Lu Yao really wanted to open the door and see what was happening outside. But his instinct for safety made him suppress his curiosity.

In the kitchen, the sound of a knife continuously hitting the cutting board was particularly clear to Lu Yao’s ears.

He could even tell from the friction between the knife and the ingredients that it was cutting potatoes, and it was cutting them into slices.

Oh, now it’s cutting them into shreds.

He could smell the aroma of meat soup, it was stewed pork ribs with lotus root, the taste was rich.

Lu Yao stuck his head out of the window. Outside his room was a small living room, and on the other side of the living room was a small kitchen, so he could see the glass of the kitchen from the window.

However, the kitchen glass was covered with floral window paper, so he couldn’t see the situation inside clearly.

The kitchen was lit, and a figure was reflected on the window paper.

The figure had tied-up hair, a slender figure, and stood steadily in the kitchen, cooking.

Lu Yao suddenly realized that his vision had become very good, as if the visual image had been upgraded from 720p to 1080p. Even the shadow reflected on the window, he could see the other person’s body lines at a glance, as well as the specific position and rhythm of each cutting action.

Is this… entering the zone mode of a legendary athlete?

No.

Not only his vision, but also his hearing and sense of smell had become much better, overall, his body’s sensitivity to the outside world had improved by a level.

This was completely different from yesterday. Why did he have such a big change overnight?

The only reason Lu Yao could think of was that reminder.

【Population is the body, belief is power.】

Before, he thought that this should be a description of the divine role.

In the pixel game world, the larger the population, the higher the productivity, and the advancement of civilization. This would reveal many hidden game rules and turn them into visualized data.

Belief is even easier to understand. Divine beings need belief to unleash the power of miracles, and belief is strategic resources and ammunition, the more the better.

Lu Yao now realized that perhaps this sentence was not limited to the pixel world of the low-dimensional space.

It also included the real world he lived in.

Various “offerings” and “blessings” could break through the dimensional restrictions through the temple, indicating that this game indeed had unimaginable power behind it.

So the changes brought about by belief and population were directly reflected in the players who acted as divine beings, which seemed to be easy to understand.

After figuring out this layer, Lu Yao found the reason.

The change in his cognitive ability this time must be due to the physiological changes brought about by the more than ten thousand population of the ghost city Sanilo.

He sorted out his thoughts and turned his attention back to the kitchen.

Lu Yao had already determined that the shadow on the window was Miss Yu Yao, Zhou Qiang’s girlfriend.

Zhou Qiang had a girlfriend in college, but she was later snatched away by a rich second-generation, which was both lucky and unlucky.

The lucky part was that the girlfriend now exposed her materialistic traits, rather than after marriage, which would cause relatively less loss. The unfortunate part was that after all, he had been robbed of a partner, which was a blow to any man.

Afterwards, Zhou Qiang worked hard to run an online store, getting up early and working late every day, and he didn’t have a girlfriend again, which was also one of the reasons.

Before today, Lu Yao had never heard of this Miss Yu Yao.

Combined with her strange behavior of cooking and humming in the middle of the night, Lu Yao became even more suspicious.

…

When Lu Yao came back from work the next day and opened the door, he found the table in the living room full of dishes: boiled shrimp, pork rib soup, braised carp, taro chicken, salted duck, mushroom and pork slices, and some refreshing vegetables.

“Sit down, let’s eat together.” Zhou Qiang said proudly, “Yu Yao made them, not bad, right?”

“The style and appearance are impeccable… Where is she?” Lu Yao didn’t see Yu Yao around.

“She went out to buy some things. The kitchen lacks seasonings, toiletries, and a mop.”

Zhou Qiang opened a can of beer and took a sip.

Lu Yao sat down next to him and put down the bag on his back, “Old Zhou, how did you meet Yu Yao?”

“It’s fate.”

Zhou Qiang smiled.

…

He and Yu Yao started dating a week ago.

It was raining that night. Zhou Qiang went downstairs to pick up a returned package and saw a girl standing under the eaves. She was wearing a black suspender skirt, looking lost and homeless.

Zhou Qiang hesitated for a moment and asked if she needed help.

The girl remained silent.

As a result, when Zhou Qiang returned home, he found that the girl had followed him.

He was startled and quickly took out his phone and said, “Don’t mess around, I’ll call the police.”

Zhou Qiang had been an online merchant for several years, so he knew that there were all kinds of people in this world, and he couldn’t let his guard down. Although the other party was a young girl, she might be using some kind of scam, and he might accidentally get involved.

But the girl said, “Weren’t you going to help me?”

Zhou Qiang explained that it was just a polite remark, and everyone was just acting on the spot, not to take it seriously.As he spoke, he started recording on his phone to avoid falling into some new type of scam.

The girl gave a small sound of acknowledgment and turned to leave.

Before she left, she mentioned that she was hungry and asked Zhou Qiang for some food.

Zhou Qiang thought to himself, this trick is too old, let’s see how I deal with you. Just wait and see.

So he handed the girl a pack of ham sausage, two bags of milk, and a bag of sliced bread. He generously told her to eat as much as she wanted without being shy.

In front of him, the girl ate all the food cleanly.

“Is there more?” she asked.

Zhou Qiang was taken aback.

This woman was quite wild.

Fine, if you dare to eat, I dare to give.

Zhou Qiang took out some instant noodles from his home and cooked a large pot for her. The girl slurped them down.

He found a pack of pork floss cakes, and the girl ate them all with plain water.

Finally, he took out two cans of herring from the bottom of his storage, and the girl scooped them up with a fork, even chewing and swallowing the fish bones.

Zhou Qiang was impressed.

He said, “Stop, don’t compete with me anymore, I admit defeat, okay? You should go to the bathroom and throw up, eating so much could kill you.”

The girl said, “It’s okay, thank you. You’re the first person to give me food, everyone else just gives me money.”

Zhou Qiang was completely baffled.

He didn’t know what to say.

Did this person have a problem with her stomach, or was it her brain?

The girl introduced herself as Yu Yao, 21 years old, uneducated, came to the city to work on someone’s recommendation, but was tricked by a shady agency into working as a hostess at a nightclub. She felt something was wrong and ran away, wandering the streets, feeling hungry.

Zhou Qiang chatted with her and found that Yu Yao indeed showed a kind of naive ignorance. This ignorance was not feigned, she truly had no reaction to many things that everyone else knew.

For example, she didn’t know how to use a water heater or a smartphone, she ate bananas with the peel on, and she didn’t deliberately avoid exposing herself or maintain a proper distance from men… She was like a wild woman who had stumbled into modern society.

And she was a very good-looking wild woman.

Hearing this, Lu Yao couldn’t help but remind, “Old Zhou, don’t blame me for being nosy. Is there a possibility… that she’s pretending?”

“Maybe.”

Zhou Qiang grinned, “Women are born actors. I understand that.”

“If she really is pretending, then her acting skills are at an Oscar level. She performs in front of me every day without revealing any flaws. If I’m fooled, then I’m fooled.”

Lu Yao saw a subtle happiness on Zhou Qiang’s face.

He really liked that Yu Yao.

“She’s very diligent, really, the most diligent person I’ve ever seen.” Zhou Qiang couldn’t stop talking about his girlfriend.

“After being with me, she hand washes all the clothes, and they’re very clean.”

“She cooks the meals, and she has a talent for it, she learns quickly.”

“She insists on doing the heavy lifting at home. It’s embarrassing to admit, but she’s stronger than me, and has a much bigger appetite…”

“She’s really good to me.”

Zhou Qiang took a sip of beer, “I’ve had bad luck for several years, it’s about time things turned around.”

Lu Yao felt a bit unreal.

“Doesn’t she have any demands?”

“She has one.”

Zhou Qiang put down his beer, “She likes meat, she asked me to buy more meat.”

At that moment, the front door was pushed open, and Yu Yao returned, carrying bags of groceries.

Lu Yao’s nose twitched.

The smell of blood.

The strongest scent of blood was on Yu Yao’s lips.