Chapter 1: Heitao A Wishes You Wealth Today

【Beep, beep, beep, good morning. It is currently 3:00 AM on March 10, 2024, in the Gregorian calendar.

The temperature is 8 to 11 degrees Celsius, air humidity is 75%, precipitation rate is 90%, and air quality is 19—Excellent.

Please pay attention to moisture prevention at home and carry Rain Gear when going out.

Heitao A wishes you wealth today...】

The low, gentlemanly, god-like broadcast voice blurred and dragged...

"Clang!"

Her body smashed through the ice layer, and water mixed with ice shards choked into her lungs, cutting through her internal organs like countless sharp knives; the pain was even more suffocating than the cold.

Liu Mu sat up abruptly on the wire bed, her eyes full of terror!

The sound of breathing like a broken bellows echoed in the simple room for quite a while, and her fragmented senses gradually returned.

What is going on?

She had clearly been thrown into an ice hole, and the bone-chilling lake water had almost instantly frozen her muscles and blood, causing her to lose the ability to save herself.

Just for half a piece of flatbread, her most trusted companion had turned against her.

Liu Mu died at 45, in the 20th year of the apocalypse, on an ordinary day during the second round of Extreme Cold.

But—she rubbed her hands fiercely against her body—she had come back to life?

Calm analysis was a habit she had developed when facing crises in the apocalypse.

Confirming it was an environment she was familiar with, Liu Mu forced herself to start organizing her thoughts.

Shengli Waste Station, located on the edge of the Haicheng Development Zone.

A blend of urban and rural, convenient transportation, vast land and sparse population—the financial prospects were huge!

Back then, clutching the ninety thousand yuan she had earned from eight years of collecting scrap, she—with her spiky hair and dark face—had taken a fancy to this place at a glance, though it was only a poor little village at the time.

Except for the sharp-eyed scrap woman Liu Mu, no one expected that Haicheng's development would be so rapid in the following years!

Highways were built, the development zone was zoned, and large amounts of investment were poured in...

Therefore, she, the scrap woman mocked by the local folks, made a fortune and became a hot commodity in the matchmaking market.

Just as she was preparing to find a reliable man to start a family and then expand her business territory, disaster struck.

June 25, 2024, in the Gregorian calendar, 3:00 AM.

There should have been some time left before sunrise, but the pitch-black sky suddenly brightened, and a huge "Giant Sun" leaped up from below the horizon.

Terrified animals awakened humanity, and amidst the rapidly rising temperature, the whole world was in panic and disarray.

People in some regions saw a second or even a third "sun" after the "Giant Sun."

Before people could understand what was happening, the ground began Burning, and countless people perished in the raging fire and high heat.

That disaster, which opened the apocalypse, was named "Seven-Day Burning" by the Survivors.

Afterward, survival was incomparably difficult; people were like ghosts in purgatory, capable of doing anything to stay alive.

Recalling the first forty-five years up to this point was about enough.

Now she...

Liu Mu rubbed her face hard.

She had been reborn at twenty-five!

Three months before the "Seven-Day Burning," in her Waste Recycling Station, on this old, reclaimed single spring bed.

The reason for the rebirth... unknown!

Scalding hot water poured down, her skin turning red from the rapid temperature increase; the sensory stimulation deepened the cognitive reality.

Underneath her messy hair, her eyes were frighteningly bright.

Liu Mu touched the Heitao A mark on her chest, wondering if the reason could be this system...

In the apocalypse, others awakened superpowers, while she awakened a system; she was a freak in her own right.

"Heitao A!"

【I am here, Master. May I ask what your instructions are?】

With no time to dwell on useless thoughts, she had to adapt to the discrepancy in time and environment as quickly as possible; she had too many things to do!

"Immediately organize all resources..."

【Very well, Master. The entire process will take ten minutes, please wait...】

Rumble~~!

The hot shower intensified her physical exertion, and since it was early morning, the hunger that often accompanied the apocalypse swept through her entire body; her reason was instantly flooded by an extreme craving for food.

Liu Mu instinctively wanted to curl up her body to endure this wave, but she immediately realized she had food!

So what was there to endure? Start the pot and boil water!

The tin house used for accommodation at the recycling station was not large, and there were not many things; after searching around, besides half a box of Instant Noodles and a piece of cured meat, there wasn't even a single starch sausage.

"No wonder others call me 'Old Miser Liu'; am I this stingy even to myself? This shortcoming must be changed; I cannot mistreat myself anymore!"

'Old Miser Liu' was the nickname given to Liu Mu by the surrounding villages. She wasn't old, but she was truly a miser; otherwise, she couldn't have saved up this family business at such a young age.

She cut half the cured meat and boiled water to cook the noodles; just as she was about to add seasoning, a sharp sound of claws scratching the tin door suddenly came from outside.

"Zombie?"

A sense of crisis rushed to her head, and Liu Mu instinctively grabbed a notched kitchen knife.

The difficult days had honed her willpower and combat ability, and had also taught her to respond to crises immediately.

Holding the knife handle, she walked lightly to the window; the distance between the window and the door was only two meters, and climbing out from there was the perfect position for a sneak attack from behind.

Just as she was using one hand to exert force, preparing to climb out, a low whimper sounded against the wall, followed by two barks.

"Niu Boyi? Is that you, Niu Boyi?"

Liu Mu gave herself a hard slap; after being separated for decades, she had actually forgotten this Gouzi that had saved her life at the beginning of the apocalypse.

Climbing out through the window, Liu Mu pulled the Military Dog, which had run under the window upon hearing the commotion, into her arms.

Niu Boyi is a mongrel wolfdog, and he is only four years old now.

He was a poor little thing she picked up in a stinking ditch when she was out in the countryside collecting scrap.

Because she was an orphan, she was especially good to this only companion; basically, if she ate meat, Gouzi would never just drink the soup.

Niu Boyi had short, cyan fur all over his body, with only the tips of his drooping ears being black; coupled with his mighty build and cold, aloof temperament, he was very eye-catching when taken out.

"Hahahaha, Niu Boyi, good boy!"

Liu Mu directly unbuckled the iron clasp on the leash, brought Gouzi into the room, and gave him a good rubdown.

As she rubbed him, two tears actually flowed from the eyes of the iron-blooded scrap-collecting tough woman.

She still remembers the day Niu Boyi died to this day.

That day, they were looking for food in the city when they were spotted by refugees, surrounded, and intercepted, eventually forcing them into a fight to the death.

There were over a dozen men with eyes reddened by hunger; they couldn't beat them at all, and Niu Boyi was beaten to death specifically to save her while she was injured.

Those people just tore open his fur like that, like inhuman starving beasts, lying on his flesh and blood to gnaw.

His face and body were covered in blood, still steaming with white heat.

The apocalypse turned people into beasts!

"Niu Boyi, this time I will definitely protect you well!"

There is no extra time to be trapped in the past now; since she has been reborn, this time she must make full preparations before the disaster strikes.

Besides, she is a woman with a system now, apocalypse codename 'Heitao A'.

A pot of Instant Noodles, one person and one dog barely ate their fill, and the pot and bowls were tossed aside for now.

"Can we even sleep at our age?"

Niu Boyi seemed to understand, actually wagging his tail with a 'swish, swish, swish'.

"Alright, then let's start working."

Standing up, Liu Mu wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and exhaled a puff of hot air, "Come on, Heitao A, I'm giving you the recycling station permissions now, start scanning. Phase one, I need the best location to dig a basement."

【'Heitao A' is online, now starting to scan Victory Scrap Recycling Station.

Scanning... scan complete.

Geological analysis in progress... analysis complete,

Heitao A Xitong provides the following alternative locations,

Please view the map (map opened)】

A 3D map of the recycling station appeared in front of her; in the perspective view, various supplies had names and quantities on them.

The underground pipes, sewers, and cables were also clearly visible.

Liu Mu's fingers moved across the map, and the places she clicked on automatically zoomed in; a total of four areas were marked.

Clicking on them, the system also provided data such as how deep to dig, the shape framework, and the maximum storage capacity.

They all looked good, and now the pressure was on her. How to get the basement ready in three months, and how to prepare the essential supplies.

The apocalypse isn't just a day or two; with natural disasters and man-made calamities, no amount of preparation is too much.

After careful comparison, she decided to start construction from next door first.

Next door, the 'collection room' of the recycling station was filled with strange and curious things collected over time, including the 'treasures' she had dug out of scrap piles through her own strength and patience.

Gold and silver jewelry, bankbooks, new clothes, various books, famous cigarettes and alcohol (don't know if they are real or fake), and so on.

It sounds nice to call it a collection, but in reality, it's just stuff that couldn't be sold or things she picked up that she could just barely use.

As an orphan who had been on her own since childhood, her greatest strength and weakness in life was being too frugal.

The nickname 'Liu Laokou' was given by a literary ex-partner.

The literary man in the next town over was very literary, but he had a fatal flaw—he wasn't patriotic!

A man without vision or integrity like that is no good.

You have to know that even after the apocalypse, the country still struggled to support the shelters in various places, until civilization was no more and the world became a wasteland.

Looking at the map too carefully, Liu Mu stood in place as if in a daze.

Niu Boyi rubbed against her legs, occasionally growling at her twice, and finally, seeing that Master still had no reaction, he lifted his hind leg and let out a stream of hot urine onto her cotton slippers.

"Hey, damn it, Niu Boyi, you big grandson, where are you peeing?"

Any nostalgia was extinguished in an instant; Liu Mu raised her leg and kicked, "If I don't beat you for three days, you little brat think you're going to rebel, right?"

【Master, do you need to include this creature in your system's protected creature list?】

"Include it!" Scolding is scolding, but Gouzi is still a good Gouzi, "Is the paper money I picked up still there? No, no, all usable resources have been organized, right?"

【The system keeps the property safe; except for usage, it will not decrease.

The cash is the last set of paper money issued by the authorities before the apocalypse, which can currently be used. Would you like to deposit it into your bank account?】

"Deposit it, open the other resource list and let me see."

Ten years into the apocalypse, national institutions and the social system of civilization had completely collapsed, and the wasteland had formed.

The 'Heitao A' system had awakened within Liu Mu, with its main functions being scrap recycling and the storage of limited items.

Her scrap-collector nature led her to collect quite a bit of paper money that was even toxic to burn for warmth.

After the apocalypse, plants and animals underwent Mutation, and after a few years, the humans who hadn't died began to undergo Awakening for supernatural abilities; only she ended up with this useless system that still needed to be kept secret.

And precisely because she failed to awaken a powerful ability, she had served as logistics in a small collective for those years, handling many useful and useless things.

Of course, also because she lacked sufficient combat power, she almost relied on the protection of others to survive.

In this situation, when the disaster struck again, she was indeed abandoned, dying a pathetic death in the frozen lake.

"Right, don't put it on the card linked to the Scrap Station, put it into the 'Love-to-Save-or-Not' (ICBC)."

"Keep one hundred thousand in the daily-use card, and put all the remaining money into the 'Love-to-Save-or-Not'."

【Understood, the operation has been completed.

Balance statistics are as follows:

Daily-use card: 0 yuan;

ICBC card: 1,000,000.33 yuan.

Cash has been deposited into the bank, freeing up 6.12 cubic meters of system space.】

"Good, help me check on Niu Boyi's condition."

【Task accepted, biological body scan in progress... Scan complete.

System protected creature No. 001,

Species: Huaguo native wolfhound, Cyan-grade lineage;

Name: Niu Boyi;

Age: Three years and nine months;

Weight: 18kg; (underweight)

Health status: Weight is on the light side, body size is on the small side, moderate calcium deficiency, lacking various trace elements (the system has generated a nutritional supplement recommendation table, please feed according to the table);

Taming level: 100%;

Loyalty: 100%;

Wildness: 10% (severely insufficient, difficult to adapt after the apocalypse, currently estimated survival rate before his Awakening period is 5%, the system has generated a wolfhound training plan, please persist in training his various abilities)】

"My dear grandson, so you're this weak. I was busy before, but starting now, we'll exercise together!"

Liu Mu felt a sense of guilt; although she had saved Niu Boyi's life, there were many things to do at the Scrap Station, and she herself was barely getting by with irregular meals, let alone feeding the dog properly.

After clarifying the money she had on hand and Niu Boyi's condition, it was time for the most critical matter.