Chapter 11
After the livestream ended, Teacher Xiaomei took the children to the playground to exercise.
But Wei Cheng’s mind was completely occupied by the hidden mission.
What kind of hidden mission was worth eight million? And why had it suddenly been activated?
It definitely had something to do with the livestream.
So was it related to the people in the livestream, or to someone watching it?
“Brother!”
Guanguan came running over in a solid little trot, his chubby face flushed red from playing around. “Brother, I’m a little thirsty!”
“Okay, have some water.”
Wei Cheng came back to himself. He unzipped the little yellow duck backpack, took out a children’s water bottle, and tilted it slightly toward Guanguan. “Drink slowly.”
After gulping down the water, Guanguan grabbed his brother’s hand and pulled him toward the courtyard wall. “Brother, come here, come over here.”
“Slow down.”
When Wei Cheng walked over, he saw Mingming and a few others squatting in a neat row, all intently gathered around Teacher Xiaomei.
It turned out that Teacher Xiaomei was using the blooming balsam flowers by the wall to dye Qiqi’s nails.
“So pretty!”
“Qiqi, your fingers are going to look so beautiful!”
Qiqi was a timid and shy little girl. Hearing the praise from the children around her, her fair cheeks turned a little red.
Guanguan was endlessly curious about everything, his eyes sparkling. “Teacher, can Guanguan’s fingers grow flowers too?”
Teacher Xiaomei smiled. “Of course. I’ll dye yours in a little while.”
Guanguan was delighted. He shoved his little hand in front of his brother’s face and waved it around. “Guanguan’s fingers are going to be pretty too!”
Wei Cheng’s smile paused. Holding his little steamed-bun hand with its “French black-edged manicure,” he asked, “Why is there so much dirt under your nails?”
“Guanguan was just trying to dig a castle this big for Brother to live in!”
“With your hands?” Wei Cheng did not know whether to laugh or cry. “Later Brother will find some tools and dig with you.”
Then he said, “Teacher, I want to take Guanguan to wash his hands.”
Teacher Xiaomei said, “Okay, take Qiqi too. Once they’ve washed up, I’ll dye their nails.”
With Qiqi going along, Guanguan no longer needed his brother to hold his hand. The two little ones chased and laughed their way to the washroom.
Wei Cheng said, “Qiqi, do you want Brother to help wash your hands?”
Qiqi said softly, “I can do it myself.”
The sink in the washroom was very high. Seven-year-old Qiqi could wash her own hands, but little Guanguan could not reach at all, so Wei Cheng had no choice but to tuck him under one arm.
While his brother was rolling up his sleeves, Guanguan’s eyes shifted, and his little chubby hand secretly pressed down on one corner of the faucet. At once, water splashed everywhere, soaking both his and his brother’s faces.
Hearing Guanguan’s triumphant laughter, Wei Cheng smiled too and flicked two drops of water onto the back of his neck. “You evil little fat bun.”
Guanguan shrank his snowy white neck and grinned from ear to ear. “Brother, Guanguan isn’t scared of you.”
Beside them, Qiqi watched them enviously, pressing her lips together slightly.
If only she had an older brother or sister too.
—
That night, Teacher Xiaomei made fragrant chicken leg fried rice. Because the weather was so hot, Grandpa Director even made a rare exception and poured each child a tiny bit of iced cola.
With several children now gone from the orphanage, two people could sleep in one dorm room.
So Wei Cheng and Guanguan moved next door.
Until the sun went down, the system still had not released any more clues about the hidden mission, but reminders about earning Twist Coins kept appearing.
[Congratulations! Beginner mission perfectly completed!]
[On the third day, you successfully reminded 350 passersby to actively stockpile supplies, earning a total of 3,500 Twist Coins.]
[Twist Coin balance: 4430]
[Safehouse stockpile volume: 5]
[Twisty Car transformation level: Beginner Form 5 (Reach 10 to unlock two-person escape)]
4430 Twist Coins, which meant… 4.43 million!
[Reward: One surprise lucky spin!]
A prize wheel popped up on the panel, but this time it only had four colors, and the odds of hitting the jackpot were obviously much higher.
This was probably related to the difficulty of the mission.
Wei Cheng patted the bed. “Come on, Guanguan!”
Guanguan was playing with a toy fire truck under the bed. Wearing a little old-man-style white tank top, he solemnly carried the toy truck around the bed in a circle. “Beep beep beep, Firefighter Guanguan is here!”
“Brother, what help do you need!”
This toy fire truck was the new toy Guanguan had picked out himself when they were browsing Cloud Mall earlier.
Wei Cheng rubbed his little curls. “I need Firefighter Guanguan to help me win the grand prize.”
“Okay, okay!”
Guanguan reached out with a small finger and tapped the prize wheel. The pointer spun rapidly a few times before landing in the red section.
[Congratulations! Little House Owner, what a lucky baby you are! You have obtained 10 minutes of invisibility time for the Twisty Car! Cooldown: 24h!]
[Reminder: The Twisty Car must reach Beginner Form 100 before it can be used!]
“Ten minutes of invisibility!”
At a critical moment, ten minutes of invisibility could save their lives!
Wei Cheng straightened up, truly surprised. “Guanguan is amazing!”
Guanguan had no idea what invisibility meant. He lifted his little face and stretched out both hands high. “Amazing Guanguan wants cola, buy some for Guanguan!”
Wei Cheng pinched the meat on his arm that looked just like little tires and laughed. “Didn’t you already drink some at dinner?”
Guanguan scrambled into his brother’s arms and patted his own round little belly. “How scary, Brother. Guanguan already drank it, but now there’s no cola left in his tummy.”
Wei Cheng did not know how to refuse him. “But if you drink it, you’ll have to brush your teeth very carefully afterward. Do you still want it?”
Guanguan frowned and fell silent. In the end, with great pain, he declared, “Guanguan loves brushing teeth!”
After thinking about it, Wei Cheng picked a bottle of room-temperature sugar-free cola from the mall. After opening it, he said, “You can only have one sip.”
Guanguan’s dark eyes rolled around, his little schemes written all over his face. “What happens if baby drinks too much?”
“If you drink too much, your stomach will hurt.”
“Brother, if Guanguan’s tummy hurts, will you let Uncle Chen save me?”
Wei Cheng smiled helplessly. “It’s okay. One sip won’t make your stomach hurt.”
As soon as the cola can was opened, Guanguan hugged the bottle tightly with both hands. He had not even reached it with his lips yet, but his tongue was already sticking out halfway across the room.
Stupid mouth, hurry up and drink.
When Wei Cheng noticed the cola had barely brushed against Guanguan’s lips, he quickly righted the bottle. “Okay, that’s enough. If you drink any more, you’ll really have to get a butt shot.”
Guanguan was a baby who was very easy to satisfy. He licked his lips. “Brother, cola is so delicious.”
“Later Brother will stock up on more drinks. When you’re a little older, you can drink them.”
After helping Guanguan brush his teeth again and wash his face, the two brothers lay down on the little bed. Guanguan rubbed his soft cheek against his brother’s shoulder. “Brother, Guanguan is so happy!”
Wei Cheng’s heart softened, and he gently patted Guanguan’s little back. “Mm, Brother is very happy too.”
The summer night breeze drifted in through the crack left open in the window, bringing the little children a beautiful dream from before the apocalypse.
—
For the past few days, there had been no red dot notifications in the mission section. It seemed that until the hidden mission was solved, no new missions would be given to them.
Fortunately, they now had more than four million in hand, enough to upgrade the Twisty Car through stockpiling.
Taking advantage of noon breaks, Wei Cheng and Guanguan often entered Cloud Mall to stock up.
—
A little today, a little tomorrow, and at last the Twisty Car’s upgrade progress broke through a major milestone.
[Twist Coin balance: ? No data available]
[Safehouse stockpile volume: 10]
[Twisty Car transformation level: Beginner Form 10, two-person escape unlocked! Skill: Supports self-driving, 70 km/h!]
The ordinary toddler wiggle car had actually turned into a two-seater black two-wheeled bicycle.
[Reminder: Please continue increasing your stockpile volume. Current Defense Level 0, Indestructibility Level 0, Steel Wings 0… Invisibility Duration 10 minutes (locked)]
Seeing his Twisty Car become so imposing, Guanguan was thrilled. Every day he huffed and puffed his way to Cloud Mall, pushing a little shopping cart to buy small toys, hoping that would make the car look even prettier!
As for Wei Cheng, his stockpiling spirit was completely fired up. Thinking that one could never have too much grain, he directly bought another 8,000 bags of rice at 20 kg each, 3,000 bags of flour at 25 kg each, and 4,000 barrels of soybean oil.
All of that cost nearly a million in total, and that was with the mall’s goods being almost half the price of the real world.
As the stockpile increased, the thirty-square-meter safehouse became extremely cramped. Aside from the shelves, the entire place was covered with goods, and it was very unsafe for Guanguan to run around inside sometimes.
After much thought, he decided to buy a second-level shelf worth three hundred thousand.
It was a heavy-duty warehouse shelf ten meters long with eight levels, double-layer storage structure, and each level could hold twenty tons of goods (shelf life sixty years).
Wei Cheng noticed that the moment the shelf entered the safehouse, the safehouse’s area instantly expanded to nearly ninety square meters.
That immediately deepened the Twisty Car’s transformation level.
[Twisty Car transformation level: Beginner Form 17…]
He adjusted the positions of the two shelves and the refrigerator, leaving a fairly large open space.
If there was still room after storing food and urgent necessities, he wanted to buy some furniture and appliances. In the future, this would be the safest home for him and Guanguan.
During this period, he and Guanguan often stayed in the safehouse. It was always kept at a constant temperature, and food and drink were extremely convenient. Suddenly, he realized he had overlooked one thing.
Could they stay in the safehouse forever and never go out?
To test his guess, on the night the Twisty Car upgraded, Wei Cheng soothed Guanguan to sleep and then entered the safehouse again. He stayed there from seven in the evening until five the next morning, and discovered that he was actually ejected from the safehouse.
He could only stay for ten hours, which matched the Twisty Car’s Beginner Form 10 level.
The second test was when the Twisty Car had reached Beginner Form 17. Wei Cheng discovered that after five o’clock the next day, he was not ejected from the safehouse.
So if they wanted to shelter in the safehouse for a long time, they needed to upgrade the escape Twisty Car, and the key to upgrading the Twisty Car was completing missions to earn Twist Coins.
That meant every Twist Coin had to be spent according to plan.
Wei Cheng thought for a long time. He did not know whether life in the future would remain peaceful. Rice and flour would not attract too much attention if taken out, but fresh meat definitely would. Moreover, meat like pork, beef, chicken, and live shrimp, as well as fresh vegetables, all took time to prepare. He made up his mind to leave a sum of money in the account so they could buy those things as needed in the future.
As for things like bread and canned instant food, he stocked up on much more.
Wei Cheng opened the safehouse inventory list. These were the results of their stockpiling over the past few days:
Food Section
#Flour
Stock: 3,300 bags × 25 kg
#Rice
Stock: 8,350 bags × 20 kg
#Soybean Oil
Stock: 4,200 barrels × 10 L
#Water Supply
Stock: 3,000 barrels of bottled water at 19 L, 3,000 cases of 24 bottles × 500 ml
#Salt
Stock: 100,000 bags × 400 g
#Seasonings
Stock: 10 bags of MSG, 10 bottles of soy sauce, 10 bottles of oyster sauce… 100 bags of white sugar, 20 bottles of black vinegar
#Eggs
Stock: 2,000 chicken eggs, 2,000 duck eggs
#Milk
Stock: 500 cases of 24 cartons of milk, 200 tins of milk powder
#Instant Food
Stock: thick-soup instant noodles and children’s instant noodles × 1,000 cups, self-heating rice × 1,000 boxes, dessert cakes 20 × 50 varieties, 3,000 packs of hot dogs and bread, 200 boxes of ham sausages 60 g × 100, children’s additive-free pure beef sausages, fish sausages 200 boxes 30 g × 100, ready-to-eat canned chicken, canned fish, canned beef, braised pork cans, quail egg cans 3,000 cans, eight-treasure porridge 2,000 cans…
#Snacks
Stock: chocolate…
#Meat
Stock: 100 jin (50 kg) of pork, 100 jin of beef, 50 whole chickens, 60 jin of fresh shrimp
#Drinks
Stock: …
#Gas Supplies
Stock: …
#Home Appliances
Stock: 1 refrigerator…
This time, Wei Cheng had plenty of Twist Coins, so he put more thought into stockpiling medicine.
Sometimes they would not be able to use their own water in front of outsiders, so potassium permanganate water-purification tablets were absolutely essential. In the apocalypse, this kind of item would be an extremely scarce resource; one tablet could purify one liter of water.
He also bought large amounts of saline solution for disinfecting and sterilizing wounds, povidone-iodine disinfectant, alcohol disinfectant, and all kinds of disinfectant wipes. In the apocalypse, stopping bleeding, bandaging wounds, reducing inflammation, and bringing down fever were even more important, so he stockpiled plenty of band-aids, Yunnan Baiyao, sterile dressings… amoxicillin, metronidazole, ibuprofen fever reducers, thermometers, and all sorts of montmorillonite powder, various anti-diarrheal medicines, glucose, cold remedies, and other drugs.
Guanguan was still too young, so most of the medicine Wei Cheng stockpiled was suitable for children as well. He also stocked up on more vitamins and nutritional supplements.
Only at the end did he carefully choose an air purifier, gas masks, and protective clothing. Thinking that the poisonous fog would not last too long, he did not stockpile too much of those.
As for clothes, quilts, and similar items, Wei Cheng also did not go crazy buying them. He only reserved money for that category, because both he and Guanguan were still growing. If he stockpiled too many clothes, there was a good chance they would not fit in another two years, which would only waste precious Twist Coins.
After all of that, the Twist Coin balance dropped rapidly.
[Twist Coin balance: 2013]
[Safehouse stockpile volume: 65]
[Twisty Car transformation level: Beginner Form 65, two-person escape unlocked! Skill: Supports self-driving, 70 km/h!]
[When Twisty Car Beginner Form reaches 100, multiplayer escape can be unlocked (maximum four people). Skill: Supports self-driving, 100 km/h! Gains navigation function, Defense Level +10 (can kill ten zombies each time), Indestructibility Level +10 (unafraid of extreme heat, severe cold, toxic gas; duration 10 hours), Invisibility Duration 10 minutes, cooldown 24 hours.]
Based on the money they had left, it was still possible to push Beginner Form to 100. But if he did that, their account would also become stretched to the limit, leaving them penniless.
Wei Cheng had to leave a sum of spare money in the account. After all, the apocalyptic environment would change constantly. No one knew what trivial item they might lack in the future, nor how they would complete the missions issued by the system under extreme heat, skies full of poisonous fog, and hordes of zombies. By then, they might not even have time to escape, much less complete missions.
So right now, the only thing he and Guanguan could do was find a way to quickly solve that hidden mission worth eight million!
At the beginning of August, Director Wang left the orphanage, and the security guard uncle he had hired officially started work.
Wei Cheng knew that since the hidden mission was related to the livestream, he would have to start from the livestream itself. So he and Guanguan became even more cooperative with Teacher Xiaomei’s livestreams, along with the other children. During this period, the orphanage was bringing in over a thousand yuan a day, and its popularity was also steadily rising.
Unfortunately, the hidden mission still refused to trigger.
That day, Wei Cheng was accompanying Guanguan, Mingming, and the others while they kicked around a watermelon ball on the playground when he suddenly saw Teacher Xiaomei’s face turn deathly pale as she hurriedly called Qiqi away.
And when Qiqi came back, her eyes were red.
