Chapter 8: Returning to the City

“L, I found one!”

“L, I found one too!”

A group of people were shaking their heads as they searched.

Tu You, who always kept a low profile, quietly avoided the crowd and hopped onto Sang Chu’s shoulder: [Why don’t you just give it to him directly? Why go through all this trouble?]

Sang Chu didn’t answer, just stood to the side watching him look for gold nuggets.

The concentration here wasn’t very high, but it was still something.

“A-Chu, aren’t you going to look for some?” someone asked.

“I’m not going to look anymore, Brother Zuo. You keep searching, I’ll head out first.”

As soon as Sang Chu was about to leave, everyone paused what they were doing and looked up.

Yuan Ke asked, “Why are you leaving so soon?”

“I’ve been out here for almost a month, so I’m planning to head back to the city. I’ll look around nearby first, see if there are any more nests like this.”

Zuo Xuefeng understood that Sang Chu probably wanted to travel alone; being with a big group might make her uncomfortable.

He took out his communicator and said, “Let me give you Dr. Li’s contact. Add her on your comms—if you find anything else, you can contact her directly. She’ll give you a fair price.”

“Okay, thanks, Brother Zuo.”

Sang Chu, with Tu You, walked out of the cave.

Tu You: [We’re heading back now?]

Once they were away from the crowd, Sang Chu finally replied to Tu You: “Yeah, it’s not convenient to follow them around. Going back to the city, I can turn in the gold and get a good price for the materials.”

“Then why didn’t you just give all the gold to Zuo Xuefeng? You’ve been holding onto it for so long!”

Sang Chu fell silent for a moment, then smiled wryly, “Maybe because he’s a good person.”

“That’s it?”

Sang Chu nodded, “Yeah. In the apocalypse, everyone’s just trying to survive. Even good people gradually become hardened, because you never know if the person you save will stab you in the back. Other than Mu Xue and Lu Minliang, I haven’t met many good people in a long time. Mu Xue and I are like brothers, and Lu Minliang likes Mu Xue, so there’s some bias there. But Zuo Xuefeng and I were strangers. Not only did he save me, he gave me food and shelter. More importantly, he gave me a way to survive. Giving him a handful of gold increases his chances of staying safe. He deserves it.”

Tu You didn’t really understand, so he just wiggled his big ears and said, “Alright, it’s yours anyway. You decide.”

“Mm, let’s go home.”

The girl and the rabbit got into the hovercar.

Watching Sang Chu’s departing figure, Cao Dian patted Zuo Xuefeng on the shoulder. “That girl may be a bit naive, but she’s a good person. When you hand those things over to the doctor, make sure you ask for a good price. Don’t let her get shortchanged.”

“I know. I’ll talk to the doctor first. She can estimate the value, and I’ll be out in the wild for a while anyway. Once I’m back, I’ll hand it over to her. Have you finished searching?”

Yuan Ke came over, “We’ve searched the area under the nest. There’s a left and right passage, and we found fifteen golden beads in total. The biggest one is probably the most valuable.”

Zuo Xuefeng said, “Everyone, be careful and thorough. Even if it’s just a tiny bit of gold, don’t leave it behind.”

“Got it, understood.”

While the group continued exploring the cave, Sang Chu was already sprawled out, exhausted, in the hovercar.

This time, all the gold she collected was in the form of round golden balls. She didn’t have the energy to shape them further, so she just made as many as she could.

City A

After putting away the hovercar, Sang Chu headed straight for the workshop.

When Hua Xi saw her, she ran over, muttering, “Heavens above, you finally made it back safe!”

She ran up to Sang Chu and couldn’t help but look her up and down. “You really are a handful, you know that? If I’d known, I wouldn’t have let you take the hovercar! I told you to rest, but you just had to sneak out!”

Her lips pursed in a slight pout, as if the person standing in front of her wasn’t a young woman in her twenties, but a little child.

In this strange world, people’s actual ages tended to be much higher. For example, Hua Xi looked like a woman in her twenties, but she was actually sixty or seventy.

Sang Chu said, “Sorry, Sister Hua Xi. I just couldn’t sit still, so I went out. I brought back a lot of materials, we can put them up for sale.”

Hua Xi just gave her a helpless look. “Actually, I went looking for you the next day because I wanted to talk to you about something, but you were already gone! Dr. Li said that the mutated materials you brought back have high attack power. Since you wanted star embryos and other things, and you weren’t here, we decided to put all the weapons and materials you owed the workshop on Dr. Li’s tab. She’ll settle up with you later!”

“Huh? Are those things really worth that much? Aren’t they just some random stuff?”

Hua Xi looked at the dumbfounded Sang Chu and laughed. “Those materials are rare on Guangxing. Dr. Li has been researching weapons for hundreds of years. Not only are her weapons powerful, but the mutated creatures’ defenses are also evolving. But Dr. Li discovered that the materials you brought back can actually pierce the skin of mutated frogs. So she thinks your research has made a huge contribution, and that’s why she put all your weapons and materials on her account.”

“Sang Chu? Is that Sang Chu?”

As soon as Dr. Li received word that Sang Chu was back, she rushed over.

She had a beautiful face, her hair tied up in a neat ponytail.

She wore a white lab coat, with a shiny badge on her chest indicating her status.

She had a pair of smart glasses, and as she approached, the glasses displayed everyone’s information.

When she saw Sang Chu, she hurried over, eyes sparkling, and grabbed her hands:

“You must be Sang Chu! I’m Li Yue, but everyone calls me Dr. Li. Zuo Xuefeng told me you found a lot of gold in the wild, but he didn’t say how much.”

Her enthusiasm startled Sang Chu, who quickly nodded and took out all sorts of gold nuggets from her storage device.

“After the nest appeared, I kept searching underground on my way back to the city. I found these and brought them all back.”

“Wow! That’s a lot! Sang Chu, you really are my lucky star!”

Dr. Li’s eyes practically sparkled with gold as she looked at the haul. Sang Chu was a little worried she might swallow the gold in the next second.

“Sang Chu, can I buy all of these from you? Name your price!”

Sang Chu hesitated, then said, “Dr. Li, I saw on the comms that there’s a house-building device. I was wondering if I could buy one? Sometimes it’s not convenient in the wild, and if I could build a house anywhere, I could rest safely without worrying about mutated creatures attacking.”"