radicalducati Chapter 165 Outwardly shabby but inwardly glittering
Chapter 165 Outwardly shabby but inwardly glittering
Chapter 165 A Scrapped Shell on the Outside, a Gem Within (Part 2)
Xiao Lü wasn't interested in this flamboyant decorating style, and besides, the pile of things on the wall didn't provide any valuable information.
She was preparing to venture deeper to see if there were any actual spoils when something poked her in the side.
She turned around and saw that Sasha's arms were stretched out as if she had eaten a rubber fruit, poking at her and Xia Zhaozhao.
Following Sasha's gaze, in the shadows of the corner of the hall, lay a half-dead fly-man O.
This thing was quite large, but it was different from other monsters. It didn't move at all, just lay there in a completely resigned posture, seemingly having no motivation to attack the group.
Sasha pointed at the monster, took out a worm, and her meaning was clear: should this green fly-man be added to the Pokédex?
"Objection! Bug-type Pokémon are just too weak! Sasa deserves better!"
Xia Zhaozhao immediately raised her objection loudly.
Sasha thought about it and seemed to think that what she said made sense, so she nodded seriously.
Afterwards, the group ignored the useless person lying on the ground and continued walking forward.
Ahead was a long corporate culture exhibition hall, filled with the company's glorious history and vision. The bizarre slogans and exaggerated promotional images left Xiao Lü increasingly speechless.
However, the thought that this was a company that could package starch as an elixir of immortality made her feel at ease.
Since it's already like this, let's just go along with it.
The next corridor was lined with rows of exquisite display cases, like those in luxury stores, showcasing various health products with fancy packaging but questionable costs.
Xiao Lü even saw that familiar packaging box in a glass cabinet, the one that Xia Zhaozhao had tried to eat while scavenging for supplies, called "Polymeric Gluconate Chain Energy Element".
"What the heck is this Himalayan moss extract?" Xia Zhaozhao also noticed the description under that ridiculously overpriced product and couldn't help but complain.
"If you still want to eat it, just smash the glass display case."
Xiao Lü said casually.
"No interest, no interest, it tastes awful." Xia Zhaozhao immediately shook her head.
"It's only slightly better than chlorella—oh no, no, thinking about it carefully, it seems to be much better than chlorella?"
The two did not linger there.
The gallery seemed to connect to a path leading upstairs, but Bai Shuyuan wasn't interested in the office area. She pointed directly to the heavy iron door at the end of the corridor, which was obviously not open to the public normally.
Xia Zhaozhao pushed open the door. The moment the door opened, the scene changed abruptly, and a pungent smell hit her.
Little Green instinctively held its breath. The smell was a mixture of fermented sourness, the eerie stench of algae, and a heavy musty odor—it was extremely aggressive.
The source of this odor is a huge factory, or rather, an insect nest.
Giant fly-men, cockroach-men, and moth flies that could barely fly swarmed throughout the space, along with a bunch of bizarrely sized black centipedes and centipedes.
"—The fishy smell is so strong!"
Xia Zhaozhao covered her nose and complained in a muffled voice.
The monsters were indeed numerous and troublesome, but they didn't seem to notice them, instead focusing on munching on the decaying biomass.
Little Green's gaze swept across the ground, and it seemed to have discovered a key point.
"—I think I know what that Himalayan moss starch you ate is all about now."
She pointed to several empty woven bags on the ground.
The woven bags were printed with words like "soybean meal for feed" and "seaweed powder".
Next to the bag labeled "seaweed powder," there is a note in medium-sized font that details its uses:
As a paper surface sizing agent, it improves paper strength and water resistance, and reduces printing dusting. The amount added is adjusted according to the paper type, usually 0.5%–1.5% of the dry pulp weight.
"————" Xia Zhaozhao fell silent.
After a long while, she gritted her teeth and said fiercely, "I want to smash this factory."
"Who told you to eat those health supplements you found?" Xiao Lü replied casually.
"Huh? Who knew something worth 8,800 was made from this kind of stuff?"
Xia Zhaozhao's voice was filled with grief and indignation.
"—Keep your voice down, the bugs will crawl over."
"Let's go." Bai Shuyuan interrupted their conversation.
"Huh?" Little Green asked, somewhat puzzled. "Weren't we supposed to be looking for usable equipment?"
"I just took a look, and the equipment here isn't worth much, plus a lot of it has been damaged by insects," Bai Shuyuan said.
"Okay. So you guess I came up empty-handed?"
No, at least it gave Xia Zhaozhao a surprise, Xiao Lü thought, but it seemed inappropriate to say it directly.
"Not really. At least we know where the bugs' main base is," she simply replied.
The massive amounts of biomass randomly piled up here are their breeding ground for rampant reproduction.
"So, the next step is to just blow this place up? I wholeheartedly agree!"
Xia Zhaozhao's voice was full of resentment, it seemed that she harbored deep resentment towards the papermaking seaweed powder extract she had previously consumed.
"No." Bai Shuyuan shook her head, rejecting this simple and blunt suggestion.
"It's not too late to look at the rest of the places. After all, there's still a long time before nightfall."
3
"night?"
"right."
"My plan is to lure and kill them at night, taking advantage of their phototaxis. Before that, we have plenty of free time."
"All right."
Xia Zhaozhao nodded and accepted the more technically advanced solution.
She was about to turn around and look elsewhere when her gaze was drawn to another tightly closed iron gate.
This door is closer to the previous exhibition corridor, and the door panels are newer, so it doesn't look like it's often opened.
Bai Shuyuan didn't say much, skillfully picked the lock, and opened the door.
The door opened, and the scene inside was completely different from the dirty factory they had just left. At least, Xiao Lü didn't smell anything strange.
It was almost spotless, with the interior walls and floors clad in stainless steel, giving it the feel of a high-tech, sterile workshop.
Xiao Lü could tell at a glance that this model workshop showed no signs of use.
His experience as a corporate slave made him immediately understand the purpose of this place—
—A model workshop specifically designed for visits by clients, investors, or leaders.
In the very center of the workshop, there was a silver-white instrument about two meters tall, which looked quite noble.
"————What is this?"
Xia Zhaozhao walked over and curiously tapped on the machine's casing.
She leaned closer to look at the nameplate on the equipment and read it aloud.
"A small-scale supercritical fluid extraction device? What kind of aircraft?"
"I think I've heard of it before," Xiao Lü replied casually.
Actually, I've heard of it.
She had seen this thing in an anime where eating food would cause your clothes to burst open; it seemed to be used for molecular gastronomy.
Surprisingly, some companies actually buy this kind of thing just to display it and deceive customers. Wouldn't it be better to use that money to upgrade that dilapidated factory next door? She silently complained to herself.
But it doesn't matter anymore. It's the apocalypse anyway, and that boss named Wan Baiwan is probably long gone, nowhere to be found.
"It's something used for molecular gastronomy, I guess."
Xiao Lü spoke based on her vague memories of anime.
"That's not all," came Bai Shuyuan's voice.
"Just look at the last four words. This is a highly efficient separation tool used in the food industry to separate specific components."
"Well, it's a pity that such a high-end item is being used as a figurine," Xia Zhaozhao complained.
"No, in fact, it's not a pity at all. Rather, it's precisely because they only treated it as an exhibit that it wasn't damaged."
Bai Shuyuan pointed to one end of the instrument, where the rated voltage was marked next to the power interface.
"—This instrument is from overseas and uses 230-volt three-phase power."
Then, her finger moved to the wall socket.
"Look here. The instrument was connected directly to a 360-volt three-phase power outlet without any voltage conversion."
"If someone had tried to turn on the power earlier, it would have been destroyed instantly due to overvoltage. Fortunately, they didn't take any action."
Little Green paused for a moment, then asked, "—Wait, thank goodness?"
"Yes, thankfully. Because I was going to take it. Although it was unexpected, it was actually a very good find."
"Huh?" Xia Zhaozhao was completely lost in her train of thought.
Bai Shuyuan then began to explain: "This is a highly efficient separation tool."
"I've basically figured out why chlorella tastes bad. It contains a lot of fat-soluble small molecules that produce an unpleasant odor, such as aldehydes and alkaloids."
"What we really need are proteins and starches that do not have this fat-soluble property."
"So, barring any unforeseen circumstances, this device can use supercritical carbon dioxide as a solvent to help us remove unwanted impurities."
"Although some nutrients will be lost, at least the protein and starch can be retained. In other words, we can initially solve the food problem."
She paused, then added.
"If nothing unexpected happens."
"Huh? So suddenly?" Xia Zhaozhao was shocked.
She never expected that this reversal of course would unexpectedly provide a broad road to solving the problem of food in the apocalypse.
Xiao Lü was also somewhat pleased with the news. However, she quickly regained her composure and raised her own questions.
"—But the level of how awful that stuff is is practically unimaginable. Is it really possible to make it that way?"
"You'll know once you try it."
"After all, with the shrike's strength, it shouldn't take too much physical effort to move this onto the train."
Xia Zhaozhao nodded: "That's true."
Xia Zhaozhao carefully lifted the two-meter-tall, nearly one-ton instrument and steadily moved it out of the model workshop.
However, she did not immediately carry the item away; instead, she simply placed it at the bottom of the stairs in the return corridor.
After all, there are still several hours until it gets dark.
"How about we go upstairs and take a look first?"
The office area should be upstairs. The design of this bulky building is quite wasteful of space; the actual usable area seems small.
Therefore, Xia Zhaozhao quickly found her target.
Wow! The boss's room!
She pointed to a luxurious door with gold trim, her tone resolute. Its rustic framing style was indeed quite distinctive.
Xia Zhaozhao didn't find anything good in the room. She tapped and knocked on the walls and floor, but found nothing.
However, Sasha, who had been following behind, made a discovery.
She simply transformed her body into a slime shape and tried to make herself as flat as possible.
Then, like a piece of wallpaper, it silently climbed up the wall and circled the entire office.
After doing all this, she shrank back into her clothes.
After restoring everything to its original state, she walked to a wall, pointed to a spot, and tapped it.
The sound is empty.
"Wow! Sasha, you've struck gold!" Xia Zhaozhao excitedly patted her head, and Sasha smiled happily.
The next second, Xia Zhaozhao clenched her fist and punched the wall.
The wall panel shattered, revealing a safe behind it.
"Shouldn't it have been opened by finding some kind of mechanism?" Little Green grumbled.
Xia Zhaozhao dragged the safe out of the wall, hugged it to her arms, and shook it.
"So heavy—judging from the sound, it must be gold, but it's not very useful."
"Take it," came Bai Shuyuan's voice.
"Metals with such high density are relatively rare, and they may be suitable for use as counterweights in many applications."
Using gold as a counterweight is an utter waste of resources.
After that, there seemed to be nothing left to collect; the office area contained almost nothing that could interest the three of them.
Xia Zhaozhao even disassembled the main unit she saw and looked at it; it was all industrial waste.
When it was time to leave, Xia Zhaozhao simply took a break and had Xiao Lü freeze the corridor floor into a smooth ice surface.
Then, she pushed the extraction device like a curling stone, while holding the heavy safe in her other hand.
However, just as the group was about to reach the exit, a sudden change occurred.
The fly-like man, who had been slacking off in the corner and looked half-dead, seemed to catch a glimpse of the safe in Xia Zhaozhao's arms out of the corner of his eye.
Then, in the next second, it bravely sprang up from the ground and rushed straight at Xia Zhaozhao!
"Huh? You've gone too far!"
Xia Zhaozhao grabbed the safe from her arms and smashed it against the approaching shadow.
"Bang!"
With a muffled thud, the fly-man was slammed solidly onto the marble floor. After twitching a few times, it quickly turned into a puddle of slime, seeping into the cracks in the floor.
Xia Zhaozhao was about to bend down and pick up the safe when she suddenly stopped.
"? I got a loot drop?"
Within the pool of dark, slimy liquid, a strange, golden object remained in place.
"Wait—a gold watch?"
Xia Zhaozhao was somewhat taken aback. She put the safe aside, poked the gold watch from the Fly Man with the tip of her sword in disgust, and turned to look at Xiao Lü.
"Little Green, Little Green, freeze it!"
Little Green understood and used its magic to instantly solidify the slime on top, then peeled it off.
Xia Zhaozhao then picked it up and examined it closely. Although she didn't know much about watches, she could tell that it was quite valuable.
Xiao Lü suddenly remembered something. Her gaze fell once again on the propaganda poster on the wall that Bai Shuyuan had precisely targeted to expose her kidneys.
That guy named Wan Baiwan was wearing an identical gold watch on his wrist.
----I see.
It seems the company's boss, that guy named Wan Baiwan, isn't the "probably long dead somewhere" I had imagined. He's right here.
In a sense, Xia Zhaozhao also inexplicably avenged herself.
Although, she herself willingly tasted that box of junk starch that cost 8,800 yuan.
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