Chapter 5
by LhaoziChapter 5: Duplicate Element Points
Qin Xi1 sat in front of the sofa, calculating the supply list.
After clearing away the dishes and chopsticks, Qin Song2 contacted an agent online to arrange a walkthrough for a warehouse.
They didn’t have much time to prepare supplies. Counting today’s half-day, there were actually only two and a half days left before the apocalypse arrived.
He and Qin Xi had to race against the clock.
“Xi Xi1, we should get going to check out the warehouse, and pick up the vehicles while we’re at it.”
Besides the warehouse, Qin Song had also rented two box trucks from a car rental company.
Although wholesalers usually provided door-to-door delivery, what if he and Qin Xi needed to buy extra items on the fly?
Hearing this, Qin Xi quickly stood up, packing her things while saying, “Big Brother, drop me off at the rental company first. You go inspect the warehouse, and I’ll drive off straight to start buying supplies so we don’t waste time.”
“Alright.”
Qin Song nodded.
In truth, he preferred for Qin Xi to rest at home while he handled these errands himself.
However, with time running short, both of them had to work together so they could live a little easier after the apocalypse.
The two walked downstairs together, and Qin Song dropped Qin Xi off at the rental company first.
Before the apocalypse in her previous life, Qin Xi had already obtained her driver’s license, so renting a light box truck with a blue license plate3 was no problem.
Once she picked up the truck, the two split up.
Qin Song needed to secure the warehouse lease first, then purchase water, generators, and coal.
Qin Xi, holding the list she had prepared, drove off to the Jiangcheng4 Wholesale Market.
The wholesale market was massive.
It was roughly divided into several sections: food, daily necessities, clothing, flowers/birds/fish/insects, home appliances & furniture, and building materials.
Instead of buying goods right away, Qin Xi went straight to the flower, bird, and fish market.
Her system space was currently too small.
At one hundred square meters5, it was completely incapable of holding all the supplies they needed to hoard; it had to be upgraded as soon as possible.
Otherwise, if someone targeted such a massive amount of supplies after the apocalypse, she and Qin Song wouldn’t even have a shoulder to cry on.
Right now, upgrading the system required natural elements.
The pothos plant she had taken at the high-speed rail station earlier had already yielded one element point.
Qin Xi wanted to search through these natural plant shops to see if there were other items that could be converted into natural element points.
She stepped into a flower shop, and a staff member immediately came up to greet her: “Hello! What kind of flowers are you looking for today?”
Qin Xi’s gaze swept across the store, and she raised her hand to point at several potted plants in the corner: “I’ll take these two trees, as well as those potted flowers over there—the cacti and the water lilies.”
She paused, then added, “And ten bags of potting soil.”
In reality, nature encompasses both plants and soil, so the items she bought should all count toward natural element points.
Hearing this large order, the staff member hurriedly arranged for someone to help fetch the items.
Qin Xi handed over her car keys directly, asking the clerk to help load the potted plants into her truck.
Meanwhile, she headed over to the ornamental fish store across the street.
Currently, the rule for the space’s grassy field was that living organisms could not enter.
However, Qin Xi wanted to test whether ornamental fish could enter the space if they were counted as element points!
After all, ornamental fish were considered natural landscapes in many scenic areas.
At the fish store, she casually bought several different species of fish, along with two small hermit crabs and two small horned frogs.
She also bought some bottom sand, gravel, and aquatic plants for fishkeeping.
Carrying everything, she walked out of the store and happened to bump into the flower shop clerk returning her car keys.
Qin Xi walked back to her truck, stepped inside the rear compartment, and closed the door.
She then stored several potted plants into the space first.
The very next second, as expected, a system prompt sounded:
【Acquired 1 Pomegranate Tree and 1 Kumquat Tree; acquired 1 Chinese Rose and 1 Herbaceous Peony; acquired 1 Water Lily. A total of 3 Natural Elements obtained. Current task progress: 4/10.】
【Cactus element point is a duplicate and will not be counted in the total.】
Qin Xi froze on the spot!
So many flowers, yet it only amounted to three element points in total.
And why didn’t the cactus count?
After being recognized by the system, the potted plants had disappeared from their spot.
The grassy field remained completely empty.
Frowning, Qin Xi pondered the differences between the flowers and gradually formed a guess.
Could it be because the ornamental nature of several flowers overlapped, making them invalid?
Both the kumquat and the pomegranate were potted plants that bore fruit.
Since both were appreciated for their fruit, they counted as duplicates.
The Chinese rose and the herbaceous peony were both appreciated for their blooms, so they also overlapped.
As for the water lily, although it bloomed, it was an aquatic plant, so it counted individually.
And the cactus—even though it could bloom and bear fruit, it was mostly appreciated for its stems and leaves in everyday terms.
It overlapped with the pothos.
If that was the case… Qin Xi looked down at the bags of fish and aquarium landscaping materials in her hands.
She first attempted to put the fish, hermit crabs, and horned frogs into the system.
To her surprise, they actually went in!
However, just like the potted plants, they vanished as soon as they were acquired as element points.
Following that, the system prompt rang out:
【Acquired 2 Koi, 2 Oranda Goldfish, and 2 Golden Loaches; acquired 2 Hermit Crabs and 2 Horned Frogs. A total of 2 Natural Elements obtained. Current task progress: 6/10.】
It really was like that. The species of fish counted as aquatic ornamental items, while the horned frogs and hermit crabs were amphibious, counting as one point for each category.
Having figured out the rules for the upgrade conditions, Qin Xi felt significantly relieved.
She quickly put the remaining potting soil, bottom sand, and aquatic plants inside, listening to the final system prompt:
【Acquired 5 kg of Stream Sand and 5 kg of Pebbles; acquired 1 Echinodorus, 1 Cabomba, and 1 Waterweed; acquired 10 bags of Potting Soil. A total of 3 Natural Elements obtained. Current task progress: 9/10.】
Just one more to go!
Qin Xi felt it was a slight pity.
She stood up, thinking about what else she could buy to immediately make up for that last point.
On second thought, there was no rush.
It was just one point; perhaps among the supplies she was about to purchase later, there would be something usable!
Time to buy supplies first!
With that thought, she jumped down from the truck compartment and shut the door.
Turning around, she walked toward the wholesale food street.
Qin Xi picked a grain and oil shop that looked relatively large.
Stepping inside, she handed the grain checklist she had prepared earlier to a clerk: “Please calculate the total price based on this list. I need good-quality rice and flour. Also, please check if all of this can be delivered before tomorrow evening—our factory needs it urgently.”
The clerk was momentarily stunned. After accepting the list and looking at it for two seconds, her eyes instantly lit up!
Her bonus for this month was secured!
“Alright! Please take a seat over here for a moment, and I’ll calculate the price for you!”
She hurriedly invited Qin Xi into the reception room and began computing the total.
While waiting, it suddenly occurred to Qin Xi that although she had no intention of getting married or entering a relationship in the future, what if her brother fell in love with a girl later on?
Just because it was the apocalypse didn’t mean people had to cut off all human emotions and desires.
It was still better to prepare more food.
Thus, she added an extra 2,000 buckets of cooking oil and 200 buckets of sesame oil to the order.
She also added 300 more bags each of rice and flour.
In the end, the total for the rice, flour, oil, and coarse grains came to over 460,000 yuan6, and the boss proactively waived the remainder of over 2,000 yuan.
While waiting, Qin Xi received the warehouse address sent by Qin Song.
After paying the deposit, she forwarded the address to the shop owner, who guaranteed that all the goods would be delivered before 5:00 PM tomorrow.
Satisfied, Qin Xi took her leave and turned toward the nearby spice and seasoning shop.
Footnotes:
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Blue license plate (藍牌): In Mainland China, standard small passenger vehicles and light commercial trucks under 4.5 tons total mass are issued blue vehicle license plates, which can be driven with a standard C1 driver’s license.
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Jiangcheng (江城): Literally “River City,” a common fictional or real city moniker in Chinese literature (often referencing Wuhan or similar river-adjacent cities).
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Square meters (平 / 平方米): A metric unit of area. 100 square meters is approximately equal to 1,076 square feet.
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Yuan (元): The basic unit of currency in China (Renminbi / RMB).
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