Chapter 310
When Lan Yunqing replied, even Tang Yu’an was a bit stunned.
It was true—this method could quickly boost Chi Hao’s level, but the problem was…
[Eastern Sweet Tang: Brother Yunqing, if Chi Hao becomes the branch manager of Store No. 5, you’ll be transferring your permissions to him.]
That meant if Chi Hao wanted to do anything against Lanhu Town, it would be very easy for him.
After sending the reminder, Lan Yunqing stayed silent for a moment before replying:
[Red As Fire: I trust him.]
Tang Yu’an blinked. When did Brother Yunqing and Brother Chi Hao become this close?
After thinking for a moment, he still decided to tell Lan Yunqing how to contact the Divine Envoy.
[Eastern Sweet Tang: Leave a message in your store channel using the “@” symbol, then type “Mystery Merchant – Silverlight” or “Mystery Merchant – Dark Moon.”]
[Eastern Sweet Tang: Only the Divine Envoy being tagged will be able to see the message.]
This new feature had been unlocked when Tang Yu’an reached Level 29.
Yes, thanks to all the employees’ hard work, his level had increased again—
[Merchant Level reached Lv29. Mall inventory updated: potato chips, unfertilized eggs, frozen dumplings, toothpaste, toothbrushes now available in the Wholesale Market.]
[+2 slots in personal inventory. Total slots: 38. Authorizable slots +1. Now authorizable: 10.]
[New Employee Message Board function “@Mystery Merchant” unlocked. These messages will alert and be hidden for the tagged merchant. More info: see “Forum.”]
[New commercial map sharing function for employees now available. See “Map” for details.]
[Weekly Mission Refresh Card +1.]
Besides the @ mention feature, there was also a map-sharing feature.
As soon as he discovered this function, Tang Yu’an authorized Zhou Qi.
Map authorization was based on manually designating areas—he could draw zones on the map and assign them to specific employees.
For Zhou Qi, he gave full map access without reservation.
As for the light dots shown on the map, Tang Yu’an could choose what to display, so his identity wouldn’t be exposed to those receiving access.
Currently, aside from Zhou Qi, he also authorized his parents and Grandpa Li.
Tang Sheng and Tang Xueyun got the full access version, while Old Li got access limited to terrain viewing and customer/dangerous creature markers.
As for other employees, Tang Yu’an decided to make map access a performance-based reward.
After sending the method to Lan Yunqing, he added:
[Eastern Sweet Tang: Whether they’ll accept your request, though, I can’t say.]
[Red As Fire: Got it. Thank you.]
Not long after, Tang Yu’an saw Lan Yunqing’s message pop up in the store channel.
“Brother Qi, should we agree to his request?” he asked.
Zhou Qi thought about it quietly before sharing his opinion:
“It really is the fastest way to level up Chi Hao.”
Although the higher-ups of Qingmu Fortress didn’t get along with them, conflict was inevitable in the future. However, the commoners of Qingmu Fortress were innocent.
In fact, they were an important customer base.
With so many people, there was strength in numbers. In the apocalypse, protecting as many lives as possible was in their best interest.
But—
“We should assign him to the Purple Sky Grocery branch,” Zhou Qi said. “We have other branch slots open, and the Purple Sky branch does more transactions than Lanhu Town.”
“You mean… the Purple Sky Grocery Store?” Tang Yu’an immediately realized which branch he meant.
Due to Purple Sky Fortress’s unique environment, residents were gradually being moved to land, so they hadn’t assigned a performance review task to Zhan Xiong.
The Purple Grocery Store’s branch spot was still vacant.
That store, aside from Zhan Xiong and his son, also had Yu Lixia and two newly recruited employees.
Thanks to Purple Sky’s situation, business was booming—they earned a lot of points and XP.
With their help, Chi Hao’s level would rise much faster.
By comparison, Lanhu Town only had about ten thousand residents, who lived relatively peacefully and stably. Their daily transaction volume was even lower than that of the Purple Sky branch.
“Great! Let’s do it,” Tang Yu’an agreed.
He then replied to Lan Yunqing using the Silverlight alias:
[Mystery Merchant – Silverlight: Understood. @Red As Fire]
On the other side, Lan Yunqing breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing the message.
He waited for a system prompt, but instead, he got a private message from Chi Hao.
[Greenish Blue: Yunqing! I’ve been temporarily appointed as manager of Store No. 11!]
Store 11? Lan Yunqing blinked. Wasn’t it supposed to be Store 5?
Chi Hao sent another message:
[Greenish Blue: It’s temporary. Once I build the branch in Qingmu Fortress and activate the protective barrier, my position will be revoked.]
[Greenish Blue: So I guess it’s a special arrangement for now.]
Lan Yunqing nodded slightly.
Maybe the Silverlight Envoy had his own considerations, which was why he hadn’t followed Lan Yunqing’s suggestion exactly.
[Greenish Blue: Was it your idea to suggest that to the Divine Envoy?]
Before Lan Yunqing could respond, Chi Hao sent another message:
[Greenish Blue: An An already told me.]
Lan Yunqing: …
How could he forget Little Tang?
[Greenish Blue: I really wish I could grow wings and fly to Lanhu Town to see you right now.]
Lan Yunqing’s lips curved into a small smile.
[Red As Fire: Mm. Focus on leveling up.]
[Red As Fire: Get to Lv25 as soon as you can.]
Back on Chi Hao’s side, reading that last message made him feel immense pressure.
If Lv21 was already this hard… Lv25?!
Wouldn’t that require at least 200,000 XP?
Chi Hao took a deep breath and still replied:
[Okay, I’ll do my best!]
Then he laid back down and went back to sleep.
Next to him, Mu Sheng watched him lie down again and was just settling in to rest himself when he suddenly heard Chi Hao giggling to himself.
“What are you laughing about?” Mu Sheng asked with a frown.
“I just thought of something happy—you wouldn’t understand! Hahaha—hahahaha—”
Chi Hao could no longer hold back and laughed out loud, making Mu Sheng roll his eyes in annoyance.
*
Meanwhile, Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi weren’t asleep.
In fact, they had already taken a nap in an alternate dimension and returned. Now they were sitting together, discussing how to handle the sudden incident at Qingmu Fortress.
“If Qingmu Fortress completely falls, we can totally take in those refugees,” Zhou Qi said. “Even if the Qingmu faction still survives, this is a good chance to win people over.”
In their view, the population in this wasteland world was just too small.
Across all the settlements they’d encountered, the total population barely reached ten million—most places only had thousands or tens of thousands, and anything over a few hundred thousand was already impressive.
A place like Qingmu Fortress, with millions of residents, was a giant by comparison.
More importantly, most of these residents were literate—a trait that alone made them highly worth recruiting.
“One person alone—Chi Hao—probably won’t be able to handle it all,” Zhou Qi said.
“You mean—?”
“We should find a way to go to Qingmu Fortress ourselves.”
Tang Yu’an looked at the map. “But Qingmu Fortress is so far away!”
A two-month journey by RV—and that’s without factoring in obstacles—could easily take even longer.
Zhou Qi said, “What if we go through the alternate dimension?”
Although it would still take nearly two months to reach Shanna’s residence via the route near Uncle Bo’er and then find the space rift again, time flows differently there.
Two months in the alternate dimension would be only six or seven days in this world.
That would drastically shorten the time needed.
Once they arrived at Qingmu Fortress, if Chi Hao’s level still hadn’t met the requirements, they could just set up a new branch, activate the protective barrier, and open a teleportation array.
“We could also transfer Sister Hong Li and Old Xie there. It’s Qingmu’s turf—they’d be even more effective over there.”
To be honest, Old Xie was quite capable when it came to business management. As for Hong Li—not so much.
She’d been raised to be a warrior, and although she was smart, her attribute points clearly weren’t in business.
She was more suited for expansion, military organization, and territory development—things she’d likely do really well.
“That’s a great idea!”
Old Xie had the brains, and Hongli and Chi Hao had the brawn—sending them to Qingmu Fortress would be a solid combination.
Zhou Qi then said, “There’s also another option.”
“What is it?”
“I remember we unlocked an RV function before… Random Jump, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Tang Yu’an nodded.
“In RV mode, you can spend 2,000 points each time to activate a random jump. The RV will land at either an unlocked or unlocked-but-unknown location on the map.”
They had always thought the function was kind of useless, and since it required 880,000 points to unlock, they hadn’t tried it before.
“Wanna give it a shot?” Tang Yu’an asked. “Although the odds are practically zero that we’d just happen to land in Qingmu Fortress…”
Zhou Qi gave Tang Yu’an a meaningful look.
“Who knows?” he said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and land right there.”
“That would take miraculous luck.”
Tang Yu’an mumbled, but still opened his control panel and spent the points to unlock the feature.
After all, his account balance now had over 20 million points. Not using them was a waste, and 880,000 was nothing to him now!
Once unlocked, a new physical button appeared on the RV’s control panel.
“Wow, it’s an actual physical button!”
Tang Yu’an said happily. “Brother Qi, you think you can use it?”
Zhou Qi reached to touch the button, and a line of text appeared on the screen:
[Insufficient balance: 0 points. Random jump unavailable.]
Tang Yu’an looked into it and then loaded 100,000 points into the jump account.
“Try again now, Brother Qi.”
Zhou Qi couldn’t help but swallow nervously.
He thought for a moment, then said, “Let’s use the Lucky Marble first?”
“Oh, right!”
Tang Yu’an quickly pulled out a Lucky Marble and buffed Zhou Qi with a luck boost.
Zhou Qi took a deep breath, focused on Qingmu Fortress in his mind, and pressed the button.
[Points deducted. Random Jump Initiated…]
Outside, the scenery suddenly vanished, and they were engulfed in a dark void, until the display on the console changed again:
[Random location generated… Jump successful!]
The darkness outside disappeared, and the scenery had clearly changed… though not by much?
They checked the map and discovered that the RV had only moved about 100 meters from where they had previously parked.
Zhou Qi: … 😕
