Apocalypse: I'm Bound to a Mobile Lottery Shop

Chapter 24: Chapter 24: Creating a Group

Gabe Donovan was well and truly caught between a rock and a hard place. He glanced left and right, his eyes darting about, but he kept his hands stubbornly in his pockets. ’I traded all my Crystal Cores for supplies yesterday...’

Lily Hart said understandingly, "It’s okay, you don’t have to play."

Hearing this only made Gabe Donovan feel even more ashamed. He rummaged frantically through his Space Necklace and finally found a few gray Crystal Cores in a corner.

’What’s with these? They’re hardly presentable...’

He agonized for a good while. Faced with the choice of presenting something embarrassing or nothing at all, he chose the former. He took out a few gray Crystal Cores and placed them on the table, all his bluster gone.

Then, he heard a crystal-clear "Tsk~," dripping with mockery.

The damage was low, but the insult was critical.

But Gabe Donovan didn’t dare say a word. He felt inexplicably deflated and could only swear to himself, ’I’m going to kill a ton of zombies tonight and come back tomorrow to crush this person!’

After that, the two began scratching their tickets. The competitive air was palpable, an invisible cloud of gunpowder hanging over them. Yet, they kept a clear distance, not even letting their elbows touch.

Soon, Gabe Donovan let out a gasp of surprise, though he quickly suppressed it. Still, the corners of his mouth began to curl upward in an unconscious, excited smile.

Lily Hart took one look and knew he’d won a prize. She couldn’t help but sigh. ’So even people with terrible luck have their day in the sun...’

In the meantime, other people came forward to redeem prizes and pick out scratch-offs, but the two were completely undisturbed, so immersed that for a moment they forgot where they were.

"Prize redemption," Frost Shaw’s detached voice spoke up.

Gabe Donovan snapped his head up to look. A pair of hands with well-proportioned knuckles, though unnaturally pale, were holding about five or six scratch-offs.

He looked down at his own pile. He only had one ticket left. He had set his winning ones aside; he didn’t even need to count them—a single glance told him there were only two.

’Bad luck is a disease,’ he thought. ’And it needs a cure.’

Great. The last one was also a "Thanks for playing." His face ashen, he fed his two winning scratch-offs to the Lucky Cat, not even wanting to look at the result. It would be what it would be.

As expected, the two men’s prizes were a study in sharp contrast, not just in quantity, but in quality.

Frost Shaw got another complete, durable, and stylish outfit, a voucher for a roasted fish, and two pairs of shoes that could automatically adjust to the wearer’s foot size.

In short, all good stuff.

Gabe Donovan, on the other hand, didn’t do too badly either: a banana and a handgun.

But when compared, his haul seemed a bit pitiful.

Lily Hart struggled to hold back her laughter as she watched a dejected Gabe Donovan put his two prizes into his space, only to immediately perk up as if he’d been shot full of adrenaline.

Full of renewed fighting spirit, he declared, "Boss Hart, I’ll be back tomorrow! You better not leave."

Lily Hart nodded, smiled, and said, "Please come again." It wasn’t the mechanical phrase you’d hear at a supermarket.

Instead, her words were full of genuine emotion. Her expression was perfect, right down to the curve of her smiling lips and the perfect flash of her teeth.

For a moment, both Gabe Donovan and Frost Shaw were stunned.

Frost Shaw quickly lowered his head, not daring to look anymore. The tips of his ears, hidden by his hat, turned a faint red.

Gabe Donovan was a bit of a rough-and-tumble guy, a thirty-year-old man after all. He gave her a straightforward compliment, "Boss Hart, you have a really beautiful smile."

It was a pure compliment, an expression of simple appreciation with no ulterior motive. Even the way he looked at her was completely innocent.

Lily Hart could tell the difference. When some men looked at her, their gazes were so blatant they practically stripped her with their eyes.

But others looked at her with pure admiration and appreciation. She understood. Who wouldn’t want to take a second look at a beautiful woman?

Lily Hart’s smile deepened. "Thanks," she replied. "You’re not so bad yourself~"

’A high-EQ response I must have seen somewhere. Glad I finally got to use it.’

Gabe Donovan gave a goofy laugh, scratched his crew cut, and turned to leave, but not before adding Lily Hart on his Light Brain.

Lily Hart saw his profile picture: a little girl with a wonderfully innocent smile. ’Could that be his daughter?’

After a moment of idle speculation, Lily Hart was about to turn off her Light Brain when Chester Carter sidled up to her.

He asked, "Boss Hart, have you thought about making a group chat?"

’A group chat? Such 21st-century slang.’ The term threw Lily Hart for a second, but she nodded once she processed it.

A group chat would certainly make communication easier. She could announce her opening and closing times, as well as when new tickets were available.

Lily Hart opened her Light Brain again and fiddled with it for a moment. "Okay, it’s created. I added you, Frost Shaw, and Gabe Donovan."

Frost Shaw looked down at his Light Brain. His profile picture was right next to Lily Hart’s: an iceberg and a small cat.

For some reason, this made him inexplicably happy, though he didn’t know why. He pushed the feeling down for now.

"Alrighty," Chester Carter replied. In the next instant, he had added more than ten people to the group, all from Rebirth Base.

They were all people who had played at Lily Hart’s Lottery Shop and couldn’t get enough of it. The group chat instantly became lively.

"Is the group owner Boss Hart?"

"Does that even need to be said? Who else but Boss Hart would dare to make this group?"

"Where’d Boss Hart go? I didn’t see her at the base entrance today."

"She went to Hope Base. You don’t even know that? You’re so out of the loop."

"Hey, how was I supposed to know? Nobody told me."

Chester Carter was an enthusiastic soul. Not content with just adding people from Rebirth Base, he started running around the area, asking everyone if they wanted to join the group.

Of course, tons of people clamored to get in, instantly swarming Chester Carter until he was completely surrounded.

Word spread from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred. The group’s member count broke three hundred, all of whom had played at her shop.

Lily Hart watched this, lost in thought. ’It would be amazing if I had a branch of my lottery shop in every one of Cathaya’s thousands of bases.’

Then she could just lie in bed and watch the points roll in. Just the thought of it sent a thrill through her.

As dusk fell, people gradually returned to the base. Chester Carter had friends at Hope Base, so he stayed there for the night.

Frost Shaw left as well, and silence returned to the area. Lily Hart didn’t bother putting away the four sets of tables and chairs; they were under her control as long as they were within ten meters.

The 25 books of scratch-offs she’d bought today were nearly sold out, with only a few scattered tickets left.

She checked her points again: just over 50,000. She was about halfway to reaching Level 4. The first three levels hadn’t brought any significant changes.

The system’s shop was fully unlocked, but items were still limited. She started to look forward to what surprise the difficult-to-reach Level 4 would bring her.

The system offered a spoiler: [It’s a huge surprise! A complete RV overhaul~]

Lily Hart let her imagination run wild for a moment, and her stomach immediately let out a pathetic grumble. She sighed. "All you think about is eating, day in and day out."

She was just about to pull down the service window’s shutter when a hand reached out. Its knuckles weren’t prominent, but the fingers were long, slender, and quite beautiful.

’Who is it now? Someone else interrupting my dinner?’

She followed the arm up and met a pair of eyes. How to describe them? They were deep, as placid as a pool of stagnant water.

They just stared quietly, without a single ripple, as if they wanted to pull you down into the abyss with them.

It wasn’t just his eyes that were calm; his entire face was placid. Not expressionless, but simply devoid of emotion.

And yet, he possessed a soul-stirring charm. The corners of his eyes tilted up slightly, seeming to glint in the darkness. He had a high-bridged nose and lips that were neither too thick nor too thin.

’A... perfect face.’