Chapter 159
At dawn, siblings Wang Rong and Wang Tao returned to the Eastern Base and knocked on the gates.
As the base’s frontline sentry post, the gates were always guarded by the most elite soldiers. The position paid extremely well—better than most mercenary gigs, with no need for dangerous missions—so competition was always fierce.
When Wang Rong had tested as a B-rank ability user, he’d even applied for the sentry job but wasn’t selected.
…Normally, any knock on the gates would be answered immediately.
But today was clearly not normal.
After knocking, the siblings waited… and waited… but no one came.
At first, they thought they hadn’t knocked hard enough, so Wang Rong used his ability to strengthen his arm muscles and pounded the gates again.
“Boom—boom boom—”
The noise startled nearby birds into flight, but behind the gates, dead silence persisted. No response, not even a rustle of movement.
Wang Rong and Wang Tao exchanged uneasy glances.
Thankfully, thanks to last night’s porridge, they weren’t exhausted. But if they hadn’t encountered Simple Porridge Stall and arrived at the base battered and exhausted only to be locked out… the consequences would’ve been dire.
They shuddered at the thought.
Still, something was clearly wrong.
By 5 a.m., sentries should’ve been on patrol, and rookie mercenaries should’ve been out for morning drills. Yet today, not a soul was in sight.
Wang Tao frowned, a bad feeling creeping in. “Did… something huge happen in the base while we were gone last night?”
Wang Rong, however, found the idea unlikely and casually joked, “Something huge? What could possibly happen? Did they finally get fed up with Li Zhou and stage a rebellion or something?”
Wang Tao: “…”
The two continued bantering as they waited, but eventually, they couldn’t take it anymore and knocked again.
After another long wait, someone finally arrived—yawning and sluggish:
“Who’s knocking this early in the morning…?”
The man was a high-ranking soldier, a tall, blond, blue-eyed foreigner named Jack.
He wore the standard sentry armor and a protective mask but looked half-asleep, his voice sluggish as he picked up a scanner to run basic checks on the siblings. Only after a long pause did his eyes suddenly widen in realization:
“Holy shit, it’s only 5 a.m.—you two spent the night in the Death Barrens?! How the hell are you still alive??!”
Jack instinctively took a step back, pulling down his visor to stare at them like startled prey. “You—you’re not ghosts, are you? Wait, no… are you parasitized by some pollutant? But with your weak stats, that doesn’t seem likely…”
Wang Tao and Wang Rong: “…Dude, that’s incredibly rude!”
But Jack seemed convinced they were contaminated. His expression turned deadly serious as he called in a team of medics and experts, subjecting the siblings to a full-body scan with even more advanced equipment.
Even the two coins in Wang Tao’s pocket were scanned.
Finally, after confirming that the siblings were indeed alive, healthy, uninfected, and—most shockingly—had their core energy in peak condition, Jack and the medical team were utterly floored:
“Unheard of, absolutely unheard of. Are they really just B-rank mercenaries? Not some experts disguising themselves as weaklings?”
“I need to report this to the higher-ups.”
“How is their core energy this stable…?”
The medics murmured among themselves as they walked away.
“Sorry about that, you two,” Jack said awkwardly, scratching his nose. “Didn’t mean to offend. It’s just…”
Wang Rong and Wang Tao nodded understandingly. “We get it.”
To be fair, Jack’s shock was justified.
In the entire forty-year history of the Eastern Base, the number of people who’d survived a night in the Death Barrens could be counted on one hand!
By midnight, pollutants in the Death Barrens became hyper-aggressive, their lethality amplified by radiation and darkness. There were countless tragic cases of elite A-rank mercenary squads being wiped out entirely. Even Mu Dongsheng, the top mercenary of his time, had only survived two nights at most.
…So for two lone B-rank mercenaries to make it back alive? It sounded like a fairy tale.
And what was even more shocking—
Jack, who should’ve had an easy night shift, looked utterly exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and sunken cheeks like a starving ghost.
Meanwhile, Wang Rong and Wang Tao, who’d just trekked through the Death Barrens for 24 hours, looked radiant—their faces rosy, their energy levels high, as if they hadn’t just narrowly escaped death.
Standing face-to-face, Jack and the siblings stared at each other, both sides equally bewildered.
To an outsider, it would’ve looked like Jack was the one who’d struggled through the night, while Wang Rong and Wang Tao had lazily dozed through a peaceful guard shift.
Life really wasn’t fair.
“…”
Jack led them into the guard post, handing each sibling a cup of hot tea to warm up before asking curiously:
“So, how did you two survive? And why do you look so refreshed? Did you run into some kind of expert?”
Wang Tao took a sip of tea to moisten her throat before answering, “After midnight, we kept moving toward the base. We don’t even know how we survived—and on the way back, we didn’t encounter a single pollutant.”
That’s right.
After leaving the Simple Porridge Stall, the siblings hurried toward the base using their compass. Even so, the journey took three to four hours—plenty of time for a single B-rank (or higher) pollutant to end them.
But miraculously, after a distant explosion, the sky had begun to change color.
…At the sight of the crimson sky and the countless gaping mouths, the siblings had assumed they were doomed. But instead of attacking, the mouths just wept.
And for some reason, all the pollutants had vanished—whether hiding or gone entirely, the siblings hadn’t encountered a single one on their way back. Combined with the core-repairing effects of Boss Jian’s porridge, they’d sprinted back even faster than expected.
Wang Rong and Wang Tao had thought Jack would be stunned by their story.
But Jack’s expression remained calm. “We already have a working theory about that. Research is still ongoing—oh, right.”
He caught their wording and pressed, “You said ‘after midnight.’ What about before midnight? How did you survive then?”
They’d been out there the entire night, after all.
If luck had saved them after midnight, what about before?
“…”
Wang Rong and Wang Tao exchanged glances.
On their way back, they’d actually discussed this. Should they tell the Eastern Base about Simple Porridge Stall?
At first, they worried that if Boss Jian was some reclusive expert who disliked attention, exposing his location might do more harm than good. But then they remembered how delighted he’d been to have customers—clearly, he enjoyed cooking and serving food…
The siblings decided—whether others believed them or not, they would speak up.
What if they could help Boss Jian attract more customers? He’d definitely be happy, right?
His stall was in such a remote location. Even though his porridge was incredibly delicious, it probably had little reputation within the base, and hardly anyone went there to buy it. A hidden gem of a porridge stall.
After steeling themselves, Wang Rong and Wang Tao took a deep breath and looked at Jack:
“Before midnight… we came across a porridge stall. The owner was really kind, and his porridge was amazing. After drinking it, we finally had the strength to keep going. That’s how we survived.”
At the word “porridge stall,” Jack visibly stiffened.
A flicker of disbelief flashed in his eyes as he cleared his throat and asked, “What was the name of that stall?”
Wang Tao smiled. “You probably haven’t heard of it. It’s a really small place, barely any customers. It’s called—”
“Simple Porridge Stall.”
“SIMPLE PORRIDGE STALL??!!”
Wang Tao and Jack spoke at the exact same time.
Wang Tao and Wang Rong froze. “Huh? How do you know Simple Porridge Stall? Isn’t it some obscure little place?”
Jack: “…”
Jack: “…………”
He took a deep breath. Then another. Trying desperately to stay calm.
But in the end, he failed.
Slamming his hands on the table, Jack erupted in sheer, unbridled frustration:
“‘Obscure little place’? ‘Barely any customers’? ‘No lines’?”
“Are you talking about the same Simple Porridge Stall that had a line stretching through the entire black market last night? The one that caused thousands of people to brawl over it? The one that made mercenaries riot because they couldn’t get a bowl? The one that forced us soldiers to stay up all night maintaining order? THAT Simple Porridge Stall??!”
The look Jack gave the siblings was practically burning with jealousy.
How lucky were these two?!
They’d stumbled upon Simple Porridge Stall without a line—just casually bought the porridge thousands were desperate to taste!!!
Wang Tao and Wang Rong were utterly bewildered. “Huh? What are you talking about? What black market? What lines…?”
Their voices trailed off as realization slowly dawned.
They weren’t fools. From Jack’s words, they quickly pieced together the truth.
…Oh no.
Sweat beaded on their foreheads. If Simple Porridge Stall was that popular, they definitely shouldn’t have blabbed about it—now they’d just created more competition for themselves!
“Uh, Jack, let’s calm down—maybe we can discuss this—”
But it was too late.
Jack had already grabbed the base-wide broadcast microphone. After clearing his throat, he spoke—
