Chapter 74: Potatoes and Code, Seeds of Hope

Kaiwen's defection was like a stone tossed onto a calm water surface, stirring layer upon layer of ripples in the Echo Camp. After the initial wariness, this guy, with his half‑dead technician humor, quickly blended into the camp as a "rare protected animal".

"I tell you, you Pure Fire‑roasted potatoes, the energy conversion efficiency is way too low," Kaiwen squatted by the campfire, pointing at a Pure Fire Cultist under Hui Jin who was carefully heating a potato with Pure Fire, and analyzed seriously, "Ninety percent of the energy dissipates, a typical low‑entropy waste… but, to be fair, it does smell good."

The cultist glared at him in irritation, but handled the potato even more carefully—this scoundrel may be mouthy, but the roasted potatoes were perfectly crisp outside and tender inside, truly a masterpiece. Kaiwen let out a chuckle, flashing two rows of white teeth, a far cry from his previously pitiful look. In Zhang Yang's words, this is "the scoundrel is pretentious, but the pretension is somewhat useful."

His usefulness soon became apparent. Li Siwen dragged him headfirst into the "junk heap"—the pile of various old‑era electronic debris the camp had collected and equipment fragments seized from Ark Soldiers. One was a theorist, the other a practitioner (formerly an enemy practitioner), and together they managed to cobble together something noteworthy.

"Look! 'Big Eye No. 1'!" Li Siwen excitedly showed Chen Mo a contraption cobbled from a discarded monitor, a few solar panels, and a tangle of messy wiring, on which a blurry but moving red dot was displayed. "Kaiwen's signal‑recognition algorithm, combined with my reverse‑engineered Ark equipment energy signatures, gives an effective detection range of up to five kilometers! Though it occasionally glitches and flags a group of mutated rats as 'high‑risk targets'…"

Kaiwen added from the side, his tone tinged with a tech‑geek's pride: "The algorithm still has room for optimization; the hardware is just lousy. Captain, next time we fight, remember to bring me back a more intact processor, an i9‑class one."

Chen Mo watched the light points on the screen that represented safety boundaries and potential threats, and felt a heavy weight in his heart ease slightly. With this crude early‑warning system, the camp's security improved dramatically. He patted Kaiwen on the shoulder, said nothing, but the approval in his eyes made the former technician stand a little taller.

Meanwhile, Hui Jin led his Pure Fire Cultists in undertaking the "enlightening" of the barren land on the camp's east side. The process was not easy; Pure Fire's power was effective at purifying data contamination, but applying it to actual soil was like embroidering with a laser knife—requiring extreme precision, and a slight slip could turn the ground into glass.

"Left! Left side overload! It's about to scorch! Control! Do you understand control?" Hui Jin shouted at a young cultist drenched in sweat, his stance more like a kitchen supervisor scolding an apprentice than teaching an ancient secret.

The young cultist's hand trembled, and a patch of earth indeed puffed up with blue smoke. Hui Jin lamented bitterly: "Wasting thing! Do you know how precious this bit of Primordial Origin active soil is?!"

Though the process was chaotic, the results were tangible. A few days later, the soil in a small test plot had noticeably darkened, and a faint life pulse could be sensed. Su Yu carefully transplanted the Ning Shen Grass that had sprouted in the Pure Fire‑purified soil a girl had given earlier, and sowed a few long‑dormant drought‑resistant potato seeds brought back from the loamy ground.

"Whether they succeed depends on their fate," Su Yu brushed the soil off her hands gently, her eyes filled with hope.

Chen Mo stood at the edge of the field, watching the small green patch that embodied everyone's effort, feeling the faint yet genuine vitality emanating from the ground beneath his feet. This was no longer about destruction and plunder, but about creation and protection. The Primordial Core in his chest, long dormant, seemed to throb with a warm pulse in response to this hopeful scene.

However, the wasteland's law of survival never changed. Just as the camp rejoiced over modest progress, Han Qing's injury began to fluctuate. The rule‑level freeze was stubbornly persistent, and Hui Jin's Pure Fire could only barely sustain it, never eradicate it. Han Qing would sometimes be lucid, then slip into an ice‑like slumber, his complexion perpetually a ominous bluish‑purple.

"We must find a definitive solution," Chen Mo said, looking at the comatose Han Qing, his tone heavy. The internal Ark data Kaiwen provided mentioned a thing called "Rule Neutralizer", apparently designed to treat rule‑level injuries, but it was extremely hard to obtain.

Just as Chen Mo worried about this, troubling news came from Zhang Yang and Wang Hu's side. They had expanded the hunting range, yet the game they brought back dwindled, and many mutated creatures showed faint traces of data contamination.

"Damn it, those white‑clad bastards are probably slipping poison somewhere again?" Zhang Yang muttered, hauling back a small, skinny mutated wart pig.

After testing, Kaiwen's complexion turned sour: "It's not an actively released plague. It seems the background data contamination level in the environment is slowly rising… possibly linked to the Ark's massive use of the Resonator, which disturbed the underlying rules of the whole area."

Bad news piled up one after another: population pressure, food crisis, Han Qing's injury, the worsening environment… like a net tightening inexorably.

That night, Chen Mo climbed the elevated Watchtower alone. Below were scattered campfires and a gradually quieting camp, while darkness that devoured everything loomed in the distance. The pressure pressed on his shoulders as if tangible. He was not a god; he could not conjure food out of thin air, could not instantly heal his comrades, nor easily reverse a world sliding toward the abyss.

At that moment, a faint, fragrant breeze brushed by. He looked down and saw Su Yu also climbing up, holding a small cloth sack.

"For you," Su Yu handed him the sack, which contained a few perfectly roasted potatoes and a small Ning Shen Grass that glowed faintly under the moonlight. "Li Siwen and Kaiwen used the 'Big Eye' to locate a patch of unpolluted wild tuber plants; not many, but a supplement nonetheless. This Ning Shen Grass is the first survivor in the test field."

Chen Mo picked up the tiny yet unusually resilient Ning Shen Grass, then glanced at the warm potatoes in his hand. Food, medicine, early‑warning system, purified land… this incremental accumulation may seem insignificant, yet like fireflies in the night, gathered together they can illuminate the road ahead.

He took a bite of the potato—coarse, yet imbued with solid warmth.

"We will find a way," Chen Mo's voice sounded unusually resolute in the night wind, "for this food, for a peaceful sleep, and to prevent those who are waiting to mock us from succeeding."

Su Yu looked at him, a gentle curve forming at the corner of her mouth: "Of course. We've already carried the linked system and the data mayflies. What else could stump us?"

The two exchanged a smile. Indeed, surviving the wasteland is about clenching one fist to fight the crisis, while gently cradling the spark of hope in the other, and then, laughing through the hardship, moving forward step by step.

The next day, Chen Mo gathered the core members.

"We can't wait around," he said bluntly. "Kaiwen, based on your intel, where is the nearest Ark outpost that might have a Rule Neutralizer?"

Kaiwen pointed to a spot on the crude map: "Here, the 'Iron Curtain' outpost, a supply hub with a solid garrison, should have stockpiles."

"Good." Chen Mo's gaze swept over the group. "Zhang Yang, Wang Hu, reorganize the manpower, prepare to strike. Engineer Li, Kaiwen, continue optimizing defenses and early warning. Hui Jin, camp security is yours and Su Yu's."

He lifted the Ning Shen Grass and gently placed it on the map at the location of the Iron Curtain outpost.

"We'll go retrieve the 'medicine'."

"And, tell the Ark—"

"The 'weeds' on this land have a tenacious vitality."

A new journey set sail in the morning light. This time, not to flee, but to protect, to reclaim the vitality and future that belong to them.