Walking out of the psychiatric hospital, Su Jin looked up and squinted at the sun in the sky.
Having met his client and negotiated with her, much of his tension had receded, yet thick fog still clouded his mind, heavy and oppressive.
He wondered if this alien sun would end up giving him tumors.
As things stood, he was completely cut off from the Company. If he didn't finish the task they had forced on him, he wouldn't be able to go home at all!
Even if a tumor did kill him, that would be over a decade from now. For now, he had to make preparations in advance.
Pulling out the notebooks and map Fu Qingdai had given him, Su Jin walked along as he headed out.
Under the wide-eyed stare of the security guard at the gate, he strutted grandly out of the psychiatric hospital.
Reaching the curb, Su Jin stopped and gazed into the distance.
According to the map, the neighborhood Fu Qingdai lived in was called Rencai Community, roughly nine kilometers from the psychiatric hospital.
There were taxis on the street he could hail to get there.
However, renting a place in Rencai Community was not his highest priority right now. There was more vital intelligence he needed to scout out first.
After consulting the map for a moment, Su Jin turned and walked toward the right.
Two or three steps in, as if remembering something, he pulled a piece of cord from his briefcase, tied one end to the handle, and securely fastened the other around his wrist.
Only after concealing it beneath his trench coat did he resume walking.
This place was economically underdeveloped and lacked a sound legal system. If some purse-snatcher on a motorcycle came by, he would have nowhere to cry once his bag was gone.
Even in broad daylight, it was better to be as thorough as possible.
His current destination was a large wet market nearby.
Whether the local food differed significantly from Earth's, and whether it was even edible, was entirely unknown.
In the early stage, it would be best to stick to the food he had brought with him, buy some everyday ingredients at the market, and take them back to test in small amounts overnight.
Inside the market, Su Jin observed his surroundings as he walked.
The market was quite unremarkable, offering few surprises.
Yet seeing the array of colorful fruits and vegetables left him in a daze for a while.
The good news was that many of the vegetables looked familiar, though there were others he had never seen before.
Radishes with bizarre patterns, giant single-leaf vegetables, crimson vines...
Weaving between the stalls, Su Jin discreetly pinched off vegetable leaves with one hand, plucking as he went, occasionally lingering to pretend he was discussing them and learning their names.
He could just pinch off a little to take back for testing. Before confirming the food's safety, he couldn't waste a single cent.
Besides, plant-based foods weren't his primary target anyway—the real focus was meat.
If Earth's knowledge still applied, then by common sense, when ranking the safety of unfamiliar foods, it should generally be: Meat ≥ Seeds > Plants.
Large meat-bearing animals typically did not harbor toxins in their muscle and fat.
Creatures of massive size generally relied on physical might to survive, whereas biologically speaking, organisms with weaker physical survival capabilities were far more likely to evolve specialized mechanisms relying on toxins for self-defense.
Furthermore, once the apocalypse arrived, cold storage facilities would mostly be used to store meat—it was high in calories, and even if it spoiled, its safety margin for consumption remained relatively high, making it a dependable, comprehensive food source.
Still, testing the safety of vegetables remained highly necessary.
The key was that it would indirectly corroborate the safety of processed supermarket foods.
After making a circuit of the vegetable area, the meat and seafood section lay ahead.
Looking at the little pink lamps hanging over row after row of butcher stalls, Su Jin couldn't help but chuckle wryly.
To think... selling meat in another world used the exact same trick.
Shine a light on it, and the meat looked better.
However, seeing the large slabs of fatty and lean meat on display, along with the heads of ferocious beasts resembling bull heads, he could roughly deduce that the meat was safe to eat. That was a promising sign.
Having pilfered a few wilted leaves to take back for experiments, and with meat posing no apparent issue, all that remained was seafood.
In the seafood section, rows of aquariums stretched out together.
Stopping in front of one tank, Su Jin paused to look inside.
The fish in the tank were quite varied, but for the most part, they looked ordinary enough—just like typical freshwater fish.
As he watched, his gaze suddenly locked on something!
A massive gray fish twisted its body to face him directly, its gaping mouth pressed flush against the glass.
When he got a clear look at its face, Su Jin shuddered from head to toe!
"What the—this fish...?!"
*(Banmian risked his life sneaking into an alien seafood market to bring you this live photo)*
*Holy shit! An alien big-lipped carp!*
It had a human mouth crammed full of teeth, and to top it off, the mouth ran vertically! It was horrifying... something about it felt completely unnatural!
"Hey there, brother, I noticed you've been watching for a while. Want a fish? Fresh as can be," the stallkeeper's wife came bustling around warmly from behind. "Free descaling and tooth-knocking!"
"Ah?! No need, thank you..."
Su Jin swallowed hard, waved his hands dismissively, and hurried off.
After completing a loop of the market, Su Jin let out a long breath.
For now, the food seemed reasonably reliable, but he still couldn't let his guard down; the necessary tests still had to be conducted.
Looking around, Su Jin resumed walking.
After a hundred paces or so, he walked into a pharmacy.
Two clerks stood behind the counter, chatting lazily with each other, clearly uninterested in paying him any mind.
Pausing for a few seconds at the entrance, Su Jin headed toward the dietary supplements section.
Scanning the shelves twice, he picked up the most conspicuous bottle of multivitamin supplements.
Pulling out the Centrum he had ordered earlier through food delivery, he began to make a meticulous comparison.
Once he learned that the Company was about to teleport him away, aside from buying vast quantities of food at the supermarket, the things he had bought most were cigarettes and multivitamin supplements: ten large bottles of Centrum multivitamins.
His reasoning at the time hadn't been complicated. If he truly were sent to an unfamiliar place, food would obviously be an issue, but another problem was just as severe: vitamins and trace minerals.
He regularly worked out and had done quite a bit of research on nutrition.
If one suffered from a prolonged deficiency of trace elements, within a month, athletic performance would be compromised.
Under heavy physical exertion and high stress, the impact would become particularly pronounced.
If the deficiency continued over an extended period, bodily functions would suffer damage, and illness would inevitably follow.
Declining physiological function and disease—either of them could prove fatal if things went wrong.
Comparing the two bottles of nutritional supplements, Su Jin felt his nervous tension ease considerably.
The vast majority of the nutritional ingredients matched up, and even the unfamiliar ones looked somewhat recognizable—he wasn't a professional, after all.
Similar species, identical nutritional components—it seemed that even without testing it himself, the food was at least ninety percent guaranteed to be safe.
Putting the supplement back, Su Jin turned and left the pharmacy.
He had seen most of what he wanted to see. There was still one next stop; after picking up a few things there, he would head straight to Rencai Community to rent a place.
Less than two kilometers from the wet market, right on the street corner, stood such a shop.
Standing before the entrance of the audiovisual shop, a profound wave of nostalgia swept over his heart.
Through the glass window, he could see walls covered in movie cases and simple paper sleeves for optical discs.
How remarkably similar the two worlds were...
He couldn't help recalling his childhood, when he would rent Lam Ching-ying movies to watch—that had probably been the most carefree time of his youth.
After reminiscing for a moment, Su Jin pushed open the shop door. Seeing the owner right behind the counter, he got straight to the point:
"Boss, do you have any disaster movies?"
Chapter 8