Chapter 298 - 131: Three Rewards, One Satisfaction
Delivering three rewards at once, this was the first time since the island landing.
Even in his dreams, Chen Zhou's nerves seemed especially agitated, causing him to crawl out of bed just at noon.
Last night, before falling asleep in a daze, he only took off his pants and not his shirt, making his sleep somewhat restless.
While putting on pants, he looked around and noticed that none of the cats were in the bedroom.
Gray Ball, which he dragged under the covers last night, was nowhere to be seen either. It probably went to cuddle with its dad in the tortoise shell again.
Only Lai Fu lay on the floor; upon seeing him awake, it glanced up lazily and resumed its half-asleep state, seemingly uninterested in Chen Zhou's awakening.
Knowing it was upset about not being able to go outside, Chen Zhou put on his shoes, went over to rub Lai Fu's head, and walked towards the kitchen, glancing out the window.
Today's weather was brighter than usual; though cloudy, the clouds were not so thick.
Moreover, the rain had stopped, and the island was now enveloped in warm, humid air, with mist lingering in the distance, like a fairyland.
"The weather's nice, hopefully, my luck today will be good too, please no mishaps."
Talking to himself, Chen Zhou picked up a backpack, grabbed a Long-handled Axe in one hand, and a bundle of hemp rope in the other.
"Lai Fu, want to go out to play, let's go?"
Before he finished speaking, Lai Fu leapt up, ran out of the bedroom, and approached him obsequiously, instinctively stretching its head, as if eager to slip into the loop.
"You're really becoming something special."
Long familiar with this behavior, Chen Zhou tied the noose around Lai Fu's neck, tucked a few homemade buns into his pocket, and took a cup of water.
Eager to see the rewards, he planned to skip breakfast and head straight to the beach.
In truth, had he not been too exhausted from selecting the reward at dawn, and considering the dangers of walking at night in the dark and potentially encountering other dangers, he would have run to the beach already.
Usually, a completely random reward requires patience, which is understandable, but receiving three this time, with two exchanged through his own efforts, who could resist not checking them out?
...
He had never moved so quickly before, almost jogging all the way. With Lai Fu, he swiftly reached the beach.
The closer he got to the reward point, the more excited he became. For the last two hundred meters, he even started sprinting, striding over the wet sand directly to the edge of the wooden and stone wall.
Upon nearing, all the items within the wall came into view.
Sure enough, there were three items!
Two large, one small; the largest packaging box was square, with a slightly dull orange plastic exterior, not made of corrugated cardboard or plastic wrap.
The plastic surface had an anti-slip texture, appearing very sturdy.
The entire box design was quite simple, with a distinct military tool simplicity and practicality. Just a glance was enough to feel that the items inside were valuable.
"Could it really be military equipment, did they perhaps give me a gun?"
"Or maybe a box of bullets?
Actually, I could accept bullets too; such a big box, it could probably hold thousands of them.
Even without a seamless steel tube with rifling, as long as I could solve the primer issue, with these bullets, I could manufacture a primitive automatic rifle..."
Fantasizing wildly, Chen Zhou almost wanted to open the box immediately to see what was inside.
But he ultimately didn't, instead suppressing his excitement, and looked towards the other larger reward.
The packaging of this reward was standard, using higher quality corrugated cardboard, the whole item appearing long and narrow, about 1.8 meters long, and only 30cm wide, looking like fishing rod packaging.
Of course, it could also be some kind of long tool or luxurious, expensive craft item.
...
As for the last reward, it was pitifully small.
Only the size of a mobile phone, packed in a simple little paper box, it looked like a cheap trinket from Pinduoduo.
Judging the product by its appearance, Chen Zhou immediately knew it wouldn't cost more than twenty yuan and picked it up first.
...
With it being the rainy season, with Chen Zhou hiding in the kiln due to illness, the rain on the island had practically been unceasing.
Today there was a slight respite, but slight rainfall still fell during the day.
All three rewards on the beach had been rain-soaked, but the difference between soaking in rain for five days and nights and half a day was very clear.
The long item was completely soaked, the corrugated cardboard turning from light yellow to dark brown, with corners even sagging and slightly deformed.
If not for the high-quality cardboard used in this reward's packaging, it might have already been dissolved into a mushy mess by the continuous rain.
This indicated that the elongated reward was likely the one delivered on March 9, while the other two were random rewards obtained after solving the puzzle.
However, guessing which category the plastic box and the small paper box belonged to was quite difficult.
...
Squatting on the beach, taking out a Dagger, Chen Zhou prepared to start unboxing from the least expensive reward.
First, he would open the small paper box, then the elongated reward, and finally the plastic box; this way, with each item being better than the last, his mood would keep getting better.
He quickly cut open the clear tape wrapped around the small paper box, opened the flap, and pulled out a light, small clear plastic bag.
Despite its small size, the moment Chen Zhou saw the bag, a joyful grin spread across his face.
Nothing else, simply because it was a bag of seeds, and more importantly, they were the chili seeds he needed most.
Most importantly, these chili seeds were packed in an ordinary plastic bag without any country of origin, images, descriptions, or business license number.