ARBW Chapter 36

Chapter 36

In the end, Pei Yuhuai did not kill Xiao Chen. The latter had acted as an intermediary, delivering messages, and seemed much more polite than the previous visitors. Pei Yuhuai didn’t have a particularly bad impression of him, so there was no need to kill him.

After Xiao Chen and his group left the town, the townspeople began to stir again.

They appeared uneasy, gathering outside the villa, demanding that Pei Yuhuai come out and explain the situation.

Some of the more restless individuals even tried to pressure Pei Yuhuai into creating more Ability users. They hoped that these new Ability users would be among the troublemakers themselves.

Unfortunately for them, Pei Yuhuai remained calm and composed, completely unfazed by their anxiety.

He only comforted Lin Mian, telling him not to be afraid, and then released the two robots he had previously.

Pei Yuhuai had two robots, one named Yuanyuan and the other Langlang.

After releasing them, Pei Yuhuai logged off to attend to his work.

In the evening, when Cheng Xiaowan returned home, she noticed the two new robots and curiously approached them.

Cheng Xiaowan: “These two robots look much more advanced than the patrol robot.”

As she spoke, she suddenly laughed. “Some townspeople used to say that Mr. Pei was connected to the Nobles and even claimed that he was responsible for the apocalypse. Now that they’ve seen Mr. Pei break ties with the Nobles, they’ve stopped spreading such rumors.”

Lin Mian frowned upon hearing this. “Mr. Pei has been so good to everyone. How could they dare to slander him?”

“Who knows? Maybe they’re just ungrateful. No matter how much good you do for them, they’ll never be satisfied.”

Some people are like that—no matter how much you give them, they’ll never be content.

They’ll even resent you if they feel you haven’t given them enough or if what you’ve given isn’t what they wanted.

“Enough about them. Let’s talk about these robots instead.”

Cheng Xiaowan said this and pulled Lin Mian over, asking him to introduce the robots.

Lin Mian’s mood improved slightly. “This is Yuanyuan. Its main task is to protect me. The other one is Langlang, a female robot. She’s very powerful. With her guarding the town, you don’t need to worry. We’ll be safe.”

“I wasn’t worried at all. If I were, I wouldn’t have been out all day.”

The two of them spent a long time playing with the robots. Later, Lin Mian gave Cheng Xiaowan twenty crystal cores to help her upgrade her Water-based Ability.

“It’s hard to find crystal cores outside now. Use these to upgrade your Ability first. Once your Ability level is higher, we can go out together to collect more.”

“Ah, crystal cores are so valuable. You should keep them for your own Ability.”

Lin Mian shook his head. “No need. Mr. Pei gave me nearly two hundred crystal cores. I have more than enough to max out my Ability.”

Pei Yuhuai had given Lin Mian all the crystal cores he had recently obtained, so Lin Mian now had a large number of them.

In their world, the highest level for an Ability was Level 9. Once you reached the max level, you couldn’t upgrade further.

Lin Mian had so many crystal cores that he couldn’t use them all himself. He wanted to help Cheng Xiaowan upgrade her Ability, which would also benefit their town.

After confirming that Lin Mian had enough for himself, Cheng Xiaowan happily accepted the crystal cores.

Cheng Xiaowan now lived in the villa as well, in a guest room far from Lin Mian’s.

She knew that Mr. Pei sometimes stayed over, and if she were too close, she might interfere with their relationship.

She spent most of her time outside, partly because she needed to tend to the fields, but also because she didn’t want to be a third wheel.

…

The next afternoon, after logging in, Pei Yuhuai didn’t immediately start on the time-limited task.

As soon as he logged in, Lin Mian pulled him aside.

The previous night, a mutated wolf had been discovered outside the town.

Lin Mian had used his Ability to successfully tame the wolf.

This was the first time he had tamed a mutated animal. Seeing the once-ferocious wolf become docile and obedient filled Lin Mian with a sense of accomplishment.

So when Pei Yuhuai logged in, Lin Mian immediately dragged him over to see the wolf, eager to share his joy.

The two of them examined the wolf, which Lin Mian had placed in the fields to guard the town’s crops.

Lin Mian felt that not everyone in the town was on their side.

After the Nobles had visited the town the previous day, Lin Mian wanted to prevent anyone with ill intentions from sabotaging the fields. So he placed his first tamed mutated animal there to protect the crops.

Pei Yuhuai looked at the mutated wolf and asked, “Where did you encounter this wolf?”

“Outside the town, in the Outer City. There aren’t many Zombies left now. Most of the threats are mutated animals and plants. Some of the more agile mutated animals sneak into the Outer City to prey on people. But such animals are rare. Most of them don’t get far before they’re killed by the Mutants in the Outer City.”

Mutants needed crystal cores to upgrade their Abilities. In the mid to late stages of the apocalypse, when Zombies and zombie animals were scarce, mutated animals became highly sought after.

In fact, the easiest way to obtain crystal cores was from the mutated plants in the forests of the Outer City.

Plants grew quickly, and mutated plants had an even stronger reproductive capacity.

For high-level Mutants, the primary source of crystal cores was mutated plants.

However, mutated plants were dangerous and grew in perilous forests, making them difficult to hunt.

Lin Mian: “It’s actually quite strange. Our town is close to the Inner City, so it’s unusual to encounter mutated animals here.”

Yet the previous night, they had discovered a mutated wolf outside the town. Lin Mian felt that something was off.

After listening, Pei Yuhuai said, “I’ll come over tonight to stay with you.”

Having broken ties with the Nobles in the Inner City, Pei Yuhuai was somewhat worried about Lin Mian.

He suspected that the mutated wolf might be a test from someone. To be safe, he decided to log in that night to check on things.

Afterward, Pei Yuhuai completed the time-limited task. The reward for today’s task was firearms.

When he saw the firearms, Pei Yuhuai became even more certain of his premonition—things were about to get turbulent in the town.

Pei Yuhuai gave the firearms to Lin Mian and then logged off to attend to his work.

Lin Mian stored the firearms in his dimensional ring and brought them back to the villa.

The weapons needed to be distributed, but he had to carefully consider who to give them to.

If given to the more obedient townspeople, they could work together to fend off external threats.

But if given to the more restless individuals, they might betray them at a critical moment.

To be safe, Lin Mian consulted with Cheng Xiaowan, the uncle, and Qin Yueming.

After selecting two trustworthy individuals each, Lin Mian finally distributed the weapons.

At 9:30 PM, Pei Yuhuai logged in as promised.

He appeared in the fields where he had logged off earlier that day.

At that moment, only the mutated wolf was there; no one else was around.

Seeing this, Pei Yuhuai wasn’t in a hurry to return to the villa to see Lin Mian. Instead, he decided to take a stroll around the town.

He didn’t have any particular goal in mind; he just wanted to walk around and observe.

As he wandered, his two main quests were completed.

Pei Yuhuai had two main quests: one was to occupy a territory, and the other was to win over an NPC.

He had completed both quests long ago, but the system hadn’t marked them as completed.

Pei Yuhuai hadn’t paid much attention to it, assuming they would automatically complete after some time.

Now that the quests were finally marked as completed, a new quest was immediately issued.

Pei Yuhuai vaguely understood something—perhaps the previous quests needed to trigger the next quest before the game system would recognize them as completed?

Before Pei Yuhuai could ponder further, his attention was drawn to the new quest.

New Main Quest: “As a highly charismatic hero, use your unique charm to recruit three Mutants for your territory.”

The quest had a time limit of thirty days, with a current progress of 0/3.

Upon completing the previous two main quests, the system rewarded him with two items.

The first was thirty crystal cores, and the second was a teleporter.

Pei Yuhuai had previously obtained a teleporter from the intimacy system.

Originally, he had planned to use the teleporter to link the town with the world outside the Outer City, making it easier to take Lin Mian out to collect crystal cores.

Now that he had another teleporter, Pei Yuhuai thought of the Nobles in the Inner City.

As the saying goes, “Know your enemy and know yourself, and you can win a hundred battles.” He felt that he should place a teleporter in the Inner City.

Whether it was to understand them better or to prepare for future conflicts, this device could prove to be very useful.

With this in mind, Pei Yuhuai smiled slightly and took out the teleporter.

The teleporter had two anchor points. One could be placed in their villa, and the other could be set with the system’s help.

He asked the system to select a relatively safe and hidden location in the Inner City for the second anchor point.

Once both anchor points were set, Pei Yuhuai decided to visit the Inner City alone.

To avoid worrying Lin Mian, Pei Yuhuai made up his mind and returned to the villa to inform him.

Lin Mian’s first reaction was naturally concern. But after hearing Mr. Pei’s assurance that there would be no danger, he could only watch with worry as Mr. Pei left.

Pei Yuhuai left immediately. He stepped onto the teleporter, which only he could see, and in the blink of an eye, he appeared in the Inner City.

The security in the Inner City wasn’t as strict as Pei Yuhuai had imagined.

Since it was nighttime, there were hardly any people on the streets.

Pei Yuhuai used his Speed-based Ability to quickly survey the entire Inner City, gaining a general understanding of the area.

He didn’t stay long and soon teleported back using the teleporter.

When he returned, Lin Mian was still awake, clearly waiting for him.

Pei Yuhuai checked the time—it was already 1:00 AM.

He quickly urged Lin Mian to go to bed.

“Alright, I’m back. You should get some rest now.”

Lin Mian responded but didn’t move.

Seeing this, Pei Yuhuai sighed. He selected the last option in the intimacy interaction menu and was transported to Lin Mian’s world.

Using the game character to take care of Lin Mian had many limitations.

To better care for Lin Mian, Pei Yuhuai felt it was better to go there himself.

As Pei Yuhuai’s intimacy with Lin Mian increased, the duration of his visits during the last intimacy interaction option also increased.

For example, the first time, it felt like a dream, and the details were blurry.

The second and third times, he could arrive halfway through the interaction and stay long enough to take care of Lin Mian afterward.

Then, during the most recent visits, Pei Yuhuai could arrive before the interaction even began.

He felt that if he chose not to interact with Lin Mian, he wouldn’t be sent back by the system.

The only downside was that if he chose to interact but didn’t follow through, he wouldn’t gain the 50 intimacy points.

For instance, tonight, Lin Mian was too tired from waiting for him, so Pei Yuhuai didn’t actually go through with the interaction.

As a result, the next morning, their intimacy level didn’t increase.

Pei Yuhuai returned from Lin Mian’s world at 5:00 AM.

As soon as he returned, he felt a headache coming on. He had been very busy with work recently, and after staying up late playing the game last night, he was exhausted.

Pei Yuhuai checked his phone and sent a message to his secretary, Xiao Zhang, instructing him to postpone all his work for the day.

With the entire day’s work postponed, Pei Yuhuai could sleep in during the morning and spend the afternoon with Lin Mian.