Chapter 470 - 22: The 85th Mysterious Reward
Rewards come with both good and bad; an expensive price doesn't mean it's useful on a deserted island.
The rewards in February serve as clear proof.
The reward on February 15 was a beauty device packaged in an exquisitely crafted gift box, with a lengthy introduction that could be summed up as a celebrity-endorsed product to combat sagging and smooth out nasolabial folds.
In addition to the beauty device, the gift box came with a tarot card deck whose artistic style matched the theme of the packaging.
There were also a few small sachets called collagen jelly, a delicate handbag, a box of face masks, and a bottle of facial cleanser—totaling together, these items could well exceed eight to nine thousand yuan.
But for Chen Zhou, in this whole pile of things, apart from the facial cleanser which was somewhat useful, all the other items combined were perhaps less practical than a single axe.
Not to mention, most of the work he did on the island was outdoors, and even if he worked indoors, there was no need to make himself fair and tender.
The marks that time leaves on a person are inherently hard to erase, and he hoped his appearance would match his age.
Besides, once the challenge was over and he returned to the modern age, he would still be that young man in his twenties, and however he dressed on the island would revert back to normal then.
Of course, if there were electricity on the island, Chen Zhou might try the beauty device to see if it worked.
Unfortunately, with no electricity on the island, the bit of charge the device had upon arrival would likely render it a useless piece of junk after two or three uses.
With that in mind, Chen Zhou simply stored it away in a wooden box without bothering to try it.
He reckoned that even if he left it unused, twenty years later, the device's battery would be completely dead, and it would be hard to sell it second-hand.
Coincidentally, the rewards delivered on March 2 and March 17 were also items requiring electricity.
The first item was an electric shaver.
Chen Zhou's beard grew notoriously fast, and normally he used a razor he brought from the ship to shave.
Shaving with a razor required skill; it was best to wash your face with warm water first and then soften the beard with a hot towel.
When shaving, the razor had to be pressed tight against the root of the beard.
While shaving, you couldn't tense your face; the skin needed to be in a semi-relaxed, semi-tense state.
In modern life, Chen Zhou used to shave every morning.
Here, since the preparatory work before shaving was too cumbersome, he usually shaved once a week or every ten days.
But even with the reduced frequency, sometimes his hand wasn't steady enough, and he would accidentally break the hair beneath the skin, irritate the hair follicles, or worse, cut his face and make it bleed.
This troublesome and uncomfortable method of shaving had long since worn Chen Zhou out.
However, unable to craft a smaller razor himself or trust someone else to shave him, he had no choice but to make do.
Almost every time he shaved, Chen Zhou missed his electric shaver.
When he received this reward and opened the package to find the shaver inside, he felt both surprise and a sense of absurdity—
The shaver in the package was a brand model he had long desired, costing over 800 yuan for a direct purchase, which he had hesitated to buy multiple times.
Who would've thought that something he admired while browsing shopping apps in the modern world would appear here?
However, the sad thing was, this shaver was electric, and there was no power on the island.
...
At times, Chen Zhou really admired the creativity of the Space-Time Administration Bureau; their methods of tormenting people became more novel and creative.
From the initial trashy rewards to now dividing complementary items into multiple deliveries, leaving him only to watch longingly without being able to use them.
There were even rewards like beauty devices and shavers akin to "trial cards," allowing a few uses to feel good, only for it to run out of power, forcing him to revert to shaving with a razor.
This sense of imbalance seemed to be precisely what the reward-givers aimed to evoke.
Yet Chen Zhou's attitude toward the Space-Time Administration Bureau had always been rebellious; rather than making himself uncomfortable, he preferred not to use the shaver, storing it in a storage box, and seeing who would be the first to give in between him and the Space-Time Administration Bureau.
After all, he had been using a razor to shave for more than three years; what's another 25 years?
...
As for the other reward requiring electricity, it was even more ridiculous.
It was a graphics card.
Moreover, it wasn't just any graphics card; it was one of the world's top gaming graphics cards during Chen Zhou's challenge—
The RTX5090.
Released on January 30 of the year Chen Zhou took up the challenge, its exceptional performance and price escalation due to scalpers made it extraordinarily expensive.
Chen Zhou remembered seeing discussions about this new graphics card in a forum before he browsed the thread on "Challenge Robinson".
At that time, in the domestic market, there was no 5090 graphics card, only the 5090D available, requiring overseas purchase at an exorbitant price of approximately 30,000 yuan.
The graphics card delivered on March 17 was an overseas model, its fans adorned with three "Devil Eyes", indicating its price was likely over 30,000 yuan.
Chen Zhou wasn't overly familiar with computer components but guessed this graphics card might fetch around 35,000, even 38,000 or 39,000 yuan.
If the island had power and internet, giving him a host to install the graphics card and play games—that would be heavenly.
But unfortunately, he had nothing—nothing but this expensive graphics card.
It was like inviting someone to a meal on a barren mountain with a heap of the world's top ingredients.