ATDIWR Chapter 20
by VolareJi An, hiding it from outsiders, told Tang Ning the truth: “I told you before, I want to research space storage items, and I need things with special energy. Jade stone works.”
“If you have particularly good jade stone, you can give it to me. I won’t charge you a processing fee and will help you make a space storage item.”
Tang Ning gave an awkward smile. Leaving aside whether she had any jade stone, could he really make something? That sort of thing wasn’t supposed to exist outside of cultivation novels. It turned out what Mr. Ji said in the Base Command Center before wasn’t just to anger those old men, but he meant it seriously.
Ji An saw that Tang Ning didn’t seem to trust him much but didn’t take it to heart. He continued to collect jade stone with her.
The shop owner had just left Ji An’s shop when he was called over by a shop owner named Zhao from a grain and oil store. “Old Li, what’s the background of the shop across the street? It just opened, and they’ve already summoned our Base’s Highest General Commander and several Deputy Commanders. They must have a big backer.”
Old Li said, “I don’t know either, didn’t find out anything. But they are genuinely collecting jade stone.”
Boss Zhao’s eyes darted around. He picked up a stone from the ground, wiped it carelessly a couple of times, and said, “Alright, I’ll have to go myself. You can’t find out anything.”
“Boss, business is booming!” Boss Zhao entered with a beaming smile and first offered congratulations.
Courtesy demands courtesy. Ji An also smiled and said, “Sir, do you have jade stone to sell?”
“That’s right, my stone is great. I bought it for several million before the apocalypse. Take a look and see what I can exchange it for?” Boss Zhao, while examining the shop’s decor, asked casually, “Boss, do you know our Base’s Highest Commander and several Deputy Commanders? What’s your relationship? Do those commanders have shares in this shop?”
Ji An had already seen the “jade stone” Boss Zhao mentioned. It was just a broken stone found everywhere in the apocalypse, not only without any spiritual energy but also a bit dirty.
Ji An returned the broken stone to Boss Zhao and said, “This is just a stone you can find anywhere on the street. We don’t buy these.”
Boss Zhao wasn’t embarrassed by being exposed and laughed, “Isn’t it a bit too shabby for a shop that has shares from a few commanders?”
Ji An’s beautiful peach blossom eyes stared straight at Boss Zhao, his dark eyes making Boss Zhao feel completely creeped out.
Boss Zhao rubbed the goosebumps on his arms, thinking that no wonder he was familiar with the Base Commanders. Regardless of his personal ability, his aura was strong enough.
As soon as Boss Zhao came out, Old Zhou came over and asked, “Boss Zhao, what did you find out?”
Boss Zhao casually threw the stone back on the ground, snorted through his nose, and said coldly, “Not telling you!”
He thought to himself, that young boss looked scary, but his appearance was truly handsome.
Old Zhou spat, “Must not have gotten anything good, taking it out on me.”
The slum area where ordinary people gathered in Jing Shi Base’s East City was dirty and messy, with many homeless people sprawled on the streets. Each one was sallow and gaunt, skin and bones.
On this street where these homeless people were lying, there were dilapidated buildings, old and in disrepair, with peeling walls and murky water stains everywhere. In some places, for unknown reasons, water was dripping continuously.
This is where almost the lowest level of ordinary people in Jing Shi Base gathered. They had no abilities, their lives were meager and difficult, often accompanied by physical ailments. Often, three or four families lived together in one household, and even these houses weren’t their own but rented as cheap welfare housing.
As dusk settled, Zheng Yan got off work from the factory. The work in the factory was very heavy, and Zheng Yan had no money to grease palms, which meant she was doing the hardest work nobody else wanted.
Zheng Yan felt like her legs were filled with lead, unable to take another step, but she still managed to walk home step by step with her heavy legs.
As soon as she opened the door, she saw her mother with graying hair and her father in a wheelchair, and her mood slightly improved.
Mother Zheng saw Zheng Yan and immediately showed a look of guilt, “Yanyan, I’m sorry, I couldn’t keep your dinner safe. Your second uncle and youngest uncle’s families snatched it.”
“It’s alright, I had lunch at the factory anyway.” The factory Zheng Yan worked at provided lunch, but the food was very poor and each person’s portion was limited, nowhere near enough to fill her up.
The work at the factory was so tiring. Zheng Yan had been working all day and was exhausted and thirsty.
“Mom, help me pour a glass of water.”
Mother Zheng became even more awkward and said helplessly, “The water you brought back was also taken by them.”
Zheng Yan felt a wave of helplessness. She couldn’t support her legs any longer and slumped onto the ground, feeling that tomorrow held no hope.
Actually, it wasn’t Father and Mother Zheng’s fault. One of them was in poor health, and the other had mobility issues. How could they fight against the young and strong families of her two uncles? Naturally, they couldn’t protect the food and water she brought back.
In the early days of the apocalypse, when Jing Shi Base was first established, they underwent reorganization and requisitioned many houses.
Theirs was among them, but it wasn’t taken for free. They were given a lot of grain compensation.
Zheng Yan’s family had a large villa, which exchanged for enough grain for three years. To be honest, in the apocalypse, houses were the least valuable things. Being able to exchange it for so much grain, Zheng Yan was truly willing.
At that time, Zheng Yan’s two uncles’ families were also requisitioned, and the three families sat together to discuss if they could live together. After all, they were ordinary people who hadn’t awakened abilities, and being together as a family was safer.
Before the apocalypse, Zheng Yan’s family was rich and had helped her two uncles’ families a lot. The two uncles were completely obedient to Zheng Yan’s family, wishing they could treat Zheng Yan better than their own children. Zheng Yan’s family didn’t think too much about it and agreed to live together and look out for each other.
At first, things were fine, and the uncles were good to Zheng Yan’s family. However, as the uncles’ families ran out of grain and the apocalypse became more chaotic, the uncles gradually revealed their true nature, and their attitude towards Zheng Yan’s family worsened.
Eventually, they started openly snatching food from Zheng Yan and her family. Zheng Yan’s family couldn’t fight them and their grain was stolen.
After the two uncles squandered all their grain, they started to leech off Zheng Yan’s family.
These uncles, including their children, had developed lazy habits before the apocalypse. They hadn’t experienced hardship, hadn’t awakened abilities, and refused to work in the factory. They spent their days unproductive and idle at home.
Zheng Yan, however, couldn’t be like that. Her mother was in poor health, and her father had been pushed down by the two uncles while trying to protect the grain, injuring something. Since then, his legs couldn’t move.
It wasn’t that Zheng Yan hadn’t taken her father to the hospital, but she simply couldn’t afford the medical expenses.
To ensure her family had food and to help her father’s legs, Zheng Yan, who had never suffered before the apocalypse and didn’t even care about millions, had to grit her teeth and go to the factory to work for a living.
For someone who had never done manual labor, the work in the factory was too tiring, so tiring she wanted to give up. But thinking of her parents, she could only grit her teeth and endure.
The hard-earned grain this way, her parents and she couldn’t even eat much of it before it was snatched away by her two uncles’ families.
Just as Zheng Yan was despairing, her eldest cousin from her youngest uncle’s family, Zheng Qiu, who had been out wandering all day, returned.
He saw Zheng Yan sitting on the ground and said with a laugh, “Zheng Yan, aren’t you precious about your stones? There’s a fool who just opened a shop on Fengcheng Street specifically collecting your broken stones. You can go take a look, maybe you can make a fortune.”
Fengcheng Street was very far from their place; it took over two hours by car. It could be said it was a world away, a place they could never reach. Just like the Zheng family before the apocalypse, it was a wealthy and powerful clan that many people couldn’t compare to.
People like Zheng Qiu wouldn’t dare to go to West City, where all the Power Users and Ancient Martial Arts Practitioners among ordinary people were. This news was heard through gossip, and he didn’t believe it at all. He wondered which idiot was so poor they imagined it.
That stuff, you couldn’t eat it, you couldn’t drink it, and it couldn’t increase abilities. Who would want it for anything? Pure appreciation? When you couldn’t even afford to eat, what appreciation was there?
The youngest aunt had been feigning death since Zheng Yan returned, but now she came out, seeing her son, her face beaming with smiles.
“Xiao Qiu is back? Have you eaten? Mom saved you half a bowl of rice and a sip of water. Hurry in and drink.”
Mother Zheng was so angry her whole body trembled. Those things were stolen from her, and now they were openly provoking her.
Zheng Yan got up from the ground, ran back to her room, grabbed the box containing her jewelry, and walked out. Mother and Father Zheng called out a few times at the door, but Zheng Yan didn’t look back.
She didn’t know how far she ran in one breath. A gust of night wind cleared her feverish mind. What remained was a bitter smile.
What era was this? Who would still collect these impractical things? Only she would still hold onto them and refuse to let go.
But Zheng Yan genuinely liked them. Before the apocalypse, she was a jewelry designer. At that time, the jewelry she designed could sell for sky-high prices. In the apocalypse, this skill was completely useless, and nobody wanted those beautiful jewels even if they were given away for free.
Many homeless people saw Zheng Yan holding a box carefully as if it were a treasure and thought it was something good. They stared fiercely at Zheng Yan with malicious eyes. Zheng Yan was afraid they might riot, so she opened the box. When those homeless people found they were just some broken jewels, they lost interest and collapsed back down.
Perhaps it was the end of the road, even though she knew it was impossible, Zheng Yan didn’t go home with the jewelry but went to West City, a place she usually didn’t want to go.
Zheng Yan originally thought what Zheng Qiu said was false. When she reached Fengcheng Street, she casually asked if there was a place that bought jade stone and was surprisingly given directions.
Only then did she realize that this piece of news, which even her cousin didn’t believe himself, was actually true.
Zheng Yan’s heart filled with wild joy. She almost ran to the door of a small shop called the Space Shop.
As soon as she arrived, she saw the shop’s two employees, a man and a woman, closing up.
“Hello, do you still buy jade stone here?” Zheng Yan asked cautiously and nervously.
Ji An looked at Zheng Yan. From her clothes and emaciated figure, he saw her predicament.
Ji An nodded, “Yes, we do. Come in.”
Ji An opened the locked front door, let her in, and turned on the light.
This ordinary action before the apocalypse made Zheng Yan feel a mix of emotions for a moment.
Before the apocalypse, electric lights were never a luxury, but in the apocalypse, it was different.
When she came to West City, she found that West City truly deserved to be the place where the rich lived; the streets were still lit by electric lights.
Her East City, however, was not like this. At night, besides the stars in the sky, no other brightness could be seen.
Even if there were electric lights, poor people like them couldn’t afford to use them because they couldn’t pay the electricity bill.
Zheng Yan pulled back her wandering thoughts and pushed the box in her hand towards Ji An. “How much can these jewels be exchanged for?”
Ji An found that all the jewelry in Zheng Yan’s box was of good quality. Especially one ruby necklace among them, composed of five gems, each one rich in spiritual energy, could be made into five space storage items.
Although the spiritual energy of the remaining gems wasn’t as strong, they were still gems with sufficient spiritual energy.
Ji An said, “What do you want to exchange for?”
“Can… can I choose?” Zheng Yan asked in surprise. She thought being able to exchange for anything at all would be good enough.
“Yes.”
Zheng Yan swallowed and made a bold request, “I want to exchange for food and clean water.”
“Okay.” If they could be made into space storage items, the value of these jade stones would instantly multiply a hundred or even a thousand times. Ji An didn’t want to be harsh on these sellers; this was already making a huge profit.
“These items can be calculated as 1.6 million credit points for you. I can convert it into corresponding supplies.” Ji An said, “However, I temporarily don’t have that many credit points and supplies on hand. You can choose to sell just one item first, or give them all to me, and I’ll write you an IOU and repay you slowly in the future.”
Zheng Yan was completely stunned, okay? If the box of jewels weren’t in Ji An’s hand, she would have been so shocked that she would have dropped it and broken it.
Those broken stones, which were worthless in the eyes of people in the apocalypse, could actually be sold for money!
“Give them all to you. Just write me an IOU.” Over a million, Zheng Yan didn’t care about it before the apocalypse, but in the apocalypse, this was practically becoming rich overnight.
Zheng Yan was afraid that this opportunity wouldn’t come again, so she immediately made her decision.
In other words, even if this shop owner ran off with these things, it wouldn’t matter. Anyway, they were all just broken stones, and besides the current shop owner, nobody else wanted them.