Jiang Yue ate a compressed biscuit and drank half a bottle of water. She tore open the packaging and licked every last crumb inside clean, only then reluctantly throwing the wrapper away.
After walking a bit further, she found a worn dark green piece of canvas in the trash. Overjoyed, Jiang Yue immediately poured the electronic waste she had collected into it.
She shook out her rag-like clothes and put them back on. The feeling of freedom disappeared, and Jiang Yue’s anxiety eased somewhat.
After climbing over several more garbage hills, with trash stretching endlessly across the landscape beneath her feet, Jiang Yue—now full and hydrated—stood at the summit and gazed at the boundless sea of waste. A surge of heroic, expansive emotion rose naturally within her.
She spread her arms wide. The stench-laced wind whipped her tattered prison clothes so that they fluttered violently. She tilted her head back and shouted into the wind: “I’m the king of the world!”
Just then, she looked down and noticed that at the foot of the garbage mountain, a group of scavengers happened to be passing by. They looked up at her, their expressions clearly saying—look, there’s an idiot up there!
Jiang Yue coughed dryly and, feeling thoroughly embarrassed, slunk down the garbage heap with her bundle on her back.
Life is long, and there are always moments of utter social embarrassment. Anyway, no one here knows her.
After eating her fill, her stamina noticeably improved. Two days later, Jiang Yue finally walked out of the massive garbage dump.
Near the dump, black umbrellas were propped up everywhere, most of them about five meters in diameter. Under each umbrella stood simple makeshift shelters. The dwellings varied in shape—some were even built from cardboard boxes and discarded plastic panels.
The recycling station was easy to spot, because it was the only two-story gray building in the area. Standing among the low, scattered shacks, it looked like a crane among chickens.
The recycling station itself was also dull and dusty. Inside were tall gray metal racks. A short, stout middle-aged male Beta was using a magnifying glass to examine a piece of black metallic ore. When he saw Jiang Yue enter, a kind, gentle smile immediately appeared on his face.
“Welcome.”
The owner of the recycling station was a middle-aged male Beta with brown hair. He was short and stocky, wearing gray clothes, and had a string of wooden prayer beads around his wrist.
Jiang Yue nodded and placed the bundle from behind her back onto the counter, spreading it open. The owner’s eyes lit up instantly.
“Well, well, these are all good pieces. Looks like you’ve got some real skill.”
He put on a pair of gloves and carefully sorted through the items, then asked Jiang Yue, “Is this all you’ve got?”
Jiang Yue nodded. A hint of disappointment appeared on the chubby boss’ face. “Alright then.”
He quoted prices for each item one by one, then pulled a stack of currency from the drawer and handed it to Jiang Yue.
The 100-star-note was pink, printed with a beautiful planet. The 10-star-note was grayish blue, featuring a shimmering sky. The 1-star-coin was pale purple, stamped with a crescent moon.
This was the first time Jiang Yue had ever seen physical cash since she transmigrated. In her previous life, she always used a terminal, her interstellar account was linked to it, and paper money had long been obsolete.
Jiang Yue’s terminal had been destroyed in an energy surge during that mental entity explosion incident. Seeing cash now made her quietly breathe a sigh of relief.
The electronic waste she had picked up had unexpectedly sold for 526 star coins, far more than she had anticipated.
The chubby boss happily organized the fine components and, resting both hands on the counter, said to Jiang Yue, “I can tell you’re quite capable. If you find more goods like this in the future, bring them to me. I’ll give you a good price.”
Jiang Yue nodded. “Alright, then. Keep your word.”
She took the money and walked out of the recycling station, passing through the cluster of black parasols and makeshift huts, until she finally saw a relatively normal cement road.
The buildings here were mostly around seven stories tall. Everything, like the leaden clouds hanging over the garbage planet, looked dull and gray. The pedestrians on the street appeared weary and hurried, their clothes worn and tattered, each of them draped in a black waterproof rain cape.
Jiang Yue had already experienced the acid rain of this garbage planet. The moment the droplets landed on skin, they brought a burning, stinging pain.
After walking for a while, Jiang Yue finally found a small inn.
The floor was made of concrete, and the walls were also rough, gray cement. It was essentially just a mud-brick-like room with a bed and a simple set of table and chairs inside. There was a one-square-meter bathroom in the room, fitted with a rusted shower head.
Considering the price of only 20 credits per night, the value for money was actually quite good.
After settling on a place to stay, Jiang Yue went to a tailor shop. This area was full of scavengers, and the shop sold a type of synthetic fabric that was highly durable and wear-resistant, so many of them came here to have clothes made.
Jiang Yue’s prison uniform was beyond repair. It was so worn that even the seat area had worn through a hole during her rock-climbing. After much hesitation, she finally gritted her teeth and spent 87 credits on a new set of clothes, along with two pairs of black boxer briefs and two pairs of black socks.
She then went to a small shop and bought a washbasin, toothbrush, cup, toothpaste, a bar of soap, and two black towels. As she picked out these items, she felt a long-lost sense of happiness, almost like she was splurging during a luxury shopping spree back in Hang Lung1 leading China commercial landlord. Hang Lung Properties primarily develops commercial property complex.
Back at the inn, Jiang Yue took an extremely long shower.
She breathed in the fresh, pleasant scent of soap coming from her own body, changed into the newly bought black synthetic clothes, and sat on the bed in a slightly self-satisfied mood.
After doing all that, she leisurely walked to a small eatery.
“Boss, how much is a boxed meal?”
The female Beta owner, wearing a brown floral apron, replied, “Six credits for two vegetarian dishes, ten credits for two veg and one meat dish.”
Jiang Yue pulled out a 100-credit note. “Five vegetarian meals, five meat meals. Do you have meat here?”
The boss was stunned by her boldness, his eyes widening. “Yes, there’s roast duck, 20 credits each.”
Jiang Yue’s eyes lit up with joy. She picked up the menu and glanced at it. “Then add one roast duck as well. Use the remaining ten credits to pack me a serving of vegetable and meat soup.”
The proprietress said, “Don’t think you can take advantage of my poor arithmetic, where exactly are you getting this ‘remaining ten credits’ from?”
She had miscalculated. It looked like hunger had made her a bit dull.
Feeling slightly embarrassed, Jiang Yue reluctantly took out another 10 credits. She carried two large bags of food back to the inn. The one-meter-long square table could barely hold everything.
She took a deep breath and began eating.
The vegetarian boxed meals consisted of stir-fried mixed vegetables and cabbage with tofu. The two-veg-one-meat set included tomato scrambled eggs, pickled cabbage with pork, and spicy shredded kelp.
All ten boxed meals were completely gone.
Jiang Yue turned her attention to the roast duck. She tore off a duck leg and shoved it into her mouth. After chewing for a moment with puffed cheeks, only a bare bone remained.
She then crunched the bone down with a series of crisp bites before taking a sip of the warm meat soup.
Ah! She felt alive again!
Full and satisfied, Jiang Yue leaned back in her chair, holding a toothpick as she picked at her teeth lazily.
Still, she needed to earn money, lots of small money, so she could buy even more meat and white rice.
Carbohydrates made people happy. Meat made people happy. Being full and well-fed made people happy.
She lay on the bed with a pillow under her head, pulling the blanket all the way up to her chin as she stretched her toes lazily. This was the first night since arriving on the garbage planet that she had eaten and drunk her fill. Things didn’t seem so bad after all. Surviving wasn’t as hard as she had imagined. One day at a time, nothing was truly impossible to get through.
As long as she worked hard picking up trash, life would get better.
Jiang Yue began her scavenging life.
Because she possessed an unusually sharp sense of hearing and powerful dynamic visual tracking ability, she was able to detect the location of incoming spacecraft far earlier than others.
While other scavengers were still unsure whether any aircraft would dump electronic waste that day, Jiang Yue had already heard the faint roar of engines. She quickly pinpointed the direction of the sound and continuously adjusted her position according to its changes.
As a result, she was always among the first to arrive at the dumping sites, collecting the freshest and most valuable scraps.
After spending more time scavenging, an elderly scavenger caught Jiang Yue’s attention.
He was a very old man. His clothes were covered in patches, and his gray-white hair hung messily around his neck. On his head was a pointed black hat.
The moment Jiang Yue saw that pointed hat, she couldn’t help but think of the Sorting Hat from Hogwarts. From certain angles, the old man’s black rain cape also looked very much like a wizard’s robe.
Of course, what drew Jiang Yue’s attention wasn’t his somewhat eccentric clothing, after all, in a place like the garbage field, everyone’s style was already quite “avant-garde.”
That day, after the spacecraft finished dumping electronic waste, Jiang Yue rushed to the scene as usual.
This time, however, she did not immediately focus on searching for valuable scraps. Instead, under the glaring midday sun, she narrowed her eyes and looked for that old man.
Amid the endless sea of garbage, the figure wearing the pointed hat finally appeared. He was only about a minute slower than Jiang Yue.
One was a young, physically strong Alpha who had undergone rigorous training at a Federal Military Academy; the other was a frail, elderly scavenger nearing the end of his life.
Even if one could hear the sound of a spacecraft, determining its exact location was not easy.
When flying at low altitude, the ship’s speed was relatively slow, but the dynamic visual-tracking ability of most humans was completely insufficient to capture even its faint traces.
And that didn’t even account for interference factors; blinding sunlight, drifting clouds, or birds suddenly cutting across the sky.
At the Federal Military Academy, the very first selection test for applicants was dynamic visual tracking ability. In a typical exam lasting an hour and a half, only fifteen candidates managed to reach the end.
Jiang Yue was one of them.
This meant that the old man’s dynamic visual tracking ability was not inferior to Jiang Yue’s.
Judging from his height, the elderly figure should be a male Alpha.
In some ways, the manifested form of one’s psychic power reflected the characteristics of its owner.
A golden eagle, a creature with an exceptionally strong curiosity.
From a distance, the old man glanced toward Jiang Yue, and she nodded in acknowledgment.
Jiang Yue carried a sack full of electronic waste and brought it to the recycling station, exchanging it for a thousand credits. Before leaving, she asked the boss, “Has an old man ever come here to sell scrap? He wears a black pointed hat and should be collecting fairly valuable items.”
The chubby boss replied, “Oh, you mean him. His name is Pan Bu’en. He’s quite well-known around the garbage field. They say he used to be a soldier.”
Jiang Yue asked, “A soldier? How did he end up on a garbage planet like this?”
The chubby boss glanced at her and chuckled. “I can tell you’ve got some skill yourself. The stuff you pick up isn’t any worse than Pan Bu’en’s.”
He studied her face and joked, “And you’re pretty good-looking too. With a face like yours, you could just find yourself a rich patron and live comfortably. Why bother scavenging here?”
Jiang Yue replied, “This place is in the middle of nowhere. Even to get a decent meal I have to walk an hour, where am I supposed to find any rich patron?”
After a pause, Jiang Yue suddenly thought of something and asked, “If his scrap collection is as good as mine, then his income should be decent. Why does he look so shabby, like he hasn’t changed his clothes in over a decade?”
The chubby boss said, “Old Pan is someone who’s risen above vulgar interests. He’s taken in a lot of children.”
He shrugged. “Of course, people like that are respectable, but most of us think he’s just foolish. At his age, he’s still trying to be a hero. Being a hero isn’t that easy, you know? He’s almost in the grave and still refuses to spend his money enjoying life. When he dies, he probably won’t even have enough for cremation.”
The boss flicked the string of prayer beads in his hand and shook his head. “Senile old fool.”
Support me on ko-fi for more additional updates~ ʚ(´꒳`)ɞ
Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152