The rest of the trip wasn't much to say. The original plan didn't work out. We left at 8:00 AM and didn't return until 8:00 PM. Max was right; there were too many surprises on Earth. Jiang Ling had thought an extra filter canister would be enough, but she ended up taking a detour on the way back. She even fell because the ground was too slippery, and the filter canister rolled away. So Jiang Ling, who was behind, kept her shield on and head down, continuing on her way until she ran head-on into a warning sign and remembered what she had heard earlier.
The isolation cabin and the decontamination room were similar to the last time she moved, except this time she took the single-person express lane. The people who saw her outfit knew she was special, so after she left the decontamination room, she was led to the service area.
"Hello, I'm the site receptionist. How can I help you?" A man in a tie greeted her. His smiling, businesslike face really made Jiang Ling feel uncomfortable.
Jiang Ling said nothing with a stern face. She put the armed bag and shovel on the ground, and there was a clang of heavy objects falling to the ground. She took off the two filter canisters on her helmet and threw them into the yellow radioactive waste bin in the service area. Then she pressed the button at the interface between the helmet and the protective suit and took off the helmet, revealing her face that was red from being suffocated. Her long black hair fell down her back, and her bright green eyes met the receptionist's gaze. She placed the helmet upside down on the counter, took out her terminal from it and placed it on the counter as well. Then she took off her wet backpack, unzipped it, and poured out all the medicines inside. After that, she sat down on a stool next to a table, sipping the tea that the receptionist had placed there.
Not long after, a manager who had received the notice walked quickly into the reception room. He even straightened his clothes at the door and then walked up to Jiang Ling: "Hello, comrade! I'm Liu Er, the deputy director of this district!"
Jiang Ling still knew basic courtesy, so she stood up and extended her right hand from her protective suit to shake hands with the deputy. Trying to look tired, she cleared her throat and said, "Sit down and talk! I'm Jiang Ling!"
"What are these?"
"Medicine." Jiang Ling said concisely.
Upon hearing this, Liu Er immediately scolded his attendants: "What are you all just looking at? Clean up!"
"See if there are any radioactive residues!" Jiang Ling reminded.
"You want?"
"Just a token of my appreciation. The main thing is to tell you something." Jiang Ling pulled the soaked map from the pouch at her waist and carefully spread it out on the table. Then, she tapped a spot on it and continued, "There might still be radiation on the map, just look at it. This is the hospital. You can find its medicine warehouse from the underground garage. There's a lot worth salvaging. There were a few 'fangs' in there, but I killed them all. If you had sent someone there sooner, maybe no new mutants would have gotten in."
"Pharmacy? Do you have the key?"
"Yes, but he's in the hands of a searcher named Max. He was a member of the search team that rescued the survivors. You should be able to find him easily."
Upon hearing the good news, Liu Er immediately stood up and said, "Thank you, comrade! I can now secure the highest subsidy for you!"
Jiang Ling sat there and nodded.
In just a moment, several receptionists had finished counting the names and quantities of the medicines. They handed the statistical sheet to Liu Er, who was still talking on the phone with someone on the terminal.
The man was speechless after taking a quick look. He was stunned for a moment before hastily hanging up the phone and asking Jiang Ling again, "How much is that Curry?"
Jiang Ling put down his teacup and thought carefully, then answered seriously, "If everyone in the station gets sick, it will be enough for the station to use for another six months."
"Great! Great!" The deputy manager said "Great!" several times in a row, and then quickly dialed a communication code: "Ahua, your mother is saved..."
Jiang Ling had little interest in their chores, especially since household affairs were rarely good. So she simply savored the cheap tea in her cup. It was clearly not made from genuine tea leaves. Tea farmers online had long complained about this. Real tea plants had begun mutating en masse before the war, and videos of burning teahouses circulated online. Most teas these days are industrially synthesized, a far more advanced form of technology than before. It's pure high-tech. Roasted and fermented tea leaves are now worth as much as gold, and rumor has it that the black market has even resorted to auctioning off tea cakes.
She listened to their small talk for an hour in the service area, and only left when she heard the incoming payment notification on her terminal. During this waiting time, Jiang Ling had already taken off her protective suit, folded it, and stuffed it into her backpack, where the helmet could be hung.
The backpack was soaked in the green liquid in the decontamination room, and she had to rinse it again with recycled water, making it impossible to carry the wet bag. So she just slung the shovel over her shoulder, with two large bags hanging from them, and a helmet hanging from the bags, and swayed away from the service area, like the monk Sha in Journey to the West.
Jiang Ling didn't think much of the 2,000 points she'd earned from selling the medicine. Even that small amount was enough for her to realize her plan, though it wouldn't fix Li Wenjia's gadgets. According to Liu Er, this was the maximum site subsidy he could secure, and it would last for six months. So, in reality, she'd gotten over 10,000 points for a piece of emergency medicine, which wasn't a small amount.
However, these points might not be enough to repair the exoskeleton. The repairman still had to find it. Even if she wanted to fix it, she had to know where it was broken. The remaining half a pound of neurological drugs in the backpack were valuable, but they couldn't be sold too much at once, and they needed a refrigerator to store them. Max had mentioned that these drugs were most vulnerable to unstable storage environments, with alternating heat and cold, humidity and dryness. Jiang Ling realized that in just a few hours that day, the drugs had experienced everything he had described.
"I hope there aren't too many broken parts on the exoskeleton. If there are too many, I might as well just sell it. It's already nine o'clock in the evening, and I don't know if the old man at the District 1 distribution center is still there. I remember last seeing him around six or seven in the afternoon. I'll probably go look for him tomorrow."
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