Qin Ziwen took out the two reward cards.
The first was a blank card, while the second was a thin gray metal card.
Their textures were completely different—the former felt warm and smooth like jade, while the latter had a metallic matte finish with a beast cage pattern drawn on it.
The former was the Blank Expansion Card, with a standard (Micro) designation.
Upon obtaining them, he learned the purposes of both cards.
The former could be used in any area of the Home, activating it would expand that region, granting a 10*10m expansion space. This expanded space was similar to the root cellar grain storage, belonging to folded space that wouldn't affect the building's external appearance.
The latter required selecting a 4*5m square area, and activation would create an animal cage capable of containing livestock within that region.
Qin Ziwen looked at the cards in front of him. His apartment originally had only 98㎡ of interior space, which was the area recognized by the Home.
After using the Blank Expansion Card (Micro), it directly increased from 98㎡ to 198㎡, transforming into a large flat unit.
If he could obtain more Blank Expansion Cards, wouldn't he be able to directly build a "house within a house," or even a city within a building?
After thinking for a moment, Qin Ziwen decided to place the Blank Expansion Card in the bathroom.
The newly built beast cage definitely needed to be placed in the expanded area. If they raised livestock in the beast cage in the future, the smell would be strong, making the bedroom unsuitable.
Their home had a layout of three bedrooms, one living room, one kitchen, and one bathroom.
He occupied the master bedroom, his younger brother had the secondary bedroom, and there was also a guest room—the very room where Wang Xiaoli had been hiding earlier.
With water and electricity cut off, the home's bathroom had become practically useless. Qin Ziwen opened the bathroom door and chose to use it at the window end of the bathroom.
A flash of light.
A large blank area directly expanded at the end of the bathroom, and the original bathroom window disappeared.
Almost simultaneously, when viewed from outside, the bathroom window on the 5th floor of Building 8 in the residential complex was directly "erased" from the map, leaving only the tiled exterior wall.
"So miraculous."
Qin Ziwen marveled. With the wall where the original bathroom window was as the boundary, a large expanse of grayish-white land had directly appeared.
The ground was hard rocky terrain, without soil or plants, as if cut from an immensely huge rock and embedded here.
The moon wasn't visible in the sky, but the light intensity, temperature, and humidity within the expanded area were identical to the outside.
The ceiling and boundaries of the expanded area were shrouded in a layer of gray mist, untouchable, as if there was an air wall.
The height was similar to his home, still 2.8 meters ceiling height.
Even so, after witnessing it with his own eyes, Qin Ziwen couldn't help but marvel.
He selected a 4*5 square area of ground near the left side and used the Level 1 Beast Cage.
The card transformed into light that enveloped the designated area.
When the light faded, a massive wire beast cage appeared in place. The four corners of the beast cage were anchored into the ground with thick wooden posts, and the interior was divided into several smaller sections by wire mesh.
It also contained feeding troughs and water troughs.
Summoning the Home's little glowing ball, text appeared on the white light screen.
【Home】Building 8, Unit 2, 5-2
【Area】198㎡
【Height】2.8m
【Buildings】Level 1 Root Cellar, Level 1 Beast Cage
Qin Ziwen called his younger brother over.
Qin Ziwu opened the bathroom door and stood dumbfounded when he saw what was behind it.
Qin Ziwu stared at the scene in shock, "Brother, what is this?"
Qin Ziwen said with a straight face, "I couldn't sleep last night, so I dug this."
Qin Ziwu rolled his eyes, "Alright then, I believe you, I believe everything. I just won't ask you anymore from now on."
However, Qin Ziwu had a guess in his heart—this was probably the mysterious power of the cards his older brother mentioned. He suspected it might have dropped from hunting the crocodile during the day.
Qin Ziwen smiled. Having grown up together with his younger brother, he understood his nature well. Besides, such a huge change couldn't be hidden anyway.
Qin Ziwen said, "Next time we catch field mice, we can raise them in the beast cage. We just need to collect some plant roots or small insects daily to feed them. If we can get a male and female pair, we might have a whole nest of field mice before long, and then we'll have meat to eat every day."
"I don't know about field mice, but hamsters have terrifying reproduction abilities. My former dorm roommate had two hamsters, one male and one female. They had a litter in less than a month locked in a cage, over ten babies."
"And in less than another month, the female had another litter. He later found out that hamsters go into heat again on the same day they give birth. These things can reproduce year-round."
Hearing this, Qin Ziwu grew even more excited. If hamsters had such terrifying reproduction abilities, field mice probably wouldn't be any worse.
For Qin Ziwen, actually raising animals for a stable meat source was secondary—the main purpose was for the daily settlement rating.
Based on his speculation, the act of raising livestock should also count as a bonus item in the daily settlement.
It wasn't every day that he could hunt crocodiles, nor was it every day that he would encounter people like Xie Jun.
It wouldn't be so easy to get ratings as high as today's in the future.
Remembering that they needed to smoke meat tomorrow and had to prepare tonight, Qin Ziwen went to the kitchen. He cut the crocodile meat into thin strips and marinated them by rubbing salt and pepper powder on the surface.
"Brother, let me help you marinate the meat."
The two brothers worked for an hour and finally processed all eighty jin of crocodile meat. Fortunately, yesterday's settlement reward included three 1-jin bags of salt, otherwise there wouldn't have been enough salt at home.
Early the next morning, just as dawn was breaking.
Qin Ziwen met up with Old Deng's family, carrying the marinated meat in bags.
Noticing that Old Deng's wife kept glancing at him while going downstairs, Qin Ziwen couldn't help but ask, "What's wrong, sister-in-law? Is there something dirty on my face?"
Xiao Meixue quickly shook her head, "It's nothing."
Deng Guang said, "She's probably still thinking about last night's events."
He glanced at his wife. Having been married for decades, he knew his wife's personality well and explained for Qin Ziwen, "To be honest, this matter shouldn't be blamed on Brother Qin at all. Cancerous elements like the Xie brothers should have been dealt with sooner. Fortunately, they were here, otherwise if the Xie brothers had targeted others in our unit, who knows what trouble would have occurred."
Xiao Meixue shot him a look, "I didn't say anything. I'm just curious... you... weren't you scared the first time you did something like that?"
Qin Ziwen laughed freely, "Scared? Of course I was scared. I was really scared at the time. But when someone bullies you to your face, you can't just keep cowering, right?"
Qin Ziwu tried hard to recall—had his older brother shown fear at that time?
He couldn't quite remember.
Deng Wen asked curiously, "What happened?"
Xiao Meixue said, "It's nothing. Adults are talking, children shouldn't interrupt."
Deng Wen snorted, raising her chin, "It's just that people died, what's the big deal? I'm seventeen already, do you really think I'm still a child?"
Xiao Meixue grew angry, but Deng Guang interrupted her, "Alright, it's fine if Xiao Wen knows. This generation of young people is exposed to more things than we were at their age. She's a grown girl now."
Deng Wen muttered quietly, "The commotion was so loud last night, I was already asleep but got woken up. I knew right then that something big had happened!"
She didn't show any resistance to Qin Ziwen killing people; instead, she seemed somewhat admiring. This was way cooler than those "Jiahao" guys at school.
When exiting through the south entrance, Qin Ziwen glanced at the location where they had dumped the bodies last night.
His brow furrowed—the two bodies at the dumping site had vanished without a trace. Two such large people had simply disappeared.
He walked over, stepping on the wild grass.
Squatting down to inspect, he discovered that the surrounding vegetation showed signs of being dragged and crushed, with faint blood trails along the path.