Chapter 57: A Lucky Draw… Tricycle Upgrade Pack?
A hidden quest? A lucky draw?
Ling Jing brought her tricycle to a halt and reread the notification the system had sent her.
The objective of the hidden quest read: Save the lives of 20 dying post-apocalyptic humans with your food.
It was just like the secret achievements in certain video games, only popping up the moment they were completed.
In this wasteland, there were no strategy guides to consult, so stumbling into this was purely by chance.
Still…
She glanced at the timestamp.
[Cataclysm Era Year 10, July 16, 02:17 AM]
A quest completion notification popping up at two in the morning—was that even normal?
Ling Jing was utterly baffled.
Did someone just eat food from her restaurant?
To be fair, people had packed food to go.
—Ling Jing had been thoroughly satisfied with today’s revenue.
Patronage grew with each passing day; at least a hundred and sixty-plus customers had shown up today.
The twenty portions of rice porridge in the morning had sold out clean, netting 140 points.
The Awakener squad had contributed 360 points.
Beyond that, sixty-two roasted potatoes had sold, along with thirty-five roasted sweet potatoes and seventy-eight tubs of pickled radish.
The three cauldrons of one-pot stew brewed last night had completely cleared out, and the two additional cauldrons she cooked up during the day had sold out as well.
The Malatang skewers had clocked a total of 1,522 sticks.
Today, she had raked in a whopping 2,772 points in one go!
The total revenue counter on the Cash Box had leapt to [6732/6400].
That included the 54 coins earned from Hall and the 40 points rewarded by the daily quest.
The Item Exchange Box was ready for another upgrade.
This time, it was time to expand its accepted categories.
Ling Jing added [Handicrafts] to the list of goods eligible for currency exchange.
Mainly because of what she had witnessed earlier in the day: a first-time customer, seeing people tossing items into the box for cash, had tried dumping a pair of hand-woven grass shoes into the hopper.
The box had spat them right back out.
Another had attempted to feed in a hand-sewn cloth hat.
A bystander had remarked, “Aiya, it says right there on the plaque—items redeemable for currency under the wasteland system! Whatever the city guards accept for trade, that’s what you can trade here! You can’t just throw in any random junk for coin!”
“What do you mean junk! The stuff I make with my own two hands can be sold to other people too, you know!”
…Ling Jing had caught snippets of the exchange back then.
Fair enough. Even in an apocalypse, every trade had its specialists.
Inside the high walls, there were people who didn’t venture out to scavenge, earning their living instead through skilled craftwork; the items they produced had genuine value.
—In the wasteland, the timid and faint of heart might not survive long.
Yet she was the proprietor of the Chinese Restaurant, and a proprietor did not pick and choose her guests.
As long as they didn’t disrupt normal operations, the doors of the Chinese Restaurant were open to all.
Once the Cash Box upgrade was settled, she bought several more benches and arranged them outside the storefront.
During peak hours today, there hadn’t been enough bench space to go around.
For dinner, Ling Jing hadn’t “made do” with the dishes from the shop; truth be told, she was growing tired of eating the same rotation.
Now that she ran a proper restaurant, the boss was naturally going to cook herself private meals.
She heated the wok with oil and tossed a hearty plate of green beans and eggplant over a roaring flame.
Scooping a handful from the remaining grain, she steamed herself a bowl of fluffy white rice in the porridge cooker.
Cooked with generous oil and infused with fragrant garlic, the savory sauce coated the eggplant and beans, making it exceptionally good with rice.
Ling Jing polished off the entire bowl!
White rice was simply divine!
Well fed and satisfied, Ling Jing retrieved the tricycle from storage, gearing up for a monster hunt.
Her objective was crystal clear—mutated plants that produced rice!
Whether it was a mutated paddy beast or a mutated rice stalk monster, she wasn’t picky about the species, so long as she ran into one.
Whatever monster charged into her would simply end up as butchered ingredients anyway.
She was invincible.
Except… the tricycle’s cargo capacity was undeniably limited.
Before setting out, Ling Jing had combed through the system panel with a fine-toothed comb, yet found no option whatsoever to upgrade the tricycle.
The vehicle wasn’t listed under equipment upgrades either.
Could it be that, as her original rudimentary street stall, the tricycle was ineligible for upgrades?
Because the progression path was strictly Rudimentary Stall into Rudimentary Restaurant?
Ling Jing shook her head, feeling the system was being far too short-sighted.
Even if she no longer needed a street cart to hawk food, she still needed to hunt in the wild.
Left with no alternative, Ling Jing had to settle for the next best thing, spending 80 points in the Mall on an [Unremarkable Storage Chest].
[Unremarkable Storage Chest: Footprint of a 20-inch suitcase. Actual capacity: 80 cubic meters. (Weight remains unchanged no matter how much is loaded inside. How? Pocket dimension, don’t ask.)]
Mm, Ling Jing desperately needed this.
With her pockets flush, she no longer had to endure the agony of an overloaded tricycle, scrambling for extra tubs and standing on the pedals just to force the wheels to turn.
She filled her water flask and brought it along.
The flask had come with the starter tent, holding five hundred milliliters.
She pocketed two roasted sweet potatoes as well.
Alright, prep work complete.
Provisions and water secured, Ling Jing resolved that tonight, she would track down a rice monster!
She locked the front doors, hopped onto the tricycle, and set off in the direction of the bull-lion chimera from last night.
—If that chimera had fused with a rice plant, there had to be rice growing out that way!
…Unfortunately.
Fortune didn’t shine on one person indefinitely.
Ling Jing had set out to hunt at 8:00 PM. After pedaling for three hours, by 11:00 PM she hadn’t spotted a single mutated creature resembling rice.
Instead, she had harvested a pile of other ingredients.
Rabbit meat, poultry, pork, bamboo shoots, and chestnuts.
Flowers deliberately planted never bloom, while willow twigs casually stuck in the dirt grow into shade.
Ling Jing suddenly thought sugar-roasted chestnuts sounded pretty appetizing too.
Just as she was wondering whether she had picked the wrong direction, a golden-yellow vine-like tentacle whipped past in front of her.
Ling Jing: “Hm?”
Its silhouette in the darkness was colossal; the lantern’s glow couldn’t even outline the beast’s full frame.
This mutant was noticeably larger than yesterday’s chimera.
It seemed to be targeting her, moving with rapid speed.
Yet for some reason, the moment the tentacle was about to brush against the protective barrier, it snapped back violently.
Bizarre.
Just like yesterday’s bull-lion chimera, it seemed to sense the mortal danger of the tricycle’s barrier.
These mutated flora and fauna clearly had a hierarchy of ranks.
The lower-tier ones lunged at the sight of humans, crashing headlong into the white light and ending up inside the crate on her cart.
The higher-tier ones, like this beast and yesterday’s, actively avoided her.
A bit intriguing.
Ling Jing didn’t know how this world classified mutant ranks, nor did she realize she had already ventured far beyond the “safe zone” encircling Seed City.
Though even if she had known, she probably wouldn’t have cared much.
Knowing enough to avoid danger meant this gargantuan monster was high-tier.
So whether it was a rice plant monster or not, Ling Jing had zero intention of letting it slip away.
Since it was already here, into the chest behind her it went!
Gripping the handlebars, she pedaled straight toward the beast.
The shadowy behemoth leaped back.
The ground shuddered beneath its weight.
Then, Ling Jing realized the creature was fleeing.
“?”
Ingredients already in her sight would never get away.
Ling Jing took off in hot pursuit on her tricycle.
…By the time the system notification popped up, Ling Jing had already been chasing this golden mutant for three straight hours.
The golden behemoth’s bulk made it much slower and clumsier than the bull-lion chimera.
However, it kept lashing its tentacles to fell mutated trees, obstructing Ling Jing’s path.
Ling Jing had to swerve around the debris.
Yet having seen its sluggish pace, there was no way she would abandon a prize so close within reach.
It was like a shopping app progress bar stuck at 99.999999% completion before cashing out.
One human and one beast stayed locked in this grueling stalemate until 2:00 AM.
So when the lucky draw notification flashed before her eyes, Ling Jing, her legs completely drained of strength, brought the tricycle to a halt.
She couldn’t go on. Not even spinning classes at the gym were this brutal.
At least those had recovery intervals.
Take a two-minute breather. The monster couldn’t waddle very far anyway.
She casually swiped the system panel and tapped the lucky draw.
Ling Jing didn’t harbor high expectations.
With a system this stingy with rewards, what could a lucky draw possibly yield?
Twenty points, or maybe another pair of decorative lanterns?
[Congratulations! You have received: Tricycle Upgrade Pack! Would you like to upgrade to an Electric Tricycle now?]
Ling Jing’s exhausted eyes slowly widened: Huh?
