Chapter 7

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Now that the satellite signal had been connected once again, Wu Peng continued to live his routine lifestyle.

He would head to the surface and look around to see if he could gather any materials after he woke up and ate in the morning.

He would return to his little den in the afternoon to watch the news. He would also visit the forums and have a chat with the survivors who were also on the forums.

The crops in the beginner crop nursery were growing well.

Unfortunately, he had not managed to find any new seeds and could only grow batch after batch of wheat.

Wu Peng missed eating fragrant rice and vibrant, green vegetables.

Even though he could exchange for canned vegetables with his points, the taste of those vegetables left more to be desired.

If someone looked at the vegetables not knowing what they were, they would definitely mistake them for a pile of rotten rags.

…

A week passed like that.

Wu Peng turned on his computer and accessed the forum after he finished his meal, just like always.

This was the time of the day when he was the happiest.

The current largest forum on the Internet was called “Rising Sun”. It was meant to be filled with hope and the desire to live, just like the rising sun, even though it sounded a little ridiculous in their apocalyptic environment.

However, it also displayed humanity’s optimism toward life.

The reason for the continued survival of human civilization all this while was that they never gave up on the rising sun in their hearts no matter how tough or torturous the situation became.

There were a large number of survivors uploading their pictures and videos on the Rising Sun forum every day.

Wu Peng also learned about information regarding the other shelters through these photos and videos.

Under such a situation, the people who could access the Internet were mostly made up of people in official shelters.

However, there were a few civilian survival experts who were also living decent lives.

For example, there was a person called “Brother Fei”. He was like Wu Peng, a survival expert who made it in this world alone.

Judging from the posts he published, he might have gone through military service in the past, and he would often show off various survival techniques on the Internet.

This sparked Wu Peng’s competitive spirit, as he was an expert in survival techniques as well.

Wu Peng was confident that he would be able to survive even without the Mechanical System, only his life would not be as comfortable as it is now.

He also set up an account by the nickname of “Dapeng” on the forum and started to post survival tips and small life hacks.

What he did not expect was for his posts to become highly popular the moment he posted them.

That was because compared to Brother Fei, who was posting his tips as a subtle boast, Wu Peng’s posts were closer to the common man and multiple survivors sought help from him.

Wu Peng had quite a bit of free time that he could kill time this way.

He patiently answered a variety of questions. Normally, he would be able to solve most problems as long as they were not particularly complicated.

As he became more and more famous, he received an increasing number of questions.

Wu Peng’s once-free nights became the busiest time of his day.

Wu Peng was shocked when he noticed something after he helped the survivors solve a problem, he would receive points as a reward from the system.

Even though most of the problems he solved only gave him two to five points, the feeling of doing a good deed while he earned points in the process made Wu Peng feel extremely good.

…

A few days passed like that, and Wu Peng decided to stop going up to the surface.

He started to access the forums and answer everybody’s questions from the moment he woke up.

By now, he had become famous within the Rising Sun forum. There would even be a notice that alerted users when he had entered the forum.

“Dapeng is here! I’ve waited for such a long time!”

“Brother Peng! You’ve finally returned.”

“Hello, Brother Peng!”

Wu Peng looked at the string of greetings in the chatroom of the forum and felt extremely proud. “Good morning, all you Baby Gophers. Have all of you eaten?”

Baby Gophers was a ridiculous way to address the survivors in the Rising Sun forum.

That was because everyone was living underground, yet had to emerge to the surface to look for resources from time to time and act like gophers and thus, the nickname was born.

The question of whether or not they had eaten had become a true question of concern.

In this apocalyptic world, they might not have enough for their next meal. Being able to eat meant that life could continue.

Wu Peng had just sent his message when a string of “I’ve eaten!” and “I just ate!” appeared under his message.

Wu Peng had a smile on his face, and he felt a wave of vitality within those words.

After a series of formalities, the users of the forum started to tell Wu Peng about the problems they had encountered.

One of the questions posed by a user attracted Wu Peng’s attention.

“Brother Peng, I saw a strange creature when I went to the surface yesterday. It looked like a rat but was as large as a wolf! It had no fur and looked incredibly grotesque.”

Wu Peng immediately typed a response, he wanted to follow up on the question. However, it showed that he had no access to the Internet.

“What’s going on?” Wu Peng knitted his brows, quickly turned on his television, and saw that it was not working either.

Wu Peng felt that something bad was about to happen.

Could it be that there was a problem with the satellite signal receiver again?

Thinking about this, Wu Peng immediately moved and prepared to head to the surface to investigate the situation.

He had just stood up when the signal returned to normal.

“It might have been a fluctuation in the signal.” Wu Peng muttered to himself and sat down by the side of his computer once again and continued to send the message.

In the end, that user had gone offline as he thought that Wu Peng had left after going offline.

Wu Peng gently knitted his brows and committed this matter into his heart.

Mutated creatures would definitely appear in the post-apocalyptic world.

Even though he had not encountered these creatures, for the time being, he had to collect information beforehand to not be at a loss for what to do when he suddenly encountered them in the future.

He addressed a few of the problems the users of the forum faced. Night came in the blink of an eye.

Wu Peng was going to rest for a moment before making dinner but his attention was drawn by Qin Ming giving him a call.

This was the first time Qin Ming had tried to contact him since they parted ways.

Wu Peng accepted the call in a hurry, “Leader Qin? Why did you suddenly have time to contact me?”

On the other side, Qin Ming’s tone was a little sullen, “Wu Peng, how’s the signal in your shelter these past two days?”

“The signal got broken once during the day. I think that it should be a signal fluctuation.”

“I…” Qin Ming had just uttered a word when the signal got interrupted.

This time, Wu Peng waited for nearly an hour before he regained his connection with the extremely unstable signal.

He quickly gave Qin Ming a call. The voice on the other side was choppy and full of static.

However, what their conversation generally entailed was that the repair team would head over to the satellite signal receiver tomorrow to have a look.

After the call ended, Wu Peng thought for a moment and decided that he was also going to investigate the receiver tomorrow.

…

Early the next day, Wu Peng rushed toward the satellite signal receiver after he ate a simple breakfast.

When he arrived, he saw that Qin Ming and the others had reached there before him.

After they greeted each other, Qin Ming expressed that he found no abnormalities after his investigation.

“However, there’s definitely a problem with the signal these two days. What do you think the situation is?” Wu Peng was not a professional in the matter and had to ask Qin Ming about the situation.

Qin Ming deliberated for a moment and said, “According to my experience, it might be caused by wild beasts.”