Book 2, Chapter 34 - Once Romantic
“Welcome to using the shopping guide service. How may I help you?” The image of the woman was blinking. She looked like she was running out of battery.
“Medicine!” I immediately replied.
“Med-med-medicine.” She was like a skipping record and her image was fading. I panicked and patted the platform, “Hey, don’t just speak halfway!” When I roared, the entire platform suddenly seemed fully charged. “The medicine is on the twenty-sixth floor. You can take the observatory elevator up."
Observatory elevator? How can I be sure that the elevator is still working? And I don’t even know which floor the elevator will stop at if it dies halfway.
“Which floor am I on?”
“You are now on the twenty-third floor, food zone.”
I am on the twenty-third floor and the medicine is on the twenty-sixth floor. It is only three floors up, my feet would be faster. “Where are the stairs?”
“The nearest stairway to you would be stairway number thirteen.” She pointed to my right. “You have to walk past the dry food zone, instant food zone, fruit zone, flower..”
So much bullshit. I ran in the direction that she pointed.
I ran past many zones. When I arrived in the fruit zone, I stopped. Since there are fruits, there must be seeds! I was excited again but I quickly became worried about whether seeds that had been exposed to the radiation could still be used.
I looked at the fridge by the side and was stunned on the spot. Because the fruits in the refrigerator were all cut fruits! Their skins and seed had already been removed. They were cut and arranged like flower petals, as if various kinds of flowers in different sizes were on display.
I immediately looked at the other refrigerators. They were all the same!
Spinning around, I could see rows of neatly lined refrigerators but there wasn’t any original fruit in sight.
However, even if they were cut, some fruits would still have seeds, right? For example, strawberries!
I began to search through the fruits and flowers that I knew and didn’t know. Suddenly, I saw a fruit that looked like dragonfruit. At least, it was labeled ‘Dragonfruit’ although it looked nothing like one. The white flesh was arranged in the shape of a peony and it laid inside the refrigerator. The dragonfruits were just like art pieces that would have made people loathe to eat them. However, there weren’t any of the black seeds that I was familiar with!
I picked up the crystal peony and opened its box carefully, like I was opening a mysterious chest. When I opened the container, the fragrance greeted me; it was really dragonfruit!
I picked up a slice and looked at it carefully. There really were no seeds. Or rather, I should say that the fruits here were all seedless. Just like the seedless watermelon where I’d come from.
As my world had managed to produce seedless watermelons, would the people here produce all seedless fruits so to savor the clean texture?
Suddenly, blue light spots appeared again! They surfaced from within the dragonfruits and flowed into my finger. It looked just like blue blood flowing within the dragonfruit. The white dragonfruit flesh became white flower petals shot through with blue veins, which made it even more beautiful.
Instead of throwing the fruit away, I studied the blue light spots that had entered my finger. There weren’t enough of them to make my hand glow, but I had a strange feeling that the dragonfruit in my hand could be eaten!
I smiled and opened my mouth. If Raffles and Harry were connected via telecom, they definitely would shout again, “Don’t eat that!”
However, I had already eaten it. It really was if the fruit had been stored in a vacuum, as it was still fresh as it must have been the day the world ended, even after a few decades had passed. Everything before my eyes were just as how Raffles described, sealed within a vacuum.
There was no bitterness, only the moisture and sweetness of dragon fruit. The sliced dragonfruit melted in my mouth. The improved fruits in this world are simply perfect!
I can die from pleasure just by eating such delicious fruits.
Mm! I will go and get the medicine first. After I complete my mission, I’ll come back to pack some fruits. Everyone can eat them after cleansing. Plus, Noah City’s storage warehouse doesn’t have this kind of vacuum ability, it might not be able to keep the fruits fresh. These fruits are already cut and arranged, so they can’t be left outside for very long. It’s best to keep them here. When they want more, I can come back and get more.
As the sealed Garden of Eden has been opened, we naturally wouldn’t stop coming here. We will come again and again until everything is gone.
I held the fruits in my hands, eating them as I continued to walk forward. Now I moved at a much more leisurely pace, and my heartbeat had finally returned to normal.
When I finished the dragonfruit and threw the box away, I could already see the stairways so I ran over. When I was almost there, I suddenly hauled up because I saw roses out of the corner of my eyes!
I immediately turned and looked, only to be greeted with rows of fresh flowers! The first row of the rack was filled with roses!
The roses that Arsenal likes!
I walked forward and picked up a rose. The fragrance of the flower was colored with just a tinge of what smelled like chocolate. What a strange rose. Just like the dragonfruit earlier, blue light spots appeared when I picked it up, streaming down from the petals to the branches and into my fingers.
By now I was already immune to the sight. Plus, I didn’t feel anything strange.
There was a delicate gold label on the branch. It read, “Chocolate-flavored edible rose.”
I was stunned. Chocolate? This can be eaten?
Plucking a rose petal with my left hand, I put it in my mouth. Wow! It’s really chocolate flavored.
The fragrance lingered in my mouth. There was chocolate yet there was also the fragrance of a rose. A scene seemed to appear before my eyes. In the middle of a romantic candlelight dinner, a handsome man dressed in a suit held a rose and placed it gently in the hand of a beautiful woman in a sexy gown. The woman plucked and ate a rose petal, her fragrance-tinged lips enchanting beyond compare.
I looked at the rose in my hand. The people in this world used to be so romantic.
Turning, I looked around the empty mall. On the day before the end of the world, did the men and women who purchased these roses know that the end of the world was descending? Were they buying the roses here that day?
The bitterness of chocolate slowly melted on my tongue. Standing there, I could only imagine the romances that these people once had. Now, all that was left was pity and sorrow.
Arsenal likes roses.
I looked further down and spotted a gift pack. Grabbing one, I ran to the stairway.
I looked up from the twenty-third floor to the twenty-fourth floor. There was sunlight shining through. Seemed like Ice Dragon didn’t just stop at the twenty-third floor. On the twenty-fourth floor, there were daily necessities. On the twenty-fifth floor, there were clothes! I hesitated on the twenty-fifth floor. I’d better head to the twenty-sixth floor first. I have business to attend to.