Along the way, Zhu Yao exchanged a few words with Li Ban, but Ed hardly spoke to him.
Whenever he looked at Li Ban, a trace of wariness lingered in his eyes.
However, this wariness was so straightforward that it actually made him seem harmless.
Ed didn't stare at Li Ban for long before turning to Zhu Yao, who was pulling the cart. "I'm hungry," he said.
Zhu Yao paused. She didn't look back, but her voice carried a hint of reluctance. "Can you hold out a little longer?"
"No," Ed replied, just as bluntly.
Zhu Yao slipped the towing rope off her shoulder and dug a palm-sized cloth pouch out of her pocket.
She pulled the drawstring open and took out a small black stick that looked like a ladyfinger biscuit. She hesitated for a moment before handing it to Ed.
Ed had been staring at the black stick from the moment Zhu Yao took it out, but he didn't reach for it until she offered it to him.
Once he finished, however, Ed just sat there and resumed staring at Li Ban, no longer asking for more food.
"I have a little food here," Li Ban offered.
He had kept some clothes and food prepared in his Cubic Space, and now they could finally be put to use.
But Li Ban soon realized he was celebrating too early.
"Food brought over through a Cubic Space? You really are a Priest too." Zhu Yao shook her head and slipped the rope back over her shoulder. "Food from the outside won't fill your stomach here."
"Is that so? Then what do you eat?"
"It's wheat flatbread. It's our only food. You still have spiritual rhinoceros; aside from buying a pair of legs, you should stockpile some wheat flatbread."
She paused, then continued.
"In this place, if you go too long without eating wheat flatbread, you'll go mad from hunger and eat the people around you.
"But once you eat a person, you become a monster. From then on, you can only eat people."
"Only one kind of food, and starving makes you want to eat people." Li Ban lay back and gazed at the sky. "Ever since I entered this world, I haven't felt my body undergoing any metabolism. This body's state must be locked at the exact moment it entered the Recycling Station. It can shatter, but it won't naturally recover."
He looked down at his hands. The scratches he had gotten in the mud earlier were still there.
They still weren't bleeding, but the red flesh underneath was visible.
"The food required by a body like this probably isn't ordinary sustenance either."
Li Ban wanted to ask Zhu Yao for a piece of wheat flatbread to study.
However, recalling her embarrassed and troubled expression when she had given Ed his food, he decided to wait until they reached the camp.
After all, among the supplies Zhu Yao suggested he exchange his spiritual rhinoceros for, wheat flatbread was likely the most important.
Beside him, Ed was still watching him.
The flatbed cart had no side rails, so both of them had to rely on their own strength to sit upright.
After Li Ban lay down, Ed looked rather unhappy.
However, there was no malice in his eyes; instead, he looked like a pouting, angry child.
It seemed Li Ban was taking up his space.
Yet, this person's face was undoubtedly that of an adult.
He looked to be in his forties or fifties.
Li Ban's gaze dropped to the man's legs.
Compared to his upper body, which clearly belonged to a fully grown adult, his legs were thin and short, as if they weren't original.
He spoke up, asking, "Ed?"
Ed jolted, nearly falling off the cart.
Was his voice really that scary?
"Until Ed gets familiar with you, it's best not to initiate conversation with him," Zhu Yao answered from the front. "His brain suffered a trauma. He tried to repair it, but the results weren't great. Now, he's a bit simple-minded."
"Oh. I just wanted to ask how to replace a pair of legs. Since bodies here don't seem to heal."
"Drinking water and taking baths can both promote physical recovery. However, severed limbs are hard to regenerate." Zhu Yao probably hadn't chatted with anyone in a long time either, as she showed no impatience. "We can sew your legs on with cotton thread or iron wire first, then soak you in water. An hour of soaking should just about do it. Iron wire is a bit more expensive than cotton thread, but it's much sturdier once it heals."
Li Ban's mouth twitched.
Although he already knew this was an abnormal world after witnessing his body's bizarre state, as he gradually learned more, it seemed even more freakish than he had imagined.
He glanced at the supposedly brain-damaged Ed beside him again, easily picturing him going through the same treatment.
He could only say that it truly lived up to being the Dark Side of the Universe.
The cart followed the ruts carved out by past travelers. The ride was somewhat bumpy, and their pace was slow.
Li Ban glanced at the reader inside his Cubic Space. Although it was a reader, it could double as a clock while on low-power standby.
They traveled for about forty minutes.
The Zhu Yao of this world used to be a Priest too, so her physical fitness was beyond question. Even though she wasn't moving fast, she didn't look very tired; she was likely just conserving energy.
"We're at the camp."
Hearing Zhu Yao's alert, Li Ban propped himself up against the cart bed and turned to look ahead.
Beneath a jutting cliff, a wall had been built from grayish-brown stones.
Inside the walls stood two tall wooden towers, each manned by two people armed with bows keeping a vigilant watch.
Calling them tall towers was generous; they were only three or four meters high, barely qualifying as arrow turrets.
The entire camp didn't look very large, seemingly less than a thousand square meters. However, Li Ban noticed some holes in the cliff face; perhaps their true camp was located inside the mountain itself.
Zhu Yao stopped about twenty meters away from the wall, raising her head so the people in the turrets could see her.
She raised her voice and shouted, "We're back! We picked someone up outside!"
Li Ban immediately felt gazes from several directions fall upon him.
A moment later, someone in the turret shouted back, "You're responsible for the person you brought back! He needs to pay a temporary residency fee."
Zhu Yao set the cart down and turned back to Li Ban. "Will you pay the fee with your spiritual rhinoceros? Or do you have other supplies on you?"
"What kind of supplies do you take here?" Li Ban currently had no way to replenish his spiritual rhinoceros, so naturally, he wanted to save it if possible.
"Hard metal elements, weapons, water, cloth—basically anything that can be used without needing a power source."
This place was even more starved of energy than the Trash Realm.
Or rather, it didn't need energy at all.
"I have some cotton and linen clothes, as well as a crossbow and bolts." Li Ban pretended to pull the items out of the sack beside him.
Ed muttered something to the side.
As Zhu Yao took the clothes, she whispered, "The identity of a Priest is quite valuable in the beginning. Of course, if you want to keep it hidden, I won't go blabbing."
Newly arrived Priests usually still had plenty of spiritual rhinoceros they could use.
And spiritual rhinoceros was just about the only usable energy source in this Recycling Station.
"Thank you. I just want to test the waters first."
This world seemed full of danger, and his identity as a Priest would be exposed sooner or later.
Hiding it for the time being, however, would allow him to gather information from a different perspective.
Zhu Yao held up the crossbow Li Ban had produced, turned, and shouted at the turret. "This is a very impressive weapon."
The person in the turret shaded their eyes with a hand, studied it for a moment, and then gestured for them to enter. "Come inside first. We'll talk about it once you're in. It's getting dark."
Having gained permission to enter, Zhu Yao resumed pulling the cart.
When they reached the edge of the stone wall, Li Ban saw a massive stone slab being slowly hoisted up, revealing a gap leading into the camp.
Behind the slab was a mechanism made of four simple bearings and ropes, pulled open entirely by human strength.
The slab was a full meter thick. As he passed beneath it, Li Ban couldn't help but worry that the people inside might lose their grip, sending the stone crashing down to crush them flat.
"If you get flattened, will soaking in water fix that too?" he asked.
Zhu Yao waited until they were fully inside the camp before answering. "Shattering injuries can't heal. But as long as your head is fine, you can just swap out the rest."
After they passed the gate, the six brawny men holding the stone door slowly released the hemp ropes, letting the slab lower back down.
Without exception, all six men were sturdy and powerfully built, their muscles bulging tight from the strain.
Yet, the heads of two of them belonged to a young boy and an old man respectively, looking completely mismatched with their bodies.
Even their skin tones formed stark dividing lines at their necks.
On top of that, there were clearly visible surgical scars along those boundaries.
While Li Ban was observing them, a burly woman wielding a crude spear approached.
Seeing Li Ban, she raised an eyebrow, though her eyes quickly fell upon the light crossbow in Zhu Yao's hands.
"A crossbow. Finely crafted. It certainly looks like something from the outside. However, there are too many delicate parts; it will need careful maintenance and will break easily."
She didn't seem too optimistic about it.
"Hemira, just tell me how long of a temporary residency permit it can trade for," Zhu Yao said.
The tall woman named Hemira simply hooked the crossbow onto her lower back. "Ten days. Within ten days, he either finds a job in the camp, joins the hunting team, or hands over more supplies."
With that, she turned and walked away.
Li Ban stared at Hemira's back, feeling that something was slightly off about her.
A moment later, a skinny little man ran over and handed Li Ban a copper plate engraved with numbers from the Wizard World.
"961-32."
Li Ban chuckled, unable to help but feel that his current experience was quite similar to when he had first entered the Wizard World.
Zhu Yao continued pulling the cart forward.
"First, we'll go return the cart and get paid. Then we'll get a pair of legs for both you and Ed."
"I'm not full yet," Ed suddenly muttered.
"So do you want legs, or food?"
Ed fell silent.
Grumble—
Li Ban touched his head; he swore he had just heard his skull emit the rumbling sound of a hungry stomach.
"I think I'm hungry too," he said thoughtfully.
"Knowing you're hungry is a good thing."
These two completely different responses made Ed pout from the side.
There weren't many buildings in the camp, but Li Ban did see a large door built into the cliff.
He looked left and right, gazing curiously at this world that felt both fresh and decaying.
Zhu Yao pulled the cart over, coming to a halt beneath a makeshift canopy erected from wooden poles.
"I'm here to return the cart."
An old man walked out of the wooden shelter, his hands clasped behind his back as he strolled a lap around the cart.
"The body's intact. Looks like you had good luck today."
Zhu Yao nodded. "There haven't been many monsters out in the wild lately."
"Ah, don't say things like that, you'll jinx it," the old man said, waving his hands repeatedly.
Before his voice had even faded, the clanging sound of metal striking metal echoed from the direction of the main gate.
Li Ban looked back to see the guards in both turrets striking a pair of suspended, battered metal scraps with wooden clubs.
"Ah, you jinx!" The old man slapped his thigh. "I should dock you a piece of wheat flatbread for that!"
Zhu Yao, however, unhurriedly lifted the cart handles again. "I'll drag the cart back in for you, for an extra piece of wheat flatbread."