Chapter 17 Voluntarily Lending a Hand, A Touch of Aura

Qiao Jia paid little attention to whatever schemes Fu Jingchuan and Shen’s father were plotting. No matter what tricks they tried, it wouldn’t affect her. If they ever decided to target her, Qiao Jia was confident they wouldn’t live to see another sunrise.

For now, she had gained 700 crystal cores and needed to restock her supplies. She reserved 100 points as backup and used the rest to purchase new goods: 100 low-durability weapon and water blind boxes, and 50 food blind boxes. Her stall was once again well-stocked.

Glancing at the sky, she saw dusk was approaching—time for everyone to rest. Survivors came one after another to rent rooms for the night from Qiao Jia. Groups of ten or so would pool their resources to share a single room, enjoying the rare luxury of hot water and electricity. Even if they spent some crystal cores, divided among everyone, the cost was minimal.

By the time the rest of the survivors returned, Qiao Jia had rented out eight of her self-built rooms. With all twelve rental rooms packed, there were over a hundred people crammed inside—more crowded than a cheap boarding house. Thanks to the existence of the rental building, many survivors also began sleeping in the hallways, and their numbers were not insignificant.

Qiao Jia chose to turn a blind eye. Previously, she had refused to let survivors take advantage of her partly because she was genuinely broke, and partly—well, because she was broke. As long as those inside the rooms didn’t complain, she wouldn’t interfere. Besides, those camped in the corridors weren’t freeloaders; they took it upon themselves to tidy up the weeds and clean the surroundings, gathered stones by the river to lay paths, and those with skills started chopping wood and repairing bridges.

The cold-faced Xie Jinghan led a group to build fences around several buildings to fend off zombies. For now, the settlement was still in its infancy, scattered and fragmented, with only the building interiors considered truly safe. This was mainly because Qiao Jia hadn’t spent any points to build a town wall.

The system mall did offer walls for sale—grass, wood, stone, steel, and other materials. Only the area enclosed by a mall-purchased wall would be considered the true territory of the town, guaranteeing absolute safety. But Qiao Jia felt there was no need to spend the points yet; these walls had durability values. Over time, and with monster attacks, they would lose durability and eventually collapse, requiring points either for repairs or replacement.

Wouldn’t it be better to use those points to develop the town further? Of course, when she had more points, she would definitely build the walls—after all, they counted significantly toward the competition’s score, as did the amount of land enclosed. Qiao Jia had exploited her “dead-person bug,” but the competition still required real points; at best, her undead status let her save a bit here and there.

As for the self-organized fences Xie Jinghan and the others were building, they weren’t included in the competition scoring, so she let them do as they pleased. In the “Strongest Doomsday Town” contest, the quality of the townspeople also mattered greatly. She accepted their efforts with gratitude.

While the survivors cleaned and repaired the settlement, Qiao Jia continued scrolling through the blind box catalog. The basics—food and shelter—were covered; now, she needed to address clothing and transportation. In the apocalypse, “clothing” meant equipment, and “transportation” was essential for escape. Both were costly, far more than weapon blind boxes, with high purchase and activation prices. Scrolling through the blind box shop made her eyes ache.

A daily necessities blind box was another option—cheap to stock at 0.5 points and only 1000 points to activate. She’d pick one up when she had more spare points.

Closing the system mall, Qiao Jia glanced in the direction of Jumu City, wondering when she might make a trip there. Hugging her knees and resting her head atop them, she stared into the distance. Being dead had its advantages, but it was also unbearably hard. She couldn’t eat or drink, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t make any large movements, and couldn’t even express emotion.

She hoped she could win first place in the “Strongest Doomsday Town” competition. While other contestants had all sorts of wishes, Qiao Jia’s wish was only the starting point for the rest: to become alive again.

She counted the hours until dawn, and when the fourth day of the competition arrived, she was still awake.

“Boss? You’re up early.”

A survivor yawned, his weapon still stained with zombie blood.

“Morning,” Qiao Jia replied, turning to him with a slightly dazed blink.

Thanks to the morning dew, her clothes were soaked, though one wouldn’t notice without looking closely. The survivor simply thought she was an early riser, never imagining she hadn’t slept a single night.

“I’ll take five food blind boxes and ten low-durability weapon blind boxes,” he said, handing over the crystal cores. He planned to sell the marked-up boxes near the Beichen Base; if they didn’t sell, he’d use them himself.

“That’ll be fifty-five crystal cores,” Qiao Jia replied, reaching out her hand. She now had 1,115 points and hesitated over whether to buy a weapon blind box—not the low-durability kind.

There were pros and cons to both weapon blind boxes and low-durability weapon blind boxes. She’d heard survivors complain that their weapons sometimes broke mid-fight against zombies.

“If both regular and low-durability weapon blind boxes were available, which would you buy?” Qiao Jia asked, looking up.

“A regular one? Like the kind Shen Tong opened before?” he clarified.

“Yes.”

“Probably the regular kind. The low-durability ones really don’t last,” he admitted. He had also experienced weapons breaking mid-battle; without a spare, he would’ve died at the hands of zombies. Still, the low-durability boxes were cheap—that was the trade-off.

“I see,” Qiao Jia said. She chose to activate a single weapon blind box; the purchase price was steep, so she could only afford one. This weapon blind box would await its destined owner.

And now, her points were down to a pitiful fifteen.

Poverty—those two words summed up her entire competition experience. She needed more survivors, and more main characters. When would the survivors from Beichen Base finally come to do business with her?

Come to think of it, not all the survivors who’d gone to Beichen Base last time had returned. The thought struck Qiao Jia, and she called out to the departing survivor.

“Take this and help me find out what happened to those who went to Beichen Base earlier,” she said, handing him three low-durability weapon blind boxes.

“Sure,” the survivor replied. She was headed to Beichen Base anyway and could ask around.

As soon as the player left, the system reappeared, splitting the air with a spatial gate. Last night, it had sneaked off to borrow something from a senior system it knew; since it was acting behind the Lord God’s back, it couldn’t use official system delivery.

[Host, that survivor seems to have a bit of a halo,] the system remarked, watching the departing figure.

“Huh?”