010 Exploiting the System Loophole.
“It’s bad! The Zombie Tide… the Zombie Tide is heading toward our base! There are tons of mid-rank Mutant Beasts, and some with wings!” someone rushed in in a panic.
“What? Has that damn shop already been flattened?” Zhang Hu’s face lit up with excitement.
“No time to worry about that—brothers, follow me to hold back the Zombie Tide!!”
Outside Radiance Base, the defense cannons on the high walls hit the giant Mutated Birds in the air, but it was like scratching an itch.
“Damn it! Why are there so many Mutated Birds? The firepower can’t hold much longer—where’s the Ability Guard?”
It was at this moment that Lu Qingxue arrived with her people, but she had exhausted most of her mental strength outside Shen Wuqiao’s shop earlier and was now in a weakened state.
Her ice arrows dissipated into mist the instant they were fired.
“Isn’t she supposed to be the number one Combat-type Female Ability User? How is she so useless?!” The two rank-five wood-type Ability Users beside her looked at her differently now.
“Get lost! Whether I’m weak or strong is none of your damn business!” She kicked one of the men in the back. He was controlling vines to grab a large bird, completely unprepared for an attack from behind.
The sudden stumble threw off the angle of his vines. Not only did he fail to catch the bird, he enraged it. It extended its steel claws and dove down, and amid a gust of fierce wind, its claws sank into the man’s shoulders, lifting him off the wall.
“Ah—” Amid a scream, the wood-type Ability User died under the friendly fire sweeping from below.
The other wood-type Ability User, who had witnessed the whole thing, broke out in a cold sweat and shot an odd look at the dark-faced Lu Qingxue.
“What are you looking at? He was useless himself—he deserved it!”
“We can’t hold on! There are too many Mutated Birds. If this drags on, the Ability Users will run out of mental strength and we’ll all die!”
“If it comes to it, release the lowlifes from Zone F to draw their fire—better than everyone dying together!”
“Go! Send a distress message to Light-Chasing Base! Tell them to send High-rank Ability Users for support right now! Hurry!”
Two kilometers away, in Shen Wuqiao’s little shop, the giant birds occasionally sweeping overhead didn’t affect her crystal core earnings at all.
Just an hour ago, the Zombie Tide, finding it couldn’t break through the Protective Shield and suffering constant losses, had actually turned around and headed straight for the base.
The crystal cores scattered across the floor meant a big windfall for the group who had stayed in the shop to take shelter—though of course, before the cores could even warm their hands, they were all traded away for Shen Wuqiao’s egg instant noodles.
“I want another bowl. Ten years into the Post-apocalyptic Era and we can still eat fresh eggs—god, what kind of lives were we living before?” someone said, eating and crying at the same time.
“This little shop seems even safer than the base. If only there were a bit more room outside.”
“Burp~~” Tie Niu let out a satisfied belch and wiped his mouth. “Now THIS is what living feels like. Feels great, hahaha…”
“I wonder how the base is doing? There are way too many Mutated Birds.” Sister Lan finished the last sip of her soup, her expression grave.
Lin Feng spun his dagger elegantly around his palm, a deep sneer tugging at the corner of his mouth:
“Except for the management core and the two zones A and B around it, which have high-voltage power grids overhead, none of the other zones have any ability to defend against an air attack.”
“We have to go back. People are waiting for us,” Keke said anxiously.
“Good luck to you all.” Shen Wuqiao waved them goodbye.
“You too, Boss Lin,” Sister Lan said, and was about to leave when Shen Wuqiao spoke up:
“Oh, right, I need to hire a shop assistant. If you know anyone suitable, please introduce them to me. Room and board included.”
When Zhang Hu’s group had been bullying her earlier, Sister Lan and the others hadn’t stood by and watched for fear of getting into trouble. That showed they weren’t bad people.
She was willing to try trusting whoever they recommended.
Sister Lan’s eyes visibly lit up. “That’s great news. I actually do have someone in mind. What exactly are your requirements for the shop assistant?”
“Whether they have a Supernatural Ability doesn’t matter. What matters is that they’re trustworthy,” Shen Wuqiao said.
“Got it.”
“Boss Shen, I really want to come work for you! But my pioneering team is short-handed.” As Keke walked out the door, her face was full of pitiful regret.
Shen Wuqiao looked at the pile of corpses at the shop entrance. That wouldn’t do. She looked at the group of scavengers sitting by the steps outside and raised her voice:
“Anyone willing to help clean up the entrance? Payment is two bottles of mineral water and two boxes of self-heating rice. I only need five people.”
“Me! Me, me, me…”
The shop’s crisis had passed for now, but who knew how things were going at Radiance Base? If that base collapsed, would she have to move her shop somewhere else?
Could she even move it?
While her mind wandered, she tallied up her gains. In just those two hours since the Zombie Tide had erupted, she’d earned about three thousand points.
Next was to recruit a shop assistant as soon as possible so she could go out and gather more varieties of goods, aiming to upgrade to L3 within two days.
Suddenly she felt a pain in her stomach. That familiar dull ache was—her period?
Good heavens, great aunt and second aunt—it’s the apocalypse, and she still couldn’t shake off her period?
Worse, she didn’t seem to have collected any sanitary pads. Not “seem to”—she really hadn’t.
What was she supposed to do then? How could she go out? How could she do business?
Her mind was already picturing the tragic image of herself sitting on the toilet for seven days straight.
“Big sister?” The shop door was suddenly pushed open, and the little girl she’d met in the garbage heap two days ago walked in.
“It’s you. How did you get here from the base all by yourself?” Shen Wuqiao asked curiously.
“My daddy works so hard, so I want to find more things so he won’t have to be so tired.” The girl’s soft, gentle voice warmed the heart.
Shen Wuqiao’s eyes curved. “You’re such a good girl, much better than me! Oh right, I still don’t know your name.”
The girl tilted her little face up, her eyes big and bright. “My name is Xin Sheng. You can just call me Sheng sheng.”
Shen Wuqiao looked at her with full envy, her eyes sparkling with praise. “Wow~ what a lovely name. So, Sheng sheng, did you come here for something?”
“My daddy is sick. His stomach hurts and he keeps running to the toilet. He can’t drink the dirty water outside anymore. I have a Crystal Core—can I trade it with you for a bottle of water?”
It turned out Sheng sheng had happened to overhear someone mention a shop outside where you could trade Crystal Cores for all kinds of supplies. She’d left the base early in the morning and managed to find her way here.
Shen Wuqiao looked at the Junior Crystal Core clutched in the girl’s grimy little paws, her face showing difficulty. The system had priced mineral water at two Junior Crystal Cores.
“If that’s not enough, I also have sparkly things and colored plastic paper and little plastic bottles that you like. Can I trade those? I’ve washed them all clean.”
When Sheng sheng finished speaking, she pulled a bulging coarse cloth bundle out of her sleeve and dumped everything inside onto the floor.
Good grief—a ten-carat diamond ring, plus a pink diamond necklace. Things that nowadays wouldn’t even be good for cracking walnuts.
But there was also a pile of washed and folded food packaging bags, along with boxes.
Shen Wuqiao roughly counted them: ice cream wrappers in seven or eight flavors, yogurt cups in five flavors, and milk bottles in three different sizes.
There were also packaging bags from frozen convenience foods: big meat buns, BBQ pork buns, custard buns, red bean paste buns, brown sugar ciba cakes, taro sweet potato balls, fried dough sticks…
But Shen Wuqiao’s eyes ended up locked on the cloth bag Sheng sheng had used to carry all this stuff.
Because printed on it was the logo of a certain sanitary pad brand, along with the words “Anniversary Celebration Gift Set Commemorative Edition.”
“Sheng sheng, these things of yours…”
[Host, according to system rules, only scrap you pick up yourself counts. Also, this little girl isn’t your shop employee—she’s a minor and doesn’t meet the recruitment requirements.]
Shen Wuqiao clenched her fist, then suddenly bent down and whispered a few words in Sheng sheng’s ear. The little girl blinked in confusion, but did as she was told.
She gathered up the pile of stuff, ran outside, and dumped it right at the shop entrance: “I’m throwing out the trash~”
Shen Wuqiao hurried out after her: “I’ll pick up the trash!”
System Babaka: Something about this feels a little off…