The Overgrown Parking Lot

After mulling it over for a long time, Chu Guang still could not come up with a solution. Although the principle behind a generator was simple enough that even a middle schooler knew it boiled down to "a conductor moving to cut magnetic flux lines," turning that phrase into a ten-kilowatt generator was anything but straightforward. Searching Baidu only served up purchase links. *Heh.* *If I could shop online, would I need you telling me which one to buy?* *Completely useless!* After a great deal of effort, Chu Guang finally tracked down a few reliable tutorials, but given their utter lack of supplies, none of that material was actually of any use. Soon, the time reached six o'clock sharp. To the sound of opening hatches, the four players woke up. "I'll look into it later." Chu Guang took his legs off the table, tidied his appearance in front of a scavenged mirror, and calmly walked into the adjacent room. When he entered, the four players were checking their respective stats on the incubation pods' display screens. "As expected, my gene sequence is Strength... I've got seven base points in Strength, but only three in Intelligence? I don't feel stupid, though." "Saying that already makes you sound none too bright... By the way, isn't your beard growing a little too fast?" Lao Bai's beard was indeed getting somewhat out of hand. Yesterday it had been mere stubble, but today it was already the length of a fingernail. "I have no idea what's going on either. Is there a razor around here?" "Obviously not. Why don't you try an axe?" "Get lost." "Wait, I'm actually Agility-type? I thought I'd be Intelligence." Fang Chang pinched his chin, sinking into thought as if considering something. "I'm Intelligence," Kuang Feng said with a wry smile, raising his hand. "Isn't three points of Strength a bit low? And with seven points in Intelligence... I don't really feel like I've gotten smarter." "I'm Perception. What does Perception even do? Foresee the future?" Ye Shi sounded a bit dejected. Compared to such an ambiguous attribute, he would have preferred a more standout showing in Strength or Agility. Failing that, Constitution would have worked too—at least he could have played the tank. "It's probably an intuition for danger. Did you forget how you dodged that mutant's ambush yesterday?" Fang Chang reasoned after a moment's thought. "If used properly, this stat might be pretty broken... Total waste on you, though." "Screw off." "*Ahem*." Chu Guang cleared his throat as he entered the room, interrupting their banter. Perhaps because he had chatted with them about favorability the previous night under his game designer persona, the four players looked at him with noticeably different eyes. To maintain their immersion, Chu Guang decided to keep up his solemn image and continued sternly. "Time is short, so I will make this brief." "The work before us is piled high like a mountain, yet we have very little time. In order not to derail our subsequent plans, we must complete our surface outpost before winter sets in." "Food, drinking water, fuel... all of these must be stockpiled, along with the construction of fortifications and surface shelters." "I have already organized the tasks on a schedule. You can check the notice board by the sanatorium's entrance." The players' eyes lit up, eager expressions spreading across their faces. *The quest system got an upgrade?* "Those are the basics. If there are no questions, we set out." "W-Wait a second, Lord Manager!" "Speak." Flushing red, Ye Shi raised a hand. "Wh-Where is the toilet, please?" ... A toilet. That was indeed an issue. Shelter 404's B1 floor was more like a reception area. While it had compartments housing the incubation pods, it lacked any living amenities whatsoever. Watching the players scramble out of the sanatorium the moment they reached the surface, Chu Guang suddenly realized that as more players flooded in, not only would eating and drinking be problems, but taking a shit would quickly become a massive one too. On Bet Street, there were public latrines. Human and animal waste was collected, supposedly to be sold to the nearby Brown Farm. Ever since coming to the sanatorium in the Wetland Park, Chu Guang had simply found a safe spot in the woods to do his business. He had never considered how to handle a hundred people pissing and shitting. Perhaps having eaten something bad, all four players came limping back. "Not having a latrine pit is fucking miserable." "No paper either. I had to wipe with leaves... damn near made myself bleed." "+1." "Fuck, why does my ass feel like it's burning... Do you guys feel that?" "Nope." "Did you wipe your ass with stinging nettle leaves...?" "Wh-What's stinging nettle?" "Nothing. Just bear with it, it'll pass." "???" Standing off to the side, Chu Guang felt deeply embarrassed listening to them. He seemed to have forgotten to tell these guys that dried moss fibers worked for wiping, a little trick he had learned from the survivors on Bet Street. Then again, they had not really given him a chance to speak. *Just endure it.* *Everyone goes through this.* "Lord Manager," Fang Chang said respectfully as he limped up to Chu Guang, "I propose that we build a latrine." Ye Shi: "Seconded!" Lao Bai: "I agree too. Besides, with a latrine, we can dig a large pit to collect the waste, mix it with plant ash and sawdust for composting, and let aerobic bacteria and fungi break down the organic matter with heat, killing the pathogenic microorganisms and parasites in the feces to make fertilizer." Fang Chang: "Exactly! And beyond just producing fertilizer, we can seal a portion of the waste and organic debris together, letting anaerobic bacteria convert it into combustible methane! That's how the biogas digesters back in my hometown work. The biogas produced can be used for lighting, or even generating electricity." "That is a fine idea. We can adopt it," Chu Guang nodded approvingly. Biogas. He had been fretting over survival all this time and completely overlooked it. From what he recalled, while Bet Street lacked a biogas digester, the neighboring Brown Farm did have one. Seeing the look of approval on the manager's face, the four players grew even more energized, chiming in one after another to brainstorm. Building a latrine was not difficult, nor was a biogas digester. The only troublesome part was finding materials for sealing and gas storage. Fortunately, while the wasteland lacked almost everything, it never lacked plastic—especially beverage bottles and garbage bags. Because burning it produced toxic fumes, few survivors burned plastic, using it as kindling at most. If they searched thoroughly, they could easily find plenty around the nearby outskirts. And so, another scavenger quest was added to the task board: collecting plastic bags, bottles, and cans. "Lord Manager, regarding the generator, I have an idea," Kuang Feng, who had remained quiet until now, suddenly spoke up. Chu Guang looked at him. "Let's hear it." Kuang Feng said, "Cars usually have an alternator onboard. I was wondering if there are any roads nearby? Or a parking lot would work too. If we can find some cars, solving this shouldn't be too hard." Chu Guang replied, "Cars aren't difficult to find. There's a parking lot near the Wetland Park we're in, but I've already checked the vehicles there. There's nothing worth salvaging." "I'd still like to try," Kuang Feng said, unwilling to give up. "On the off chance we find a working alternator, our surface outpost could have electricity!" "Then go. However, I cannot let you go alone." Chu Guang glanced at the players before him, his gaze settling on Ye Shi. "You go with Kuang Feng to check the parking lot." Full of drive, Ye Shi said, "Yes, sir!" Ye Shi's gene sequence was Perception; his intuition for danger would come in handy. Before they set off, Chu Guang had them take two grass-cutting short knives. When encountering mutants, these were far handier than unwieldy axes. Beyond that, Chu Guang repeatedly warned them that if they ran into any mutants, they had to avoid combat and flee if possible. However, if the enemy had already spotted them and displayed clear hostility, they must never turn their backs on it under any circumstances. Doing so was tantamount to suicide... Equipped with a map of the Wetland Park and a crude compass, Kuang Feng led Ye Shi away from the sanatorium. The remaining Lao Bai and Fang Chang looked at Chu Guang and asked, "Lord Manager, are we continuing to fell trees, or...?" Chu Guang glanced around, counting the dozens of unprocessed logs on the ground. "No tree felling today. We need to solve the latrine issue first... Here's the plan: go grab shovels and axes, and I'll teach you how to set it up." ... The parking lot was located southeast of the sanatorium. Left untended for two hundred years, nature had completely swallowed the place. Tree roots had broken through the solid concrete, and shrubs and wild grass grew knee-high. Rust-mottled vehicles were overgrown with vines, and through broken windows, one could even see moss blanketing the seats and air vents. Seeing all this, Kuang Feng finally understood the manager's words. There really was nothing worth salvaging here. Ye Shi looked just as dismayed. In this state, how the hell were they supposed to find a generator? "Should we head back?" Kuang Feng was silent for a moment before stepping forward stubbornly. "We're already here." Ye Shi shrugged and followed. Having known him online for so many years, his strongest impression of this netizen was his sheer stubbornness. He really wondered what the guy did in real life. The hoods of many cars in the parking lot were rusted shut and could not be pried open at all. Only after circling around the lot for a good while did Kuang Feng finally find one whose hood could barely be opened. Yet the moment he popped the hood, he froze. Was this... an engine? "What's wrong?" Ye Shi leaned in to ask. "It looks like an electric motor... but also not quite," Kuang Feng said, brows tightly furrowed. "Do you know anything about cars?" "I haven't even taken my driver's test, how would I know?" Ye Shi replied, sweating. "Haven't you been working for years? Never bought a car?" "I live in company dorms. Just have a bicycle." Refusing to give up, Kuang Feng continued rummaging through the engine bay, even circling around back and crawling under the chassis... checking every inspectable spot. Suddenly, his hands stopped. Noticing his expression, Ye Shi asked, "What now?" "It's weird... I can't find a power source." Wiping muddy water from his face, Kuang Feng frowned in deep thought. "I can roughly make out the motor, but... no power source." "Could it have been stripped?" Ye Shi offered a possibility. "After all, it's been two hundred years since the apocalypse. It'd be completely normal for survivors to have looted this place." "Can't rule that out." Habitually shutting the hood, Kuang Feng looked out over the sea of abandoned cars with mixed feelings. There was actually another possibility. In the game's lore, pre-war technological levels were sufficiently advanced; it was entirely possible they had reached the point where wireless power transmission replaced fixed onboard power sources. Either way, neither possibility was good news for him. Counting on salvaging an alternator from these scrapped cars seemed pretty much hopeless now... ... Meanwhile, elsewhere. Progress was being made on the latrine construction. Under Chu Guang's direction, Lao Bai and Fang Chang first dug a pit on the open ground outside the sanatorium—two meters wide, three meters long, and deep enough to bury a person standing upright. Then, they drove trimmed logs around the edges of the pit to serve as retaining walls, lining the bottom with gravel and leaves. Once the pit was ready, the rest of the latrine was much simpler. Chu Guang had the two erect two simple shacks beside the pit and connect them to it using plastic hoses stripped from the sanatorium's exterior walls. With that, a rudimentary latrine was complete. "Feces and urine must be stored separately; mixing them turns everything into slurry. Furthermore, urine is sterile and can be used directly on crops... but this will do for today." Chu Guang nodded approvingly at the fruits of their morning's labor. Leaning on their shovels and panting, Lao Bai and Fang Chang exchanged helpless looks. Sure, it was a 100% realistic virtual reality game, but was it really necessary to take realism to this extent? "Bathing is also an issue... There's a water source within a kilometer, but there are plenty of mutants nearby, so fetching water requires extreme caution." *We'll build a bathhouse when the time comes.* *The stench is a minor issue; getting sick would be the real trouble.* "Lord Manager," Fang Chang raised a hand. Chu Guang looked at him. "What is it?" "I think we should consider safety matters," Fang Chang said. "Judging by the mutant we ran into yesterday, this wasteland isn't safe." *Nonsense.* *Like I needed you to tell me that.* "I am aware, but sanitation cannot be underestimated either. The shelter lacks sufficient medical reserves. If an epidemic breaks out, the consequences will be severe." Safety was actually the less pressing concern. Mutants in the Wetland Park were far less active than those in the urban ruins, and hardly any survivors frequented the area; even if danger struck, they could just duck back into the shelter. Sanitation for over a hundred people, on the other hand, was a massive problem. On Bet Street, every household used iron buckets to store water, heating and disinfecting it on rooftops to wipe down their bodies every two or three days. It was not because the people there were particularly fastidious, but because anyone who stank too badly would genuinely be driven out. Fang Chang and Lao Bai exchanged a glance. *Could this manager's AI personality include being a clean freak?* *We'll definitely have to watch out for that in the future.* "Come to think of it... there's something I've been wanting to ask. Why doesn't such a massive shelter have any stockpiled supplies?" Lao Bai chimed in. "And we've been on B1 the whole time. What about the other floors?" "The other floors are not open yet. They will be opened in the future." Chu Guang did not explain why, simply stating the fact. Though curious, seeing that no further information was forthcoming, the two players did not press the matter, writing it off as game lore. Just then, Ye Shi and Kuang Feng returned from their expedition. Looking at Kuang Feng, whose clothes were covered in mud, Chu Guang asked, "How did it go? Did you find a generator?" "We didn't find one, but we didn't come back empty-handed either." With that, Kuang Feng opened a plastic bag scavenged from who-knew-which trash can, revealing it to be filled with blue mushrooms. These mushrooms were small, only about the length of an index finger, with tiny, translucent cilia on their surface. Following the striations on their caps, one could see a shimmering, multicolored sheen. Chu Guang took one look, his face filling with shock. "Where did you find this stuff?" With a faint hint of pride, Kuang Feng reported honestly, "Near the parking lot, there's a concrete drainage culvert roughly two people tall. A bunch of these mushrooms were growing inside. I wasn't sure if they were edible, so I picked a few to bring back." Truth be told, he had wanted to take a bite at first, but the game was simply too realistic, and he had hesitated for ages without ever working up the nerve. "Its name is the Blue Parasol mushroom, scientific name 'Blue Angel.' I've heard that anyone who eats it meets a real angel within an hour at most." "Make no mistake: unless you're an all-immune mutant, this thing is definitely inedible."