Chapter 319
[Do you wish to spend 1,000,000 points to upgrade the main store “Peace Grocery Store” to (Quality Is Power!) Lv4?]
Upgrading to Lv4 required a million points!
Tang Yu’an glanced at his point balance, then clicked confirm without a second thought.
[Points successfully deducted!]
[Congratulations! The main store “Peace Grocery Store” has been upgraded to (Quality Is Power!) Lv4]
[Overnight guest capacity increased by 10,000. The maximum number of customers each branch can now host: 121,120]
[+1 Dream Drifting Bottle, +1 daily fishing attempt. Current fishing attempts: 5]
[Flight mode unlocked. For details, visit the store homepage]
[Guardian Barrier now includes all-day attack resistance. Can be unlocked once conditions are met]
Wow! The main store actually unlocked flight mode!
When he saw that line, Tang Yu’an’s eyes lit up.
Although they had previously bought a flying vehicle with a mounted RV for flight, the experience definitely wouldn’t compare to flying with the main store.
After all, the RV had fixed compartments, while the store in flight mode probably allowed for a custom cabin setup too.
Tang Yu’an then looked at the other rewards.
The upgrade increased the overnight guest capacity by 10,000!
And that was no small number—this increase applied to every branch. That meant even more people would benefit.
There was also the new guardian barrier fusion feature. For example, in home bases like “Desolate City – Jufeng Mountain – Lin Hai Settlement,” the total capacity would increase by far more than 30,000—because Lin Hai Settlement had multiple branches. Once those branches upgraded, the accumulated capacity would soar.
Once the “Big is Beautiful” upgrade path was completed, even more features would surely be unlocked!
Tang Yu’an continued reading. One more Dream Drifting Bottle was added, and now he had 5 daily fishing attempts.
Speaking of which, the time system of the main store seemed to be bound to their native world—the wasteland world.
Even if they drove the RV into another dimension, whenever they entered the store space from the RV, time would still flow at the same rate as in the wasteland.
They had even tested this: in other dimensions, they could only remain in RV mode—store mode couldn’t be activated.
That’s why, even though they’d traveled for a month in an alternate dimension, the Dream Drifting Bottle only refreshed a few times.
Now that his parents were helping out, they no longer had to worry about being too busy while traveling to use up the bottle chances—it wouldn’t go to waste anymore!
Thinking of this made Tang Yu’an feel genuinely happy.
He shared the store upgrade rewards with Zhou Qi. After having a meal with his parents, he didn’t rush back to the wasteland world. Instead, he decided to go for a walk outside.
In just over a month, thanks to the efforts of Tang Sheng, his wife, and everyone else, the small city had undergone a dramatic transformation.
First, the land in both the northern and southern parts of the city had basically been reclaimed.
Before, they had relied on guardian barriers to hold off the mutated creatures, but after acquiring the purple powder, things became much easier. Sprinkling the powder on the streets sent the mutated beasts fleeing as if they’d seen a ghost.
People even discovered that the powder didn’t just repel the creatures—it could kill them!
However, it required massive amounts of powder to do so. Unless they captured the creatures first, the powder wouldn’t kill them in time—they’d just run off. So it still wasn’t easy to eliminate them completely.
A large number of mutated creatures had fled the city, giving the people more space and land to live on.
Unfortunately, the only bridge connecting the north and south parts of the city had been destroyed by the creatures, so there was no direct way to travel between them—
As for traveling by boat? Not only were there no suitable vessels, but the river itself was so heavily polluted that even with the purple powder, no one dared touch the water just yet.
Fortunately, both sides of the city had grocery store branches, and the Peace Trade Guild’s aircraft could travel between them. Supplies were no longer an issue.
Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi walked out of the grocery store under the shade of a parasol, strolling through the streets.
Looking at the buildings and people around them, Tang Yu’an couldn’t help but feel: This is the world I’m familiar with.
But still, this wasn’t their hometown…
Thinking about how their small town had been one of the hardest-hit areas—likely already overrun by mutated creatures—Tang Yu’an felt a wave of sadness.
His childhood had vanished without him even realizing it…
“Thankfully, our store is still here,” Tang Yu’an thought, and he genuinely felt grateful to the system.
“When we go back, we’ll rebuild the town,” Zhou Qi said.
“Yeah!”
The two of them continued exploring the small city. Even though the guardian barrier was active, they didn’t let their guard down.
After all, the barrier determined threats based on whether the creature was currently aggressive.
Like the three mutant leopards raised at Desolate City—so long as they didn’t attack anyone, they were allowed inside the barrier.
So if a mutated creature was hiding and not attacking, it could stay within the protected area unnoticed.
Mutated creatures were different from regular mutated animals—the hosts had been killed by parasites, and such deadly parasites had to be eliminated completely!
They spent the entire day on patrol and actually managed to uncover a few deeply hidden mutated creatures. Some were ejected by the barrier after attacking, while others were directly incinerated by Zhou Qi.
After rooting them out, Tang Yu’an originally planned to buy some construction robots to rebuild the bridge.
But to his surprise, the city had already organized a construction team. Some were gathering materials, others conducting surveys—a new bridge was already being built.
With this level of knowledge, efficiency, and initiative—truly, the people of their country were impressive!
Seeing this, Tang Yu’an was once again tempted to bring more talent over to the wasteland world.
But after discussing it with Tang Sheng and Tang Xueyun, they all agreed that it was best not to open the teleportation array to the public just yet.
The cultural differences between the two worlds were massive, and time flowed at different rates. Even though the ratio was just 1:3, over time, it would become significant—one year here would equal three years there.
Of course, bringing over a limited number of people was still possible.
Groups like pregnant women and children—more vulnerable populations—were well suited to be relocated to Desolate City.
Even though the small city had been reclaimed, its social order and economic activities hadn’t fully recovered. Living conditions in Desolate City were still better.
Plus, children born in the wasteland world had a significantly higher chance of awakening supernatural abilities—
This was a conclusion reached by Old Li’s statistics. Of the pregnant women Zhou Qi had previously brought over, seven of the children they gave birth to had awakened powers.
That was an incredibly high ratio, especially considering that those mothers hadn’t spent much time in the wasteland world before giving birth.
There’s no need to elaborate on the benefits of awakening supernatural powers—the more ability users there are, the better.
After some discussion, they boarded a flyer and headed to the northern part of the city, where Tang Sheng and his wife approached the person in charge to discuss the matter.
Given the large number of survivors in the north, the proportion of pregnant women and children was much higher than in the south. If they wanted to relocate these people, they certainly couldn’t bypass the authority of the northern commander.
Liang Jin, the top commander of the northern refuge, received them—but things didn’t go as smoothly as they had before.
“You want to take pregnant women and children to a safer new home?” he asked with a frown. “And where exactly is this new home?”
Although Tang Sheng showed him videos of pregnant women and children living in the Desolate City Haven, Liang Jin and the other officers still didn’t give their consent right away.
In fact, while they respected the power the Peace Trade Association had shown, they were also very curious about it.
Where did the Peace Association’s seemingly endless supply of resources come from? What kind of power was behind their protective barrier? And what about the mysterious panel only employees could see—what kind of high-tech secret was that?
And now, where exactly were they planning to take these pregnant women and children? For what purpose?
If they couldn’t be convinced, they wouldn’t let them go.
Only then did Tang Sheng and Tang Xueyun realize just how lucky Zhou Qi had been to smoothly lead the previous group out.
Of course, they understood Liang Jin and the others’ concerns—especially because they were trying to take away women close to giving birth. It was indeed a sensitive matter.
They had no choice but to temporarily withdraw and return to the northern grocery store.
They first built a teleportation array in the store. Once Tang Yu’an linked the two branch stores, the couple discussed the matter with the two children.
Faced with these military officers, Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi were also hesitant.
In a way, these officers represented the state.
Although they hadn’t re-established contact with the outside world yet, it was only a matter of time—assuming the country hadn’t completely fallen.
So, should they still use the “Merchant God” narrative to bluff them?
But if they didn’t use that, how could they explain things? Reveal all their secrets? That was out of the question.
Even if they were going to share something, it should wait until they reconnected with the outside world and were in touch with the government. Having survived the apocalypse this long, they found it hard to trust people like Liang Jin so easily.
Still, the matter couldn’t be left unresolved.
The north had a large population and poor conditions. After surveying the area, Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi agreed that it was better to move the pregnant women close to delivery to the Desolate City Haven.
In the end, they decided not to say much for now and instead take Liang Jin and his people to see the Desolate City Haven for themselves.
“As we said, you can send a few representatives with us to see the new settlement. Whether what we’re saying is true or not—you’ll know once you see it.”
Tang Sheng tossed the decision to Liang Jin.
After an urgent internal discussion, the northern military officers sent Deputy Commander Chen Jianjiang and two soldiers to go with them.
“Pillow Man, we meet again!” After leaving the command post, Chen Jianjiang said with a grin.
Tang Sheng replied helplessly, “I told you, my name is Jin Mang…”
The people in the north didn’t originally know about his nickname, but the message board only allowed nickname changes once every three months.
So when he had to use the board to communicate, his nickname was exposed!
Chen Jianjiang laughed heartily. “Right, right—Jin Mang.”
Tang Sheng rolled his eyes—though with the mask on, no one could see.
“Let’s go, to the new settlement.”
He took the lead toward the northern grocery store. Chen Jianjiang and his two soldiers followed, only to see him walk right past the flyer and head straight into the store.
“Aren’t we going to the new settlement?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why aren’t we taking the flyer?”
Tang Sheng looked back, smiled, and said, “The flyer can’t get us there.”
Chen Jianjiang held back his curiosity and said nothing. He watched as Tang Sheng and his wife led them into a room.
Inside, they saw a formation drawn on the floor. Chen Jianjiang and the two soldiers exchanged confused looks.
“This is…?”
“A teleportation array,” Tang Sheng answered directly.
Seeing the skeptical expressions on their faces, he waved his hand. “Let’s go—we’ll head to the southern city first.”
When they actually teleported to the southern grocery store and stepped outside to see the streets and people, not only the two soldiers but even Deputy Commander Chen Jianjiang was left utterly stunned.
Teleportation really works!
