Chapter 202

Zhou Qi was slightly stunned when he heard Tang Yu'an's words.

Should we drive the RV to the center of the deserted city to rescue Old Xie? It seems... it's not impossible.

As long as the RV is in a closed state, the protective barrier is open around the clock. As long as the obstacles on the road can be solved, the safety is even higher than building a life passage with a fence wall.

"What you said makes sense. Let's give it a try." Zhou Qi nodded.

Tang Yu'an chuckled and rubbed his hands excitedly. He could finally go and rescue Old Xie!

"Let's go!"

Of course, they needed to do some more planning before setting off.

It’s mainly about finding a suitable path, and then clearing the obstacles in the way more smoothly.

Now they are piling the debris on the road behind the car, but after rescuing Lao Xie, they need to return to the original route, so naturally they have to clear a real road.

So, Tang Yu'an expanded the RV's protective barrier outward by another 10 meters.

A total of 10,000 points and 1,000 store popularity points were spent. Since Haijing was still left in Ping'an Grocery Store, the main store's popularity was not lacking for the time being.

After determining the general route, they officially set off.

Tang Yu'an first used the item list function to gather all the gravel and debris within a 10-meter radius of the RV to the left area.

Zhou Qi drove the car to the right again to prevent the pile of debris on the left from collapsing and hitting the RV.

Then he got out of the car and used his earth-related abilities to clear away the building debris or trees that were blocking the road in front of the RV and could not be moved.

After the road surface is leveled, Tang Yu'an will pave the cement road.

It is not difficult to operate and there is almost no danger, but it is rather troublesome and tedious.

Basically, you need to stop as long as you move forward 10 meters and repeat the above steps.

Zhou Qi treated this as a practice of earth-based abilities, and Tang Yu'an gradually calmed down from his initial excitement.

While Zhou Qi was clearing the roadblocks, he took out his exercises to do.

He hadn't studied much since he came back from three months of seclusion in the other dimension. Now that he has rested long enough, he has to continue to speed up his study progress.

He hopes to complete the remaining junior high school courses within half a year.

The RV moved slowly towards the center of the deserted city. After they left, the road section cleared behind would be covered by floods again.

Tang Yu'an used the location marking function of the map to mark this paved road.

At this time, he couldn't help but think, it would be great if he could print out the system map... or load it into the RV, so it would be much more convenient to drive!

However, this will probably have to wait until his merchant level reaches Lv25 and the driving system upgrade is unlocked.

Before I knew it, it was evening.

Because the protective barrier extends outward by 10 meters, this 10-meter range covers the space above the RV.

Then the water layer above the RV was pushed away, revealing the sky above.

In the evening, orange light poured down from the round sky, surrounded by a swaying wall of water, in which creatures of all sizes were swimming.

The two teenagers sat on top of the RV, spread out a picnic blanket and ate dinner.

Tang Yu'an ate the delicious barbecue, drank a glass of freshly squeezed juice, and admired the sky dyed orange by the sunset. He felt extremely comfortable at the moment.

Perhaps it was because he finally had a way to contact his family. When he thought of the bottle full of supplies heading to the original world, he felt more relaxed than ever before.

I haven’t been this happy in a long time!

Tang Yu'an looked at Zhou Qi beside him and found that his eyes had also fallen on him at some point.

When their eyes met, Zhou Qi paused, then turned his head away uncomfortably, pretending to be busy picking up a piece of barbecue and eating it.

Tang Yu'an didn't notice his abnormality, smiled and said, "Brother Xiaoqi, thank you!"

He picked up the juice and said, "Let's have a toast!"

Zhou Qi looked at him again, and seeing the bright smile on the boy's face, he also curled up the corners of his mouth, "I said, there's no need to say thank you between us."

Then he picked up the Star Chain Juice and clinked glasses with Tang Yu'an.

Tang Yu'an grinned, then gulped down the juice in one gulp, then sighed comfortably and fell back on the roof of the RV.

As night fell, Zhou Qi took a blanket and covered him.

This blanket is made of plush cloth and room temperature cloth. It feels furry and comfortable, but not too thin to keep warm.

Tang Yu'an smiled and suddenly pointed to the sky and said, "There are stars tonight!"

Zhou Qi also looked up.

Sure enough, stars lit up in the dark night sky. Although I had seen such night views before when camping in the wild, my mood was particularly different when I saw it again at this moment.

Maybe it’s because their home is here and there is a protective barrier.

Zhou Qi looked for a while, then looked away again, and unknowingly his eyes fell on Tang Yu'an again.

The young man put his hands behind his head and crossed his legs, looking very comfortable.

After a while, he lay down too.

"Brother Xiaoqi." The young man's voice suddenly sounded in the silence.

"Um?"

"It's great to have you around."

Zhou Qi's heart moved, he turned his head to look at Tang Yu'an, the young man was also looking at him, his clear and bright eyes slightly curved, flashing with a light more moving than starlight.

"You must always stay with me in the future, and we should never be separated."

Zhou Qi looked at him, feeling the throbbing in his heart, but he knew clearly... the boy had a different feeling from him.

Before his emotions were noticed, he turned his head to look at the starry sky again and said "OK" softly.

"Never separate..."

Hearing him muttering these words, Tang Yu'an laughed happily, then squeezed closer to Zhou Qi and counted the stars in the sky with him.

At this moment they forgot all their worries, as if they were back in their childhood, and everything they did was fun.

After they had enough fun, they went to the other dimension to sleep. After they had recovered, they returned to the original dimension and continued to drive the RV to build roads.

After a simple calculation, they found that the straight-line distance between them and Lao Xie was more than 20 kilometers.

There will inevitably be some immovable roadblocks on the road, and at this time you can only take a detour, so the entire road is at least more than 25 kilometers.

Because we also need to build water wheels and develop grasslands, and deal with the affairs of various branches, it is impossible to spend all our time on road construction.

If the remaining time is used to repair the road, only five or six hundred meters can be repaired a day.

So this is not a big project that can be completed in a short period of time, and Lao Xie can only stay underwater for a while longer.

Fortunately, he can now attend classes and read forums, so his life should be much better.

He has now completed the primary school curriculum and unlocked the junior high school curriculum. Starting from junior high school, the speed of unlocking courses has slowed down significantly.

This inevitably gave Tang Yu'an a sense of urgency, and he began to catch up with his lagging learning progress.

On the second night after they started building the road, Lan Yunqing completed the "new employee assessment" and successfully obtained the admission benefits of Store No. 5.

Yes, it took him less than three days to reach 2,000 store popularity points!

700 transactions are completed very stably every day!

Lord Lanhu is so terrifying.

-

Lanhu Town, Store No. 5.

After the task completion prompt popped up, Lan Yunqing decisively ended today's transaction, and then came to the original location of Store No. 5 under the gaze of the people.

However, unlike what he imagined, even if he completed the task, he could not see the "Lanhu Grocery Store".

Fortunately, Mo Ke hadn't left yet and was beside him explaining, "I can't see it either. Just walk forward and you'll see it."

So, Lan Yunqing followed his guidance and walked forward tentatively.

This time he was not blocked by the transparent barrier and entered smoothly, and saw the hut again.

It still looks ordinary, but in Lan Yunqing's eyes it has a bit of mystery.

Because he did not hide his figure, many people in the town saw him enter the shop and gathered around him out of curiosity.

People were whispering, but Lan Yunqing was not in a hurry to explain.

He walked into the grocery store and scanned the inside and outside of the house with his mental power, but didn't find anything strange, until -

He sent his mental power deep underground and discovered a blind spot.

Lan Yunqing opened his eyes, observed for a while, and soon came to the entrance of the basement.

Unfortunately, when he opened the entrance to the basement, he could only see pitch black. He reached out to touch it, but was blocked by an invisible layer.

[You do not have the relevant permissions, prohibited from entering]

He couldn't help but look at Mo Ke who followed him in and asked, "What's down there? Can you get in?"

"You can't get in?" Mo Ke thought for a moment and said, "Maybe you haven't received full recognition yet."

"Does that mean you can come in?"

"Yes."

Lan Yunqing pursed her lips. Although she was a little unhappy, she also understood that there was nothing that could be done about it, so she nodded and said nothing more.

He stared at the basement entrance for a long time, then looked away. Just as he was about to go out and explain things to his subjects, he saw the system prompt pop up again.

[Congratulations! Triggering the elite mission "Branch Manager Assessment"]

[Description: Due to your outstanding performance in the new employee assessment, the mysterious merchant has decided to conduct a branch manager assessment on you to determine if you are qualified to become the branch manager of Store No. 5.]

[Task content: Upgrade store No. 5 to level 1 (upgrade conditions: 3000 store popularity points, 10000 points)]

[Reward: Promoted to Branch Manager of Store No. 5]

After reading the new news, Lan Yunqing was stunned.

The branch manager of store No. 5?

Does this mean that he will have jurisdiction over the entire No. 5 store? He frowned in thought, but felt that it shouldn't be that simple.

After all, this task is too simple.

He looked at the store popularity of Store No. 5: 2120, and then looked at his own personal points: 9625.

Since accepting the recruitment, he has completed at least 500 transactions every day without fail. Although he slacked off for a few days after the mother tree recovered, he has increased his transaction volume to 700 transactions per day in the past three days.

Every profitable transaction earns him 1 point. After deducting the amount he has used, he still has a balance of nearly 10,000 points.

He will be able to complete the task in two days at most.

So Lan Yunqing thought this task was very simple.

He temporarily closed the interface, then left the grocery store and came under the awning at the front door.

Although he was only two steps away, people outside could not see him, and could neither enter nor attack him. It was truly a shocking power.

If this barrier can be expanded to the entire town and all the people can be protected, Lan Yunqing will have absolute confidence that he and his people can survive in this wasteland forever!

Of course, he did not announce this matter to the public at this time.

Lan Yunqing walked out of the protective barrier and appeared in front of the people again. Then he announced to them that he had joined the Shangshen Sect.

The crowd was in an uproar.

This was probably the first official appearance of the Shangshen Cult in the wasteland.

“It’s a very moral religion.”

Lan Yunqing said to the crowd, "The Merchant God Cult believes in the God of Commerce. They use business as a means to seek welfare for all the poor and weak, so that more people can survive in this wasteland."

While everyone was discussing, Lan Yunqing spoke again solemnly.

"This time, Lanhu Town was able to safely overcome the difficulties, and the mother tree was able to survive the mutant insect crisis, all thanks to the help of the Shangshen Cult."

Nothing could be more weighty than these words. After hearing the truth explained by Lan Yunqing, all the doubts disappeared.

"Could it be that those two young men, and Lord Kang Kang, are also from the Shangshen Sect?"

"That's right!" Lan Yunqing said loudly, "They are messengers from the Shangshen Cult, specially sent to save the Mother Tree."

He pondered for a moment, then continued, "In fact, the mother tree began to weaken over a year ago. I asked Qingmu Fort for help, but they never responded after taking the blue beard leaves."

The people in the territory naturally knew that their town belonged to Qingmu Castle and that it was the previous lord who took the lead in joining.

They have obtained a lot of supplies from Qingmu Fort over the years, but they have also paid a lot of blue beard leaves as tribute. When they heard that Qingmu Fort had taken the things and disappeared without a trace, the people were immediately filled with indignation.

"When I was most desperate, it was the envoy of the Shangshen Cult who extended a helping hand to Lanhu Town."

Lan Yunqing guessed that the mysterious businessman who appeared in Xiao Risheng's dream should be a messenger of God, and he didn't know whether it was Wu Yue or Yin Guang.

"The Shangshen Cult first provided us with brown rice, then sent two envoys. After discovering the problem, they invited Master Kang Kang."

"So, I joined the Shangshen Cult."

Lan Yunqing finally said, "So far, this is my personal behavior, but I can guarantee that I will never do anything that will harm Lanhu Town. I guarantee it with my life."

After hearing about the help that Shangshen Sect provided to Lanhu Town, basically no townspeople opposed this matter.

On the contrary, they understood Lan Yunqing very well.

"So this transparent wall that can hide shops and block outsiders is also a power of the Merchant God Cult?"

Lan Yunqing nodded.

"Then can we join too? If we become followers of the Shangshen Cult, can we enter this transparent wall like the Lord?"

Lan Yunqing shook his head and said, "It requires the approval of the gods."

He didn't explain any further, said goodbye to his subjects, and then disappeared from the spot, leaving his subjects to digest the situation on their own.

Soon Lan Maolin and others came over.

Lan Yunqing explained to them again and calmed everyone down before returning to his residence tiredly.

With seven hundred transactions every day, even if he doesn't need to solicit customers, the repetitive mechanical work alone is extremely physically demanding.

He lay in bed, but couldn't sleep.

So Lan Yunqing opened the employee forum, glanced at the message board, then skillfully opened the communication area and entered a payment post he had purchased.

The poster of this post is "Green as Blue".

Yes, after discovering that Lan Yunqing had been transferred to another store and they had lost the soil for small group chats, Chi Hao actually came up with a quick idea and found another way -

Use payment stickers for private chat.

He first posted a thread in the communication area titled "Boring test post, do not enter". After posting a few meaningless symbols in the first few floors, he turned the post into a paid post and set a high score of 1,000 points.

Subsequent comments will be automatically locked, and only those who have purchased them with points can view and reply to them.

Thus, the environment for private chat was created.

After Chi Hao learned that Lan Yunqing's employee level had reached lv16, he almost broke down.

Of course, he quickly got back on his feet and then set the payment sticker to be available only to employees above level 16, which served as another layer of insurance.

This way they can feel free to leave messages to each other in the post.

Even Tang Yu'an and Zhou Qi hadn't thought of using this method to chat privately - after all, they had an administrator channel and didn't have any trouble in this regard.

Before Lan Yunqing clicked on the post, he saw the update reminder.

He raised his eyebrows slightly, clicked on the post with some anticipation, jumped to the historical browsing level, and then scrolled down a little to see Chi Hao's new message.

[Green as Blue]: I hunted a mutant pig today. It's got a lot of meat, definitely several hundred pounds! Even though I burned it, after cutting off the skin, the meat inside is still edible.

[Green as Blue]: I can’t finish it anyway, so I’ll sell it to you at a super low price in the trading area. You can eat it yourself or give it to others.

[Green as Blue]: We still have to eat meat. How can people just eat leaves!

[Green as Blue]: When you come online, please leave a message on the message board and I will post it in the trading area to prevent it from being snatched away by others.

Lan Yunqing looked at Chi Hao's message and curled up the corners of his mouth unconsciously.

He opened the message board as instructed.

-

In the wild, Chi Hao lit a bonfire.

Next to him was a mutant pig missing both hind legs. One leg was sold to Yunying, and the other was given to Tang Yu'an and Zhou Qi through the portable warehouse.

He was listening to a third-grade science class, glancing at the message board from time to time.

Because he didn't have a clock, he didn't know the time, so he could only check the message board again and again, not wanting to miss the time when Lan Yunqing came online.

The message board is relatively quiet today. I guess it's time for Panshi and the others to go to the movies again.

Chi Hao was just wondering whether he should make a post himself when he saw a new message pop up on the message board.

【Red beats fire】: squeak

Chi Hao was stunned, Lan Yunqing's face and voice unconsciously appeared in his mind, and then... his blood tank was emptied in an instant!

-

Tang Yu'an and Zhou Qi naturally knew that Chi Hao and Lan Yunqing used paid posts to have private conversations.

After all, one of them is the highest authority holder and the other is the moderator of the communication area.

However, apart from thinking that the idea was great and taking a look at it during the review, they did not use their authority to peek again afterwards.

However, judging from the reply records, they didn’t talk about anything special. They just chatted about their daily lives and communicated with each other like friends.

So after telling Old Li about this special method, they no longer paid attention to it.

While they were diligently building the road, the newly hired Wen Qingqing was also quickly getting started and found a stable way to earn points and experience points.

First, she completed the guided task and, after testing with her mother, concluded that she could make a profit by trading a bucket of ice for a fire stone.

Then Wen Qingqing contacted the army as planned, saying that the 300 fire stones could be traded to the soldiers, but she had conditions.

That means the army must send 300 soldiers, each of whom brings ice cubes to trade the fire stones from her personally.

In the end, the military agreed to her request, which sounded a bit rude.

After all, these 300 fire stones were equivalent to being given to the military for free. The Wen mother and daughter might have heard some bad rumors, so they wanted to hand over these supplies to the soldiers personally.

In any case, the military had no reason to reject these 300 magical stones that could generate continuous heat.

So on the third day after being recruited, 300 soldiers lined up in front of Wen Qingqing's house, each bringing a large block of ice to trade fire stones with Wen Qingqing.

These soldiers were all very young. Their noses were red and their bodies were shivering from the cold, but they were still unwilling to drop the large blocks of ice they were carrying.

They looked at the fire stones thrown in the Wen family yard, feeling the heat they emitted, with hope flashing in their eyes.

With these fire stones, they might have a little more chance of survival when facing the ice and snow monster!

"Put it in an iron box and don't grab it with your hands, otherwise you will get burned." Wen Qingqing repeatedly emphasized the key points to the soldiers.

The soldiers smiled innocently and nodded, carefully placed the fire stone in an iron box covered with fireproof cloth, saluted Wen Qingqing, turned around and ran to the back of the team to wait.

"Sister Qingqing, can these ice cubes really be turned into these heating stones?"

Because the fire stones piled up in the yard made the ice melt easily, after the transaction was successful, Wen Qingqing directed the neighbor's younger brother to move the ice to their yard first.

"Otherwise, where do you think these fire stones came from?"

With the military's connection, the street administrators no longer dared to embarrass the mother and daughter. These 300 Fire Stones were left for two days, and no one dared to snatch them.

Of course, there were always people who came to their yard to take advantage of the warmth, but Wen Qingqing did not drive them away.

So on the third day of becoming an employee, Wen Qingqing's employee level was directly upgraded to level 6, and she successfully obtained access to the employee forum.

She immediately posted a purchase request on the message board.

[Qingxue]: Buying Fire Stones, buying Fire Stones in large quantities, the price is negotiable!

Before others could react, she continued to post information.

[Qingxue]: Ice for sale! Large, pure ice cubes, as much as you want! Hurry and get yours!

Before she could continue to swipe the screen to send messages, messages from other employees popped up.

[Little Noisy]: You sell ice? The kind that melts into water?

[Qingxue]: Yes! That kind of ice!

[Little Noise]: Can the melted water be drunk?

[Qingxue]: It is pure and natural and pollution-free. It is fine to drink it directly, but it is still recommended to boil it before drinking.

[Little Noisy]: I have Fire Stone! Sell me the ice!

The residents of the Flame Dragon and Ice Flame regions finally had an epic meeting today!

The author has something to say:

Anzai: Wow! So relieved [milk tea]