Captain Xie had thought that by resting for two days before going to the Survivor Center to register, she would surely miss the peak crowds.
But she’d miscalculated.
The first-floor lobby of the Survivor Center was still packed to the brim!
There were only two windows for team registration, but the lines were exceptionally long.
Xie Ning and her younger siblings waited in line at Window Two for a full forty-five minutes before it was finally their turn.
"Registering a team costs three Contribution Points. Once a team name is set, it can never be changed. If you don’t have Contribution Points, you can pay with one jin of rice instead."
"Hey, Miss, didn’t I hear that you can get one jin of rice for six Contribution Points at this base? So logically, three Contribution Points should only cost half a jin of rice, shouldn’t it?"
You had to admit, Song Shijun’s mind for numbers was pretty quick.
The woman behind the window was about to lose her temper, but when she looked up and saw Song Shijun’s handsome, boyish face, her attitude softened. She explained patiently, "Yes, that’s the base’s rule. The exchange rate is worse when you’re trading physical goods for Contribution Points. Why don’t you do some missions first? You can get your card once you have the points."
Xie Ning quickly shook her head. ’I’ve already waited in line for an hour. If I don’t register now, right at the finish line, wouldn’t all that time have been wasted?’
She was wearing a crossbody bag today and had packed some essentials before leaving.
She took out a bag of rice and began to pour it into the weighing container, penny-pinching every grain.
A circle of people nearby watched her, their faces a mixture of expressions.
After pouring for just three seconds, Xie Ning lifted the bag, shook it a little, and patted the opening.
The woman sitting to the side measuring the weight rolled her eyes so hard they nearly disappeared into her head. "Hey, hey, little girl, that’s not nearly enough!"
Song Kexin gently nudged her sister in the waist.
With a deadpan expression, Xie Ning continued to pour a little more for the woman. The instant she saw the small scale display 501 grams, she hurriedly tied the rice bag shut.
Then she even reached into the container with her small hand and scooped out a pinch of rice.
Song Shijun clearly saw the mouths of the surrounding team members twitching in unison...
Song Kexin nearly died laughing at her sister’s brazen maneuver.
Her sister’s performance was nothing short of masterful.
At that moment, everyone in the Survivor Center had probably slapped a two-word label on the three siblings’ foreheads: "Dirt Poor."
When they returned to Window Two, the woman in her thirties behind the counter gave them an indescribable look.
The three siblings looked clean and tidy, as if they weren’t lacking for food or clothing, so their extreme frugality came as a surprise.
But this was the apocalypse; no one was going to criticize others for being cheap.
Weren’t they just being forced by circumstances, after all?
The woman finished registering the Starfire Team and handed a brand-new team Contribution Points Card to Xie Ning.
Xie Ning immediately handed her a piece of paper. "Could you open an individual Contribution Points Card for each of our teammates? Thanks."
"Sis, it doesn’t cost money to open a card, does it?" Song Kexin asked, leaning toward the window with a curious look.
The clerk was speechless.
’This cheapness really runs in the family.’
"Opening the cards is free." The woman nodded, took the paper from Xie Ning, and began entering the information for each person to issue their cards.
The three siblings crowded around the window, all three pairs of eyes staring at her. The sight was both frustrating and amusing.
"After this, you can go to the mission board over there to see if there are any missions you can accept," the woman explained as she typed in the information.
"Mm-hm, okay."
Half an hour later, the registration and card issuance for all nineteen team members were finally complete.
Xie Ning took the stack of cards and thanked her politely.
As she turned, her eyes met the contemptuous gaze of a bald, middle-aged man.
"What’s with that look?" Song Kexin said as she walked past him, repeatedly glancing back.
"Ahem." Song Shijun coughed, showing some self-awareness. "It’s probably because we held up the window for too long."
Most other teams had, at most, five to eight people and could get registered in about ten minutes.
A nineteen-person team like theirs was considered medium-sized.
The trio walked over to an electronic screen, watching the mission listings continuously scroll by.
"Wow, I didn’t expect Golden City Base to be this advanced. This Survivor Center is actually pretty... pretty official, right, Sis?"
Xie Ning nodded.
"The base must have restored a partial local area network first. That makes it convenient to use computers to calculate individual and team Contribution Points."
"Everything from posting missions to their completion can be seen clearly on the board."
Xie Ning’s gaze fell on the scrolling mission listings, her eyes scanning ten lines at a time.
"Red indicates an unaccepted mission, and green means it’s been completed," a staff member explained from the side, gesturing at a red mission listing with a laser pointer.
"You all should prioritize missions like this one! The rewards are generous, and they’re relatively safe!"
Song Kexin craned her neck to look, muttering the words as she read, "Mission: Collect rice, flour, and oil. Location: A small grain warehouse, thirty kilometers away."
Someone nearby complained in a low voice, "How is that supposed to be a safe mission?"
"It’s thirty kilometers away. Who knows how many zombies you’ll run into."
"Sis, is this mission legit?" Song Shijun asked in a low voice, sidling up to his sister.
Xie Ning didn’t know if it was legit, either.
In her past life, she had wandered for more than half a year before reaching Golden City Base and had never seen these kinds of small-scale missions.
It was worth noting that back then, Captain Zuo and his team had given up their courtyard house for the base’s upper echelons to live in, cramming themselves into a few nearby residential houses instead.
This new development was completely off the path she remembered...
Xie Ning didn’t dwell on it. She casually pointed to a mission on one of the lines above. "Shijun, what do you think of that one?"
"Travel to the small cotton workshop five kilometers away and collect one hundred kilograms of cotton. Reward: one hundred Contribution Points."
"How cheap!" Song Kexin pouted. "Only a hundred Contribution Points."
Split among the whole team, each person would only get... five points? That’s not even enough for a single jin of rice!
Her sister had already said that since they were a family-style team, they wouldn’t be too particular and would just split the points from every team mission evenly.
The main thing was to ask Xiao Huang Mao and the others if they had any objections.
Who would dare to object...?
Not unless they wanted a beating.
Besides, even if the two elders didn’t go out on missions, it was no easy task to sort vegetables and cook meals for such a large family.
As for the two children, Su Xiyue and Zhu Nanxing, Xie Ning had also asked Song Youxuan and Zhu Yong for their thoughts. They decided it was best to take the children on missions in separate batches when the time came.
After all, though the children weren’t old, if they wanted to survive in the apocalypse, they could no longer be sheltered, ignorant hothouse flowers.
Song Shijun turned to the staff member. "Sir, can I ask—for that Mission #7, what if we collect two hundred kilograms of cotton?"
The man glanced at the young man with an amused smile. "If you collect two hundred kilograms, you can exchange it for two hundred Contribution Points. However, because this mission is pretty close to the base, quite a few teams have already taken it."
Glancing at the three siblings, the staff member advised, "If you young people are reasonably capable, I’d suggest you take the Mission #6 small grain warehouse task instead."