“Looking at it this way, the upgrade tasks mainly revolve around gathering supplies and preparing food, which aligns perfectly with the nature of a street stall cart.”
Lin Xia flipped through the user manual.
“Uh… ‘To use the street stall cart, a rental fee must be paid. The rental fee consists of high-density energy bodies from this dimension. Please deposit the rental fee into the energy slot at the lower part of the vehicle to maintain daily upkeep. Discontinuing the rental payment for a short period will cause damage to the vehicle; after three missed payments, the vehicle will be repossessed. The initial version of the street stall cart includes three days of complimentary rent. A collection notice will be sent 24 hours before the rent expires. Owners are requested to use the vehicle according to instructions and pay on time…'”
Seeing this, the pretty boy’s face slumped completely, and he complained loudly.
“Isn’t this the superpower I awakened? Why does my own superpower charge me money?”
He pointed at the very first line of text in the manual.
“And what exactly is this high-density energy body? The Alliance’s nuclear power plants are all in the First-Tier Zones, and a reactor probably wouldn’t fit into this energy slot anyway. Where am I supposed to find the rent!?”
Chi Zheng seemed to recall something. After rummaging around the corpse of the mutated crow in the corner for a bit, he pinched out a grain-sized crystal.
“Try this?”
Lin Xia looked a bit disgusted.
“So dirty.”
This fellow Chi Xiaozheng had definitely been piggybacking on the television signal from the neighboring block again. In the recent hit melodrama, episode 98,183 featured a female lead who turned into a zombie, after which the male lead dug out her crystal core to cure the white moonlight’s infection…
Hmph, he had happened to catch that exact episode while working his shift at the convenience store the day before yesterday!
“If you’re going to call this a crystal core… it’s a bit too small, and it stinks.”
Lin Xia complained to Chi Zheng while looking for the energy slot.
“Though that fever medicine you gave me earlier didn’t taste too bad. It had a seafood flavor to it…”
He kept muttering with his head down, completely failing to notice that the person behind him had grown slightly rigid.
The tall, broad-shouldered youth leaned forward, carefully observing him for a moment. Realizing that Lin Xia was simply complaining in earnest, he silently let out a sigh of relief.
“Xia Xia, over here.”
“Oh, did you find it?”
“Yeah. Can’t open it. You’re the owner.”
Chi Zheng usually spoke as concisely as possible, but fortunately, Lin Xia had grown up with him since childhood and had long since mastered the art of filling in the blanks.
He meant that only the owner could open the energy slot.
Lin Xia walked over and simply extended his hand. The cover panel over the energy slot automatically slid open, revealing a pitch-black cavity within.
He tried dropping the tiny crystal into the energy slot.
The next second, a flash of light erupted before their eyes. The windshield that previously had a hole in it turned into a projection screen, and new prompts began rolling across it.
“Welcome, formal owner. It has been detected that you have paid a compliant energy body. The recharged amount is 0.5 energy units. Guest binding can be activated, consuming 0.5 energy units. Would you like to activate it?”
A guest?
Lin Xia fished out the manual and flipped through it, finding the explanation for a guest on the very last page.
——Guests possess all permissions except for task selection and reward reception. They can freely use and stay long-term within the street stall cart without being expelled, and can accompany the street stall cart through spatial travel without being affected by changes in the spatial environment.
What was there to hesitate about? Of course he was binding Chi Xiaozheng!
With guest permissions activated, Chi Zheng could share all the data and information of the stall cart and use the windshield to run queries, saving a lot of time and effort!
The stall cart swallowed the mutated crow’s crystal core.
Perhaps because the initial deposit amount was too small, notices began flashing across the windshield one after another, all regarding the energy bodies of this dimension.
——Mutated Crystal Cores: Commonly found inside mutated organisms, originating from ＠￥＠＆ contamination, widely present within the brains of mutated creatures. Crystal core levels range from 1 to 10. Level 1 cores are greyish-white; Levels 2–4 are yellow; Levels 5–7 are orange; Levels 8–10 are red. Low-level cores can increase in level as the biochemical entity evolves.
——Primordial Crystal Cores: Found exclusively within ＃￥＃ organisms, involving various sources of contamination, possessing high energy density and variable forms.
Currently, there were only these two explanations regarding crystal cores, but they revealed a wealth of information.
For instance, there was more than one source of contamination currently present in the Fourth District. One was the ion storm that had created the mutated crow and mutated rats, while the other was of unknown origin, appearing as garbled text in the stall cart system prompts.
Furthermore, superpowered individuals like him were also considered mutated organisms, meaning they also had crystal cores in their brains. He didn’t even dare to imagine what it would be like to have a hard stone sitting inside his head right now!
“No stone…”
Chi Zheng mumbled from the side.
“Only low-level contamination grows stones. High-level…”
He cut himself off halfway through his sentence, secretly observing his companion’s reaction.
But the oblivious Lin Xia failed to notice entirely.
“Stone or no stone, at least it gave me a street stall cart; it’s better than nothing.”
“The mutated crow was already hard enough to deal with. If they evolve further, even with the stall cart, we won’t be able to hold them off.”
Hearing him say this, Chi Zheng’s eyes flickered, and his expression began to relax.
It didn’t matter where they went, as long as he brought Xia Xia along.
He didn’t think there was anything to fear from mutated organisms; nothing had ever truly frightened him since the moment he came into existence.
…Heh, a mere fragment wants to contaminate Lin Xia?
That won’t do. Xia Xia belongs to him.
Over there, Lin Xia had already begun mapping out an escape plan.
“The original version of the stall cart unlocks three daily functions, which are 2 liters of purified water per day, unlimited gas stove use daily, and 24-hour continuous lighting.”
Lin Xia pointed at the daily tasks column.
“The initial rent is 1 energy unit, which covers the 24-hour lighting and basic vehicle maintenance. If we need purified water, we can spend an additional 1 energy unit to purchase purification services, limited to 30 liters of water per day; anything beyond that costs 1 energy unit per 5 liters. External electricity use outside of lighting is 10 kilowatt-hours per energy unit, with unlimited purchases.”
“If we just live normally, we only need to kill 4 mutated crows a day, and our water, electricity, and gas are all guaranteed. This is way more reliable than the municipal service company.”
“But 32 liters of water isn’t enough.”
Chi Zheng used a piece of clothing to block the hole in the windshield. The night wind in the Fourth District was still rather chilly, and Lin Xia had just recovered from a major illness; he was very afraid the wind would make him sick again.
“Can’t take a shower, can’t clean up. Dirty.”
Fine, the person who shouldered the household chores held the final say.
Lin Xia quietly shut his mouth.
He watched as Chi Zheng found a rag and carefully wiped the seat several times. Only after confirming it was completely clean did he pick Lin Xia up and place him on it, his brow tightly furrowed the entire time.
Lin Xia was speechless, feeling that Chi Xiaozheng’s germaphobia had worsened again. Preventing him from wiping the floor would probably kill him.
“Then what do you mean…”
“We need to upgrade.”
Chi Zheng pointed at the projected task bar.
“Go for the red one.”
Ah?! The red one?
Lin Xia was dumbfounded.
The red one was a super upgrade task! Not only did it require completing prerequisite tasks, but its difficulty was also a world apart from an ordinary upgrade.
He had previously felt that completing the orange task would be quite good; he hadn’t even dared to think about the red task. He hadn’t expected Chi Xiaozheng’s ambition to be even greater than his own.
He saw Chi Zheng point his finger at the second-to-last line of the task rewards.
“Power module. It makes the stall cart drivable.”
Sure enough, the next second, Lin Xia’s eyes lit up.
A drivable street stall cart! Traveling while making money, eating and living inside the vehicle—it would save so much on expenses.
“Alright, it’s a deal! We’ll choose the red upgrade task, and then we can drive the cart to the survival base.”
The words were simple enough to say, but they still had to complete the upgrade task first.
For starters, where were they going to find 500 catties of ingredients?
“There’s a supermarket in the central district.”
Chi Zheng offered a proactive suggestion.
“The warehouse has large bulk packages of ingredients. I know the entrance.”
Chi Zheng possessed immense strength, so his jobs always involved physical labor; the harder the work, the better it paid.
Last month, the chain supermarket Da Haomai in the central district had changed its storage warehouse. He had gone over to work as a mover for a few days, so he knew the goods in the warehouse like the back of his hand.
“It’s an independent warehouse with no windows, so it won’t be contaminated. There are bags of rice and flour, packaged milk, frozen vegetables, meats, and seafood. Reaching 500 catties won’t be an issue.”
Lin Xia’s interest was piqued.
He recalled the location of Da Haomai, then realized it was 10 kilometers away from their house, which made him feel a bit worried again.
“But how are we going to get there? 500 catties is no small amount. We’ll have to transport it back and forth, and we…”
“Rent a car.”
Chi Zheng grabbed Lin Xia’s coat, pulled the zipper up to his chin, and then carried him down from the vehicle.
As he walked, he gestured with his chin toward the stall cart.
“Put everything inside the stall cart. Once we leave, we aren’t coming back. While there aren’t many people out right now, let’s move quickly.”
True enough.
Lin Xia nodded.
The emergency alarm had been so late that the number of contaminated people certainly wasn’t small. The survivors hadn’t fully come to their senses yet, so the difficulty of gathering supplies wouldn’t be too high right now. Once everyone came out, supplies would be limited, and they might not be able to compete with others.
Lin Xia was a person of great execution. Once a decision was made, he no longer hesitated and immediately began packing their belongings.
There was no real furniture in the house, only some pots and pans and two quilts, which fit into the stall cart with room to spare.
Lin Xia turned on the cart’s stove burners, watching with satisfaction as a blue flame sputtered out.
“There’s still leftover meat broth from yesterday in the fridge. I’ll heat it up, and we’ll head out once we’ve eaten our fill.”
Ten minutes later, the two of them had eaten and drunk their fill. Under the cover of night, they quietly slipped out of their home.
Outside the door still lay several piles of mutated rats that Chi Zheng had taken care of earlier. Lin Xia used a crowbar to pry out their crystal cores and stuffed them all into the energy slot; now they had saved up several more days of rent.
“Hiss, Premium Ride is so expensive. Is it really necessary for us to be this extravagant?”
Sitting inside the car, Lin Xia watched the credit points automatically deducted in an instant and winced.
Premium Rides were mid-tier vehicles, boasting safety, comfort, and strong power, so the rental fee was naturally much more expensive than ordinary shared cars. This model was very popular in the Second and Third-Tier Zones, but few people inquired about it in the Fourth District, as no one was willing to spend this unfair amount of money.
“This is all that’s left.”
Chi Zheng had no alternative either. Currently, the only vehicles that could function normally in the city were Premium Rides. Traffic accidents caused by mutations were everywhere, and ordinary cars couldn’t be seen at all in the rental zones.
He patted Lin Xia’s hand to comfort him.
“We won’t need to spend money renting cars in the future anyway, so keeping credit points is useless.”
When he put it that way, Lin Xia immediately came around.
That was true—the cataclysm was already here.
Given how unreliable the Alliance was, who knew how long the credit system would even remain functional? They might as well indulge themselves for once.
Premium Rides operated on a card-swipe system; the amount was automatically deducted from the card without requiring an internet connection, meaning it wasn’t affected by the suspension of public services.
Chi Zheng drove the car at breakneck speed, the roar of the engine drawing the attention of many mutated organisms.
However, their levels were generally low, and not only were they slow, but once they lost track of the vehicle, they reverted back to a state of aimless wandering, rendering them completely beneath concern.
The trouble came from certain mutated birds, which would suddenly dive down from the sky. Fortunately, the safety of the Premium Ride wasn’t just a marketing gimmick; the vehicle body utilized ultra-high-density bulletproof material, making it even safer than the stall cart in that aspect.
Speeding along like this, they quickly arrived at the Da Haomai supermarket.