Mountain Looting: Targeted by a Leopard at the Start
Chapter 120 Harvest of Popularity Value, Treasure Compass Upgrade!

Chapter 120: Chapter 120 Harvest of Popularity Value, Treasure Compass Upgrade!

In the van.

Xu Hongshan was driving, while Xu Yang sat in the passenger seat.

"Encountered a tiger?"

Xu Hongshan asked.

"Yes, I did,"

Xu Yang replied.

"It didn’t bite you?" Xu Hongshan asked again.

"Quite obedient," Xu Yang answered again.

"Still, be careful."

"Okay."

The father and son’s conversation was brief and Xu Hongshan didn’t say much more.

However, Mrs. Xu was much more talkative. She called and rambled on for a while, which Xu Yang listened to in one ear and out the other.

Fortune favors the bold.

Xu Yang’s experience this time truly illustrated this saying.

His gains from this trip were greater than all previous ones, and he had also acquired a huge following, which would help him gain popularity value even faster in the future.

The van traveled all the way back to the farm.

The journey was long, and it took an hour and a half of driving on mountain roads to return.

Xu Yang’s chosen spot was quite remote; people didn’t even know where he had entered the deep mountains from.

The van pulled up in front of the courtyard.

Two dogs ran out wagging their tails in greeting.

As soon as Xu Yang got out of the van, they immediately jumped around at his feet.

But the next moment, as if frightened by something, they couldn’t help but retreat a couple of steps.

They smelled something on Xu Yang that instilled fear in them.

This fear was innate, a direct trigger from their bloodline.

It was the scent of the tiger left on Xu Yang’s clothes.

The dogs were a bit confused, but they quickly adapted and ran back to Xu Yang’s feet to act cute.

Li Shan came over to help with the stuff.

There were quite a few things in Xu Yang’s backpack; he picked up a bit of everything along the way, filling his backpack to the brim.

He kept the valuables with him personally.

The old ginseng was wrapped in tree bark and moss and placed in a bag.

The jade was in his own small bag.

There was also the slightly radioactive meteorite, which Xu Yang contacted the police station about and chose to turn over.

Buying and selling such items was illegal, and keeping it was needless, so it was better to hand it over to the aviation authority for research.

Xu Yang was willing to support Huaxia’s aviation industry, especially knowing that the country could bring back moon soil from the moon, he was even more willing to offer support.

"Brother Yang, I’ve kept dinner for you. We’ve got hot stew and I can steam rice too,"

Li Shan, knowing Xu Yang must be hungry, said promptly.

"Okay, I got it. I’ll grab a quick bite in a bit."

"Tonight we’ll go eat at the family-style restaurant in town. I’ll order a full table and we’ll have some good food,"

Xu Yang responded.

A trip to the mountains was arduous, and it was essential to treat oneself well.

After all, since money had been earned, it was definitely time to enjoy it.

Otherwise, what’s the point of making money?

After finishing up in the kitchen, Aunt Zhang came out and heard Xu Yang’s words, so she said:

"That’s fine, I’ll stay here in the evening. You guys go and eat."

"Have a good meal. After several days in the mountains, you must have had a rough time."

Xu Yang nodded, "Alright, that’s settled then."

He felt sticky and grimy all over, so he went to his room to take a bath and changed into clean clothes. After eating something simple in the kitchen, he began to feel somewhat restored.

When he had just returned, he looked somewhat like a refugee fleeing famine.

Three days in the mountains without a change of clothes, his body and hands covered in dirt, and his straw hat filthy.

After taking a shower and changing into casual clothes, he immediately turned back into a clean and handsome young man.

Indeed, clothes make the man.

Then, Xu Yang, Xu Hongshan, and Li Shan, the three of them, went off to the town for dinner.

The meal was satisfying, with fish, meat, chicken, and mushrooms to enjoy.

But only Xu Hongshan drank alcohol, consuming two bottles of chilled beer, which wasn’t quite enough to please him, and he complained that eating with kids was no fun.

He preferred to drink with his friends, enjoying himself until their faces were flushed and their conversations boisterous.

They thoroughly enjoyed the meal.

Xu Yang drove the van and they returned to the farm.

And so the day passed.

In the evening, Xu Yang lay comfortably in bed with a body exhausted to the core.

He started to calculate the popularity value gained over the past two days.

He hadn’t settled the popularity value for either yesterday or today yet.

The results were beyond his expectations.

Yesterday’s popularity value:

[Number of people who watched the live broadcast that day: 223,000. Average duration per person: 1.6 hours. Popularity value gained: 357,000.]

A total of 220,000 people had been through the live broadcast room. Xu Yang remembered that during the time the tiger appeared on screen, the numbers had spiked over 100,000 for about ten minutes.

The rest of the time the figures hovered around 70,000 to 80,000.

"Being on the trending list really makes a difference. Yesterday must have been the peak of trending, so there were a lot of people,"

Xu Yang thought to himself.

He then settled today’s popularity value:

[Number of people who watched the live broadcast that day: 136,000. Average duration per person: 1.8 hours. Popularity value gained: 245,000.]

[Total popularity value: 602,000.]

"Wow, a trip into the deep mountains netted me 620,000 popularity value, and that’s just from the last two days."

"The gains were unexpectedly huge!"

Xu Yang was somewhat excited.

The reason for such high popularity value wasn’t because he went deep into the mountains, but because of his interaction with the tiger.

If it had been just a regular trip into the mountains, the gain wouldn’t have been as significant.

So, the one to bring him good fortune was that tiger.

Xu Yang was very grateful to that tiger, and he would definitely go to see it when he had the time.

After all, Xu Yang only knew one tiger and definitely wanted to see it again.

At this thought, he began to miss the Little Leopard.

The tiger was quite aloof, showing friendliness only with a head rub at most.

The Little Leopard, on the other hand, was much more adorable and very lively.

Playing with it was quite a joy.

"600,000 popularity value, should I save up 1 million and go for a big one?"

Xu Yang was contemplating in his mind.

He understood the rewards of the Advanced Lottery, and most of the time they consisted of tools and objects worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Sometimes he could win motorcycles or tractors, roughly valued at about eighty or ninety thousand.

There was a chance to get a Special Level Reward, although the probability was quite low.

If he went for the Special-level Lottery with 1 million popularity value, the minimum would be a Special Level Reward, and there was a great chance to draw something good, like a Skill.

It was always more valuable than just tens of thousands of dollars.

"Save it, I’m not lacking anything for now."

"Let’s save up to 1 million, these next few days there’s trending searches, I need to catch this wave of traffic and earn some popularity value."

"Although I can’t open up gift donations while live streaming wild animals, donation income isn’t really important to me."

Feeling a bit tired, he decided to sleep.

Just then, the system voice sounded once again.

[Popularity value is increasing, Treasure Compass upgrading.....]

[Treasure Compass upgrade complete.]

[New function unlocked: Treasure Hunting Task exchange.]

[The host may choose to use five uses of the Treasure Compass to exchange for one Treasure Hunting Task, with a random task reward.]

[Note: The next upgrade of the Treasure Compass will be a manual upgrade, which will cost 1 million popularity value.]

Because he had gained a lot of popularity value, the Treasure Compass had upgraded once again.

However, whether the upgraded function was useful or useless was debatable.

"5 uses just for 1 exchange, that’s robbery!"

"But then again, 5 treasure hunts could just yield mushrooms or herbs worth a few hundred dollars, exchanging for one task isn’t a loss."

"It all depends on how I use my Treasure Compass uses."

Xu Yang thought it over and felt it wasn’t too bad.

At least it gave him another option.

Treasure Hunting Tasks were quite interesting.

"However, the next upgrade needs to be done manually and will cost 1 million popularity value."

"That’s a bit of a rip-off!"

"We’ll talk about it later!"

....

The next day, early in the morning.

The weather was a bit chilly.

Ever since it rained, there was a drop in temperature.

August is the watershed between summer and autumn.

Here, autumn is long, and autumn is just autumn; it’s clear and refreshing with a moderate temperature.

In many places, there is no spring or autumn. It’s hot as usual when suddenly after a few rains, it turns into winter, so cold that you need to wear cotton-padded trousers.

As soon as winter is over and it starts getting hotter, you can go out in a T-shirt right away.

At the junction of summer and winter, there would be people wearing cotton-padded jackets and others in shorts and T-shirts going out, and upon seeing each other, both would silently curse "idiot" in their hearts.

This place’s autumn lasts about three months.

Entering autumn in late August and winter in late November, with September and October belonging to the golden autumn with the best scenery.

Right now, the days are still a bit hot, marking the end of summer.

After getting up, Xu Yang sat in a chair, spacing out.

He was used to this.

He had just woken up and wasn’t fully alert, and since he faced no pressure to go to work, he just sat and relaxed slowly.

Until the sleepiness gradually faded away completely.

Then he’d hum comfortably and start his busy day.

Today, he planned to look for the leopard in the back mountain.

One reason was that he missed the Little Leopard and wanted to feed it some milk,

The other was to take advantage of the current wave of traffic to earn more popularity value.

He let the dogs out of their iron cage.

The farm’s rooster was standing on the courtyard wall, staring at Xu Yang.

Seeing this rooster always annoyed Xu Yang,

"Why don’t you ever go down the road and always run to the courtyard walls and rooftops?"

"Isn’t the farm big enough for you to roam around!"

The rooster couldn’t understand his words and just stared blankly.

Xu Yang couldn’t be bothered with it anymore.

Whatever.

The two dogs ran a couple of circles around Xu Yang and then went off to find a place to play.

Xu Yang took the time to patrol around the farm early.

The crops in the greenhouse were growing well.

There were some weeds, but they were not an issue, as long as there were no pests and diseases.

The potatoes had also sprouted, and the grass was thriving, reaching up to the ankles now, just a bit more growth and it could be harvested and sold.

After being busy for one or two months, it was finally paying off,

Much better than the crops planted by the Agricultural University students in the neighboring trial field.

Their crops were either falling over or failing to produce any fruit,

And they were busy researching what was wrong every day.

It was quite amusing.

"Li Shan, I’m heading to the back mountain today, just rest after you’re done with work, and remember to water the plants," Xu Yang instructed Li Shan.

"No problem, Brother Yang," Li Shan responded busily.

Hence, after having breakfast and wandering around a bit more, at around 9:30 in the morning, Xu Yang, carrying a drone, made his way toward the back mountain.

Only after walking the mountain path for half an hour upon entering the back mountain did he start live streaming again.