Zhou Wei stood by the car door, her gaze sweeping over the more than thirty girls standing naked in the middle of the concrete road.
"Split into two teams."
She raised a hand and pointed left, then right.
"Lu Yuan takes one team, Shen Nian takes the other. You two have already walked the entire street just now, so you know which building has what storefront. Take the people in and search directly."
She paused.
"Anything you can wear, anything you can eat, anything you can use, bring it all back."
"Gu Siyu goes with Lu Yuan's team, Meng Wanqing goes with Shen Nian's team. You two handle coordination."
Gu Siyu nodded, and Meng Wanqing pushed up her glasses and answered in acknowledgment.
Shen Nian stood off to the side with her arms folded, the flush on her face not quite gone yet. When she heard her own name, her eyelid twitched.
"Right," Shen Nian said, trying her best to sound casual. "Lu Yuan and I just passed a convenience store. The glass door was shattered, but there was still stuff on the shelves inside. We should go check there first and see if there’s any food."
Zhou Wei nodded. "Fine, go there first."
The more than thirty naked girls walked along the main road. Their bare feet slapped against the concrete. Some hissed when they stepped on loose gravel, while others tiptoed along like ballet dancers.
Lin Shiyu was in the middle of the group, her round face full of expression, her mouth never closing.
"This ground is way too rough. My soles are about to be ruined."
"Shut up. Who isn't getting pricked by it?" another girl shot back beside her.
They had only walked for less than a few minutes when they reached the convenience store.
Half the glass at the entrance had been shattered, shards scattered everywhere, the jagged pieces catching the light.
The group stopped.
A few girls in front looked down at the broken glass on the ground and instinctively pulled their feet back.
"How are we supposed to get in...?"
"Step on that and your feet'll be sliced to pieces."
Lu Yuan walked to the doorway and set a foot onto the broken glass.
Not hard. Just a tentative grind.
The shards rasped under his sole, but they didn't pierce his skin. There was only a faint sense of pressure.
He stepped down harder this time.
A faint sting registered.
After his attributes had improved, his defense had multiplied several times over, and the toughness of his skin was on a completely different level from before. Unless he stepped down hard, the glass couldn't even break his skin anymore.
Lu Yuan looked back at the crowd behind him. "Wait here a moment. I'll go in and find something to clear the glass at the entrance."
Zhou Wei watched him and nodded. "Be careful."
"Lu Yuan's pretty thoughtful," Meng Wanqing said softly from the side.
Zhou Wei didn't answer, but the corners of her mouth moved slightly.
Lu Yuan walked into the convenience store, stepping over the broken glass.
Inside was much dimmer than outside. Two rows of shelves had collapsed, and the floor was strewn with empty bottles, packaging bags, and a few overturned plastic crates. The shelf along the wall was still standing, and there were some things on it, though he couldn't see them clearly.
He didn't rush to check the shelves. First he looked around the floor for something that could clear the glass.
No broom.
No mop.
Not even a stick.
He lowered his head and scanned around, then noticed several black garbage bags scattered on the floor behind the cash register, rolled into a ball like they'd fallen out of a trash can.
Good enough.
He bent down and picked one up.
The instant his fingers touched the plastic bag.
[Item picked up: Garbage bag x1]
[Talent "Absolute Critical" triggered -]
[Critical multiplier: x30]
[Actually obtained: Garbage bag x30]
[Stored in backpack.]
Lu Yuan froze.
He stared at the panel for two seconds.
Thirty garbage bags.
He picked up one, and the system gave him thirty.
His heartbeat quickened by half a beat.
What did that mean?
What if he picked up food? Water? Gear?
Thirty times was already outrageous enough. If it triggered a hundred times...
And the passive effect could stack too. After each trigger of the minimum crit, both the minimum and maximum multipliers for the next one would increase by one.
The farther it went, the higher the floor of the crit.
Lu Yuan took a deep breath and forced the expression off his face.
He opened his backpack and took out twenty-nine garbage bags. Black plastic bags appeared out of thin air at his feet, piling into a small heap.
Then he grabbed the garbage bags and walked to the entrance.
More than thirty naked girls were standing there. Some were hugging themselves, some were covering their chests, and some had already let their arms hang at their sides because they couldn't be bothered to hide anymore.
When Lu Yuan came back out, several girls were wearing strange expressions.
A few of them were snickering.
Not just one or two, but a small cluster.
A few girls huddled together, covering their mouths, their shoulders shaking, their eyes flicking back and forth between Lu Yuan and Shen Nian.
Shen Nian was standing at the edge of the crowd, her face red as a beet. The color burned all the way from her neck to the tips of her ears. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, her whole body taut like a steel bar.
She glared at Lu Yuan.
The look in her eyes was murderous, and her gaze dipped downward for a stretch before landing on a spot on the ground, then quickly jerked back up again.
Lu Yuan followed her line of sight.
On the concrete in front of the convenience store was a small puddle of white liquid, half-dry and half-wet, glaringly obvious on the ground.
It had been left there when Shen Nian had crouched here earlier, waiting for the semen to finish running out.
Every single one of the more than thirty girls who had passed this spot had seen it.
The corner of Lu Yuan's mouth twitched.
He coughed once, lifted the garbage bags higher in his hand, and raised his voice a little.
"I just went in and picked up a garbage bag."
Everyone's attention turned to him. Even the girls who had been snickering lifted their heads.
"My talent works on picked-up supplies too. One garbage bag triggered a thirty-times crit and turned into thirty."
He shook the bundle of black plastic bags in his hand.
The vehicle fell silent for a moment.
"Thirty times??" Lin Shiyu shouted first, the snicker on her round face instantly replaced by shock. "You can crit on picked-up stuff too??"
"Then if you pick up food..."
"Would one portion turn into thirty portions??"
"Wouldn't one bottle of water become thirty bottles??"
The girls exploded into chatter again.
Meng Wanqing pushed up her glasses and turned to Zhou Wei. "Teacher, if Lu Yuan's talent works on everything he picks up, then from now on all important resource pickups should be handed over to him."
Zhou Wei nodded. "Yes. That's crucial."
She turned to Lu Yuan. "From now on, food, water, gear, all critical resources, you'll pick them up. If anyone else finds something first, don't touch it. Call him over."
"No problem," Lu Yuan said.
He crouched down, gripped the garbage bags in his hand, and swept the broken glass away from the entrance to both sides.
The shards rasped across the concrete with a hiss. As he swept, he spoke up.
"Classmates, you can start now. All the storefronts on this street can be searched. If you see anything to eat, drink, or wear, call me over to take it."
"Anything else that's not important, you can pick it up yourselves."
Zhou Wei clapped her hands. "You all heard that. Split into teams and move out. Gu Siyu, take people with Lu Yuan. Meng Wanqing, take people with Shen Nian. If you find important supplies, don't pick them up yourself, call Lu Yuan."
"Let's go, let's go!" Lin Shiyu was the first to bounce off, her bare feet slapping the concrete as she ran toward the grocery store across the street. "I see a shop over there!"
"Slow down! Don't step on anything!" Su Yao shouted after her from behind.
The girls scattered in twos and threes, starting their search along the storefronts on both sides of the main road.
Shen Nian stayed where she was. After the crowd had dispersed a little, she quickly walked up beside Lu Yuan and crouched down, with her back to the others, lowering her voice.
"Why the fuck couldn't you clear that puddle first?"
Lu Yuan's hand, still sweeping the glass, paused for a second.
"...Didn't notice."
"Didn't notice?" Shen Nian's voice squeezed out between her teeth, every word grinding with anger. "The whole class saw it, do you know that?"
"I know. I'll be more careful next time."
"Next time?!!"
Lu Yuan didn't argue back. He swept up the last bit of broken glass, straightened up, and brushed his hands off.
Shen Nian stood as well, gave him a vicious glare, and turned to walk back to her team.
After taking two steps, she looked back.
"Lu Yuan."
"Yeah?"
"If you dare tell anyone about what just happened..."
"The whole class already knows."