Chapter 39

"Welcome to the Forest-White Sea Channel. I'm Zhang Haizhi, a native of Nanhai Lake County, Yun City. I want to share with everyone how to use mutated plants to survive in an environment lacking supplies. Before I begin, I'd like to thank Miss Lin Tu for bringing us this precious knowledge; secondly, I thank the Plant Research Institute of the Yun City Academy of Sciences—it's their blood and sweat that brought this knowledge to light."

From behind the square grille of the radio speaker, amid a faint crackle of static, a woman's voice with a touch of dialect came through.

The two people sitting before the radio—Luo Yongzhi and Yi Ying—exchanged bewildered glances. Why were they hearing familiar names and familiar places?

"First, the crushed juice of centipede grass can purify heavy metals from mutated plants. It sounds unbelievable, but we've officially started using centipede grass juice and have already eaten purified mutated plants. Centipede grass doesn't yield juice easily, but Miss Lin Tu provided invaluable experience. She pointed out that the joints of centipede grass are packed with rich sap—just chop up the joints and the juice comes out easily..."

The Ecological Wetland Park's radio frequency was usable nationwide. This long-dormant channel suddenly opening up drew people across the country, intrigued by the outrageous, unprecedented broadcast.

Zhao Chong of Nanhai Lake was one of them. Ever since Lin Tu had told him she'd gathered plenty of useful information from a radio, he'd gotten himself one too upon reaching Nanhai Lake and idly switched it on every day.

Nanhai Lake wasn't in great shape. It was a township suburb, with few supermarkets or warehouses, limited supplies, and people surviving on scraps. Though plenty of unmutated plants still grew there, too many refugees had flooded in—forget foraging wild vegetables, even tree bark was hard to come by.

It had gotten worse lately. A month into the disaster, the government had yet to act. The refugees had nearly exhausted what they'd brought, and everyone was eyeing each other warily. Just from what Zhao Chong had overheard, three fights had broken out yesterday alone.

"That's Miss Lin!" He nearly jumped out of his seat when he heard the familiar names and places on the radio. Who could blame him? When life felt dark and hopeless, suddenly hearing a familiar name on the airwaves was a shock of surprise and excitement.

So he took Zhang Haizhi's words on faith without a second thought—what were the odds someone would use Lin Tu's name to run a con? He yanked the car door shut, blocking out the argument outside, and listened intently to the lesson on centipede grass.

He muttered to himself while sketching with his fingers, then hurriedly grabbed paper and pen from the passenger seat to jot down every key point.

About half an hour later, the Forest-White Sea Channel broadcast ended.

Zhao Chong flung open the car door. "Cut it out!" he bellowed.

Two people, mid-squabble over a piece of bread, turned to look at him, puzzled. "Who are you?"

"You'll see in a minute," Zhao Chong said, brimming with confidence. He waved over a teammate from his compound. "Where are the most mutated plants? That's where we're heading. You don't get it—I just heard Miss Lin's story on the radio. Now we can eat mutated plants..."

Meanwhile, similar scenes were unfolding all over the country.

But unlike Zhao Chong, not everyone took the channel's words as gospel just because Lin Tu was mentioned.

"What the hell!" On some rooftop, someone immediately twisted the dial to switch to another channel, not wanting to waste precious time. "In times like these, the safest thing is to stay far away from mutated plants! This is just tricking people into dying!"

His companion glanced nervously down at the street below, where mutated vines were already creeping up the building's facade. "Hope so." He was starting to worry—they were actively avoiding the mutated plants, but the plants weren't so obliging.

They seemed hell-bent on taking over the entire city.

"Zhang Haizhi?" In some room, a woman immediately switched channels with a disgusted grunt at the name.

"What'd she say?" Shi Jie switched it back.

And so, the whole roomful of people was forced to endure several minutes of centipede-grass juice extraction techniques.

"Them?" The leader of the group was a burly man—well, everyone there was large, since they were career criminals and had to look the part to command respect. "They dare con people like that?" He looked at the supplies before him and sneered. "Squandered everything, and now they're scheming to harm people?"

"Exactly!" Another man agreed.

Shi Jie, however, stared at the pile of goods in front of the man and felt a twinge of regret. Those supplies, if kept in the women's outdoor camp, could have lasted another half a month or more. But here... these people had no sense of planning, ate like horses, and treated everything as if it were free. In a day or two, it'd all be scattered and nearly gone.

What now? A wave of confusion washed over Shi Jie.

"Don't worry!" A man beside her draped his arm over her shoulder. "In the next day or two, we brothers will head out and find some food. We're not like those useless con artists. Stick with us, and you'll eat well and live well."

"Let them run their scam—let's see who falls for it!" Another woman chimed in.

Shi Jie felt somewhat reassured. She nodded and twisted the dial to change the channel.

At the same moment, in the capital, inside a military base, a newly established radio monitoring station had one operator jotting down everything he'd just heard in astonishment. After marking the paper as URGENT, the message from the Forest-White Sea Channel quickly landed on an officer's desk.

He skimmed through it, rose excitedly, then slumped back down with a sigh—

"Novel, sure, but there've been too many similar scams. We've tried so many times and never succeeded. Still, might as well give it another shot. This is the last thing we can do—not giving up a single shred of hope."

He stamped the paper and placed it on top of a stack of letters at the corner of his desk.

A moment later, he picked it back up, muttering, "It's from Yun City after all—where the zero-level mutated plant appeared. And it names real people and the research institute. Better mark it even more urgent."

Clutching the paper, he hurried out of the temporary office.

.

Lin Tu knew nothing of the broadcast or the chain of events it had set off.

She was driving back to the Plant Research Institute, mulling over what Yuan Que had just said.

"So what's this radio channel called?" Zhang Haizhi had asked back then.

Lin Tu had been about to say "whatever" or "Yun City Plant Research Institute," when Yuan Que spoke up: "Can it be called Forest-White Sea?"

Zhang Haizhi looked puzzled for a moment, then immediately caught on. Lin Tu's name—'Lin' meant the forest, and 'Tu' meant a vast, blazing white sea of reeds in bloom. For that reason, Zhang Haizhi quickly approved the suggestion.

"Why?" Lin Tu asked.

"Sister, the round sparrow likes to perch in the reeds," Yuan Que said with a smile. "If there are no more reeds, it still hopes to hear her name often."

Lin Tu said nothing for a moment, unable to voice it in front of Zhang Haizhi. Only now, on the road back, did she ask: "You already knew?"

Yuan Que was silent for a beat, then cottoned on: "It's not that I deliberately hid it. I just didn't want to hear it from your mouth."

Lin Tu stared ahead, trying to focus on driving. Then, his next sentence nearly made her floor the gas pedal by accident.

"Sister, after you leave, will you come back to find me again?"

Lin Tu: silence.

For a moment, she didn't know how to explain to Yuan Que that even if she could come back, all she'd be able to do is visit his grave.

Her silence seemed to make Yuan Que understand something.

"You can't come back?" He pressed. Seeing her hesitate, he knew that wasn't the right answer either. "You won't find me when you come back? Or..." He suddenly thought of the myth of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. Weren't those so-called players essentially just characters in a game? Wasn't the gap between NPCs and players the gap between mortals and gods?

"A day in heaven is a year on earth... Is my whole world like a game, where you can drag the progress bar?"

Lin Tu's silence this time confirmed the truth for Yuan Que. He stared blankly ahead, feeling the world crumbling piece by piece. A boy who'd never thought he'd cry felt a numbing, bone-deep ache.

"Can you see my whole life?" Yuan Que asked.

Lin Tu thought of the achievements behind a game, then gave a slight nod. "Maybe."

"Then please watch carefully—I'll remember you forever." He curled up in the seat, stubborn.

Lin Tu slammed on the brakes and screeched to a stop at the roadside.

"Why?" She turned to him, asking with utter seriousness.

"Do I need a reason?" Yuan Que met her gaze, his eyes sincere. "If I need one, maybe it's because I like you."

Lin Tu felt her heart skip half a beat.

She was silent for a moment, then pulled out her phone and tapped the screen. "I don't have the qualifications yet, but I can remember your identity in this world. I'll send you an invitation to visit my home in the future."

She took his hand and pressed his thumb to the phone screen—

"Let me see what it takes to invite you..."

Lin Tu: "?"

"One million points?" she blurted in disbelief.

Yuan Que looked at her, innocent and a little flustered. "Is that a lot?"

Lin Tu thought, No kidding? It only costs me a hundred thousand to leave the game entirely!

On the other end of the screen, the Butler was equally astonished, because his data was precise. Inviting a guest required unlocking the advanced [Anju] feature, but inviting an ordinary person cost at most a hundred points at a time—how could it possibly reach a million points?!

"Let me check this fingerprint info?" the Butler replied.

Lin Tu glanced uncertainly at Yuan Que's face, then agreed.

They drove on, and soon reached the Plant Research Institute. The grounds were littered with cage-building materials, making it safer than most places, so Lin Tu planned to keep the mutated plants there. She and Yuan Que hauled the thirty-odd mutated water hyacinths down to the basement corridor, with Luo Yongzhi and Yi Ying pitching in along the way, which sped things up considerably.

Once the moving was done, the Butler finally got back to them—

"Be careful of this person!" the Butler replied in a most wary tone. "He's an outsider—not from this world at all!"