It needed a tonic. It really didn’t want to die.
Upon hearing the ivy’s voice, Lin Yun realized that the little thing possessed some intelligence. She immediately remembered the mission she had accepted and narrowed her eyes.
Sensing the murderous intent in her gaze, the ivy panicked even more.
Help! Why can’t I move around like the one on this human? I really want to run away right now!
Unable to escape, the ivy could only retract the vines hanging from the shop’s entrance, wrap its main vine around itself, and curl into a ball.
I’m already like this. It would be impolite of you to kill me again!
Lin Yun: "?"
Lin Yun: "..."
Fine. She would let it go. This little ivy was such a coward.
The ivy retracted all the vines hanging around the shop entrance, revealing the doorway.
Lin Yun looked up at the sign again, and her eyes lit up.
It was a courier station!
To prevent packages from being stolen, the courier station used a roller shutter door, which gave Lin Yun a headache. The shutter wouldn’t be easy to open, and if she forced it open, she was afraid the noise would be too loud and attract something she shouldn’t encounter.
She looked at the ivy curled into a ball and kicked it lightly with her left foot.
"Open the door, or I’ll pull you out."
Startled, the ivy swiftly pulled a key from beneath its flowerpot, tossed it at Lin Yun’s feet, then curled back up and pretended to be dead.
Lin Yun picked up the key and opened the roller shutter.
As soon as she entered, that familiar musty smell hit her again.
It seemed that someone had ordered fruit or something similar, but because the apocalypse had broken out so suddenly, people hadn’t had time to collect their packages from the courier station. Naturally, those things had gone moldy and rotten.
She raised a hand to fan away the smell, frowned, and walked farther inside.
The town’s electricity had long since been cut off, so Lin Yun could only open her personal panel and use the faint light it emitted to inspect the interior.
The shelves were filled with unclaimed packages. In the corner were several large bags of parcels that had just been transported back from the distribution center and hadn’t yet been sorted.
This courier station is great!
There could be all sorts of things inside these packages. Maybe she’d even find something she needed, saving her the trouble of searching for it herself.
Without hesitation, Lin Yun went straight to the shelves and stored the packages in her backpack.
She counted them carefully.
There were fourteen shelves on the two-meter-wide, five-tiered rack, along with six large unsorted parcels in the corner. Since the units of measurement for these two items were different, they occupied two backpack slots.
She still had six slots left.
After eating lunch, another slot would become available.
After scanning the courier station one last time and confirming that there was nothing else she needed, Lin Yun finally left.
As she passed the ivy, she paused and glanced at it from the corner of her eye.
The ivy trembled.
Why is that terrifying human looking at me again?! Haven’t I already obediently given her the key?!
Just then, Ghost Vine, which had gone off to play around, scurried back and immediately noticed the ivy pretending to be dead.
[What’s wrong? Should we kill this vine?]
Seeing Lin Yun looking at the ivy again, Ghost Vine assumed that she wanted to kill it.
Lin Yun stroked her chin thoughtfully.
"When we come back later, we’ll take this ivy with us."
Ghost Vine scratched its nonexistent head.
[Oh, that works too!]
Those words terrified the ivy.
No! Why does this human want to take me back?! I’m just an ordinary ivy! Let me go!
Lin Yun couldn’t hear the ivy’s silent screams, so she left with Ghost Vine.
Ghost Vine told her that it had found the clothes she was wearing in a nearby store. It remembered that Lin Yun had been looking for clothes, too.
Following Ghost Vine, they arrived at the shop it had mentioned. It wasn’t far from the courier station, only about four or five stores away.
The clothing store’s door had long since been broken open by the world’s native Survivors. Most of the clothes inside had already been taken, leaving only a few scattered pieces hanging on the racks or lying on the floor.
With Ghost Vine keeping watch nearby, Lin Yun took another bag from the counter and began sorting through the remaining clothes. She managed to find several pieces in her size.
Lin Yun sighed and stood up to look for the clothing store’s warehouse.
The small storage room was next to the fitting room, with a curtain hanging over its entrance. If someone didn’t look carefully, they might really mistake it for another fitting room.
Lin Yun took out the stem club and carefully poked forward before pushing the warehouse door open.
Good. There was no movement inside.
There weren’t many things in the small warehouse. She had originally intended to take only the clothes that fit her, but after thinking about it, she decided to take everything and stuff it into her backpack.
One of the shelves along the wall was used for shoes. Lin Yun simply put the entire shelf into her backpack and stored it in the same slot as the courier shelves, saving another backpack slot.
Just as she was about to leave the clothing store, she remembered that she needed hangers to dry her clothes.
She turned around and stuffed a bunch of clothes hangers into her backpack.
Four slots remained.
She had to think carefully about what to bring back. She couldn’t waste the remaining slots.
[You’re all packed? Look what I brought back for you!]
Ghost Vine stood proudly on top of a dead rat, its tendrils positioned like hands on its hips as it waited for Lin Yun’s praise.
Lin Yun looked at it.
"...Great. Where did you get it?"
[I caught it in the house next door.]
[There are more nearby. Should we catch them?]
"Later, later. It’s almost noon, and I don’t want to miss lunch."
Lin Yun didn’t want to make things difficult for her stomach.
Ghost Vine had no objections. It always listened to Lin Yun anyway.
[Okay! Can I have some?]
"Sure."
[Yeah!]
Lin Yun submitted the rat again and earned 1 point.
She glanced at her points in the upper-right corner of the Points Mall.
She already had 234 points.
That was practically a small fortune.
After leaving the clothing store, Lin Yun avoided the more conspicuous areas and continued wandering through the town.
Next, all she needed to do was find a generator, and her stockpiling mission for the day would be complete.
As for food, she’d already given up hope of finding any in town. Most of the food had either gone moldy or rotten, and there was hardly anything edible left.
"Stop!"
A voice suddenly stopped Lin Yun.
Lin Yun tightened her grip on the stem club, while Ghost Vine silently slipped from her chest and fell to the ground.
The small green clump of Ghost Vine merged directly into the surrounding vegetation, disappearing without a trace. No one noticed it.
Wu Dayong, holding a rusty fruit knife, rushed out from his hiding place and pointed the knife at Lin Yun.
Lin Yun turned around and looked at Wu Dayong.
"Hand over what’s in your backpack!"
Wu Dayong glared fiercely at Lin Yun.
Lin Yun looked him over and could tell at a glance that, like her, he was a Survivor who had only entered this world yesterday.