Huh? That works too.
Lin Xia flipped through the system settings and found the option to delegate, accept, and submit tasks under the “Guest Binding Permissions” column.
He authorized Chi Zheng with the permission to send and receive tasks. Since Chi Xiaozheng was far superior to him in both strength and speed, letting him press the buttons might actually achieve millisecond-level precision.
“If we can’t accept all three simultaneously, at least accept both the White and Yellow ones,” Lin Xia instructed him.
“Understood.”
Chi Zheng nodded, raised his right hand, and swiftly pressed the task activation buttons with three fingers.
—Beep—
The light screen first spewed a bunch of garbled text, and then began to flicker like a static TV screen.
“Oh no, we messed up.”
“Don’t worry, let’s look again.”
Before his voice could even fade, the screen suddenly restored its display, and a chaotic mess of task descriptions filled the entire page.
[Detected that you have accepted the upgrade tasks: Ordinary Enhancement (I), Intermediate Enhancement (I), Advanced Enhancement (I). Please store 100 catties (200 catties), (500 catties) of ingredients, and use the collected ingredients as raw materials to prepare and submit two (ten) recipes and finished products for review. (No remainder or waste allowed), (Audit rating must reach a passing grade), (Audit rating must reach an excellent grade). Completed within a 24-hour time limit!]
It seemed to have worked.
Lin Xia verified the progress of each task one by one.
Currently, three upgrade task progress bars appeared simultaneously on the light screen. The White task bar was already over halfway complete, the Yellow one was barely at one-sixth, and the Orange one had only just started a tiny fraction.
The White task bar was halfway complete because they had already gathered a portion of ingredients earlier, including 50 catties of rice, 10 catties of cooking oil, 10 catties of pork, 10 catties of eggs, and 10 catties of green onions.
Since cooking rice required water, they had also taken some packaged water, but that didn’t count toward the ingredients.
The White task did not require calculating ingredient ratios, nor did it restrict the types used, so Lin Xia felt he could use a type of staple food to fill the quota first.
“Cooking rice takes a long time. During the downtime while it cooks, we can do something else.”
Lin Xia pulled out the plan sheet he had written beforehand and had Chi Zheng sweep the shelves according to the list.
The ingredients on it had been meticulously calculated by him; they not only guaranteed the total quantity of ingredients but also took into account the diversity of flavors and the rationality of the ratios. After all, tasks above the Intermediate level evaluated taste. Being the head chef of a impoverished two-person household, not wasting a single gram of ingredients was a basic skill, and making cheap ingredients taste delicious was where true talent lay.
“Don’t worry, ten minutes.”
Chi Zheng gestured to him and dragged the handcart into the cold storage.
Lin Xia didn’t idle around either.
According to his plan, he needed to complete the two recipes for the White task first, which was also a critical attempt to see if he could milk all the upgrade rewards.
“The task progress absolutely must be shared independently!”
Before starting work, Lin Xia stood inside the street stall cart and prayed silently.
Then, he threw himself entirely into the great undertaking of cooking.
Dry-braised pork and fried egg pancakes were both his signature dishes. Though they were a bit unrefined for elegant settings, they were the most popular home-cooked flavors in the Fourth District.
After all, buying one more type of ingredient meant adding another fraction to the cost of living. This kind of simple, quick, single-ingredient recipe was the true taste of the Fourth District.
Seasoning, mixing, stewing.
Generous oil, aromatic blasting, stir-frying.
On this night of the massive blackout, on the basement level of this warehouse, a lit street stall cart was currently frying and simmering mouth-watering delicacies.
The specimens on the third floor caught the alluring scent and grew increasingly agitated.
Unfortunately, the most powerful one among them was already dead, and the remaining ones were all weaker species, capable of nothing more than fruitlessly slamming against the deformed door panels over and over again.
Inside the cold storage, Chi Zheng took a deep breath, swallowing the saliva that was frantically secreting in his mouth.
It smelled like his favorite dry-braised pork.
Although the quality of the ingredients was extremely ordinary, Xia Xia could always extract the best flavor from them—he never doubted this for a moment.
He involuntarily accelerated his gathering speed.
On the other side, Lin Xia also completed the preparation of the two recipes. According to the task requirements, he needed to submit the finished products to the stall cart for review.
The audit area was a metallic cabinet resembling a microwave situated right above the stove. The moment Lin Xia pressed the application button, the cabinet door automatically slid open, revealing a rectangular tray inside.
It really looks like a microwave!
Lin Xia placed both the dry-braised pork and the thick egg roll inside. Mmh, though it looked small from the outside, it was actually quite spacious, leaving more than enough room for two plates of food.
He closed the cabinet door, offered a silent prayer, and then decisively pressed the submit button.
Please! It must settle independently!
The microwave… ah, no, the audit area began to operate, emitting an occasional humming sound.
In just a few seconds, a crisp ding echoed. The closed cabinet door slid open once more, and the two steaming plates of food had vanished without a trace, replaced by a small card resting on the rectangular tray.
A customer feedback form… Huh, a customer from where?
Lin Xia hurriedly retrieved the card, only to find that it was written in a script he couldn’t understand.
At that moment, the windshield with the hole in it popped up with a new prompt once again.
——[Congratulations on receiving your first customer feedback form! Although apprentices usually do not receive feedback, you were fortunate enough to encounter a kind guest who submitted an evaluation of your work.]
——[Would you like to spend 1 energy unit to activate a one-time automatic translation?]
1 energy unit!
Lin Xia felt a bit of a sting in his heart.
1 energy unit was enough to maintain the street stall cart’s rent for a whole day.
But money that needed to be spent still had to be spent. After all, this was customer feedback, and the Advanced task required achieving an excellent rating or higher, so figuring out the customer’s taste was crucial.
He had to know what the other party said.
Gritting his teeth, Lin Xia allocated one energy unit from his storage account to unlock the automatic translation for the customer feedback form.
——[From Anonymous Mr./Ms.:]
Ah, as usual, garbage ingredients, completely lacking in texture and nutrition, and the energy provided is practically negligible. I cannot speak against my conscience and call it a delicacy.
However! Even though it is entirely crudely made junk food, the creator’s craftsmanship actually managed to compensate for the rot of the ingredients! I have to say, this is a gem among garbage dishes. If the creator is willing to change the ingredients—even if it’s just scavenging some scraps from the Black Fog Farm, getting some mutated insect offal, or the glands of a stinger frog—the quality of this dish could achieve a qualitative leap!
Please convey my feedback truthfully. I genuinely do not wish to see this creator waste his (her) (its) (their) craftsmanship. Seriously, use some good materials. Leave that trash bin. You are truly being dragged down by these garbage ingredients!
After reading the contents of the feedback form, Lin Xia’s brow furrowed tightly.
The stall cart was right; this customer really was a kind person (creature). Within these few brief lines of feedback, it had revealed a massive amount of information to him.
For instance, the one evaluating the food wasn’t some unknown system mechanism, but a genuinely existing intelligent lifeform.
Furthermore, using human ingredients made it impossible to secure an excellent rating—at least not with ingredients from the Fourth District. No matter how much heart was put into the cooking, if the quality of the ingredients didn’t cross the threshold, an excellent rating remained out of reach.
The customer not only prioritized the flavor of the dish but also valued the quality and nutrition of the ingredients. If he submitted ten portions of finished dishes for review according to his original plan, both the Yellow and Orange upgrade tasks would end in failure.
However, there was also good news, which was that his seasoning was absolutely fine; the unknown diner could accept it, provided he could find ingredients that met the standard.
Lin Xia’s gaze landed on the sixth line of the feedback form. Within this line of text, the unknown customer had mentioned two key points regarding ingredients. One was the Black Fog Farm, and the other was mutated insect offal and the glands of stinger frogs, which suddenly gave him a few new ideas.
The black fog had appeared a year ago. In the beginning, it was confined only to the skies above the planet’s poles, but after a year of expansion, it now blanketed massive swathes of land at both poles.
The Alliance had once sent an investigation team into the black fog zone, but the results of the investigation had never been made public. Later, they simply blockaded the polar maritime regions, strictly forbidding anyone from entering without authorization.
Yet alongside the expansion of the black fog zone, various rumors had begun to flood the galactic network.
Some said the poles were a testing ground where the Alliance experimented with star-destroying weapons. Because a certain lethal weapon development failed, it caused severe disruption to the magnetic field of the Fourth District, giving rise to the unexplained black fog.
Others said an extraterrestrial civilization had dropped an inducing agent at the poles, triggering biochemical contamination, which was why tech corporations like Zenith Star were permitted to enter the polar black fog zone for research. However, entering the black fog zone was a highly perilous endeavor. High-paying recruitment ads from Zenith Star hung year-round on the galactic network, reportedly because the casualty rate among personnel was too high, requiring a constant influx of fresh blood.
Still others claimed that ruins of ancient rulers had been discovered at the poles, resurfacing due to the cataclysm, and that mental pollution had caused the polar organisms to mutate. The evidence was that many Zenith Star researchers coming out of the black fog zone developed psychiatric issues and were secretly sent to the hospital affiliated with the Central Research Institute for treatment, but to this day, no one had successfully been discharged.
Among these, the last theory was the most far-fetched. Because the polar megathquakes occurred more than twenty years ago, if there truly were mental pollution, it would have erupted long ago. Following that, the poles had remained quiet and undisturbed until the sudden appearance of the polar black fog a year ago.
Therefore, Lin Xia leaned more toward the second theory: the black fog was a form of biochemical contamination, and the mutated tiger on the third floor was ironclad proof.
Speaking of mutated organisms, however, he wondered if the meat of that mutated tiger could be used. It had come out of the black fog zone after all, so it had to be of higher quality than mutated insect offal or the glands of a stinger frog, right?!
Thinking up to this point, Lin Xia was no longer in a hurry to cook. He directly clicked open the upgrade task panel.
The White ordinary upgrade task already showed as completed, requiring his confirmation before receiving the rewards.
Lin Xia took a deep breath and gently tapped the confirmation button. The next second, a dazzling white light erupted from the street stall cart.
As the white light dissipated, the windshield that previously had a hole in it was completely restored to its original state. Inside the vehicle, an additional high stool and a bucket of pure water had appeared—exactly the rewards for the White ordinary task.
Without pausing to check the chair and the water bucket, Lin Xia pulled up the task interface once more, and then let out a long sigh of relief.
Fantastic! The Yellow and Orange tasks were still there.
However, the progress bar of the Orange task had regressed by a small fraction, citing the reason: “Finished product rating failed to reach excellent.”
Fortunately, the progress bar for the Yellow task had not changed. This was likely because it required submitting 10 portions of finished products, and the two plates of dry-braised pork and the thick egg roll hadn’t met the quantity requirement yet.
Lin Xia had another hypothesis: the two dishes he had just prepared, despite their garbage ingredients, had actually reached a “passing” standard. Even if he proceeded with the original plan, he should still be able to complete the Yellow upgrade task.
But was Lin Xia content to stop there? How could he be!
What he yearned for day and night was a drivable street stall cart. The account balance belonging to him and Chi Xiaozheng was insufficient to support them renting a car to the survival base. He needed a means of transportation that cost no money, possessed a certain degree of safety, and could manage both their food and lodging!
It seemed that changing the ingredients was an absolute necessity.