Chapter 38
Jiang Jitang handled the graduation gift order first.
“Is this underground?” After shifting worlds, he stood somewhat bewildered in an underground world scattered with glowing fungi.
The ceiling overhead was made of some special material that emitted a faint light, and the surfaces of the cylindrical pillars supporting the entire structure were made of the same material. There was also greenery here, containing similarly glowing moss-like organisms.
Thus, what appeared before him was a hazy, fluorescent scene.
“Why hasn’t the order taker arrived yet?”
“Were we scammed? That was three days’ wages.”
Jiang Jitang soon noticed them – six men and women standing by a huge stone pillar, each marked with the Wisher symbol. It seemed this batch of graduation gifts was pooled together by the teachers.
He pushed a small steel-frame shopping cart he usually used for groceries, with three express delivery boxes stacked on it, and walked over.
“Hello, 360 credit points for 748 graduation gifts, correct? I’m the order taker. The items are ready.”
His gentle smile and jade-like appearance momentarily confused the anxious teachers, but reality brought them back to their senses: “Where are the items? Just these?”
Looking at the three small boxes behind him, the teachers muttered doubtfully: “Didn’t you prepare stone bread?”
Stone bread was made from starch synthesized from carbon dioxide. It looked grayish like a stone, tasted dry and bland, and lacked the aroma of flour products.
But even so, it was a rare treat for most children, so the school used to distribute it as a graduation gift every year.
This year, due to upper-level turmoil, there were no gifts. The teachers pooled three days’ wages to commission someone to prepare gifts.
Don’t think it’s just three days’ wages. In this era of hardship, every morsel of food saved from one’s own mouth is love heavier than gold.
Because missing that one bite can truly mean death.
They had calculated: each contributing three days’ wages was just enough to prepare one stone bread for every child. Same as previous years.
Graduation is a big event. They had to leave the children with something, even if it was just the joy of chewing bread on the last day.
“Ah, anything is fine. The children are waiting. Let’s hurry back.”
So many of them came here because stone bread is bulky, thinking they needed multiple people to carry it. Now, finding only these three small boxes, they just wanted to rush back; the graduation ceremony still needed staff.
“Borrowing the cart, will return it later.” One teacher pushed the cart and ran.
“Okay.” Jiang Jitang followed leisurely.
“Why aren’t they back yet?”
The school auditorium, decorated with natural colored stones and moderately polluted flowers and grass, had its brightest lights turned on for once.
Under the scattered fluorescent lights, over seven hundred students stood neatly arranged below. The host on stage had been stalling for nearly ten minutes, still waiting for the teachers who went to fetch the gifts.
He turned back, continuing to smile and encourage the children below, not revealing a hint that something was amiss.
Most children didn’t notice anything wrong. They chatted quietly below, excited about becoming adults soon, yet also anxious about bearing the future.
“My dad said he’d take me to a secret spot he found. If we find something good, he’ll trade it for credits to buy me a metal knife. A real metal knife! Even if it’s just made from sharpened sheet metal.”
The speaking child lowered his voice but couldn’t hide his excitement.
For the children of this world, a metal knife might be the most desired coming-of-age gift, usually prepared by elders. It’s not only an extremely useful tool but also a safety guarantee for gathering in the wild.
Although there are warriors patrolling near gathering points, distant water can’t quench a nearby fire. The probability of being robbed, stolen from, or killed might be small, but for the individual it happens to, it’s an avalanche.
Before obtaining metal tools, they must follow their elders step by step without straying.
“Lucky you. You still have a dad.”
The children without parents felt a pang of bitterness. They would receive basic survival supplies from the government, but they could never compare to children with parents, let alone dream of a coming-of-age gift like a metal knife.
Initially, they would have to follow trusted adults, perhaps borrowing a usable metal tool, but at the cost of handing over half or even more of their harvest.
Or they could take out a loan from a store to buy one, which meant a long-term expense and required collateral.
“Sorry.” The initially excited child also realized his words weren’t quite appropriate here. They were at the bottom, but there were those even lower.
“Shh, don’t say anymore. We might get stone bread today. I plan to divide mine into three portions to last three days.”
“Me too.”
These 748 students were the children judged to have neither talent nor resources. At thirteen, they had to leave this place and enter the battlefield of life.
The selected children weren’t here. Some would go for gene evolution injections, some to the inner city – all would have better futures.
“Creak.” The wooden door suddenly opened, and the absent teachers walked in.
No matter what they looked like before, the moment they passed through the door, they were all smiling and full of fighting spirit. Seeing them made one feel full of hope and expectation.
“Now, let’s welcome our Principal to give the graduation blessings!” The host on stage shouted with surprise, his voice cracking.
“Ah!”
The Principal went on stage to speak. The others blended into the group of teachers already below the stage.
One teacher opened the cardboard box; they were going to distribute gifts to the children coming on stage later. But upon seeing what was inside, he couldn’t help but cry out.
“What’s wrong?” Others crowded around, and they were also startled. “What is this?”
“This… the graduation gift you prepared?”
Jiang Jitang, under everyone’s gaze, said gently: “It’s the gift you purchased. Would you like me to introduce it?”
It was bought with their money, nothing to do with him, the delivery guy.
He picked up one set and introduced it.
A metal knife essential for scavengers but actually hard to buy, a very practical metal whistle and fire starter rod, and a multi-flavored lollipop.
“So… all of these? Over seven hundred sets?”
Jiang Jitang nodded again.
The teacher who first opened the box took two sharp breaths: “Do rich young masters these days like to work while losing money?”
“No extra money added. It was exactly the 360 credit points you gave.”
“Impossible!” They almost said it in unison.
“…I added a little.” Just the bit for the lollipops.
“I knew it! He added some, but won’t admit it.”
“Ah, a young master, doesn’t understand prices, but has a good heart.”
“Added quite a bit, right? No, no, what’s your name? We can’t take your things without knowing. These things are worth a lot of credit points.”
For the first time, Jiang Jitang wished the Wisher was a quiet mute. He was surrounded by over a dozen eloquent teachers, his ears buzzing.
“…Next, students whose names are called, please come up to receive your graduation certificates, and the gifts prepared by all our teachers.” The Principal’s speech on stage was coming to an end.
One teacher seized the opportunity, quickly walked up, and whispered to the Principal, carefully showing him the ‘graduation gift’.
The Principal’s eyes went wide. He instinctively looked towards Jiang Jitang, who was cornered against the wall – because he refused to give his name, the teachers were earnestly persuading him to ‘leave a name for good deeds, to promote positive social energy’. Basically that idea.
“Students, our school’s teachers did prepare gifts for everyone – enough credit points to buy one stone bread. But a kind-hearted person who wishes to remain anonymous has upgraded this very meaningful graduation gift for us.”
The Principal waved the keychain in his hand, the camouflage-colored folding knife and strawberry milk flavored lollipop swinging back and forth.
“This is a keychain made with a metal rope. This here is a folding metal knife. Look, everyone, a proper steel blade, very sharp. And here, a metal whistle.”
“This short black strip is a magnesium rod. Maybe some don’t know it. After scraping off this outer black anti-oxidation layer, it’s a metal that sparks when scraped – a very useful fire-starting material.”
“Finally, candy. I hope each of you progresses smoothly, and life is as sweet as candy.”
“All these were prepared by that kind-hearted person. Let’s thank him!”
“Thank you, kind-hearted person!”
“Wow! Thank you!”
The students below were almost stunned by the surprise, but they still remembered to thank the anonymous benefactor in unison.
“So… I have a metal knife now?” An orphan without parents grabbed his companion’s clothes in disbelief. Could he, without elders, also receive his coming-of-age gift on his thirteenth birthday?
“A metal knife costs over a hundred credit points at Panda Department Store, over a hundred! I was prepared to rent one first and pay it off over two years. This is great, really great.”
For the wealthy, a metal knife is nothing. But for them, it means not bearing heavy loans and interest, means easier access to resources in the wild, and means being able to protect themselves.
It even means care, expectation, and love.
“And special fire-starting materials? Does that mean we won’t have to keep a fire burning at home anymore?”
“Candy! What does candy taste like?”
“I like the whistle.”
The children were so excited they didn’t know what to do. This was probably the happiest day they’d had in a long time.
Their voices echoed and reverberated in the school auditorium. The Principal felt his ears ringing from the noise, but he wasn’t unhappy at all. Instead, he laughed as happily as they did.
He hadn’t been this happy in a long time.
“By the way, he…” The Principal turned, wanting to find that kind-hearted person to share this joy, but the person originally standing in the corner was already gone.
Jiang Jitang had slipped away quietly during the cheers, taking his grocery cart with him.
This celebration belonged to all the teachers and students. Without the teachers’ goodwill, this order wouldn’t have existed. The children’s gratitude should go to those who truly deserved it; he merely benefited from the system and society’s conveniences.
But he didn’t leave the task world. He was outside, observing the underground structure resembling an ant nest.
With his striking appearance and an air of calm leisure that people in this post-apocalyptic era lacked, the outsider under the hazy light seemed like an elven prince who had stumbled in. Passersby couldn’t help but look at him, sometimes bumping into each other.
And Jiang Jitang, mesmerized by the uniquely shaped pillars and reliefs around him, would also walk headfirst into a stone pillar.
It was a mutual attraction, of sorts.
Without using a Cargo Pass, he couldn’t take anything belonging to this world with him, except memories.
He could also take photos to bring back, but he didn’t have professional photography equipment on hand. Photos taken with a phone would be somewhat distorted, unable to capture the stunning beauty of the memory, so he preferred not to.
So he used his eyes, and his currently uncluttered mind, to record everything.
The debt was a bit annoying, but the task worlds were truly fascinating.
This wonderful mood even followed him home. On a sweltering summer noon, happy guqin music arose in his restless heart, sprinkling down like a light rain, extinguishing all worries.
The frustrated fruit shop owner downstairs sat down, fanning himself while listening intently. A passing car slowly turned around, heading towards where the music came from.
The person in the car was speechless seeing the familiar figure among the flower pots on the balcony.
It was Parsons.
Years ago, he had followed superior orders into the desert to capture a major criminal. But on the day he was about to leave the inn, he inexplicably looked back. That glance cost him half his life. Now, his curiosity was leading to the same result.
“His playing has become more joyful.” Parsons’s fingers, even constrained by gloves, still tapped lightly on the steering wheel. He couldn’t quite understand this happiness yet, but he couldn’t stop it from entering his soul, creating resonance.
The person on the balcony played with closed eyes, the soaring notes like free birds. Parsons stayed quietly in the car, not looking up, just listening.
He could list countless reasons to dislike him – his cold, mercurial nature, his dictatorial ways. But just one reason could make all those reasons crumble.
Because his soul was so untamed, like freely leaping musical notes, like light slipping through fingertips.
It was something he, trapped in the cage of worldly conventions, would never possess.
