Reborn in the end of the world, I scavenged in the empty city and bought for free

In the end, Cai Min couldn't make up her mind to buy charcoal at 85 yuan per pound. For their family, one pound was a serious overspending, and it would take more than a day or two to buy 20 or 30 pounds. In the past, when they lived in the north, they would consume several thousand pounds of charcoal in one winter. But now that the price of charcoal has risen, every household has gradually started buying two or three pounds at a time, as if they could survive one day at a time.

Cai Min picked up her mobile phone after returning to the house. On it was a message from Gu Tongwan asking about her new year's situation and some recent news.

Cai Min sat on the kang and chatted with Gu Tongwan for a while, only to find out that the price of charcoal in the base had also risen due to the weather, so they all complained that charcoal was difficult to buy recently.

Cai Min: [It's the same situation here, but the only good thing is that the price of vegetables has finally come under control. It has increased a bit compared to before the Chinese New Year, but it's not so expensive that we can't afford it. By the way, speaking of this, it's all thanks to the batch of cabbage and potatoes you sold me before. Recently, my family has been eating the cabbage you gave me.]

Gu Tongwan [When the weather stabilizes in a few days, I will send some more to you. ]

Cai Min: [How can I do that? Vegetables are not cheap right now. How about this? My dad and I are going to deliver goods to the base soon. We can just make an appointment to meet up then. That way, you don’t have to travel so far to come to us.]

Gu Tongwan heard from Cai Min that there are generally two ways for outsiders to enter the base. One is to join the base and become a permanent resident, but it is difficult to apply for a resident card during the non-open period, and the review conditions are extremely harsh. The other way is to apply for a temporary pass. This kind of certificate is generally used by outsiders who have business dealings with the base, but they must have a certain credit or prestige in the base, or they must be guaranteed by a unit or enterprise. The next way is to participate in support work, and the temporary pass will be issued directly by the base government.

Gu Tongwan [It doesn't matter. I have nothing to do at home these days. Maybe I can go out and take a look outside.]

Cai Min [Why don’t you stay at my house for a few days? ]

Perhaps worried that Gu Tongwan would misunderstand her meaning, Cai Min quickly sent several messages.

Cai Min: [I mean you can come to our wanderer base camp. You have never been here before, so you can take this opportunity to come and play for a few days. Our base camp is relatively safe, and the leaders of the base camp are also very good. It is not the kind of camp with clear hierarchy that you have in mind. After all, the camp leaders of each camp have different personalities and different ways of doing things. But I can assure you that ours is already the most peaceful and freest of all the wanderer bases.]

Cai Min: [You can also bring your friends. Our house is quite big, so three or four people can come with us.]

In fact, Gu Tongwan was quite interested in the "Wanderer Base Camp", especially when he heard that growing crops in their camp was particularly successful. He didn't know if it was a problem with the soil outside or the climate, but the color and quality of the fruits and vegetables grown were better than those grown by the agricultural science institute at the base.

After seeing Cai Min’s message, Gu Tongwan immediately sent a message to Chen Yanxi.

Gu Tongwan [Are you free after the eighth day of the Lunar New Year? A friend of mine lives near the Wanderer Base Camp and wants to invite me to spend a few days there. He said he can bring more people with him. If you are free, would you like to come along? ]

Gu Tongwan also sent the same message to Liao Yunyun. Liao Yunyun was probably either watching TV or surfing the Internet at home, so she replied to the message very quickly.

Liao Yunyun [Great! I just received news from my company that we will resume work on the 16th day of the first lunar month. I have nothing to do during that time. In the past few years, I have not been to other places except for the northern forest with the department's field interview team. There is still a week after the 8th day of the first lunar month. How long do you plan to be away?]

Gu Tongwangang [It's estimated to be three or four days. Just treat it as a trip to a farm and have a good time outside for a few days. I'm also quite curious about the Wanderer Base Camp. ]

Liao Yunyun: [Is it the homeless base you mentioned last time? I checked it out before. This homeless base called "Happiness No. 1" is relatively peaceful among the nearby homeless organizations. It is also large in scale and area. The camp commander is a retired veteran who has cooperated with the base several times before. The only bad thing about this base is that there are not many superpowers, and the proportion of young and middle-aged people living there is not large. Most of them are the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled, as well as girls and children. Therefore, it has been coveted by several small-scale homeless organizations nearby in recent years. There have been several attacks before, but fortunately, the superpowers in the camp fought back in time, so there were not too many casualties. "

Liao Yunyun [Am I the only one going with you? Did you not invite anyone else? ]

Liao Yunyun sent several messages in succession.

Gu Tongwan [I plan to take Yan Fan and the two dogs with me, and also invite Chen Yanxi. ]

Liao Yunyun [Invite? You are already in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, so you should bring your family. 】【Emoji】【Emoji】

The message sent by Liao Yunyun also included a few snickering emoticons, and one could already see the other person snickering in front of her.

Not long after Liao Yunyun's message came, Chen Yanxi's message also arrived.

Chen Yanxi [Sure, there are no special tasks from the seventh day to the Lantern Festival, I will accompany you then.]

The simple words "I'll be with you" made Gu Tongwan stare at the message on his phone for a while. After a while, he felt a warmth slowly flowing in his chest.

In fact, after she and Chen Yanxi confirmed their relationship, apart from meeting more frequently and contacting each other online, their way of getting along did not change much from before. This may be because Chen Yanxi wanted to give her more time to accept or adapt to the changes in their relationship.

Gu Tongwan knew that the so-called "defense line" in his heart was still based on not wanting to invest too much emotion in one person. Only in this way could he avoid harm, and would not be too sad even if he was betrayed or lost some people or things in the future.

"Wanwan, who are you messaging so seriously?" Xiaoli approached with some curiosity, with a teasing smile on her face.

"Nothing, just sending a message to a friend." Gu Tongwan pulled the phone back to the home page and answered as if nothing had happened.

"How can you look so happy when you are sending a message to your friend? Tell me quickly, do you have a boyfriend?" Xiaoli narrowed her eyes and looked her up and down as if her gaze could penetrate her.

"Yes, so are you satisfied?" Gu Tongwan said with a smile. From the moment he and Chen Yanxi started their relationship, he had no intention of hiding it from others. Now that Xiaoli had guessed it, Gu Tongwan simply admitted it openly.

Xiaoli put her hands on Gu Tongwan's shoulders, her eyes sparkling with stars, and her tone became excited, "Who can win the heart of our beautiful Wanwan who has fair skin, beautiful face, money and a house?"

"I guess he's been a friend since childhood." Gu Tongwan replied.

At the same time, Lan Cen also moved closer to her. Although Lan Cen was young, she knew what boyfriend and girlfriend meant. Like Xiaoli, she was also curious about who could make the usually cold Sister Wanwan treat him differently.

"Okay, so we can be considered childhood sweethearts, right? I didn't expect that you would be the first one among us to get out of being single." Xiaoli supported her chin with one hand and ate melon seeds with the other hand out of boredom, her eyes changing from excitement at the beginning to envy at this moment.

Lan Cen covered her mouth and laughed softly, "It's normal for Sister Wanwan to be single."

Xiao Li heard the teasing in Lan Cen's tone, so she glared at him before she asked curiously, "You stupid girl, you actually dare to slander me now, don't you?"

"No, no, I just think that you are asking too much, Sister Xiaoli. Haven't the young men from several nearby shops given you gifts in the past six months?"

"Come on, do you think they are really kind to me? They have inquired about it and know that Aunt Man opened this guesthouse. I am Aunt Man's only niece, so they deliberately approached me and acted like a live-in son-in-law, eating and living for free. They really think I am a sucker. Moreover, those people are not good-looking, and they work for three days and rest for two days. They can come to our place to chat during work. Do you think such lazy people can live a good life?"

While a few people were chatting, the proprietress called out from the kitchen: "Xiao Li, Lan Cen, help me take the dishes out, let's eat!"

"Aunt, uncle hasn't come back yet?" Xiaoli responded as she stood up.

"He's already at the intersection. The call he just made to me won't make a minute or two. By the way, Lan Cen, please bring the heater over here, and put the small charcoal stove under the table so that the food won't get cold too quickly." The proprietress's voice came out from the kitchen in waves, and one could feel that she was in a good mood today.

At this time, Xiaoli's uncle, who had just returned from shopping, also came in with a bag of things. After seeing Gu Tongwan had arrived, he smiled and said, "Wanwan, you must try the braised duck from this shop in the East City Market. The taste is really amazing."

"Uncle, the duck products here are not cheap. They are very expensive. Your wallet will be bleeding this time." Xiaoli didn't expect that he went out just to buy this.

"It's rare for us to have a meal together on the first day of the new year. It may be a little expensive, but the main thing is that we are all happy." Xiaoli's uncle's unit recently raised housing prices. As an engineer, he was bored at home. Recently, he likes to surf the Internet and browse forums like Xiaoli. The difference is that he likes to visit the food section, especially the various delicious shops or snack bars with high cost performance recommended by the citizens of the base on the forum. The duck shop today was recommended by countless people when he was browsing the forum. It is said that the taste is basically comparable to a certain duck neck before the end of the world. But it does have disadvantages. The price is indeed shockingly expensive. The things he bought today cost him nearly a week's salary.

"Wow, duck heads, duck wings, duck feet, and duck kidneys? Uncle, how many kinds did you buy?" Xiaoli opened the duck wrapped in oil paper and looked at the oil paper filled with braised parts of the duck. She couldn't help but ask.

Xiaoli's uncle shook off his snow-stained suede coat and said gently, "I asked her to give me less of each braised dish, but unfortunately all the vegetarian dishes are sold out today. I heard that their braised bean curd sticks are the most popular."

"Uncle, I remember this store is quite far away. Did you walk back?" When Lan Cen went out in the morning, he saw that he got on the van with the owner of a neighboring store. Because the boss's wife's car did not have enough gasoline, the gasoline bought by someone would not be delivered until at least the sixth day of the New Year. Therefore, during this period of time, if they wanted to go to any place that was a little far away, they could only take the cars of the neighbors on both sides, or they could only walk.

"On the way back, I met Lao Fang and asked him to give me a ride. I walked the next two kilometers home. Fortunately, it wasn't far and I only got there in half an hour."

"Okay, okay, don't just stand there, sit down and eat." The proprietress was wearing an apron over her coat, and the round table was already filled with sumptuous meals.

Braised pork, chicken, mapo tofu, sweet and sour pork ribs, garlic eggplant and a meatball soup, and two cold dishes, one is a simple cucumber, the other is a cold-mixed black fungus. Dried black fungus and tofu are hard to buy now, so the boss lady prepared this meal carefully. No wonder Xiaoli said that any dish cooked by Aunt Man must be of hotel quality.

Although the quality of the ingredients at the base is not good, the boss lady’s craftsmanship is amazing as she can turn such ordinary ingredients into delicious dishes with good color, aroma and taste.

"Aunt Man, I just came to have a meal. Why did you cook so many dishes? And it's not easy to buy vegetables at this time, right?" Gu Tongwan said a little embarrassedly.

After the proprietress sat down, she poured a glass of soda for her and Lan Cen, and poured the others with homemade fruit wine. Then she smiled and said, "It's not a big deal. Besides, this is the first time we've gathered together for the New Year, so the main thing is to have fun."

"Try it quickly, these are my aunt's specialties." Xiaoli picked up the chopsticks, picked up a piece of mouth-watering chicken and put it in her bowl, her eyes full of anticipation, as if the dish was made by her herself.

Gu Tongwan took a bite and found the mutant chicken nuggets covered with chili oil to be fresh, spicy and hot, which was very much in line with the taste of a spicy food lover like Gu Tongwan. He could also tell that the proprietress was generous with the seasoning, so the mutant chicken, which originally had a fishy smell, became extremely delicious under the strong smell of seasoning. In particular, the chicken was elastic and not dry, and tasted very much like turkey.

Several people were chatting about recent events while eating. Xiaoli suddenly mentioned the old lady who had rented the room upstairs. She lowered her voice and said, "I heard that she was found at the entrance of Chengnan Hutong on New Year's Eve last night. She died in a horrible way. She was strangled to death. The Security Bureau quickly issued a statement saying that the old lady was actually a hateful human trafficker. Damn it!"