Chapter 82 - 78 - The Harmonious and Loving Express Crew

"Huh?" "Huh??" "Huh?!?!" "Wha's happenin'?" Wende took a sip of the milk tea in his hand, a look of utter confusion on his face. The string of system notifications had completely thrown him for a loop. "March, you go find Stelle first. I'm going back to take a nap." Rubbing his forehead wearily, Wende spoke to the concerned Little March beside him while sipping his tea. "Ah, okay. I'll just call her later. You go back and rest!" Seeing Wende looking like he was about to lean against a wall and sigh, Little March immediately became obedient and sensible. "Good." Wende nodded in satisfaction, then turned around with the two cups of milk tea and headed back towards the inn. "Could it be the after-effects of the motion sickness are only kicking in now?" March watched Wende's retreating figure, puzzled. She then took out her phone and sent a few messages to Stelle, who was still out wandering. [The Universe's #1 Cutest Girl, Little March: Stelle? Where'd you run off to?] [Stelle Dislikes Trash Cans: I'm over at the Starskiff Sea counting Starskiffs. An administrator told me they're short-staffed. It seems like the whole crew got vertigo from chasing something yesterday.] [The Universe's #1 Cutest Girl, Little March: Oh, well come back when you're done... By the way, are you getting paid?] [Stelle Dislikes Trash Cans: Yeah. I'm getting something called Xundi. They said it's the currency of the Xianzhou.] [The Universe's #1 Cutest Girl, Little March: Right, want some milk tea? Wende and I found a super delicious milk tea shop!] [Stelle Dislikes Trash Cans: Yes! Drink!] Back in his inn room, Wende lay on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling... in reality, he was staring at the system panel. Though he had no idea what this so-called "collaboration" was, it wasn't important right now. The priority was to properly build his 5-star template. This time, the 5-star template was, unsurprisingly... locked by the system in terms of Path and Attribute. A 5-star Destruction Path, Fire-attribute character template. Looking at the system's limitations, he saw that the requirements were indeed much more relaxed compared to a 4-star character, and the initial stats were also quite generous. "By now... the players should have already unlocked the material farming domains, right?" Wende muttered to himself as he looked at the 5-star template. The resource burden of raising a 5-star character was immense. If he wanted to continue gaining the players' favor, he had to make himself a "must-pull" character, one without any substitutes. This required Wende to start with the "mechanics." It was time for another brainstorming session... The previous trial card had only given him a roughly usable template, but the specific details still needed to be worked out by him. The system had given him the form; now, he needed to imbue it with a "soul." Time seemed to stand still as Wende operated the system. And inside Wende's mind, the storm began once more. "Ah... I'm back. I feel like I've been squeezed completely out of shape!" Sister Guoguo reappeared in her stream looking utterly disheveled. The Cha Cha Dao was literally just downstairs from her apartment, yet she had waited for over an hour. And that was after pre-ordering two days in advance and going right when they opened when the crowd was smaller... "I really don't know how long people who are just lining up now will have to wait... until the cows come home, probably," Sister Guoguo sighed with emotion. [Waaah, I can't drink Wende's milk, crying.] [Hello, I've already started buying it on second-hand sites.] [Huh? You can buy this stuff second-hand?] [Don't get scammed by those scalpers.] [Hello, I work at Cha Cha Dao. My hand just cramped up from making milk tea, and I'm lying in the hospital right now...] [Thank you for your hard work... but after you recover, can you work a little more overtime? I ordered a thousand cups for my company.] [Alright, alright, a real Living King of Hell, aren't you!] "Sigh, it's a great honor to be a food blogger for a day." Shaking her head, Sister Guoguo pulled three bottles of milk tea out of a bag printed with the Cha Cha Dao and Honkai: Star Rail logos. "Hehe, time to drink Wende's Immortal's Happy Tea!" Plunging the straw into the milk tea, Sister Guoguo took a long, intoxicated sip. "Ah... inside this, there's a taste of... a father's benevolent love!" [Don't be a psycho here!] [But for real, this milk tea is actually delicious. It's just that the cup is a bit hard to use. I recommend wrapping a towel around it. And the cup breaks after one use.] [????] [HUH???] [The 'cup' you're talking about, and the 'cup' we're talking about, are they the same 'cup'??] [As expected... the netizens will never let me down.] [Let me just ask real quick, whose did you use?] [Huh? I used all three, nested together.] [Hiss...] A chill suddenly swept through the stream chat, as if someone had turned on the air conditioning. [User Clockwork Apple has been banned.] [Farewell, Fleshlight-bro!] [Thank you for the forbidden knowledge you have brought us. You've opened the door to a new world for me...] [It's over. I can never look at a milk tea cup the same way again...] [So... if the milk tea cup is... then the milk tea is...] Sister Guoguo's action of enjoying her milk tea suddenly paused. [A moment of carelessness, and 'Jingzhou' is lost.] "Er... I'm suddenly feeling that, you know, it's probably better to drink less of this milk tea stuff. You get fat if you drink too much, right?" She silently pushed the Wende-themed milk tea to the side. She would wait until after the stream to slowly enjoy it. At the Starskiff Sea Central Hub, Stelle and Little March sat in a row, sipping their newly bought Immortal's Happy Tea. Seeing Stelle's troubled expression, Little March couldn't help but feel curious. "Didn't you say it was pretty good working here? Why do you look so down?" "Sigh..." Slurp, slurp... Stelle sighed helplessly, staring blankly as she drank her milk tea. "Hey! Don't just sit there being a riddle-man! Spill it!" Seeing Stelle's defeated posture, March's curiosity grew even stronger. "There are no trash cans here..." Stelle said, aggrieved, as if she had lost a beloved toy. "Er..." "I should have known..." Looking at Stelle's pitiful, wronged expression, March suddenly felt a headache coming on. "But there are delivery boxes..." Stelle added. "Ah, this... you didn't..." Little March put her milk tea aside. Seeing Stelle's guilty look, she seemed to have guessed what happened. "I accidentally opened someone else's delivery box... and got caught... so I'm working here to earn money to pay them back..." "You..." "Sigh... how much do you owe? I'll cover the rest." Little March sighed in resignation. After all, they were companions on the same train, and she was, more or less, Stelle's senior. She still had some of her allowance left. "March~~" "Ngh... don't hug so tight!!" Mm... what a harmonious and loving scene.