Chapter 95: Chapter 89: Goodbye, Radiation Pool (2)
Still, any change was for the best...
Chu Bamboo didn’t lack patience. In fact, if a single location, a single dungeon, could give him the feeling of constant growth, he could stick with it indefinitely. After all, his idol was the Ten-Mile Slope Sword God!
If possible, who wouldn’t want to grind levels until they were invincible before leaving the starter zone?
One more time.
’Something doesn’t feel right!’
Chu Bamboo rubbed the bridge of his nose, finally feeling a distinct fatigue. His heart, however, was still filled with joy. After three deaths this round, the exhaustion felt similar to having died twice before.
Did that mean, at this rate, he could probably last until he had died seven times?
Compared to five, that was an increase of two whole times, nearly a fifty percent improvement.
’Let’s keep going!’ Chu Bamboo jumped into the Fushui again.
However, this time...
Chu Bamboo sat up in bed, staring blankly at Zhang Hai, who was seated in a chair. ’Did this random reset send me back to the moment I woke up again?’
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his brow furrowing deeper. This time, he didn’t feel any significant improvement in his mental state. It seemed he had hit a bottleneck.
’In other words... it’s not working anymore?!’
’This... isn’t this way too fast?’
Chu Bamboo found it hard to accept. While he had guessed that he would eventually develop a resistance to this method, he thought it would at least last until he had successfully entered the First Realm of Cultivation!
’What exactly am I missing?’
Chu Bamboo sighed internally. The only silver lining was that the repeated deaths had indeed washed away the contamination. Other than being a bit mentally drained... he hadn’t really paid much of a price.
No, considering his death count had risen to seven, he had likely come out ahead—though what he’d gained was different from what he initially expected.
"Did you... have a nightmare?" Zhang Hai blinked, swallowed hard, and after a long, conflicted pause, he finally spoke cautiously.
He couldn’t help it. He had caught a fleeting sense of irritation and hostility from Chu Bamboo—which was just bizarre!
He hadn’t slept at all last night, but he felt he wasn’t nearly as irritable as Chu Bamboo. Besides, he had been watching Chu Bamboo all night, and the man had clearly been sleeping soundly... After all, he couldn’t even be woken by knocking!
"Let me ask you something!" Chu Bamboo closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. After a few cycles, his expression returned to normal. "For Cultivation, can you use the Fushui meant for Body Refining? Let’s assume... there’s a massive amount of Fushui, basically an inexhaustible supply. Would it be enough to get me into the First Realm of Cultivation?"
"? That’s absolutely impossible!" Zhang Hai was baffled but answered anyway. "Even setting aside their different functions, Fushui is white and Radiant Stone is golden-yellow. How could they be the same thing? Also..."
"Wait a second!" Chu Bamboo suddenly held up a hand, his expression changing. His tone was now closer to an interrogation. "Are you saying that Fushui is white?"
"Huh? Is... is there a problem with that?" Zhang Hai was stunned. He mentally replayed his own sentence but couldn’t find anything wrong with it, and he stared at Chu Bamboo in confusion.
Chu Bamboo closed his eyes and let out a sudden, bitter laugh. ’I guessed wrong!’
It turned out that when he jumped into the pool at the nuclear power plant, what he was bathing in wasn’t Fushui at all—at least, not the Fushui used for cultivation in this world. The water he’d bathed in was black!
’Then why was my Body Refining successful? Or, could the black water be turned into Fushui after some kind of modification? Are they essentially the same thing?’ All sorts of possibilities flashed through Chu Bamboo’s mind.
He asked again, "Continue... Radiant Stone, Fushui, what’s the difference?"
"?" Zhang Hai didn’t understand why Chu Bamboo was so fixated on this. ’Shouldn’t your first question after waking up and seeing me be about Cultivation?’
Though confused, he still answered, "The difference! They’re... they’re like water and stone. You’re asking me the difference? It’s a difference you can see with your own eyes, isn’t it?"
Chu Bamboo crossed his arms and stared at Zhang Hai for a long moment before letting out a long sigh. "Fine!"
’Could it be that I really misunderstood?’
’Maybe... the Radiant Stones don’t come from that nuclear power plant at all.’
Get up, wash up, perform his daily routine of rejecting Zhang Hai, and leave.
This time, however, Chu Bamboo didn’t head back to the suspected nuclear power plant.
After all, he had developed a resistance... well, of course, Chu Bamboo hadn’t given up completely. He planned to take care of other things first, then head over there to get himself killed right before the day ended. Who knew, maybe there would be a pleasant surprise.
...
「Police Chief Bureau, Special Operations Brigade Office.」
"You’re... still coming here?" Li Kang looked at Chu Bamboo, looking conflicted and seeming to hold something back. ’You’re a Director of the Management Department. It’s not really appropriate for you to be here, is it?’
"If I recall correctly, I still hold the position of Honored Guest Elder for the Special Operations Brigade, and I haven’t resigned yet, have I?" Chu Bamboo raised an eyebrow. "Besides, while it seems the news of my Director position is public, I haven’t received any direct orders or notifications from above."
"Could it be—and I’m just saying, hypothetically," Li Kang’s eye twitched uncontrollably, "that since you don’t even have a cell phone and you’re always running off to who-knows-where... they couldn’t notify you even if they wanted to?"
"Oh! Is that so?" Chu Bamboo feigned a look of sudden realization. "Well then, Uncle Li, I’ll have to trouble you to get in touch with them and pass the specific details on to me."
"Alright... Wait a minute, are you doing this on purpose?!" It dawned on Li Kang, and he was so exasperated he laughed, rapping his knuckles sharply on the desk. "Are you trying to use me as your agent?"
’Sigh!’ Chu Bamboo was filled with regret. Li Kang wasn’t as easy to fool as he used to be. ’Looks like I’ll have to use my second move!’
"Just say whether you’ll help or not, Captain! Are you going to look out for your squad member or not!"
"...Now that you put it that way!" Hearing that word, Li Kang’s resolve practically melted. The corner of his mouth turned up in a subconscious smile before he caught himself and forced it down. "Ahem, just this once. It won’t happen again! Also, I’ll ask my superiors to get you a cell phone! Though an Honored Guest Elder normally wouldn’t be issued one, as a Director, you more than qualify."
"Yeah, you could even apply for an Ancient Relic, an electric car, as your personal vehicle! It shouldn’t be a problem... After all, Lao Sun was able to get one."
Chu Bamboo: "..."
Although he had gotten used to the idea of even cell phones existing... hearing about an electric car still made him lose his composure.
’So, what’s the deal with all this stuff? Can the battery of an electric car really last for who knows how many years?’
’Or were these electric cars not built back in ’25, but in ’50 or even later, after some major breakthrough in battery technology?’
’It’s enough to make you tear your hair out...’
"Never mind, I don’t need the electric car," Chu Bamboo shook his head. "My situation is rather special. A cell phone is the absolute limit... If I live too well, then some people’s hearts will grow restless."
Why had the Guild managed to maintain a large degree of its integrity until now?
It was because Chu Bamboo wasn’t chauffeured around in Ancient Relics and feasting on exotic delicacies!
His lifestyle as the Guild’s founder was, in a way, an invisible shackle on the Guild’s upper management.
"..." Ning Linglong took a moment to process his words, extracting the core meaning from his speech. Understanding, relief, and joy appeared in her eyes. "Uncle Zhu, does that mean we can still interact like before? You’ll still... come to our Police Chief Bureau often?"
"If you’d like!" Chu Bamboo’s tone was the same as always.
Hearing this, Wall Announcements also breathed a sigh of relief, a hint of joy bubbling up inside him.
’Okay, so if he’s an Honored Guest Elder, I can’t expect him to help with menial tasks—but at least we’ll still be able to see him often in the future, right?’
Wall Announcements could clearly sense that the atmosphere in the office had improved considerably. Even Guan Fei had started gnawing on a chicken leg again.
According to Wall Announcements’s observations, Guan Fei had eaten eight fewer chicken legs yesterday!
Normally, Guan Fei could polish off twenty chicken legs in a day! Today, too, the number of chicken legs he’d eaten was clearly lower than usual, but now, his appetite was obviously picking back up.
"I’m heading back to the base! Don’t come looking for me unless it’s an emergency." Chu Bamboo waved and turned to leave.
Li Kang: "???"
The smile on his face froze as he sank into thought.
’Wait, did Chu Bamboo come all this way just to say that line, so he could use his Honored Guest Elder status to freeload at the base? Or does he actually not want to leave us?’
Li Kang’s lips moved, but he ultimately just gave a wry smile. He figured it was best not to ask such a potentially painful question.
