Chapter 53: Catering to One’s Preferences

The dark night descended once more. The laborers, like ants returning to their nest, finished their day’s work. At the same time, Chen Chong left his dwelling and arrived at the Power Station.

Carrying a bundle in his hand, Chen Chong stood at the gate of the Power Station’s fence and took a deep breath.

Today was already his fourth day working as the Power Station’s night watchman. During these four days, without enough nutrients and energy to replenish himself, the progress of his Ultimate Infinite Qigong cultivation was extremely slow. The two daily meals provided by the Territory were simply not enough to support such high-intensity training. He was in a state of hunger for nearly half of each day. Without large amounts of nutrients and energy, the process of Refining Essence into Qi was, to put it plainly, getting half the results with twice the effort.

The implementation of Electrotherapy was extremely urgent!

Through their interactions over the past three days, Chen Chong found Old Xu to be fairly honest and straightforward, without any cunning or deceitful thoughts. He decided to proceed with the next step of his plan.

Under the streetlamp at the Power Station’s gate, Chen Chong casually used the corner of his eye to glance at a vague figure that flickered past in the darkness in the distance.

That was naturally Wei De, the henchman of Supervisory Squad Captain Yin Hu. Chen Chong had always known that Wei De and Lu Kai were taking turns monitoring him, but this surveillance only seemed to be a precaution against him escaping the Territory at night. Besides, their stalking skills were far too poor. With Chen Chong’s keen senses, it was hard not to notice them.

He sneered inwardly and, carrying his bundle, walked into the gate of the Power Station.

Arriving at the steaming hot Boiler Room, filled with the roaring of machinery, Chen Chong saw Old Xu, still looking sloppy as ever, pacing around with his hands behind his back, peering around from time to time as if inspecting something.

“Kid, what brings you here?”

Old Xu, wearing insulated gloves, was pulling at some electrical wires. Hearing a noise, he turned around and, seeing it was Chen Chong, said with a puzzled look: “You’ve still got over an hour until your night watch shift.”

“I’ve slept enough in my room. My whole body was about to rust.”

Chen Chong lifted the bundle in his hand and took out a small bottle, shaking it in front of Old Xu with a mysterious smile: “I’ve got something good. Want to give it a try?”

What he took out was, naturally, the small bottle of alcohol from his allocated supplies quota.

The moment he saw what was in Chen Chong’s hand, Old Xu’s murky eyes lit up; he clearly recognized it: “Alcohol?”

Don’t assume that just because Old Xu wasn’t an Awakener and had no combat ability, he received less. In fact, because of his skills in electrical engineering, he enjoyed supplies at half of the squad leader level quota standard. Apart from not having Spiritual Fruits, there wasn’t much difference. His supplies quota naturally included a small bottle of alcohol too.

However, for Old Xu, alcohol wasn’t used for disinfecting wounds; it was for drinking.

Old Xu had no other hobby; his only love was alcohol and he was addicted to it. This little bottle of alcohol couldn’t be drunk directly, of course, but mixed with a lot of water, it became liquor. Although it was the lowest quality liquor, being able to drink oneself into oblivion even once was rare enough in this era.

Staring at the alcohol in Chen Chong’s hand, Old Xu’s heart itched unbearably, as if a cat was scratching it. The allocation of supplies he received every half month included that small bottle of alcohol he cherished most, and it was always the first thing he used up. That little bit of his alcohol, even when diluted with water and strictly rationed, wouldn’t last more than a few days before he drank it all up clean. Now, seeing the alcohol in Chen Chong’s hand, the craving demon in his gut was instantly stirred. How could he not be excited?

“Hehe… You little rascal…”

Old Xu’s true nature showed itself. He rubbed his hands together repeatedly and chuckled: “How can I accept this?”

Seeing Old Xu’s shy affectation, Chen Chong couldn’t help but laugh and scold jokingly: “Old Xu, who are you pretending for? You must have water here to dilute it, right?”

Knowing Old Xu liked alcohol had been Chen Chong’s guess. A few days ago, when Yin Hu brought him to Old Xu’s room, he had vaguely smelled a faint scent of alcohol. So today, he decided to test it out, and it turned out his guess was right on the mark.

“Wait here, kid. I’ll go get the water to mix it!”

Old Xu yelped with excitement. His usually slow movements vanished as he covered the distance in a few quick steps and disappeared from the Boiler Room. A moment later, he rushed back out, holding a plastic bottle with a volume of about one liter, which seemed to be filled halfway with water.

“This is distilled water I secretly saved from the boiler. Totally clean!” Old Xu said to Chen Chong, showing off as if presenting a treasure.

Chen Chong generously handed the entire bottle of alcohol over: “You do it. Dilute the whole thing!”

Old Xu took it with a smile from ear to ear, unscrewed the cap, and poured all the alcohol into the plastic bottle containing the distilled water. Then, he shook it vigorously.

After shaking it for a while, Old Xu opened the bottle cap again, took a deep sniff, and a satisfied expression appeared on his old face.

This small bottle of alcohol was only 100 milliliters, and the distilled water in the bottle was half a liter. Mixed together, it would be no stronger than 20-proof white liquor at best. Looking at Old Xu’s expression, an outsider would think the bottle contained some kind of divine nectar.

“Alright, alright, enough of that.”

Chen Chong was both amused and annoyed. He then pulled a large piece of dried meat from his bundle: “You can’t have liquor without meat. Old Xu, find us a spot!”

“Kid, you’re this generous?”

Seeing the air-dried meat chunk Chen Chong pulled out again, Old Xu’s eyes widened, and he asked warily: “A sudden show of kindness without reason often hides ulterior motives. Kid, spill it. Did you mess something up in the Territory and want this old man here to fix it for you? Let me tell you first, in this Territory, outside of this Power Station, I’m a nobody. If there’s real trouble, I can’t help you!”

Chen Chong grinned: “Old Xu, you’re overthinking it. What trouble could I cause? I’m new here and just wanted to find someone to chat with about the situation in the Territory, and also ask you a few questions about electrical work, just to learn a thing or two.”

So that was it.

Old Xu immediately sighed in relief and chuckled: “That’s certainly no problem. Let’s take it to my room. We can drink and chat!”

Old Xu didn’t harbor any ideas of keeping his skills to himself. In reality, the operation of the entire Power Station and power grid was extremely complex, requiring profound knowledge and experience in electrical engineering to manage. No one in the entire Crimson Territory could replace his current position. Even if he taught everything he knew, without being a professional talent and going through many years of learning, what one could grasp would be very limited.

Chen Chong followed Old Xu behind him, arriving at the small room in the very corner of the warehouse building.

Inside the room, besides a bed and a table, scattered electrical wires and small bits of parts were everywhere. Old Xu pulled the table next to the bed, then dug out two cups with twisted rims from who-knows-where, and poured the diluted liquor into them.

Old Xu impatiently raised his cup to Chen Chong: “Kid, meeting is destiny. Cheers!”

Chen Chong also raised his cup, his eyes flickering, and smiled: “Cheers.”