Lu Qing and Lei Yan tried to persuade him one after another for quite a while, but they could never make Lu Xuan change his mind, and in the end, they could only compromise.
Lu Chen, however, had great trust in Lu Xuan. “Big Brother will definitely come back safely! And he’ll bring back lots and lots of prey! Then we’ll eat meat every day!”
Lu Xuan curled his lips into a smile. “That’s right, I’ll earn enough food for you to last a lifetime.”
Neither Lu Qing nor Lei Yan took his words to heart; their minds were entirely focused on worrying about what dangers he might encounter after going into the mountains, and whether he would get hurt. They were so anxious they almost couldn’t eat.
It wasn’t until Lu Xuan said, “Don’t waste food,” that they picked up their chopsticks again.
In the end, as usual, Lu Xuan finished off the leftovers.
Lei Yan went to the fields, heavy-hearted, while Lu Qing busied herself preparing items she thought Lu Xuan might need for his trip.
He definitely had to bring his machete. And those medicinal herbs he brought back today—that “large thistle and small thistle” were supposed to be hemostatic. Fresh plants wouldn’t keep in this weather, so she hurried to bring them out to air-dry, intending to pack them for Lu Xuan tomorrow.
Lu Chen went out to find the other children in the village to play with, carrying his unfinished candy. Lu Xuan, meanwhile, sat in the courtyard, pondering which supplies he should prepare to deal with the impending catastrophe.
Since he already knew what was coming, the supplies he needed to procure were clearly far more complex than just a few new sets of bedding.
Staple foods, vegetables, meat, seeds, clothing, medicine, and other daily necessities…
In extreme weather, it would likely be impossible to keep living in the village, so he would have to find a suitable shelter—not necessarily for the long term, but at least as a temporary base to adapt to the early stages of the disaster.
Having already experienced one apocalypse, he naturally knew which supplies were essential and which ones could ensure a sufficient quality of life.
However, the modern era and the ancient era were different; the types of goods available were also different, so there were significant differences in the items he needed to prepare.
After roughly listing the items, he still had to calculate the quantity of each and the total amount of money required to buy them.
He muttered to himself while calculating, and the viewers in the livestream could hear him. Hearing him list the amount of silver needed, the viewers were a bit speechless.
[Emmm… how should I put this? The host has big ambitions.]
[Thousands of taels? Is the host serious? Converting that to star coins, that would be over a million, right? Earning a million in a few days? You’d be better off dreaming.]
[Host, you’re getting a bit carried away.]
[One wild boar earns three taels, so a thousand taels would be over three hundred boars, right? You couldn’t catch that many in five days even if you didn’t eat or sleep.]
Many viewers suggested that Lu Xuan play it safe and cut down the quantity of supplies, halving them or halving them again—especially the food.
[Don’t forget you have the livestream system as a cheat! The store has cheap and plentiful nutrient solutions; you definitely won’t starve.]
[Just give us more mukbangs and other exciting content in the future, and we’ll throw more gifts at you. By then, you can just dump all your points into buying nutrient solutions!]
[That’s right! Don’t look down on nutrient solutions just because they taste bad; they have a long shelf life and won’t go bad for ten or twenty years. In a disaster, they are absolutely the holy grail of survival! Buying them won’t be a loss!]
Lu Xuan mused, “That sounds quite reasonable.”
[Then are you going to buy the nutrient solutions now?]
Just as Lu Xuan was about to answer, the courtyard gate was suddenly pushed open with force, and Lu Chen ran back in, furious.
Lu Xuan noticed the little fellow was covered in dust and frowned, asking, “What happened? Were you bullied?”
Lu Chen held a dust-covered candy in his hand and said angrily, “It was that fatty, Xiong Dabao! He always used to insult you. When I refused to share my candy with him, he pushed me and knocked my candy away! He’s so annoying!”
Lu Xuan didn’t care about the candy; he only asked, “So, did you come out on the losing end?”
Lu Chen looked rather proud. “How could I! He dared to push me! I pushed him back. He’s just bloated, he couldn’t beat me at all! In the end, he ran off in tears and snot, beaten by me.”
Lu Xuan nodded with satisfaction. “As long as you weren’t bullied.”
The viewers in the livestream had been angry listening to the story, but hearing that he had beaten the other boy made them feel better. They echoed Lu Xuan’s nod: That’s right, that brat deserved it for bullying his little brother—beat the hell out of him!
However, after finishing his story, Lu Chen worriedly added: “Xiong Dabao’s dad is just as unreasonable as he is. He might come to the house to cause trouble.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than a loud, cursing voice echoed from outside.
“Lu family brat, get out here! Daring to bully my son—I see your skin is itching for a beating!”
Lu Chen’s face instantly showed alertness, and he even began searching around for a weapon to defend himself.
Lu Xuan casually pulled him behind his back and looked up at the brawny man who had rudely kicked the gate open and barged in.
Behind the brawny man followed a little fat boy about the same age as Lu Chen, but a size larger. Xiong Dabao’s eyes were red and swollen, and his expression toward Lu Chen was a mix of indignation and smugness, as if he could already see Lu Chen and his brother being disciplined by his father.
[Good heavens, he really had the nerve to come to the door?]
[In the Interstellar Alliance, if someone barges into a home without the owner’s permission, you could kill them and not be held responsible.]
[Host, beat him!]
Xiong Mao saw Lu Xuan and glared: “You’re just in time! Your brother has some nerve, daring to hit my son. If you don’t give me an explanation today, I’ll make sure both of you brothers regret it!”
Lu Xuan scoffed: “An explanation? The one who provokes first is the despicable one, understand?”
Xiong Mao raged: “Who are you calling despicable! Stop the nonsense. Your brother hit someone. Either you take a beating for him today, or you have to compensate my son! I don’t want much—just make your brother hand over his candy, and I’ll be the bigger man and let him off this once.”
Lu Xuan looked at him as if he were looking at an idiot. You think just because you say give it, he will? Who do you think you are?
Livestream viewers: Exactly! Who do you think you are!
Lu Xuan impatiently said: “He’s not my son. Since you’re the dad who’s too stingy to buy him candy, you expect an outsider to provide? On what grounds? Because your face is big? Go beg at someone else’s house. While I still haven’t moved a finger, get out.”
“You dare tell me to get out!?” Xiong Mao, livid, rolled up his sleeves: “Fine! I see your skin is just as itchy as your brother’s. I haven’t settled the account for you bullying my wife earlier either. Now is just perfect—I’ll settle both debts at once!”
With that, he swung his muscular arms and charged toward Lu Xuan menacingly.
Lu Xuan didn’t retreat or dodge; expressionless, he stepped on the heavy stone block that had been used as a doorstop, shattering it into dust.
Xiong Mao: “!!”
He slammed on the brakes, stopping abruptly, his expression horrified as he stared at the pile of crushed stone fragments. The look he gave Lu Xuan was filled with disbelief.
Lu Xuan casually ground the debris under his foot and said coolly: “You said you were going to beat who?”
Under Lu Xuan’s cold, emotionless gaze, Xiong Mao felt a chill run down his spine, and his hot-headed temper cooled rapidly.
His eyes couldn’t help but dart toward the pile of stone fragments. He quickly rolled his sleeves back down and knelt on the spot. “A misunderstanding, it was all a misunderstanding!”
Xiong Mao laughed dryly: “I was just playing with you. We’re all from the same village; harmony is what brings wealth. Well, I have things to do at home, so I’ll be going.”
With that, he turned and hoisted his still-stunned fat son onto his shoulder and ran for his life. While running, he couldn’t help but smack Xiong Dabao’s butt, cursing: “Stinking brat, causing nothing but trouble for your old man! From now on, stay away from the Lu family, you hear me!”
The livestream viewers were stunned.
[He surrendered way too fast.]
[I can understand him, though. The host’s kick was honestly terrifying. If that same force had been applied to a person… Yikes! Compared to face, life is definitely more important!]
[By the way, what did he mean about bullying his wife? When did the host bully his wife?]
[Could he be talking about that woman named Su Ying who was flirting with the host when he was trading boar meat earlier?]
Lu Xuan took a moment to reply: “That’s her.”
The viewers were completely speechless.
You can’t even keep your own wife from flirting with others, and you blame the host? What kind of trash is that?
Lu Chen, finally snapping out of it, excitedly hugged Lu Xuan’s leg, his eyes filled with worship and expectation. “Big Brother! You’re so awesome! Can I learn that move?”
Lu Xuan patted his shoulder: “You can’t learn that. But when I have time, I’ll teach you others. If anyone bullies you again, just keep hitting back until they’re too afraid to provoke you.”
Lu Chen was disappointed at first, but after hearing the second half, he shouted: “Okay!”
Zhang Chengming, who lived across the way, had run out the moment he heard Xiong Mao’s voice, but before he could arrive to help, he had seen Lu Xuan crush a rock weighing at least dozens of jin with one foot and stayed frozen in place.
Equally stunned were Lu Qing and Lei Yan, who lived next door and had heard the commotion. The two looked at him, then at the pile of rubble in the courtyard, unable to speak for a long time.
Lu Xuan first waved his hand at Zhang Chengming to show him everything was fine, and then said to his sister and brother-in-law: “Everything is fine now; go back and rest. Lu Chen and I are going to sleep too.”
He casually added to the people in the livestream: “Let’s end today’s stream here,” and without any warning, cut the connection.
The interstellar viewers who were still wanting more: ??? Is this human?
After urging Lu Chen to change out of his dirty clothes, Lu Xuan opened the backend to check today’s streaming data.
The peak concurrent viewer count reached over 25,000, and his follower count had grown from over 3,000 to 5,500.
The gifts received were also more than yesterday.
It wasn’t just because he had many more followers, but because when he jumped out of the pool, some fans had thrown several “Angel Wings” and even a “Luxury Cruise Ship” at him.
The two gifts were worth 1,314 and 1,888 star coins respectively, and adding in the other gifts, his income for the day had directly exceeded 10,000 star coins.
[Do you want to convert all gifts into system points?]
[Yes.]
[Converted.]
[Current total points: 3,760.]
Lu Xuan opened the flashing system message.
[Achievement “Received total gifts worth 10,000 star coins” reached. Reward: 500g of Energy Fluid, unlocked purchase permissions for some items in the store (please check the details yourself). Next stage achievement: Receive gifts worth 100,000 star coins. Reward: Unknown.]
After clicking to claim the reward, a glass bottle appeared in Lu Xuan’s hand—about the size of a regular bottle of mineral water—filled with a clear energy fluid.