Chapter 4: A New Mystery Box, The Protagonist

The sky was just beginning to lighten, and the first rays of sunlight fell upon Qiao Jia, warm and gentle, as if even the traces of livor mortis on her body had faded a little. Of course, she’d never had any to begin with. She’d been revived by the system not long after dying—there was no time for such marks to form.

As dawn broke, the survivors inside the small wooden cabin woke up one after another. Since the world had changed, this was the best night’s sleep any of them had had—no need to worry about safety, no fear of losing their lives in a sudden zombie attack. Normal meals, normal sleep—such simple things had become rare and precious.

Hearing the stirrings around her, Qiao Jia quietly tidied up her blind box stall. She hoped today’s earnings would be as good as yesterday’s.

After upgrading the Lord’s Cabin, Qiao Jia had only fifty-five points left, along with twenty food blind boxes and ten water blind boxes. Starting from nothing, she’d made a full one hundred and eighty points yesterday! Most of the profits came from selling the beginner’s weapon blind box and charging for overnight stays.

She did a quick calculation in her mind—at this rate, it would take over a hundred more days to accumulate the ten thousand points needed to activate the Landlady’s Blind Box. She had to expand her customer base! Maybe there were new kinds of blind boxes to unlock?

Qiao Jia browsed the blind box store, looking for any boxes with low activation costs. In theory, she should unlock the level one weapon blind box for a thousand points, but just one weapon blind box would cost her a hundred points, and the survivors couldn’t afford that right now. Besides, the range of what you could get was too broad—who would want to spend hundreds of crystal cores on an ordinary dagger?

“Good morning, boss. I’ll take a food blind box.” Lost in thought, Qiao Jia looked up to see Shen Tong already at the stall, beaming. She’d woken early.

Shen Tong had expected to toss and turn all night, but to her surprise, she’d slept straight through until morning.

“That’ll be two crystal cores.” Qiao Jia reached out to take the crystals Shen Tong handed over—three in total.

“That’s too much,” she said. She ran a legitimate shop, not a crooked one.

“We’ll still need your help today with the rest of our luggage and that van,” Shen Tong said, gesturing awkwardly at the business vehicle parked outside.

“All right.” With crystal cores delivered to her door, why refuse? Shen Tong took her blind box and sat down on the wobbly little wooden chair beside the stall, one the system had hastily put together overnight.

Unfortunately, the workmanship left much to be desired—the tables and chairs were either missing limbs or had broken legs. Shen Tong quietly wedged a stone under one corner of the chair.

She was just about to open her blind box when a few disheveled figures suddenly burst from across the road!

Qiao Jia tried her best to widen her eyes in shock, but her gaze remained unchanged—those lifeless eyes of the dead. Those four people were still alive.

What tenacious lives, she mused.

Just then, the other survivors started to emerge as well, preparing to hustle for crystal cores. At the very least, they had to make enough for tonight’s lodging.

Some were shrewd enough to buy blind boxes from Qiao Jia and resell them at the nearby North Star Base—they were sure someone there would offer a higher price! According to what they’d heard on the radio, the North Star Base offered better value than Qiao Jia’s little cabin. Yet there was something mysterious about Qiao Jia and her blind box shop, something they couldn’t quite give up.

“I’ll take five food blind boxes,” one survivor declared boldly. She planned to resell them at North Star Base for a profit, maybe kill a couple of zombies on the way.

“That’ll be ten crystal cores.” Qiao Jia handed over the blind boxes while listening closely to the commotion by Shen Tong.

What a lively morning—already a spectacle worth watching. If she wasn’t a corpse, Qiao Jia would have asked the system for some sunflower seeds to snack on.

“You unfilial girl!” Suddenly, Shen Tong’s father, furious, raised his hand to slap her.

Qiao Jia didn’t blink, her eyes fixed on Shen Tong’s belongings. The other survivors, eating breakfast, also watched closely. That family was trying to force Shen Tong to hand over her rocket launcher and crystal cores; when she refused, they resorted to violence. Rumor had it that Shen Tong had only recently been found by her family, who didn’t seem to care much for her.

Poor girl—she’d barely had a few good days before the apocalypse struck.

Qiao Jia tallied up her crystal cores and had the system convert them into points. That morning, apart from two survivors who bought blind boxes, the rest ate their own rations. Food and water blind boxes weren’t selling well; most survivors simply didn’t have the crystal cores to spare.

She scrolled through the blind box store, searching for new options. Suddenly, one caught her eye.

[Low-Durability Weapon Blind Box: A blind box containing weapons on the verge of being scrapped. Activation cost: 100 points. Wholesale price: 5 points.]

This one the survivors might be able to afford, and she had just enough points to unlock it! Since these were nearly scrapped weapons recycled into blind boxes, the price was much lower than the regular weapon boxes—though the quality was anyone’s guess.

A hundred points wasn’t much. Worth a try.

Qiao Jia activated the low-durability weapon blind box and had just enough points left to stock one.

“Boss, is that a new blind box?” A sharp-eyed survivor spotted the new addition to Qiao Jia’s stall.

“Yes, it’s new—a low-durability weapon blind box.” Qiao Jia nodded and displayed it for all to see.

“Ten points each.”

Meanwhile, Shen Tong’s argument with her family was reaching a climax; she simply gave her brother and sister each a hard slap. She couldn’t bring herself to lay hands on her parents, so she let their beloved children take their place.

“Shen Tong, are you insane?” her father roared, nearly fainting with rage. “You wretched child!”

“Xiao Tong, you’ve disappointed your mother so much! How could you hit your brother and sister?” her mother cried, glancing around to see who was watching.

“Is this some kind of soap opera?” a newly arrived survivor wondered aloud, glancing curiously at Shen Tong and her family. Shen Tong suddenly felt humiliated.

Just like yesterday, as her family continued their endless, self-righteous demands, it was as if someone had smacked her over the head and she’d finally come to her senses! These people weren’t the family she wanted—they weren’t worth her devotion.

“Forget them—come on, the boss has new stock!” a survivor called from the blind box stall.

[System, does Shen Tong have any special qualities?] Watching all this, Qiao Jia’s curiosity was piqued.

[Host, she seems to be the Child of Destiny in this world—in other words, the protagonist,] the system replied, excitement in its voice after checking the data.

[Wait, I’m not the protagonist?]