Chapter 55

Seeing that Binglin was in much better spirits, Qiao Ning took it to take a bath. It was too weak in the early morning, and Qiao Ning didn't dare to touch it too hard, let alone give it a bath.

Icescale had always resisted her helping it wash, and now that it was time for a proper bath, it was even more resistant, insisting that it wash itself.

"I'm off now. Use your paw to pull the switch to the left for hot water, and to the right for cold water. The green jar over there contains shower gel. By the way, can you use shower gel? Don't get a skin disease from washing it."

Remember to turn off the shower after you're done. If you want to take a bath, there's a bathtub over there. I don't like using that, but feel free to use it. Just turn on the tap; it's hot on the left and cold on the right.

Qiao Ning had already closed the door and left, but suddenly turned back and opened it again. She happened to see Bing Lin stepping into the bathtub, which immediately caused Bing Lin to howl as if he had been spied on and molested.

Qiao Ning couldn't help but laugh, which made Bing Lin even angrier.

"Okay, okay, I'll be right there. I just wanted to tell you that there are fresh flower petals next to the bathtub. You can put some in when you take a bath, and you'll smell wonderful afterward."

"Ouch."

Qiao Ning really closed the door and left this time; she still had to collect the supply boxes.

Radiation levels increase gradually from around noon to 4 PM, reaching a peak of 40 points, before gradually decreasing after 4 PM. By 8 PM, as night falls, radiation levels drop below 10 points, or even to zero.

There were even more supply boxes in the afternoon; Qiao Ning picked up four in just one hour.

It took Qiao Ning about two hours to bathe and dry the dog; she was worried it would wash itself raw. When it finally came out clean and refreshed, it looked like a completely different dog.

Its original color looked grayish-black, but after washing it, I realized that it wasn't grayish-black at all; it was clearly yellowish-brown, with only a small tuft of reddish fur at the tip of its tail.

Qiao Ning had expected it to make a mess of the bathroom, but when she went in, she found that everything had been neatly put back in its original place, and all the bottles and jars looked as if they had been scrubbed clean.

Even the disinfectant showed signs of use, indicating it was likely used for cleaning and disinfecting the bathroom.

Qiao Ning was truly touched. Who wouldn't love a dog that can bathe and dry itself, and even help clean the bathroom?

Qiao Ning picked up the dog and rubbed against it repeatedly. Bing Lin obediently let her rub against it, though the dog's face showed a hint of helplessness.

After petting the dog, Qiao Ning had to continue collecting supply boxes and counting supplies.

Ice Scale watched for a while, then barked twice.

Qiao Ning looked at it questioningly: "You want to try it too?"

Ice Scale nodded.

Only Qiao Ning can open the storage compartment in the car, but once opened, it will remain open unless Qiao Ning closes it herself.

Whenever there was a supply crate, the little dog Icescale would jump off the vehicle to pick it up. Once back on the vehicle, it would spit the crate out of its mouth, leaving it clean and without a trace of drool.

Qiao Ning then realized that Ice Scale had another space inside its mouth or abdomen, somewhat similar to the innate abilities of mythical beasts in some fantasy novels and movies.

It looks like a puppy, but its running and jumping abilities are astonishing. The height of a level 5 motorhome's single door is too high for most people to climb onto, but Icescale can easily leap onto it.

It's worth noting that Qiao Ning is 1.78 meters tall with long legs, which is why she didn't look awkward when getting in and out of the car.

The vehicle actually has a mechanical claw that can help pick up supply crates, but that thing consumes electricity; starting it once uses up a lot of gasoline. It's useful when there aren't many supply crates.

Supply crates are appearing frequently now, and she's been using the mechanical claw all the time, which is consuming a lot of electricity. Even if she has gasoline, she can't afford to waste it like that.

So Qiao Ning picked up the supply crates herself whenever possible. Now that Bing Lin was helping, it was even easier. She didn't even have to organize the supplies; Bing Lin had everything perfectly arranged by herself.

This little puppy is incredibly hardworking.

To reward Binglin for its hard work for the family, Qiao Ning prepared a variety of meals for it.

The meal features a variety of dishes, including both meat and vegetables, and is visually appealing, fragrant, and delicious. Each meal consists of eight dishes and a soup, with ample staple food. Desserts, fruits, and snacks such as sunflower seeds are also provided afterward.

Occasionally, when they encounter treasure-guarding monsters, Qiao Ning needs to go down and deal with them. Ice Scale is currently small and weak, possessing nothing except for a spatial talent. It can't handle the treasure-guarding monsters. But things might change in a while.

The treasure-guarding monsters that Qiao Ning encountered during this natural disaster were all the most ordinary goblins, from wooden club goblins to spiked club goblins, and their colors changed several times, but their strength did not seem to increase much.

Qiao Ning rarely encounters them; she might only encounter one once in ten or more attempts to collect supply crates.

At 8 p.m., Qiao Ning turned off the engine and parked the car to take stock of the supplies she had collected that afternoon.

As evening approached, the supply crates appeared less frequently, so from noon to 8 pm, she collected a total of 18 supply crates, including 10 platinum crates, 4 silver crates, 3 bronze crates, and 1 iron crate.

Blind Box Coins Balance: 30.

Since the last natural disaster, Qiao Ning has deeply realized the importance of accumulating Wish Box Coins. As long as there are Wish Box Coins, there is hope for solving the problem. In critical moments, every extra Wish Box Coin means one more chance.

The supplies from opening 18 supply crates were less than what I got from opening 12 supply crates this morning. After all, there were two gold treasure crates this morning. Gold treasure crates are quite rewarding.

Medications: 20 rolls of hemostatic bandage, 200 wads of sterile cotton, 50 vials of antidote, 20 vials of radiation scavenger, 100 tablets of analgesic, 100 vials of anesthetic.

Food: 10 jin of beef, 8 jin of mutton, 5 jin of pork ribs, 10 jin each of rice and wheat flour, 5 jin of pork and shepherd's purse dumplings, 10 jin of chive and egg dumplings, 3 jin of mutton dumplings, and 2 jin of beef dumplings.

When Qiao Ningqing pointed to this point, she was a little unsure of what to say. Although she loved dumplings and would sometimes make and eat them in the car, seeing so many dumplings all at once made one wonder if it was Chinese New Year.

Perhaps because there were too many dumplings, the supply box also thoughtfully included a bunch of seasonings: sesame oil, aged vinegar, chili oil, cooking wine, light soy sauce, and even several bottles of steamed fish soy sauce.

Qiao Ning enjoys cooking and often exchanges various seasonings in the trading area, so she won't need to buy seasonings for a long time now.

The total weight of fresh vegetables and fruits was ten pounds, no more and no less.

There were many daily necessities, knives, and tools. Qiao Ning even saw some digging shovels and the like, but she didn't know what they could be used for.

Perhaps because they had already driven out a considerable amount of gasoline and drinking water in the morning, they hadn't driven out any in the afternoon. Qiao Ning was already used to this kind of behavior in games and wasn't surprised.

The radiation levels were decreasing, but just to be on the safe side, Qiao Ning put on a radiation protection suit, got out of the car, and explored the unknown area beyond the highway.

She didn't want to take Icescale out, fearing some danger, but seeing its longing gaze through the window, she couldn't help but soften her heart. In the end, she couldn't resist its pleas, so she found an ordinary backpack, put it inside, and took it with her when she got off the bus.

She was worried about leaving the dog alone in the car.

After getting out of the car, Qiao Ning walked deeper into the street. After walking for about half an hour, she suddenly saw a faint light.

As I got a little closer, I realized it was actually a bonfire! A strange kind of meat was roasting over the fire. It looked quite fresh, but it smelled like meat that had been left out for more than ten days in the sweltering heat of over 30 degrees Celsius.

Qiao Ning didn't even dare to take a deep breath, afraid that the smell would make her vomit.

Less than a minute after Qiao Ning appeared, a shadow emerged from the dilapidated house, quickly ran to the campfire, and looked at her warily and fearfully.

"A pure natural being? And a woman at that... How did you end up in such a dangerous place as the surface? Aren't you afraid of radiation and mutated beasts? And those people in the underground city, how could they let you come out alone?"

Qiao Ning could understand what the other person was saying, but after careful observation, she realized that the creature opposite her was a human just like her, except that its body had undergone severe deformities and mutations.

Judging from her physical characteristics, she should also be a woman. Her facial features were slightly distorted, she had no eyebrows, sparse hair, and her arms and nails were abnormally long and bluish-black in color. There were ulcers all over her body.

Her back seemed unable to straighten, remaining constantly bent over.

This was the first time Qiao Ning had encountered a "human" in the road world. Even though she tried her best to appear harmless, the other party was still wary and even somewhat hostile towards her.

Qiao Ning saw the deformed woman hugging and gnawing on the rotten, smelly roasted meat. After thinking for a moment, she took out a piece of fragrant braised beef from the spatial backpack she was carrying on her back.

As soon as the braised beef was taken out, the deformed woman's bulging eyes stared at it intently, unable to look away, and a little drool even dripped from the corner of her mouth.

“Tell me your name.” Qiao Ning used a sharp knife to easily cut off a piece of beef and tossed it to her.

The deformed woman caught it and swallowed it impatiently. After chewing for a long time, she licked her lips and said, "We severely deformed, lowly surface wanderers don't have names. We only have a simple name for easy calling. Names are something only citizens of the underground city are entitled to."

"My name is Ying, the Ying of firefly. The woman who gave birth to me said that it is a beautiful insect that appears at night, as beautiful as stars. It's a pity that there are no such insects in the world now. Just like the night now, we can't see any stars."

Based on the background of the radiation disaster, Qiao Ning's thinking diverged, and she could roughly deduce that after the radiation disaster occurred in this world, humans hid underground and built cities.

Some with severe deformities and mutations were driven to the ground and became a group of vagrants.

Ying stared at the meat in Qiao Ning's hand: "Your meat smells very good, with no strange smell and almost no radiation energy. This must be the meat of a rare beast from the underground city. It is said that the most expensive one costs tens of thousands of low-level energy stones to buy a piece."

Are you a nobleman?

Qiao Ning shook her head. "Answer a few more questions for me, and I'll give you the rest of the meat."

Ying quickly replied, "As long as you can give me something to eat, it doesn't matter if it's not this kind of meat. Don't even mention answering a few questions, I'll do anything for you."

Qiao Ning asked her, "Are there many homeless people like you?"

"Much more. At least far more than humans like you who don't show the slightest trace of deformity or mutation."

"With such high ground radiation levels, how did you survive?"

"To eat, we need to gather edible plants from the ground and hunt certain edible mutated beasts. We drink their blood to quench our thirst. As for shelter, we hide in camps, but we have to pay for food below the level of intermediate radiation mutation as a lodging fee."

Plants and animals exposed to moderate to high levels of radiation should not be eaten. Eating them a few times will cause genetic damage, turning them into a pile of rotten flesh.

I had to live in the ruins because I couldn't pay the rent.

The camp was filled with other homeless people like myself, as well as some mercenaries out on missions. However, those mercenaries were far more ferocious and ruthless than the beasts; I usually avoided them.

Do you have any medications that can remove radiation energy from the body?

"Of course they exist, but the market is mostly controlled by people from the underground city, as well as those from the nomadic camps and black market camps. Small fry like us might never even get our hands on a bottle of radiation remover in our entire lives."

"There are not only radiation removers, but also gene-modifying agents. The latter are even rarer than the former. Even the lowest-grade gene-modifying agents can eliminate excessive deformities in a person's body and stimulate a kind of physical superpower."

"Of course, the premise is that after taking the gene-modifying agent, you can endure the painful process of gene remodeling, successfully awaken your superpowers, and become a superhuman. Otherwise, it's all in vain, and you'll still die."

Qiao Ning nodded and asked one last question: "What kind of energy stone are you talking about?"

Ying gave her a strange look, as if she thought that a noblewoman who came from the underground city didn't know about energy stones.

However, she wisely didn't ask any more questions: "Energy stones are a type of crystal that appears after the Wasteland Era. They are often found in high-radiation areas and occasionally in the bodies of some mutated beasts." When she said this, Ying's tone became slightly higher.

“Every energy stone is hard-won, requiring human lives to extract.”

“Energy stones have a wide range of uses. I’ve heard from some elderly people that energy stones are even more useful than the old ‘electricity,’ although I don’t know what electricity is.”

"Energy stones can also be used directly as energy carriers to enhance the strength of superhumans. However, few superhumans are so wasteful; it is usually more cost-effective to exchange energy stones for energy supplements."

Qiao Ning roughly understood what a cruel world this was; in short, an ordinary person here probably wouldn't survive a single day.

She gave Ying the whole piece of braised beef and a bottle of mineral water as well.

"You have a hunting trip tonight, right? Are you hunting mutated beasts with energy stones?"

Ying froze as she ate the beef, her expression slowly turning grim.

Qiao Ning said calmly, "I won't ask where the others are, as I assume you wouldn't betray your companions."

"You only need to do one thing."

"Persuade your chief to let me accompany you on the hunt. Don't worry, I won't steal your prey. I just need to join a hunting party."

Ying looked conflicted. After a while, she said, "For the sake of food and water, I'm willing to persuade the chief for you, but I can't guarantee he'll agree."

"If you end up joining our hunting party, don't expect us to save you. If you die, no one will collect your body."

Qiao Ning observed her expression and guessed that Ying had done all she could, so she conceded and nodded, "I understand. If we really can't persuade him, we won't force it." Cooperation that is forced is unlikely to succeed.

Ying couldn't help but mutter under her breath, "I really don't know what a delicate and tender natural being like you is doing on the ground. Do you think hunting on the ground is fun? You can die if you're not careful."

"But you do have some brains, knowing to join our hunting party instead of going on your own, or you'd only suffer a worse fate!"

Qiao Ning heard her complaints, but she could tell that Ying meant no harm, so she didn't take it to heart. She simply found a place to sit down and waited for Ying to return from negotiating with their leader.