It was not just He Lingyu who looked up in shock. Yao Zhien nearly choked on his dumpling, and even Jun Buyan, who had been drinking juice, coughed so hard he started thumping his chest.
“Boss, what are you saying?” Jun Buyan’s voice practically lifted the roof. “You want to join this restaurant?”
It was the first time He Lingyu had ever seen the gloomy teenager get this worked up.
Mu Qingfeng ignored their reactions and looked at He Lingyu again. “Is it possible?”
He Lingyu really wanted to agree on the spot, but her rational side forced her to ask one question first. “Can I ask why? An ability user as capable as you shouldn’t lack bases willing to take you in. Wouldn’t working at my tiny restaurant be wasting your talent?”
Even if Gaofei Base had friction with the fat guy and Jun Buyan, they should have been willing to smooth things over for the sake of a level three ability user, unless Mu Qingfeng had another motive.
He Lingyu felt it was better to ask clearly now, before anything started, so there would not be conflict later.
“My mother is dead,” Mu Qingfeng said. “Yuan Gaofei caused it.”
“Boss…” Even someone as thick-skinned as Yao Zhien sensed something was off and called him softly, as if to warn him that this was not something to say casually.
Mu Qingfeng spoke calmly, but He Lingyu met his eyes head-on and saw it clearly.
When he mentioned his mother’s death, his gaze dimmed for a split second. When he said Yuan Gaofei’s name, something twisted underneath, a madness she could not fully understand.
Calm on the surface, with anger compressed so tightly it could not be spoken aloud.
Even his name showed how much his mother had loved him. He Lingyu did not fully understand that bond, but she understood one thing, this was blood-deep hatred, and one day he would seek revenge.
Mu Qingfeng was sincere. It was like he had opened a wound and laid it bare in front of her. The choice was entirely He Lingyu’s.
He Lingyu fell silent for a moment, then smiled and offered her hand. “Then let’s properly introduce ourselves. I’m He Lingyu, the owner of this restaurant. Welcome.”
Mu Qingfeng raised a brow. Lingyu. It suited her, like timely rain.
“Mu Qingfeng,” he said, shaking her hand. “Please take care of me, Boss He.”
They smiled at each other, each reading something in the other’s eyes.
“Hey, don’t act like we’re not here!” Yao Zhien nearly jumped out of his seat. “Boss, if you’re taking him, are you still hiring? We’re ability users too, take us as well!”
He had followed Mu Qingfeng ever since leaving the military. At the start of the apocalypse, none of them had awakened abilities, and Mu Qingfeng had protected them the whole time. Splitting up now was not acceptable.
Unlike Yao Zhien’s panic, Jun Buyan went straight for the weak point. “Brother Mu, what you want to do can’t be done alone. You need us.”
“What I’m going to do is too dangerous,” Mu Qingfeng said. “You can’t be involved. Be good. Let the fat guy take you back to your father.”
“Brother Mu!” Jun Buyan’s voice rose. “This is the apocalypse. Even with my father, it’s not absolute safety. I believe you can protect me. Haven’t you been doing that all year? Besides, you need someone to plan with you. I want to avenge Aunt Lan too.”
“Jun Buyan!” Mu Qingfeng snapped.
Jun Buyan immediately shut his mouth, as if he knew he had said something he should not have.
But his expression did not budge at all, stubborn in a way that finally made him look like an actual teenager.
He Lingyu could not hold it in anymore. “Um, I’ll cut in for a second. Even if you two want to join, the restaurant doesn’t have positions for you right now.”
“You…” Jun Buyan’s glare shot toward her.
He Lingyu’s scalp tingled, but she kept going. “You can glare all you want, it won’t change anything. This is how the restaurant is set up. If you want more member slots, we have to clear tasks. I can’t decide it myself.”
As she spoke, her eyes grew brighter and brighter.
Clear tasks, need ability users.
Yao Zhien and Jun Buyan were ability users.
Clear tasks equals Yao Zhien and Jun Buyan.
“If you want to join, it’s not impossible,” He Lingyu said quickly. “See the task board by the door? Once those tasks are completed, it’ll refresh the main quest, and the restaurant can recruit new members.”
“Aiyo, oh my goodness,” Yao Zhien muttered without thinking, “opening a restaurant still needs quests, and the boss can’t even decide it. This feels like some farming game.”
He was absurdly close to the truth.
Even though Mu Qingfeng suspected He Lingyu was not from this world, he still did not suspect the restaurant was literally a game. That idea was too outrageous.
He Lingyu was a little bold because she trusted them. They were not bad people. She did not socialize much, but she was good at reading people. After a short contact, she could guess whether someone was good or bad with frightening accuracy.
The two of them still did not fully understand why tasks mattered, but they went to take quests anyway.
Mu Qingfeng sighed, helpless. “Why are you doing this?” Then he also went to take one.
The inn renovation quest.
Each of them took one room.
Only after they accepted did He Lingyu finally understand how this quest worked.
She had thought she needed to design the blueprint, gather materials, then renovate manually.
But Mu Qingfeng explained that when you accepted the quest, you could choose a room style, and the system would automatically generate the required materials list.
He chose minimalist natural wood style, so the materials updated to:
Wood x20, paint x3, light fixtures x2, decorative items x5.
His was the simplest.
Yao Zhien chose fresh pastoral style, which required even more items, and even demanded fresh plants. He started wondering aloud if mutated plants counted.
Jun Buyan chose gothic style. Under everyone’s disbelieving stares, his cheeks warmed slightly.
No one there was the type to tease people, except possibly Yao Zhien, but Yao Zhien was staring at the materials list in despair and had no mind for teasing.
“Oh right,” He Lingyu said, remembering something. “If you’re really joining my restaurant, we still need to sign a contract.”
Mu Qingfeng nodded.
He Lingyu pulled the contract from behind the counter and signed with him.
[Congratulations, you have successfully recruited a second employee. Reward: Third floor access unlocked.]
Calling it a reward was basically mandatory anyway.
“Your dorm is on the third floor from now on,” He Lingyu said. “Pick any room you like.”
Once they understood the task system, the three of them did not linger. They immediately headed out to gather materials. Three ability users moving as a team made people feel safe just looking at them.
They were not heading out blindly either.
About twenty kilometers from the restaurant, in a direction that formed a triangle with Gaofei Base, there was a small town. After the apocalypse, the town’s residents had all moved to Gaofei Base, leaving the place abandoned.
Ability users often went there to scavenge supplies, but hardly anyone would be searching for paint, or for décor. Mu Qingfeng’s plan was to find wooden picture frames, landscape prints, things like that.
Even though it was only a town, it had everything people needed day to day. They would probably find what they needed.
Wood was easiest. The area around the restaurant was full of dead trees. They could cut and haul some back and it would count.
The plan sounded perfect.
But when they actually arrived, the town was in ruins.
Because so many people had scavenged it, the streets were piled with useless junk. There were even zombie corpses left where they had fallen, uncollected.
Those that had been dead for a long time were just bones, but some had not been dead that long. The weather was not hot enough to fully break them down, so rotting flesh still clung to the bones, and pale worms squirmed out of empty eye sockets.
“Ugh…” Jun Buyan only glanced once before he bent over and retched.
After retching, he instinctively sucked in a breath, and that made it worse. He actually threw up.
“Jun Buyan, you still haven’t gotten used to this?” Yao Zhien said, half mocking, half concerned. He twisted open a bottle of water He Lingyu had given them and handed it over. “Here.”
Jun Buyan took a big mouthful, rinsed, then hurried as far away from the corpse as he could.
“This side is residential,” Jun Buyan said stiffly, pushing the topic away. “We probably won’t find what we need, and there might still be zombies. Brother Mu, let’s check the next street.”
Obvious, but it worked.
They moved to the next street, and their eyes lit up.
The back half of the street was a building materials row.
“Boss! It’s a building materials street!” Yao Zhien’s joy burst out. “There has to be paint!”
Not only paint. There were also plenty of things Jun Buyan and Yao Zhien needed. They swept through and each carried three buckets of paint, plus some rugs and light fixtures.
Good thing ability users had strong bodies. Carrying this much was nothing.
Yao Zhien had also eyed floor tiles and curtains, but those were too bulky to haul.
If only they had a vehicle.
All three of them had the same thought.
The materials street mostly had construction supplies, not décor.
But fortunately, shops that sold matching décor often clustered nearby to “drive the economy,” as people used to say.
On the cross street right next to it, there were several storefronts with signs that read “Home Décor.”
One of them even had an intact door.
It was strange, until they thought about it. The earlier shops had been pried open, and once scavengers saw there was no food inside, only decorations, they probably stopped wasting effort.
Yao Zhien grinned. “Boss, I’m telling you, this one has good stuff. It’ll have what we need. And the other shops are already busted open, everything inside is filthy. This one is clean.”
Mu Qingfeng had no sentimental attachment to such things. In the apocalypse, morality had long been forced into new shapes. They were not killing people or robbing caravans, that alone was holding onto a bottom line.
Breaking a door was nothing.
With a loud clank, Yao Zhien yanked the roller shutter up. The glass door lock came off with one hard pull.
When he saw what was inside, Yao Zhien looked smug. “Boss, how about it? Told you we wouldn’t lose picking this one.”