Chapter 321 - 140: The Little Black Box
Chen Zhou didn’t find the mysterious rewards received over the past month particularly impressive, not because he had become desensitized by practical tools and expensive luxuries, but because those rewards were genuinely useless.
The reward received on September 5th was a delicate belt.
This belt had a black base color with numerous skull-shaped metal ornaments and was encrusted with countless pink rhinestones.
The overall color tone of the belt was a rather unappealing mix of pink-purple and red-black, combined with the ugly skulls, gave it a gaudy yet tacky appearance.
Chen Zhou felt it was far less attractive than the belt he had stripped off Robinson, and it was much less comfortable.
However, following the principle of waste utilization, he eventually found a use for the belt—
He punched a few more holes in the belt and then put it on Lai Fu’s neck as a dog collar.
To be honest, Lai Fu’s yellow fur paired oddly well with the pink-purple belt, giving it a bit of a "spirited young fellow" vibe. Together with rows of skulls, it inexplicably added a hellhound quality to it.
The belt, as an accessory for Lai Fu, found its rightful use.
But the reward from August 21st was just bewildering.
It was actually a set of electronic cigarettes, which, besides the smoking rod, included six fruits-flavored cartridges.
Chen Zhou never smoked, and even if he did, the island offered natural tobacco that could be dried; if he wanted to, he could easily make a pipe to enjoy the aroma of the tobacco.
If wild tobacco was too strong, there were still plenty of fine tobacco leaves found in Robinson, the First Mate’s, and the Captain’s rooms. Smoking one or two pipefuls a day would last him two to three years.
With such conditions, who would opt for electronic cigarettes?
Moreover, electronic cigarettes need charging, and he wasn’t even sure whether the current battery of this electronic cigarette could last through one whole cartridge.
...
Things that are useless in modern times are also not necessarily useful on a deserted island.
Although the price of electronic cigarettes is not low and is much higher than that of silicone phone cases and electronic wooden fish, its practical value is comparable to these items and even less than them.
Regarding these useless rewards, Chen Zhou’s attitude has always been to keep them in the corner of the storage room—they even have a dedicated wooden box.
Currently, the box contains quite a few items of various sizes.
For example, the silicone phone case from the first mysterious reward, the electronic wooden fish, a plug with a tail, a shoehorn, an Ultraman suit and a Divine Light Stick, a gift box of lip balm, a wooden metronome.
Besides these useless items placed in the box, some originally useless items became useful after being dismantled.
For example, the edible clay was packed into Chen Zhou’s specially made small wooden boxes and kept in a dry place, reserved for firing porcelain or used as montmorillonite powder to treat diarrhea.
There were also the spring and metal finger guards from the flicking divine artifact;
A mechanical keyboard was disassembled into a pile of small screws and plastic boards;
The bearings in the casters of the ergonomic chair were all removed;
The umbrella water remover was dismantled into metal plates and a water washing sponge, and its four omnidirectional wheels were placed on the tool rack, intended to be used in a while to make a new cart;
The wedding dress was disassembled into materials like mesh, satin fabrics, lace fabrics, and gauze-like fabrics.
The bronze statue of Wang Lingguan was sent to its temple a few days ago, and in the future, when the natives kowtow and offer incense in the temple, they might never imagine that the base of this majestic Celestial God statue was once used for stir-frying.
There were also two special items, which Chen Zhou used as decorations, one hanging on the wall and the other placed on the display shelf.
These two items were the "Pure Blue Hell" and the wooden Holy Sword puzzle from the one-year anniversary gift pack, containing endless suffering and torment beneath their simple appearances.
Yet, in such a successful life, Chen Zhou occasionally missed the process of solving these puzzles—he suspected he might have a bit of a masochistic tendency in his bones.
If possible, he hoped that solving the next puzzle would progress from "brute force" to "with traceable clues," which would give him more sense of accomplishment.
The Pure Blue Hell, once assembled, has become one with itself, unable to be disassembled back into puzzle pieces again.
The wooden Holy Sword puzzle can still be played with at any time, though its material is far less sturdy than unknown materials, and Chen Zhou often felt resistance when maneuvering it, so he dared not use too much force, afraid of snapping this souvenir.
Fortunately, while solving puzzles before, he drew many diagrams of the internal structure, and with knowledge of the decoding method, he could entirely make a new Holy Sword, but that seemed unnecessary.
...
On September 20th, during the rainy season, the island experienced a heavy downpour.
The good news was that the rain was heavy, but the wind was minimal.
Chen Zhou eagerly wanted to know whether the two-year anniversary mysterious reward would still have a gift pack, so he assembled a parasol, carrying it big enough to cover both a person and a dog, and headed straight for the beach.
Ironically, this umbrella was initially kept in the camp at the foot of the mountain, and if he went fishing by the small lake, it would have been more convenient to fetch the umbrella from the camp.
During his last exploration of the River Valley Plain, he happened to pass by the camp and took the parasol with him, bringing it back to the cave on his return journey. Had it not been for this, he would’ve had to wear a leather raincoat and a straw hat to venture out.
Reaching the beach, he saw through the wooden and stone walls the gigantic packaging on the sand, and Chen Zhou was filled with joy—it seemed like there truly was an anniversary reward.