Chapter 42
From Chi Hao's perspective, this small grocery store was now filled with countless fire energies.
The so-called heat is the result of the accumulation of fire energy, which causes the temperature to rise. When the fire energy accumulates beyond a certain limit, objects will burn. This is called the embodiment of fire energy.
As a user with fire abilities, controlling fire energy is undoubtedly a basic skill.
It can be released, and of course it can also be absorbed.
When all the fire energy in the house is absorbed by him, and the fire energy outside the house slowly enters, theoretically the indoor temperature can be lowered.
However, this is an idea that Chi Hao has never thought of before, so it is not clear whether it is really feasible.
And this will also consume his supernatural powers... Chi Hao looked up at Tang Yu'an and Zhou Qi.
Because of his awakening, Zhou Qi's physique is more heat-resistant, but this child is just an ordinary person. His cheeks are red with heat and big beads of sweat are coming out of his forehead.
Chi Hao pursed his lips slightly. Not only was he saved by these two children, but he also had free food and shelter here. It seemed like he should make some contribution.
not to mention……
"For lunch, we'll have braised rabbit, stir-fried pork with mushrooms, and seaweed egg drop soup." Zhou Qi's voice sounded faintly.
“Gurgle——”
Chi Hao couldn't help swallowing. What, what were these dishes? He knew stir-fried pork slices with mushrooms; he'd had them before, but braised rabbit? Seaweed and egg drop soup?
I haven’t tried it. Is it delicious?
"Okay, I'll try it right away!" He gritted his teeth and agreed.
Chi Hao closed his eyes and began to activate the supernatural powers in his body.
He is seriously injured now, and in principle it is not easy for him to use his abilities, as this will aggravate his injuries, just like when he faced the four-eyed dog last night and forcibly released fire, causing him to vomit blood.
However, absorbing fire energy can indeed help him recover from his injuries. As long as he goes slower, he should be able to achieve balance?
From a perspective that only those with fire abilities could perceive, the red energy lurking in the house was gathering towards Chi Hao, gradually forming a small vortex around him.
Zhou Qi was the first to sense something unusual.
He stared at Chi Hao with a thoughtful look on his face.
Tang Yu'an was a little slow to feel it, but he soon felt the wind - or rather, the heat wave rolling in from outside the house!
The wind in nature is formed by temperature differences, so this method is indeed effective. However, if you want to cool down the house, you cannot let the heat from outside continue to come in!
Tang Yu'an ran to close the doors and windows. His house was air-conditioned, so the partition connecting the back room and the front of the shop had a glass door.
Although it felt more stuffy after closing the doors and windows, as time went by and the fire energy was gradually attracted to Chi Hao, Tang Yu'an began to feel the coolness.
The room really became cooler!
Although it is not as cool as air conditioning, it is a temperature that makes the human body feel comfortable.
At this time, Tang Yu'an thought of something again, and quickly opened the back door and went out to move the plants that were still exposed to the sun outside into the house.
Noticing his movements, Zhou Qi collected his thoughts and hurried over to help.
After they moved all the plants indoors and closed the back door, the heat wave was isolated and the house slowly became cooler again.
Tang Yu'an sighed comfortably.
Looking at the plants in the pots which were obviously in better condition, he couldn't help but show joy on his face. This way, he didn't have to worry about the plants dying from overexposure to the sun.
These were left to them by their mother. Not to mention their actual value, just their commemorative significance made Tang Yu'an not want to see them die.
He looked at Chi Hao with sparkling eyes.
This employee is so useful!
Perhaps there was too much fire energy gathered around. Even Tang Yu'an, who had not awakened his supernatural powers, felt that the air around Chi Hao seemed to be distorted.
If you get a little closer, it feels like you're in a furnace.
After Chi Hao started to absorb the heat, he closed his eyes and did not move. Tang Yu'an did not bother him and went into the kitchen with Zhou Qi.
"Brother Xiaoqi, what happened to you just now?"
Watching Zhou Qi processing the ingredients, Tang Yu'an came up to him and asked in a low voice. He had not forgotten how abnormal Zhou Qi was when he was at Tie Jin's house.
Zhou Qi paused, turned his head and glanced at the kitchen door, thought for a moment and said, "I'll tell you during lunch break."
At that time, they can use the shadow umbrella, and they don’t have to worry about Chi Hao hearing anything they say.
"OK."
"You should go and rest for a while. It's hot in the kitchen."
"Then I'll stand at the door."
Tang Yu'an stayed at the kitchen door, where he could feel the coolness in the room and see Zhou Qi preparing ingredients and cooking in the hot pan.
In the past, when his father was cooking, he liked to stand by and watch. He found it very interesting and remembered some of the cooking steps, but his cooking was not as delicious as Zhou Qi's.
"Brother Xiaoqi, are we having braised rabbit for lunch?"
"Yeah, I remember you liked it."
"Hey, yeah."
Zhou Qi cut the rabbit meat into pieces, washed it, added cooking wine and salt to remove the fishy smell, and then began to prepare the dough for whole wheat steamed buns.
When he was making steamed buns before, he had left some old dough. Now he added water and alkali and mixed it with whole wheat flour, and then set it aside.
While he was preparing the noodles, Tang Yu'an went to get the bean bran.
There are already a lot of beans stored in the shop, so it is very easy to separate the bean bran. It can be done with one click using the item list function.
Soon, Tang Yu'an got a bag of peeled soybeans and a large bag of bean bran.
Zhou Qi continued to make their lunch.
Braised rabbit meat, stir-fried pork slices with mushrooms, seaweed and egg drop soup, plus two bowls of white rice, were soon placed on the table. They were delicious and looked particularly tempting.
Chi·Human Air Conditioner·Hao, naturally, also got his share of food.
After all, he is a mid-level ability user, and absorbing heat is not technically difficult, so in a short period of time, he can do two things at the same time and absorb heat at the same time.
Because he had difficulty moving and the temperature near his body was very high after absorbing heat, Zhou Qi set up a small table for him and let him sit on the ground to eat alone.
"Brother Xiaoqi's cooking skills are really good!"
Tang Yu'an held the bowl and ate until his cheeks were bulging.
Chi Hao nodded in agreement. He had never eaten such delicious meat, drank such fresh soup, or eaten such fragrant rice!
The ability team has a special cafeteria, and he has been growing up eating nutritious meals since he was very young.
In the past, he didn’t have much pursuit in the feeling of eating. He liked to eat the flesh and blood of mutant creatures only to improve his strength. Now he can only say... it’s so delicious!
Zhou Qi scooped a bowl of soup for Tang Yu'an and started to eat with the bowl.
"Only when we sit around the dining table like this can we feel like we're eating..." Tang Yu'an said vaguely while eating.
"Then we should leave earlier next time so we can come back for dinner like today."
"good!"
When Chi Hao heard this conversation, he couldn't help but look up at them. The two teenagers were happily eating around the dining table.
It's so ordinary, yet rare in the wasteland.
Obviously, they lost their parents early and started living independently just like he did when he was young, but when he saw them sitting in this simple house and eating around the old dining table, he felt an inexplicable warmth flowing through his heart.
Chi Hao pursed his lips, looked away and continued to immerse himself in the delicious food.
After dinner, Chi Hao continued to act as a "human air conditioner" to absorb heat and bring coolness to the house, while the two teenagers climbed up to the attic and began their lunch break.
His mental power extended to the attic, sweeping down the fire energy from upstairs. However, the strange thing was...
After the two teenagers climbed up to the attic, they disappeared from his mental vision.
He frowned slightly and swept his mental power around the attic. Apart from the fire energy that filled the attic, he did not sense any living creatures.
Chi Hao stopped "observing" until he felt his limit, opened his eyes and looked at the attic above his head.
After they went up, even the sound disappeared.
How strange...
However, thinking of his employee panel and the glucose he exchanged out of thin air last night, Chi Hao shook his head again. Perhaps this was the power of the mysterious businessman.
Although these two children are young, they are real old employees and they definitely get more benefits from the mysterious businessman than him.
It seems that he will have to work harder in the future.
But now let’s just heal our injuries first.
Chi Hao also lay on the floor and began to rest with his eyes closed. In his half-asleep state, his body was still passively absorbing the heat from the room...
In the attic.
The shadow-blocking umbrella floated quietly, blocking out all movement and sound from the two teenagers.
Tang Yu'an got up at five o'clock in the morning. He was very sleepy now, but he still forced his eyes open and asked Zhou Qi about the abnormal situation before.
When asked, Zhou Qi did not explain immediately, but took out the dagger with a curled blade and cut in half from his personal storage.
He held the broken dagger in his palm and whispered, "I just feel... I feel like I can..."
What can I do?
Before Tang Yu'an could ask, he saw a faint glow on Zhou Qi's palm. The curled tip of the dagger seemed to melt and became soft in Zhou Qi's palm.
0.0
He stretched out his finger in surprise and carefully poked the metal blade of the dagger, and found that it had really become soft!
However, this change did not last long. The next moment, the faint light in Zhou Qi's palm disappeared, and the dagger became hard again.
Only the broken ends melted together, hardened again and were reassembled. Although the shape was a bit strange, it was no longer possible to tell that it had been broken before.
Tang Yu'an took the dagger and looked at it curiously, "Brother Xiaoqi, have you awakened your metal ability?"
Zhou Qi shook his head, "I'm not sure either."
Watching Tie Jin controlling the metal in the morning, he could clearly sense how the energy released from his hands changed the state of the metal.
It was a very subtle feeling that was hard to describe, but he just felt that... it didn't seem difficult?
Sure enough, he had just reproduced that feeling and successfully changed the state of the dagger's blade. However, it didn't last long before he felt exhausted and was forced to stop.
"You react to the gold crystal, so you should also have mastered the ability of metal." Tang Yu'an analyzed.
"More than that." Zhou Qi suddenly said.
"Um?"
Tang Yu'an blinked and watched Zhou Qi suddenly reach out and press on his quilt - because it had been scorched for most of the day, there was still a trace of heat on the quilt.
Then the next moment, he felt the heat from the quilt dissipate in the blink of an eye, and even a cool feeling emanated.
This is……
"Heat absorption?" Tang Yu'an blurted out.
Zhou Qi withdrew his hand, nodded, and said, "I just learned it from Chi Hao."
"Wow! Xiaoqi, you're amazing! You learn it in no time!"
Facing Tang Yu'an's starry eyes, Zhou Qi's somewhat solemn mood relaxed a little. He shook his head and said, "Probably every person with special abilities can be like this."
It's just that... he seems to have more than one ability. Maybe he's special? He always feels that he is different from other people with special abilities.
Zhou Qi didn't know whether this was good or bad.
"Do you want to ask Brother Chi Hao?" Tang Yu'an asked.
Zhou Qi thought for a moment and shook his head: "We're leaving for the market town soon, so he'll definitely have to stay in the shop. Let's not make things complicated."
I don’t know what will happen if I ask. Although the risk can be reduced by erasing Chi Hao’s memory, I still have to recruit again after erasing his memory, which is really troublesome.
And if we do it again, I don’t know if we can create such a harmonious relationship as we have now.
"Oh well."
Tang Yu'an looked at him. "Do you feel any discomfort in your body? Did the parasite react in any way?"
Zhou Qi shook his head.
"That should be a good thing." Tang Yu'an thought of something and quickly took a look at Zhou Qi's employee information.
Sure enough, in the skill column, fire element control and gold element control appeared.
"Brother Chi Hao can only control the fire element, but you have one more than him." Tang Yu'an said, "Not only that, you also have the water element!"
If I learn to control the water element in the future...
"Then you can produce purified water yourself?" Tang Yu'an said excitedly.
Zhou Qi was stunned, thought about it, and nodded.
He reacts to crystal stones, so this is very possible.
"Then our survival will be guaranteed!"
Now they mainly rely on exchanging water in the mall. It is not expensive if it is only used for drinking, but it is not enough to meet other purposes.
Moreover, if you leave the grocery store for a long time, you have to pack them up and put them in a portable storage, which takes up a lot of space.
If Brother Xiaoqi could produce water anytime and anywhere in the future like Uncle Tiejin produces metal, it would undoubtedly be much more convenient.
Tang Yu'an added, "While Brother Chi Hao is still here, you should learn from him how to control the fire element. This way you will have more ways to fight."
Since they can't get rid of the parasite for the time being, they might as well use it to become stronger.
"you're right."
Zhou Qi took a deep breath, his mind growing calmer. Being parasitized was a foregone conclusion. Perhaps he could develop a symbiotic relationship like Chi Hao had in the future.
But no matter what, he needs to become stronger, both physically and mentally.
The parasite simply wanted to control him. He had to strengthen his will and not be deceived by it, and he also had to make his body strong so that the parasite would be desperate and want to kill him, but he would have no way to stop it.
In short, as long as he is strong enough, the parasite will not be able to do anything to him and will be used by him instead.
He finally smiled, reached out and touched Tang Yu'an's head, and said, "Go to sleep first."
"good."
Tang Yu'an lay down, and Zhou Qi followed suit.
Because he was back home and Yuanbao and the others were guarding downstairs, he could finally relax. Unlike outside, his nerves were always tense and he couldn't even relax a little, let alone sleep.
The grocery store fell silent, and the umbrellas hovered motionless in the attic, seemingly in hibernation.
The sun rose higher and higher in the sky, until the temperature reached its peak around one or two o'clock, and then slowly dropped back down, but also remained at a higher level.
Tang Yu'an was sleeping soundly. He woke up drowsily when he heard Zhou Qi calling him.
"Brother Xiaoqi..." He responded softly.
"If you continue to sleep, you won't be able to sleep at night." Zhou Qi rubbed his messy hair, "I made mung bean soup, hurry up and drink it."
Tang Yu'an climbed up with difficulty.
He rubbed his eyes and walked down the stairs, and saw Chi Hao sitting on the floor and had already started eating. He held the bowl with an expression of enjoyment on his face.
Zhou Qi also placed his iced mung bean soup on the table.
"See if it's sweet enough."
"Great, there's mung bean soup!"
Tang Yu'an finally came to his senses, ran over cheering, and drank the mung bean soup happily.
Chi Hao absorbed all the heat in the room, making it cool and pleasant.
The mung bean soup was icy cold with a slightly sweet and refreshing taste. It melted between the taste buds and took away the heat. Tang Yu'an took a palm-leaf fan and gently waved it, feeling extremely enjoyable.
Chi Hao hasn't felt so comfortable in a long time.
He watched Zhou Qi cook mung bean soup with his own eyes. He thought it was just ordinary, but he didn't expect the finished product to be so delicious!
Although he had drunk mung bean soup in the cafeteria for people with special abilities, it never had such a smooth, fragrant, and slightly crunchy texture.
It's delicious hot, but even better when chilled!
"Xiaoqi, your craftsmanship is amazing!"
Thinking that he would have to leave here after his injury healed, Chi Hao couldn't help feeling a little melancholy.
If only we could kidnap these two kids and take them to the fort together!
Faced with the praise, Zhou Qi was very calm. He finished his bowl of mung bean soup and went back to the kitchen to knead the dough.
He added the bean bran prepared by Tang Yu'an into the dough and kneaded them together. Because they were separated using the item list function, the bean bran was clean and dust-free, even cleaner than if he washed it himself.
In fact, he was a little hesitant about whether to mix some sand into it. After all, they were in the wasteland, and clean water was hard to come by, let alone this kind of processed product.
But in the end, Zhou Qi still couldn't get over it, so he could only add more bean bran and chop up the thatch leaves and mix them in.
He pinched the dough into small pieces, and Tang Yu'an beside him helped to roll the small pieces into balls. Just kneading them made his hands feel a little prickly, but it should be fine after being steamed, right?
The whole wheat steamed buns are placed in the steamer to ferment, and then they can be steamed after about half an hour.
At this time, Tang Yu'an was not idle either. He began to rummage through the grocery store, constantly using his identification skills.
After Zhou Qi finished his work, he took out the appraisal album and saw that there were hundreds of pages of content added to it.
It’s not that Tang Yu’an has identified so many things, but some of the things have many origins, and the plane numbers alone take up an entire page—
The book-like appraisal album is not like the panel that can shrink and display the information in one column, but lists all the information, which makes it appear very long.
Tang Yu'an felt dazzled when he looked at those dimensional numbers.
Seeing Zhou Qi put away the album, then walked over Chi Hao who was lying down after eating and went up to the attic, Tang Yu'an hurriedly followed him.
When he went upstairs, he saw Zhou Qi placing the album on the small table, and then took out his mobile phone to take pictures.
Tang Yu'an opened the umbrella again and asked him, "Brother Xiaoqi, what are you doing?"
“Make a chart.”
After Zhou Qi's explanation, Tang Yu'an realized that taking photos with a mobile phone can be converted into text.
Although the error rate is a bit high and requires careful verification and checking, it is much more convenient than manual input.
Tang's mother has office software on her mobile phone. She usually records the invoices for incoming and outgoing goods in it, and occasionally asks Zhou Qi to help fill it out, so he can use charts.
Zhou Qi transferred the plane information of each object into a table. After confirming that it was correct, he used the six planes obtained from Tu Dou to search, and the accuracy was much higher.
Finally, he narrowed down the possible range to three planes: KJ2548, DM53944, and MR168845.
Looking at Zhou Qi's achievements, Tang Yu'an's eyes were full of admiration, "Brother Xiaoqi, you are really amazing!"
Because he had just entered junior high school, Tang Yu'an did not need to use office software for the time being, so he did not have this idea. He never expected that there was such a useful thing on the mobile phone.
"Aunt Tang taught me this before." Zhou Qi said, "If you want to learn, I can teach you."
Tang Yu'an nodded.
Afterwards, Zhou Qi put away the identification album and mobile phone, and went to the kitchen to take out the steamed whole wheat buns.
As soon as the top lid is opened, the rich aroma of rice and flour spreads along with the water vapor and fills the small room. No matter what it tastes like, it smells quite fragrant.
Chi Hao couldn't help swallowing his saliva: "What delicious food have you made again?"
"This is a steamed bun, similar to the steamed buns we had this morning, except that it doesn't have stuffing." Tang Yu'an took one despite the heat, tore it open and gave half to Zhou Qi.
Chi Hao knew about steamed buns and dumplings, but he always felt that Zhou Qi’s were more delicious.
"Let me have a taste too." He said eagerly.
Tang Yu'an tore his half into two again and gave him the bigger half, which touched Chi Hao deeply.
This kind of whole wheat steamed bun with bean bran and grass leaves is really irritating to the throat. Tang Yu'an naturally doesn't like to eat it. He just wants to taste it.
Chi Hao chewed it with great relish. He felt that it was chewier than the ones in the cafeteria, although the buns he had in the morning were indeed more delicious.
"You make so much, aren't you afraid it will go bad?" he asked while eating.
Tang Yu'an and Zhou Qi looked at each other, then looked at him again and said, "We are going to the market town the day after tomorrow, and we are going to trade these."
Chi Hao paused, "Are you planning to go to Jufeng Town?"
"Yes." Tang Yu'an nodded. "Do you want to go with us? Or stay in the shop and recuperate?"
Chi Hao opened his mouth slightly, and then slowly closed it. Given his current physical condition, it was not suitable for him to go to the market town.
"I'll stay," he said.
"That's great!" Tang Yu'an said happily.
Although it was a bit risky to leave him to look after the shop, he had basically stuffed all the important things into his portable warehouse, and it would take at least four or five days for them to return. Tang Yu'an was worried about what to do with his plants.
Now the chosen watering man appears!
"Water the plants and feed milk to the three pets every day?" Hearing Tang Yu'an's request, Chi Hao nodded, and then couldn't help but look at them with anticipation.
Seeing that the two teenagers had nothing else to say, he couldn't help but worry: "What about me? What should I eat?"
The author has something to say:
Chi Hao: The tools left behind also need to be fed! [Shocking sound]
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