Starting with the flesh-based stimulant

Seemingly noticing Zhou He's confusion, the peddler pursed his lips and pondered for a long time before speaking:

"Brother Zhou, this world is different from ours."

"Haven't you noticed that although all the cities are connected by main roads, there's practically no traffic between them?"

Zhou He frowned; it seemed that was indeed the case.

Could there be some hidden story behind this?

This time, the peddler stopped being coy and went straight to the point:

"In this world, every large village has an elder, and the title of Mother Mountain Goddess is also an elder, just with a different name."

"When we arrived in the village, there were the village elders, the county elders, and Jincheng elders... but Yongqiang was already dead."

Zhou He thought of the guesthouse owner and felt a pang of sympathy for him.

He then realized that the other person was from his hometown, but before he could say more than a few words, the other person died.

The last thing he did before he died was to send himself out of Jincheng.

This world is not like the previous one, where you could still visit graves and pay respects. In this world, once you die, you are simply eaten.

Once eaten, there's nothing left.

The peddler continued speaking:

"Who do you think you are, grandpa?"

Zhou shook his head, waiting for the peddler to explain.

"Let me put it this way: if you go out, you can eat meat for three to five days and save up enough money for your journey. But if you want to get on the road, you'll have to eat domestic meat for one or two months straight. Of course, if it's good wild meat, one serving will be enough for your journey."

"The third challenge is that you have to eat meat for a year straight. The fourth challenge is at least three years of eating meat every single day."

"Five or six checkpoints? There's no telling how many there are!"

"Brother Zhou, wild meat is not common. The fifth level of the meat trade is called the Meat Boss, and the sixth level is called the Meat Bag. They control all the wild meat in the world. If you want to eat it, you have to go and trade with them."

"Exchange goods or travel money, but if you have goods and travel money, why insist on exchanging them for wild game?"

"To put it bluntly, if you had ten dollars, would you buy something worth ten dollars, or even five dollars?"

Zhou He shook his head. This was a losing business, and anyone would know that it shouldn't be done.

"Yeah, nobody wants to do a losing business. If the meat is poisonous, so what if we go crazy? Everyone's already crazy, so what's a little more?"

"The problem is, there aren't as many domesticated animals as you think. It takes ten months of pregnancy to give birth to one, and it takes at least twenty years for them to grow to a healthy age!"

"Besides, even if you force yourself to eat it, people in that line of work still need this meat to cultivate... Of course, Qiu Shen is different."

The words "Qiu Shen" made Zhou He subconsciously raise his eyes, but he still didn't say anything.

Let's hear what the peddler has to say first.

"Where does the meat come from? Well, we have to raise it, but if the meat from your mother's mountain comes to my Taochuan territory, then I'll just open my mouth wide and eat it all. Otherwise, when it goes back, won't I be short of travel expenses for no reason?"

"Then why don't the old men in this world just keep their meat in enclosures and raise it?"

Zhou and his opening:

"But I... no, I should say Young Master Zhou, isn't he from the capital? And in Jincheng, there's also a deputy director who's been to hundreds of cities."

The peddler shook his head:

"The old men raise meat, and they also steal meat. Those with status are people, and I can't explain that to you clearly."

Zhou felt vaguely that he had heard this sentence before, but he couldn't quite remember it.

Suppressing this doubt, Zhou He pondered in his mind and slowly said:

"So, maps are something all old men forbid?"

The peddler clapped his hands:

"Right, with a map you can travel far. Would you want your pigs in your pen to be able to go out freely and then get eaten by your neighbors?"

Zhou He finally understood why the peddler was so nervous when he heard about the map.

But he also realized something else, and asked directly:

"So Mr. Chen, you do have a map, right?"

The peddler rubbed his teeth, his eyes darting around, but he didn't say a word.

Seeing his expression, Zhou He understood.

The other party said all that, but it wasn't actually to explain anything to me.

It's still about lowering the price.

Thinking about it carefully, striking the rattle a few times wouldn't cost much in travel expenses, and the travel permit was supposed to be given to Li Ping anyway.

It's practically free, but if the peddler gets scared by these words, he can take the opportunity to raise his price.

Undeniably, maps can be very valuable.

But once you have one of those, you can have countless copies!

Zhou He smiled brightly and subconsciously reached out to lift the brim of his hat, only to find that the brim of the student hat was hard and he couldn't lift it with one finger.

He simply reached out and lifted the brim of his hat, his eyes smiling as he met the peddler's gaze.

"Mr. Chen, we're old friends, no need for so much talk. I'll take a small loss and just take one map, nothing more."

The peddler realized that Zhou He understood his intentions, and he pouted in frustration.

"I told you I've never been good at business, not even in my past life. Since I met you, I haven't gained a single advantage."

After saying that, he simply pulled out a scroll that looked more like a painting than a map.

"This was drawn by hundreds of our fellow villagers, bit by bit—by now, I guess they've all been eaten up."

Zhou He took the scroll and offered it with clasped hands:

"Thank you, Mr. Chen. Since you've brought this up, I have something I'd like to hear your advice on."

The peddler curled his lip:

"TOLL!"

Zhou He smiled and took out one hundred yuan, handing it to the peddler:

"I was thinking that once things are settled here, I'll go travel around somewhere else. Yongqiang said that the world is more terrifying than I thought. You've uncovered some of the truth, but there's still a lot to be found. He wants us to go and dig deeper."

"Mr. Chen, I want to know the truth about this world, so I have to go and take a look around."

When he mentioned Yongqiang, the peddler's eyes lost their previous ease and comfort, and he sighed.

"I know what you mean, but a lot of what we found before might be fake. After all, the previous group didn't even think about integrating themselves into the exploration. I can't tell which ones are real and which ones are fake now."

Zhou He nodded:

"I understand what you mean, and I'm not going to listen to you. With a map, I can go and explore on my own... Mr. Chen, where is your hometown?"

The peddler opened his mouth, as if he hadn't understood Zhou He's question, or perhaps he didn't know what to say, so he simply said:

"Yangcheng... Actually, there is a Yangcheng in this world."

"Okay, I remember, Mr. Chen, Guangzhou is a good place."

The peddler seemed a little downcast. He stopped joking around and didn't say anything. He just remained silent, as if he had remembered something.

After a long silence, he slowly spoke:

"The climate in Guangzhou is not good."

Zhou He couldn't understand the other person's emotions, but he knew what to say:

"It's still my hometown after all."

The peddler dropped the subject, sighed, and said:

"If you want to go that far, a meat vendor won't do; you need a coachman."