My Romance Game Updated – Chapter 80
by Little PandaJoy Turns to Sorrow
Mu Ning said she would make up two crystal cores, and she really did fish for another hour until she caught two more 6th-order mutated fish.
Watching the sun hanging in the sky slowly sinking toward the horizon, Mu Ning had everyone pack up. Once again carrying a full load of harvest, they prepared to board the bus and return to base. Before setting out for the beach that afternoon, Chen Gu and the others had specifically bought many bamboo baskets, in addition to the iron buckets used that morning. Since morning, survivor teams had been coming one after another to buy bamboo baskets from the weavers, and in the afternoon Chen Gu’s group came again. Such a rare big order made the weavers’ faces bloom with smiles. These people had a premonition that tomorrow, even more people would come to buy their bamboo baskets.
Just as Chen Gu and the others were loading basket after basket of seafood onto the bus, a loud car horn sounded from behind. Everyone turned to look, and sure enough, it was Qi Sheng’s familiar RV.
“Hi~ Sheng-ge, how was your harvest today?” Chen Gu waved enthusiastically at the RV.
The RV slowed down and finally stopped to the right of the bus. A window rolled down, revealing Qi Sheng’s less-than-pleasant face. “Did you encounter any 6th-order mutated beasts this afternoon?”
“No, why?” Mu Ning looked at Qi Sheng calmly.
Hearing Mu Ning’s answer, Qi Sheng only let out a long sigh and said in a heavy voice, “We went to that beach where you were this morning…”
“Encountered a 6th-order mutated fish?” Chen Gu asked curiously.
“If only it were a 6th-order mutated fish! What we encountered was a 6th-order mutated jellyfish!”
“Mutated jellyfish?” Chen Gu screamed in shock. He thought of that white translucent monster from earlier when he had helped his boss pull on the vine whip.
Chen Gu’s scream made Qi Sheng think he was just frightened by the mutated jellyfish, so he didn’t pay much attention and only nodded, continuing, “And it was a poisonous one!”
“P-p-poisonous…” Chen Gu thought of the thrilling scene from earlier and stammered, “D-did someone get hurt?”
“No…” Qi Sheng’s face grew even darker. “One of my brothers was only stung by that jellyfish’s tentacle, and he died on the spot…”
“D-died…”
Chen Gu was so scared he could barely breathe. Mu Ning also turned her head to glance at Ren Chenxi. When that 6th-order white monster had attacked her with its tentacles earlier, she hadn’t taken it seriously at all—she had just wanted to tighten her grip on that ghostly thing and drag it ashore. Then Ren Chenxi had pushed her in time, and after that, must have used one of her cards to kill that white monster directly.
This person—sometimes she would sharply mock her, but in her heart, she still cared about her!
While Mu Ning was feeling pleased, Qi Sheng’s mood was very heavy, even regretful.
“I shouldn’t have been greedy, shouldn’t have wanted a Level 6 crystal core too, and gone to that beach where you were this morning. If I hadn’t…” But saying that was one thing—in truth, if given another choice, Qi Sheng would still choose to take the risk.
“Then… Sheng-ge, did you kill that mutated jellyfish and avenge your brother?”
“No… When all of us espers attacked it, it just escaped into the sea.”
“…” And then it came to our side! Of course, Chen Gu didn’t dare say this out loud. He couldn’t provoke Qi Sheng further by telling him that the 6th-order mutated jellyfish which so many of their espers couldn’t kill and even lost a person to, was easily taken care of by Xi-jie using her headshot ability.
Qi Sheng still took Chen Gu’s silence as fear of the jellyfish. He gave a bitter smile, waved at everyone, and then the RV slowly drove away.
Only after the RV’s tail lights had disappeared did Ren Chenxi scoff and say disdainfully, “Putting on quite an act.”
“Huh?” Chen Gu was confused by Ren Chenxi’s sudden remark.
“We were attacked by the mutated jellyfish about an hour ago…” Seeing Chen Gu’s confusion, Mu Ning rarely explained with good patience. “So Qi Sheng’s group must have encountered the mutated jellyfish even earlier. In that case, after already losing a teammate, they still delayed on the beach for so long before returning to base. They couldn’t have been nearby digging a pit to bury their teammate and holding some kind of memorial ceremony, could they?”
“…” Now Chen Gu understood what Ren Chenxi was scoffing at.
If they truly cared about their teammate and wanted to bury him and hold all the subsequent ceremonies, they should have brought the body back to base immediately. In the apocalypse, the wilderness environment was filled with danger everywhere. If they just casually buried someone in the wild, hungry mutated beasts would dig up the corpse and devour it. That wouldn’t show much brotherly affection from Qi Sheng, who kept calling him “brother.” So, assuming Qi Sheng didn’t just bury his brother in the wild, then his delay in returning to base… obviously, all that seafood on the beach was more important than dealing with his brother’s body.
“But… Qi Sheng is the base leader after all, he can’t help it, right?”
After a long while, Chen Gu could only force out this sentence.
As the leader of a base, in this chaotic apocalypse, naturally sufficient food and enough strength were the top priorities.
Qi Sheng’s group’s encounter was just an interlude. In this difficult apocalypse, inside and outside the base, how many people died every day? Chen Gu was only dejected for a moment before he started helping carry baskets of seafood onto the bus again. On the bus, Tantan, having played enough, was already obediently curled up on the window seat where Ren Chenxi had sat when they came. When Ren Chenxi boarded, Tantan had just meowed a few times before being unceremoniously lifted up by Ren Chenxi and placed on the floor. Then, she took a towel from her inventory and carefully wiped the seat covered in sand grains.
Ren Chenxi herself could sit on the sandy ground without a care, and earlier when she wanted to retrieve that Level 6 crystal core from the sea, she hadn’t hesitated to step into deeper water—now both her pant legs were wet halfway up. But this bus wasn’t just her property anymore. The seats on board might be hers today, but tomorrow someone else might sit there. Seeing Tantan directly pounce on it all dirty and sandy, Ren Chenxi felt the same way she did in the pre-apocalypse when she saw people with dirty shoes stepping on bus seats.
“Meow meow meow meow…” Tantan didn’t understand why its coquettishness didn’t get Ren Chenxi’s hug, and instead it was directly thrown to the floor. For a moment, it felt even more wronged and kept rubbing against Ren Chenxi’s leg with all its might.
After Ren Chenxi finished wiping the chair clean, she looked down at Tantan, who was trying hard to act cute, and didn’t pick it up like when they came. Instead, she let out a long sigh. Before, she had only worried that Tantan would run into the sea and make a mess at the beach, completely overlooking that as a long-haired cat, after getting covered in sand, Tantan would be extremely difficult to clean and groom. Looking at that long fur, now wet and clumped together with sand stuck all over, Ren Chenxi just felt a headache coming.
“Just keep meowing! When we get back, I’m shaving all that long fur off you!”
“Meow meow meow meow—” Tantan seemed to understand Ren Chenxi’s threat and could only continue acting pitiful and cute. On the opposite seat, Mu Ning stared at Tantan, who kept rubbing against Ren Chenxi’s feet, with an evil grin on her face1.
Heh, you little thing, you finally got what was coming to you~
There were many survivors going to the beach today, and most teams had substantial harvests. So to avoid Huo Keyu’s BBQ stall being overwhelmed with customers at night and causing chaos, and to avoid exhausting Huo Keyu and the other ordinary people who would have to process more seafood, Ren Chenxi very sincerely suggested that for the next few days, they’d better not set up the stall.
This proposal naturally received agreement from Huo Keyu and the other ordinary people. They had been busy at the beach all day, and while obtaining a large harvest, they as ordinary people would naturally get tired too. The evening time should just be used for good rest.
In the end, Ren Chenxi couldn’t bear to shave all of Tantan’s long fur. That Tantan, once dirty all over and forced to be shaved into a bald kitten because of skin disease, had now grown into such a beautiful and cute cat. Ren Chenxi didn’t want to see Tantan in that sickly, miserable bald state again.
In the bathroom that Tang Ying had “renovated” to be extremely beautiful, Ren Chenxi spent some effort grooming Tantan’s dirty long fur. Although Tantan’s long fur after returning from the beach looked quite tragic, Ren Chenxi had been helping Tantan groom that long fur smooth every day, so even after being wet by seawater and covered in sand, as long as she rinsed it with water several times, all the dirt and mess could be washed completely clean. It turned out that giving Tantan a bath was easier than expected.
Of course, this easier condition was that Tantan was very well-behaved and cooperated with its bath. And… Mu Ning’s water-system ability let her use precious water resources so wastefully in the apocalypse without worry.
Yes, precious water resources.
When Liao Lan, Li Jie, and the others shamelessly came to Mu Ning again to beg for some water2, Ren Chenxi, who had been crazily wasting water resources giving Tantan baths for three consecutive days, finally realized this with a start.
In these three days, Ren Chenxi and Mu Ning had persisted in going to the beach to fish and gather seafood every day, just like the other survivors at the base. Mainly Mu Ning—her obsession with fishing had reached near madness. The number of Level 6 crystal cores stored in her inventory had reached forty-three. So many Level 6 crystal cores—if Qi Sheng found out, he’d probably go mad too. Besides Level 6 crystal cores, there were also fifteen Level 5 crystal cores. These Level 5 crystal cores were from fish Mu Ning caught on the first day, and from the next two days when Chen Gu and the others encountered 5th-order mutated crabs, mutated lobsters, and mutated fish that were then killed by Mu Ning.
Perhaps because there were more espers on the beach, some mid-tier mutated seafood hiding in the sea, like bees scenting honey, began swarming onto the beach to attack those espers gathering low-tier seafood.
On the first day, Qi Sheng’s team encountered a 6th-order mutated jellyfish and lost a person. On the second day, news spread from the base about other survivor teams being attacked by 5th-order and 6th-order mutated seafood. Some were lucky and narrowly escaped back; others were unlucky and lost several teammates at once.
Because of the harvests that each team brought back to base on the first day—basket after basket—other cautious survivors watched with red-eyed jealousy. By the second day, almost every survivor in the base with any mobility had swarmed to the beach. Even parasites like Li Jie and Liao Lan’s group followed the crowd to the beach to scavenge for bargains.
Everyone overlooked the fact that on the first day, their base leader’s team had lost a member. Everyone thought the beach was now a giant cake waiting to be divided—just pick and dig a little, and you could bring back a full harvest.
But everyone forgot: the more people there were, the easier it was to attract mutated beasts. Those ferocious mutated seafood in the sea would naturally be attracted too.
On the third day, news even spread that an entire survivor team had been wiped out. At the same time, another survivor team had lost more than half their members.
This survivor team that lost more than half their members was Li Jie and Liao Lan’s team.
The author has something to say:
Xixi: Meow what meow, just watch me shave you into a bald cat!
Tantan (wronged): Meow meow meow meow…
Mutou (gloating): Serves you right!
Tantan: But I can rub against my owner’s long legs, can you? (rub rub rub rub rub)
Mutou:…
Seeing you little cuties mentioning pickled vegetable noodles again, emmm… the author also loves eating Old Pickled Vegetable Beef Noodles, but doesn’t like the Master Kong brand—always feels Master Kong’s noodles don’t taste good. Recently it seems the Uni-President pickled vegetables also got caught up in something? Good thing I don’t eat instant noodles very often, and under the recommendations of many netizens, the author plans to switch to Baixiang. It seems Baixiang has good soup too, and they have Golden Soup Pickled Fish Noodles~~~
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