Chapter 5
The moment Wei Cheng opened the [Personal Information Section], he heard Guanguan exclaim, “It’s frog Guanguan!”
This section was very simple. The first thing they saw was a large close-up photo of Guanguan.
Who knew whether this system spent a lot of time online, because it had actually taken a wide-angle, face-up-close shot of beautiful Guanguan. It made Guanguan’s eyes look extra round and his little face even more like a fluffy peach-butt dumpling. It was absurdly cute.
[Guanguan]
Identity: House Owner
Age: 3 years old
Height: 85 cm (slightly short)
Apocalypse Survival Ability: 1 day (?)
Pet Companion: No data available
Base: No data available
Twisty Coin Balance: 101
Safe House Stockpile Amount: 0
Wiggle Car Transformation Level: Initial Form
Contracted Companion: No data available
Only Bound Person:
[Wei Cheng]
Age: 8 years old
Height: 150 cm
Apocalypse Survival Ability: Ten years (?)
Base: No data available
Loyalty: 100%
Without the safe house, Guanguan’s ability to survive alone in the apocalypse was only one day…
Just looking at that line made strands of sorrow spread through Wei Cheng’s chest.
He did not even dare keep thinking about it.
Just then, the whistle for naptime suddenly sounded, and Teacher Xiaomei began calling the children back to sleep.
“Big brother.”
Guanguan was so anxious he spun in circles. “Big brother, when can Guanguan eat the green lollipop?”
Wei Cheng came back to himself, his eyes red, and rubbed Guanguan’s little head. “When we go back to the dorm in a bit, we’ll buy one for Guanguan.”
They still were not familiar with the stockpiling process for the safe house yet. To be safe, they had to wait until there was absolutely no one around before going in to stock up. Otherwise, if someone found out, it could bring disaster.
He glanced at the wiggle car on the ground again. “This car…”
Now that he knew how unusual this car was, Wei Cheng no longer felt comfortable leaving it casually on the playground.
The instant he finished speaking, the wiggle car on the ground vanished into thin air.
Guanguan shook his head. “The wiggle car ran into Guanguan’s head!”
Wei Cheng immediately pulled up the panel and saw that the [Wiggle Car Safe House Section] was flashing.
When he tapped it, he discovered that on the right-hand page, a 3D image of the little cloud wiggle car was slowly rotating, with the words (Wiggle Car Status: Stored) floating above it.
As for the left-hand page, it was all dark, showing only a few large words:
[Safe House Stockpile Amount: Purchase goods to activate]
“Wei Cheng? Guanguan?”
After searching around for a while, Teacher Xiaomei finally found the two children behind the old building.
“Stop playing around and hurry back with teacher for your nap.”
Wei Cheng quickly said, “Okay, teacher. I’m just taking Guanguan to the toilet first, then we’ll come right back.”
Teacher Xiaomei looked around. “Hm? Guanguan, where did your wiggle car go?”
Wei Cheng subtly tightened his grip on Guanguan’s hand. Everything had happened too quickly, and he had not had time to teach Guanguan what to say…
“Guanguan hid it!”
Guanguan covered his mouth with his little hand and giggled. “Only big brother and Guanguan know where it’s hidden!”
Teacher Xiaomei did not think much of it. Instead, she looked quite pleased. “I see. Then it looks like Guanguan and Chengcheng are already very, very good friends.”
Wei Cheng let out a sigh of relief, then smiled again.
You could tell a lot about a child from an early age. His little brother was definitely going to grow up very smart.
Still, on the way back, he carefully warned Guanguan that he absolutely could not tell anyone about this.
Guanguan looked innocent. “Then Xiaotiao, Mingming, and Teacher Xiaomei can’t know either?”
“Don’t tell anyone where your wiggle car is, and definitely don’t tell anyone about anything you saw today.”
Wei Cheng had survived ten years in the apocalypse. He had seen far too many people and understood human nature all too well. A group of people could still be comrades fighting side by side one second, and the next they could start beating each other over a bag of moldy rice.
Even if he still had some conscience left now, other than Guanguan, he would not trust anyone.
He decided to make it sound even more serious and whispered, “If other people find out about this, both you and big brother will be in danger. Bad people will catch us and lock us in a little dark room.”
The baby fat on Guanguan’s face tightened. “Will we get killed?”
Wei Cheng silently nodded.
If this secret were really discovered, what awaited them would be even more terrible than death.
By then, being killed might even be a kind of release.
“Big brother, don’t be scared!”
Guanguan crossed both little hands over his chest, then threw a heavy little fist upward like a sticky rice dumpling, baring his teeth fiercely. “Guantaman will protect you! Guanguan will punch them!”
Wei Cheng bent down, rubbed his head, and said with a smile, “Okay. With Guanguan Ultraman protecting me, I’m not afraid of anything.”
By the time they got back to the dorm room, Wang Xiaotiao was already asleep.
After Teacher Xiaomei finished checking the dormitory, the two children could not wait to enter the Cloud Mall.
At the entrance to the mall were two shopping carts with display screens, one big and one small, as if they had been specially designed for their heights.
Wei Cheng asked, “Does Guanguan want to push his own little cart and buy things, or follow big brother?”
Guanguan rested his little hands on the edge of the shopping cart, his big eyes sparkling like they held little stars. “Can big brother put Guanguan into the big cart and push-push?”
“Of course. Come here.”
Wei Cheng picked Guanguan up and placed him inside the cart. “Is it comfortable sitting like this?”
The moment Guanguan sat down, he started swinging his legs and clapping. “Comfortable! Comfortable! Big brother push Guanguan and buy-buy-buy!”
“Sit tight. Big brother is going to speed up!”
Guanguan cheered, and his little curls puffed up in the wind. “Flying! Big brother runs so fast!”
Wei Cheng spent quite a bit of time just pushing Guanguan quickly through the food and fresh produce sections. He only had time to glance from afar at the huge red signs for [Educational Resources], [Medical], [Machinery], and the like.
Guanguan was having so much fun that his little face was red. He even worked up the courage to stand inside the shopping cart and poke his little hand against his brother’s face. “Big brother, rest-rest.”
“Big brother isn’t tired. Want me to keep pushing you around a little longer?”
“No more running.”
Guanguan yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Big brother, Guanguan wants the green lollipop.”
“Then sit down properly, and big brother will take you to buy it.”
Wei Cheng pushed Guanguan toward the food section. The map on the shopping cart’s display screen guided them to the product they wanted, and before long he found the fragrant candy section tucked away in one corner.
“Guanguan, there are so many candies here.”
“Guanguan?”
Wei Cheng looked down and saw Guanguan’s slightly lowered lashes, dark and thick, while his plump little face was pressed against the shopping basket. He had fallen fast asleep.
Wei Cheng quickly picked the child up. Guanguan’s breathing was steady, and aside from the occasional slight rise and fall of his round little belly, there was no sign that he was about to wake up.
He carried Guanguan back to the dorm room, settled him in properly, and then returned to the mall alone.
The [Food] and [Fresh Produce] sections basically included every kind of food available on the market. Besides snacks, drinks, and bottled water, there were all kinds of baked goods, chilled fruits and vegetables, frozen and refrigerated ready-made foods, seafood and meat, grains, oils, seasonings, crop seeds and agricultural by-products, and liquid dairy products. Beyond that, the [Daily Necessities] section contained all kinds of toiletries, tissues, kitchen utensils, gas stoves, home appliances… mixed in among them were also hardware products, wilderness survival supplies, and a dazzling array of children’s toys, clothing for all seasons, shoes, socks, and backpacks…
The [Educational Resources] section held a great many books, materials, and electronic products. The [Medical] section was even more like an enormous medical warehouse. At present, only the [Machinery] section remained closed off.
After making a round through the place, Wei Cheng guessed that the wholesale prices in the Cloud Mall were probably not very different from real-world wholesale prices. Although he had never had the chance to understand real-life wholesale costs, he knew that a bag of potato chips cost about five yuan in normal life, while in the Cloud Mall a bag was only about one to one and a half yuan.
Wei Cheng first chose candy and fruit for Guanguan, then returned to the real world as well.
In truth, they could also stock up directly through the Cloud Mall section on the system panel, and the purchased goods would be placed straight into the blank safe house.
Wei Cheng immediately opened one of the four major sections on the panel: [Cloud Mall Section].
He first stocked up on twenty 19-liter jugs of water, then twenty cases of 24 bottles of 550 ml water.
Curious, he glanced at Guanguan’s [Personal Information Section], only to find that the Twisty Coin balance had not changed.
What was going on? He had clearly already bought several hundred yuan’s worth of water.
Wei Cheng thought for a moment, then typed the words rice into the mall search bar.
The best rice cost dozens of yuan per kilogram, while the cheapest rice was 3.5 yuan per kilogram.
This kind of rice was generally mixed-grade rice. In normal times, people basically would not buy it to eat. But in the apocalypse, trying to get even two jin (1 kg) of mixed-grade rice might require killing twenty zombies.
No one knew who had first discovered it, but there was a black-green stone inside zombie brains. It had no smell, no toxicity, and functioned similarly to coal, which had gradually become depleted at the time. So many people used collected black-green stones to exchange for survival supplies.
Wei Cheng bought fifty bags of 20-kilogram mixed-grade rice, spending a full three thousand five hundred yuan.
Only then did he notice that the Twisty Coin balance had changed.
[Twisty Coin Balance: 97]
[Safe House Stockpile Amount: 0.01]
[Wiggle Car Transformation Level: Initial Form]
So now they had ninety-seven thousand yuan left.
It turned out that the balance only changed after a full one thousand yuan had been spent.
To be honest, if the wiggle car’s transformation level were unrelated to the safe house’s stockpile amount, then they would not need to hurry to stockpile at all. As long as they kept doing missions, they would keep earning money, and later they could just buy whatever they wanted directly. Wouldn’t that be much more convenient?
But for them, the wiggle car was a crucial escape vehicle, so they had to find a way to make it reach its basic form before the apocalypse arrived.
All that rice and water, and it only counted as 0.01 stockpile amount?
Wei Cheng suddenly had an idea and searched for large appliances, starting with refrigerators.
Three options popped up.
- Connected side-by-side + four-door refrigerator (preservation period: 50 years) — 40 Twisty Coins
- Four-door refrigerator (preservation period: 10 years) — 10 Twisty Coins
- Side-by-side refrigerator (preservation period: 5 years) — 5 Twisty Coins
There was a little question mark under the words preservation period. When he tapped it, an explanation appeared: a 50-year preservation period meant that as long as any item was stored in the refrigerator, it would remain in perfect condition for fifty years.
Wei Cheng thought for a moment. He decided to settle things once and for all and directly bought the refrigerator that cost 40 Twisty Coins.
The instant he bought it, the display changed:
[Twisty Coin Balance: 57]
[Safe House Stockpile Amount: 1]
[Wiggle Car Transformation Level: Basic Form 1 (Reach 10 to unlock two-person escape)]
That money had absolutely not been wasted. So the more expensive the stockpiled goods were, the faster the wiggle car’s transformation progress would increase!
Wei Cheng then rapidly stocked up on another hundred bags of 20 kg premium rice and a hundred bags of 25 kg premium flour. He also did not forget to stockpile a hundred barrels of soybean oil. In addition, he bought fifty cups of rich broth instant noodles, fifty cups of children’s instant noodles, twenty cartons of 100 latiao (spicy strips a popular Chinese snack) of 60 g ham sausages, and twenty cartons of 100 sticks of 30 g additive-free children’s pure beef sausages and fish sausages. There were thirty kinds of braised meat self-heating rice meals, and he bought four boxes of each, for a total of 120 boxes.
The appliances in the mall could only be used inside the safe house. If they were surviving outside, they could only rely on gas canisters and portable cassette stoves.
After thinking it over, Wei Cheng only bought an electric kettle, a rice cooker, and a frying pan for the safe house, while stockpiling a hundred gas stoves and a hundred cassette stoves first.
This way, he spent another thirty-five thousand yuan.
At that point, the Twisty Coin balance was down to twenty-two thousand yuan, and the other two values had also changed.
[Twisty Coin Balance: 22]
[Safe House Stockpile Amount: 2]
[Wiggle Car Transformation Level: Basic Form 2 (Reach 10 to unlock two-person escape)]
So roughly forty thousand yuan could be exchanged for 1 point of stockpile amount and 1 point of transformation level.
The pressure that had been lodged in Wei Cheng’s chest gradually began to ease.
For a long time to come, he and Guanguan would not have to go hungry.
Right now, the top priority was doing missions, stockpiling goods, and upgrading the escape wiggle car, so there was no need to hurry back to the countryside to dig up the gold.
Suddenly, he heard a rustling sound beside him. Turning his head, he saw Guanguan rubbing his eyes and slowly pushing himself upright from the little bed.
“Big brother.”
Freshly awake, Guanguan looked fluffy all over, and his voice was like a baby kitten’s. “Where’s the candy…?”
“Look by your bedside.”
“Melon-melon.”
Guanguan’s eyes opened a little wider. Huffing and puffing, he hugged two green honey melons to himself, not even knowing how to be happy enough. He kept rubbing and pressing his little face against them. “They’re fragrant melon-melons.”
