Chapter 322 - 140: Little Black Box (Part 2)
The entire packaging box was as tall as 1.6 meters and nearly 1.5 meters wide, with an outer layer wrapped in black plastic film.
Due to the heavy rain, the surface of the whole packaging box was constantly dripping with rainwater, making it wet and slippery to the touch, difficult to handle.
Worried that there might be items inside the box that couldn’t withstand the rain, although he was eager to know exactly what the annual reward contained, Chen Zhou didn’t dare to open it directly.
Suppressing his curiosity, he inserted a sun umbrella into the sand to shield the gift box from rain and ordered Lai Fu not to leave from under the umbrella.
Tying the strap of his straw hat tightly, Chen Zhou walked alone into the rain, opening an entrance in the wooden stone wall.
Then he ran to the camp at the foot of the mountain—where the cart was placed.
After more than an hour of busy work, Chen Zhou, braving the heavy rain, delivered the gift box into the main house at the camp below the mountain.
He found a piece of canvas to wipe the water droplets off the plastic film, took out a dagger, and under the watchful eyes of Lai Fu, he opened the box directly.
In the 17th century, plastic products were rare treasures. Chen Zhou took great care to remove the plastic film while keeping it as intact as possible.
Beneath the protection of the plastic film, there was another layer of fabric wrapping.
This fabric was the same color as the plastic film, covered with the same oval pattern, looking like bird eggs or pebbles, pitch black and leaving Chen Zhou puzzled.
"I’ve never heard of any symbol of auspiciousness being this shape, could it be that I’m just ignorant?"
While ridiculing this strange fabric, he pulled it off, and the mysterious reward hidden under two layers of protection finally saw the light of day again.
This time the reward featured a consistent inner and outer look. Inside the two layers of black packaging was a semi-transparent black acrylic box, from outside of which Chen Zhou could vaguely see many items stashed within.
The lid of the box was not on the top, but on the side. Opening the plastic door, the first reward Chen Zhou saw was a bag of green onion seeds.
"Holy crap!"
Afraid that the bag of seeds might suddenly vanish, Chen Zhou quickly grabbed the seeds, clutching them tightly in his hands, brimming with joy.
Green onions, ginger, garlic, and chili peppers are four commonly used seasonings in cooking; today, he finally gathered three of them.
As for the ginger he hadn’t yet acquired, he actually didn’t quite like its flavor and didn’t mind it lacking in his cooking.
However, ginger is not only a seasoning; as a medicinal herb, it can dispel cold, and when boiled with brown sugar, make ginger soup, which promotes sweating and warms the stomach. Chen Zhou had heard elders say that ginger can also detoxify seafood poisoning.
From this perspective, ginger’s practical value is much higher than that of green onions.
But since there was no ginger in this reward, he could only accept it silently; anyway, they were all good items, and he wouldn’t dislike any of them regardless of what was sent.
He packed the green onion seeds into his backpack and glanced inside the box. His gaze passed over the metal nunchaku placed on the side of the box, stopping at a bizarre box occupying the largest area.
The box was unpainted, yet gleamed with a particularly exquisite mirror-like luster. It seemed neither metal nor plastic, giving him a feeling incongruent with earthly materials, more like some unknown material akin to Pure Blue Hell.
"Is there a puzzle in the big gift package too?"
Curiously pushing aside some other rewards wrapped inside the package, Chen Zhou lifted out this box.
The box was entirely black, without any markings, except for a rectangular opening on its side and a slightly protruding button next to the opening.
"It doesn’t look like a puzzle either!"
Caressing the smooth box and seeing the button, Chen Zhou couldn’t resist the urge to press it to see what changes the box would undergo.
"I hope this isn’t a prank trap box, with a fist popping out right after I press the button..."
Speculating on the intentions of the Space-Time Administration Bureau, he gently pressed the button.
The purely black box instantly changed, ripples emanating from the button, and it began to shake slightly, frightening Chen Zhou into placing it on the ground quickly, fearing it might suddenly explode or transform like a robot from Transformers, attacking him.
Even the usually calm Lai Fu became tense due to the black box’s anomaly, barking loudly at it.
The shaking lasted for only about five seconds before the rectangular opening on the box’s side ejected a shiny black brick, which fell to the ground with a dull thud.
Afterwards, the box returned to a deathly silent state, resting quietly on the ground, devoid of any signs of activity.
"It was over in five seconds?"
Chen Zhou stepped forward, first patting the top of the black box, and finding it truly motionless, picked up the "black brick" on the ground.
Upon careful examination, he felt that this sharply angled strange "brick" should be coal, and high-quality anthracite with high carbon content and heating value.
In the cold rural areas of Inner Mongolia, burning coal for heating remains the preferred choice for most families to survive the winter.
Firewood burns too quickly, and winter is too long. Depending on wood alone to last through the whole winter would consume an enormous amount of wood.
Moreover, there are quite a few active elders in the village who scramble to gather fallen branches and dead trees from the woods next to the village. If one goes too late, there might be nothing left to gather.
Every year around October, the village begins to purchase large quantities of coal.
Inner Mongolia has a substantial coal reserve, but most are lignites with low carbon content and heating value, selling for only 400-500 yuan per ton.
In recent years, convenient transportation has brought frequent promotions in the village for higher carbon content lignite or better-quality anthracite.
The price of quality lignite is usually around 800 yuan per ton.
Anthracite coal is more expensive. As Chen Zhou understood, the highest quality could reach 1600 yuan per ton, and slightly lesser quality would still cost around 1400 yuan.