Matrix Survival: One random treasure chest per day

Chapter 530 The Three Tiger Brothers

"Accepting students..."

The doctor hesitated for a few seconds: "It's not impossible, but I need to observe him for a while to see if he's qualified."

“I have confidence in him,” Li Zheng said with a smile. “After all, I am able to stand here intact thanks to him. You could say that without him, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Looking back now, the scene of my first meeting with Xiao Siyuan is a bit funny.

Even though he's someone who's handled guns before, he still needs to be reminded by others before he can react during a fight.

However, to be fair, it was everyone's first day in the Matrix, and they weren't yet fully adapted to the environment.

If they had lived in a country like the UAE where gun ownership is legal, perhaps such a comical scene wouldn't have occurred...

By the way, I wonder what's going on with the Bald Eagle Legion that Lao Xiao took control of. It seems like we haven't heard anything about them in the last few days.

You can follow me when I return to the Matrix.

"Alright, now that you've looked at them and recommended your candidates, don't you need some medicine for treating external injuries? I'll take you to get it." The doctor called out and led Li Zheng and the other person back to the elevator and onto the ground.

The doctor handed Li Zheng an ointment and a spray, then quickly took out an inscription card: "It'll cost seven thousand white crystal coins in total. I'll give you a discount for acquaintances; you only need to pay five thousand."

"Five thousand!?" Li Zheng looked down at the expensive medicine in his hand and decisively took out his inscription card to pay.

Just kidding, both of these are great stuff!

Healing ointment
Rank: None
Type: Medical Props

Description: Applying this product to external wounds can accelerate cell division, promote faster wound healing, and has an analgesic effect.

Old Pu: Just the fact that it's "rankless" should tell you how precious this thing is.

Disinfectant spray

Rank: None
Type: Medical Props

Description: An excellent disinfectant for wounds; its effects are enhanced when used in conjunction with a healing ointment.

Old Pu: Another "rankless" item, you know what I mean.

Understand!
Of course I understand!
If they didn't understand, they wouldn't have paid so readily.

After the transfer was completed, Li Zheng asked, "Do you have any medicine for treating internal injuries? I'd like to prepare some to carry with me, just in case."

"Of course!" Seeing that there was still business to be done, the doctor became even more attentive, rummaging through his cabinet and pulling out a large pile of medicines, and began to introduce them one by one: "This is for treating internal organs, this is for treating bones, this is for treating the brain, this is... oh, this is for treating infertility, you don't need it."

After casually eliminating the infertility treatment, the doctor picked up a small blue pill: "This one is amazing. It's used in conjunction with the infertility treatment and will keep you energized for three days, making you stand tall!"

"Great stuff!" Li Zheng's eyes lit up, then he shook his head regretfully, "Unfortunately, I don't need it."

The doctor gave Li Zheng a long look: "It's good to be prepared. Keep two on hand; you never know when you might need them."

"What are you talking about!" Li Zheng declared righteously, "How could I possibly need something like this? Wrap it up for me! And this, this, and this, one of each!"

He quickly pointed out several other medical tools.

"Alright!" The doctor beamed. "150,000 in total, card or cash?"

150,000!
Upon hearing the price, Li Zheng was stunned: "So expensive? Is the outer shell of this medicine made of gold, or is the core of the medicine made of gold?"

"Stop talking nonsense, just tell me if you're going to buy it or not." The doctor's expression was unfriendly.

"Damn, if this medicine is worth the price, of course I'll take it." Li Zheng looked at the doctor with disbelief on his face.

The two medicines I just took together only cost five thousand, but now that I've chosen four kinds, the price is actually 150,000?

Did something go wrong?
"Oh, you think it's too expensive?" The doctor pointed to several medicines and said one by one, "This one is 10,000. This one is 20,000. This one is 30,000. And these two 'Unbreakable Pills' are 50,000 each."

The prices of several medicines were all in the five figures. Li Zheng asked in surprise, "That's not right. I think the quality of these medicines is similar to that of the healing ointment, so why are they several times more expensive?"

"Yes, they look similar, but their uses are different," the doctor said earnestly. "External injuries, those with strong self-healing abilities may not even need medical aids and can heal on their own. But can internal injuries be the same? Whether it's organs, bones, or the brain, which one isn't important?"

This means the same thing as cold medicine and special medicines for certain rare diseases.

The former can be cured on its own without medication.

The latter will just have to wait to die if they don't take the medicine.

One reason.

"Then... I'll return one!" Li Zheng gritted his teeth, cut the price of the blue pill in half, paid 100,000 white crystal coins, and left with Kota.

Kota was completely stunned.

One hundred thousand white crystal coins!

All the money I've earned in my entire life, up to this point, probably amounts to this much, yet my boss spent it without even blinking an eye.

But there was one thing he didn't understand: why would the boss buy those pills that sounded useless?
He's so young, he probably doesn't need to, right?
After hesitating for a moment, he voiced his question.

Li Zheng smiled and explained, "Don't think I don't need it now. Everyone gets old eventually, and maybe when I feel like it again, I can use it in an emergency."

"Is that so?" Kota scratched his head. He wasn't Tiger Three and wasn't interested in this kind of thing, so he didn't quite understand.

"Of course not!" Li Zheng's expression immediately changed, and he rolled his eyes. "I'm spending this money for you!"

"For...for me?!" Kota's face showed horror. "Boss, I'm male!"

“Damn it…” Li Zheng cursed, his face darkening. “What are you thinking? That money was for your mother. He couldn’t find his family before, so he could experiment on your mother without any scruples. But now that you’re here and under my command, he’ll definitely feel embarrassed to treat your mother the same way he used to.”

Isn't this a loss for him?
I bought medicine from him at a high price to send him a signal that I could afford to spend money on him, and to encourage him to treat your mother better.

"So that's how it is!" Kota exclaimed in sudden realization, then burst into tears of gratitude. "Boss, you've been so good to us. We treated you like that before... I... I'll work for you my whole life from now on! I'd even die for you!"

Seeing Kota looking like he was ready to die for him at any moment, Li Zheng patted him on the shoulder: "It's not that serious. As long as you work well under me, it won't be a problem to pay off the medical bills you owe the doctor in the future."

Wipe your tears. What kind of man acts like this, crying like that?

"Hmm~" Kota wiped his face and said, "It's a pity I don't have a sister, otherwise I would have sent her to your room tonight, so that the little pill you bought could be put to good use!"

Li Zheng: "..."

Looking at Kota's furry body, he fell silent.

Although the tiger girl might look similar to the cat girl, but...

Why can't I accept it? There's just too much body hair. Even someone with a strong aversion to hair loss wouldn't be able to bring themselves to touch it.
Shaking his head, Li Zheng said no more and chatted with Kota all the way back to the botanical garden.

As soon as he entered, Hu Er greeted him: "Boss, Big Brother, you're finally back!"

Seeing his anxious look, Kota frowned: "What's wrong? Did that idiot get into trouble again?"

"Third brother, ever since you left, he's been crying and saying he's too badly injured and might die. Now he's begging to see Xiaohua one last time before he dies," Hu Er said angrily, accidentally aggravating his wounds and wincing in pain.

After hearing Tiger's description, Kota was furious. He casually pulled out a hollow steel pipe and walked into the botanical garden.

"Big brother, don't hit him! If you keep hitting him, Third Brother might not be able to take it..." Tiger Two immediately chased after him.

"..." Li Zheng followed behind, having already prepared the tools for treating the wound.

Tiger Three was lying in the greenhouse where Li Zheng had previously experimented with culture medium. When he saw Kota return, he immediately started whimpering.

"Ouch~ It hurts so much! I need to see Xiaohua..."

"I told you you have to see Xiaohua!"

Kota opened the door, grabbed a steel pipe, and started smashing things.

Tiger Three was already the most seriously injured among them. Now, lying there with nowhere to hide, he took several solid blows, and his groans instantly turned into a miserable scream like a pig being slaughtered.

Li Zheng was completely bewildered because Hu Er didn't have any translation tools, so he didn't know what the two of them were talking about.

Hearing Kota's angry words to Tiger Three, he finally understood...

This simp... no, this can't even be called a simp, he's practically a wolf in sheep's clothing!
So badly injured that he can't even move, yet he still wants to see his lover?

Why use this kind of persistence on matters of the heart, especially on matters of love and romance?
It’s time to fight!

Tiger Three lay there howling in pain, while Kota swung a stick and smashed things, and Tiger Two tried to calm him down.

The three brothers made a ruckus for quite a while before they calmed down.

Kota calmed down, took the ointment and spray from Li Zheng, and began to treat the wounds on the three of them.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Li Zheng took out two more translation tools and gave them to Hu Er and Hu San, so that they could finally communicate smoothly.

Kota applied ointment to her two younger brothers, then sighed heavily, "I just went out with the boss and saw Mom."

Before Tiger Three could react, Tiger Two was stunned: "Mom? Wasn't Mom dead after going out on a mission?"

“She’s not dead,” Kota said. “The three of us didn’t see either of their bodies the whole time, did we?”

Those who die outside the city are generally ignored by strangers, except for their able relatives.

Unless they can find something of value in them, they won't actively go and search for them.

"Then...where is she?" Tiger Two was suddenly struck by the fact that someone who should have been dead was still alive, and for a moment he didn't know how to react. He asked dryly, "Why didn't she come back with you?"

“She… is badly injured and can’t come back for the time being.” Kota hesitated for a moment, but still told his two younger brothers about what had happened when he saw his mother at the doctor’s, her current condition, and the exorbitant fee that needed to be paid.

"How much did you just say the medical expenses would be?!" Tiger Two jumped up from the ground in shock, his head almost hitting the roof of the greenhouse, and exclaimed, "Ten billion white crystal coins?!"

You'd have to live in a casino your whole life and still not lose it all, right?
"To be precise, it's 10,000 red crystals. If we go through the black market, the price might be a little cheaper," Kota said with a stern face.

Even though there are some discounts for exchanging red crystals on the black market, the actual savings are not much, and compared to a billion, it's just a drop in the ocean.

In other words, if they can earn enough to exchange for 10,000 red crystals on the black market, they won't care about the small discount.

"How can I make money like this?"

Tiger Two racked his brains for a long time, but none of the money-making opportunities that came to mind could earn him so much money.

unless……

"How about we take on some terminal missions? I heard that some high-difficulty missions reward red crystals."

"No way!" Kota refused on the spot: "A mission that can be rewarded with red crystals is not something we can easily accept. Have you forgotten that before your parents left, they accepted a mission and never came back?"

"What should we do then?" Hu Er asked with a worried look. "We can't just leave Mom like this, can we?"

“We definitely have to take care of it.” Kota finished applying the medicine to his two younger brothers, returned most of the medicine to Li Zheng, and then said, “But it’s not something we can handle right now.”

Tiger Two understood this principle, and after thinking for a long time, he finally made up his mind: "From today onwards, apart from food and drink, we must minimize all our spending. I will never go to the casino again, and Third Brother is not allowed to see Xiao Hua anymore. We will keep every white crystal coin with you!"

Making this decision was not easy.

It's important to understand that while gambling and pornography are not as addictive as drugs, very few people of any race can actually muster the willpower to quit them.

Most gamblers lose everything in the end and have no choice but to sell themselves to casinos or some other force as henchmen, who are then used as substitutes whenever there is a designated task.

Generally speaking, most of those who take someone else's place on a mission never return.

The reason why Tiger Two and Tiger Three were able to live well in the outer city was because they clearly understood the outcome of the mission, and Kota always tried his best to keep an eye on them, so they didn't cause any major trouble.

"That's all we can do for now..." Kota sighed.

Seeing that their conversation had come to an end, Li Zheng asked, "You've been saying that your parents got into trouble because they took on a terminal mission, and Yakumo's sister Hisaya also got into that state because of a terminal mission. There must be some connection between them."

Could you tell me what type of assignment your parents took on?

After arriving in the outer city, although life was boring and safe, Li Zheng discovered that the terminal seemed different from what he had learned in the Matrix.

In the matrix, aside from eliminating some players at the beginning, the terminal has been gradually lowering the difficulty to ensure a smooth development for the players.

Why do tasks issued by the terminal always go wrong once we get to the outer city?

it……

What are you going to do?
“Our parents never told us the details of the mission. They just seemed very relaxed before we set off, saying they hadn’t received a patrol mission in a long time.” Kota recalled carefully, but before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted by Tiger Three’s loud shout.

"Isn't 10,000 red crystals worth 100 million white crystals?!"

Kota and Tiger Two: "..."

Kota looked at Li Zheng.

Li Zheng was stunned for a moment: "...I'm actually worse at math than an idiot?"

(As usual, the word count will definitely be a bit higher than before the revision.)
(End of this chapter)