Qi Xu was very good at entertaining herself.
After all, spending several years completely alone would have been unbearable if she hadn’t found ways to amuse herself.
She worked out right up until six o’clock. The moment the game’s designated daybreak arrived, she started up her little tricycle and set off!
Less than 50 meters down the road, she spotted a crate! It was only a wooden supply crate, but finding anything at all was a good thing.
“Off to a good start.”
Gripping her machete, Qi Xu hopped off the tricycle and walked toward the wooden supply crate.
With a clean flourish, she flicked the lid open with her blade and immediately launched into a flurry of hacks, slashes, thrusts, and stabs! After a good burst of frantic swinging, she realized… nothing had jumped out of the crate. Qi Xu cleared her throat and calmly lowered her machete.
She wasn’t the least bit embarrassed. Her caution was bound to pay off once or twice, and nothing mattered more than safety.
There was only a single item inside the crate.
“Congratulations on obtaining Vehicle Upgrade Card Fragment (1/6).”
Only after obtaining a Vehicle Upgrade Card and binding it to a vehicle could a player upgrade their vehicle using the materials listed on the card.
The further along you went, the more supplies each upgrade required.
Qi Xu tucked the fragment straight into her inventory backpack, then forged ahead at full speed while scrolling through the light screen, just like yesterday.
The second and third days passed uneventfully. Qi Xu operated like an emotionless machine built solely to cover ground and rack up mileage.
Most of the monsters popping out of crates were just there to startle players. As long as you didn’t do anything reckless—like chasing a monster into the black mist flanking the highway—your life was rarely in any real danger.
Even so, out of the 10,000 players in Subdivision 666, three still managed to get themselves killed… Qi Xu was genuinely curious about how they had died…
Over those two days, Qi Xu ate dried noodles whenever she got hungry, switching to mini hot pot or self-heating rice when she grew tired of them, and stuck to a fixed workout routine every morning and evening.
As for supplies, she picked up a towel, a bowl, three compressed biscuits, and 2,000 milliliters of utility water.
Notably, Qi Xu also traded one unit of oil and a serving of cooked dried noodles for two Vehicle Upgrade Card Fragments.
She had traded with Retired Magical Boy again, and… Qi Xu guessed he was probably an unlucky sucker who had ended up with a heavy truck.
Because of that, he had zero interest in upgrading his vehicle—he only wanted to shrink the truck down a bit, which was why he had sold off the Vehicle Upgrade Card Fragments.
Now she was only two fragments short of a complete Vehicle Upgrade Card.
While checking her remaining supplies, Qi Xu suddenly spotted a traffic light up ahead.
She immediately perked up.
A traffic light always meant a stop lay just beyond it. The type of stop was completely random—different every single time, with a huge variety of possibilities. Most were opportunities, though danger could never be ruled out.
She would have to judge based on the situation.
The red light lasted a full five minutes. A line of monsters filed across the road, constantly turning toward Qi Xu to taunt her as they passed. Qi Xu watched them deadpan before finally tossing them a disdainful look at the very end.
That successfully had the monsters fuming and cursing their heads off.
The instant the light turned green, Qi Xu twisted the throttle and sped across! If the green light ran out before she made it all the way through, she would very likely be surrounded by monsters.
Halfway across the intersection, Qi Xu spotted a row of scattered nails on the ground and hurriedly pulled up her light screen!
“Congratulations on obtaining Iron Nails ×30!”
She gunned the throttle again and reached the other side of the road with plenty of time to spare.
Just past the intersection, a road sign appeared on her right: service area 500 meters ahead.
As she passed by, Qi Xu decisively steered inside.
However… before she even got close, an overpowering stench hit her nose, and faint wisps of green smoke could be seen rising overhead.
Qi Xu immediately knew what kind of place this was—a waste depot!
Despite the smell, in the early stages of the game when supplies were desperately scarce, this was definitely a great place for players.
After parking her tricycle, Qi Xu broke into a flat-out sprint. Time was tight, and she couldn’t afford to waste a second.
A huge black bear stood guard at the entrance to the waste depot. “Please pay the fee to enter.”
Without a second’s hesitation, Qi Xu replied, “Free during the beginner protection period!”
The big black bear answered in a dopey voice, “Password correct, please enter.”
That was the fun of coming back with her memories. During the seven days of the beginner protection period, entering any stop required no fee.
However, the monster workers at the stops would never tell you that upfront. Only by taking the initiative to say the exact words “Free during the beginner protection period” would a player trigger the fixed condition for entry.
In her previous run, a player who discovered this secret had deliberately waited until the beginner protection period ended before revealing it. Because that was way too scummy, a huge cursing match broke out with another player, and the blabbermouth ended up getting hunted down.
The moment Qi Xu stepped inside the waste depot, an announcement rang out again.
“Congratulations, player, on obtaining the new title 〖Freeloader〗! How are you so good at milking the perks?”
Qi Xu casually tapped open the detailed description for a quick look—and nearly shouted “Hell yes!” at the top of her lungs.
“Freeloader, you’ve hit the jackpot, you know that?! After equipping this title, when you meet a red-haired monster merchant, you can score one item for free; when you meet a green-haired monster merchant, you can choose one item to buy at ten percent of its price; when you meet a purple-haired monster merchant, all items are fifty percent off!”
Before Qi Xu even had time to celebrate, she reached the foot of the “trash mountain.”
She first found a long stick, then started poking and rummaging through the piles while scanning everything in sight with her light screen.
Before long, she had gathered a whole pile of stuff, but after making a full circuit around the base, she still wasn’t satisfied—she hadn’t found anything particularly good.
In the end, she gritted her teeth and started scrambling right up the trash mountain!
Even though she ended up looking like a complete wreck, her hands and face smeared with grime, Qi Xu was grinning practically from ear to ear.
After digging up and down the trash mountain for nearly an hour, Qi Xu finally tore herself away and got ready to leave.
Her inventory backpack was already completely full, so Qi Xu found a large plastic bin to hold the rest of her haul from the waste depot, marching out proudly with her head held high and chest puffed out!
Even the big black bear’s pitch-black face twitched at the sight. Well, well, well—so this was greedy humanity.
Just as she walked out of the waste depot stop, another announcement chimed.
“Congratulations, host, on triggering a key condition and obtaining the 〖Scrap Recycler〗 work credential. Please keep it safe!”
Qi Xu blinked in surprise. In more than three years of her previous run… she had genuinely never heard of anyone possessing something like this.
She tapped open the details and read them carefully. It had two functions: first, free entry to any waste depot; second, the ability to sell scrap directly.
The fee for entering a waste depot wasn’t high to begin with, but either way, it was better than nothing.
As for selling scrap directly, that gave Qi Xu plenty of ideas—now she just had to see whether any fool would cross her.
Qi Xu felt like she had turned smelly herself, and her hands were too filthy to even look at. In a rare burst of extravagance, she took out all of her utility water and spent a good while scrubbing and wiping herself down.
Even that wasn’t enough water in the end—she had to waste a bottle of mineral water before she finally got herself clean again and changed into fresh clothes from the inside out!
Although she had no water to wash the dirty clothes, she couldn’t bear to throw them away either; keeping them around to use as rags was still plenty good.