The scent of the fresh Chinese cabbages filled the room with fragrance.
Even from five meters away, Su Mo could smell the refreshing fragrance.
“It’s so tempting. Truly worthy of the description of its special ability!”
Salivating in anticipation, Su Mo’s troubles regarding the lack of seeds was temporarily pushed to the back of his mind.
Delicious food is medicine for the soul!
The fragrance became even stronger when he plucked the cabbage and picked it off the ground; seeming to suddenly burst forth with an even more tantalizing scent.
Oreo, who was running around wildly, playing with Big Spark and Little Spark, suddenly paused and drifted toward the psychic energy cabbage when she sensed the smell.
“Woof! Woof woof woof!”
“Coo coo coo!”
Seeing Su Mo in a daze in front of the culture medium, the three of them suddenly became anxious and began to circle around Su Mo’s legs.
“Okay okay, I’ll prepare a meal for all of you right now!”
Awakened by Oreo’s hurried barks, Su Mo brought the cabbage over to the iron stove in a few hurried steps.
There were many ways to cook cabbage but, when he smelled such sweet cabbage, the dish that came to mind was a famous one:
Boiled cabbage!
A famous Sichuan dish, this dish did not inherit the traditional “spicy” and “fragrant” elements of Sichuan cuisine!
Instead, it was mainly based on fresh fragrance and nourishment of the vegetable, using simplicity to bring forth complex flavors in a way that challenged the stereotype of Sichuan cuisine that had accumulated for over a hundred years.
The original version of boiled cabbage required good chicken as the base of the broth to increase the flavor of the cabbage.
Today, however, he had an extremely delicious cabbage, so such a step was not necessary. As the aroma in the pot increased in intensity, even Su Mo felt somewhat eager.
“How could a simple cabbage soup like this be so fragrant? It’s totally worth the effort cultivating it!”
During the day, Su Mo ate pancakes and drank snow water like the refugees. Now, smelling this alluring fragrance, his stomach began to twitch in anticipation.
As for the three little ones, the scent had completely overpowered them and they were lying on the ground, twitching as if the soup was their sole reason for living.
After simmering the soup for another three minutes, the cabbage inside the pot dissolved into the soup, and Su Mo tossed in the remaining cabbage into the pot.
An unimaginable refreshing fragrance began to assault the senses of every creature in the room!
Su Mo took the pot off the stove and turned off the heat. He took out the bowls, and poured out the soup in portions.
Despite having a tiring day, Su Mo’s actions were stimulated after smelling such good food, completing the four actions in quick succession.
He summoned the lion clan’s wind ability to cool down the cabbage soup to a point where it became ready-to-drink, and then picked up the bowl on the stove and gulped it down in one go.
“S…so good!”
The cabbage soup did not have any extra seasoning. Even so, its base taste was fresh, elegant and compelling.
He savored the taste of the cabbage soup melting into his palate. The soup was thick, fragrant, and refreshing; it was not greasy at all.
The extravagant flavors and sensations contained in this bowl of cabbage soup was not something ordinary people in the doomsday wasteland could imagine.
Could anything smell so fragrant?
Not wanting to waste a single drop of this soup, the remaining large pot of cabbage soup, which was enough for five people, was quickly wiped out like a parking lot being torn up by one big tornado, and three small tornadoes!
Watching the last drops dripping out of the pot into the bowl, and the remaining soup in the bowl, Su Mo carefully took out a piece of pancake, tore it, and dipped it into the cabbage soup.
“Ah! So comfortable!”
As he yelled contentedly, Su Mo slumped lazily onto the sofa.
The tiredness of daily life would always dissipate quickly when he returned to the Underground Shelter.
Su Mo looked at the bare ceiling, and then at Oreo, Big Spark, and Little Spark who were still licking at the spilled cabbage soup on the ground. Su Mo smiled slightly, feeling calmer and less anxious about the future.
With a thought, the talisman he received from Chen Shen in the morning appeared before Su Mo and began to float down slowly.
As it drifted down, the talisman didn’t seem to have recovered, still displaying the countless waves symbolizing the flood.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
In the shelter, the water ability belonging to the mermaid clan began to resonate with the waves on the talisman. The whole shelter vibrated and it felt as if the shelter was on a small boat in the middle of a lake, trembling slightly.
“Is this a treasure of the mermaids?”
A complicated shining pattern appeared, and the shelter’s turtle armor appeared automatically without Su Mo’s summon.
A blue silk thread intimately wrapped around the talisman, playing around with the talisman as if it was meeting a relative.
“The transcendent blessings in the game can be upgraded like this?”
Su Mo forcibly suppressed the water ability’s desire to swallow the talisman. After unsummoning the shelter’s core, Su Mo grabbed the talisman and used the game panel to try to identify it.
As expected, the game panel did not react at all when faced with such a strange item, acting as if this item had no appraisal value.
This was also the reason why Chen Shen and Wu Feiguang were unable to figure out how to use the talisman after obtaining it.
Su Mo closed the game panel and, with a hint of anticipation, summoned the system to evaluate the talisman.
The system initially did not seem to respond either but, after several seconds, an illusory panel suddenly appeared in front of Su Mo.
For the first time ever, Su Mo saw a progress bar appear on the identification panel.
“Since when is a progress bar required for evaluation? What the hell is this?”
The system had identified and evaluated the Heavenly Dog Pseudo God in a matter of seconds, yet, at this moment, watching the progress bar increase from zero to one hundred at a gradual rate, a worried expression was etched on Su Mo’s face.
“This talisman can predict future disasters and cannot be identified by the game panel. I am afraid that its origin and attributes far exceed my estimation!”
Su Mo, who was slumped over the sofa, straightened up nervously as the progress bar approached 100. He stared at the attribute panel.
99.5%…
99.6%…
99.8%…
99.81%…
…
The numbers progressed painfully and slowly, even tacking on a second decimal point as it neared completion, making the whole process drag on even longer.
As it was being analyzed by the system, the talisman in his hand began to vibrate, as if it was breaking free from its restraints.
“System, hurry up! I can’t hold onto it much longer!”
The number on the system panel progressed at a snail’s pace. As time went by, Su Mo was struggling to hold on to the talisman with two hands, as it vibrated with even greater intensity.
This kind of strange sight was completely beyond Su Mo’s comprehension.
The system seemed to have heard Su Mo and, with a click, the progress bar finally reached 100!
At the same time, the talisman in his hand exploded after the analysis was completed!
“F*ck…”
Before he could say anything further, he was thrown backward by a powerful force, and slammed into the heavy stone wall, and passed out of consciousness.
Oreo, who was still licking the ground with Big Spark and Little Spark, seemed to have sensed something. However, the next moment, a blue light broke free and mercilessly knocked the three little ones out against the wall as well.
The hustle and bustle of the shelter quieted down, and only bursts of blue light could be seen reflected on the stone wall.
Following that, Su Mo’s body twitched on the ground and he suddenly stood up, head tilted to the side, and stepped into the blue light.
…
“It hurts! This d*mn talisman is so powerful!”
While he was unconscious, there seemed to be countless streams of information violently pouring into his mind. Feeling pain all over his body, Su Mo opened his eyes hesitantly.
He was on the sofa on the third floor when he fainted. Now he found himself in the garage of the Underground Shelter.
Looking around, he could see all the facilities and furnishings in the garage intact and in place. Even in his dizzy condition, Su Mo could tell that his shelter had not been touched by outsiders.
“Oreo!!!”
“Little Spark!!!”
Lying on the ground, the pain at his waist was very severe. Su Mo tried to open the storage space but, realizing that there was no response, Su Mo could only lie on the ground and shout.
Unfortunately, nothing changed in the empty shelter.
“What’s the matter? Is my game panel blocked?”
Su Mo tried to summon the game panel and the system again and again and found that there was no response. In this case, he tried not to think about what had happened and calmed himself down. He then began to try to move his body.
Putting an arm on the ground, and moving his painful body with all his might, he pushed open the heavy stone door with great difficulty. Along the stairs, Su Mo crawled down with labored movements.
The path was still the same as he remembered, and the Underground Shelter seemed to not have changed at all.
However, at present, the path seemed to have become longer than usual as Su Mo used his two hands to struggle to crawl forward. It took Su Mo five minutes to climb down the stairs and reach the second floor.
“The layer of dust is so thick. Could it be that a significant amount of time has passed?”
The presence of the three little ones in the spacious shelter usually added cheer to the environment, making it seem not quite as lonely.
However, it seemed that Su Mo was alone now, and the quiet Underground Shelter felt like a giant tomb. It was terrifying. Even the sound of breathing was amplified countless times at this moment, creating an uneasy environment.
Fortunately, when he reached the second floor, Su Mo was close to the psychic energy water well.
It took Su Mo another three minutes to crawl into the crop culture room. Looking at the empty culture medium, he saw that a small amount of psychic energy water was left in the tank. Su Mo’s expression had a glimpse of joy. He greedily lifted the tank directly and lapped at the little bit of psychic energy water left in it with his tongue.
At this moment, Su Mo’s body was akin to dry land receiving the nectar of the mysterious psychic energy water!
After taking about two mouthfuls of the psychic energy water, his painful body began to recover quickly. In the blink of an eye, his numb legs regained a sense of feeling.
At the same time, the game panel that had disappeared before jumped out immediately, flashing brightly.
Supporting his body over the side edge of the culture medium, Su Mo sat up and tried to focus his eyes on the game panel. However, all it took was one glance to send Su Mo’s heart into a spiral of terror.
At this time, at the top right of the game panel, an unbelievable timer was displayed!
[Countdown to the next disaster: 00:21:35]
[Disaster event: World Extinction Flood (Punishment Disaster. High tide level: 35m, low tide level: 19m. Duration: 180 days)]
