Chapter 00093: I've Become the Stand in
# I've Become the Stand-in?
Chapter 93
Novel: AFK Game: Portal to Another World
Chapter 93: I've Become the Stand-in?
Amidst a hazy consciousness, Yang Yiyi slowly awoke.
The first sensation was pain, an ache that permeated her entire body.
Then came hunger and thirst, and her mind felt as heavy as if it were filled with paste, making even the act of opening her eyes a struggle.
In her blurry vision, Yang Yiyi saw something white in front of her.
Her sleepy mind at first thought it was the pale face of a Soul-Reaping Emissary, and she even wondered why this Soul-Reaping Emissary had such a small head and face.
The next second, she blinked, and finally saw clearly that what floated before her was a Jade Tablet...
"What are you?!"
A Jade Tablet was suspended in mid-air.
This scene completely woke Yang Yiyi up.
Her first reaction was that she had encountered something malevolent and needed to run, but her body absolutely did not permit any strenuous movement.
The agitation caused her to grimace in pain.
"Calm down, relax, I'm not a bad person."
A man's voice actually came from the Jade Tablet.
Yang Yiyi replied almost without thinking:
"You're not even a person at all!"
“……”
After an awkward silence, Yang Yiyi seemed to finally regain a bit of her senses.
She saw the towel laid out on the ground beneath her and asked tentatively, "Did you save me?"
"Uh... it's not really saving, I was just watching over you here."
Although a Jade Tablet floating in the air and speaking was indeed beyond common sense, it didn't seem to pose any threat for the time being.
After all, if it were a man-eating Demon, Yang Yiyi would have already turned into shit in its stomach.
She tried her best to sit up a little straighter, clasping her hands in a fist salute.
"Many thanks to Senior for saving my life."
"What Senior? I'm only twenty-six."
"Then... many thanks to Brother Qing for saving my life."
"My surname isn't Qing..."
She probably assumed so because of the three characters 'Sky-Upholding Book' written on the Jade Tablet.
"My surname is Li. Li Chengxi."
"Peaches and plums do not speak, yet a path is born beneath them? What a good name."
"You're not so bad yourself. 'When I left, the willows were green and drooping.' Are your parents scholars?"
Yang Yiyi smiled with a hint of embarrassment:
"My father and mother are just ordinary farmers, but there's a scholar who lives at the entrance of our village. Everyone in the village asks him to pick their names."
This was pretty much the same as Li Chengxi's situation.
He had paid a fortune teller to choose his name.
With this little distraction, Yang Yiyi's mood had clearly relaxed a lot.
"Brother Li, what exactly are you...?"
Yang Yiyi struggled with her wording, probably wanting to ask what kind of thing he was.
She was struggling, and Li Chengxi was also a little conflicted.
How to explain this? Tell her she was just a character in a video game on his computer, and he was casually chatting with her through a microphone while sipping tea?
If he really said that, there would be way too much to explain.
However, Li Chengxi had previous experience to draw from.
Viola and the others worshiped him as a god, and a setting that fit the current situation better...
"I am an Immortal who roams with the wind. I have lost track of the ages, and I am currently conversing with you through this Jade Tablet."
A talking Jade Tablet was clearly more in the style of Xianxia than Wuxia.
If he didn't want to say he was a Demon, posing as an Immortal was a more reliable option.
Since he was an Immortal, that settled it.
The Jade Tablet floating in mid-air now seemed perfectly reasonable.
Yang Yiyi had no doubts.
As long as he wasn't a Demon, everything was fine.
"Has Brother Li thought about the future?"
"I haven't. After all, I don't even know what the world outside is like."
This was a great excuse.
In the future, if there was any common knowledge he didn't understand, asking Yang Yiyi wouldn't make her find it strange.
"Speaking of which, I'm quite curious about you. How did you end up here, and all covered in injuries?"
The cutscene was a bit unexpected, but the information it revealed wasn't actually that much.
For example, why was she pursued to the point of jumping off a cliff, and why did Yang Yiyi also jump down.
At the mention of this, Yang Yiyi lowered her eyes and said with hatred:
"I used to always hear my Senior Martial Sister say the martial world is treacherous, but I was naive enough to think it was just an exaggeration..."
She roughly recounted the course of events to Li Chengxi, holding back tears as she spoke, looking utterly pitiful.
"Oh, so that's how it is."
Li Chengxi had a sudden realization after hearing her story.
No wonder two people had jumped off the cliff one after another.
Speaking of which, this was a standard protagonist template.
"I can't know what happened to the others. Perhaps they're dead, or perhaps they were captured and taken back."
"What are your plans?"
This time, Yang Yiyi couldn't hold it in, and crystalline teardrops splattered onto the front of her clothes.
"I can't go back to my sect, and I can't go back home. I no longer have a place to belong. Even if I'm alive, what's the point?"
It's said that people tend to feel depressed when severely injured, thinking the worst of every situation.
The moment Li Chengxi heard this, he knew she was stuck in a rut and hurriedly said:
"Look on the bright side, you're a free person now, you can go wherever you want. Do you want to be a Great Hero? When your injuries heal, I'll teach you a Peerless Martial Arts, the kind that can send seven or eight big men flying with a single slap."
Yang Yiyi was amused into a laugh:
"How could a Peerless Martial Arts be as simple as sending seven or eight big men flying with a single slap? That's all just nonsense from storytellers."
"That's just the general idea. Right now, the vast sea is yours to leap in, the high sky is yours to fly through. You're only 18, you have plenty of time. Don't you want to go and see this wide world?"
"Brother Li, how did you know I'm 18?"
"I'm an Immortal, of course."
This reason was practically omnipotent.
Yang Yiyi really didn't doubt it.
After all, Immortals were diviners and calculators; figuring out her age was not strange at all.
"Anyway, don't overthink it. Focus on healing your injuries first, then figure out what to do next."
At this moment, Yang Yiyi's stomach let out a "guu~" sound.
Her face immediately turned beet red.
"Hungry, aren't you? You've been asleep for a whole day. I have some food here."
Yang Yiyi was still wondering how a floating Jade Tablet could have food when she saw a phantom image appear on the ground beneath it.
A moment later, the image solidified, revealing a square-shaped object that looked like it was made of flour.
A pleasant, sweet aroma filled the air.
After fleeing for a whole night and being unconscious for a day, Yang Yiyi's eyes were green with hunger, but what little rationality she had left allowed her to maintain a sliver of composure.
"Brother Li, is this for me?"
"Yes, eat up."
This time, she really couldn't hold back anymore.
She snatched the bread and stuffed it into her mouth.
"Delicious! So delicious. Brother Li, the steamed bun you gave me is so fluffy."
It seemed there was no bread on Yang Yiyi's side of things, but they had steamed buns.
Li Chengxi guessed that if he gave a steamed bun to Viola, she would probably say, 'This bread is so dense.'
After wolfing down a couple of bites, Yang Yiyi started to choke a little.
She was about to turn and scoop some springwater from the pond.
"Don't drink the springwater, drink this."
Another orb of light appeared on the ground.
This time, after the light dispersed, a bottle-shaped object appeared.
It was not porcelain, not pottery, and certainly not metal, but as clear and transparent as glass.
"There's a cap on top. Yes, a gentle twist will open it."
Yang Yiyi twisted open the bottle of purified water and gulped down more than half of it.
"Brother Li, this water of yours, how come it doesn't have much taste?"
"Purified water naturally has no taste. The well water and springwater you usually drink have a faint sweet taste because of the minerals inside. But drinking raw water can easily make you sick. In the future, it's best to boil water before drinking."
Yang Yiyi thought to herself, no wonder high officials and noble personages all like to drink tea.
Immortals really know so much.
On Li Chengxi's side, he watched Yang Yiyi on the screen wolfing down the bread and breathed a sigh of relief.
Although Li Chengxi now had a character he could control in the Wuxia Script, it wasn't like the Fantasy Script where he could point and click to look wherever he wanted.
The camera view could only move around Yang Yiyi.
If she had a moment of despair, this script would probably be ruined.
But now that she was eating and drinking, her mood should be much better.
Speaking of which, Yang Yiyi's experience was a textbook protagonist template, but it seemed she hadn't met the classic cheat-like white-bearded old man.
He couldn't help but feel that this development was a bit off.
Li Chengxi's thoughts turned, and he realized it wasn't that she hadn't met one.
Someone was giving her food and drink, and even said they would teach her a peerless martial arts so she could become a great hero in the future...
"Oh no, I've become the stand-in?!"