for one more life, exchanged 2 points of emotion for two gold coins, and closed the system interface without worrying about it.

He led Xiaoman towards the city gate of Jinuo City for people to pass through. During the process, his gentleness disappeared, and was replaced by arrogance that was as cold and hard as the jagged rocks left after a spring dried up.

The fox boy in snow-white clothes was slender and looked exceptionally tall, and his actual height was not inferior to the average guards.

Without the restraint of simple vines, the curtain of white hair draped behind the boy was smooth and shiny, without a single impurity, setting off a face that was the antonym of a poor life. With his chin slightly raised, he showed an arrogance that was not timid at all and did not take the little power of the guard seriously. It was obvious that he was either rich or noble.

Yuan Qian didn't treat them as less human beings just because they were passers-by in the comic world. Moreover, he set the character of Su Mei to be from the abandoned tribe. The life of the abandoned tribe was more humble than the most impoverished beastmen. Su Mei, who grew up in the abandoned tribe, could show such pride at this moment, and she had to give a convincing reason to support it in the future.

The reason is "golden blood". Su Mei's character is fabricated, but everything bought with emotional value is absolutely true in this world.

The powerful bloodline that can transform into a giant beast flows in the body of the young boy with fox ears and a long tail, allowing him to be naturally arrogant and look down on other beastmen.

The difference between them cannot even be compared with that between beasts. If the Golden Blood is a warrior wearing armor and walking through the city-state, ordinary beastmen who do not have this power are just ants in the sand.

However, he has no hobby of showing off, and Su Mei's personality is not such a character, so this mask that he was born with will only be used when it is needed.

Facing Su Mei, who seemed to be from a prominent family, the guards did not dare to interrogate them repeatedly as they did to the old couple who passed by before. They just followed the rules to ask their names and backgrounds and accepted the entrance fee before letting them pass. Even so, cold sweat broke out on the backs of the two guards under their light leather armor, leaving large wet marks on their underwear.

Unlike the orcs, Xiaoman could not feel the influence of the so-called golden blood, but the guards felt the oppression deliberately imposed on them very clearly, just like a young laborer who trembled and felt uneasy when seeing a huge furnace for the first time.

After passing this level, Yuan Qian quickly forgot about the two ordinary guards who were neither good nor bad, and accompanied Xiaoman to find out how to get to the residence of the town proprietress's daughter in Bronze City.

Fortunately, as one of the seven cities, the urban layout here is quite good unless compared with modern times. At least the streets belonging to ordinary residents are not too messy, and they quickly asked for directions.

Along the way, there were a few kind-hearted aunties with rosy faces who were very concerned about Xiaoman. They felt sorry for her for having to make a living outside at such a young age, and they took Xiaoman aside to introduce them to good jobs in Bronze City.

How could the protagonist of a comic stop at the first major node of the journey and become an unknown person from then on? Moreover, the kidnapping case has been drawn into the comic, and something bad is bound to happen in this place in the future. No matter what Xiaoman thought, Yuanqian was completely indifferent to it.

Xiaoman also wants to take her mother's soul for more walks, but she can only refuse the kindness of the aunts who don't know her identity.

They then received some food supplies, information on cheap and affordable hotels that were not too rip-offs... and a simple map of the Bronze City that the enthusiastic aunts had drawn on cakes using the sauce they had just bought.

Xiaoman was walking while chewing a biscuit. There was a bulge on his cheek, which made him look less resolute. His big blue eyes looked more peaceful and cute because of his thin body.

The wind, frost and fatigue remained on the traveler's face, but because she was still young enough, they had not yet had time to be completely engraved into her eyebrows and eyes.

So if you ignore her long travel outfit, she looks no different from the young people who just returned from work on the street.

In the street scene that gradually became old and cramped as we walked forward, Su Mei was the only one who looked like a foreign stranger.

In this case, who could tell that the girl actually grew up in the mountains, and that the boy was the son of an abandoned tribe who had always been excluded and bullied?

As they walked, Yuan Qian gradually began to feel that something was wrong.

The place they were heading to was clearly the residence of the proprietress's daughter who had married into Bronze City, but the surrounding streets looked more and more familiar.

It looks more and more like... the place where the two brothers who were the protagonists of the kidnapping case lived.

As expected of the protagonist, he is chased by stories or accidents.

Yuan Qian hid his presence in his clothes pocket, took out a local dried berry that he had exchanged for his affection points, handed it to Xiaoman, and then touched her head.

Xiaoman silently unwrapped the thin paper that wrapped the snacks, and felt that her companion's usually gentle expression suddenly seemed to have a more indescribable kindness.

She was completely confused and was having trouble finding evidence when she suddenly noticed that the children running on the street were also holding a bunch of snacks in their hands. In fact, most of them were leftovers from cooking at home. Only one or two children were ostentatiously waving the expensive snack wrappers that could only be bought from street vendors.

...Xiaoman looked down at the plain light yellow wrapping paper in his hand, silently smoothed it out and put it in his pocket.