Chapter 305.2: Game Expansion Update, Target, The West Continent!

Originally she didn’t feel very hungry, but upon seeing the long line of people, she started to feel a little bit hungry.

“That’s a branch opened by Zhang Hai, but didn’t you want to buy clothes?” Chu Guang said with a smile.

Xia Yan’s eyes widened and she turned her pitiful puppy eyes over to look at him. “But I’m hungry now.”

Xiaoyu also gulped, but she felt embarrassed to say it.

Not expecting her to ask him for permission, Chu Guang joked a little, “Go eat if you’re hungry, are you waiting for me to treat you?”

Xia Yan's pitiful expression instantly changed to a smile. “Thank you! You're such a kind and generous person!”

“Huh? I didn’t say I was treating you?”

“C'mon, don't be stingy, it’s not even expensive.” Xia Yan said cheerfully as she pulled Chu Guang’s arm, trying to persuade him. “I’ll pay for dinner!”

The 3 went to join the queue.

It was already half an hour later when it was their turn to order food.

After finding a corner to sit down, Xiaoyu tried to discreetly pay for the tab, but Chu Guang beat her to it.

“Let me do it.”

“Didn’t I say this meal was on me?”

After paying with the VM, Chu Guang returned to the table and sat down, just in time to hear the person at the next table bragging.

“... For the most authentic ramen, you still need to go to ‘North Street’ in the south of the city. The beef slices here are too thick, and the knife work of the chef here is lacking.”

“They have a North Street there too?”

“Haha, you must be new here. Dawn City didn’t exist in earlier times, and North Street simply referred to the North Gate Market in the Wetland Park. Many of the branch stores here came from there!” The man who spoke had a face full of pride. Obviously, he had come here many times already.

The customers next to him looked envious. They had only recently learned of the North Street.

“The nearby survivor settlement has only about 3,000 to 4,000 people, right?... It's incredible that this place can be this bustling.”

“The permanent residents are less than 5,000, but the floating population is high. I saw quite a lot of mercenaries from Boulder Town coming here to take jobs, sitting in the inn next to the trading post, drinking a bottle of beer all day.”

Another customer worriedly said, “Then isn’t the public security here a big problem?”

“Not at all.” A man, who was a regular, leisurely said, “You’ll know if you take a careful look at the entrance of the town. The wall there is riddled with bullet holes, and even the roads were built after the trenches were filled in. The people here may look polite, but they’re, in fact, tough folks. Last time there was a drunkard making trouble, the patrolling guards didn’t have the chance to do anything before a few blue coats subdued him.”

Someone interjected, “I heard many of those blue coats are ability users.”

The man nodded and continued eloquently, “Yeah, there’s such a thing. But their awakening is different from ours. I heard it has to do with what they eat. Good thing we’ll stay here for a few days. Everyone, eat some more. There’s a chance we could awaken our abilities too!”

“Big bro has a point.”

“One more bowl!”

Halfway through listening, Chu Guang almost choked on his noodles.

Xia Yan gave him a strange look. “What's so funny?”

“Nothing... Just thought of something interesting. But let’s talk about that after we deal with the troubles in the north.” Chu Guang coughed dryly. He tried to find some tissues, but found that there was no such luxury available.

Luckily, Xiaoyu noticed his predicament and generously handed him a handkerchief. “Use mine!”

“Thank you, you’re a great help... I will buy you a new one when we get back.”

Seeing that she helped, Xiaoyu beamed. “You don’t have to! I still have a lot of them, all bought with the pocket money you gave me!”

Chu Guang corrected, “That is called a wage, it’s the payment for labor... By the way, who taught you that?”

Xiaoyu blinked wide-eyed, answering honestly, “My second brother said so. He said I shouldn’t send that little money home, and that he and big brother’s income was enough to support our family, so I should keep it as pocket money.”

Chu Guang raised an eyebrow and stared at her. “...”

Forget it.

I’ll talk to her brother about it another day.

After the group ate their fill, they continued to shop around.

The ramen stall wasn’t the only dining place here. There were also stuffed bun stalls, dumpling stores, and Chu Guang even saw a stall serving Sichuan cuisine.

Recently, most vegetable fields in the farms had started to be harvested, and the wastelanders resettlement fields had also started to ship out goods. A lot of vegetables that weren’t available before began to appear in the market.

Varieties like green peppers and scallions had started to appear on people’s dining tables one after another. By the middle or end of May, garlic would also hit the shelves, and the meals in restaurants would smell even better then.

Chu Guang didn’t forget what he said and took Xia Yan to a place to buy clothes.

Only then was he surprised to find out that Teng Teng’s Hut also opened a branch store in the region.

However, Teng Teng herself wasn’t present. Standing behind the counter was a young girl from the Iron Axe tribe.

As for how Chu Guang knew her identity at first glance, it was mainly because her tanned skin was too similar to that of Autumn Weed and Autumn Leaves.

She wore a leather jacket that highlighted her figure while maintaining flexibility, the belt slanting across her side could be used to store magazines and guns.

There was no doubt about it. It was definitely Teng Teng’s work. The shelves on the side also displayed male and female jackets of the same style.

There were many female mercenaries in the wasteland. In the current era, no one cared about gender.

But Chu Guang was still doubtful. Would there really be mercenaries aside from players considering whether the equipment looked good or not, aside from checking the quality and practicality?

However, when Chu Guang saw Idiot Xia’s sparkling eyes, he immediately dismissed the thought.

It seemed like his confusion was a bit redundant.

Wastelanders knew better than him what they needed. He should take care of what he was in charge of and let them decide the rest.

Xia Yan seemed to recognize the salesperson. She broke into a smile and greeted her, dragging Xiaoyu inside to try on clothes.

Chu Guang didn’t join them, mainly because it was inappropriate, so he decided to wander around by himself.

Surprisingly, he spotted someone familiar nearby.

“Huh? Administrator?” Yaya, who was setting up a stall, looked at Chu Guang in surprise, having recognized him instantly.

Chu Guang also looked at her, surprised. “Why are you here?”

Yaya blinked innocently. “I’ve been here for several days already... There are no more mushrooms near the park I can pick, so I can only go to the Elm District to pick more.”

Chu Guang asked curiously, “Why don’t you hire someone to help you?”

Yaya smiled with slight embarrassment, “Mainly because other people can’t tell whether they’re poisonous or not, and it’s not like I can force people to take a bite, so I can only do it myself.”

In truth, it wasn’t whether they could tell or not, but normal people generally weren’t sure if they should eat some mushrooms that they hadn't seen before, so to be safe, they simply didn’t bother trying it.

For example, in Elm District, there was a greenish mushroom with a spiky top that both players and aboriginal people thought was poisonous, but in reality, it wasn’t.

It wasn’t until Yaya publicly performed the act of eating the raw mushroom, and everyone saw the perception type player completely fine that everyone realized the mushroom was edible.

Although whether it was delicious or not was another matter.

Speaking of which, there was a small anecdote.

Because the mushroom looked a lot like the poisonous ones, but it unexpectedly didn’t kill anyone, Hyrja actually performed experiments on it.

In the end, it was found that this mushroom could secrete structural analogs of PBP substrates that bound to PBPs receptors and interfered with bacterial cell wall synthesis.

It sounded a bit complicated. Simply put, it was something similar to penicillin.

Because of that, Chu Guang even gave Yaya a special achievement and assigned Hyrja with an assignment, asking her to take the time to research how to, on a larger scale, artificially grow and extract the mushroom similar to penicillin.

Although most players didn’t really consume medicine, the demand for antibiotics was still quite high in areas such surgery might be required. There was also the matter of disease control.

Now that there were more people, it wasn’t possible to just rely on reward points to obtain things he needed. Compared to the lower-level loot boxes worth 10 points, Chu Guang still preferred to get more high-tech equipment from the advanced loot boxes.

After looking around, Chu Guang noticed something interesting.

It was a type of mushroom that had a round and red umbrella-like cap, and a flat, short white stalk; there were also round spots littering around the cap. At first glance, it looked extremely toxic.

“Is this not poisonous?” Chu Guang looked at Yaya and asked suspiciously.

“That, you can’t eat that! And it's impossible to eat it...” Yaya shook her head rapidly.

Chu Guang thought so.

Just now, he noticed there was a snap underneath the stalk, it seemed like a mushroom plug or hairpin.

However...

Why is the mushroom so hard?

Chu Guang picked one the size of an egg and squeezed it. It felt a little like rubber and was very light. It looked dehydrated but it didn’t feel dry at all.

Could this be a mushroom that can produce resin or rubber?

Chu Guang was mystified.

The creatures in this world were really out of the ordinary.

“This mushroom is too hard, but it doesn’t have poison. I found it by accident, and then ended up turning it into an accessory. Hehe, it’s very small and kinda cute... Look, you can even wear it on the head like this.”

After she spoke, Yaya clipped the small mushroom on her hair and showed it to Chu Guang.

The mushroom was very tiny. After wearing it, it looked like it was growing out of the top of her head.

To be honest, it was indeed quite cute.

But then, this scene was seen by surrounding players.

“Damn! There's a mushroom growing on Boss Ya’s head!”

“That thing looks like a hair accessory... Will someone really spend 5 silver coins to buy it?”

“Holy shit! 250 in real-world money! That’s a luxury item!”

“Uh! I don’t even know how to comment on your knowledge of luxury items and the up-to-date exchange rate of the silver coin.”

“Wait... Is that customer the administrator?!”

“Damn! I almost couldn't recognize him after he took off his exoframe! I have to say, he looks quite handsome!”

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

“Pass it on! Yaya is acting cute in front of the administrator!”

“What?! Boss Ya is seducing the administrator?!”

“Is she serious?!”

Yaya, who was trying to sell her products, wasn’t planning to pay attention at first, mainly because she was used to it. But the more other players talked, the more exaggerated it became. Her face gradually began to turn red.

Eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore. She heatedly grabbed a handful of mushrooms and hurled them at them.

“Go away, go away! Who actually saw me... Me... Me... Doing

that

?”

She was embarrassed to say the word aloud.

The player who was hit was ecstatic as if they had won the lottery.

Laughing and shouting, the person who was hit picked up the mushroom and ran away.

Calming down her erratic breathing, Yaya took a deep breath and suddenly realized that there were still customers, so she hurriedly put on a kind smile.

Not wanting to disappoint her effort, Chu Guang silently put down 5 silver coins on the stall, and left with the seemingly useless mushroom...

...