Sun Jiao's Past

Sun Jiao’s words surprised Jiang Chen and Yao Yao. Jiang Chen remembered she was born in survival base 071, so how was she connected to this mansion? When he heard Sun Jiao's explanation, however, he finally understood the connection as well as why she’d been starving in this mansion in the first place.

Sun Jiao's father owned this estate before the war, but due to the sudden eruption of the nuclear war, Sun Jiao's father became separated from his wife and son when they fled the city. Sun Jiao's father subsequently met Sun Jiao's mother in survival base 071 where they fell in love. With the blessings of the other survivors, they married and gave birth to Sun Jiao and another daughter, Sun Jiao's sister. Unfortunately, the joyful days were short-lived as the survival base was forced to open because of the depleted resources, drawing bandits that littered the wasteland into attacking the survival base. And so, Sun Jiao lost her family.

She was fortunate in that she managed to escape. She wandered the ruins, but instead of meeting mutants, zombies, or slave traders, she ran into a strange individual who didn't know her purpose.

Or perhaps it was better to say that she met her master.

In 2139, due to the enactment of the new strategic defense alliance, the Han People’s Liberation Army began to be referred to as PLA. A self-proclaimed PLA female soldier appeared and took care of Sun Jiao. She taught her the necessary skills to survive in the wasteland such as how to shoot a gun and how to identify the good and bad. But sadly her master passed away in a conflict against an unknown group of militants, and that was how Sun Jiao started her lonely journey.

Sun Jiao wandered the wasteland trying to find her family, longing for the comfort of survival base 071. She knew that even if she managed to find them, life would not be the same again, but it served as her only motivation. She searched for their information around Dong Hai City until she confirmed from an old neighbor in Liuding Town that both of her parents passed away in that unfortunate incident but no information remained of her sister. The relentless Sun Jiao continued to explore the wasteland for any information, even coming across her father's home from before the war...

It was precisely this mansion, but because she ran out of nutrient supplies here, she starved until falling unconscious.

Then by coincidence, she met Jiang Chen here.

"Mhmm, I understand. I’ll keep an eye out for you. If we can find your sister, you’ll be very happy right?" Jiang Chen said with a smile after listening to her narration.

"Jiang Chen." Her eyes became moist. If not for Yao Yao’s presence, she would’ve pushed him to the ground and expressed the loving emotion filling her heart.

Ahem. Although inappropriate, Sun Jiao didn't know other ways to express her love.

"What about Yao Yao? Can I help you with anything? Since we are a family now, don't hide anything and tell me, okay?" Jiang Chen rubbed Yao Yao's head.

Yao Yao shook his head and gently covered Jiang Chen's hand with both of her hands. "I’m already so lucky. My only family is brother Jiang Chen and sister Sun Jiao."

Her smile was joyful, but it made Jiang Chen slightly teary.

Yao Yao made lunch. This gentle girl took the effort to practice cooking, touching Jiang Chen even more.

This was the first time he ate a meal made by a girl.

He was so touched that he almost began to cry. [Ahem, that was an exaggeration.]

Yao Yao looked at the way Jiang Chen devoured the lunch, and a joyous smile appeared on her face. As for Sun Jiao, she always ate food as if there was no tomorrow. It would be odd if she acted any differently.

After lunch, the three of them cleaned up. Sun Jiao organized the supplies within the living room, and Jiang Chen followed Yao Yao to her room as he had other matters.

"Yao Yao, have you finished preparing for the vault door?"

"Psh!" Yao Yao burst laughing. "Big brother doesn't know yet, but Sun Jiao already emptied the bank vault for you. Haha, she probably forgot to tell you because she was too surprised. She’s hoping to be praised."

Jiang Chen paused momentarily as a genuine delight flashed across his face.

"Haha, sister Sun Jiao is not you. She is probably not interested in my recognition." Because of how cute Yao Yao looked, Jiang Chen uncontrollably rubbed her hair.

Like a squirrel, Yao Yao closed her eyes to enjoy the moment. Then as if she suddenly remembered something, she blinked her sweet eyes at Jiang Chen. "No! Sister Sun Jiao want to receive praise from big brother like Yao Yao!"

She thoughtfully nodded her head, sure that her analysis was accurate.

Surprised by her words, Jiang Chen laughed.

"Mhmm, you’re right."

[I have to express my gratitude to this girl. Although most of the time she is very naughty, at times she can be surprisingly considerate.]

He put aside the conversation about gold and inquired about mobile game development.

"Mobile game? The game you play on your cell phone? Are these things popular in big brother's world?" she asked without completely understanding him. It puzzled Jiang Chen because she spent the first twelve years of her life before the war. Were there no electronic games at that time? That was impossible!

Jiang Chen voiced his thoughts, but the answer he received made him quite conflicted.

"Mhmm. That's what you mean. I think I know what you’re referring to, but the popular games before the war were all played within the gaming chamber."

"Gaming chamber?"

"Yes! The mainstream games were based on design engines within the virtual reality system. Lying down in the gaming chamber helped in relaxing the body, so some people even chose to spend their sleeping time in games. A lot of portable devices that connected directly to the neural network also achieved similar functions. No one installed extra games within the mobile devices."

It was not because there were no more games. With the advancement of technology, the gaming format evolved over time. Just like how the DS faded through the passage of history and PSP-related game devices were no longer able to capture the market under the fierce competition of smartphones.

[What should I do?] Jiang Chen had a stern face and fell into deep thought.

[Abandon mobile games? But for a company just in the initial growth phase, a jump into virtual reality would be too forced. Aren’t there any other options?]

"Can you show me that phone you’re talking about, big brother?" Yao Yao asked in a quiet voice.

"Ah, of course, here you go." Jiang Chen immediately took out his Samsung phone and gave it to Yao Yao. "Feel free to play with it."

Yao Yao didn't hesitate, and she immediately started dissecting the phone on her workbench.

"Woo… Why is the CPU performance so low? Only a couple gigabytes of RAM?" Yao Yao examined the phone and mumbled words that made Jiang Chen quite embarrassed.

It didn't take long before Yao Yao finally understood this "antique."

"What do you think?" Jiang Chen rushed to ask as Yao Yao took off her protective glasses.

"Hmm, it doesn't look too complicated. If we use D++ to program it, we should be able to compress everything into this tiny space." She touched her tiny chin with a focused expression. "Ah, although mobile games are programs, you also have to consider art, music, and experience, but I don't have any experience."

Jiang Chen thought for a minute and realized the problem as well. Not all programming majors became game developers like Sid Meier. The key to games was the experience gained. Even if Yao Yao could compress an enormous amount of content using a more advanced language to reduce the requirement for hardware systems, the fundamental issue was still whether it was fun to play.

Suddenly, Yao Yao slapped her head as if she just remembered something.

"Oh! Let me take care of this. I promise that I'll give you what you want within five days."

"So quickly?!" Jiang Chen was stunned. His original plan was for Yao Yao to finish within two months.

"Hehe." Yao Yao felt a little shy as she rubbed her nose. "It would be difficult to program from scratch, but I just remembered there’s a library nearby. Sister Sun Jiao brought these back for me from there. There must be some historical codes from the database in the library that will include the games big brother wants. As long as sister Sun Jiao makes another trip to the library and copies all the files related to games between 2100 and 2200, I only need to fix the code a little to make it work."

...

Jiang Chen left the room, gently closing the door.

[Why is my heart beating so fast? Am I a monster after all?] Jiang Chen murmured in his heart as he walked toward Sun Jiao.

He spotted Sun Jiao at the underground storage counting the supplies. The cans and preserved crackers were neatly separated beside the wall. Rice was organized within polyethylene plastic containers which were common in the wasteland after the military previously parachuted tightly sealed rescue supplies.

The underground storage felt cold. The original owner, Sun Jiao's father, previously stored wine in here but after it was discovered by other survivors, there were no traces of wine.

The current quantity of supplies made it was necessary to scavenge some fridges from the residences nearby.

After some repairs, they would be usable. It just meant that the solar power had to be upgraded at the same time. The current electricity was just enough to sustain the power usage in the mansion, but with a few more fridges, it would be nearly impossible to meet the demand.