003: Supplies from Before the Post-apocalyptic Era, Discovered.
Shen Wuqiao had just settled into her lounge chair when five sleazy scavengers arrived in front of the convenience store.
As they approached and got a clear look at the goods inside, the shock in their eyes briefly overpowered even their greed.
“It’s been ten years since the apocalypse. How does she have all this new stuff?”
“Holy—there are even cigarettes?!” The skinny monkey leading them looked like his eyeballs were about to pop out.
The group exchanged glances, and the greed and malice in their eyes instantly flared.
Unarmed and facing several sleazy men alone, Shen Wuqiao would be lying if she said she wasn’t scared. But she was even more afraid of losing her only shelter on a post-apocalyptic night, so she had no choice but to steel herself and put on a show of force.
“If you’re buying, pay with Crystal Cores. Don’t get any funny ideas.”
The mole-faced man rubbed his palms as he stepped forward, his face full of smug confidence, like everything was under his control. “Heh heh~ Little sister, us big brothers don’t have Crystal Cores, but we do have…”
A filthy, greasy hand reached toward Shen Wuqiao’s face.
[Malice detected—smiling while hiding a knife. Activating Intermediate Forced Expulsion Program.]
A bolt of lightning fell from the sky, striking the arm the mole-faced man had extended. In the blink of an eye—before the pain could even reach his brain—his arm was scorched black by the electricity.
The four men beside him were also caught in the blue-gold electric arcs and sent flying more than twenty meters away.
They crashed to the ground one by one, smoke rising from the tops of their heads. The mole-faced man, the worst off of them all, was in absolute agony.
“Ah! What the hell was that?!”
“High-voltage electricity! There’s definitely something off about this store! That woman has a powerful Lightning-type Ability!”
“Damn it, I told you—who’d dare open a shop in a place like this without some real skills? Let’s go, quick…”
Dragging the motionless mole-faced man behind them, the group fled with their tails between their legs.
The incandescent lamp illuminated only a small patch of ground in front of the convenience store. Shen Wuqiao watched them disappear into the darkness beyond and let out a sigh of relief, as if all the strength had drained from her.
Climbing back into the lounge chair, her hands were still trembling.
[Strong anxiety detected in the Host. Would you like Babaka to sing you a song?] The system had changed into another little dress, cinched tight around its chubby belly.
“Thank you, Babaka. If it weren’t for you, I’d definitely be dead tonight. I’m not afraid of dying, but I’m afraid of dying alone out there… sob…”
[Rest assured, Host. Once your shopkeeper privileges are activated, as long as you stay inside the store, you’ll enjoy twenty-four-hour invincible defense. Even when you go out, at V1 level, you get one hour of absolute protection.]
[Sleep now~ sleep now, my dear Host…]
Shen Wuqiao had been on edge for days, so even on the hard lounge chair, she fell asleep the moment she closed her eyes.
But she didn’t sleep until dawn. At three in the morning, she was jolted awake by the sound of footsteps.
“Am I seeing things? There’s… there’s a convenience store here?”
An Ability User squad out on a mission from Radiance Base had been unexpectedly drawn to the convenience store’s incandescent light on their way back to the city.
Two men and two women stood fifty meters away, all wearing expressions as if they’d seen a ghost.
“Should we go take a look? Sister Lan, can you sense any danger?”
“No danger. I’ll go first.” A woman with short purple hair strode decisively up to the convenience store window.
“Welcome to Wuqiao’s Convenience Store. Is there anything you’d like to buy?” Shen Wuqiao scrambled up from the lounge chair, yawning as she opened for business.
Sister Lan stared at the pile of goods before her, raising a hand to rub her eyes, but the shock and disbelief in her gaze refused to fade for a long while.
“Potato chips? Instant noodles? Self-heating rice? Cigarettes? This… how is this possible?”
“Oh my god! Sister Lan, am I dead? I haven’t seen these things in five years—some of them not since before the Post-apocalyptic Era! Waaah~~”
A girl with dreadlocks tied back by a blue headband ran over and immediately covered her face, bursting into tears.
“How do we pay for these things? How exactly are they sold?” Sister Lan asked Shen Wuqiao.
Seeing that business was about to pick up, Shen Wuqiao eagerly gave a careful explanation: “Payment is in Crystal Cores. One Junior Crystal Core equals 10 points, an Intermediate Crystal Core is 100 points, an Advanced Crystal Core is 1,000 points. Each item is exchanged at the corresponding point value.”
“Then how many points for a box of self-heating rice?”
“20 points.”
“What? That cheap?” A scar-faced muscle-bound hulk rushed over, his eyes bulging like copper bells.
Sister Lan and the dreadlocked girl’s eyes lit up too: “In the base, two Junior Crystal Cores only get you two rock-hard Insect Cakes.”
“I want self-heating rice, plus potato chips and cookies.”
“I want instant noodles… wait, you have clean water too?” The hulk’s eyes locked straight onto the bottles of mineral water on the shelf, his pupils trembling as if in an earthquake.
“Boss, is your water self-sterilized and purified before bottling, or…?” Sister Lan asked, suppressing the shock in her heart.
Shen Wuqiao brought a bottle of mineral water over to them. “Zero-pollution natural mineral water. In a few days we’ll also have drinking water of different grades in stock. Buy a bottle and try it—you’ll see.”
“Then I want one to try. How many points?”
“Two packs of instant noodles plus a bottle of mineral water comes to fifty points total—that’s five Junior Crystal Cores.”
“Add mine up too.”
“Two boxes of self-heating rice, two packs of cucumber-flavored chips, and one pack of milky cookies—70 points.”
“Here are the Crystal Cores—just tap them.” Sister Lan pushed twelve Crystal Cores in front of Shen Wuqiao, then eagerly twisted open the mineral water.
She first held it under her nose and sniffed—no strange odor. Then she held it up to the light—it was clear and pure, with zero impurities.
“Water this clean? How is that possible?” She took a small sip, and as that cool, sweet freshness spread from her tongue down her throat and rolled into her esophagus—
It was as if, in an instant, all the filth that contaminated food had left in her body was washed away.
“Sister Lan, you… why are you crying? Is something wrong with the water?” the dreadlocked girl asked warily.
“No, Keke, this water… the water is sweet. It tastes like before the apocalypse. Ten years… I finally get to drink water this clean again.”
“Really? Sweet? Then I want to buy a bottle too.”
“One bottle for each of the three of you. Here are six Junior Crystal Cores.” Sister Lan wiped away her tears and handed Shen Wuqiao six more Crystal Cores.
Shen Wuqiao turned around, grabbed three bottles of water, and handed them over. Then suddenly, an idea struck her: “Oh, right—if you bring the empty bottles and packaging back to me for recycling, you’ll get one point back.”
[Host, you really are a clever little thing.]
Sister Lan didn’t hesitate: “Alright, we’ll bring them tomorrow.”
The group left excitedly, each hugging the supplies they’d bought.
“Sister Lan, why bother buying from her with Crystal Cores? Wouldn’t it be easier to just rob her?” A buzz-cut man in black, who had been hiding in the shadows all along, finally showed himself with a wicked grin.
“A woman with no Supernatural Ability fluctuations, running a little shop all alone in that place selling such rare goods without ever running into trouble—you think she’s just lucky?”
“Exactly. Lin Feng, we’re an official pioneering squad of the base now. Let’s not act like bandits, robbing people at every turn, okay? Do you want to become a savage plunderer like Lu Xiao?”
Three hundred li away, in the Light-Chasing Base laboratory—
Li Chengxun took off his glasses, tossed them onto the desk, and rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily:
“Still nothing. We haven’t found a single person with a Zero-Pollution Constitution. That means we can’t develop anti-pollution antibodies. At this rate, humanity will go extinct in less than eighty years.”
Lu Xiao sat on the desk with his arms crossed, laughing carelessly. “So what if we go extinct? I’ve long since had enough of this rotten world. Besides, Misty’s still waiting for us down there…”