Chapter 6: Turtle Hermit

The chat was moving so fast that Su Xiao feared she’d miss something important. She quickly opened a private message with House Owner 734.

Su Xiao: “Do you need water and food? These are natural resources, with a shelf life of only seven days.”

After a brief pause, the other party replied, “If they’re natural resources, I want to trade for seven days’ worth of food.”

What a greedy demand!

Su Xiao responded bluntly, “You’re trying to trade that oxygen tank now because you can’t use it, right? Nobody’s going to give you seven days of food for something useless.”

The other party replied, “But you’re coming to me because you need it. If you need it, you should be willing to pay.”

Su Xiao chuckled. “I can offer three days’ worth. That’s my final offer—unless you’re willing to tell me where the oxygen tank came from. Then I’ll give you five days.”

Though she did want the tank, the listing only asked for three days of resources and didn’t specify post-apocalyptic materials. Trying to stretch that into seven days was pushing it. At this point, even natural resources were valuable—especially with the current scarcity.

So she didn’t push it and continued browsing for other potential trades.

Eventually, she found a house owner who had changed their nickname.

Turtle Hermit: “Any piece of information exchanged for food and water. No duplicates. No guarantee the info is new to you.”

Huh.

Fate, perhaps?

Among a sea of generic usernames, this one stood out.

She sent a private message: “Will natural resources work? Shelf life is only seven days.”

The reply came quickly: “Of course. But I can’t guarantee the information I provide is new to you. So you’ll have to tell me upfront. If you don’t, the moment I share the info, the deal is considered done.”

Su Xiao: “Then let me ask questions, and you answer. One question, one piece of info. I’ll judge for myself whether it’s useful.”

After about thirty seconds, the other party replied, “Alright.”

Su Xiao sent her first question: “White boxes contain food, red ones contain weapons, purple ones hold tools. Someone offered me an unopened blue box in exchange for seven days of natural food supplies. But I don’t know what’s in it. Do you?”

She hadn’t seen a blue box yet but was guessing such a color existed.

Turtle Hermit replied honestly: “I’ve never seen a purple box. But I know white is food, red is weapons, blue is tools, and green is plants. The items from a blue box are completely random. They might be useful or useless. If you have plenty of resources, it’s worth trying.”

It was a fair and thoughtful answer.

Purple boxes were actually blueprints. That meant the oxygen tank likely came from a blue box.

This person gave a detailed explanation, corrected her earlier assumption, and even offered a recommendation.

Su Xiao asked another question: “What do you know about Safehouses? What categories exist? I’ve seen plant-type, vehicle-type, building-type, and so on.”

She kept it broad to avoid receiving repeated information.

A minute passed before a response came: “There’s also animal-type Safehouses—like turtle houses, leopard houses, and bird houses.”

Now that was interesting.

She asked, “If it’s an animal-type Safehouse, can the animal die?”

The response took a while. “I think all types of Safehouses have some kind of operational requirement or limitation. For example, vehicle-types need gasoline. Animal-types require animal feed. Plant-types probably need sunlight or water. But I’m not too sure—every Safehouse seems to have its own quirks.”

That answer felt very solid.

Just as Su Xiao thought the conversation was ending, the other person sent another long message.

“For example, the Sunflower Safehouse can move during the day but not at night. The Treehouse can move too, but only as far as its roots grow each day—like 100 meters a day. So as for whether animal houses can die, I honestly can’t say for sure.”

Su Xiao counted: the revelation about blue and green boxes was one piece of information. The existence of animal-type Safehouses and the operational requirements were two more. The Sunflower and Treehouse movement mechanics added two more.

Altogether, five solid bits of intel—detailed and offered in good faith.

Su Xiao replied: “I’ll give you five food units for the answers above. Each unit includes one bottle of water and one serving of food, as per the standard from white boxes.”

She then sent over five bottles of water and five packs of chocolate pies.

The moment the food arrived, the other party was stunned by Su Xiao’s generosity. “Boss, do you have an abundance of natural food resources? I’d like to partner with you long-term. I can provide you with any information I obtain. Could you give me a bit more food in return? Honestly, the food from those boxes is too little. It’s not even enough for a proper meal.”

He was probably male and clearly starving.

Now that was an opportunity to seize the upper hand.

Su Xiao responded, “Alright. But I can’t be sure if the info you provide is new to me or not. So you’ll give the information first, and I’ll decide. If it’s something I don’t already know, I’ll give you one food unit.”

Turtle Hermit: “Deal! Boss, you’re so generous!”

Turtle Hermit: “To be honest, I didn’t want to say this, but I was on a self-driving tour in a desert overseas when my car broke down. That’s when this whole thing started. When the wind came, I got blown into the sky. All my gear was lost. Thankfully, I survived—and I found a Turtle Safehouse. It just wanders around on its own. Survivors can’t control where it goes. So now, I have no idea where I am. I also have no food source. Finding treasure boxes in the desert is almost impossible.”

Because of the time difference, it was currently night where he was. After being stranded in the desert all day and enduring the hurricane disaster, he hadn’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours. He had only opened one food box, which contained a bottle of milk and a small piece of cake.

The game dared to call that a meal—cats probably ate more than that.

He had almost nothing to offer in trade with other survivors. All he could do was use the exchange center to trade his information for someone else’s.

Once he had gathered enough tidbits, he posted that one message in the hope that someone, anyone, might see it and be willing to trade—just enough to give him the energy to go back out and scavenge.

He never expected that only Su Xiao would respond.

After hearing his story, Su Xiao finally understood why he was being so honest—he was relying entirely on the goodwill of others to survive.

When the hurricane hit, not everyone was lucky enough to be in a resource-rich area. Perhaps her natural supplies were more valuable than she’d thought.