Moments later, Zhou Zhengping and his group had already brought everyone into the cafeteria.
Inside the cafeteria, a few people were waiting. As soon as they saw them come in, they hurried over to greet them.
The one in the lead was Ding Qiurou. Her first glance was at Zhou Zhengping, making sure he was safe, so she relaxed a bit. Then, turning to Cao Jingshan's group, she said, "We've prepared some hot soup and hot water. If you need it, feel free to get it yourself. If you have a bowl, use your own; if not, we have some bamboo tubes prepared, two copper coins each."
Offering bamboo tubes for free to these people wasn't something they couldn't afford, but Ding Qiurou had no intention of starting that precedent.
After all, realistically speaking, there would only be more survivors in the future.
Who could use their own interests to support the kindness of providing things for free!
So even though she was the first to find the residents in the territory who made bamboo tubes and asked them to supply bamboo tubes for new survivors, she still instructed them to sell at normal prices.
Once the resident heard it was at fair price, he willingly took out his inventory and even started making some on the spot.
And Cao Jingshan's group all had experienced sky-high prices at their last territory, so now hearing two copper coins, none of them thought it was expensive.
A lot of people, upon hearing this, immediately went to buy from the person selling bamboo tubes, and once they bought them, they went to get hot soup.
They were all soaked, desperately needing something hot to warm themselves up!
Two copper coins—who cares?
Seeing how no one cared about two copper coins, Ding Qiurou reminded them again from the side, "There are also steamed buns and plain porridge at the cafeteria window. One bun is two copper coins, a bowl of porridge is two copper coins."
Hearing Ding Qiurou's words, people instantly scattered inside the cafeteria, many crowding around the windows to buy buns and porridge.
Quite a few sat at tables or on the floor, munching buns, slurping porridge, their whole demeanor shining with a new light.
That light was called... hope.
Even though they didn't fully understand this territory yet, just the tip of the iceberg that had revealed itself so far told them: this was a good territory, worth settling in.
And as these new survivors ate, a portion of the residents also saw the business opportunities in this and sprang into action, bringing their "stalls" right into the cafeteria.
"I've got tops and shorts here, anyone need? A set is just 99 copper coins, cheaper than the territory's price by one copper coin!"
"House slippers, just thirty copper coins!"
"Here, handmade torches and umbrellas. The umbrellas aren't as fully weatherproof as the territory's hats and cloaks, but they work fine for rain here."
"..."
Hearing these hawkers, those who had already filled their bellies hurried forward to start shopping.
The prices were ridiculously low for them.
And since these were things they needed right now, they had to buy, buy, buy.
Because their rainproof gear's duration was up, some residents who'd been out on tasks were also resting here in the cafeteria, selling off their unused belongings.
Looking at the new survivors' levels, some items they couldn't use themselves might be really useful for others!
So in just a short time, the cafeteria had become a mini marketplace, with even haggling echoing throughout.
"Can you go lower? I'll take it for twenty-five copper coins."
"Too low. Twenty-eight copper coins!"
"Come on, twenty-five copper coins! You can't use this thing anyway."
"Fine! It's yours!"
"..."
Cao Jingshan looked at the lively scene in the cafeteria and felt a bit dazed.
If they had switched time to an hour ago, would they have ever imagined this picture?
No way.
This place compared to Canglei Village, where they'd been before, was like heaven and earth.
"I'm going to buy some clothes to change." He came back to himself, glanced at his daughter gobbling food, and spoke to his wife Xu Ximan.
"Go on! You're soaking wet." Xu Ximan nodded. She was clearly more relaxed now—obviously, the money they had left was enough for them to live steadily in this territory for a while.
Thinking about it, if they hadn't spent so much in Canglei Village... the memory hurt.
But it was only a thought. Whatever Canglei Village was, it protected them early on; if not for it, maybe they'd have died outside already—and then money really would be worthless!
"Okay."
"And check how they're selling residential houses here. If it's not too expensive, we should buy one!" After hesitating, Xu Ximan still spoke up.
They'd agreed before coming that at the next territory, they would never pay high prices to become residents, and would just be drifters, not buying expensive houses.
But after entering, seeing this territory, the once-rejected idea crept back in.
No one can resist the "smells-so-good" rule.
"Yeah. I'll ask when I return the cloak." Cao Jingshan agreed with Xu Ximan's suggestion.
Then, after buying three sets of clothes, Cao Jingshan went directly toward Zhou Zhengping and Li Xingteng.
He could tell these two were official territory staff, probably had ties to the Lord.
"Thank you for the cloak." Cao Jingshan took the chance while returning the cloak to speak to them.
Li Xingteng took it back and handed it over to a Soldier behind him.
Cao Jingshan quickly thanked him again.
After the pleasantries, Cao Jingshan hesitated and asked Zhou Zhengping and Li Xingteng, "I'd like to learn more about Hope Village."
Zhou Zhengping and Li Xingteng exchanged a look and nodded, "Ask away! Right now, we'd like to learn more about the outside, too!"
"Who is the Lord of the territory?"
Li Xingteng raised his eyebrows at this, "You had a Lord at your territory?"
"Yes, but our Lord charged pretty high fees. Because of his status, lots of people clustered around him. Too bad, even though we paid so much, we still couldn't protect the territory." At this point, Cao Jingshan felt regretful.
"Our territory doesn't really have a Lord. Everything we do comes from the Doomsday Game panel, and upgrades seem to happen automatically. At least so far, no one has stood up and claimed to be the Lord." Li Xingteng replied directly.
But Cao Jingshan's words still left a mark in his mind.
"No Lord? How is that possible?" Cao Jingshan couldn't believe it and blurted out.
Zhou Zhengping and Li Xingteng didn't answer.
Cao Jingshan knew there was no answer to this; he'd have to observe for himself.
"What about residential houses here? How much do they cost?"
"Six Gold Coins gets you a Level 1 House. For a two-story building, that's Level 2, twelve Gold Coins," Zhou Zhengping explained. "Besides buying, you can also rent—a Level 1 House is one hundred copper coins a day, Level 2 is two hundred copper coins a day."
Cao Jingshan was stunned again by the prices in Hope Village. "Canglei Village's houses are twenty Gold Coins, and only sold—not rented. Someone bought and tried to rent out, but the price was still high."
"So where do people who can't buy live?"
"Just find an open spot in the territory and set up." said Cao Jingshan. "So the whole territory was pretty chaotic."
"What about Buildings?"
"Our territory was a Level 0 Village before, just two buildings: Wood Workshop and farmland. Wood Workshop sold weapons, farmland was for planting. These only appeared yesterday. We were so happy, thought we could finally fight Demon Beasts with local weapons—then that night the territory got breached and lots of survivors died..." As Cao Jingshan recounted, the sadness was obvious. That nightmare would haunt him for life.
No one wants to relive that moment.
"It must be the territory upgrade. Our territory is now Level 1. The night we upgraded, we got hit by Demon Beasts—survived, and afterwards the territory became like this." Zhou Zhengping explained.
"So lucky." Cao Jingshan sighed, unable to help himself.
"Now, besides the Lord Mansion and the walls, there are six types of Buildings: cafeteria, Blacksmith Shop, tailor shop, residential houses, Heroic Spirit Hall, grocery store. Most functions you can guess. The Heroic Spirit Hall is for summoning NPCs—so far, we have two local NPCs, one as Blacksmith, one as tailor. The rainproof gear we're wearing was made by the tailor." Li Xingteng continued the introduction.
Sure enough, Cao Jingshan looked confused and stunned.
Li Xingteng patted Cao Jingshan's shoulder, "Choosing to settle in Hope Village—you won't regret it."
You're here now, so you're one of Hope Village's people. He wanted everyone to stay!
"...Mm." Cao Jingshan nodded blankly.
"You'll learn the rest once you've been here a while."
"Mm." This time, Cao Jingshan snapped out of it, his eyes glimmering with light.
Then he remembered Yu Ziming's group, who'd robbed them. They were heading to Hope Village too. He wondered if they'd arrived already?
He hurriedly said to Zhou Zhengping and Li Xingteng, "Do you deal with robbery here? Before you found us, we'd been threatened and robbed of some Gold Coins by a group—they came to Hope Village just before us."
As soon as he said that, Zhou Zhengping's gaze flashed with cold light.
Just as they were about to ask for details, Xu Chengyi, who had been guarding the gate, led a group in through the cafeteria doors.
When Cao Jingshan saw them, he pointed at Yu Ziming without hesitation.
"That's them!"