If you were to compare people to trees.
Some trees are born to grow strong and sturdy.
But some trees, from the seed stage onward, already carry flaws within them.
So that even in the exact same environment, the sun can scorch their leaves, heavy rain can rot their roots, and even a brief winter can drain away most of their life.
Which meant that even in an ordinary environment, they had to grow as though clinging to a harsh cliff face, or a crack beneath a tile.
No matter how many times he’d been knocked down, Chu Yi had never once considered giving up on his own life.
He loved himself more than anyone else in this world.
He wanted to see himself, someday, standing on ground touched by sunlight and rain, just like a normal person.
Without being destroyed by things that were utterly mundane to ordinary people.
So even when his illness had grown severe enough that he needed a ventilator just to survive each day —
Chu Yi still insisted on holding his textbooks and reading.
Even when he was completely unable to walk, relying on a wheelchair to move —
Chu Yi still insisted on completing every small task of daily life by himself.
He made sure to eat all three meals properly, even if in the end, nausea meant most of it came back up.
He got up on schedule and went to bed on schedule, even on days when medication left him drowsy the entire time.
He had always firmly believed: only those who save themselves can hope for salvation.
So being chosen by the system had never been a matter of luck — of happening to be the one in ten million randomly selected.
It was the result of three hundred sixty-five days a year, every single year, of relentless effort.
And now, in the most ordinary girl in this wasteland, he saw that same kind of upward, vigorous will to grow.
Compared to five measly points arriving a little late, this child in front of him, brimming with life force, clearly held far more real “value.”
Chu Yi was a businessman, and a businessman above all knew how to choose what benefited him most.
Outside the inn, having killed her first tier-one mutant, Zhu Nan happily brandished her dagger, struggling to dig the crystal core out of its head.
She’d heard from Brother Xue Xiaobai that the innkeeper was a very clean person who disliked dirty, messy things.
So Zhu Nan pulled out a handkerchief and carefully wiped every trace of flesh and blood off the crystal core before cautiously heading back into the inn.
“Innkeeper, sir, this is a tier-one crystal core. I’m here to pay my points.”
Chu Yi glanced at her and pointed toward the automatic payment machine. “Just drop it in there. I imagine you’d like to get yourself a card, wouldn’t you? That way it’s easier to save up points — without your brother finding out.”
The innkeeper was amazing! He knew that too!
Zhu Nan’s eyes lit up, and she nodded eagerly again and again.
She walked up to the machine and followed the on-screen instructions, standing up straight and proper.
The machine began scanning.
A green light swept from the top of her head down to her feet, back and forth several times, until a photo of her face appeared on the screen above.
Well — her expression was stiff, clearly nervous.
Click.
A card popped out from the slot below.
[Registration complete. Cardholder: Zhu Nan]
[Remaining points on card: 4]
Once she’d paid back the points, Zhu Nan finally let out a breath of relief, the anxious knot in her chest gone.
Good!
She took a deep breath.
She had to keep working hard!
There were still a few more tier-one mutants nearby. She began clearing them out, one by one.
Meanwhile, elsewhere.
Around three in the afternoon, the Giant Mountain squad returned to the base’s inner city, carrying 500 bottles of mineral water.
Deputy Base Commander Lu Chenggong had already been waiting outside the villa gate for a long while. Seeing his son jump down from the truck, he immediately put on a smile and hurried over to greet him.
“Son, how did it go? Did you get anything useful this time outside the base? Can you beat mutants on your own yet?”
Lu Tianxin waved him off, completely unconcerned, and said carelessly, “Dad, forget that — I found something way more interesting. You’re going to love this!”
He waved Lu Chenggong over and, with an air of mystery, pulled out the already-opened bottle of water from behind his back, twisted off the cap, and had him drink.
At first, seeing the clear water, Lu Chenggong’s expression shifted slightly — but after drinking it, his eyes immediately lit up, as if he’d just seen gold.
“This — this!” He could barely get words out.
“Well? Good stuff, right?” Lu Tianxin raised his head proudly.
Lu Chenggong glanced over at the rest of the Giant Mountain squad, still by the truck, then pulled his son aside and lowered his voice. “Where did you get this? Do those others know?”
“Them? Yeah, they know.” Lu Tianxin launched into an account of the inn, emphasizing especially the miraculous protective barrier and the radiation-free mineral water that cost a mere 2 points a bottle.
The more he talked, the brighter Lu Chenggong’s eyes grew.
“Dad, this stuff is a treasure. If we just capture that innkeeper and get him to tell us where it all comes from, ruling the whole continent won’t even be a dream anymore!” Lu Tianxin smacked his lips, already lost in fantasies of the future. “Hurry up and gather the ability-user squad — let’s storm the inn!”
“…No.” Lu Chenggong thought it over carefully and decided it wasn’t wise.
The other side had a barrier that even tier-five mutants couldn’t break through. What if it was something even more formidable — able to withstand attacks above tier five as well?
Setting up a shop out in the wasteland like that was strange enough to begin with.
“Don’t rush this. It needs careful, long-term planning,” Lu Chenggong said. “Let me think of a way to test that barrier first — find out just how strong an attack it can withstand — before we decide anything.”
As deputy commander of Panlong Base, over the years Lu Chenggong had seen more major incidents than he could count — if not tens of thousands, then certainly thousands. He considered himself a seasoned, cunning old hand.
However he looked at it, this inn that had suddenly appeared out in the wasteland reeked of something deeply strange.
“Get this water down to the basement and keep it well guarded,” he said. Then, recalling the taste of the mineral water just now — cool and refreshing, clean and pure — it had honestly been… an unparalleled delicacy.
“With water like this, why would we ever worry about ability users not working themselves to the bone for us?” Lu Chenggong narrowed his eyes, already scheming about the future.
Suddenly, as if remembering something, he walked toward the vehicle.
“I need you all to keep this quiet. I’ll approve some extra points for you — go enjoy yourselves at Heavenly Delicacy this week.”
Heavenly Delicacy!
That establishment wasn’t run by Panlong Base.
Heavenly Delicacy was a special chain with branches in many of the major bases, rumored to be owned by a tier-nine plant-type ability user capable of growing delicious vegetables with radiation levels below 3%.
They had their own supply chain — orchards and livestock farms at undisclosed locations, producing fresh, extremely low-radiation ingredients that, once prepared by skilled chefs, were simply an almost unattainable delicacy.
A single meal there cost at least five figures in points.
Thinking of the dishes inside — ones only the base’s upper echelons had ever tasted — the three members of the Giant Mountain squad began salivating, immediately forgetting all about the inn.
“Thank you, Commander!” they said in unison.
They took the points card Lu Chenggong had approved and happily went off to spend it.
Only then did Lu Tianxin voice his displeasure.
“Dad? Why do we need to plan this out slowly? If He Zheng finds out about that place, will there be anything left for us?”
He Zheng was the commander of Panlong Base.
An extremely rigid, old-fashioned man.
Most of the ability users in the inner city cared far more about their own interests and paid no attention whatsoever to the ordinary civilians in the outer districts.
Only a small group centered around He Zheng insisted on periodically doing charitable work — helping ordinary people find jobs and supporting their employment.
Naturally, this was something Lu Chenggong, who was equally devoted to hedonism, found distasteful.
“Now isn’t the time,” he said, patting his son’s head. “We need to find out exactly what’s behind that shop first. If there’s a tier-nine or even tier-ten ability user backing them, we can only stay on good terms — we can’t afford to break with them.”
Lu Tianxin looked unhappy. “Dad, I saw the place myself — there was just one person who looked kind of effeminate, some so-called innkeeper, and nobody else at all! If we gather tier-six ability users right now, we could easily grab all the good stuff inside!”
Before he could finish, Lu Chenggong cut him off. “Don’t bring this up again. Let me think it through carefully.”
Looking at the batch of water, Lu Chenggong’s eyes turned deep and calculating.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, Zhu Bei and Xue Xiaobai, who had spent the day hunting mutants out in the wasteland, returned laden with spoils after a full day’s hunt.
Driving back from a distance, the two of them both realized the inn looked different.
“That… that’s the innkeeper’s place? How did it — suddenly get so tall?”
Xue Xiaobai rubbed his eyes, finding it hard to believe.
The building that had originally been two stories had, in the span of a single day away, shot up out of the ground and become a four-story tower.
And the shop had also expanded a good deal to the side — through the clean glass windows, neatly arranged tables and chairs were visible.
Once the truck pulled up near the inn, the two of them walked in wearing expressions of astonishment, and were greeted by the smiling little robot, Xiao Yi, coming toward them.
“Welcome back to the inn, honored guests. The inn has added twin rooms, priced at 170 points per night — feel free to check the details if interested. The inn has also added a restaurant, open from 6 AM to midnight, serving breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night snacks. It is currently dinner time — would the two of you like to head to the restaurant?”
“There is no mandatory spending requirement — guests may order according to their own preference.”
Xue Xiaobai and Zhu Bei exchanged a glance.
Thinking back to that morning, when Chu Yi had mentioned the restaurant — and now, after just a single day, it was already built and open. That was truly incredible!
The innkeeper had to be an extraordinarily powerful ability user!
They didn’t see Chu Yi at the front desk, and figured someone as impressive as the innkeeper was surely off attending to more important matters. So, following the little “assistant’s” suggestion, they decided to go check out the restaurant first.
The restaurant spanned three hundred square meters, spacious and open, furnished with forty four-person tables and twenty two-person tables — able to seat 200 diners at once.
Following the signage, the two of them picked up trays at the front and moved forward along the designated path, passing by five serving windows in turn.
The moment they saw the dishes behind the windows, both of them froze in place.
The cafeteria windows displayed the day’s menu.
Vegetable dishes (15 points): Hot and sour shredded potato, hand-torn cabbage, stir-fried indian lettuce, garlic bok choy, mapo tofu,地三鲜 (stir-fried potato, eggplant, and green pepper), stir-fried enoki mushrooms, dry-fried green beans, cold-mixed kelp shreds, cumin gluten strips.
Small meat dishes (20 points): Shredded pork with green peppers, ants climbing a tree, minced pork with eggplant, tomato and scrambled eggs, kung pao chicken.
Large meat dishes (30 points): Braised pork belly, stir-fried yellow beef, black pepper beef strips, braised chicken with mushrooms, braised hairtail fish.
The sight left them dizzy with disbelief.
What even was indian lettuce? How could a vegetable be this green?
And what were green beans? Kelp shreds? They’d never even heard of these things!
But most important of all — chicken, beef… foods reserved only for the big shots of the inner city — and now, they… could actually buy them for just 15 points?!?
And fish, too! Something even Heavenly Delicacy could rarely offer fresh!
Had they… arrived in heaven?!