Chapter 22: Surprise
"Since there are no other guests right now, I'll take you inside for a look. Feel free to ask me any questions."
Chu Jiangyue considered these individuals highly promising potential clients. Once they returned to the base, they might even help her attract new customers, so she maintained a rather enthusiastic attitude.
"Thank you for your trouble."
"No trouble at all. My surname is Chu—you can call me Boss Chu."
Chu Jiangyue led them straight into Building No. 1. Seeing the clean and tidy floors, the group grew even more interested in the place.
"What's this?"
As soon as the three entered, they noticed the virtual screen above the front desk counter.
"This side is for check-in, this one is for shopping, and here's where guests exchange currency."
Chu Jiangyue patiently explained.
"Currency exchange? Is the money used in the hotel something you established yourself?"
Currently, the base's universal currency had shifted from paper bills to credits.
The way to earn credits was either by accepting tasks at the administrative office, completing them to receive corresponding credits, or by selling supplies to the office in exchange for credits.
"The universal currencies in the hotel are gold coins, silver coins, and copper coins, with an exchange rate of 1:100:10000. You can exchange zombie cores or any other items for them.
However, aside from zombie cores having a fixed exchange rate, the value of other items is indeterminate."
For gold, silver, and jewelry, the quality, style, and age vary from person to person.
The system conducts a multi-dimensional evaluation, and the amount offered will differ each time.
"Cores? We have those!"
Among the three, the apparent leader's eyes lit up upon hearing Chu Jiangyue's words.
Though their team only had three members, all had awakened abilities, and their strength ranked among the notable ability squads in the base.
"Would you like to exchange? Just place them here and follow the instructions."
Chu Jiangyue pointed to the converter on the counter.
Truth be told, if Chu Jiangyue hadn't mentioned it, they wouldn't have recognized this oddly shaped "tray" as a converter.
The three people glanced at each other, and the leader took several zombie crystals from his backpack and placed them on the tray.
[Detected Level 1 zombie crystals*3, exchangeable for 300 copper coins. Confirm exchange? Press 'Yes' to confirm, 'No' to cancel.]
The man tapped "Yes," and in the next second, the zombie crystals on the tray disappeared, replaced by a silver card the size of a bank card.
"This is the complimentary identity card provided for your first exchange at the hotel. Open the panel to check your balance—you can use it for payments within the hotel going forward.
Of course, you'll need to ensure it has sufficient funds."
Before he could voice any questions, Chu Jiangyue stepped in to explain.
The other two listened, their eyes lighting up—this sounded far more convenient than manual registration at the base.
Too bad this card was probably only usable at Jianglin Hotel.
"This friends list…"
Ling Feng followed Chu Jiangyue's instructions and successfully opened the panel attached to the identity card. Seeing the friends list, he felt a faint surge of excitement.
"Ah, this means you can add friends with others who also have ID cards. You can think of it as the social media apps from before the apocalypse."
Leaving other features aside, this friend-adding function is particularly popular among the hotel guests.
"Are you saying that as long as we're friends, we can message each other anytime, anywhere?"
Ling Feng found it hard to believe, since with Earth's magnetic field in chaos, all electronic devices had become essentially useless scrap metal.
Currently, they had virtually no means to contact their former relatives and friends.
But if this friend-list feature on the ID card truly worked as Chu Jiangyue described, it would be incredibly amazing.
If the base leaders learned about this, they might even organize people to come in groups to register!
"Of course, so far there hasn't been a single case where messages couldn't be sent.
If you don't believe me, you can test it out yourselves."
Chu Jiangyue was quite confident about this feature.
"Boss, let's get an ID card and test it out."
If what Chu Jiangyue said was true, this would be tremendously important.
"Boss Chu, if we successfully verify this matter, it might be reported to the base. I wonder what you think about it."
If everyone at the base could be equipped with an ID card, it would essentially restore communication within the base's range.
The difference between having communication and not having it is truly significant.
"For a business that keeps its doors open, naturally, the more customers the better."
Chu Jiangyue wasn't the least bit afraid of the hotel being discovered; on the contrary, she hoped they could help promote it more.
After all, the hotel rooms still weren't fully occupied yet.
"Boss Chu, your generosity knows no bounds!" Ling Feng was genuinely impressed by Chu Jiangyue.
To possess such a tremendous treasure yet share it so generously with everyone—if it were him, Ling Feng wasn't sure he could match Chu Jiangyue's magnanimity.
Chu Jiangyue, however, was utterly baffled. What generosity? Had he misunderstood something?
But Ling Feng didn't notice Chu Jiangyue's expression, because right after speaking, he urged the other two to quickly take out their crystal cores to exchange and apply for ID cards.
"Simplified friend adding - just place your ID cards together and follow the prompts."
The present group consisted entirely of twenty-somethings who were quite adept with smartphones, so without needing Chu Jiangyue's instructions, they intuitively added each other as friends.
"Boss Chu, can we add you as a friend?"
This was the first time someone had actively asked Chu Jiangyue this question.
They were customers after all, so Chu Jiangyue naturally wouldn't refuse.
"Sure."
Chu Jiangyue didn't need an ID card - with a simple wave of her hand, her personal interface appeared before her.
Her interface displayed both a guest list and a friends section.
Currently, the friends section only contained Shen Zhigui and four others.
Now it included Ling Feng's group of three.
Chu Jiangyue located Ling Feng's trio in the guest list and sent friend requests to all of them.
They quickly accepted the requests.
To verify the system's functionality, Ling Feng sent punctuation marks to each of his teammates.
The moment he clicked send, the messages instantly appeared on the other two members' interfaces.
Truly, the network speed was impressively fast.
"The messages sent successfully!"
Ling Feng's gaze towards Chu Jiangyue changed at this moment - this friend list feature on the identity card had truly solved a major problem for them!
It could be said that the moment global communications were interrupted, all relevant personnel of the country were working overtime trying to restore communications as quickly as possible. Even just being able to make phone calls would have been good enough.
Unfortunately, even after so long into the apocalypse with safety bases already established, communications still hadn't been restored - not even small-scale communications.
Yet unexpectedly, the person they happened to encounter gave them such an enormous surprise.
"Boss Chu, regarding the messaging feature of the identity cards, I need to report this immediately. Someone will likely come to verify this later, so I'll need to trouble you to cooperate as much as possible."
This matter was too important - Ling Feng didn't dare delay even a single moment.