Ch 17: TGCIR

Li Weilan has bad memories of Tenglong Base.

His expression was cold, and Xi Nan felt the sharpness of his demeanor, like a blade of ice and snow. He asked cautiously, “Brother Li… is there something wrong?”

Li Weilan closed his eyes slightly.

It’s all in the past.

Everything has passed.

“No, it’s nothing,” he took a deep breath. “Please continue.”

Xi Nan hesitated for a moment. He had a natural intuition for sensing people’s moods and facial expressions. Even though Li Weilan tried to conceal it, the anger in his chest was still evident in his eyes.

Did Li Weilan have some kind of feud with Tenglong Base?

That shouldn’t be the case. Ability users were popular wherever they went. With Li Weilan’s abilities, he should have been able to live a comfortable life in the “strength first” Tenglong, unlike Xi Nan and his sister, who were support-type ability users.

“My sister is a support-type ability user, but food is still a necessary luxury item. At first, our life was pretty comfortable. But then my sister joined the logistics department, and a rich kid took a liking to her and harassed her every day. Unfortunately, her third-level advancement requirement was to plant apple trees with a pollution level of less than 10%…” Xi Nan gritted his teeth. “If it weren’t for the seed required for planting, my sister would have quit that job a long time ago. But she couldn’t, and it wasn’t until the day of the ability riot that the man tried to force himself on her. My sister had no choice but to destroy all the fruit trees, and that’s when we ran away. But my sister’s ability…”

Li Weilan furrowed his brows.

Every advancement to a higher level of ability had a specific talent-based task to complete. If completed, it would allow the user to cross the threshold of that level. But if the task wasn’t completed for a long time or if the user experienced other stimuli, an excess of accumulated energy could cause an ability riot, which was the most feared period for ability users. During this time, they had no self-protection capabilities and could even end up like Xi Bei, burned out and brain damaged.

Once you enter the “ability riot period”, you either have to rely on yourself to make it through and regain consciousness, or you have to buy a drug called “Dawn light” that can wake you up, and then complete the task to advance.

But “Dawn light” is only available at the auction houses of a few major bases, and the quantity released each time is extremely limited, but every time it appears, it causes a frenzy. Xi Nan knew that even if he went bankrupt, he couldn’t afford a bottle of “Dawn light”.

“My sister was still somewhat conscious at the time, and she advised me not to think about buying Dawn light,” Xi Nan’s voice carried a faint sob, “She said she would rely on herself to wake up. I always listen to what she says, but I can’t just sit around like this… Dawn light may be her only chance to wake up. Even if I can’t buy Dawn light, there’s still a low-contamination apple seed in the hands of that second-generation rich guy. If I can get it, she can wake up and complete the task.”

When he heard “Dawn light”, Li Weilan’s whole body was covered with a faint, icy chill.

But as he listened on, his expression gradually softened and eventually became dazed.

Xi Bei had a good brother.

He was lucky too… There was always someone watching over him.

“I have a friend at Tenglong Base,” Xi Nan glanced at his expression, “He’s an earth-type ability user who used to work in civil engineering before the apocalypse, dealing with soil and cement every day. His ability also leans towards assisting in this area. At the beginning, when Tenglong Base was still busy with construction, his life was a little better, but later on when the construction was almost finished, their department was put on the backburner. I thought… it would be nice to bring him over to our base to do some planning. Before, I didn’t dare to mention it because I thought our base wouldn’t need him, but now that you, Brother Li, are planning to construct a new building on the surface, we could use his help.”

Li Weilan pondered for a moment.

In fact, he had also considered the idea of going to the major bases to trade and buy things.

Noah was now empty, lacking both people and resources, and even if he wanted to recruit people, he would have to first spread the word about the base before doing any screening.

Moreover, now that he had some supplies from Walmart that he couldn’t use, he needed to exchange them for practical ones. Thinking this way, Li Weilan pushed his opinion on Xi Nan: “The Tenglong auction is in half a month, right? There should be apple seeds available by then. Prepare yourself, and after we arrange everything inside the base, we will go to Tenglong.”

“Thank you, Brother Li!” Xi Nan jumped excitedly.

Li Weilan smiled and habitually put his hand in his pocket, but suddenly felt something hard in there.

 “?” He was vaguely puzzled.

 He remembered that his pocket was empty.

 Could it be… that person again…?

This thing was a thin, small card with a slightly hard texture, a fine surface, and a warm touch.

This kind of texture could only be achieved by one material in this era—black crystal.

Black crystal was only used for one thing.

Black crystal card.

After Xi Nan left, Li Weilan took out the card from his pocket. Under the slightly yellowish light of the Noah base, the card surface shone with a brilliant light.

Mocking his poverty and lack of knowledge mercilessly.

Black crystal card, a credit limit of over 100,000 credits.

Enough for him…to buy all of the “Dawn light”.

Li Weilan’s gaze was wandering, and although he had already become accustomed to this person’s sudden appearance and disappearance, at the same time, he deeply felt his own weakness when he faced this black crystal card.

Randomly giving away a base.

Randomly giving away a weapon.

Randomly giving away a black crystal card.

What did that person think of him?

A faint blush flashed across Li Weilan’s face, and he gritted his teeth, licking his molars and feeling a dull ache.

**

Of course, Shen Cheng had no idea that Li Weilan was cursing the wealthy for their greed and imagining her as a greasy rich woman who buys and gives away at the drop of a hat. Even if she did know, she would probably weep in despair: mother isn’t actually that rich! Mother just wants to spend money on you, but she doesn’t want to do anything to you.

Her life today was simply terrible.

When she woke up in the morning, Shen Cheng rubbed her sleepy eyes and went to the bathroom to freshen up. To her surprise, she pushed the door open and saw a man brushing his teeth in the bathroom!

The problem was that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, revealing his flabby belly.

“!!!”

He was humming a tune, but Shen Cheng was startled and jumped up like a rabbit. She hurriedly ran out of the bathroom and hid behind the door in her room, pressing her ear against it to eavesdrop on the voices outside.

Rustling.

Rustling.

Then came the conversation between the man and the woman.

“Darling, have you finished washing up?” The woman’s voice was sweet and gentle.

“En,” there was a sound of a kiss, and then the man said, “Didn’t you push the door in just now?”

“Huh, it wasn’t me!” The woman’s voice was slightly higher, “What were you doing just now?”

“Brushing my teeth,” the man laughed, “Don’t worry, I wasn’t showering or peeing.”

The two of them laughed for a while, and then the sound of high-heeled footsteps suddenly approached the door where Shen Cheng was leaning against.

Shen Cheng was startled.

“Knock, knock, knock.”

She had just taken two steps back, and there were three knocks on the door. Through the door panel, the woman’s voice came through with great penetration: “Cheng Cheng, are you there?”

Shen Cheng trembled in fear!

Ah, ah, ah! She didn’t know why she was shaking!

It wasn’t her who did the wrong thing!

It wasn’t her who didn’t lock the bathroom door and then the boyfriend walked in!

It wasn’t her who promised not to bring a man home overnight and then brought him home on the first night of sharing an apartment!

And it wasn’t her who now came to find her without any guilt!

She stared at the door panel. She knew the logic behind it all, but for some reason, she was afraid of arguing with someone who would act righteous like this woman.

Shen Cheng rubbed her toes on the ground.

She took several deep breaths before opening the door. But before she could say anything, a sweet-looking woman with makeup at the door, smiling softly at her and said, “Cheng, did you want to go to the bathroom just now? My boyfriend is finished, so you can go now.”

Shen Cheng opened her mouth, wanting to say, “Didn’t we agree before I moved in that we wouldn’t bring men home overnight?” But before she could, the woman checked her watch and hurriedly said, “Oh, I might be late. Let’s chat later tonight. See you then!” She quickly walked over and took her boyfriend’s arm, smiling at Shen Cheng as they left together.

Shen Cheng pursed her lips and knew she should have spoken up and expressed her protest since last night. But sometimes in life, being straightforward about expressing dissatisfaction might only lead to more conflicts and thorns. She could only hope that bringing a boyfriend home was a one-time thing and less frequent in the future. Otherwise, she might have to confront the situation head-on, despite the potential conflicts that could arise.

Shen Cheng felt a wave of inexplicable sadness in her heart, feeling that her mood had been dampened by this incident all day. She realized that it might not be feasible to continue to cut costs like this and that she had to think of ways to increase her income.

As a girl deep in poverty, every penny was budgeted carefully. It was difficult to save more money by cutting costs alone, so she needed to find a way to increase her income.

How do I make it happen?

Never mind, let’s just enter the game to feel better.

Translated on ho lo lo novels dot com.

The last time I had difficulties in life, it was my cub who helped me solve the problem. Maybe this time, when I am at a loss, I can learn something from my cub?

Thinking of Li Weilan, Shen Cheng’s mood quickly became sunny. She tapped the game and found that the game icon had spun rapidly and updated a new version in just half a minute!

This game company is really awesome!

When Shen Cheng played other games, the patch updates from the game company would take one or two hours at the shortest, and half a day or a day at the longest. Compared to this game company of “The Last Survivor,” it was simply the industry’s conscience, and the updates were so fast!

Wow, lightning-fast speed!

Shen Cheng entered the game and found that the task system had been updated, and the tasks were now divided into two types.

[Main Quest: Current Progress: Main Quest 4 (Completed)

Main Quest 5-1. Recruit a plant-type ability user for the base 0.5/1 Task Reward: One free upgrade of the hydroponic room]

[Daily Tasks:

1. Check Li Weilan’s status (Not Completed) Gold Coins +50

2. Raise the protagonist’s status to happy or above (Not Completed) Gold Coins +50]

“…” Today is also a day of being bald from task stress.

Main Quest 1 is obviously a continuous task. The current status of the Planting department is 0.5/1, indicating that there are Plant ability users in the base after she opened the hydroponic room. However, this user is in an “abnormal” state, so the various functions of the hydroponic room cannot operate normally.

Rounding up, it should be… someone’s sister, right?

Hmm…

Shen Cheng scratched her head. It’s hard to remember the name of a supporting character.