Each of the three held a cup of milk tea. Gu Xiang Kai's was mostly untouched, while Nan Yue and Zhu Xi Ning drank theirs quickly.
The milk tea here was much better than what they had in the digital city state; it wasn't overly flavored with artificial essences, and it was sweet, with chewy pearls made from sweet potato starch.
Nan Yue's cheeks were puffed out, looking unusually cute for once, while Gu Xiang Kai looked somewhat helpless.
Even though they were a team, there was no need to include him in everything; he didn't mind those few points.
Finally, the three of them walked around and settled on a hotel.
The hotel environment was better than anywhere they had stayed before. The first floor was a dedicated reception area, and behind it was a dining area, which reminded the two of Everpeace Apartments.
Zhu Xi Ning originally wanted a double room and a room with a large bed, but at Nan Yue's strong insistence, they each got their own room.
"Nan, you don't want to sleep with me once the mission is over."
Zhu Xi Ning spoke in a pitiful voice, saying strange things.
Nan Yue didn't soften her heart; for her, the dangers outside a mission were far greater.
She didn't know when that thing would appear, and she wasn't sure if it would affect others.
They were teammates, so she naturally couldn't let her own issues cause them harm.
The other two didn't think much of it, assuming Nan Yue simply needed her private space, which was normal since they hadn't been a team for long.
Nan Yue didn't offer much explanation. They had just finished a mission today and were busy moving between city states. Even without much physical exertion, all three were quite tired.
They had dinner at the hotel's own restaurant. The taste was good, much better than the meal boxes they had before.
Even the usually picky Zhu Xi Ning felt this meal wasn't bad.
"No wonder it's a 30 point a day hotel. You really do get what you pay for."
Nan Yue felt a bit sentimental. She hadn't been out of Nameless City for long, less than a month in total.
As a student, she had no concept of points, but after becoming a scavenger, she realized that for most people, points were their life.
While they were staying in a hotel for 30 points a night, people in the lower city states were still exhausting themselves for just three or four points.
"Eden must be even more extravagant,"
Zhu Xi Ning murmured. As scavengers, it was impossible not to be curious about their ultimate destination, but they hadn't thought about it much before, content with their current situation.
Now she realized that her previous life couldn't be called enjoyment at all; at most, it was just not living too poorly.
"Do you know how we came to be?"
Nan Yue was curious. In her missions, she had seen that newborns were raised by both parents. In her first Qualification Exam, Amin was born because her mother had been deceived by a man.
What about them?
She had heard of some scavengers getting to know, falling in love with, and caring for each other during their long lives of purification, but she had never heard of any scavenger giving birth to and raising a child.
Gu Xiang Kai and Zhu Xi Ning both shook their heads. It seemed all scavengers were hatched at a Scavenger Training Academy and then raised uniformly.
They knew a little more than Nan Yue; they knew some scavengers had children because they were in love, but the government required that they not raise the children themselves.
After all, a scavenger's energy was limited. Even in Eden, they had to participate in a purification mission at least once a month.
Such conditions were not suitable for raising children.
Furthermore, no matter how powerful a master was, they weren't as systematic or effective as a Scavenger Training Academy, so those scavengers who chose to give birth eventually sent their children away.
Nan Yue frowned, thinking of the intense love those parents in the missions had for their children. "Can they really bear to?"
Gu Xiang Kai didn't know. In fact, if Nan Yue hadn't mentioned it, he wouldn't have thought about the question at all.
He was thick-skinned and only cared about surviving. Zhu Xi Ning might have thought about it more, but after being out of school for so long, she stopped.
They only wanted to survive and then try to live a little better outside of missions.
In the beginning, everyone was curious, possessing a courage that feared nothing and a desire to explore the world.
Later, all of that vanished.
Nan Yue was currently in this phase. For her, the difference between the mission world and the real world felt strange.
"I heard that there is psychological counseling in the higher city states."
Gu Xiang Kai scraped the last of the food from his container. "Scavengers switch between the mission world and the real world for long periods. Those with unstable mental stability will inevitably suffer from breakdowns, and for a scavenger, a mental breakdown is fatal."
Nan Yue nodded. Outside of school, she was a newcomer and still needed the two of them to guide her.
After eating, the three of them returned to their rooms early. Zhu Xi Ning had planned to pool her points, but Nan Yue and Gu Xiang Kai suggested they wait until they had officially completed a mission as a team before centralizing their points, and Zhu Xi Ning happily agreed.
The room was fully equipped, and the bathwater was hot. Nan Yue took a good bath, washed and dried her clothes, and then got into bed.
The sheets smelled like the sun. Although they didn't look new, they were very clean.
She quietly closed her eyes in the darkness and fell asleep.
The mission rest period in the letter cities was about 15 days. The three of them explored the city state thoroughly. Besides a wider variety of shops, there were also many tool shops.
One could see the tools available in the official store on the Neural Interface. Once purchased, they could be transferred directly to the Neural Interface for use in missions.
However, official tools were generally niche and impractical, and their prices were high, so people usually went to private shops to buy them.
They called it buying, but it was actually bartering.
Nan Yue and the others went to browse and found a wide variety of tools. Although they were more diverse than in the previous city states, they weren't very practical.
"The truly useful ones are all in Eden. All resources flow toward the top."
The shopkeeper with a handlebar mustache shrugged. "For ordinary scavengers, these tools are already very useful. Anything higher-level isn't something a middle-tier city state like ours can have."
The three of them had only come in to broaden their horizons and didn't have any extra points to spend on a singing flower.
Nan Yue, however, had slept well the night before, so she finally had the energy to study the list Cuckoo had given her.
None of the three recognized any of the names in the top 50. They only roughly memorized the names. Some had their abilities noted, while others didn't even have their gender listed besides their name.
After entering a middle-tier city state, the scavenger Neural Interface opened the world channel. Scavengers could form teams and communicate here, but more often, they established fan clubs.
Nan Yue didn't quite understand this mindset; perhaps it could be attributed to the admiration of the strong.
The three of them spent several days wandering and eating in the city state. On the night of the fifth day since their mission ended, Nan Yue once again felt that fear etched into her bone marrow.
"It appeared two days late..."
Nan Yue grit her teeth and endured. She was already certain that entering a mission could suppress the thing inside her body.
No!
It should be said that what restrained this thing wasn't the mission, but herself, growing stronger through the missions.
One day, she wouldn't just stop being haunted by this thing; she would be able to rely on it as a means of survival during missions.
Rate on N.U.
