Quest Center

Among the male students wearing uniforms from Xiang City High School, one of them was Qiao Lingxiang's classmate. He saw Qiao Lingxiang sitting on a long bench along the sidewalk so he shouted at her.

"Dinosaur, get up and walk with us. You're so fat; you need to exercise more. Hurry up. If you keep sitting, the bench will break because of your weight."

Because of her size and her elder sister's identity as the school belle, everyone in Xiang City High School knew who Qiao Lingxiang was.

The other male students around Qiu Chen laughed when they heard him.

But after Qiu Chen finished teasing Qiao Lingxiang, his head was smacked by a school bag. He cursed, "F**k!" Then he turned around to take a look. Cen Yi lifted his schoolbag and smashed Qiu Chen's face with it again.

"Cen Yi, are you crazy?"

Qiu Chen took a few steps back when he got hit by Cen Yi. He looked at Cen Yi. He was a little afraid.

He asked, "Why did you hit me?"

Cen Yi had no expression on his handsome face. He carried his black school bag with one hand and had the other in his pocket. He just walked forward without looking at Qiao Lingxiang who was sitting beside the pavement.

When Cen Yi walked past the young man he hit, he opened his mouth and whispered in a lazy but aggressive tone, "You're an eyesore."

Qiu Chen's face and neck turned red with anger. He clenched his fists tightly as he looked at Cen Yi's retreating back.

The other male students beside him, who were laughing at Qiao Lingxiang a moment ago, were distracted by Cen Yi and Qiu Chen. Thus, no one bothered with the fatty who was sitting on the long bench beside the sidewalk anymore.

The other year three students following Cen Yi turned their heads occasionally to look at Qiu Chen. They had smiles in their eyes as they looked at him.

Qiu Chen felt embarrassed. Cen Yi hadn't hurt him when he struck with his bag but he did it in front of so many people. As a man, how could he let that go so easily?

He moved a few steps forward, lagging behind a group of students who were rushing to go to Xiang City High School. He slowly digested this humiliation alone.

Among the group of year three students, one person had a good relationship with Cen Yi. His name was Lu Zhengqing. He clasped Cen Yi's shoulder with his hand and winked with his beautiful eyes as he asked, "Why did you do that? Did that junior brother offend you?"

Cen Yi tilted his head and looked at Lu Zhengqing. His eyes were really beautiful. Cen Yi didn't reply to him.

The group left.

Qiao Lingxiang sat on the bench along the sidewalk and lowered her head as she waited for the group of students to walk past. Then she raised her head and looked at Cen Yi's back.

Did he help me earlier?

Unfortunately, she coincidentally exchanged glances with the young man who teased her earlier, Qiu Chen. He turned and glared at Qiao Lingxiang. He seemed to be telling her that all the humiliation he experienced was because of her.

Qiao Lingxiang's heart sank when she saw Qiu Chen's gaze. She wailed mournfully in her heart. She had an innate ability to attract grudges. At first, she thought Qiu Chen would forget everything after teasing her. Who thought he would hold a grudge against her?

But honestly, Qiao Lingxiang was used to this kind of situation. Whether she did well or not, whether she was watching the show by the sidelines or participating in the drama, someone would always use her to express their frustration.

Her mother was an example. She was angered by Brother Po and Qiao Lingxiang didn't do anything besides standing at the door, but she was still able to receive a scolding from her mother.

So, when Qiu Chen stared at her with hatred in his eyes, her heart sank but she wasn't surprised.

She just had to wait. When she reached school, she would encounter Qiu Chen accidentally at some random corner and he would make trouble for her.

Qiao Lingxiang stood up slowly and looked at the time on her phone. Even if she rushed to school now, she would be late. So, she stopped feeling anxious and decided to walk on the streets slowly.

At this moment, her hunger had subsided greatly. She felt more and more carefree. She lifted her big fat legs and walked on the road one step at a time.

She arrived outside the quest center.

The chief commander of the central command system gave a somber speech last year—he told everyone emphatically that the apocalypse was coming. Resources had dried up so everyone needed to unite as one to resist the apocalypse.

What was an apocalypse?

At first, the public didn't have a clear idea of what limited resources meant. Many specialists jumped out and said that many renewable sources of energy could replace the current ones e.g. hydraulic power, wind energy, solar power, nuclear energy, and more.

They felt that the chief commander of the central command system must've been crazy to give this television speech.

Thus, many people continued going to work, studying, dating, and getting married as per usual… As for the chief commander, the second month after he gave the speech, he was voted out of his position by angry citizens.

At that time, no one thought that the chief commander was right.

In the end, he was telling the truth.

Sometime later, for no reason, the city's energy sources suddenly started dwindling. The water supply and electricity were cut off frequently and the gas at the gas station kept drying up.

For the other sources of energy including wind energy, hydraulic power, solar energy, and nuclear power… Half of the energy would get lost in the transportation process. No one knew why. The other half that was left wasn't enough to satisfy everyone's needs.

The reason was unknown. The answer was always "still undergoing investigation".

To solve this problem, the chief commanders of every city started advocating for the public to save energy. The energy coupons were given out because of this. They also actively groomed brilliant minds to develop technologies to discover new sources of energy.

After the energy coupons were released, the consequences of the energy shortage were palpable. It caused a food shortage. Hence, the central system started giving out rice coupons, water coupons, edible oil coupons… These coupons weren't money; a fixed number of coupons were given to the labor forces.

You could only buy energy and food with these coupons.

This triggered a series of problems. A large number of workers in the city were laid off and sent back to the suburbs. The supply of raw materials came up short of the manufacturing sector's needs, triggering another round of lay-offs.

You could say that the people who were still living in the city were those who had no relatives in their hometowns.

Qiao Lingxiang didn't know what led to the shortage of energy or why the new energy sources couldn't resolve the issue.

She sighed slowly as she stood at the entrance of the quest center. There was an entire wall covered with notes seeking help to form teams.

Once a team was formed, it could leave the city to look for energy stones. It was said that energy stones would give off light at night, thus they could light up paths and charge batteries. They could recharge water filtering devices and start electric cars. Compared to solar power, hydraulic power, wind energy, and nuclear energy, they were more convenient. No large structures were needed to extract their energy and you could use the stones directly.

But these stones were a controlled resource. The urban management authorities had a department to acquire these energy stones called the transaction bank.

The urban management authorities encouraged unemployed workers to leave the city to seek out energy stones. As long as a team came back with energy stones, they could go to the transaction bank and exchange the stones for energy coupons.

However, the authorities didn't tell its citizens how to use the energy in the energy stones. They were only in charge of purchasing these stones. After consolidating the energy stones, they would extract their energy together and power the entire city.

"Do you want to leave the city and look for energy stones? There are energy stone quests up today. Applicants can receive a bag of compressed biscuits in line with the number of people on your team."

A staff of the quest center was dressed smartly in a suit as he stood at the entrance and passed pamphlets to passers-by.