After three days of inner turmoil, Shen Cheng knew deep down that she was deceiving herself, but her calmness had not led her to a conclusion.
However, even if she didn’t find a way out of the tangle, as soon as the deadline passed, she eagerly opened her phone. Her fingers seemed to have a mind of their own as they quickly tapped on the game icon. Her heart was racing with excitement and the feeling of waiting was so agonizing that she didn’t even want to wait for a second.
As the game loaded quickly and she saw the familiar screen, Shen Cheng felt a vague sense of relief deep within her.
During the 72 hours that she hadn’t played the game, a hidden worry in her heart was whether anything had happened to cub or the base. In addition, the mission to fend off the zombie siege in a month’s time was urgent, and Shen Cheng knew that logging off at this time was a somewhat irresponsible act towards cub.
The first thing Shen Cheng did after opening the game was not to say hello to Li Weilan, as she usually did, but to deceive herself by opening the “base” page to check that everything seemed to be running smoothly and that no unexpected events had occurred. Only then did she slightly relax.
After hesitating for a moment, Shen Cheng opened the main character page.
In a rare scene, cub was sitting in the field of his space, looking at the field in front of him, which was gradually turning from green to golden. He rested his chin on his hand, lost in thought, and she didn’t know what he was thinking about.
Perhaps sensing her arrival, cub looked towards her direction, with a soft expression. Although Shen Cheng saw a deep and meaningful depth in his clear eyes, he greeted her, “Good evening, Cheng.”
The expression seemed to be able to penetrate the screen and understand every bit of her anxiety and entanglement in the past three days.
Shen Cheng’s heart trembled.
In the moment when she met cub’s eyes, she knew that all the emotional control in the past three days was about deceiving herself.
She thought of him, cared for him, and even more than anyone else in her own world.
However, what could she do? He was just…a paper man who didn’t exist in reality, whom she couldn’t touch or be with.
Shen Cheng’s gaze trembled, and her voice involuntarily became more emotional as she spoke: “Good evening, Li Weilan.”
Li Weilan keenly felt something was off.
Her voice wasn’t steady, unlike the usual one that carried a full of vitality and sunshine, but as if it had a shade of gloom. Her voice was trembling, but she tried to cover it up.
Did something happen?
Li Weilan thought for a moment and didn’t ask directly. Instead, he said, “Cheng, we all missed you during the past three days when you were gone.”
He seemed to pause slightly when he said “we,” and his words were so vague that it seemed like he was about to swallow the word “we.”
Roughly speaking, cub said that he missed me!
Shen Cheng’s face turned slightly red and she couldn’t help but express her true thoughts: “I miss you…all too.”
After a moment of contemplation, she decided to be honest and added, “But of course, the person I miss the most is you.”
Every moment, she was thinking of him, wondering why she kept dreaming of him. Basically, she missed him.
Li Weilan was surprised and speechless for a moment, not expecting such a sweet response from her.
Although he tried to hide his own feelings, she didn’t seem to care about the weight of her words, causing a huge ripple in his heart.
But it made sense. Her type of missing was probably different from his.
“Cheng Cheng, were you busy these past three days?” Li Weilan asked her.
“Very busy!” Shen Cheng replied firmly, not willing to admit that she didn’t go online due to inner conflict. There was no hesitation or guilt in her tone, “Work is really busy!”
“…,” Li Weilan sensed that her answer was just an excuse and he wanted to ask about her job and if there were any problems. However, since she sounded so confident, he guessed that nothing was wrong after all.
He let out a small sigh of relief.
“Let’s observe a little longer,” he said to himself.
He stood up from the field and dusted off his pants and pointed to the warehouse next to them. “All the harvest from these three days is in the warehouse. The base has now established a very efficient scavenging mechanism, and the spoils of scavenging belong to the members of each team. Some of it is contributed to the base, but there are too few items that can be exchanged for credit points at the moment. We need to increase the types of items that can be exchanged.”
As he spoke, Shen Cheng was selling the harvest in the warehouse. They had harvested 180 portions of rice in the thirty plots of land over the past three days. Sixty portions were used as seeds for replanting, so the current harvest was a total of 240G. In addition, the base had earned 150G per day from scavenging, so the base had stored 390G during the few days she was away. She listened to the sound of gold coins being added to her account and to what he was saying.
She instantly understood what Li Weilan meant: they needed to introduce “entertainment” and “luxury goods” to the base!
Shen Cheng thought about it for a moment. She hadn’t figured out what to buy yet, but Li Weilan had already given her a suggestion: “Vegetables and fruits are currently the first choice. The base now has a great chef. If we can increase the variety of food in the base, we should be able to greatly improve the satisfaction of the residents.”
Shen Cheng opened the profile of the base’s population and was surprised to find that Li Weilan was right.
The result of the lack of vegetables and fruits was that many people in the base suffered from constipation and fever. Even if they managed to find some pre-apocalyptic vitamin pills, living underground without sunlight already made them prone to vitamin D deficiency, and coupled with the lack of intake of animal organs and the like, most of the people in the base had some nutritional imbalance problems.
In fact, compared to those people in the wasteland who are satisfied with just having a meal, the lives of the people in the base are much better, and they do not complain. However, looking at the debuffs above their heads, Shen Cheng felt that life in the apocalypse was too difficult.
She spent 80G to buy bean seeds and another 100G to buy cabbage seeds. These two types of vegetables are relatively easy to grow and produce a lot of yield, making them a suitable choice. Bean sprouts can be made into stir-fried bean sprouts, braised bean sprouts, while cabbage can be made into pickled cabbage, braised cabbage, and can also be paired with noodles and other types of pasta, providing a variety of options to prevent getting tired of eating the same thing.
**
When Li Weilan entered the research room, Fu Yanzhou was busy with his research on the ability charging car – this research has been going on for a while and is currently stuck on the stability of the battery.
The reasons for several previous research failures were due to the unstable voltage of the ability charging which directly caused the battery to explode, or the poor stability of this type of car on bumpy external roads. Fu Yanzhou has been stuck in the energy application of this car for some time, and he has not found a breakthrough. At this time, he looked haggard, with a scruffy beard, and a sallow complexion.
Seeing Li Weilan, Fu Yanzhou’s voice was also hoarse: “What’s the matter?”
“Seeds.” Li Weilan put down what she was holding. She explained briefly, “Don’t ask me where these seeds come from, just put your name on them. Don’t ask any more questions.”
Fu Yanzhou picked up the plant seeds on the table.
He found an instrument and tested it, and his expression changed.
Li Weilan stood with his arms crossed, watching him manipulate the instrument. He repeated, “Don’t ask too much,” only after Fu Yanzhou tested and saw a shocking 0% pollution level from the seeds in his hand. Even before the apocalypse, this value would have caused a sensation and attracted the attention of the wealthy. If taken outside, Noah would become an instant paradise that everyone would flock to. Even if taken to their laboratory, the source of the seeds would still be repeatedly questioned.
Li Weilan told him not to ask too much…
Fu Yanzhou’s hand trembled nervously, and his inner turmoil lasted for a long time before he slowly asked, “But if that’s the case… what about the people at the base?” Although he was socially anxious, he was not socially foolish. He knew that once all these achievements became his, there would be consequences, and the result would be that some people in the base would be very, very grateful to him. And this kind of adoration would be a challenge to the management of the base.
Fu Yanzhou was not an ambitious person.
Putting aside his guilt towards Li Weilan, he had no intention of seizing power.
So he keenly felt the risks behind the seeds and bluntly asked about them.
Li Weilan looked at him with a flicker in his eyes but did not explain his arrangements. Instead, he asked straightforwardly, “Can you do it?”
Fu Yanzhou hesitated for a long time while looking at Li Weilan’s determined gaze before nodding.
After Li Weilan left, Fu Yanzhou took the seeds and went to find Xi Bei.
Xi Bei slowly inputted her plant-type ability into the seeds in front of her. When she felt the abundant and active vitality, Xi Bei let out a comfortable moan. She felt like she finally touched a certain obstacle in her ability.
She knew that this was a sign that her ability was about to advance.
Her ability was already at the second stage and was about to advance to the third stage. In the base, she produced a large number of seeds and planted a lot of breadfruit trees. Every day, she used up her ability and slowly recovered it. There was no doubt that this was extremely beneficial for her ability.
The main reason why Xi Bei’s ability could not advance in the past was that the plants she produced contained violent energy. After producing them, she often had to spend a lot of time waiting for her body to reject these violent abilities. If the rest time was not enough, it would cause a riot and damage to her ability, eventually leading to an ability outbreak.
But it was different in Noah.
These seeds…
Xi Bei looked at Fu Yanzhou with a shocked and doubtful expression in her eyes. Fu Yanzhou couldn’t face her gaze that was once admiration but now turned into a playful look. He even lowered his head slightly, pursed his lips, and remained silent. His face was faintly red: he felt guilty under her gaze.
Xi Bei smiled, and her voice was crisp as she said, “Fu Yanzhou, did you do something wrong? You can’t even look at me?”
Translated on ho lo lo novels dot com.
Fu Yanzhou muttered in a low voice, “I’m just here to deliver the seeds. I’m done now. I have to go and be busy.”
Xi Bei’s eyes flickered, and she clapped her hands and smiled, “Fu Yanzhou, you know you’re really bad at lying!”
Fu Yanzhou raised his head in confusion, looking lost and bewildered. Obviously, he had no idea how she had figured it out.
“Isn’t it the seed you purified?” Xi Bei asked with a smirk, seeing Fu Yanzhou’s blank expression. It suddenly dawned on her.
That made sense.
An uncontaminated good breed was just as astonishing as the Noah Base.
Since the technology existed in the base, it was impossible to keep it a secret forever. However, now that it was public, could Fu Yanzhou, who was afraid of social interactions, withstand others’ repeated questioning? It was probably impossible for him to keep the secret.
Xi Bei poured a small amount of slightly contaminated water from her bottle into the cultivation solution in the hydroponic room – it was just a small amount of water, not from the base’s supply, but from her own bottle. This way, although the contamination level was not high, it wasn’t completely nonexistent, which made it seem more believable. She turned around and saw Fu Yanzhou’s suddenly enlightened expression. Xi Bei smiled and said, “Now it’s seamless!” It was nine parts true and one part false. If anyone found out, there would be less trouble. A small amount of contamination would not have a significant impact on the people who consumed the food in the base, and it would naturally be eliminated after a while.
Fu Yanzhou scratched his head in confusion, whispered a thank you, and prepared to leave, but Xi Bei suddenly grabbed his sleeve and looked at him with her big sparkling eyes. “Fu Yanzhou, I helped you cover up such a big loophole, how are you going to thank me?”
“… ” Fu Yanzhou stepped back two steps, and her sudden approach almost tore his sleeves.
Xi Bei wasn’t discouraged, looking at him as he was about to run out the door, and said with a slight smile, “My birthday is coming up in a few days. You have to give me a little gift!”