Tang Yiyi never expected that her system would require an upgrade, and it would cost more than ten thousand points! Although she had been earning more points since opening the store, she had already spent ten thousand points on one hundred basic recipes. Now, she only had 15,893 points left, and after deducting ten thousand for the upgrade, she’d only have 5,893 points remaining!
But if she didn’t upgrade the system, she wouldn’t be able to find medicinal food recipes, leaving Tang Yiyi with no choice! Despite her heartache, she could only grit her teeth and choose to upgrade the system. As soon as she made the choice, the points displayed in the upper right corner immediately refreshed, becoming a pitiful 5,893. Fortunately, the system didn’t totally rip her off. After the upgrade, the messy recipes on the interface disappeared instantly, turning into categories like Chinese cuisine, French cuisine, Japanese cuisine, etc. However, aside from the icon representing Chinese cuisine being lit up, the other icons were all gray and couldn’t be clicked.
Tang Yiyi didn’t mind and directly clicked on the Chinese cuisine. After opening it, a new interface popped up with more detailed classifications. She quickly found the "nutritional medicinal food" category and clicked it open, finally finding the "pregnancy nutritional medicinal food" section on the pop-up page.
The pregnancy nutritional medicinal food system included many options, which Tang Yiyi had never encountered before. Now that she was faced with them for the first time, she felt dazzled, unsure of what to choose.
After thinking it over, she realized she didn’t know anything, so she decided to ask the system without hesitation, "System, given my current situation, which medicinal food should I choose?"
The system’s reply was quite reliable this time, it said, "The host is currently 1 month and 15 days pregnant, in good health, and it’s recommended to start with Type I nourishing soup. After the adaptation period, you can use Type II nourishing soup."
Tang Yiyi thought it made sense and directly checked the Type I nourishing soup. As soon as she looked, she noticed that although there were more than a dozen kinds of nourishing soup, they all had similar functions. These soups are basic medicinal foods, and exchanging for one only requires 200 points. She randomly selected one to redeem and found that the recipe was not difficult, just boiled soup, but it required some medicinal ingredients likely to be expensive.
Having finished her review, Tang Yiyi became curious about the Type II nourishing soup. After clicking on one, she found that these belonged to the first-level medicinal foods, with each needing 2,000 points to redeem!
She glanced at the points in the upper right corner and ultimately couldn’t bring herself to exchange for it, deciding to put the matter aside for now. Nevertheless, she remembered the system’s advice. Since it recommended trying Type I before Type II, Type II must be more effective. Whether for herself or for the child in her belly, she had to give it a shot!
After temporarily putting this matter aside, Tang Yiyi no longer looked at the beautifully packaged nutritional medicinal foods online and instead opened an online pharmacy to search for the required medicinal ingredients. After thinking about it, she went ahead and spent 1,000 points to exchange for 5 kinds of Type I nourishing soup, noted the required ingredients, and bought them all together.
As she expected, the prices of these medicinal ingredients were quite high, and they were priced according to their grade. Tang Yiyi had recently earned some credit points in business, but since her selling price was low, her actual earnings were not much. She could afford lower-grade ingredients but felt stretched for higher-grade ones.
The grade of the ingredients was divided by efficacy—lower grades have worse effects. After hesitating, Tang Yiyi gritted her teeth and bought the higher-grade ingredients. Consequently, her account took a massive hit, leaving her trying to live frugally.
After placing the order, Tang Yiyi suddenly remembered the mutated black ant meat stored in the fridge. She had read in the system’s information that once the toxins were removed, the black ant meat had the effects of strengthening the body and enhancing male vitality—it was very suitable for men.
The meat had accumulated for a while. Even though it was stored in a preservation box and refrigerated, if it wasn’t dealt with soon, the texture would deteriorate.
Tang Yiyi didn’t want to waste it but knew that neutralizing the ant meat’s toxicity required using the juice of a plant called sour leaf grass, soaked in a specific ratio. But since sour leaf grass was a worthless weed, asking someone to find it could easily arouse suspicion.
Not wanting to take this risk, she had been too afraid to ask for help. However, leaving the ant meat piled up in the fridge was not a viable solution and it had to be dealt with quickly!
She opened the electronic map and searched for the general distribution of sour leaf grass, the results were roughly what she expected. Sour leaf grass, like this, was a mutated plant, but its vitality and reproduction ability were incredibly strong, although its attack power was weak. It emitted a strong, irritating sour smell and was covered with barbs, making it unappealing to even mutant beasts or birds, only attracting a few types of mutated insects that consumed its juice.
Sour leaf grass is found in many places outside Safe City, so Tang Yiyi specially marked the closest spot and decided to go there herself. After all, the grass’s irritating odor repelled mutant beasts, birds, and many mutant insect beasts, and the few types of insects feeding on it were small and posed no threat.
Assuming her luck wasn’t terrible, there would be no danger in this trip. Since Sun Jian went out to deliver goods and there were no orders at the moment, she decided to take the opportunity to leave. Tang Yiyi checked the time, hesitated no longer, and instructed Milk Tea to stay home before rushing out the door.
She quickly arrived at Safe City’s east gate, rented battle armor and a two-wheeled war vehicle from a shop nearby, and headed straight out of the city.
The place she intended to go was only three kilometers away from the east gate, so she expected to reach there in minutes without incident. Because it was close to Safe City, superpower users routinely patrolled the area, so unless it was a special period, no dangerous mutant creatures would come near. Tang Yiyi was confident about this and decided to venture out.
Nothing unexpected happened on her way, and she soon reached the destination. Even before approaching, she already smelled the distinctive pungent sourness of sour leaf grass, which irritated her nose. But just as she frowned, she suddenly noticed the irritating sour smell had weakened significantly, and it didn’t seem as irritating anymore.
For a moment, she couldn’t figure out why, but something in her heightened her vigilance. Just then, the system’s voice sounded: "Host, don’t doubt it, the multifunctional protective mask you’re wearing automatically filters out harmful substances for you."
Hearing this, Tang Yiyi instantly recalled that since using this mask, she only smelled the foul odor of mutated black ants when she first encountered them, but later, the smell became quite faint. She had only ever been at home, thinking there would be no danger, so she didn’t doubt it and thought that she had just gotten used to the smell.
She hadn’t expected this ordinary-looking mask to have such a function, which made Tang Yiyi elated and more confident in the future! With such an amazing system in hand, she couldn’t believe she wouldn’t be able to sort out those wretches!
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PS: Just a formal statement: the bugs and plants mentioned in the novel are purely fictional, so don’t take them seriously! For fear of giving the wrong idea to some friends about medicinal food, it’s been deliberately vague and not detailed, just so everyone knows. Lastly, while researching today, this silly author learned that the origins of foie gras are so horrifying, it’s now impossible to look at it the same way again!