"Wow, Jiang Ling, where did you find the treasure chest?" Jiang Wenwen found a lot of good things in this suitcase.
"Ground, do you want to come with me?"
"No, no, no, I'm not going. I saw online that the residual heat there can cook meat!"
"Did you really go to the ground?" Huang Yun asked worriedly. She pulled Jiang Wenwen away and began to pack up the things inside. "Aren't these the goods from the ration store?"
"Yes, I still need the filter canister and the protective suit in the small box. As for the remaining bullets and bayonets~" She looked at Jiang Wenwen, then shook her head and said, "Don't leave them for Dad!"
"By the way, I have some extra points. I'll transfer them to you." Jiang Ling remembered that she still had 183 points left. She planned to keep most of them at home, and the rest would be enough to buy a shovel at the market.
"No, no, keep it for yourself. One is enough for me!" Huang Yun began her routine of pushing the money aside, but if you really believed her, you'd be making a big mistake. Jiang Ling really couldn't understand this strange ritual of courtesy that had been passed down for generations. Some places were more open and could just say a few humble words, while other places required several rounds of pushing and shoving. In short, she couldn't follow her heart and say "thank you."
"Take it! I also want a refrigerator. It would be great to store some bacon. I haven't tasted it for a long time!" Jiang Ling ignored her mother's words, operated twice on the terminal, and transferred a hundred yuan to her.
Huang Yun's expression visibly improved, and she smiled happily: "We'll have mushroom stew tonight!"
. . . . . .
Of course, mushroom stew in this world isn't just red and white mushrooms in a bowl; it's actually a bit of a twist. The mushroom Huang Yun brought back from a merchant was actually just a section of the stem, but it weighed three pounds. Jiang Ling thought it was a piece of fat from an unknown animal, but she didn't expect it to be a real mushroom. "Are there mushrooms that big?"
"Their new variety matures in twelve days and has just been released. Three pounds cost ten points!"
Even the next day, Jiang Ling was still savoring the taste of the mushroom stew. It had been so long since she'd tasted it that she could barely remember the flavor. "It should taste like coprinus comatus, but a little firmer. It would have been better with a little more soy sauce. It's a shame the beans were the first to mutate."
Jiang Ling felt that something must have changed in the underlying systems of this world. Things that should have been small suddenly became huge, and things that should have been large suddenly became small. Beans were the same thing that had shrunk in size. Now they looked like green algae. In the online video, a small pot of beans, the size of a fingernail, was said to contain thousands of plants.
"But no matter how the world changes, people remain the same. Life will find its own way, and people must find their own way." Jiang Ling also needed to find her own way out, so she circled around in this underground maze. She had originally wanted to see where she could get a shovel, but she found herself going in circles. This was due to her habit of turning left at every fork in the road. As long as she kept turning left, she would always return to where she started. But what she didn't know was that these passages were actually slightly tilted.
As she circled, she felt the environment grow warmer, and based on her experience with Li Wenjia, she knew she was heading upwards. But when she finally reached the exit, she found herself on the third floor underground.
The third underground floor was obviously darker than the upper floor, and there were two sentries guarding this exit. Jiang Ling took out his terminal and tried to ask: "Um, I~"
The two sentries scanned her terminal with a machine and then opened the roadblock.
"???" Jiang Ling was at a loss for words. She hadn't even heard what the two soldiers said before they let her in. Since they hadn't stopped her, she felt embarrassed to bother them, so she went in anyway.
"Distribution center? Core area? Is this the legendary core area?" Jiang Ling discovered that the third underground floor was the so-called core area. Her entrance was actually an unassuming pedestrian passageway; those well-trained soldiers usually took several large tunnels. The entire third floor was a circle, with numerous tracks running along it. Just as Jiang Ling was stunned, she saw a train loaded with personnel and supplies leaving through a huge tunnel.
Surrounded by these tracks was a circular open space. There were soldiers marching in formation, forklifts carrying goods, and piles of cargo. Further in, it was the core area. It housed the factory, reactor, site management office, on-site servers, and other important units. Jiang Ling saw the confidentiality warning sign and felt a surge of nervousness. She had gotten lost somewhere truly awful.
"One, two, three, four..."
Walking on the sidewalk at the edge of the tracks, Jiang Ling listened to the powerful roars. Even though it was pitch dark, she didn't feel afraid. She simply wanted to find the exit. Although her clearance was A-level, being alone here seemed suspicious.
Jiang Ling wandered for a few hundred meters, maybe even a thousand. After experiencing the majesty of this place, she wanted to leave even more. She could go into the sewers and be a rat, or go to the surface and be a monster, but she couldn't stay in this dim underground third floor. Those passionate and heroic souls had been urging her to leave since she entered.
"Comrade! Please show your ID!" As she was walking with her head down, two patrolling soldiers stopped her.
"Oh~oh!" Jiang Ling took out her terminal. The bright light on the screen made her pupils shrink. Although she adapted quickly, she still felt it was a bit dazzling.
"Beep!" It was still the same machine, but this time it made a sound.
"Comrade, please take care!" The two men saluted her and then made way.
"Eh? Um! Comrade, which way do we go up?" Jiang Ling asked hurriedly.
The two soldiers were a little surprised that this girl clearly had permanent A-level authority, but she didn't know the structure of this very ordinary medium-sized station.
"If you want to go to the upper floor, you are going the wrong way; if you want to go to the ground floor, continue walking for another thousand meters, then turn right, there is a direct staircase!" Although he was confused, he still did his duty.
"Thanks!"
Jiang Ling finally decided to head directly to the ground floor. After all, going the wrong way was somewhat embarrassing, and that would mean she'd be walking with the two soldiers for a while. But she was more familiar with the ground floor, and it was said that anything could be bought at the distribution center up there. Aside from the possibility that the search team might be contaminated with some radioactivity, there wasn't much to worry about.
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