In a frigid apocalypse, I went on a shopping spree with the reborn.

Jiang Qingyue was the first to upgrade her personal computer to level four and claim the first upgrade reward. This left the other powerful individuals who were a step behind feeling helpless and prompting them to slow down their progress.

Since the reward is gone, it doesn't make much difference whether you upgrade the quantum computer to level four on the second or third attempt.

Almost simultaneously, these powerful individuals, who were originally determined to earn trading coins, have now all chosen to acquire more crystal cores.

Jiang Qingyue was unaware that everyone was fighting against zombies. She was simply checking the messages on her personal computer every day to prevent missing out on someone's call for help because she hadn't seen the message.

The rest of the time was spent training with the other members of the shelter.

On the first of each month when the trading area opens, I enter the trading area with Long Jiuxing. Together, we can list a total of twenty items, and how much we earn depends entirely on luck.

If you find someone who urgently needs the item, doesn't know how to bargain, and has money, you can sell more. If you find someone who's stingy but good at haggling, you can sell less. After deducting transaction tax, the take-home pay is decent.

It only happens once a month.

Jiang Qingyue could only console herself that something was better than nothing.

Months passed, and the official response remained silent, as if the entire Huaxia official team had vanished from the eighth region. If it weren't for the fact that the Huaxia official team was still listed on the overall rankings, Jiang Qingyue would have thought it was all over.

The shelter is still expanding, mainly used for growing food, storing coal, and firewood. Jiang Qingyue no longer knows its exact size, only that it is very, very large.

After several months of accumulation, plus a few more raids, Jiang Qingyue had several hundred third-tier crystal cores in her possession.

She used one and found that a Tier 3 crystal core only increased her combat power by nine points, and that was with the Snow Concealment Bow's blessing. Without the Snow Concealment Bow's blessing, a crystal core only increased her combat power by one point.

To increase her combat power to 300,000, she needs 11,112 stones. Long Jiuxing needs 12,500 stones. Zaizai and the others each need 100,000 stones.

In other words, to raise the combat power of all members of the shelter to 300,000, 323,612 Tier 3 crystal cores are needed.

The few hundred she currently has are not even a fraction of what she needs.

This discovery left Jiang Qingyue and the others speechless.

This is a Tier 3 crystal core, not Tier 1. While a Tier 3 Corpse King is the lowest tier, it's still capable of building its own lair. Its strength might be slightly weaker, but its intelligence is no less than a human's, making it very difficult to capture.

The shelter is now teeming with zombies, but Jiang Qingyue, the third-tier zombie king, is reluctant to kill any of them. This is a zombie king that constantly creates smaller zombies; killing even one would be a huge loss.

That evening, after dinner, Jiang Qingyue held a short meeting: "Originally, I planned to increase my combat power if I couldn't upgrade to level five. Now it seems that getting my combat power to 300,000 is just wishful thinking."

Long Jiuxing and the others didn't say anything, and even Yan Bao, who was usually the most lively, kept quiet with her paws tucked in.

Even the smallest amount of ginger, Qingyue, would require more than 10,000 pieces.

Spring City has been completely wiped out by them, and it will be a long time before third-tier zombies appear.

Although there are quite a few domesticated Tier 3 zombies, they are just a drop in the ocean compared to what they need.

Besides, we can't bear to kill them all. If we kill them all now, what will we do when we need fourth- or fifth-order crystal cores in the future?

Jiang Qingyue clapped her hands: "Don't be discouraged, everyone. You need to think about it from a different perspective. If we're having such a hard time, others must be having it even harder, right?"

"If there's a problem, we'll figure out a way to solve it."

"Now all the level 2 and above zombies in Quanshui City have been wiped out. There are none left that we could find. As for those that have managed to hide after so many sweeps, we can't find them either."

"But we can't stop getting stronger, so let me explain our plans."

"Longlong, continue your research on the power of ice and snow. Whether we can use a small number of third-tier crystal cores to increase our combat power to 300,000 depends on you."

Long Jiuxing nodded emphatically: "Don't worry, Sister Xiaoyue."

"Little one, you practice hard, and spend the rest of your time keeping watch for Longlong to prevent any foolish zombies from attacking her."

Baby: "Hiss." Hmm.

"Little Grey."

Little Grey immediately looked up, gazing at her expectantly.

It hasn't had any missions since joining the shelter family. This makes it feel quite ashamed, having only eaten and never worked. Is it finally going to be useful now?

"You..." Jiang Qingyue hesitated for a moment, then said, "Eat more."

"Goo?" Little Grey was dumbfounded, tilting its head. Had it misheard?

It's not a good-for-nothing.

"Didn't Wang Dawei say you could lay eggs? You've been with me for almost a year, and I haven't seen you lay any. We've used quite a few crystal cores, so it's not an energy issue. It must be that you're too small."

"Eat more, grow faster, and you should be able to lay eggs then."

"Also, when we're not here, you'll be in charge of guarding the house. Practice a lot; you're the only one in our family with wings. From now on, we'll rely on you to fly and launch aerial attacks."

"Sister Xiaoyue, are you going out?" Long Jiuxing asked anxiously, clutching the hem of her clothes.

In the past, she wasn't worried when Sister Xiaoyue went out. She was strong enough. Whoever encountered Sister Xiaoyue should be the one who was worried.

But after that time-stopping device came out, they learned that there were five of those things in the eighth district, and the one that Sister Xiaoyue had was the worst one.

In other words, someone might have a time-stopping device that can pause for nine seconds, and nine seconds is enough time to do a lot of things.

And Sister Xiaoyue's pause function is limited to one second per day and can only be used once per day. Could it be that the function that allows a nine-second pause can be used nine times per day?

No one can be sure until these things are understood.

But as long as the time stop device is still in someone else's hands, it means that Jiang Qingyue is not invincible. Someone can kill her, and even with the essence of the plant doctor, it may not be enough time to use it.

How could she not worry?

"It's alright," Jiang Qingyue reassured her. "I won't go outside; I'll just stroll around Quanshui City."

"real?"

Jiang Qingyue nodded: "You forgot, we still haven't found that cow. Our Quanshui City is hiding such a big treasure, but we haven't been able to find it yet."

"I think these zombies are just really unlucky. The last few times we went out to clear out the area, our targets were all zombies. This time, I'm going to specifically look for this cow."

"If we can find it, I suspect this cow might have some other purpose besides beef and milk."

"Think about it, Wang Dawei is a reborn person, and he doesn't lack food. After all, he can stock up in advance. Why would he need to write down the information about this cow immediately after his rebirth? It must be more than just increasing milk and meat."

"Furthermore, I can understand producing milk, but producing a pot of beef every night is bizarre. The more bizarre something is, the more complicated its function is."

"I suspect that eating this cow's milk or beef can increase combat power like zombie crystal cores, or increase agility or something."

"Anyway, I can't help with the research on ice and snow power right now, and the zombies have been cleared out, so I'm just sitting around doing nothing. I have the Lucky Star buff, so I'm lucky."

"So I plan to use this time to explore every inch of Quanshui City. I refuse to believe I won't find this cow."

"Don't worry, I'll message you every two hours to let you know I'm safe. Also, whether I find you or not, the fourth cold wave will arrive in 21 days, and I'll definitely be back before then."

Jiang Qingyue also sighed. Unbeknownst to her, more than a year had passed since the outbreak of the apocalypse. The vegetables in the planting area had been harvested one after another, and the grain had already been harvested once.

Life in the apocalypse was actually much better than she had originally expected. She had thought she would hide in the shelter, never finding anyone to talk to, living frugally on the food she had stockpiled, and never daring to leave the shelter.

Now she has four great friends, and her own strength is growing stronger. Aside from not being able to bring her parents back to life, everything is moving in a positive direction.

But this is not enough.

The various regions will merge, and they will eventually face even more powerful enemies, just like the official forces.

Before the major regions merge, it is a critical period for growth. During this time, she must do everything she can to strengthen herself and her companions, otherwise the day the major regions merge will be their death day.

Don't even think about going to the first experimental zone to find the time machine and resurrect your parents.

Long Jiuxing kept a straight face. She wanted to go with them, but the words kept getting stuck in her throat.

Sister Xiaoyue's arrangement is the best and most reasonable.

There is a limit to daily physical training. Recently, they have found that no matter how much they train, they seem to have reached a bottleneck.

I can't get the trading currency, and I can't get the crystal cores either.

If we want to improve our strength, we need to find other ways.

Her research into the power of ice and snow, and Xiaoyue's search for that damned cow, are undoubtedly the best arrangement at present.

Long Jiuxing: "...Then you should take Yan Bao with you."

"Okay." Jiang Qingyue nodded; that was her original plan.

And just to be on the safe side, she even conducted an experiment.

I haven't encountered any enemies with this time-stopping device yet, so I haven't used it.

"I'll be taking Yanbao with me tomorrow morning. Let's do a test before then."

"experiment?"

"Right," Jiang Qingyue said, "We can't just stop time in the entire Eighth District, can we? If it were something that powerful, could that stingy God of War really deploy five of them at once?"

"I suspect it can only pause for one second within a specific area. But we'll have to experiment to find out exactly how big that area is."

Jiang Qingyue led everyone to the open space outside the shelter, asked Long Jiuxing to stay away, and even took out her phone to take pictures, so as to further verify just how special this time-stopping device was.

The phone's camera was turned on, and Long Jiuxing, in the distance, raised his hand to indicate that he was in position.

Jiang Qingyue then said to the Corpse King CEO beside her, "Come on, CEO, let's dance."

The Corpse King CEO was embarrassed. He was just verifying something; couldn't he just wave?

Unfortunately, it dared not speak. Even if it did, Jiang Qingyue wouldn't understand and might think it was unwilling, and what if it pinned it to the ground and beat it up?

The Corpse King CEO, whose limbs were not very coordinated, awkwardly twisted his body.

With a moving reference point, Jiang Qingyue activated Time Stop.

"Certainly!"

In an instant, everything changed.

Jiang Qingyue looked at this stagnant world, and the Corpse King CEO in front of her was frozen in a strange position.

A quick glance at Zaizai and Yanbao captured their expectant and nervous expressions.

Then he looked at Long Jiuxing in the distance; this was crucial.

If the Dragon Nine Stars are also fixed, it means that time has stopped at least within this range.

If the Dragon Nine Stars are not fixed, it means that the scope needs to be narrowed down for verification.

"Don't move," Jiang Qingyue kept repeating to herself.

Unfortunately, after she turned her head, Long Jiuxing raised his hand and shook it.

Well, my anxiety has finally died down.

After a second, everything returned to normal.

Jiang Qingyue waved, and Long Jiuxing ran over with his phone in hand.

Jiang Qingyue was speechless.

Even knowing that the God of Eternal Winter is so stingy that he wouldn't give her a treasure that can pause the entire area, this partial pause is still too partial.

After roughly estimating the location, Long Jiuxing was standing about 100 meters away, which means that the area where she paused time was less than 100 meters in radius.

They took the phone from Long Jiuxing and huddled together to watch the video.

The phone, located 100 meters away, was completely unaffected by the time freeze and captured a very clear image.

In the scene, the moment Jiang Qingyue shouted "Freeze," everything around her was paused, except for Jiang Qingyue, the user, who was unaffected.

It returned to normal after a second.

"Your one-time access privileges for today are gone. You'll have to verify tomorrow, but there are still a few hours until midnight. Just wait."

After their physical condition improved, the outside temperature felt like a cool autumn to them, the temperature was just right, and they were too lazy to seek refuge.

Jiang Qingyue took out five large pancakes from her spatial storage, gave one to each of them, and they sat together, eating and chatting.

During this time, Jiang Qingyue also checked his personal computer: "These people bought my opportunity to make a move, and they haven't asked for help even once. Tsk tsk, it seems everyone is doing quite well."

"It's better if they don't go." Long Jiuxing wished that these people would never have to use that opportunity in their entire lives.

Jiang Qingyue is quite good at going with the flow; for her, she'll go if someone asks her, and won't go if no one asks her.

"But these people are really strong. They either made preparations in advance, or they may have even bought information from Liu Yuyao. Even if zombies keep attacking the city, the sacrifices should be within everyone's tolerance range, so I don't need to be used."

The zombie siege is both a crisis and an opportunity; if you want to obtain a large number of crystal cores, that's when you'll have to wait.

Even so, Jiang Qingyue never considered building her own large-scale base. She preferred to raise zombies and then periodically fish them out to kill.

They ate and chatted, finishing the flatbread, then eating candy, and after that, they ate braised chicken legs...

When all five of us were stuffed, it was finally past midnight.

The time-pause feature is working again.

To avoid wasting this once-a-day opportunity, Jiang Qingyue gathered a bunch of zombies, placing one zombie every meter, and set up her phone a hundred meters away with the camera on.

"Come on, everyone, dance!"

The little zombies had no sense of shame. At the command of the zombie king, they jumped around in all sorts of bizarre ways, their hands, feet, bodies, and heads each having their own thoughts.

He even had a serious expression on his face, which made the usually calm Long Jiuxing twitch his lips.

too ugly.

"Stop." Jiang Qingyue activated the time-stopping device.

This time, there was no need for cameras. Just by counting the zombies' positions, the first twenty-five zombies were frozen in place, while from the twenty-sixth onwards, they continued their cringe-worthy dance.

Jiang Qingyue then determined the range: a radius of 25 meters.