RIIDMDR chapter 1

 

“Where did that stone come from? Could someone have thrown something from a high place again?”

“That’s so wicked! It hit him right on the head.”

“Is he still alive? Have you called an ambulance?”

“Yes, but there’s a traffic jam on Taiming Road. I don’t know if they can get through.”

“What a shame! Such a young child! Is there a doctor? See if they can save him first…”

“…”

Nan Xu felt a sharp pain in his head. The accident had happened in an instant. His ears were filled with a cacophony of chatter: the people around him were chattering nervously, gossiping, and joking.

Nan Xu thought he could still be rescued, but before anyone could help him, he gradually lost consciousness.

When he regained consciousness, the chatter faded from his ears, and the air he breathed was pure and almost fragrant with the scent of grass and trees. Nan Xu was puzzled. Shouldn’t he be lying in a hospital room filled with the smell of disinfectant?

Where was he?

He felt no pain from the blow to his head. The surroundings were quiet, but even with his breathing slowed, he could faintly hear the distant chirping of insects and birds.

For some reason, he couldn’t fully open his eyes. Relying on his five senses, he speculated wildly: Had he been dragged to the wilderness and buried? Or was the legendary Yanwang Palace[mfn]“阎王宫” (Yanwang Palace) literally means “King Yama’s Palace,” i.e. the underworld court where the dead are judged.[/mfn] undergoing a restoration project?

After lying there for another ten minutes, Nan Xu was finally able to open his eyes. The sudden sunlight pierced his eyes, causing tears to well up. All he could see was a hazy azure sky whose colors were so vibrant they seemed unreal.

The dizziness in his head gradually faded. He slowly sat up, supporting himself with his arms, and began to look around.

He was now standing in a dilapidated courtyard on hard, yellow mud. A ramshackle wooden and thatched house stood nearby, seemingly poised to collapse. From his vantage point, he could see several large holes in its roof. A fence shielded the courtyard from overgrown weeds, leaving it desolate and bare with no signs of recent human activity.

Nan Xu pondered for a moment, searching his memory for the few maps he had to confirm that he had never been there before.

Just as he was lost in thought, a soft, sweet voice suddenly chimed in his mind: Ding dong~! Welcome to the other world! Congratulations on signing up for the ‘Mountain Inn.’

There was no one around, and the voice startled him. He instinctively asked, “Who’s talking?”

Text patterns slowly emerged in the void before him. A soft, childish voice replied in his head, “I’m number 006 in the Inn system. The inn’s property documents are loading…”

Nan Xu stared at the constantly jumping […] in the void, silent for nearly half a minute. This unscientific scene confused him, but he was still open to new things. After a brief moment of doubt, Nan Xu slowly asked, “System, are you stuck?”

After a moment, 006 said, “…Yes.”

Nan Xu’s mind raced as he stared unblinking at the screen in midair. He noticed that the symbols that had been jumping had stopped.

After waiting another half-minute, the symbols began to jump again, and Nan Xu breathed a sigh of relief.

The property rights documents were identical to those he had seen before. However, he was surprised by the unexpectedly large size of the “Mountain Inn, ” a figure he struggled to estimate with his limited imagination.

After reading them, a contract popped up before his eyes. He read it and felt comfortable with it, so he signed his name in the signature field.

The system screen went blank for a few seconds before a small program popped up. Suddenly, a constant buzz of notifications filled his head.

Stoking the noise in his head, Nanxu scanned the page from top to bottom. It was a simple page, as if created by an amateur programmer working for fifty yuan a day in a remote corner of the world. Like the place he was currently in, it was filled with unreliability and desolation. Surprisingly, it was harmonious.

The tiny system’s notification sound wouldn’t go away. Nan Xu turned down the volume and clicked on the most prominent Inn information:

[Name: Mountain Inn]

[Level: 0]

[Address: Zhuyu Mountain]

[Prosperity: 0]

[Coins: 0].

He was currently in Zhuyu Mountain. He was certain he had never heard of it before. However, considering his bizarre experiences that day—from being hit in the head by a falling rock to unexpectedly waking up and owning a inn—the fact that he had somehow ended up on an unknown mountain and become a mountain king didn’t seem unusual.

Nan Xu got up and headed toward the only wooden house in the yard. He needed to familiarize himself with the surroundings.

The rickety wooden house was only one story high. Nan Xu braced herself for danger when the wooden door swung open, but he was surprised to find an absence of furniture. All he saw was thatch scattered on the bluestone floor and a hole in the roof letting in a ray of sunlight.

This was probably the main room, with a door on each side. Worried that insects and snakes might have made their homes in the thatch, Nan Xu deliberately avoided it and opened the door on the left. Inside, he found a mud-and-stone stove. It was worn from years of disuse, but with some cleaning, it would be usable again.

The room to the right was a bedroom with an old bed. Nan Xu tried to sit on it, and it creaked under his weight. Despite its creak, the bed held up.

But there wasn’t even a quilt on the bed. Nan Xu was worried about where he was going to sleep tonight. He didn’t even know if the nights in the mountains would be cold. Clearly, this room had no food either. Figuring out how to fill his stomach was no small problem, at least for the time being.

As he sat on the bed pondering how he would survive in the wilderness in the days ahead, Nan Xu heard another system notification. He opened it and saw that the previously empty task list was now filled with text:

[Newbie Task: Get familiar with the inn!] (2/3).

Nan Xu had just been in the front yard and the house, so it looked like he had completed those two areas. Furthermore, after the word “Inn” on the homepage, the small icons of a fence and a wooden house lit up, presumably indicating that they were already complete.

Since he had something to do, Nan Xu didn’t linger in the room long. He got up and walked outside. When he sat down in the yard, he noticed the grass outside the fence was lush, suggesting it might be April or May.

Nan Xu left the house and walked around to the back. Wherever he looked, he saw weeds. However, the soil was relatively flat and felt loose underfoot. Perhaps he could grow some vegetables with some weeding.

Although the source of seeds was unknown in this remote area, owning a house and fertile land guaranteed survival.

Nan Xu was an orphan, said to have been abandoned at the entrance of the small town when he was very young. In such a small place, where there was no orphanage, families had limited living conditions and could not afford to raise a child of unknown origin. Therefore, Nan Xu had lived in many homes. Although he hadn’t slept outdoors in six or seven years, he had experienced a long period of poverty. Compared to those days, at least he had a mountain to live on now.

While Nan Xu was brainwashing himself, a small fruit and vegetable icon slowly appeared after “Inn” in the system data. The quest notification indicated that the novice quest had been completed and that he had been rewarded with a novice tool kit.

Nan Xu saw nothing. After pondering for two seconds, he hurriedly returned to the front yard. The door to the wooden house was open, and a large wooden box had appeared in the main room.

He opened the box to reveal a set of practical tools: a pickaxe, a kitchen knife, and a flint. For Nan Xu, it was like receiving timely help.

He picked up the pickaxe and tentatively began to dig. The pickaxe felt heavy in his hand, and the handle was rough, but he felt a sense of peace. It made him take a serious look at the system he had been bound to for the first time.

It didn’t seem so unreliable after all.

Nan Xu wanted to find something else in the system, but after clicking through every section, he found no clues on the simple, clear interface.

“006, do you have any more missions?” Completely bewildered, Nan Xu still held a lingering hope.

The system didn’t respond, but a faint electrical hum tore through his mind for a moment. When the noise finally faded, the mission slowly popped up on the mission board.

Distracted by the noise, Nan Xu rubbed his brain and stared intently at the system homepage.

[Main Mission 1: Upgrade the Inn.]

[Main Mission 1-1: Repair the inn buildings. (Required materials: 5 wood, 1 bundle of thatch).

The wood and thatch were nearby. Nan Xu left the courtyard, axe in hand, and observed the sun’s position. It was still early, so he decided to walk a little further to explore the area. Ideally, he would like to descend the mountain and return to the city rather than living in this desolate place.

But after walking for a while, he abandoned the idea of descending. The wooden house was located about halfway up the mountain. The towering mountain was shrouded in clouds. When he reached the open area, he saw only a continuous stretch of peaks. There was no way he could make it out on his own.

As he passed through a dense forest, he didn’t dare venture deeper, fearing that a beast might devour his food and kill him. Instead, he chose areas with sparser trees and marked his path as he went. After over an hour, Nan Xu heard the sound of flowing water. The mountain path was difficult, and his mouth was dry, so the mere sound of water excited him.

The stream gurgled; the water in the deep mountains was crystal clear. Nan Xu didn’t pay much attention to it, scooping up some water and taking a few sips. The refreshing coolness was tinged with a hint of sweetness.

“The water in the mountains is just so good,” he muttered to himself as he sat by the stream, gazing ahead.

Although we’ve just walked for a long time, the trail is fan-shaped, so we shouldn’t be far from the cabin.

He had heard that ferocious beasts roamed the deep mountain streams and forests, but this stream’s grass was untouched, so it was probably safe.

After washing my face, he saw a small, palm-sized fish swimming nearby. Its carefree demeanor contrasted sharply with Nan Xu’s current state. He stared at the fish for a moment, then took off his shoes, rolled up his trouser legs and sleeves, and stepped into the stream.

 

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Author’s Note:

Nan Xu: Little fish, little fish, are you wagging your tail to mock my poverty? Really? This fish is naughty. I’ll catch you and roast you.