The Da Haomai supermarket didn’t actually cover a very large area. Although it was the only commercial complex in the entire Green Shell City, the low purchasing power of the Fourth District’s residents meant this supermarket wasn’t as glamorous as the storefronts in other districts. It was a dusty, grey five-story building that managed to retain a shred of basic dignity only when contrasted against the dilapidated houses surrounding it.
Since the municipal office had cut off public services, the supermarket’s sign was no longer lit. However, Chi Zheng’s night vision was excellent. Twisting and turning through the pitch-black alleyways, he ultimately managed to drive the car right up to the front doors of the supermarket.
But instead of stopping, he accelerated and veered up a ramp.
Lin Xia noticed the sounds of fighting coming from the lower level of the supermarket. It seemed to be in the first-floor promotional area. The first floor of Da Haomai was an open layout with heavy daily foot traffic, so a significant number of people must have mutated into blood-mud due to the contamination.
“We’re going straight to the warehouse.”
Chi Zheng had no intention of wasting time inside the supermarket and drove the vehicle directly onto the parking lot on the warehouse roof.
This area was originally used for loading and unloading large cargo trucks, featuring a freight passage that led straight into the interior of the warehouse. Thanks to the massive blackout, the security system at the entrance had stopped working. Chi Zheng used brute force to break the main door, allowing him to lead Lin Xia smoothly into the warehouse.
“The cold storage is on the basement level.”
Chi Zheng gestured for Lin Xia to walk behind him.
As he spoke, he continuously observed their surroundings. Although the warehouse was usually empty of people, watchmen from various floors still conducted periodic patrols.
He didn’t know if those few alcoholics had mutated. If they really had turned into mud monsters, he would need to “clear them out” as quickly as possible to keep Xia Xia from encountering danger.
The two walked inward, one behind the other. They had only made it halfway when they heard a strange, guttural roar.
Chi Zheng reacted with lightning speed. Raising his hand, he used the crowbar to strike away a foul, rotting maw. Turning with a spinning kick, he sent the creature flying dozens of meters away before turning back to slam shut the breached warehouse door.
Everything happened far too suddenly; Lin Xia’s flashlight couldn’t even keep up with Chi Zheng’s movements.
“Why is there a tiger in the warehouse?!”
he cried out in shock.
“A container was unloaded last week.”
Chi Zheng was locked in a standoff with the mutated tiger.
The creature’s leg had just been snapped by his kick, and it was currently crouching on the ground, letting out a low, rumbling growl from its throat.
He distracted himself slightly to recall the details.
“It should have been sent from the Capital Planet. They said it was material for researching the Polar Great Black Hole. I remember it was unloaded on the third floor.”
“It arrived in sealed boxes and was moved personally by the Zenith Star Company. I didn’t expect a living creature to be inside.”
“Let’s not talk about that right now…”
Lin Xia nudged him.
“Look opposite us, it’s about to come up!”
Before his voice could even fade, the mutated tiger launched a charge. Without any hesitation or feints, this pure killing machine drove its hind legs violently into the ground. Its massive frame carried a stench-laden wind as its razor-sharp front claws flashed with a cold light, hurtling directly toward Chi Zheng’s head!
Chi Zheng wasn’t a pushover either. His hands shot out fiercely, accurately grabbing the giant tiger’s forelimbs. Then, exerting sudden force with his waist acting as an axle, he actually swung the man-sized beast entirely into the air. The heavy body traced a smooth arc through the sky, and with a roar filled with panic and fury, the mutated tiger slammed heavily against the iron door of the third-floor warehouse.
Because the momentum was too great, the iron door was deformed by the impact, completely jamming shut.
“Chi Xiaozheng, watch out! It’s about to spray something!”
Before the words fully left his mouth, the mutated tiger suddenly opened its blood-drenched maw, revealing a pouch-like mouthpart at its throat.
That mouthpart looked incredibly bizarre, surrounded by layered, intersecting glands. Right now, these glands were pulsing one after another, continuously pumping an unknown liquid into the pouch, causing it to visibly expand at a rapid pace.
Chi Zheng gripped his crowbar tightly.
“Xia Xia, run further away.”
Lin Xia complied immediately, terrified that slowing down even a fraction would drag Chi Xiaozheng down. He possessed a clear self-awareness regarding his own combat capabilities; when it came to fighting, he had always been a liability, so not causing trouble was already a win.
With Lin Xia’s safety confirmed, Chi Zheng no longer had any misgivings. Holding the crowbar, he leapt into the air, actually preempting the mutated tiger’s strike to launch his own attack.
The mutated tiger’s front claws were twisted at a bizarre angle, and its tailbone was noticeably fractured, yet the intense pain only triggered its vicious nature.
The throat packed with glands convulsed as its crimson compound eyes spun wildly. The pouch behind its teeth swelled violently at a visible rate, its mouthparts zeroing in on Chi Zheng’s direction. Dark green liquid would erupt in the very next second.
Splat—
The foul liquid traced a parabola through the air, spraying haphazardly. Chi Zheng’s clothes were instantly reduced to tattered rags, and the skin on his arms suffered varying degrees of corrosion.
But he didn’t care in the slightest. Taking advantage of the moment the mutated tiger was spewing its venom, he drove the crowbar mercilessly into the back of the tiger’s skull.
“Awoo—Roar—!!!”
A miserable howl echoed through the warehouse, making Lin Xia’s heart turn cold. He instinctively wanted to rush over to help.
Fortunately, the battle concluded right there. A few seconds later, Chi Zheng’s voice reappeared within his line of sight. He took off his coat to casually wipe down his arms before tossing the dug-out crystal core to Lin Xia.
“Try this.”
“Let me look at your wounds first!”
Left with no choice, Chi Zheng extended his arms for him to inspect.
Lin Xia winced in sympathy, summoning the street stall cart to help clean the wounds first, before angrily rapping Chi Zheng on the head.
“Why are you so reckless? Were you trying to tear a tiger apart with your bare hands?!”
Having just finished a battle, the hostility in Chi Zheng’s eyes hadn’t completely faded. Those pitch-black eyes narrowed slightly, revealing a ferocity and cruelty that was difficult to conceal.
But it lasted for only a fleeting moment, and Lin Xia didn’t feel afraid.
If it weren’t for a Chi Xiaozheng like this, they would have died out in the wilderness long ago; how could they have lived to see today?
“You can’t take risks like this next time, and you can’t leave me behind…”
When he said this, Chi Zheng didn’t utter a word. However, he lowered his head and began to lick Lin Xia’s temple, stroke by stroke.
Lin Xia’s temple had been injured, sliced open by a flying chunk of concrete to leave a long, bloody gash that had swollen into a distinct red welt.
Chi Zheng tasted the blood, finding the clean sweetness he was familiar with. Back when they were too poor to even afford disinfectant, they would clean each other’s wounds exactly like this. The broken skin gradually softened under the licking of lips and tongue, becoming dyed with each other’s scent.
In the beginning, Lin Xia had firmly rejected this unscientific behavior, but Chi Zheng refused to correct his ways despite repeated instructions. This person had possessed a multitude of stubborn attachments ever since Lin Xia picked him up, so over time, Lin Xia simply let him have his way.
“…I won’t take risks.”
He responded to Lin Xia.
Fortunately, the injuries were entirely superficial, and the mutated tiger’s crystal core turned out to be unexpectedly valuable, yielding a full 28 energy units upon exchange.
“This thing is way more valuable than the rats!”
Lin Xia said in pleasant surprise.
However, the danger level had also increased exponentially. Fortunately, the door to the third-floor warehouse had already been deformed by the impact, meaning whatever was inside couldn’t get out for the time being, allowing them to gather supplies in peace.
The second floor was the daily necessities warehouse. The two of them swept through the clothing section first before turning their attention to underwear, shoes, and socks; these household goods quickly occupied half the space inside the stall cart.
“If this keeps up, we won’t have any room left for ingredients.”
Slapping away Chi Zheng’s hand as it reached toward laundry detergent, floor cleaner, and grease remover, Lin Xia restated his principles with strict righteousness.
“We can only bring essentials! Do you know what essentials are, Chi Xiaozheng? These heavy, space-consuming family-sized cleaners won’t do!”
Chi Zheng frowned.
He felt that these chemical products were the essentials. The street stall cart was practically a kitchen; if he had to live in a kitchen covered in grease, he would probably mutate within minutes.
“I’m exercising restraint too!”
Lin Xia took a deep breath.
“Didn’t I give up on the yogurt maker, the stand mixer, the bean sprout machine, and the noodle maker? We can’t be willful during a cataclysm!”
Saying it made his own heart ache.
Ultimately, the two reached a compromise. Lin Xia chose the stand mixer, while Chi Zheng carried a bucket of his favorite “Bright & Shiny” brand cleaner.
As for those luxury goods, skincare items, fine cigarettes, and expensive alcohol…
Apologies, but a supermarket in the Fourth District didn’t deserve to stock such things. On the other hand, Lin Xia harvested quite a few planting pots from the gardening section. The soil in the Fourth District was severely contaminated; without using planting pots, farming was impossible, making these absolute essentials.
“That’s about enough. Let’s go down to the first floor.”
Recalling the stall cart, the two continued down the stairs.
The first floor above ground was the ambient food section. Logically speaking, everything inside counted as ingredients.
Yet Lin Xia couldn’t shake off a sense of unease. Taking advantage of the moment Chi Zheng was clearing out the mud monsters, he re-read the task description and discovered that he could actually exploit a loophole in this upgrade task.
——Each task had a separate button, but the manual nowhere stated that only one button could be pressed at a single time.
In other words, if he had the ability to press all three buttons simultaneously, he might be able to claim all the tasks at once. Aside from the final red additional task which carried a penalty that would deduct energy units from the owner upon failure, the remaining upgrade tasks had no penalty clauses. Even if the final Red PLUS upgrade couldn’t be completed, at least the preceding White and Yellow tasks could succeed; with good luck, he would get two sets of rewards for free.
Mhm, he knew it had to be his own awakened superpower after all! Exploiting a loophole was entirely his style.
Feeling that the plan was viable, Lin Xia felt even more confident.
Standing inside the supermarket’s cold storage, gathering 200 catties of ingredients was incredibly easy, but selecting which ingredients to take was the difficult part.
To obtain the power system, he needed to secure positive reviews from over 50% of the diners. Moreover, the ingredients couldn’t be selected from the overly expensive options; otherwise, if they failed, the penalty equal to twice the ingredient value would be a massive sum of money that they couldn’t afford to pay.
Just as he was calculating this, Chi Zheng finished the battle on his end and handed him three crystal cores.
“Huh? Mud monsters have crystal cores too?”
“They do.”
“The mud monsters here seem to have evolved; they’re more vicious than the ones outside.”
Hearing him use the word vicious, Lin Xia immediately asked if he was injured.
Being injured was naturally out of the question; no matter how much a low-level mutation like a mud monster evolved, it was no match for Chi Zheng.
However, the mud monsters in the warehouse had grown dodder vines, and the tips of these vines could secrete a neurotoxin, which was quite a rare occurrence.
Chi Zheng looked toward the direction of the third floor with a hint of awareness, then calmly turned his gaze back and asked Lin Xia,
“Have you decided on which ingredients to collect?”
Lin Xia nodded and explained his plan to cheat the system to Chi Zheng.
Chi Zheng thought it over, gesturing slightly with his fingers.
“Why don’t I handle it?”