Chapter 86

"That shameless bastard was sneaking around in the middle of the night—who knows what he was after!" The middle-aged woman strutted down the street, boasting to her neighbors, "I dumped a bucket of filth on him, and last night someone had an upset stomach because of it—oh, you should've smelled it! He tried to grab me, but I ran home, slammed the door, and yelled. Our shelter people came out with guns, the neighbors came out too, and the guard team showed up. Then guess what?"

"That punk ran off with his tail between his legs, didn't even bother to wipe the crap off his eyelashes."

"Hahaha!"

"Hahahaha!"

The neighbors on both sides burst into laughter.

Lin Tu heard it from upstairs and rubbed her forehead. Over the past few days, quite a few mutated Rebel Army and Government Army soldiers had tried to kill her. She'd fought several of them. These people had not only the bodies of monsters but also human intelligence—extremely troublesome. More than once she'd narrowly escaped with her life, bearing wounds.

She'd thought this would be a prolonged, bitter battle, but unexpectedly, the people found out about it.

Then the residents began spontaneously keeping watch for unfamiliar faces entering the neighborhood. Those chatty aunties and uncles would strike up conversations with anyone, sussing out a person's background in minutes, discerning truth from lies. Because these intruders often sneaked in at night, people would take a look around the streets whenever they got up to pee. Someone even organized a civilian night watch—all the shelters on a street would gather, and each night one shelter's residents would stand guard. If they saw a stranger, they'd yell to attract the guard team.

He may be strong, but now every household had something—guns for those who had them, knives for those who didn't, and for the rest, magic attacks, like the bucket of filth that woman mentioned. These mutated soldiers, one fist vs. four hands—they couldn't do a thing about it for now.

Lin Tu didn't know whether to worry or laugh. She'd warned them to be careful, but they truly didn't know how troublesome these mutated soldiers were. They weren't scared at all.

"Alright, alright! Eat breakfast, then those who need to work, get to work! The guard team, grab your guns and start training—eat after morning exercise!" Luo Yongzhi shouted in the street.

Speaking of which, Lin Tu's side quests were growing bigger, and she needed more supplies and manpower. For instance, stealing from a Government Army warehouse under martial law and without prior planning was now absolutely impossible.

So Lin Tu decided to bring the players into the plan. As for the players not being interested? Worried about wasting resources on side quests that might fail? No problem—Lin Tu first gifted each of them a shelter and a few residents.

There's a psychological phenomenon called the Birdcage Effect: if a person gets an empty birdcage and puts it at home, after a while, they'll buy a bird to fill it. It means that after acquiring an item by chance, people tend to add more related items.

Sure enough, the players not only happily joined her in robbing Government Army supplies, but to ensure their own side quests succeeded, they also kept urging Lin Tu to go steal guns and ammunition from the Rebel Army base to arm the civilians.

Luo Yongzhi selected about a hundred civilians to form a guard team, training them daily and leading them on patrols at night. Liu Sheng and Guan Suiyue opened a clinic, taking on a few civilian students to teach them to be barefoot doctors. Yi Ying started an elementary school classroom, specifically for students like Bu Daixi's age. She felt that at least they should learn to read, so that if they got books in the future, they wouldn't be illiterate.

As for Lin Tu, she seemed to be lying around at home most of the time, but in reality, she was busy as hell.

"Anomaly Space..." Lin Tu muttered the phrase three times and returned to the familiar Back Mountain.

In the disaster world, she had people build and farm, but in the end, all that would be returned to them. Lin Tu's own base was still on this Back Mountain behind her home.

Over the past month or so, Lin Tu had found opportunities to come in and farm, and now the place had changed drastically. The weeds on the slope were as overgrown as ever, but below the slope, right next to the house, the overgrown weeds had been cleared, and several plots had been tilled by hand.

The plot closest to the house was large, but it held only three plants: a sunflower, a barbed wire, and a blueberry. All three were thriving, almost unrecognizable compared to when they were first planted.

[Angry Corn (quality slightly improved):

Planting satisfaction: 97.9% (you've given it everything it needs);

Time to grow: 12 days;

Wilt chance: 13% (it almost never wilts);]

Notably, the corn seedling had grown to three meters tall. Its description, [If the organism is taller than 3m, i.e., the height of ordinary corn, all "Cornfield Effects" cannot take effect on it], now showed 3m changed to 4m. Lin Tu figured that was the source of the slight quality improvement.

The [Bloodthirsty Barbed Wire] and [Night Blueberry] had also grown from palm-sized to about a meter tall and a meter wide. Although their quality hadn't improved yet, Lin Tu felt that with continued cultivation, there might be a chance.

The growth time for the barbed wire and blueberry was twenty days each, with yields of three and five respectively. They'd already fruited twice. Of the six barbed wires and ten night blueberries, most were perfect. The perfect [Night Blueberry]'s effect duration had increased from thirty seconds to a minute and a half.

The perfect [Bloodthirsty Barbed Wire] had something strange, though. Originally, it would attack its owner—not just the fruit item, but even the plant itself, when first planted, had been eager to stab Lin Tu's hand. Now, as it grew, it became tamer. The perfect [Bloodthirsty Barbed Wire] never attacks its owner, and its damage and damage tolerance had greatly increased.

There were also several smaller plots, which together formed a larger field. They had scallions, ginger, garlic, lettuce, cabbage, chives, peas, eggplant, peppers—each in small patches. Strawberries, watermelon, and tomatoes were also planted. Lin Tu had even stuck bamboo poles into the ground for climbing plants like bitter melon, cucumber, and beans. In the corner, she'd planted some celery.

Beside the vegetable field, two lemon trees and two plum trees were still saplings. However, with her [Beginner Plant Affinity] skill, Lin Tu could sense they were growing well and would likely grow into big trees before long.

Lin Tu kept pulling weeds and tilling new land. In her plan, these vegetables were far from enough. She wanted to plant large fields of wheat, corn, and potatoes, and raise some chickens, ducks, and geese. The climate here was humid—if she could dig a pond and raise some fish, that would be even better.

Otherwise, with only vegetables and fruits and no staple foods or meat, it just didn't feel sufficient.

While she was busy, Lin Tu heard a knock from a distant place. She returned to the disaster world.

"Sister Lin!" Luo Yongzhi pounded on the door anxiously. "Bad news! The Government Army and the Rebel Army are heading our way. According to scouts, they're going to flatten this place!"