Doomsday Grocery Store – CH91

Chapter 91

Seeing Tang Yu’an’s emotions stabilize, Zhou Qi secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

His words just now, though having some basis, were mostly meant as comfort.

Of course Zhou Qi also hoped that Uncle Tang and the others would be safe, but… if something had really happened to them, he and An’an would still have to live on well.

Living well, healthily and happily, while cherishing memories of their loved ones.

Just like Grandma – her voice, appearance and smile were still vivid in his memory. As long as he remembered, she was still alive, living in the home within their memories.

Zhou Qi reached out to touch the boy’s cheek, then said, “Want to help me pick vegetables?”

“Sure!”

Tang Yu’an nodded, brought over a small stool, and picked up the wild vegetables that had already been separated from sand using the item list function, removing the roots and yellowed leaves.

Zhou Qi glanced at him a few times, then continued lowering his head, deftly picking vegetables.

“Brother Qi,” the boy suddenly called him.

“Hmm?”

“It’s so good to have you here.”

Zhou Qi looked up to see the boy’s smiling eyes, full of trust and dependence on him.

He curved his lips slightly, “Mm.”

For him, wasn’t Tang Yu’an also such an existence?

After dinner, seeing that BoBo’s rest time was up, Tang Yu’an upgraded the household broom again.

[Furniture Spirit is checking the order…]

[Spirit BoBo accepts the order!]

[BoBo: This upgrade will take 3 hours and 30 minutes, please wait patiently]

Then, the familiar figure of the furniture elf appeared before Tang Yu’an and the others.

Spirit BoBo quickly sprinkled furniture stardust, then whooshed towards his food.

Today, placed next to the broom was a can of beer, a small plate of dried squid strips, and a small cup of grape wine produced by the gray-blue Refrigerator this morning.

This was of course information Tang Yu’an obtained through his appraisal skill – just 50ml of ordinary grape wine, with an alcohol content slightly higher than beer.

As for his father’s Five-grain liquor, Tang Yu’an didn’t dare give it to the little spirit to drink again.

Spirit BoBo decisively ignored the beer, flew to the small cup, leaned over the rim and took a big sip, then his expression of enjoyment suddenly froze.

He frowned slightly, then dipped his hand in the grape wine and licked it again, and his whole little face fell.

Even though he didn’t speak, Tang Yu’an could sense his dislike.

“BoBo, this is grape wine, you don’t like it?”

This was produced by the gray-blue Refrigerator’s special effect, BoBo shouldn’t dislike it, right?

The little spirit glanced at him, then flew to sit on the small plate with puffed cheeks, picked up a squid strip and started gnawing on it, not even drinking the beer.

Tang Yu’an scratched his head.

But he thought this was fine too. The little spirit had been drinking alcohol for two days straight, even getting drunk yesterday. If he kept drinking like this, he might damage his body.

The little spirit BoBo gnawed on the squid strip, but kept glancing at Tang Yu’an out of the corner of his eye.

Seeing the human boy look at him for a while then walk away smiling, his cheeks puffed up again, and he angrily took another bite of squid.

Having experienced upgrades before, Tang Yu’an wasn’t as anxious as the first day. Anyway, this upgrade would take three and a half hours, they definitely wouldn’t be able to check the results after waking up from their nap.

After sleeping in the attic, Tang Yu’an felt refreshed.

He bounced downstairs, feeling the comfortable temperature in the house, feeling incredibly happy.

As for sadness and grief, he had already forgotten them, because of Zhou Qi’s comforting words, Tang Yu’an had now changed his mindset.

He wanted to make the house nice and comfortable, so that when Dad, Mom and Xin Xin came, they could live a good life!

Originally his goal was to find a way back, to prevent the disaster from happening, but their plane had already entered the apocalypse, it was probably too late to stop it.

So now his thoughts had changed.

He hoped to find a way to communicate between the two planes, bring his family members over to live here, and within the scope of his abilities, save some lives.

Whether it was trading with people from the original plane, giving them supplies to survive, or finding ways to bring over more people who couldn’t survive there, he thought it was all possible.

After all, Desolate City was so big, there were plenty of places to live, and in their world, there were still many people more capable than him.

If they could be rescued and brought over, they could definitely build a city more suitable for survival.

From now on, he will work hard towards this goal!

With a clearer goal, Tang Yu’an became full of motivation again.

“Time for sweet soup,” Zhou Qi’s voice sounded.

Tang Yu’an’s eyes immediately lit up, “What kind of sweet soup?”

“It’s red bean sago soup, just chilled. Try it and see if it’s too sweet?” Zhou Qi put a bowl of sweet soup on the table and beckoned to him.

“Wow! I love drinking sago soup!”

Tang Yu’an happily ran over, scooped up a spoonful of red bean sago soup and put it in his mouth. It was sweet and icy cold, with the fragrance of red beans and the soft, chewy texture of sago.

He couldn’t help but squint his eyes, eating several spoonfuls before saying, “It’s a pity we don’t have taro at home.”

If they could make taro sago soup, the taste would be even more amazing!

“We’ll keep an eye out for it later,” Zhou Qi said, “Or maybe the plane shop will sell it.”

Tang Yu’an shook his head, “The plane shop are all black merchants, I don’t want to be their sucker.”

Of course, he was also one of the black merchants.

Zhou Qi thought for a moment and said, “Then let’s ask Granny Guo tomorrow, see if she knows taro. If she does, we might have a chance to find it in the wild.”

“Mm!”

Tang Yu’an quickly finished eating, then took out the tofu pudding he made yesterday from the Portable Warehouse, and poured the chilled red bean sago soup over the tofu pudding.

He tried it and nodded: “This is delicious too!”

After finishing their afternoon tea, the broom’s upgrade still hadn’t finished, so they took out the Shadow Umbrella and headed to the swimming pool under the scorching sun.

Today as soon as they entered the venue, Green Gem proactively revealed the windows, letting light shine into the swimming pool.

Because the pool was purified yesterday, the air in the venue was much fresher today, but there was still a stench lingering.

So Tang Yu’an started casting purification spells from the edge of the pool, covering the corpse of the male lizard from before as well –

It was also one of the sources of the putrid smell. The female lizard hadn’t eaten it completely clean, and the remaining flesh had rotted and grown maggots.

Zhou Qi burned it with fire, and with Tang Yu’an’s purification spell, they finally managed to clean up this area.

Ten purification spells roughly cleaned up the areas on three sides of the pool.

Only the area connected to the main entrance and the stands were left uncleaned in the venue. Even so, it was much cleaner, looking noticeably brighter.

What surprised Tang Yu’an was that some of the fish in the swimming pool had died.

He didn’t know if it was because they couldn’t adapt to the water quality, or because of predation between different fish.

He also just realized that the fish in the pond needed to be fed!

“Brother Qi, what do you think we should feed these fish?” Tang Yu’an looked towards Zhou Qi who was repairing the wall, and asked.

Zhou Qi thought for a moment and said, “Didn’t we have some soybean pulp left over from making soy milk yesterday? Try using that?”

“Oh okay, good.”

Tang Yu’an took out the soybean pulp, grabbed a handful and threw it into the pool. As soon as it was thrown in, many fish and shrimp swam over. The previously calm water surface immediately churned with splashing.

Fish, shrimp and crabs were all fighting over the soybean pulp, even starting to fight each other.

Tang Yu’an felt that these creatures had all mutated to some extent, their ferocity incomparable to before the apocalypse.

Seeing the soybean pulp quickly snatched up, he simply walked along the pool, scattering pulp as he went.

This way there was less fighting, and the whole pool became lively.

Soon, the soybean pulp left over from pressing two jin (1kg) of soybeans was divided up by the fish, shrimp and crabs in the pool.

Tang Yu’an couldn’t help saying, “Looks like we can’t plant lotus seeds before filling them up.”

Otherwise they would be eaten as soon as they were planted.

Zhou Qi had conserved some energy today, stopping after repairing the big hole to half its original size, then jumping down from the stands.

“Let’s scatter the lotus seeds in the silt on the shore, then push it into the pool together.”

The water is too clear to have fish.

Moreover, the creatures in the pool used to live in such dirty muddy water.

The purified clear water in the pool was too clean for these fish, shrimp and crabs. There was not even a bit of silt at the bottom, and they had no place to rest and hide. No wonder they were fighting.

Actually, rather than lotus seeds, it would be better to plant some aquatic plants first, but the thriving ponds in the Wasteland were quite dangerous and not easy to get plants from.

“I’ll go dig up some moss.”

Although it might be eaten by fish, at least some would remain.

“Okay, okay.”

The floor around the pool had only been purified on three sides, with one side left. Although it smelled a bit, it was indeed beneficial for plant growth.

Moreover, the fish, shrimp and crabs in the pool could survive in the previous environment, so this level of polluted water was nothing.

Anyway, he and Brother Qi didn’t dare eat the creatures in the pool now, and the current numbers were too few.

They would slowly raise them for now, and see if they could breed more offspring later.

Tang Yu’an took out the 100 grams of lotus seeds he had exchanged before, scattered them in the silt, then took out a bucket and directed Green Gem to use vines to fetch water and wash the silt on the shore.

He then took out tools and pushed the remaining smelly mud into the pool.

If he found it was still too smelly later, he could continue using purification spells to clean it.

Zhou Qi quickly collected some moss and returned, mixing it into the silt.

At this time, BoBo’s upgrade of the broom was also complete.

[“Broom” upgrade completed, please check]

[Furniture Elf BoBo is very satisfied with your hospitality, but has temporarily withheld the five-star review for you, and left you a message]

[If you give me that kind of liquor to drink next time, I will add this five-star review – BoBo]

Tang Yu’an saw this message and blinked in surprise.

Could it be done like this?

But he wasn’t angry, and thought the little elf was really cute and clever to use a five-star review to tempt him!

Alright, next time he’ll pour him half a cup of Five-grain liquor.

Tang Yu’an used his remote retrieval skill to bring over the upgraded broom.

The originally ordinary broom had gained a bit of a high-tech feel after the upgrade. The wooden handle had become metal, and several buttons were added.

He first looked at its attributes.

[Gray-Blue Broom]

[Description: An electric broom that can clean the entire house. It will sweep the floors spotlessly clean. Each charge allows for 2 hours of operation.]

[Level: Lv1]

[Current battery: 100%]

Tang Yu’an then looked at the buttons: [On] [Off] [Timer]

He first pressed the power button, then set it for two hours, before tentatively letting go.

The broom did not fall to the ground.

“Scanning environment…” a mechanical voice sounded.

At the same time, Tang Yu’an saw light emanating from the bottom of the broom, spreading out until it touched the walls and stopped.

“Scan complete. Dirt level: Extremely high! No trash disposal location found. Please designate a location.”

How to designate?

Tang Yu’an saw the light from the broom’s bottom concentrate into a beam, so he gripped the broom and aimed the light beam at the swimming pool area.

“Trash disposal location designated.”

“Please release the broom.”

Tang Yu’an quickly let go, and the broom’s bottom began to move.

“Activating powerful cleaning mode. Duration: 2 hours.” Accompanied by this mechanical voice, the gray-blue broom began working.

Its cleaning ability was truly powerful. Tang Yu’an only watched for a short while before it had already cleared a small area.

The work efficiency was much faster than his and Brother Qi’s!

This way, he could slack off a little, only needing to direct Green Gem to continue spraying water to rinse the floor.

With his hands freed up, Zhou Qi stayed on the side to study the simple water purification device.

Tang Yu’an had already cleaned the pebbles and sand. He further sorted the pebbles into large, medium and small sizes, then took an empty mineral water bottle from the grocery store.

Following the knowledge learned from textbooks, he first removed the bottle bottom, then drilled several small holes in the cap, tightened it, then first stuffed in a layer of cotton, followed by gauze.

Since there was no activated carbon, he used hardwood charcoal as a substitute. After crushing the charcoal into small pieces, he placed it on top of the gauze, then covered it with another layer of gauze.

Through the gauze, he spread clean sand on top of the charcoal, then another layer of gauze, followed by small pebbles.

After laying the pebbles, he covered it with gauze again. This completed a simple water purifier.

At this point, Tang Yu’an also curiously came over to observe.

He hadn’t learned this knowledge point yet, but he had seen it in Zhou Qi’s textbook before, which is why he kept urging Zhou Qi to make a water purification device.

“Is this enough?” Tang Yu’an asked curiously.

Zhou Qi wasn’t too sure either. “Let’s give it a try.”

He didn’t use the dirty water from the pool, but instead went to the pond where they had previously fetched water for Granny Guo, and brought back half a bucket.

As the weather grew increasingly hot, that pond was noticeably much shallower than before, and the water quality was also murkier.

Zhou Qi held the water purifier with a bowl placed under the straw, and had Tang Yu’an scoop water into the mineral water bottle.

As the murky water filled the bottle, liquid slowly seeped out from the holes in the bottle cap, dripping into the bowl.

Tang Yu’an’s eyes lit up slightly as he watched.

“Brother Qi, it worked!”

The water dripping into the white porcelain bowl, though still containing some impurities upon close inspection, was so much cleaner compared to the murky water in the bucket.

Zhou Qi thought for a moment and said, “It’s not a complete success yet.”

At least he and An’an wouldn’t dare to drink this water.

“But for Granny and Kang Kang, it’s still much better than the murky water from before,” Tang Yu’an said.

Their bodies had already adapted to that murky water and wouldn’t get diarrhea from drinking it, but it still wasn’t good for their health in the long run.

Zhou Qi nodded, “We’ll show it to Granny Guo tomorrow. If she needs it, we’ll make a larger version for her.”

Although they had good intentions, they couldn’t force it on customers. After all, filtering water still required some effort, unlike directly fetching water which was more convenient.

“I think Granny Guo will definitely want it,” Tang Yu’an said confidently.

As a survivor from before the change, Granny Guo surely knew the dangers of drinking dirty water.

“Mm, we still need to keep improving it,” Zhou Qi said. “The charcoal’s ability to absorb impurities is still a bit inferior to activated carbon.”

“Let me think about how to make activated carbon from wood charcoal.”

When he was learning this lesson, he heard the teacher mention that lemon juice or calcium chloride could be used to activate charcoal, but the specific process wasn’t explained.

There was no lemon juice, and even if there was, it wouldn’t be much. To make water purification devices, they definitely needed materials that were easy to obtain.

As for calcium chloride…

What could be used as a substitute? And how exactly does this “activation” process work?

Zhou Qi fell into deep thought.

Tang Yu’an sat beside him, continuing to scoop water for filtration.

If it weren’t for the grocery store where they could exchange for water, they might have needed to make a water purification device as soon as they arrived in this world.

Fortunately, they now had many ways to obtain water, not only the purification spell and Brother Qi’s ability, but also the automatic water-collecting thermos.

Too bad the thermos’s capacity was still a bit small. It would need to be upgraded to become more practical.

The gray-blue broom continued cleaning diligently until it finally stopped after two hours.

The unpurified side of the floor in the hall had become very clean under its frenzied sweeping. Without looking closely, one could hardly tell the difference from the purified side.

It could be said to be quite capable!

Tang Yu’an returned it to the grocery store. It would need to be recharged before it could be used again. Then he said goodbye to Green Gem, preparing to head back.

Green Gem had “played” very happily this afternoon and was reluctant to end it just like that.

It reluctantly sent them out of the swimming hall, only releasing its vines after Tang Yu’an repeatedly promised to come back tomorrow.

Tang Yu’an cast the lightness spell on himself again, then he and Zhou Qi chased each other as they ran among the ruins.

“Brother Qi, have you noticed that the plants along the way seem to have increased?” Tang Yu’an suddenly said to Zhou Qi as they were running.

Zhou Qi looked around and found it was indeed true.

Because they had been going back and forth on this road for the past few days, they hadn’t noticed without looking carefully.

Now that Tang Yu’an mentioned it, he recalled the scene when they first went to the swimming hall, and after comparing, he noticed the difference.

“Indeed, the plants have increased.”

This was a bit unusual.

Because the weather was getting hotter, theoretically it should be more harsh for these plants to survive.

“If the plants are increasing, will those mutated creatures living in the center of Desolate City run outwards?” Tang Yu’an asked worriedly.

This was very likely to happen.

But even so, there didn’t seem to be much they could do, except deal with any mutated creatures they encountered.

Zhou Qi patted Tang Yu’an’s head, “Don’t think too much about it, just go with the flow.”

“Mm hmm.” Tang Yu’an nodded, “Then let’s head back!”

“Alright.”

By the time they returned to the grocery store, it was already dark.

Tang Yu’an opened the pet panel to take a look.

Yuan Bao and Black Pearl’s digestion progress was at 43% and 45%, while Wang Cai and Yin Bi had eaten less and digested energy faster, reaching 65% progress.

“Great, Wang Cai and Yin Bi should wake-up by tomorrow!”

Zhou Qi made an affirmative sound, then went to the kitchen to prepare dinner: “How about Lizard Eggs for dinner?”

“Sounds good.”

So Zhou Qi once again made an all-egg feast using one Lizard Egg.

Last time, with Yin Bi and the others eating together, they had finished the whole table of all-egg dishes. But tonight, just the two of them cleared all the food.

Of course, relatively speaking, Zhou Qi ate more.

“Brother Qi, has our appetite increased?” Tang Yu’an rubbed his belly, feeling just right and not overly full.

“We’re both growing, it’s normal to eat more.”

Zhou Qi looked at him and suddenly smiled, “An’an, have you grown taller?”

Tang Yu’an glanced at his status panel, then cheered, “Yes, I’ve grown another centimeter. I’m 164 cm now!”

It had only been a week since Jufeng Town. At this rate, he could grow 4 cm in a month, which in a year would be…

Tang Yu’an paused. Well, he definitely wouldn’t grow 48 cm in a year, otherwise he’d be two meters tall.

He felt he probably wouldn’t grow that tall, and even if he could, it wouldn’t happen in just one year.

Regardless, it was still something to be happy about!

Tang Yu’an opened the lucky wheel, deciding to use today’s spins while in a good mood.

“Brother Qi, I’m spinning!”

“Mm.”

“Let’s try for a skill today!” Tang Yu’an said.

Zhou Qi thought for a moment and said, “Feels like it’s been a while since we got a special item?”

“Seems so.”

As he said this, the result of the lucky wheel came out—

[Congratulations! You’ve won the special item “Super Printing Machine”]

Tang Yu’an: 0.0

“Brother Qi, you’re so accurate!” he said excitedly, “We really got a special item!”

Zhou Qi was stunned.

Yesterday when he wanted gas, they got a gas cylinder. Today when he mentioned special items, they really got one…

Had his luck really turned around?

“What kind of special item is it?” Zhou Qi asked.

“Seems to be some kind of printing machine?” Tang Yu’an opened the Portable Warehouse panel to look at the special item they had just obtained.

While he was focused on examining it…

Zhou Qi casually got up, opened the gray-blue refrigerator and took out a bottle of iced tea, unscrewing the cap to look.

[Thank you for your patronage. No prize.]

Not believing it, he put it back and took out another bottle, opening the cap—

[Thank you for your patronage. No prize.]

Zhou Qi pursed his lips. Just as he was about to take a third bottle, thinking if this one wasn’t a winner he’d give up, Tang Yu’an came over.

“Brother Qi, I want some iced tea too!”

“Mm, go ahead and take one.”

Tang Yu’an casually grabbed a bottle, unscrewed the cap and took a sip, letting out a contented sigh.

So cold and refreshing!

He returned to the sofa while drinking. Zhou Qi thought for a moment, closed the fridge and walked over to him, picking up the bottle cap to take a look.

[Congratulations! You’ve won another bottle!]

Zhou Qi: …

Seems like his luck was just an illusion 🙂

“Brother Qi, aren’t you drinking iced tea?” Tang Yu’an’s voice sounded.

Zhou Qi took a deep breath, quickly composing himself. Changing the subject, he asked: “What does that printing machine do?”