Chapter 108 – The Unlucky One in the Survival World (Part 9)

Zheng Haoyun first opened the Bronze Treasure Chest. Inside, she found 50 copper coins, 2 rice seeds, 20 ice bricks, and a pair of torn gloves.

Not bad at all. She could patch up the gloves later with beast hide and still use them.

Then, she opened the newly acquired Silver Treasure Chest and was shocked to find 2 silver coins (1 silver coin = 1,000 copper coins). This was her first time getting such a large sum of money in this world. There were also 10 bottles of water and a rusty machete.

The machete looked decent—once sharpened, it would be fully functional. Finally, she had a close-combat weapon that felt comfortable to wield.

As for the 21 wooden chests dropped by the snow wolves, she opened them all in one go. In total, she gained: 260 copper coins, 68 wood blocks, 46 ice bricks, and 50 pieces of wolf meat.

At this point, her stock of ice bricks had surpassed 150. A system prompt sounded:

"Ding! Detection complete. Survivor 'I Will Turn My Luck Around' has sufficient ice bricks in their inventory. You now meet the upgrade requirements for Level 2 Ice House. Proceed with the upgrade?"

Hearing this great news, Zheng Haoyun didn't hesitate at all and immediately chose to upgrade. The higher the level of the ice house, the better for her.

Her ice house's area expanded from 20 square meters to 40, and its defense increased from 150 to 300.

Unfortunately, the defense stat only applied to wild beasts in the icefield. It wouldn't stop other survivors from entering. Perhaps only higher-level ice houses could offer that kind of protection.

One thing that did make her especially happy, though: her outer wooden fence was apparently considered part of the ice house by the system. It upgraded along with it, and its durability rose from 100 to 200.

Previously, Zheng Haoyun had worried she'd have to rebuild the whole fence after the upgrade. Unexpectedly, the game upgraded it for her and saved her a lot of resources in the process.

It turned out this was a hidden perk—only survivors who had built their fence during the first three-day adaptation period could enjoy this one-click upgrade benefit.

However, if the fence was later damaged by external forces, the survivor would have to pay additional materials for repairs.

At the moment, Zheng Haoyun's basic supplies were still decent. She figured she had a bit too much wolf meat. Since wolf meat was tough and chewy, she decided to put some up on the trading board, offering 1 piece of meat for 5 wood blocks. She set this price after comparing the market rate.

Some survivors only dared to hunt small animals like snow rabbits, so they had very limited meat supplies. In this world, beast meat still had solid trade value.

Zheng Haoyun had a gut feeling the game would stir up more trouble soon, so she wanted to stockpile more wood blocks now. Repairs and crafting had already consumed quite a lot of her wood.

Thus, she decided to trade meat for wood only.

By now, she was also a little hungry. She grilled some meat and drank some water. Honestly, eating like this every day was starting to give her mouth ulcers.

So she decided to check the newly opened game shop to see if she could buy fertilizer—hopefully, that would speed up the growth of her apple plant so she could eat some fruit soon.

The shop interface was simple and clear. It was divided into six major categories:

Food

Clothing

Weapons

Miscellaneous

Medicine

Skills

Out of curiosity, she first checked the Skills section again. But, as expected, the prices were sky-high—far beyond what a poor survivor like her could afford.

This time, she browsed other sections. In the Miscellaneous category, she searched for fertilizer.

In the end, she bought four bags of basic fertilizer—enough to shorten plant growth time by two days total. It cost her 20 copper coins. She skipped the intermediate-grade fertilizer; the price-to-performance ratio wasn't worth it.

If not for the planting limit of four fertilizer applications, she would've bought six bags to instantly ripen the apples.

Once she had them, she immediately poured the fertilizer onto her previously planted land.

Sure enough, the apple tree's countdown timer dropped to just over 20 hours. That meant by tomorrow noon, she might finally get to eat some fruit.

With that taken care of, she browsed a bit more and saw that the Miscellaneous section was selling regional maps. Over a hundred players in her area had already purchased them, despite the hefty 500 copper coin price tag.

That was no good sign.

She could guess what those buyers were planning—buying expensive maps wasn't for sightseeing. It was likely for hunting and looting other players.

Zheng Haoyun didn't waste her money. First, she felt it was unnecessary. Second, she was perfectly fine waiting for prey to come to her. In this icy wilderness, she wasn't about to tire herself out running around.

She'd rather spend that time building up her physique.

She checked the Food section. Cheap items included:

Rock-hard rye bread that could crack your teeth

Bottled drinking water

Compressed biscuits

There were no rice or flour options. Fresh vegetables and fruits were absurdly overpriced—over 300 copper coins per jin (about 500 grams). For ordinary players still struggling below the poverty line, they were pure luxury.

She continued browsing. Eventually, she spent:

28 copper coins on sewing tools

40 copper coins on some hygiene items

It was hard to imagine how filthy she'd gotten over the past few days.

That made her want to heat some water to at least wipe herself down. As for bathing? That would be suicide.

She had the fireplace blueprint from the arena event, but it required energy cards and bricks, which she didn't currently have.

So, no baths for now. Being dirty was fine. Getting sick in this world meant expensive medicine. What she feared most were sudden emergencies.

Over the next few days, Zheng Haoyun spent half her time working out and the other half continuing her usual hunting routine.

Everything was peaceful… until one day, she came back and saw that the tripwire she'd set up at her ice house door had been snapped.

Zheng Haoyun's instincts kicked in immediately.

Someone had snuck into her base.