"I have plans tonight." Li Xiang shrugged and pumped his fist. "I support you all! Go get 'em! You got this!"
The Manager: "..."
Everyone else: "..."
Chen Huanhuan buried her face on her desk, her shoulders shaking as she held back laughter. She wanted to retort, too. 'If you want to work overtime, go ahead. You have my moral support.' But alas, she still had to make a living here and couldn't be as cavalier as Li Xiang.
This company, naturally, didn't pay for overtime. You were on your own for dinner, too.
Li Xiang finished his work handover by the third day.
The date on his resignation form hadn't been officially approved yet, but he could take leave. Since he'd gone through the entire formal resignation process, the company still had to pay him what he was owed. It would just be deposited into his account on next month's payday.
He wanted to get back in time for the Mid-Autumn Festival to spend it with his grandma.
Given Li Xiang's "stunning performance" over the past few days, the manager approved his leave. A few more confrontations with the kid and his blood pressure would probably skyrocket.
Li Xiang's rent was almost due, and for the money he was making, continuing to work just wasn't worth it. So, he happily slung on his pack and set off on his journey home.
One of his former housemates, a guy from the Northeast, sold traditional Chinese medicine on the side. Li Xiang had bought a pound of domestic, sugar-free Red Ginseng from him for 500 yuan. It came in a pack of ten roots, each weighing about 50 grams. The quality was decent—a good value for the price. He also bought a few sets of clothes for the elderly as gifts for his grandmother and maternal grandparents.
Since his hometown was in the mountains—ten kilometers from the nearest town and over twenty from the nearest county seat—buying supplies was a hassle. So, Li Xiang also stocked up on some common medications like ibuprofen capsules, cefaclor, amoxicillin, Banlangen granules, bandages, and povidone-iodine swabs, just in case.
You wouldn't have to panic if someone came down with a headache or fever in the middle of the night.
He also bought some snacks and instant noodles for the journey.
Laden with bags big and small, he boarded the train. He couldn't bring himself to splurge on a high-speed or bullet train, opting instead for a regular express train with a hard-sleeper ticket. The trip would take more than twice as long—over twenty hours—but at just over 400 yuan, the ticket was half the price of the high-speed rail.
For the poor, time is the cheapest commodity.
In truth, Li Xiang really enjoyed this kind of travel. Lying on the top bunk, swaying with the motion of the train, he'd put on his headphones and scroll through short-form videos, binge-watch a series, or read a novel. It was quite pleasant.
His former colleagues had been right about one thing: he did plan on becoming a video content creator. It's just that the biggest boom period had already passed. The market was now a Red Sea of competition, and getting a new channel off the ground would be incredibly difficult.
He'd wanted to buy a slightly better phone, since he'd need it to record videos and possibly do livestreams once he got back. Besides, his current phone's performance wasn't great, and it would be good to have a backup in case it broke. But alas, his funds were limited. After two years of working and pinching pennies, he had only managed to save a meager 12,000 yuan.
He had, however, packed several sets of charging cables and adapters, along with a long, extendable tripod he could use for filming. Online shopping was an option back home, but picking up packages would be a pain.
At noon the next day, Li Xiang finally arrived in his hometown's county seat. The first thing he did after leaving the train station was go into town to buy a three-wheeler.
He was planning to farm, and out in the remote countryside, a three-wheeler was incredibly practical. It was perfect for doing farm work, going to the market, or hauling fertilizer, pesticides, and tools.
A tractor would be even better, of course. One of those four-wheel-drive farm models could pull a trailer for hauling cargo, and with different attachments, it could be used for rotary tilling, digging furrows, making ridges, sowing seeds, and more.
But tractors were too expensive. Even a cheap one would cost twenty or thirty thousand yuan, which he couldn't afford right now.
The three-wheeler, however, only cost a little over three thousand.
The dealership Li Xiang visited had a best-selling model with a 1.5-by-1-meter cargo bed and a rain canopy. It had a top speed of 40 to 50 kilometers per hour and a range of 65 kilometers on a full charge. The owner's asking price was 3,600 yuan, but Li Xiang haggled him down to 3,400 and even got him to throw in a helmet and a small electric air pump for free.
Li Xiang tossed his bags into the back and drove off, pleased as punch. This was the first vehicle he had ever truly owned.
In his past life, he had driven a massive oil tanker that had been converted into a war rig, but it hadn't been his—it belonged to the base.
Strictly speaking, you needed a license and plates to drive a three-wheeler like this, but who was going to enforce that in a rural backwater?
He'd get it all sorted out later when he had the time. For this type of vehicle, you didn't have to go to a driving school; you just had to apply with your ID, a copy of it, a health certificate from a county-level hospital or better, and three one-inch photos on a white background.
Even if he did get pulled over, he could just claim he'd bought it that very day and hadn't had a chance to get the paperwork done yet. The average traffic cop wasn't going to give him a hard time over it.
Instead of heading back right away, Li Xiang took a tour of the county seat. The cargo bed was plenty big; he could load it up with more supplies.
His grandma was home all by herself, so she was probably running low on staples like rice, flour, and cooking oil. He was her eldest grandson, and he wasn't about to come home and freeload.
He didn't buy any vegetables, focusing instead on meat and fish. He got ten pounds of pork, two large grass carp, and a selection of rice, flour, oil, and seasonings.
Since it happened to be the Mid-Autumn Festival, he bought some festive treats as well—mooncakes, peach crisps, and ginger cakes—and had them divided into two large, mixed bags.
The weather was still warm, and he knew there was no refrigerator at home, so he also bought a small, three-door, 215-liter model for 999 yuan. It would be more than enough.
The three-wheeler was now piled high, and its speed slowed noticeably under the load.
He had to admit, this three-wheeler made getting home from the county seat so much easier. Otherwise, with all his bags, he would've had to take the rural bus from town, which only stopped on the main road. From there, it was still a walk of several kilometers.
The truth was, Li Xiang's system included an "Otherworldly Warehouse." It was a one-cubic-meter space, a perfect cube. It just wasn't wise to reveal his powers in public, so he only stored his most important items inside, carrying the ordinary, inexpensive things by hand.
Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain the "Creation Out of Thin Air" once he got home.
Li Xiang had examined it and found that the Otherworldly Warehouse had an upgrade button, but using it consumed "Achievement Points."
Achievement Points, in turn, could be earned by completing missions or reaching certain milestones. It was just that no missions had been assigned yet.
'Does it wait until the Apocalypse to start issuing missions? That can't be right, can it?'
His hometown was remote, but thanks to the "Every Village Access" policy, there were paved side roads leading off the main thoroughfare.
A wave of homecoming jitters washed over him, and Li Xiang slowed his pace.
His three-wheeler was piled high with "supplies," a large refrigerator tied down with rope. The vehicle swayed as he drove along at a leisurely pace, in no particular hurry. In the distance, he saw a man herding a cow by the side of the road. It was one of the village uncles—a cousin of his father's, actually—who hadn't been on the best terms with his family. Still, out of politeness, Li Xiang stopped to greet him. "Third Uncle, herding your cow?"
"Well now, Xiang Ya, what's this? You came back driving a three-wheeler? Your cousin drives a car every time he comes home."
The "cousin" he was referring to was his own son. He was a few years older than Li Xiang and hadn't gone to college, but he was supposedly doing well for himself as a contractor in the provincial capital. The man's face was a mask of superiority; he clearly looked down on Li Xiang for riding a three-wheeler.
Li Xiang had started to reach into his pocket for a cigarette, but he pulled his hand out empty. He had a decent pack on him, but given the man's attitude, he thought better of it. He offered a thin smile. "I'm not leaving again. A three-wheeler is more practical for life in the countryside."
"You're a university graduate. What kind of future can you have holed up in this backwater?" Li Jintang looked Li Xiang up and down, a thoughtful expression on his face. 'This kid must've failed to make it in the city,' he thought, his musings now tinged with a hint of pity. 'Probably got fired for being useless at everything, right?'
Li Xiang said, "My grandma's getting on in years. I came back to look after her. Third Uncle, I'll be on my way!"
Li Jintang waved him off. "Go on, then." As he watched Li Xiang's retreating figure, however, he curled his lip. 'Came back to look after his grandma? He sure has a smooth tongue. If you were really that capable, you'd be taking your grandma out of here to live in comfort.'
Driving his fully loaded three-wheeler, Li Xiang finally reached the village entrance. In the distance, under the large willow tree that marked the village's edge, a dozen or so elderly people—almost all of them women—were gathered in two rows, leaving a path down the middle.
Li Xiang sucked in a sharp breath. 'So this is it,' he thought. The universe's most mysterious organization, Earth's most formidable intelligence agency: the renowned "Village Entrance Information Corps." They could make or break a person's reputation.
One wrong move, and a cough today could turn into a rumor about terminal lung cancer by tomorrow.
Of course, Li Xiang wasn't actually afraid; he was just joking to himself. 'But seriously,' he wondered, 'how did this phenomenon become a universal standard across the entire country?'
Calmly and without a hint of panic, Li Xiang drove the three-wheeler toward them. He'd figured out his strategy for this encounter long before he'd even returned.
He stopped the three-wheeler a few yards away, reached back to grab the pre-prepared bags of mooncakes, peach crisps, and ginger cakes, and hopped out. A beaming, enthusiastic smile on his face, he strode quickly toward the group, calling out greetings like "Auntie!" and "Third Auntie!"
He handed out the treats as he addressed each of them. "I was in a rush and didn't bring much, but here are some fresh mooncakes and ginger cakes to celebrate the festival."
Forgetting a single "Auntie" or failing to hand out a single pastry could spell disaster. Li Xiang made sure to cover all his bases.
With gifts in hand and charmed by Li Xiang's sweet-talking, the aunties all started chattering at once, peppering him with questions. Li Xiang proceeded to spin them a yarn with a completely straight face. He could get away with not offering Li Jintang a cigarette, but he couldn't afford to offend these vital members of the "information corps."