Chapter 84
Hearing Hong Li’s question, Chi Hao instinctively shook his head.
“Oh?” Hong Li became even more interested, “Could it be that they came out of the fortress on their own?”
They weren’t from the fortress at all.
Chi Hao was about to answer, but after thinking for a moment, he stopped himself in time.
If he said Xiao An and the others didn’t come from the fortress, how would he explain their appearance and demeanor? Directly say they were employees of the mysterious merchant? Wouldn’t that expose the general store system?
Chi Hao didn’t really want to tell Hong Li that he had become an employee of the mysterious merchant.
Hong Li had secrets, and naturally he did too. Although they were siblings, they were both adults now. In this apocalyptic world, who didn’t have secrets known only to themselves?
So how should he explain it?
“Don’t worry about their business, I can’t tell you about that,” Chi Hao simply decided not to explain and said directly.
Hong Li frowned, “Is this related to your mission in Wasteland City?”
Chi Hao neither confirmed nor denied, “In any case, just treat them well and build a good relationship with them. You can’t go wrong with that!”
Hong Li pondered thoughtfully.
“Moreover…” Chi Hao thought for a moment and said, “It’s not bad for you to stay and develop in Jufeng Mountain. After I report back to headquarters, the fortress will likely start paying attention to Wasteland City.”
He spoke with conviction, very certain about this matter.
“Jufeng Town is the closest town to Wasteland City, with natural geographical advantages,” Chi Hao continued. “If you manage things well here, that bastard Qi Yao may have to rely on you in the future.”
Hearing that name, Hong Li made a disgusted expression as if she had swallowed a fly.
If things really turned out as Chi Hao said, it was uncertain whether she could continue as the administrator of Jufeng Town, but… as long as she dealt with those few local snakes, it might not be impossible.
As Hong Li pondered this, she looked at Chi Hao with furrowed brows and asked, “Why? What secret is hidden in Wasteland City?”
Chi Hao looked at his sister, hesitated for a moment, and finally chose to speak: “Sis, haven’t you noticed that there are an unusually large number of mutant creatures in Wasteland City?”
“Especially in the center of Wasteland City, have you personally gone to investigate?”
Hong Li shook her head.
“If you haven’t been there, don’t go! You absolutely must not go, understand?”
Worried that she might take risks, Chi Hao hurriedly said, “I just barely escaped with my life. Luckily I was saved by Xiao An and the others. You absolutely must not go there to die.”
“Is it that dangerous?”
“Old Xie died there.”
Hearing this, Hong Li was stunned.
Although she had already guessed when she saw Chi Hao come to see her alone, hearing the definite news still filled her heart with sorrow.
Old Xie’s name was Xie Chaori. He was ten years older than them, and had been leading the siblings ever since they joined the ability user squad in Qingmu Fortress.
When she offended people and was ostracized, it was he who fought for her to get the position of administrator in Jufeng Town. Otherwise, she would definitely have been assigned more dangerous missions and might have died long ago.
“Did you see it with your own eyes?” she asked with reddened eyes.
“I didn’t,” Chi Hao shook his head. “At that time we encountered a beast horde and got separated in the impact, but I saw with my own eyes that he went towards the center of Wasteland City.”
Recalling the scene from that day, Chi Hao’s face inevitably turned pale.
He had luckily gone in the opposite direction, which happened to be away from the city center, although it wasn’t much better.
“I encountered a seventh-rank mutant tiger while escaping,” Chi Hao’s face was still grim as he recalled that mutant tiger.
“That was still in a relatively outer area, not to mention further inside,” he said. “I can be certain that there are monsters of even higher rank than that mutant tiger in the center of Wasteland City.”
“And if I hadn’t been lucky enough to meet Xiao An and Xiao Qi, I might already be dead. Old Xie running into that place inside, he definitely couldn’t have survived.”
During the days he was recuperating in the general store, although Yuan Bao didn’t let him leave, Chi Hao still often climbed onto the roof, using the daylight to practice while releasing his aura.
However, after several days, he hadn’t received any response.
If Old Xie was really still alive and had escaped from the center of Wasteland City, it was impossible that he wouldn’t have sensed the signal Chi Hao was releasing, and impossible that he would have taken no action.
“Even if he really encountered a miracle in the center of Wasteland City and still had a glimmer of hope for survival, trying to rescue him from among the beast hordes is absolutely something we couldn’t do on our own.”
Chi Hao wiped his face and suppressed his grief, saying: “So I must return to the fortress to report this to headquarters and have them send more manpower!”
Hong Li nodded.
Indeed, they needed to see a person if alive or a body if dead, and couldn’t leave things so unclear.
“You and Old Xie… who sent you out this time?” Hong Li suddenly narrowed her eyes, her voice cold.
Chi Hao hurriedly waved his hands and said: “We chose the mission ourselves. No one knew beforehand that Wasteland City was so dangerous. We weren’t set up by anyone.”
Hong Li nodded slightly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
“So when are you leaving?” she changed the subject.
“Tomorrow,” Chi Hao said. “Oh right, there’s one more thing I need to do before I leave.”
“What is it?”
“Sis, can you get me a house here in Jufeng Town?” Chi Hao said.
Hong Li looked at him strangely, “What do you need a house for?”
Naturally Chi Hao would stay at the garrison when he came to Jufeng Town. There was no safer place in Jufeng Town than the garrison, right?
“It’s for An’an,” Chi Hao said honestly. “Put it in his name. I’ve already promised him.”
Hong Li couldn’t help but sneer, “You’re quite good at using other people’s benefits to make an offering.”
“Come on, are we siblings going to talk about this?” Chi Hao said shamelessly. “I’ll bring you more good stuff next time I come!”
Hong Li chuckled, “I want high-quality crop seeds. Did you bring me any?”
Hearing this, Chi Hao choked.
“The seeds sold in the fortress have basically lost their reproductive ability, and they’re all controlled items. I can’t bring them out…”
The fortress didn’t prohibit residents from planting, and because of gradual expansion, there were now quite a few farmlands on the outskirts. But the seeds distributed could only be cultivated for one or two generations.
So the grains grown by residents could rarely be kept for planting, and they had to buy new seeds when it was time to sow.
Even such seeds were not allowed to be taken out of the fortress – the major fortresses had cooperative relationships, but competition was also quite fierce.
Qingmu Fortress, as the name suggested, had an advantage in plants. Every year they could earn a large amount of revenue by selling seeds, so naturally they controlled seeds very strictly.
The kind of seeds that Hong Li wanted, which could be cultivated for a long time, were very difficult to obtain from Qingmu Fortress.
That’s why Chi Hao was particularly surprised when he heard Hei Xiong report the data on soybeans.
“Speaking of which, where did you get those soybean seeds?” he couldn’t help but ask. “That crop is very excellent, and I don’t think I’ve eaten that kind of bean in Qingmu either…”
He had seen quite a few in the Peace General Store, all kinds of varieties, of all shapes and colors.
Chi Hao blinked. Could it be…
Awkward silence.
“Never mind about that,” Hong Li nodded and said, “I can give them a house. You go find Hei Xiong yourself tomorrow, he’ll arrange it for you.”
Seeing her agree, Chi Hao was delighted.
“Haha, sis you’re the best!”
Chi Hao quickly gave her shoulders a squeeze, and after being pushed away, he told her about his “new ideas for refrigeration”.
After listening, Hong Li looked at him with surprise.
“I didn’t expect you could come up with this kind of application method.”
What kind of talk is that?!
Chi Hao looked unconvinced, “Although this was indeed inspired by An’an, I figured out the practical method on my own, okay?”
Hong Li made a noncommittal sound, full of perfunctoriness.
“Alright alright, I won’t argue with you.”
Chi Hao waved his hand and said, “Anyway, listen to me. You must, must build a good relationship with An’an and the others. Even if you can’t build a good relationship, don’t offend them.”
He had a mysterious look, “You’ll know in the future what a great opportunity I’ve brought you!”
Hong Li looked at him calmly, “I got it. When did you become so long-winded?”
Chi Hao was exasperated and decided not to pay attention to her anymore. “I’m leaving.”
But as he turned and walked to the door, he couldn’t help but stop and look back at his sister: “I’m really leaving!”
“I know. Go get yourself a decent set of clothes from the warehouse,” Hong Li said without looking up.
Chi Hao was satisfied.
He nodded and left the room happily.
Hong Li watched his back, frowning in thought. The center of Desolate City… high-rank mutant creatures…
It seemed Desolate City was going to get lively in the future.
The night passed peacefully like this.
The next day, due to his biological clock, Tang Yu’an still woke up early.
He had also gotten used to this schedule, and since it was indeed cooler to go out early in the morning, he simply got up.
As soon as he got up, he went to open the small window and used today’s fishing attempts.
Zhou Qi was making the bed, watching him open the drift bottle.
A ball of light flew out of the drift bottle and slowly floated into the air, but what sounded was not the strange voice from last night, but…
“I want the mysterious merchant to appear again!”
A familiar voice rang out. It was the little girl from Tang Yu’an’s first time fishing for a drift bottle.
Unexpectedly, this time she directly wished to see him. Who knows what happened again?
“I’m here,” Tang Yu’an asked the ball of light.
“What do you want?”
*
In the early morning scene before 6 am, the sky by the sea was still gray and hazy. The sea breeze carrying moist air blew on people’s faces, freezing their skin.
On a high cliff not far from the seaside, there was a small forest with a dozen or so dilapidated houses scattered throughout.
In the house closest to the edge of the cliff, a little girl was curled up in bed with her eyes closed. Her father draped a thin, tattered blanket over her, then got up from the bed, picked up a fishing net and prepared to go fishing.
“Hai Lan, Dad’s going out.”
Before leaving, the man said softly to the room, then closed the door and left.
Little Hai Lan kept her eyes tightly shut, her eyelashes trembling slightly, but she didn’t wake up.
In her dream, she heard that mysterious voice again.
“I’m here.”
Hai Lan smiled with joy. She was dreaming of that mysterious merchant again!
After Dad took the medicine given by the mysterious merchant, his illness got better right away. He was able to get out of bed that morning and go out fishing and come back to eat.
Although he was very surprised to see half the salt in the salt jar gone, salt wasn’t valuable in the coastal town, so he didn’t pay much attention to it. He also didn’t believe in any mysterious merchant who could communicate with her in dreams.
He thought someone had stolen that half jar while he was sick—
Although salt wasn’t valuable in Linhai Town, it was precious elsewhere. However, the trade routes were controlled by a few wealthy families, and ordinary townspeople had no way to trade sea salt.
So Hai Lan’s father was convinced that the half jar of salt had been stolen by people sent by the wealthy families. This kind of thing had happened before.
No matter what Little Hai Lan said, her father wouldn’t believe her, so she wanted to prove it to him.
But she hadn’t dreamed of the mysterious merchant for two days.
Little Hai Lan couldn’t help but waver, but when she saw how her father had recovered his health, she became determined again.
She really had traded with the mysterious merchant for medicine, and it was that white pill that made her father better. She hadn’t remembered wrong!
And now, she finally heard that mysterious voice in her dream again.
“What do you want?”
Able to get a response from the mysterious merchant, Little Hai Lan was overjoyed, but after hearing the merchant’s question clearly, she became conflicted again.
What did she want?
She wanted so many things – to eat her fill, to wear warm clothes, for her father to stay home with her every day instead of going to the scary ocean…
Many uncles in the village had gone out to sea to fish and then disappeared.
Little Hai Lan didn’t want her father to disappear into the ocean…
But if she said too much, would the mysterious merchant stop talking to her?
In her sleep, Little Hai Lan’s brows furrowed tightly.
“Cold… I’m cold…”
Hearing the little girl’s voice sound from the ball of light again, Tang Yu’an let out a small sigh of relief.
Thank goodness, she hadn’t woken up suddenly.
Perhaps because she had experienced this before, the little girl didn’t just say one or two sentences before the dream became unstable like last time.
Being cold was easy to solve…
Seeing that the system didn’t stop them from communicating, Tang Yu’an tentatively asked, “What’s your name?”
“Hai… Hai Lan. My name is Hai Lan.”
What a characteristic name for Linhai Town! Tang Yu’an became even more certain that this little girl was from Linhai Town.
“I can give you charcoal or a wool blanket. Which one do you want?”
Tang Yu’an opened the wholesale mall and spent 50 points to unlock wool fabric.
[Unlock successful!]
[Wool fabric: 30 points/meter] [Available colors: Black, White, Gray, Cream] [Colors that can be unlocked: …] [Friendly reminder: The width of the fabric is uniformly 1.2 meters]
Wow! Wool fabric actually had one more color than cotton and linen, finally not just simple black, white and gray.
Cream color… he liked it!
Wool fabric was 30 points per meter, while hardwood charcoal was 5 points/100 grams, equivalent to over a pound for 30 points.
Comparatively, wool fabric was more durable.
At this time, Tang Yu’an heard Little Hai Lan say, “Can… can I have both?”
Little Hai Lan didn’t know what charcoal and wool blankets were, but she wanted to exchange for as many things as possible. Her family owned so few things.
Tang Yu’an was surprised to hear her words, but still smiled and said, “Of course. What do you want to trade with?”
“Still salt, is that okay?”
Tang Yu’an thought for a moment and asked, “Where does your family’s salt come from?”
Would an ordinary family have over 150 jin (75kg) of salt at once? That was even more than the coarse salt stored in his shop.
“Dad sun-dried it…”
So this salt could be repeatedly obtained through labor? Thinking of how the sea was all salt water and the high temperature made it easy to sun-dry, Tang Yu’an understood.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll trade with you for salt.”
Perhaps because she was too excited, the little girl’s dream began to become unstable again, and the system prompt appeared.
[60 seconds until the wisher wakes up. Please complete the transaction quickly]
Tang Yu’an hurriedly exchanged for 2 meters of wool fabric from the wholesale market.
The wool fabric produced by the system was naturally made of pure wool, feeling soft and delicate to the touch, and quite thick too.
He exchanged for gray fabric, which was more dirt-resistant and inconspicuous.
Then Tang Yu’an exchange 25 points for a pound of hardwood charcoal. Although he somewhat regretted giving this option, since Little Hai Lan wanted it, he would give it to her.
These two items added up to 85 points, and the little girl’s family still had at least 70 jin of coarse salt, so…
“Give me 10 jin (5kg) of salt.”
“Okay…”
One jin of coarse salt was worth 25 points, so…
Got it!
[You have completed a profitable transaction with a dream wisher. Points +165, Experience +6, Dream Fragment +1]
[You have obtained 10 jin of coarse salt. Please select a delivery address]
[1. Peace Grocery Store Warehouse] […]
After deducting the 50 points to unlock wool fabric, he had earned a total of 115 points.
“Hehe, made a big profit right after waking up!” Tang Yu’an said happily.
Although he knew that even if he had asked for all the salt, Little Hai Lan would probably have agreed, he disdained such profiteering behavior.
After all, Little Hai Lan’s needs certainly hadn’t been met yet. There would be plenty more opportunities for them to trade in the future.
Slow and steady wins the race. Only that way could they develop into a stable customer base.
Trading like this across dreams made Tang Yu’an feel especially comfortable. There was no need to consider safety issues. It was simple and straightforward. It felt so good!
As the 10 jin of coarse salt entered the general store warehouse, the wool fabric and hardwood charcoal Tang Yu’an had just exchanged also disappeared, and the ball of light floating in midair slowly dissipated.
Tang Yu’an quickly opened the small window on the wall before the drifting bottle disappeared, and returned the bottle to the Dream Sea once again.
[Successfully released. The probability of catching this drifting bottle next time is 20%]
“Brother Qi, do you think we should recruit Hailan as an employee in the future?” Tang Yu’an said.
The successful experience of recruiting Xiao Cao made Tang Yu’an eager to try again.
“Can you recruit someone you haven’t met in person?” Zhou Qi asked in surprise.
Tang Yu’an tried it and then nodded. “Mm, I can choose to recruit any light spot that appears on the map.”
This meant he could recruit employees even for people unlocked through customer interactions.
Zhou Qi thought for a moment and shook his head. “Let’s not consider it for now.”
They didn’t know what Hai Lan’s situation was like, nor did they understand this child’s personality. If she rashly exchanged things with points and was discovered, would it bring her disaster?
People who could be chosen to be recruited as employees were definitely those they wanted to develop long-term relationships with, so they should be more cautious.
After all, the number of employees they could recruit was limited. Every spot was precious.
“Besides, by trading through the dream drifting bottle, we can also get some coastal specialties from her side.”
In addition to coarse salt, there were also seafood, kelp, and so on. If they recruited her as an employee, they would lose this channel for long-distance trading of items from Linhai Town.
“That’s true,” Tang Yu’an nodded. “And coarse salt sells much better than refined salt.”
Refined salt was fine for personal use, it was reassuring to eat, but for trading in the wasteland, it seemed too refined.
In comparison, this kind of inferior coarse salt from Linhai Town was obviously not as conspicuous, and they now had a ready-made excuse for how they obtained it.
It was just that they didn’t know how long it would take to sell the 87 jin of coarse salt they had on hand…
“Brother Xiao Qi, should we filter this salt again?” Tang Yu’an said. “There’s a lot of sand and impurities.”
This coarse salt not only had sand mixed in, but also looked yellow and tasted bitter.
Zhou Qi nodded.
Because it was made directly from seawater without any other processing, this salt contained impurities like magnesium sulfate and magnesium chloride, which would definitely be harmful to the human body if consumed long-term.
As for the purification method… Zhou Qi had learned it in class.
Given the conditions in the wasteland, they could use the sun-drying method.
Because the dissolvability of magnesium chloride is greater than that of sodium chloride, and increases with temperature, as the solution is sun-dried and the water content continuously decreases, sodium chloride will reach saturation first.
Further heating will cause sodium chloride crystals to precipitate out. When the seawater has evaporated to only 1/10 of the liquid, filter out the crystals to obtain relatively clean coarse salt.
If they wanted to filter it further, they could continue to dissolve it in pure water and repeat the above steps.
However, it was difficult to find pure water in the wasteland, so completing the first step would be enough.
“If I haven’t remembered this method wrong, we can teach it to Little Hai Lan.”
This way they wouldn’t need to reprocess it themselves, and even if the method spread, it wouldn’t cause them any loss. On the contrary, when they brought out refined salt for sale, it wouldn’t seem so conspicuous.
Thinking of something, Zhou Qi added, “And the brine we make can have other uses.”
“Other uses?”
“Yes.” Zhou Qi smiled and said, “Have you heard of using brine to make tofu?”
Tang Yu’an’s eyes brightened slightly. “Brother Qi, are you saying we can make tofu to eat?”
“Mm.” Zhou Qi nodded, then explained, “Adding soy milk to salt brine is actually another method of purifying salt.”
It’s just that this method wasn’t very suitable for the wasteland – perhaps after Hong Li planted a large number of soybeans, we could sell this method to her.
Adding a small amount of brine to soy milk would cause the protein in the soy milk to react with the magnesium chloride, eventually precipitating out and turning into tofu.
“Wow! So that’s how it works!”
Tang Yu’an looked at him with sparkling eyes. “Brother Qi, you’re really amazing! It feels like there’s nothing you don’t know.”
Zhou Qi shook his head. “This was taught in school.”
“Then let’s try it when we get back today!” Tang Yu’an said happily.
“Mm.”
At the thought of being able to eat tofu pudding in the future, Tang Yu’an’s face was full of excitement. “Since we can make tofu, can we make dried tofu too?”
“We can.”
Pressing the tofu firmly would turn it into dried tofu, which could be stir-fried, deep-fried, pan-fried or boiled, all very delicious.
Tang Yu’an’s mouth watered as he listened.
He loved eating fried dried tofu. Golden on the outside, crispy and crunchy, but very tender inside, very similar to tofu, yet a bit more solid than tofu.
Taking a bite, it was both crispy and tender. Dipped in some scallion and garlic salt water, it was explosively delicious! It was a snack he always ordered whenever he went out to eat with his mom and dad.
“Brother Qi, let’s make this today!”
“Okay.”
