On the way back to Panlong Base, Xue Xiaobai specifically kept his eyes peeled for solitary, low-tier mutants to attack.
Mutants originally evolved from humans, but after transforming into this new species, their reproductive capacity and growth rate had undergone an unprecedented evolution.
Among mutants, a special variety known as the “Disaster Mother” could birth thirty to fifty eggs per litter and reproduce every single month, making them the most terrifying biological weapon imaginable.
The higher the rank of the Disaster Mother, the more easily the mutants she spawned were prone to drastic mutations.
Mutants capable of breathing fire, spitting water, or even flying inflicted irreversible devastation upon the wasteland inhabitants.
Through hunt after hunt, Xue Xiaobai grew increasingly skilled.
After yesterday’s stay, he only had three Tier-1 crystal cores left in his pouch.
To check into the hotel again, he had to acquire at least seven more.
Xue Xiaobai was practically bursting with impatience to bring his mother to the hotel.
After that, as long as he worked a bit harder and specifically sought out mutants to hunt, netting ten cores a day wasn’t completely out of the question.
As long as Mom could get better, suffering a little or tiring himself out didn’t matter at all.
The only doctor in the outer district had said that his mother was currently still in the early stages of waste-dust disease; with reasonable care and medication, her condition could improve or even fully recover.
Thinking of the hotel’s 0-radiation water and clean air…
Xue Xiaobai gritted his teeth, endured the pain from a mutant’s scratch, and successfully took down yet another Tier-1 mutant!
Looking at the clinking crystal cores inside his pouch, he finally broke into the first satisfying smile he had worn in days.
After that, it was time to head back into the city.
Entering and exiting the base cost 5 points, paid using the base’s points card.
Once inside the city, he hurried back to his home without a moment’s rest.
This was the shabbiest shanty town in Panlong Base, where residents cobbled together low, cramped dwellings using battered plastic tarps and sheet metal.
“Mom! I’m back!”
Pushing the door open, Xue Xiaobai immediately spotted his pale-faced mother leaning against the bed.
Mother Xue’s skin was dotted with dark blemishes, and she coughed uncontrollably.
Seeing her son, she should have smiled, but the moment she tried, her body began to shake violently.
She immediately covered her mouth and fell into a fit of hacking coughs.
“Cough, cough—”
“Mom! Are you alright?!” Xue Xiaobai rushed forward immediately, gently patting her back.
Remembering something, the youth pulled his battered backpack open, fished out the canteen, and popped the cap.
“Quick, drink some water! This water is amazing!”
The water they usually had access to was turbid and carried a distinct rusty tang.
Yet when Mother Xue took a gulp of water at her son’s urging, her eyes widened uncontrollably.
Sweet. Crisp.
How… wonderful the water tasted.
Just a single sip dramatically eased the foreign-object sensation in her throat. She stopped coughing entirely, and even her breathing grew noticeably lighter.
“Th-This!” She grabbed Xue Xiaobai’s wrist, her tone panicked. “Child, where did you get this water? You didn’t go doing something you shouldn’t have, did you?!”
Even though they lived in the lowest-tier shanty town, Mother Xue had never stopped teaching Xue Xiaobai to be an upright and kind person.
The moment she drank that water, Mother Xue ran through every possible scenario—after all, such precious goods were things only the big shots in the inner district could afford!
Having drunk just one mouthful, she didn’t dare touch it again.
“N-No, I can’t…”
“Mom, you can drink it without worry! I didn’t do anything shady!” Seeing his mother so terrified made Xue Xiaobai’s heart ache.
He sniffled and began recounting the events of yesterday.
“When I went outside the base yesterday, our group ran into a Level 4 mutant, and I got separated from them… Who would’ve thought, right in front of that patch of mangroves, there was a brand new building!”
With that, he began waving his arms, struggling to describe the scene.
“Walls as white as snow, a roof that clean! The doors were transparent, just like the Esper building in the inner district!”
The scavenging team Xue Xiaobai joined had once accepted a job from an inner-city client, and he had tagged along with his team captain inside to catch a glimpse of the world.
He also knew that place was a paradise he could never hope to reach in this lifetime.
“Guess what? That place turned out to be a hotel!” At this, Xue Xiaobai’s voice cracked slightly with excitement.
“The store manager only charged me ten Tier-1 crystal cores to let me stay the night! How incredible is that place? Not even the waste-dust storm could get an inch inside! The water used for showering in there, I checked it with a detector—zero radiation whatsoever! Look.”
He pointed to the canteen. “I managed to scoop up a little water to bring back.”
Mother Xue widened her eyes, listening to her son’s experience as if it were a fairy tale.
“Child, how could you take things from someone else’s shop? This, the store manager…”
“Don’t worry, your son handles things securely. I asked the store manager, and he deducted 1 point from me—over there, a Tier-1 core exchanges for 10 points. Then he gave me permission to bring it back.” At this, Xue Xiaobai’s gratitude welled up anew.
How could there be someone as good as the store manager in this world?
“I was thinking, if I bring you over there to live, maybe your waste-dust disease can be cured?”
Hearing this, Mother Xue was about to speak when—
Bang!
The door to their home was kicked open, three ill-intentioned men holding clubs walked in, eyeing the mother and son with malicious expressions.
“Xue Xiaobai, what kind of good stuff did you dig up?” The man in the lead had a face full of fleshy brutishness, and the large blade in his hand gleamed with a cold light.
These three were the most notorious troublemakers in Shanty Town Block 3. Liu Dao and his cronies frequently patrolled the neighborhood, shaking residents down for points under the guise of collecting “protection money.”
Seeing them, Xue Xiaobai instantly tensed up.
“I—I didn’t find anything… Brother Liu, I already paid the protection money before I went out yesterday.”
With that, he raised a hand to shield his mother behind him.
Before Xue Xiaobai could react further, the skinniest scoundrel among the three rushed forward, lunged with a sudden step, snatched the canteen he hadn’t managed to hide away, and handed it over to Liu Dao like a flunky currying favor.
“Boss! It’s this water! I heard them talking about it outside just now!”
Liu Dao raised an eyebrow with a look of interest, unscrewed the cap, and gave it a sniff.
One sniff was all it took; there wasn’t a trace of rust smell inside, replaced instead by a pleasing, refreshing fragrance.
His pupils shrank. Without hesitation, he poured a little into his palm.
The water was clear and pristine, completely free of sediment.
This was extraordinary!
Liu Dao immediately poured it into his mouth. The smooth, crisp texture nearly made him cry out in joyful release.
Savoring the sensation for a few seconds, he screwed the cap back on, his expression turning gloomy.
“Well, well. Xue Xiaobai, you got your hands on something this good and didn’t think to honor your Brother Liu, hiding it to enjoy all by yourself?” He sneered. “Where’d you find this stuff? Give it to me straight!”
Xue Xiaobai went cold all over; his limbs grew numb and he shook uncontrollably.
“I—I picked it up… I got separated from my team yesterday and found it in a pile of debris…”
Before he even finished speaking, the scoundrel who had snatched the canteen chimed in with righteous indignation: “He’s lying, Boss! I clearly heard him say he got it from that… hotel in front of the mangroves!”
At that moment, Xue Xiaobai nearly passed out.
They heard it all!
It was over!
If he brought trouble like this to the doorstep, would the store manager still let him stay? Then his mother would have even less hope of recovery…
Reality, however, gave him no room to turn back.
Upon hearing this, Liu Dao’s eyes lit up as he slapped his thigh hard. “Good stuff! Let’s go! Take me out of the base!”
Without a second to waste, he turned around immediately.
The scoundrel rolled his eyes, pointed at Xue Xiaobai and Mother Xue, and suggested: “Boss, take these two along. They can act as hostages!”
Standing nearby, Liu Er—Liu Dao’s younger brother—nodded in rapid agreement. “That’s right!”
They immediately fetched ropes, bound the pair’s hands, and dragged them kicking and screaming onto a small pickup truck.
Meanwhile, back at the hotel.
As the sky gradually darkened, Chu Yi remained entirely unaware that trouble was about to land on his doorstep.
Right now, he was staring at three boxed meals on the counter, his brow furrowed as tightly as a twisted dishcloth.
The system tried to persuade him helplessly: [Please eat something, Host. You haven’t eaten a thing all day; your body won’t hold up.]
Yet Chu Yi looked sickly and frail, making no effort to mask his utter disgust.
“I want Kobe A5 Tomahawk steak.”
[…]
“If that won’t do, Matsusaka A5, Western Australia M9… any of those are fine.”
[Host, the staff meal comes to this standard. If you want something higher-grade, you need to buy it from the system mall.] The system genuinely hadn’t expected its host to be such a picky eater.
The staff meal was already considered a top-tier perk—three dishes and a soup, two meats and one vegetable, appealing in color, aroma, and taste.
Hearing this, however, Chu Yi’s gaze landed once more on the boxed meals before him.
These three boxes represented today’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner respectively.
Yet he hadn’t touched a single bite.
“You don’t understand,” Chu Yi said. “Just smelling this makes me want to puke. Look—blech—”
He covered his mouth and began dry heaving violently.
The catch was that he was blessed with such striking looks that even an action as unrefined as dry heaving still exuded an undeniable air of aristocratic elegance in every gesture.
It left the system completely at a loss.
Right at that moment, a fishy, foul stench drifted in through the open doorway, causing Chu Yi’s body to recoil in aversion.
“Where’s the store manager?! Show yourself!”
Storming into the hotel were precisely Liu Dao and his two accomplices.
The scoundrel charged in at the front. Seeing Chu Yi seated behind the front desk, he was first momentarily stunned by his looks before immediately shouting, “Cut the crap, pretty boy! Hand over those high-grade water resources right now!”
“No, we don’t just want those!” Liu Dao swept his gaze around, taking in the spotless interior and the air quality completely unlike the outside world, a flash of greed crossing his eyes.
“Step aside! This place belongs to us now!”
Chu Yi remained seated in his chair, watching the barking wasteland natives before him.
Having gone all day without food, he felt dizzy and lightheaded; combined with his baseline physical malaise, his complexion was exceptionally pale right now.
This was precisely why Liu Dao and his crew felt certain he posed no threat.
Espers certainly didn’t look like walking corpses.
Facing the threat, Chu Yi felt not an ounce of fear; instead, he actually chuckled.
Name: Liu Dao | Possessions: Tier-1 crystal core x35 Name: Liu Er | Possessions: Tier-1 crystal core x28 Name: Zhang Ma (The Scoundrel) | Possessions: Tier-1 crystal core x13 …
What plump, juicy little lambs.
“Thanks for the delivery.”
“In that case… I won’t stand on ceremony.”