Shen Tangtang carried her burlap sack to the shantytown in the West District, stopped in front of her new door, and pulled the key handed to her by the district chief yesterday out of her pocket.
Screech…
“Ahem, ahem.”
Shen Tangtang put down the bag in her hand and couldn’t help coughing.
Just how long had no one lived in this place?
She turned to look around. The closest house to hers was a hundred meters away.
Did the district chief play a trick on her? Looking at the map yesterday, only the house on her side had been left unchosen—did this place have some sort of issue?
Stepping inside to take a look, it was about sixty square meters and completely empty, save for a small patch of dirt in the middle with traces of scattered plant ash.
There was only a single window on the left wall, meaning poor natural lighting and a lingering, musty odor.
It truly was a house with barren walls on all sides.
Fortunately, the district chief hadn’t lied about one thing: the house wasn’t broken anywhere, so no extra repairs were needed.
She swept the contents of the burlap sack back into her spatial dimension, decisively locked the door, and left.
Half an hour later, Shen Tangtang stepped back into the exchange hall.
“Hello, do you need to exchange for points or goods?”
“Hello, I’d like to exchange for a small clay pot, a fire starter, five hundred milliliters of cooking oil, a pack of seasonings, a set of bedding, a bamboo mat, a towel, a wooden bucket, and a wooden bathtub. Could you tell me how many points that will cost?”
Shen Tangtang ticked the items off on her fingers, thinking for a moment—that should do for now.
“Alright, please give me a moment.”
“A clay pot is 15 points, a set of five fire starters is 1 point, 500 milliliters of cooking oil is 8 points, the seasoning packet is 5 points, the complete set of bedding is 40 points, the bamboo mat is 3 points, the towel is 5 points, the wooden bucket is 1 point, and the bathtub is 5 points. That comes to a total of 87 points.”
So cheap?
Shen Tangtang raised an eyebrow; she had thought it would require a lot more points.
Over the past year, she rarely came to the exchange hall to trade for supplies. Because she used the concentration camp bracelet, the mutated beasts she killed in the wild using her abilities had never been brought out for exchange—they were piled up like mountains in her space, and even the plants she accelerated with her powers had never been traded.
Now, aside from the 20-point house tax and the 20-point personal tax paid yesterday, she still had 1,972 points left. Calculated this way, she was practically a minor tycoon.
Shen Tangtang wasn’t aware that for most orphans coming of age out of the orphanage concentration camp, barring the lucky ones, most were lucky to have two hundred points left in their bracelets when they left. Otherwise, Zhang Nana and the others wouldn’t have chosen to split a three-person rental just to save a few points.
Back home, Shen Tangtang wiped the sweat from her forehead and glanced at the sun outside.
It was noon, and the sun was currently too fierce; she would have to wait until the afternoon to go out hunting.
Realizing the house lacked everything, Shen Tangtang helplessly leaned against the wall and looked around. She spotted a bundle of dry leaves in the corner, which would do nicely for sweeping up.
After cleaning the floor, she laid down a layer of leaves underneath, spread out her newly purchased bamboo mat, and pulled out a dark purple set of bedding.
Shen Tangtang sat on the bed, pulled out a tube of nutrient solution she had saved from before, and slowly drank it.
Curious, she checked her newly acquired bracelet, tapping open the newly added information blocks: Name: Shen Tangtang, ID Number: 999…9966 (expand), Age: 18, Assets: 1,972, Residence: No. 568, Shantytown, Dawn City.
Location: Mark location / View location.
Call: Add friend.
Video (includes audio recording): No videos yet.
Remembering the last four digits of the ID number Lin Daiyu had told her earlier, she searched the call function, found the address listed as Dawn City, and decisively added her.
“Beep beep beep—You have added a new friend.”
“Is that Tangtang?”
Lin Daiyu and Bai Yanjun were digging up a bamboo shoot. When she straightened up from her aching waist to take a rest, she felt the vibration on her wrist. Wondering what prompted it, she happily tapped it open to check, and sure enough, someone had added her as a friend.
She held onto a fluttering sense of anticipation, hoping it was that person.
After a moment, just as Lin Daiyu’s heart was turning cold inch by inch:
“Sister Daiyu, it’s me.”
Shen Tangtang had only just walked back after closing her door when she discovered Lin Daiyu had already accepted her friend request.
“It really is Tangtang! I thought you’d never talk to me again.”
Lin Daiyu’s eyes grew somewhat moist. Although she had just seen Shen Tangtang this morning, she had assumed Tangtang was disappointed in her. When she heard Tangtang tell her earlier not to let Qiqi go hungry, she thought of her little sister’s emaciated state—because of her, her sister had lost all her meat in just one week.
She ran off that morning because she had no face to see Tangtang, never expecting that Tangtang would actually add her back.
Thinking of this, Lin Daiyu couldn’t control her tears, which fell in large drops.
Her sister still acknowledged her—how wonderful.
Bai Yanjun was digging up the dirt for all he was worth. Feeling the movement from the person beside him, he looked up and couldn’t help frowning. “Daiyu, what’s wrong with you? Let’s hurry and dig this bamboo shoot out so we can find a place out of the sun to hide for a bit.”
Bai Yanjun looked at the red rashes on his arms; he could already feel a burning sensation radiating from his skin.
Lin Daiyu’s gaze shrank slightly. She wiped her tears away out of Bai Yanjun’s sight, then said happily, “Brother Jun, you rest for a moment. I’ll dig a couple more times and then we can go rest.”
Over on Shen Tangtang’s end, after confirming Lin Daiyu was busy, she didn’t disturb her further. Adding Lin Daiyu as a friend was simply because Lin Daiyu had always treated her like a younger sister in the past. Although they grew somewhat distant after meeting the male lead, after over a dozen years of friendship, she didn’t want Lin Daiyu’s ultimate ending to be the one written in the novel.
Drowsiness crept up on her. She yawned and lay down on the bed.
Before long, soft sounds of snoring drifted out.
When Shen Tangtang woke up, the sun was still hanging in the sky.
She tapped her bracelet to check the time; it was already 2:30 PM.
She opened the door to look at the sun outside—waiting another half hour before heading out wouldn’t hurt.
With a flick of her mind, she entered her spatial dimension and saw that the chives planted that morning were vibrant green. Satisfaction flashed in her eyes, and she walked over to channel a bit of green light into them. Seeing the leaves unfurl luxuriantly, she left them be.
She walked into the peach orchard, picked a peach, and headed toward the small wooden cabin she had built.
This was the first time Shen Tangtang had entered her space physically since awakening her abilities. Back in the concentration camp, there were eyes everywhere, and the wild was unsafe, so she hadn’t dared enter in the flesh. She had always organized supplies and farmed using her consciousness alone, and even the wooden cabin had been constructed using her mind, taking a full month to complete.
That habit started around the day she and Lin Daiyu had their falling out, even though Shen Tangtang always believed she had good intentions in warning her.
From that day on, Shen Tangtang gradually distanced herself from Lin Daiyu because she had explicitly stated she hated Bai Yanjun, yet Lin Daiyu refused to listen.
In the wasteland world, for young women to go out searching for food was already risking their lives, especially when a frail girl went out entirely alone.
After confirming that her abilities needed improvement, Shen Tangtang had found an uninhabited house in the shantytown to hide in. Out of sight of others, she used up an energy stone, awakening both wood-type and spatial abilities.
Since Shen Tangtang already possessed a space, somehow the spatial ability fused with it, jumping three levels straight into a Level 3 spatial ability. The space expanded; aside from the storage prohibition zone expanding, it also gained patches of black soil suitable for cultivation.
Right now, she was already a Level 2 wood-type and Level 3 spatial ability user.
The two energy stones she had found previously were also completely absorbed over the course of the past year, all used to enhance her wood-type abilities, because leveling up spatial abilities past Level 3 required massive amounts of energy, and the two energy stones she had obtained were simply not enough to push her to Level 4.
Note: Energy stones can awaken abilities because the user already possesses potential ability attributes; energy stones themselves hold no specific attributes, and their different colors simply reflect different mutated minerals.
(Energy required for ability level advancement [absorbing energy stones or crystal cores]:Level 1: 1,000 pointsLevel 2: 10,000 pointsLevel 3: 100,000 pointsLevel 4: 1,000,000 pointsLevel 5: 5,000,000 pointsLevel 6: 10,000,000 pointsLevel 7: 15,000,000 pointsLevel 8: 20,000,000 pointsLevel 9: 25,000,000 pointsLevel 10: 30,000,000 points)