Chapter 53: Bumper Harvest
The spicy strips found on the vehicle also swelled up, but the mineral water and biscuits are still good, as are the instant noodles, as long as the seasoning packets are thrown away.
Yu Jiang found a total of 3 unopened bottles of mineral water, 10 biscuits, and 7 packs + 5 buckets of instant noodles on the bus, which was a pretty good haul.
With the idea of not wasting anything, she excitedly recycled the bus.
With Yu Jiang’s current scavenger level, the bus still had 60% of its gray health bar left and couldn’t be damaged further.
She packed the searched supplies into a duffel bag, and as she walked toward the nearby small car, she sighed while glancing at the storage space under the bus.
When would her own vehicle have such a large storage space? She couldn’t even imagine it—she would be such a happy survivor!
Over the next few hours, Yu Jiang picked up the hammer in the abandoned service area and smashed away with a clanging racket.
The four broken A6 circles, recycled.
The severely corroded Land Rover, recycled. The Mazda with only a rusty frame left had no major issues and could even yield a few iron blocks when conveniently recycled.
The wheels were rusted inside, but the rubber could still be recycled. It was a bit of a pity that the high-strength steel from some good cars could only be recycled into ordinary steel blocks.
To turn steel blocks into high-strength steel requires forging upgrades, at a ratio of 3:1.
Yu Jiang drank her second qi replenishing drink of the day. Even though she had upgraded the crowbar once, facing so many abandoned cars, her stamina wasn’t enough for the consumption.
Adding up to more than a dozen cars front and back, plus the service area buildings, windows, doors, shelves, and parking toll gate—all could be recycled for materials.
There were also fragments from the exploded oil tank storage containers.
She didn’t even spare the wooden furniture inside the houses, recycling it all and smashing it into firewood.
She also collected the large parasols used for setting up stalls.
It was practically a bumper crop!
Yu Jiang crouched under the eaves, removed her homemade eye mask, rested for a bit, and then began taking inventory of the supplies.
She put all the upgrade materials into the space grids. Iron blocks and steel blocks could hold up to 250 per grid, so they didn’t take up much space.
She obtained a total here: 158 iron blocks, 60 steel blocks, 25 rubber, 6 nails, 15 rusty nails, 10 broken glass. She didn’t know if this last one was useful, but she’d collect it first.
Following the bus, the supplies obtained from inside the vehicles and service area houses:
36 unopened bottles of mineral water, 7 packs of facial tissue, 2 somewhat dirty blankets, 2 car toolboxes, 25 pieces of wood with no manufacturing value, various old clothes.
8 packs of cigarettes, 5 umbrellas, 6 cans of eight-treasure congee that were expired but still edible, 1 pack of salt.
The surprise was that in the corner of one of the service area rooms, amid a pile of spoiled food, there was a case of unopened spicy beef instant noodles, and a case of half-vacuum-packed pre-packaged meals.
She cleared out the bad ones, leaving 23 bags of various dishes: green pepper stir-fried minced pork, fish-flavored shredded pork, braised meat.
Also 3 bags of 10-jin rice that had swelled but wasn’t spoiled.
Sure enough, in the apocalypse, scavenging is the way of kings!
Other than that time at the raccoon supermarket, Yu Jiang had never gotten such abundant supplies!
There was also an old-fashioned small fan here, and it was good—take it along.
[Players raid quickly and take absolutely nothing they can carry, even flipping through the trash! Truly a model for us scavengers. Achievement unlocked: ‘Scavenger Level 3’]
You can now recycle higher level abandoned items, aren’t you excited! Charge ahead! As long as you diligently scavenge, you can surely rush toward a prosperous life!]
Yu Jiang looked at the bus eagerly.
She first took out the supermarket cart and made two trips. In the end, there was still one snake skin bag left, which Yu Jiang hoisted with both hands and was about to sling over her shoulder.
Suddenly, she saw a blue humanoid creature standing ahead, its brown sackcloth cape looking very familiar.
It was the monster merchant!
Yu Jiang gave an embarrassed but polite smile. Could this be that she had scavenged and wiped out someone else’s home?
So should she run or not? It was impossible to restore the service area anyway.
The blue monster merchant was equally shocked. “Did you do this?”
As Yu Jiang was pondering how to reply, she heard him say, “That’s great!”
Yu Jiang: ???
“These trash and abandoned cars were giving me a headache. To clean up and renovate this service area, I’d have to call a truck from the dump.”
And pay crystal coins to the dump, plus extra fees during acid rain.
Look how professionally she did it! Not only clearing so many abandoned cars, but also taking away a pile of trash!
More importantly, she didn’t charge money—too touching!
The blue monster merchant looked at the now much emptier service area and grew more and more pleased.
“Can I recycle that bus again?” Yu Jiang eyed the monster merchant.
At these words, the monster merchant seemed afraid she’d change her mind and quickly said,
“That would be great! Thanks for the hard work—I’ll give you a gift package! Don’t be shy, but you have to finish the job first.”
“.” Yu Jiang wouldn’t stand on ceremony, but she was a bit dumbfounded.
There was such a good thing? Scavenging even came with a gift pack.
Do it, must do it! Work makes her happy! Labor brings her glory!
Yu Jiang made an OK hand gesture, picked up the crowbar with one hand, and strode toward the bus like Popeye’s spinach-powered sailor after eating spinach. Listening to the crisp clanging sounds and watching the recycling resource prompts pop up continuously, she felt delighted and grew more and more excited with each strike.
The monster merchant supervising nearby nodded repeatedly in approval.
Meanwhile, outside the service area.
A super mini four-wheeled vehicle that looked a bit like a BMW Isetta pulled up.
Just as they excitedly started to head inside, they glanced to the side and saw the signs ‘Service Area Closed’ and ‘No Parking.’ The driver deflated instantly.
They thought they were saved, finally finding a service area again—only to realize it was an abandoned service area. All that excitement for nothing.
Sighing regretfully, the player drove off in their undersized four-wheeled vehicle.
The bus finally had 40% health bar left; the internal frame really couldn’t be recycled.
“My level isn’t high enough; this is all I can do.”
Yu Jiang worried the monster merchant might think she wasn’t working well, withhold the gift pack, or secretly skimp on it, so she immediately stated,
“But I can help you take down the roofs; I can also dismantle the insides of the houses.”
The blue monster merchant waved his hand. “No need, no need—this is good enough. The houses contain instance locations.”
Yu Jiang’s eyes flickered slightly. “Aren’t you planning to take over this place and run it?”
The blue monster merchant glanced over. Fine, she had at least helped clear so much trash; he’d tell her.
“You can’t tell anyone else.”
Yu Jiang nodded understandingly, and the blue monster merchant lowered his voice.
“This is an instance service area. You need to complete missions to qualify for purchases, but it’s not open yet.”
Service areas are all mobile, randomly connecting to parallel roads. Once the daily player limit is reached, the entrance closes.
Like the raccoon family, they run chain supermarkets with the most complete daily necessities and fresh food; entry conditions and numbers are very strict.
“Here’s your gift package.” The blue monster merchant pulled a coarse sack from his pocket.
It was exactly like the sack in the golden miner game, except the bag had no question mark, only the monster merchant’s simple drawing avatar mark.
PK2 didn’t pass this time; probably needs retesting next week. Begging for read-throughs, thank you everyone!
