Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse-Chapter 197 - 186 Jungle Area 187
Perhaps it was because his appearance was quite pleasant, his tone friendly, and there was an adorable little creature perched on his shoulder, constantly chirping, that the person in the treehouse poked his head out once more.
The owner of the treehouse was a man of average appearance, seemingly in his early twenties, around the age of a college student.
"Hey, where did you come from?" the man asked cautiously.
"I came all the way from the north, walked the entire day, and now it’s almost dark; I found your treehouse just in time."
"From the north?" The man was taken aback for a moment and then murmured under his breath, "Oh man, could it be the big shot from the north?" He continued, "So, what brings you here?"
"I just thought that with the expansion of the protection zone, there’s a chance to find other survivors, so I came out to see. It’s been too long communicating with others only via voice channels, feels like I’m becoming a shut-in." Xu Xin expressed with excitement, "After searching for so long, finally found a real person, that’s wonderful! By the way!"
Xu Xin took out a piece of mutated beast meat from his backpack that he had brought with him, his expression sincere, "Nowadays many people are hungry, you probably don’t have much food either, so here’s some meat as a welcome gift."
He wasn’t afraid that this person might get greedy and try to harm him; if that happens, he’d have no qualms about taking this guy down and seizing the treehouse. After all, they weren’t in the same district, and chances are, they’d end up clashing eventually.
"Whoa! Meat!" The mutated beast meat Xu Xin took out made the man exclaim in surprise; he swallowed hard and wiped his mouth, not with ill intent but rather excitement, "This... is really for me?"
Despite having been through life-and-death trials, dealing only with beasts and mutated monsters, and constantly chatting with others on the regional channel, he had not cultivated much wariness towards people. On the contrary, he felt a sense of kinship; it’s been such a long time since he saw a real person.
Xu Xin could also sense that when he heard his call from below, the man’s exclamation contained more excitement than fear.
"Of course, although I don’t have much either, this meat will spoil easily, and I can’t finish it all by myself," Xu Xin waved the meat in his hand.
"Eee!" Keke waved its little paw at the man above, its adorable appearance charming to all, making the man want to reach out and touch it.
"Is that... a little panda?" he asked tentatively.
"That’s right, found it in the jungle; it’s so cute, and being alone is too lonely, so I kept it," Xu Xin petted Keke’s little head, and Keke snuggled against him voluntarily.
"Wow... impressive! It’s a protected animal!" The man said enviously.
The pair of man and beast indeed appeared harmless.
"So... would you... want to come up and sit for a while?" he couldn’t help but say, though he regretted it immediately. Was he being too impulsive?
"Hmm..." Xu Xin showed a hesitant expression, "Maybe it’s better not to, we just met..."
Seeing Xu Xin’s seemingly cautious demeanor, as if fearing him, the man felt more confident that the person in front of him wasn’t one of those strong bad types, and quickly said, "Hey, we’re all lone survivors in this world; what’s there to fear! We’ve got to stick together!"
With that, he vanished from the window, followed by a rustling beneath the tree canopy, and he emerged from the treehouse to the ground below.
This man had an ordinary appearance, neither ugly nor handsome, slightly shorter than Xu Xin, over one-seventy meters tall, with a build neither fat nor thin, dressed in green-level leather armor. Simply put, there was nothing striking about his appearance; he was the kind of person who could blend into the crowd unnoticed.
To put it simply, he was an ordinary person, a very typical ordinary person.
Xu Xin handed over the mutated beast meat to him.
"Oh, how embarrassing!" The man said this, quickly accepting the meat, clearly very tempted by that piece of meat in Xu Xin’s hand.
Having received the meat, he visibly became much friendlier, even extending his hand, "Let’s get to know each other a bit, I’m Le Youfang, you might’ve heard my name; I’m quite active on the regional channel."
It seemed Le Youfang thought that given the close proximity, they must be from the same zone.
"Uh... sorry, I don’t really recognize. My name is Xu Feng." Xu Xin glanced at his hand and extended his own.
He didn’t divulge his real name; after all, his name was at the top of both the rainy season rankings and the first place in the recent defense battle, unknown only to a few even in other regions.
"I’ve shared a bunch of strategies! During the last rainy season, I was the first one to suggest everyone move their things upstairs quickly! Ring any bells?" The person seemed quite confident about his own notoriety.
"...Did you? I don’t seem to recall," Xu Xin pretended to be oblivious.
"Really? You’re not from Jungle 187 zone?"
Zone 187! That’s a neighboring zone!
This made Xu Xin breathe a sigh of relief. With a neighboring zone, the distribution should not be too complex, likely sorted in sequence and intermixed. He was worried it was something like zone 3 or zone 56; that’d be troublesome with mixed-up area distribution.