Chapter 22: Wood So Bad Even Dogs Wouldn't Take It? Instantly Sold Out!
In the end, Lin Mu decided to go back upstairs to sleep. With such a spacious place, who would willingly stay somewhere cramped?
The second day of Winter’s Wrath arrived. Lin Mu climbed down from upstairs, feeling comfortable and refreshed. He looked at the stairs before him, thinking, “These stairs are rather peculiar.” It was just the kind of iron ladder used for work, as simple as could be. “Forget it, I’ll make do,” he muttered, shivering as he glanced at the thermometer.
Outside: minus sixty degrees.
Inside: plus eight degrees.
No wonder it felt so cold—even eight degrees indoors. “I have no idea how those vehicles with only level two upgrades survive. Their cabin must be below freezing,” he thought. His first action was to add more firewood, then hurriedly switched on the air conditioning. After ten minutes, the temperature slowly rose to fifteen degrees. “Ah, much better.” Given a little more time, it should reach around twenty-seven degrees.
For breakfast, he had a steaming bowl of instant noodles and a Kentiki family bucket. “This will suffice. Eating too much isn’t good anyway.” Leaning back in the driver’s seat, he ate and opened the regional chat.
The number of people hadn’t changed much; the period of drastic decline had passed.
“Damn! Minus sixty degrees outside, can you believe it? How are we supposed to get resource crates?”
“Just wear thicker clothing, isn’t it obvious?”
“Stop, please. Vehicles upgraded to level two can’t withstand this. Anyone got spare materials? I’ll trade food.”
“Convoy recruiting—strength in unity, resource sharing, prosperity for all...”
“Everyone be careful! I almost got hit by a car just now!!”
“...”
Most people were discussing the temperature. Clearly, this severe cold was affecting everyone profoundly. Lin Mu glanced at the thermometer; it now read twenty-five degrees. He looked to his stove and couldn’t resist typing into the channel.
“Hasn’t anyone tried lighting a stove? It’s really warm once it’s on.”
“Are you stupid? Lighting a stove burns tons of wood. Who has that much material?”
“Shows how clever you are—wood’s so scarce lately, who would waste it like that?”
“...”
His single comment attracted a chorus of ridicule. He opened his backpack, looking at his over three hundred pieces of wood.
[Ding~ Successfully recycled one wooden chair, gained Wood x10]
Wait, is wood really so hard to get? Should he profit from this? He considered his materials, then put a hundred pieces of wood up for sale.
[Wood x5] for [Universal Material x1], twenty lots in total.
Lin Mu wasn’t sure if anyone would accept the price—after all, universal materials were valuable. But within five minutes, he was lambasted in the regional channel.
“Who is this, crazy for money? Is this exchange ratio reasonable?”
“Only fools would trade—universal materials are scarce and important.”
“Yeah, not even a dog would trade.”
“...”
In the trading center, the wood Lin Mu had just listed was snatched up almost instantly. He was browsing blueprints when his stock vanished. Not even a dog would trade, they’d said—yet his wood was gone.
Seeing his tally of universal materials increase by twenty, Lin Mu was delighted. “Ha, these people really are fools, trading universal materials for wood.”
[Standing Fan Blueprint]: Iron Ingot x2, Wood x5
[Mini Fridge Blueprint]: Wood x10
[Wind Turbine Blueprint]: Iron Ingot x10, Copper Ingot x5, Panacea x2
Without hesitation, Lin Mu bought them all. He realized that selling to these people was profitable—their intelligence was questionable. Better to keep these items; they’d clearly be useful soon.
Others... were barely surviving. Why keep blueprints if you couldn’t live to use them?
...
On another road, a Jinbei van sped along.
“Sis, did you really sell the wind turbine blueprint so cheaply?”
“Shuxin, keeping it is just holding onto a piece of paper. Take this medicine, use it if you need to.”
Shuyi had no choice—materials were already scarce, and acquiring more was even harder.
“Alright, sister.” Shuxin tucked the medicine into her backpack.
“Hey, look—isn’t that the person who bought our blueprints? He has so much stuff.” Shuyi checked the trade history; it was indeed the same person.
“Maybe he’s just strong. It’d be great if we could team up with him.”
“Sis, why don’t you ask? With your luck, maybe it’ll work out.”
To Shuxin, her sister was practically blessed by fate. On the first day, she’d gotten a player locator and found her directly. On the second, she’d obtained a teleporter to bring her over.
Unfortunately, luck aside, their resources were rapidly depleting.
The two barely had any surplus, with only a single road’s worth of crates.
Vrrr!
A car slowly approached from behind. Shuyi steered aside to let it pass, but the other vehicle moved right back behind her.
“Sis, careful. That car might be trying to attack us.”
Shuyi always drove, while Shuxin lurked in the regional channel gathering information. Seeing the other vehicle’s maneuver, she immediately guessed their intent.
“Why are we so unlucky?”
Yesterday, they hadn’t encountered a single car—today, they ran into trouble. The other vehicle was clearly faster, not that their own speed was lacking, but snow made it impossible to drive quickly.
“Sis, our weapons don’t seem effective against vehicles.” Shuxin looked at her backpack: longsword, spear, longbow, crossbow—all useless against vehicles.
Bang!
The car shook. Shuyi paled, peering through the rearview mirror to catch the ugly grin of the driver behind them. Clearly, he was aiming to kill them and seize their vehicle’s core.
“Ask that person if we can rent weapons.”
“Alright!”
Lin Mu whistled as he drove, occasionally glancing behind him. He’d already collected the first batch of supply crates, meaning no vehicles were ahead.
“That can’t be right—just one car?”
Just then, Lin Mu slowed and came to a gentle halt. On the other side of the road, a track with tire marks appeared to his left. Judging by the depth and snowfall, a car had passed not long ago.
“Luck truly favors me.”
He floored the a