The original host, however, was a solo worker.
Her original team was called “Express Way Logistics.” Female members were constrained at every turn inside the team. They were denied work assignments, yet they were continually ordered around by male team members to cater to their daily lives—all without getting paid a single cent.
Unwilling to endure the abuse, the original host left the team. Subsequently, she was blacklisted by her former team, who spread vicious rumors about her throughout the neighborhood. Fortunately, the original host was resilient and unyielding, relying on her personal reputation to rebuild an independent network of contacts from scratch.
However, the downside to this was that she became extremely exhausted and severely malnourished. Her spatial storage was too small; to earn more money, she had to run around endlessly without stopping. Otherwise, she wouldn’t even make enough for the 180-yuan monthly rent, leaving her utterly terrified to take a single day off.
Recalling up to this point, Bai Bai finally remembered who had gotten into the verbal altercation with the original host.
It was none other than that former team.
The two parties had bumped into each other on the road. The other party mocked and provoked her, and while the original host tried to avoid them, they refused to let up. Amidst the pushing and shoving, the original host crashed her head against a tree. Combined with her extremely frail physical condition, she had passed away on the spot.
And then, Bai Bai logged in to take over the account.
“Express Way, huh? Fine. I’ve noted this grudge down. Just wait until I get the chance to settle the score with you.”
Bai Bai took a deep breath and continued her trek.
Deliver the cargo first, earn money first. Only by staying alive would she have the chance to seek revenge.
The city was shattered into pieces. The original paved roads were impassable, with alien flora and fauna competing for territory against native species everywhere. You couldn’t even ride a bicycle, leaving walking on foot as the only option.
It took Bai Bai over two hours to finally walk out of the urban wilderness and lay eyes on shattered asphalt roads.
The remnants of the road surface were scattered here and there, resembling crushed crackers.
Still, it was a man-made road after all, making it far less exhausting to walk on than muddy terrain.
Bai Bai took a deep breath, feeling a sense of returning to civilized world.
Even if this “civilization” was tattered and broken down.
After walking for another half hour, Bai Bai stood at her destination—outside the door of a small restaurant.
“Is the boss in? I’m here with a delivery.”
“Coming, coming!”
Following a voice answering from inside the shop, a man soon walked out wearing an apron. He wiped his hands with a towel before slinging it over his shoulder.
“You’re the delivery worker? Come on, head to the back.”
Bai Bai followed him inside, passing through the dining hall to reach the back kitchen, where a woman pushed over a flatbed handcart for cargo.
She retrieved ten bags of grain from her spatial storage, each weighing 50 jin. She stacked 6 bags on the floor and placed the remaining 4 bags onto the handcart according to the owner’s request.
“Boss, take a look. If everything’s fine, please sign here.”
Bai Bai handed over the delivery receipt.
The woman glanced at Bai Bai, her brows furrowing slightly.
“Your complexion looks terrible. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, just tired from walking.”
Bai Bai forced a smile and offered the receipt forward.
“Your line of work is way too hard.”
The woman shook her head and signed the delivery receipt.
“Old Zhang told us about you, saying you’re an honest girl and that there haven’t been any mishaps in over a year of working together. Take care of your body, don’t push yourself too hard.”
The man pulled out money from his pocket, counting out a few loose bills to hand over to Bai Bai.
“Thank you, boss.”
Bai Bai took the money and stored it in her spatial storage.
In this day and age, although the state had rebuilt basic communication networks, the working class had reverted to cash transactions, turning to electronic payments only when large sums were involved.
Because the network was unreliable—those cell towers and communication lines were easily destroyed by wild-growing alien plants or roaming alien beasts.
For all that hard work, she earned 15 yuan.
There were far too many low-tier spatial awakeners making a living off urban deliveries, causing freight rates to drop repeatedly. The current consensus was a fee set at 3% of the cargo’s value.
To secure gigs, solo workers were willing to accept a reduced rate of just 2% in order to attract store owners looking for cheap service.
The original host’s final delivery order in life was priced at 3%, as written on the receipt, with payment to be settled by the receiver.
The sender was a good-natured boss, and the original host had maintained a pleasant partnership with him. However, orders for solo workers were indeed scarce; most of the time, teams monopolized the market.
This forced solo workers to join teams just to survive.
Yet inside the teams, female members were subject to abuse.
It was a complete deadlock.
“Boss, do you have any delivery orders along my way?”
Bai Bai tucked away the money and asked another question.
The man thought for a moment, turning his head to call out to his wife, who was about to wheel the handcart away.
“Didn’t Old Wang next door say he needed something delivered?”
The woman thought it over and clapped her hands.
“Right, right, right! The grocery store next door. Boss Wang mentioned wanting to dispatch a batch of goods. Go ask him if it’s been sent out yet.”
“Alright, thank you, boss!”
Bai Bai stepped out of the restaurant and turned into the grocery store next door.
The grocery store wasn’t large, with various daily necessities and foodstuffs laid out on the shelves.
Bai Bai scanned the room, her gaze pausing briefly on the salt and sugar.
Salt was 3 yuan per jin per bag, while sugar was 7 yuan per jin per bag.
Being able to get prices like these was thanks to alternative sugar crops—word was they were harvested from alien plants through a simplified processing method. Without bleaching or decolorization, the final product turned out purple and black with a slightly strange sweetness, but it was indeed sugar.
At any rate, the locals at least had sugar to eat, and even used sugar to barter for grain from the outside.
Salt wasn’t scarce locally either, as there were traditional salt wells and salt mines. Alien plants growing near salty soil could extract subterranean salt directly onto their leaves, making salt harvesting far easier nowadays.
She pulled out money to buy a bag of salt and a bag of sugar, spending 10 yuan.
Just as she was about to ask the store owner if there were any deliveries to handle, a new customer walked into the store.
The owner warmly greeted the customer.
“Is the water I asked for here yet?”
“It’s here, it’s here! How are you taking it back?”
“Don’t you have anyone here for temporary delivery?”
Bai Bai immediately raised her hand.
“Me, me, me! I’m a delivery worker.”
As she spoke, she demonstrated using the newly purchased salt and sugar in her hand, making them disappear one second and reappear the next.
The customer found it amusing and chuckled softly, not being picky.
“Fine, you it is. I have four jugs of water, do you have room?”
“Yes, plenty of room! Just emptied my space.”
Shortly after, the owner led the customer and Bai Bai deeper into the store.
Right in front of the owner and the customer, Bai Bai stored four jugs into her spatial storage from the pile of bottled water on the floor.
Then, Bai Bai used up one of her 2x Replication chances, turning four jugs into eight.
Those four extra jugs were naturally reserved for herself—there was no way she was ever drinking that weirdly flavored water again.
Her head throbbed painfully once more, and the swelling bump on the back of her head, which had grown numb earlier, throbbed violently to declare its presence.
Bai Bai stoically endured it without showing a hint of expression.
The customer bought a few more miscellaneous groceries, packing them into a large bag to hand over to Bai Bai for storage.
Bai Bai’s eyes gleamed with envy—these were all daily groceries she could use herself, but with only one safe replication attempt left, she didn’t dare make a move.
The customer settled the bill and led Bai Bai out the door.
The distance wasn’t far—turning a corner along the way and going straight to the end led to a residential compound guarded by a security gatehouse. Just looking inside from the main gate, the interior was clean and tidy, evoking memories of residential compounds before the end of the world.
She finished the job upon delivering the goods to the guardhouse.
As she took her freight fee, Bai Bai casually asked a question.
“Are there any vacant small single rooms here? The kind that just comes with a bathroom.”
The other person glanced at Bai Bai and shook his head.
“The single rooms you’re talking about are hot commodities in any compound. I ran out of those ages ago; go ask around in other compounds.”
“Thank you.”