Most people enjoyed a hearty meal, except for those who had tried to muddle through and get away with it. They directly lost one meal as punishment.
Everyone in that group felt hungry, especially when they watched the others eating porridge, meat, and meat soup.
They looked at one another with green eyes.
But when they looked toward a certain figure, knowing that the person who had led them would have to go hungry for three more meals, they suddenly felt that they were doing fairly well.
During the day, the fortress had been repaired in some places by nailing wooden boards over the walls. The drafts were no longer as severe, and sleeping on the ground was much more comfortable than it had been yesterday.
That morning, after the others had fallen asleep, the woman who had taken the lead pondered for a while. Thinking that no one would be watching her anymore, she got up and quietly slipped outside.
She was going to find her former superior.
Sure enough, at the main gate, she found Tang Yuan sleeping nearby.
The woman nudged Tang Yuan with the tip of her foot, signaling for him to get up and follow her.
Tang Yuan opened his eyes. He knew why she had come and followed her toward the forest.
They did not walk far. Once the shelter fortress was mostly hidden from view, they stopped.
“Boss.” The woman squatted on the ground, tilting her eyes slightly upward as she looked at the man before her. “Where’s my stuff? I did everything you asked me to.”
“Don’t worry. I remember.” Tang Yuan took a water voucher out of his pocket. “You worked hard jumping out there and acting as a target.”
“I don’t want that. Don’t forget that I haven’t been paid for the past few days. You need to give me food instead,” the woman said.
“Then go to the bottom of the wall, next to your pile of wood, and take a look. I buried a pancake there. After eating it, tomorrow shouldn’t be too hard on you.”
After saying that, Tang Yuan still handed her the water voucher.
“I promised to give you half of my pay from these past two days. Keep it. You can use it later.”
The woman did not stand on ceremony this time. She accepted the water voucher without hesitation.
“Alright. Now I don’t owe you anything. We’re even.”
After taking it, she finally began to worry.
“I hope she’ll let it go after punishing us and won’t keep someone as insignificant as me in mind. I made quite a sacrifice this time. If that lady remembers me, who knows what’ll happen to me?”
“She’s someone who looks at the bigger picture,” Tang Yuan said. “She won’t dwell on something this trivial.”
“Forget it, forget it. I hope you’re right.”
The woman stood up, patted her knees, and shuffled away with her arms hanging limply at her sides, drifting off like a ghost.
“Don’t come looking for me the next time you want to do something like this. If you do come looking for me… then I won’t help you either.”
Tang Yuan remained where he was, watching his former subordinate leave.
That was right.
He had arranged yesterday afternoon’s farce.
Some people had unstable thoughts and needed to be given a warning as quickly as possible. At the same time, the new boss needed an opportunity to display her authority.
She was simply too kind.
Coupled with her deceptive appearance, there would always be people who thought she was easy to fool.
It was better to resolve things before they actually happened than to wait until they became impossible to ignore.
Tang Yuan rubbed the mud off his shoes against a nearby tree before turning in another direction and heading back.
He walked out of the forest.
Ahead of him, moonlight spilled across the ground, its pale glow falling upon a figure in front of him.
She had long black hair, dark as basswood, secured into a ponytail behind her head with a metal clip. Moonlight fell across her wheelchair, making it seem almost dazzling.
Her profile appeared hazy and gentle beneath the moon. Surrounded by tree stumps scattered across the ground, she even gave off a strangely sacred impression, as though she were praying.
“Um… I came out to use the bathroom…”
Tang Yuan smiled awkwardly. His expression looked completely natural, as though he were merely an ordinary employee who had gone out to relieve himself and accidentally run into his boss.
The next second, Ling Zhao shattered his illusion.
“How much did you spend?”
Her lips curved upward, revealing a smile filled with amusement beneath the moonlight.
“I’ll reimburse you this time.”
“You…” Tang Yuan stared at her in astonishment. “You found out? When did you find out?”
“Because it was too sudden. Normally, no one would do something like that on their very first day, especially when they haven’t figured anything out yet.”
Ling Zhao smiled.
“And besides, in that situation, if I needed a witness, you would most likely have pushed Yan Xiaochu forward. I might as well just call her out directly.”
“You… remembered all of that?”
Tang Yuan only remembered that Ling Zhao had asked him to conduct a census. After she collected it, she had not said anything else. He had never expected her to notice the excellent memory he had listed on his form.
“Mhm.”
Ling Zhao hummed happily.
“Don’t push her forward next time. She really is extremely timid. Even if you force her to become someone who stands at the front, she won’t be able to do it. I’ve already promised her that I’ll put her in a position behind the scenes.”
“…Yes.”
Tang Yuan silently lowered his head, cold sweat pouring down his back.
All the cold sweat he had somehow avoided sweating during the day now broke out at once.
This person was different from the mayor.
As long as something benefited the mayor’s rule, she did not care about little tricks or schemes. Her silence itself was a form of tacit approval.
He could no longer try to curry favor with Ling Zhao in the same way.
“If something like this happens again, remember to tell me beforehand.”
“And if you want to curry favor with me and want to know what would make me happy, you can just come and ask me directly.”
“Also—”
Meanwhile, elsewhere…
The woman who was digging into the ground gave a puzzled sound.
“Why are there three pancakes? Wasn’t there only supposed to be one?”
Well, three was three.
Maybe Tang Yuan was getting senile and had remembered incorrectly.
…
The next day—
Yesterday’s meat had been especially delicious. Just thinking about getting to eat meat again today was enough to make their mouths water.
They used to get up this early as well, all so they could go out scavenging. If they left too late, the time spent going back and forth would delay them until nighttime.
But in the past, they could sometimes scavenge for an entire day and still be unable to afford even a single pancake.
Now they had something to eat first thing in the morning.
This was a kind of happy life they had never dared to imagine before.
Another group of people would be arriving today. The competition would become even fiercer afterward, and no one knew when those people would arrive…
Fortunately, Yan Xiaochu was in Big Brother Li’s team.
But he was not omnipotent. In the future, she would still have to find a way to rely on herself.
Yan Xiaochu thought about all this while washing up.
Although the shelter’s administrator had said yesterday that she would transfer her to another position, well… a boss’s words were just something you listened to.
She received a bowl of soup. While squatting at the entrance and drinking it, she suddenly heard someone cry out in surprise.
Then the sunlight in front of her was blocked.
She raised her head and discovered a wheelchair stopped before her.
The person sitting in it looked at her with a smile.
“Yan Xiaochu, I need to talk to you.”
“Huh? Oh!”
She hurriedly swallowed several mouthfuls of her morning porridge, wiped her face, set down her stainless-steel meal tray, and quickly followed Ling Zhao.
Ling Zhao moved her wheelchair to the elevator inside the fortress and took her to the third floor.
“This is my office above ground. If I’m inside, you can find me here.”
Ling Zhao entered the largest office.
“I have several positions here that are currently suitable for you. But before that, you need to take a bath.”
“Huh?? Huh?!”
This time, Yan Xiaochu was genuinely terrified.
Her face instantly turned pale.
“Um… can I not?”
“No.”
Ling Zhao found a set of clothes for her.
They were standard shelter-issued clothing. Rather than the blue uniform worn by official members, these were gray garments made of coarse linen.
“You’re a girl, aren’t you? Being this dirty isn’t good for your health.”
The previous night, Ling Zhao had noticed that when the other women in the shelter had access to enough water, each of them would save a small amount for emergencies. Then they would go together to a secluded place to clean their private areas and prevent infections.
But Yan Xiaochu had never gone with them.
Ling Zhao did not want anyone in her shelter to die from that kind of infection.
She comforted Yan Xiaochu.
“Today, I’m going to have everyone take a bath, so you don’t need to worry about your gender being discovered. A lot of you are so filthy that no one can even tell what gender you originally were.”
[Yan Xiaochu (Data Clerk)]
[Star Rating: Two Stars]
[Age: 16]
[Traits: Extreme Social Anxiety, Photographic Memory]
[Attributes: Strength E, Constitution C, Intelligence A, Agility D, Charisma D]
[Skills: Memory Palace LV MAX, Instant Memory LV9, Data Management LV8, Inventory Counting LV8, Efficiency Enhancement LV7, Playing Mushroom LV7, Playing Dead LV5, Playing Deaf LV4, Financial Management LV2]
**[Employee Description: An extremely timid person with severe social anxiety. This employee’s greatest wish is to spend her entire life as a mushroom in a basement where she never has to see another person, because mushrooms do not need to eat.
She has an exceptionally good memory and can imprint anything she sees into her mind in an instant, just like a camera.
Because she is also extremely timid, she has never dared to reveal her true gender and has maintained a male identity through cross-dressing.
In the water-scarce wasteland, people generally only bathe twice in their entire lives, so she never needed to worry about being exposed because of this.]**
[Suggested Salary: 288 Management Points]
“You definitely wouldn’t want to go to a communal bathhouse, so I called you up here first to use mine,” Ling Zhao said.
Yesterday, Ling Zhao had unlocked the employee restroom.
The first thing she did afterward was build a public toilet.
The second was build a communal bathhouse.
The pipes came from the piles of garbage accumulated inside the shelter. There were plenty of construction materials of this kind, from heavily rusted pipes to broken ones.
In addition, the scavenging team had brought back pipes they had found at the settlement, along with pipes they had brought themselves.
After all, pipes were quite convenient as structural supports, and sometimes they could even be used as baseball bats.
At the very least, they could serve as weapons.
With an abundant supply of materials, after a night of construction, two brand-new wooden buildings now stood outside.
Then they ran out of wood, and there was no more lumber left to build the cafeteria, so they would have to spend another day cutting trees.
“Um…” Yan Xiaochu swallowed. There was one question she simply couldn’t figure out. After thinking it over and over, she finally asked, “Why are you so good to me? Back when I first saw you before…”
You still chose to let us leave first?
“If you keep asking questions like that, it becomes impolite,” Ling Zhao said, her brows curving into a smile while her gaze turned dangerous. She gave Yan Xiaochu a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’d advise you not to ask.”
“O-Okay! Okay!” Yan Xiaochu jumped in fright and immediately said she wouldn’t ask anymore. “I’m going to wash up right now!”
With that, she grabbed the set of work clothes and darted into the bathroom.
Everyone else’s bathing schedule had been arranged for after work. Ling Zhao had brought Yan Xiaochu over early.
Besides Yan Xiaochu, there were also several others whom she had ordered to go bathe immediately today.
Today, she was going out to survey the surrounding area, determine the exact terrain nearby, and return before sunset.
Once things had stabilized over the next few days, she also needed to visit the nearby survivor camps and take a look at Shelter No. 199.
Her schedule was completely packed.
Each day, she only did the three to five things she was most certain she needed to accomplish. She divided those three to five tasks among the morning, afternoon, and evening, without setting specific times—only the main task for each time period.
Time was the hardest thing to control and the easiest thing to overrun. Failing to finish something by a set deadline brought nothing but anxiety and frustration. Ling Zhao preferred to give herself the positive reinforcement of completing tasks rather than the pain of running overtime.
If she still had spare time after finishing her main tasks, she would set a thirty-minute timer, list all the miscellaneous things she wanted to do during those thirty minutes, and clear them all out in one go.
If there were still miscellaneous tasks left afterward, she would finish them when she had time. If she didn’t, then so be it.
Ling Zhao’s daily routine was actually very healthy. As long as she wasn’t staying up late, she would prepare for bed at ten every night and wake up promptly at six in the morning.
After staying awake for two nights in a row, she only needed one day of rest to recover.
Accepting the porridge Sentinel Type I handed her, Ling Zhao remembered that she still needed to put a cook into the cafeteria.
She couldn’t possibly stuff it in there, could she?
She would see tonight whether there was anyone who knew how to cook a proper meal…
…
Li Qingshan held her tray and happily scooped spoonful after spoonful of porridge into her mouth.
She had never expected porridge without any sand, pebbles, or poorly washed bits of peel to taste so good. She no longer had to worry about cracking half a tooth while eating, and it didn’t scratch or irritate her throat at all.
Not to mention that it had a little salt and shiitake mushrooms added to it. The rich, savory flavor of the mushrooms filled her mouth, making her feel warm from the stomach up first thing in the morning.
But this morning was a little different from yesterday.
There were now two additional buildings near the fortress—one at the front and another on the side closer to the mountain.
All the logs they had cut yesterday had disappeared, while the new buildings gave off the fresh fragrance of wood.
This must be the legendary shelter technology, right?
She wondered what the two buildings were for. To be able to finish such large buildings overnight—this really was worthy of a shelter!
“Dad, are you still eating that?” Li Qingshan asked after finishing the last bite and licking her lips. “If you’re not, give me some more. I’m still growing.”
Li Shangshan finished his food without ceremony. “Don’t eat too much in the morning. Did you forget how much you ate yesterday? Your stomach hurt afterward when you were cutting trees.”
“Being about seventy percent full in the morning is enough,” her younger sister, Li Lüshui, said from beside them. “Otherwise, you’ll get a carb crash, and your stomach will hurt too.”
“Huh? Aren’t you supposed to be at the same level as me? Since when did you know so much?” Li Qingshan exclaimed dramatically. “Don’t tell me you’re finally going to reveal that you’re actually my half-sister from the same father, and that you’re really the eldest daughter of some shelter?”
“Get lost.”
Li Lüshui shot her unreliable older sister a sidelong glance and shoved her aside. Then she picked up her tray, tapped the metal surface, and muttered, “How strange…”
How could they make something so perfectly integrated, and make every single one exactly the same?
She had only ever seen things made through forging. There was no blacksmith in Lingfeng Town. They could only buy such things when they went to the market, and during seasons when there was no market, only traveling merchants could bring usable tools and weapons.
Li Lüshui put her tray back. Every tray was spotlessly clean and polished brightly enough to reflect a person.
They weren’t washed clean.
Everyone had licked them clean.
Near the place where the trays were returned stood the robot. It was responsible for collecting and distributing tools every day.
Li Lüshui collected her tools together with her older sister. She belonged to the logistics team and was responsible for gathering resources in the wild.
Her sister was in Logging Team Three. She had always wanted to surpass their father and become the pillar supporting their family.
Li Lüshui felt that, rather than letting her older sister become the pillar over her head, she would prefer to build a life of her own.
Hardly anyone had ever come near the shelter. Previously, the area had been filled with zombies and night demons, along with mutated creatures and contaminants that occasionally passed through. As a result, it had always been extremely sparsely populated.
This had also left the natural resources outside the shelter abundant. Taking advantage of the last days of autumn, they could stockpile another batch of supplies.
Some plants became inedible once they had fully matured, leaving only the young shoots suitable for picking. Once certain wild plants grew too large, they became breeding grounds for fungi. Being able to tell whether a wild vegetable had grown past the point of being edible or had grown to just the right stage was a real skill.
Wild vegetables could be eaten while they were still young, but crops couldn’t be harvested before they ripened. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been living such difficult lives.
While gathering wild vegetables, they also had to watch out for other creatures—for example, spiders that might suddenly scuttle out with bodies the size of a size-36 shoe, or snakes whose heads alone were as large as fists.
Everyone in the logistics team had a quota of 2.5 jin. Anything gathered beyond that would be converted into employee points.
Some people were rather lazy. Once they had collected their required 2.5 jin, they stopped and didn’t even bother earning employee points.
Li Lüshui instinctively felt that employee points were something valuable, and now, being able to earn them simply by gathering wild vegetables was practically the same as picking them up for free.
Unfortunately, employee points couldn’t be transferred…
Couldn’t be transferred…
Wait.
If employee points couldn’t be transferred, couldn’t the wild vegetables be transferred instead?
A spark of inspiration flashed through Li Lüshui’s mind, and she vaguely felt as though she had just grasped onto something.
…
Meanwhile, Ling Zhao was outside in the surrounding area, holding a notebook as she recorded observations and made plans.
Systm looked at the land around them. The trees had already been completely cleared away, and the area was gradually beginning to resemble a settlement.
【You’re really bold.】
“In what way?”
【After learning that all trees carry fungi, you still dared to use the wood to build the first phase of temporary housing. Are you really not afraid of everyone dying?】
“Oh, that.” Ling Zhao replied in her mind. “Actually, there’s one reason I dared to do this—if the fungus could infect people that easily, I wouldn’t have seen a single living person in the Corrupted Forest.”
“And now, not only are there living people in the Corrupted Forest, they actually live right along the edge of the forest. Zombies are still the main source of infection, so I think temperature must be a very important triggering condition.”
“On top of that, according to the locals’ rumors, there was only one situation where this happened—someone cut wood in the forest, brought it home, and burned it for warmth, after which the entire family turned into zombies. That actually fits quite well with the formation of certain rural legends and supernatural rules.”
She had only used wood to build the first phase of temporary housing because she was confident in her judgment. Apart from the temporary residences, only the public bathhouse and cafeteria had been constructed entirely from wood.
After Ling Zhao claimed the mission reward, the latter had already been modified by the system. Forget fungi—even ordinary bacteria would be wiped out.
As for the rest, they were mainly meant as transitional facilities and would eventually be demolished when the opportunity arose.
After today’s work was finished, Ling Zhao caught Lin Xiao while he was spacing out.
He had just finished bathing and had, unusually, taken off his hood. At the moment, he was gazing vaguely in the direction of the rising sun. There was something about him that resembled a bird fluffing up its feathers after grooming. His loose clothes hung casually from his body, and the rolled-up sleeves revealed the lean, firm muscles of his forearms.
“Boss.”
The moment he noticed someone approaching, he snapped back to his senses with astonishing speed. His eyes immediately sharpened, but after seeing that it was Ling Zhao, his body slumped again. He resumed his habitual hunch, his gaze becoming unfocused once more.
“You guys are coming out with me today,” Ling Zhao said. “Bei You and Yan Xiaochu will be leaving with me later. Tang Yuan and Sentinel will stay behind to watch the place.”
“Oh…” Lin Xiao answered listlessly.
After a brief pause, his gaze shifted to Ling Zhao’s wheelchair.
“Then… do you need me to carry you?”
It wasn’t impossible, but it would cost extra.
Before he could finish the thought, he saw Ling Zhao raise an eyebrow and proudly press one of the buttons on her wheelchair.
“No need.”
Ling Zhao suddenly rose higher as eight legs extended from both sides of the wheelchair, transforming it into something resembling a gigantic spider.
“The results of the previous modification.”
Her wheelchair was an all-terrain vehicle.
“I’m going to conduct a survey of the terrain around here, then find a suitable place for the scavenging team to start working,” she said. “It’s been 110 years, and I have no idea what the surrounding area is like anymore. You should be more familiar with this place than I am.”
Systm kept nagging, You don’t even have a protective barrier anymore. How can you go outside? Why can’t you just stay home and be a shut-in?
Ling Zhao ignored all of it.
If she didn’t go out now, then once the winter snow began to fall, she wouldn’t be able to go out even if she wanted to.
She and Lin Xiao continued basking in the sun on the second-floor terrace.
After waiting for a while, Bei You arrived, her hair tied in a wolf-tail braid.
“Where’s Yan Xiaochu?” Ling Zhao asked.
“Right here.”
Bei You took two steps back and dragged Yan Xiaochu out from the shadows, where she had been hiding and refusing to show her face.
“Eek! Don’t look at me!”
Like ice cream melting under the sun, Yan Xiaochu covered her face with both hands.
“The sun! The sun is poisonous!!!”
“She’s never gone out this early before,” Bei You explained considerately from the side. “Her schedule is about the same as a rat living in a basement.”
The only thing was that Yan Xiaochu was actually a girl. Bei You really hadn’t been able to tell before.
After washing up, Yan Xiaochu’s delicate facial features could finally be seen clearly, but that was about it.
Yan Xiaochu had the kind of appearance that would disappear into a crowd and be forgotten the very next second. Compared with her looks… her behavior was much more memorable.
Ling Zhao almost felt embarrassed to tell her.
She had wanted to avoid a social death, only to end up embarrassing herself even more.
Yan Xiaochu was like a fish that had just been caught in Bei You’s net, struggling desperately. Ling Zhao examined her for two seconds before turning to Lin Xiao.
“How much would it cost to carry her?”
“She probably isn’t very heavy.”
Lin Xiao gave Yan Xiaochu a quick once-over before asking, “Excuse me, but may I remove some of the weight? If she doesn’t want to walk on her own, then I don’t think the extra limbs are particularly necessary.”
Bei You looked at the two people who were deliberately trying to scare Yan Xiaochu and was left rather speechless.
But Yan Xiaochu unexpectedly fell for it.
She immediately sprang to her feet, straightened her collar, and declared with a determined expression, “Let’s go now!”
Only after Ling Zhao had moved some distance away did she allow the wheelchair to unfold into its eight-legged form.
She didn’t let herself rise too high. If she went too high, there were branches everywhere, and she ended up getting smacked in the face by them.
And she could only grit her teeth and take the beating.
She only extended two sections of the wheelchair’s legs, allowing her to maintain a good balance of speed and height while still being able to change direction with some flexibility.
Lingfeng Town was south of the shelter. Right now, they were heading west of the shelter.
There was supposedly a lake over there. Ling Zhao wanted to take samples from it and see whether the water could be put to use. On Level B16 of the shelter was a massive purification center, which remained dormant most of the time.
The lake was not very far from the shelter. They arrived at their destination in less than two hours.
“We’re here.” Lin Xiao pointed ahead. “That’s Calf Killer Lake.”
Ling Zhao: “…That name is certainly concise and straightforward.”
“Yeah.” Lin Xiao nodded, apparently agreeing. Then he gestured toward the river connected to the lake. “Want to guess what that river is called?”
“…Calf Killer River?”
“No.” Bei You cut in from the side. “That river is called Foal Sudden-Death River.”
“…”
Ling Zhao took a deep breath.
“Let’s rename them.”
The lake water was so black it seemed to be colorful, and one look was enough to tell that it was completely unusable.
There was also a layer of red stuff floating on the surface, glittering like tiny gemstones beneath the sun.
Author’s Note:
The time-management—or rather, self-discipline—method Ling Zhao uses is actually something I use myself. I’ve already gone through several iterations of it.
I’m the type of person who gets anxious when my life is irregular and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do each day. And when I go out, I tend to forget anything that isn’t on my checklist.
(Yes, I can even forget my phone.)
After realizing that I probably needed to start planning things, I began putting this into practice at the end of last month. As of yesterday’s version, I checked my list and found that I had completed twenty tasks yesterday, including both my main tasks and all the miscellaneous ones.
I actually used to have a very serious procrastination problem. I never thought I could get this much done—and without dragging things all the way to the deadline. Even I was shocked.
Over the past half month, I’ve realized that my real problem is getting started…
I’m the type who can procrastinate forever if I haven’t started yet, but once I begin, I can finish everything in one go.