68: Chapter 68 Cabbage Stew with Snow Bear! A New Year's Eve Dinner Feels Like It Was in the Wasteland.

That evening.

Inside the cabin of the Polaris, the hot water in the heating pipes made a faint flowing sound.

The orange flames of the boiler flickered behind the translucent window of the furnace, painting the entire cabin in a layer of warm yellow.

Lu Chen sat on a sheet-metal chair in the cockpit, an iron pot sitting on the folding table in front of him.

Cabbage and Snow Bear meat were bubbling away in the pot.

The last eight leaves from the third harvest of cabbage were paired with the final piece of premium Snow Bear hind-leg meat from the cold storage.

Only three peppercorns were added, and half a small spoonful of coarse salt was sprinkled in.

The lid was placed on and taken off, off and then on again.

The rich aroma of meat mixed with the unique sweet scent of cabbage wafted through the constant twenty-degree air, filling the entire hundred-plus square meter cabin.

When Lin Wan emerged from the planting area, her nostrils twitched uncontrollably several times.

"City Lord, it smells so good."

"Wash your hands and eat."

Lin Wan washed her hands with industrial wastewater; she remembered Lu Chen's rules clearly—pure water was only for drinking and cooking.

The two sat across from each other at the folding table.

Lu Chen first ladled a bowl for Lin Wan, with equal parts meat and cabbage leaves, the broth just covering the ingredients, and then ladled a bowl for himself.

He picked up a cabbage leaf with his chopsticks, put it in his mouth, and chewed a few times.

The leaf was fresh and juicy, and after being soaked in the fat of the Snow Bear meat, it gave off a slight sweetness. The numbing spice of the peppercorns was faint, just enough to enhance the freshness.

It was better than the meal of cabbage stewed with wolf meat they had during the first Extreme Cold Ice Storm.

Much better.

The first time they ate cabbage stewed with meat, it was a hundred-degrees-below-zero ice storm outside, and he only had a recently rescued Botanist and an eight-meter-long iron coffin by his side.

Now, the outside was the rust-colored powder mist of the Rustwind Wasteland, and the Botanist was still there, but the iron coffin had become a twenty-meter-long heavy armored fortress, and behind them stood a Lv.4 City-State of thirty thousand people.

"City Lord, the meat is cooked perfectly."

Lin Wan held her bowl and ate in small bites, her cheeks bulging.

"Mm."

"It's much tastier than the wolf meat from the first time; the fibers of the Snow Bear meat are finer."

"Talk less, eat more."

"Oh."

The two quietly finished the pot of cabbage stewed with Snow Bear meat.

Lin Wan tidied up the iron pot and dishes, rinsed them several times with industrial wastewater, and stacked them in their fixed positions next to the stove.

Lu Chen leaned back in the driver's seat holding a thermos, looking at the seeds that had just been planted on the three layers of planting racks in the planting area.

The UV lamp array emitted a soft light, and the nutrient solution circulation pump made a faint humming sound.

Those seeds were quietly absorbing water beneath the white nutrient substrate, waiting to germinate.

In three months, watermelons and strawberries would grow on this vehicle.

On a wasteland ice field that had been frozen for over a hundred years, inside a twenty-meter-long Mobile City, bright red strawberries and green-skinned, red-fleshed watermelons would grow.

"City Lord."

"What is it?"

"The meal I ate today is the best meal I've ever had in my life on the wasteland."

Lu Chen didn't respond.

He turned the radio knob to the public frequency.

Black Rock City-State's internal broadcast was announcing tomorrow's weather forecast and resource distribution notices in a rigid, steady tone.

Amidst the static, everything was normal.

He then turned it to the Snow Shard Gang's encrypted frequency.

It was still just empty radio noise.

But Lu Chen knew that these quiet days were numbered.

The radiation mark had less than four days left.

The Snow Shard Gang should be making a move soon.

The next morning.

Lu Chen woke up before dawn.

He washed his face, drank a glass of warm water, and checked the status of the entire weapons system.

Heavy Machine Gun ammunition: 385/500.

Harpoon Cannon reserve rounds: 2/4.

Ray Cannon fully charged for three shots.

Fragmentation Grenade Launcher Array on standby.

Four-corner Steam Spray Gun pressure normal.

Repeating Crossbow drum fully loaded.

Fire control console all systems online.

Everything was ready.

He walked over to the planting area and glanced.

Lin Wan was already up, squatting in front of the top-level planting rack of the hydroponic system, using a thin glass tube to draw a nutrient solution sample for concentration testing.

"Any movement from the watermelon seeds?"

"Not yet, they've only been planted for a dozen hours; germination takes at least forty-eight hours."

"What about the strawberries?"

"Strawberries are even slower; it's expected to take about sixty hours before we see any sprouts."

"Mm."

"City Lord, are you going out again?"

"Going out hunting."

"Stay safe."

"You just mind your vegetables."

Lu Chen opened the hydraulic lock of the vehicle door and stepped onto the steel plate floor of the parking area.

The cold air rushed at him, mixed with the characteristic metallic rust smell of the Rustwind Wasteland.

He wrinkled his nose.

This smell had an extra layer of metallic astringency compared to the cold air of the Pale Shoals.

Static came from the communicator; it was Zhou Yuan's frequency.

"City Lord Lu Chen, good morning."

"Deputy Chief of Staff Zhou."

"Going out again today?"

"Yes, heading north."

"The ruins from yesterday?"

"A bit further north; that area was cleared yesterday, so I'm switching spots."

"Understood."

Zhou Yuan paused.

"Today, twenty-five kilometers due north, one of our patrol convoys is on a routine patrol. If you run into them, give them a shout so there's no friendly fire."

"Okay."

"Also, the City Lord asked me to pass a message."

"Speak."

"His exact words were: 'Those four pieces of cabbage yesterday were too delicious; next time you harvest, send some more over.'"

Lu Chen replied.

"Tell him to trade blueprints for them."

There was a second of silence on Zhou Yuan's end, then laughter followed.

"I'll pass that along."

The communicator cut off.

Lu Chen returned to the vehicle, closed the door, and started the engine.

The Polaris drove out of the parking area, crushing the gray-brown surface of the Rustwind Wasteland as it advanced due north.

He intended to go further today.

Yesterday's factory ruins had been cleared; no high-value intermediate Mutant Beasts would respawn in that area in the short term.

Since Zhou Yuan mentioned a patrol convoy twenty-five kilometers north, it meant there was something worth patrolling in that area.

Lu Chen increased the speed to forty kilometers.

The Coal-fired Supercharger could provide 1.5 times the burst of power when needed, but there was no need to waste coal crystals during normal travel.

The newly unlocked High-Energy Fuel Converter sat quietly in the power core area.

He planned to test the actual effect of this thing today.

He had only cut a small portion of the fat from the four Mutant Beasts yesterday, leaving most of it on the carcasses in the ruins.

Today, he was going to strip any prey he caught clean, not wasting a single bit of fat.

The speed was stable, the tracks leaving two deep ruts in the gray-brown icy surface.

The rust-colored powder mist billowed on both sides of the vehicle, split by the armor and then closing back together.

Ten kilometers ahead, Lu Chen saw a new area of ruins through his binoculars.

These ruins were larger than yesterday's, with denser wreckage.

The skeleton of a giant crane from the pre-civilization era spanned across the ice, forming a rusted archway.

Beneath the archway, a large amount of shattered metal plates and twisted pipes were scattered on the ice.

And among those fragments, Lu Chen saw black stones reflecting a faint dark red glow.

Not just one or two.

It was an intermediate coal crystal vein.

He slowed down and switched the robotic arm control panel to work mode.

Both arms extended smoothly from the sides of the vehicle, claws opening, ready for collection.

The Polaris stopped steadily beside the exposed vein.

Lu Chen manipulated the right robotic arm to its maximum radius, the claw firmly gripping the nearest intermediate coal crystal.

Pull out, retract, and send into the resource loading port.

The movement was extremely fast.

Second piece, third piece, fourth piece.

Within ten minutes, he had collected six pieces of intermediate sourcefire coal crystals from this vein, their quality varying.

But he wasn't in a hurry to use them before putting them all into conversion.

Because the claw marks next to the vein told him that there wasn't just ore here.

There was also something guarding the ore.

Lu Chen retracted the robotic arms into the vehicle body, his hands returning to the fire control console.

The Heavy Machine Gun safety was flipped off.

The searchlights shone forward at full power.

Under the shadow of that giant crane skeleton, something was moving.