When she woke up the next day, the sunlight outside the window was just right.
Cen Yao lay on the bed and stared blankly for a few seconds before realizing she was actually at home.
She stretched, washed up, and when she went downstairs, Lu Xiuying had already made breakfast.
White porridge, side dishes, fried eggs, and a plate of freshly steamed soup dumplings.
Cen Yao ate with great satisfaction.
After eating, she didn't idle around.
She started farming.
The Cen family's small building had a small vegetable patch in both the front and back yards.
In the past, Lu Xiuying would plant things like green onions, chili peppers, and green vegetables.
After the horror descended, things outside became increasingly chaotic. Cen Yao wouldn't let her parents go out to work, and she even tried to minimize the number of times they went out to buy groceries.
But they couldn't rely on stockpiled goods forever.
After thinking about it for a long time, she finally opened the orb's System Mall.
Once she opened it, she was amazed.
The orb's System Mall really had everything.
High-quality, high-yield vegetable seeds.
Mature in three days.
Can be harvested repeatedly.
Eating them was even good for the body.
Cen Yao's heart was stirred by the sight, and she immediately bought a batch.
Then, she saw something even more outrageous.
Meat-fruit tree seeds.
Rice-grain vine seeds.
Flour-flower seeds.
Candy-shrub seeds.
Cen Yao stared at the product details, falling completely silent for half a minute.
“Orb.”
“Hmm?”
“Is your mall a bit too ridiculous?”
“How is it ridiculous?”
The orb explained righteously, “These are specialty plants from the food plane, and they're very popular!”
“Meat-fruit trees can grow meat-like fruits with different textures.”
“What the rice-grain vines produce is actual rice.”
“Once flour-flowers mature, their cores produce fine flour.”
“And candy-shrubs are even more amazing! There's a chance they'll grow candies of different flavors. Every time you eat a candy, it's like opening a mystery box.”
“All the food produced by these plants is completely natural and harmless. Eating them is highly beneficial for the body.”
Cen Yao was convinced.
Especially that line about being good for the body.
Her parents weren't particularly old, but they had been living in constant fear since the horror descended, and their health had visibly deteriorated.
Being able to eat something good was always better than ordinary food.
Cen Yao gritted her teeth and bought fifty seeds of each kind.
Each seed cost ten thousand shock points.
In one fell swoop, two million shock points were gone.
Watching her balance drop by a significant chunk, her heart still twinged slightly.
But only for a brief moment.
There was nothing to feel bad about when spending money on her parents.
She carried a small hoe to the backyard to till the soil.
The orb flew back and forth beside her, acting as her supervisor.
Lu Xiuying came out of the kitchen and was stunned when she saw her daughter busily working in the vegetable patch.
“Yao Yao, what are you doing?”
Cen Yao looked up and said with a smile, “Planting vegetables.”
Lu Xiuying: “We still have vegetables at home.”
“We won't need to buy them in the future.”
Cen Yao buried the seeds in the soil and patted the dirt off her hands.
“These seeds grow fast. We can eat them in three days.”
Cen Qihang also came out of the house. He looked at the plot of land she had planted, wanting to ask something, but ultimately kept quiet.
After the Horror Game appeared, many things could no longer be explained by past common sense.
Since their daughter said they could grow them, they would grow them.
Three days later, the elderly couple was still given a massive fright.
Overnight, the backyard had grown full of lush, green vegetables.
The bok choy was fresh and crisp.
The tomatoes were a glossy, bright red.
The cucumbers hung all over the trellises.
The chili peppers, eggplants, and green beans were all growing vigorously.
And that wasn't even the most ridiculous part.
The most ridiculous thing was that on those few small trees in the corner of the yard, beautiful cuts of marbled meat were actually hanging.
On the nearby vines, clusters of snowy white rice grains hung down like grapes.
A few palm-sized flowers shook gently, shedding a handful of fine white flour.
There was also a patch of low shrubs covered in colorful candies.
Lu Xiuying stood at the back door, completely dumbfounded.
The water cup in Cen Qihang's hand almost slipped.
“Yao Yao.”
Lu Xiuying's voice drifted.
“Is this... meat?”
Cen Yao nodded very calmly.
“Yes, it's edible.”
Cen Qihang pointed at the flour-flowers.
“What about this?”
“Flour.”
“And that one?”
“Rice.”
“And the colorful one?”
“Candy.”
Lu Xiuying: “...”
Cen Qihang: “...”
The two elders clearly had a hard time digesting this.
Cen Yao had already prepared her explanation.
“This is a dungeon reward.”
“It's not very useful inside the dungeons, but it can be planted in reality.”
“These things are all very healthy. Eating them is good for your body.”
Hearing that it was a dungeon reward, the shock on Lu Xiuying and Cen Qihang's faces faded slightly.
They of course still found it unbelievable.
But dungeon rewards were naturally strange to begin with, and their daughter had even brought back a talking little round ball.
Having a few more trees that could grow meat didn't seem completely unacceptable.
Lu Xiuying was the first to recover.
She walked over, plucked a tomato, washed it, and took a bite.
The juice was sweet and the tomato flavor was rich, completely different from the bland ones outside.
Her eyes lit up instantly.
“Delicious!”
Cen Yao immediately smiled.
“Then eat more of it from now on.”
As time passed, Cen Yao's parents gradually grew accustomed to the strange plants in the yard.
Lu Xiuying even began to seriously study which meat-fruits were suitable for stir-frying and which were suitable for stews.
Cen Qihang was responsible for recording the maturation times of the plants every day, and he also built several sturdier trellises in the backyard.
Meanwhile, Cen Yao took advantage of this time to use her summoning array to mark a lot of food.
Barbecue, hot pot, fried chicken, instant noodles, milk tea, cola, juice, and small cakes.
And even the signature dishes of several small restaurants she often frequented.
The orb watched this, utterly amazed.
“Host, are you planning to move the entire real-world culinary library into the dungeons?”
Cen Yao was extremely serious.
“Better safe than sorry.”
What if she got the chance to eat it?
Who could refuse eating hot pot in a horror dungeon?
She certainly couldn't.
The days were rare and peaceful for a while.
Every day, Cen Yao accompanied her parents for meals, did some farming, studied the System Mall, and occasionally browsed the player forums.
There were still many discussions about “Bling Bling” on the forums.
However, she hadn't logged into the player space or revealed her identity, so no one could find her in reality for the time being.
Until the fifteenth day.
The familiar white light flashed once again without any warning.
At the time, Cen Yao was sitting in her room organizing her newly purchased potion ingredients.
The orb flew to her side immediately.
Cen Yao closed her eyes.
It was time.
In the next second, the cold notification sound rang out.
【Ding—Welcome player “Bling Bling” to the Horror Game.】
【Ding—Congratulations to player “Bling Bling” for drawing the C-rank special dungeon—Cat Cafe.】
【The main quest of this dungeon is—Escape from the Cat Cafe within seven days.】
【The player who obtains the highest points in this dungeon will receive a Permanent Team Card. The team size must not be fewer than two people, and cannot exceed six—】
【We wish player “Bling Bling” a pleasant game.】
The white light faded.
Cen Yao opened her eyes.
And then, she fell silent.
She found herself inside a small iron cage.
The cage wasn't large. It was surrounded by cold metal bars on all four sides, with a very thin pad spread at the bottom.
The air was filled with the rich aroma of coffee beans, along with a damp smell of animal fur mixed with disinfectant.
The faint humming of machinery could be heard in the distance.
Cen Yao looked down.
No, this perspective was wrong.
Too low.
Rate on N.U.
