Chapter 34: I am Zhang Zhang Sanfeng; do you have any advice?

This was an extremely shabby room.

It looked like a thatched firewood shed, yet seemed even more dilapidated and desolate; its utterly empty state was such that even a thief entering would tearfully leave a hundred yuan begging the occupant to keep living.

Two holes punctured the ceiling above, letting cold wind whistle inward, chilling one to the bone.

Inside the entire shed, aside from a bed made of nothing but wooden planks, a chair missing half a leg, and a dirty, broken bowl with chopsticks, there remained only half a steamed bun soaking in water, turned slimy and sticky.

"This can't be my home, right? Am I an orphan or some armless, legless imbecile?" Wu Wang frowned, perplexed.

According to the dungeon introduction.

Although this village was somewhat isolated from the world, it should have had plenty of food and drink; how had it turned into this loathed and abandoned state for him?

Even an orphan shouldn't live so miserably!

"Thump, thump, thump—"

Urgent knocking sounds arrived.

Wu Wang turned his head to glance at the door, which seemed ready to collapse at any moment; in reality, it was merely a wooden board tied upright with rusted wire.

"Zhang Erwa! Come out to eat!"

A rough, middle-aged woman's voice called out.

Then, without caring whether Wu Wang had any objection, she directly grabbed the wooden board and shoved it open with force.

Seeing the frail youth sitting on the legless chair, about to gnaw on that water-soaked bun, the woman frowned and cursed: "I've said it several times already, don't eat dirty things! Don't you understand what I'm saying?"

While speaking, she stepped forward and slapped the bun out of Wu Wang's hand.

Then, she pulled two loaves of bread from the bag she was carrying, even carefully tearing off the packaging wrapper for Wu Wang before handing them over.

It was as if she feared he would eat the packaging and preservatives along with the bread.

It nearly made Wu Wang laugh with anger.

Does this bastard really think Laozi is brain-damaged or not?

"Child, you're young, your parents are gone, and you've contracted madness; you can't even take care of yourself, truly pitiful." The woman looked at Wu Wang with a face full of heartache.

"?"

Wait, buddy, am I actually a madman?

Wu Wang paused for a moment.

No wonder this room looked so broken-down and lacked even furniture; after all that, it truly was the dwelling of a brain-damaged person.

Orphan, madman, backward village.

Brother, these buffs are about to be fully stacked.

"Auntie, what is my name?" Wu Wang quickly adapted to her accent and asked in slightly unfamiliar speech.

At these words, the woman became even more helpless.

She hadn't expected this child couldn't even remember his own name; it seemed his madness was worsening.

It was all the fault of his long-dead parents; why name the child something like that when anything else would have done!

"Your name is Zhang Zhang Sanfeng, childhood nickname Erwa; hmm... where did you get this mushroom from?" The woman suddenly paused mid-conversation.

She saw a mushroom lying on his empty bed, even covered properly with a quilt, as if fearing the mushroom might catch a cold.

Speaking thus, she prepared to reach out and take the mushroom.

Unexpectedly, Wu Wang leaped to the window in a sudden rush, glaring fiercely at her, drool flowing copiously from the corners of his mouth, his eyes bloodshot, waving his hands and brandishing his claws as he shouted: "I picked this! I thought no one wanted it!"

"You're not allowed to touch my stuff!"

"Otherwise, don't blame me, Zhang Zhang Sanfeng, for killing my own kin for the sake of righteousness!"

Seeing him in this state, the woman was also startled.

But given his identity as a madman, she had long grown accustomed to such bizarre behavior.

When speaking to someone with madness, one must agree with them and avoid conflict; otherwise, a madman will truly fight you to the death!

The woman merely glanced at the type of mushroom, confirmed it was non-toxic, then relaxed and said: "Alright, alright, I won't touch it; I have matters to attend to first, so I'll leave now. Come evening, I'll return to open the door and take you to the square for the banquet."

Having said this, she stood up and walked out of the room.

Accompanied by the wooden board slamming shut with a clang as it was dragged closed, Wu Wang heard the harsh sound of chains sliding outside, immediately understanding something.

So his character had been locked inside this thatched firewood shed by them all along!

No wonder there was nothing inside.

They were probably afraid Zhang Zhang Sanfeng would harm himself.

Immediately after, voices from a conversation drifted in from outside; it seemed the woman was saying something to someone.

"Aiya, that damn madman won't survive the Great Sacrifice anyway; why do you care so much about him?" This was an impatient male voice.

The woman replied: "When his parents were alive, they treated our family quite well; now only this child remains, and with just three days left, we can't let him become a starving ghost, can we?"

What the hell is this?

Opening with a prediction that I will die in three days.

You two aren't villagers at all!

Aren't you practically Black and White Impermanence?

"You have the nerve to criticize me; yesterday, who was it that deliberately didn't lock the door properly, just wanting to let him escape? As a result, the child, who has never left the village in his life and suffers from madness, only ran up the mountain to pick a mushroom before returning." The woman said helplessly.

"Hmph! I don't know what you're talking about!"

The man's cursing voice faded into the distance.

The woman also departed.

Outside, there was no more sound.

Wu Wang turned his head to look at the young girl lying on the bed; the oddly shaped hat on her head appeared exceptionally ridiculous.

【Mushroom Hat】

【Equipment Effect: Wearing this hat while remaining completely still rapidly erases your presence, making others perceive you as nothing more than a harmless mushroom.】

【Note: I am a mushroom; what are you?】

This was loot Wu Wang had scavenged from Tuxingsun; in his own words—"This is what I picked up!"

Initially, the Mushroom Hat seemed to bear some characters marked as "contaminated," yet the moment Wu Wang took it into his hands, the Abyssal God exerted its power once more.

After those blood-red pupils stared at the Mushroom Hat for a few seconds, the contaminated characters vanished.

Clearly, this so-called contamination had been devoured by the Abyssal God's mark.

Come to think of it, it was fortunate he had acted so quickly.

Otherwise, once that old woman discovered the girl, she might well have dragged her off to serve as some sort of so-called Saintess.

"Hiss... Ouch, ouch, ouch..."

Rubbing her head, the young girl blinked her eyes open in a daze; the first thing that met her gaze was a filthy-looking little beggar, whose face was so caked with grime that his features were nearly indistinguishable.

Only those eyes shone with extraordinary brightness.

Oh, and there were his teeth... he was grinning quite cheerfully.

Under normal circumstances, anyone waking from a faint to find such a person sitting beside them would surely panic.

Yet she did not.

She merely asked in confusion, "Who are you?"

"Heh heh heh! Since you have asked with such sincerity (omitting Team Rocket's self-introduction here), I am—"

"Kojiro?" the girl suddenly interjected.

"Uh..."

The moment that name slipped out, it completely shattered the mood Wu Wang had been carefully building.

A trace of surprise inevitably rose within his heart.

Wait a minute! How does this person know the name of an anime character from the real world?

"No! This poor Daoist changes neither his given name nor his surname; I am Zhang Zhang Sanfeng! What is your honorable name, Miss? Do you have any instructions?" Wu Wang, after all, was a man who had weathered many storms.

Even though this dungeon was currently filled with strange anomalies at every turn, his manner of conduct remained unchanged.

This was the confidence the Abyssal God had bestowed upon him!

"My name... I... cannot recall clearly; my head feels a bit fuzzy right now." The girl rubbed the back of her skull, where a grotesquely vicious wound lay.

Clearly, before Zhang Zhang Sanfeng discovered her, this person had fallen unconscious in the mountains due to hitting her head.

Yet when Wu Wang saw that wound, still scabbed over with traces of blood, his facial expression underwent a distinctly unnatural change.

Because he remembered clearly.

Wu Wu Xiaoyou also had a wound on the back of her head!

The only difference was—

This wound was fresh and still bleeding, whereas his second sister's was an old injury inflicted five years ago.

Come to think of it...

Although this young girl appeared exactly like Wu Wu Xiaoyou in appearance, her features seemed somehow younger.

"Damn it! Could this dungeon possibly be..."