Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Heartache aside, eating was still a necessity. Since they couldn't take it with them, they might as well eat their fill.

Cheng Zhiyu asked Little Black, who was pretending indifference but whose tail was wagging furiously behind him: "Little Black, what kind of meat do you fancy?"

Little Black primly hopped onto the freezer, finally pausing above the chicken. He hadn't tried this meat before, so that's what he wanted.

Chicken it was. An easy request to fulfill. Cheng Zhiyu pondered for a moment and then had an idea: "How about making a clay pot chicken?"

Little Black's ears twitched. He didn't know what clay pot chicken was, but it sounded delicious, so he nodded.

Cheng Zhiyu took out five or six chickens to thaw and searched the surroundings, soon finding the staff's usual cooking area.

Although they had a portable gas stove, saving resources was always wise. Since they could cook here, he decided to do so.

However, the pot was a bit small. This was a supermarket—surely they had bigger pots? Cheng Zhiyu found the largest one available, but even that couldn't hold five or six chickens at once. They'd have to cook in batches.

At that moment, Cheng Zhiyu missed the large iron pot back home, which could easily handle five or six chickens.

But there was no large iron pot here, and even if there were, no earthen stove to go with it. They'd have to make do.

Clay pot chicken usually didn't include other meats, but authenticity wasn't a concern now—taste was all that mattered.

Cheng Zhiyu also found river shrimp as big as his palm and, surprisingly, some abalone.

The abalone was quite large, about the size of his palm. Cheng Zhiyu had only eaten abalone once before, at a wealthy relative's wedding banquet, and it had tasted exceptional.

No wonder abalone was always mentioned among delicacies.

With most of the ingredients ready, Cheng Zhiyu chopped the thawed chicken into small pieces, heated oil in the pot, stir-fried the prepared vegetables, added the chopped chicken, and tossed in various seasonings to enhance the flavor. In no time, the dish took on a rich, appealing color.

Little Black stood on Cheng Zhiyu's shoulder, stretching his head forward, enticed by the aroma.

Cheng Zhiyu nudged him, worried he might fall into the pot: "Don't rush. The chicken needs to stew for a while."

Little Black pulled his head back: *I'm not that impatient.*

Cheng Zhiyu poured boiled water into the pot. Ten minutes later, he added the river shrimp and abalone, then tore the prepared dough into thin, small pancakes and placed them on top.

After covering the pot for five minutes, it was ready to eat.

The aroma was incredibly enticing. Not only Little Black, but even Cheng Zhiyu himself couldn't stop salivating.

Cheng Zhiyu took out Little Black's small bowl, served him some chicken, river shrimp, and abalone, and topped it with a small pancake: "Eat up."

Little Black glanced disapprovingly at the pancake but reluctantly ate it. To his surprise, the pancake tasted quite good, soaked in the broth and pleasantly chewy.

After finishing the pancake, he could finally dig into the meat. Perhaps because of the abalone, the dish had a unique freshness beyond just the chicken.

Little Black took a bite and immediately retracted his earlier thought about the pancake being good—the meat was even better!

He ate with his head down, completely engrossed.

Cheng Zhiyu wasn't faring much better. The chicken was tender and flavorful, falling off the bone with the slightest touch. The river shrimp, which he had deveined before cooking, could be eaten directly. The natural sweetness of the shrimp, combined with the flavors of the chicken and abalone, made Cheng Zhiyu narrow his eyes in satisfaction.

Finally, Cheng Zhiyu reached for the abalone—the part he had been most looking forward to. While chicken and river shrimp were relatively common even before the apocalypse, abalone was a rarity. Back when Cheng Zhiyu had just started working, spending money on abalone was something he couldn't bring himself to do.

The abalone he couldn't afford before the apocalypse was now plentiful in the pot, and he didn't have to worry about running out.

Cheng Zhiyu was so absorbed in eating that he even forgot to refill Little Black's bowl. It wasn't until Little Black tapped him impatiently with his paw that he snapped back to reality and hurriedly served him another bowl.

After finishing the first pot, neither of them was full. Cheng Zhiyu made two more pots the same way, and they finally felt satisfied.

Little Black, now full, lazily lay on a stool dozing off. Cheng Zhiyu patted him and said, "I'm going to the system space for a bit. If anything happens, call me—I'll hear you."

Little Black wagged his tail in response.

The next moment, the ground beneath Cheng Zhiyu's feet turned into soil. Xiao Er came over, acting cute for attention, and Cheng Zhiyu reached out to pet him. Little Iron, not to be outdone, shook its leaves and quieted down after being petted.

The two no longer fought as often as before, at most just swatting each other with their leaves a couple of times.

Cheng Zhiyu shook his head helplessly and went to check on Little Yellow. To his surprise, he found that Little Yellow had just reached its first level of maturity.

The system’s mechanical voice sounded: "Congratulations, host. Plant Little Yellow has reached first-level maturity. Please complete the harvest. Rewards have been issued. Please explore independently."

After the system’s reminder, Cheng Zhiyu was amazed to see the ten fruits on Little Yellow rapidly turn a bright yellow-orange, emitting an enticing fragrance.

However, he suspected these weren’t ordinary fruits, given that neither Xiao Er nor Little Iron had been ordinary before.

So, he first checked Little Yellow’s information: "Plant Name: Little Yellow

Current Status: First-level maturity

Skill: After consuming its fruit, can block same-level zombie perception for five minutes."

Seeing Little Yellow’s skill, Cheng Zhiyu’s eyes widened slightly. This skill was incredible. Currently, Little Yellow was at first level, so it could block first-level Power Zombies.

Thus, if he encountered a first-level Power Zombie, eating this fruit would make him undetectable to it for five minutes—enough time to deal with the Power Zombie.

Imagine if he had had this when he encountered the Metal and Wind-type Power Zombies earlier—it would have saved a lot of trouble.

However, Little Yellow didn’t produce many fruits, so he’d have to use them sparingly unless absolutely necessary.

But since Little Yellow’s skill wasn’t offensive, how could its level be raised?

Cheng Zhiyu posed this question to the system, only to receive the response: "Please explore independently."

Cheng Zhiyu: "..."

Fine.

He actually had an idea, inspired by Little Iron. Xiao Er’s ability had initially relied on combat, but it eventually used crystal cores. Therefore, Little Yellow should also be able to improve its ability through crystal cores.

However, Little Yellow’s skill was too unique—it probably fell under… mental type? Such crystal cores were likely rare...

It seemed Little Yellow’s skill was too overpowering, making it harder to improve. Cheng Zhiyu shook his head. No matter, they’d take it slow.

Even at first-level maturity, Little Yellow was still smaller than Xiao Er and Little Iron, sitting quietly like an ordinary plant. It only moved slightly when Cheng Zhiyu touched it.

Cheng Zhiyu stepped outside briefly and saw Little Black resting peacefully with no danger around, so he felt reassured. Returning to the system space, he checked the rewards.

The first reward was another expansion of the system space, now measuring 4x4 meters. Though it still didn’t seem very large, it was much bigger than before.

There was also more free space now, allowing him to plant additional vegetables. He could look for vegetable seeds in the supermarket later.

The second reward was another plant. Cheng Zhiyu chose to extract the plant and was shocked to find its vitality unprecedentedly low.

It was only at 5%!

Fortunately, Cheng Zhiyu had experience and had already prepared a pit for planting while checking the rewards. He quickly planted this tiny plant, but even though he moved extremely fast, the plant's health had already dropped to 4% during the process, and it looked limp and lifeless.

Cheng Zhiyu watered it, but its health still didn’t improve, which worried him a bit.

Plants need watering and fertilizing, but previously, Little Two and the others grew exceptionally well without fertilizer, leading Cheng Zhiyu to believe that the system-provided black soil was fertile enough and didn’t require fertilization.

Now it seemed that it was still necessary, at least for new plants. Cheng Zhiyu thought about grabbing some fertilizer later and gave the new plant a new name: "Let’s call you Little Strong, hoping you’ll grow strong and healthy."

The System fell silent: "..."

Although Little Strong still looked wilted, its health at least didn’t drop further, which put Cheng Zhiyu slightly at ease. He continued to check the next reward he was most looking forward to!

"Congratulations, Host. The storage space has been expanded to five cubic meters. The space is upgrading. Please check again in an hour."

Cheng Zhiyu: "!!!"

He had thought the storage space would cap out at two cubic meters, since the system usually doubled the planting space each time it upgraded. He never expected it to be so generous this time, upgrading it to five cubic meters at once!

Five cubic meters might not sound like much, but it could actually hold a lot of things. After all, the storage space could hold actual physical items—it could genuinely store five cubic meters worth of stuff.

Cheng Zhiyu shared this good news with Little Black. Little Black replied indifferently: "Oh."

Cheng Zhiyu smiled and put it differently: "We can bring a lot of meat now. Enough to eat meat every day for a long time."

Little Black: !!!

Seeing the almost human surprise on Little Black’s face, Cheng Zhiyu ruffled the dog’s head: "Hurry and figure out what you want to pack. Actually, I’ll prepare some pre-made meals so we can eat them when we don’t feel like cooking."

Little Black couldn’t help but make a request: "I want to eat that dish from before."

Cheng Zhiyu said: "No problem. Go see if you can find larger meal containers. I’ll make some and pack them."

Little Black nodded enthusiastically and went to look. Soon, he brought back a water-filled orb containing a bunch of large meal containers—no one knew where he found them.

These containers were like the ones Cheng Zhiyu had seen when buying fish—the kind vendors used. They were especially spacious, with one container enough for a meal for either him or Little Black.

Cheng Zhiyu praised Little Black and busily made dozens of containers of pot-style chicken, creatively preparing pot-style fish and pot-style pork as well. He also steamed several containers of rice, though he didn’t make too much since it was more practical to carry raw rice—cooked rice takes up more space.

The meat in the supermarket naturally hadn’t run out, so Cheng Zhiyu crammed in as much as possible into the storage space. Most of the space was filled with various kinds of food.

He also packed plenty of Little Black’s favorite snacks.

While the man and the dog were busy storing supplies, they heard movement not far away. Cheng Zhiyu immediately went on alert.

Then he heard Little Black say: "It’s one of your kind."

Cheng Zhiyu: "?"