Chapter 105: The Avengers Alliance
After learning that Lu Weiyi had already hidden the supplies, Wu Yue had Li Yan send people the next morning to visit the Gu and Li families. Bai Miao and Shen Xing, along with Chen Zhong, handled the pricing and trade talks. Wu Yue, meanwhile, took Li Yan to retrieve the goods.
The place Lu Weiyi used to live wasn’t far from the current safe zone—located between the city center and the outskirts. Not too busy, not too isolated. The surrounding infrastructure had been good, but the earthquake caused significant damage to the neighborhood. Several buildings collapsed, including the one Lu Weiyi had lived in. During the rescue, the basement became exposed. That was why Wu Yue picked that location—if it had been hidden, they’d have no explanation for when the goods had been stored. Any other site might raise suspicion.
The basement was a few dozen square meters, once used to store clutter. Now, as soon as the door opened, it was packed full of barrels of bottled water. Not only was Li Yan surprised—Wu Yue himself was shocked. He’d assumed there were maybe a hundred barrels at most. Judging from the scene, there had to be several hundred.
“This… you guys stored all this?” Li Yan didn’t know what to say for a moment.
Wu Yue was stunned but didn’t show it. He nodded calmly. “I’m donating half to the military. What do you think?”
“Of course! I’ll have them help carry it.” The unexpected windfall made Li Yan visibly happy, and so were the dozen soldiers with him.
“Captain, with this much water, can I finally drink to my heart’s content? Two sips a day and I’m dying of thirst!”
“Right, Captain, two sips barely wet my throat. Can you ask the commander to give our squad one extra barrel?”
“Enough nonsense—get moving!” Li Yan snapped, trying to stay stern, but couldn’t hide the excitement in his eyes. “Sorry about them. These kids haven’t had a proper drink in a long time.”
“It’s fine. We’re all in the same boat. When we get back, I’ll treat you all—two barrels each, from my personal stash,” Wu Yue said, becoming generous now that he had plenty in hand.
“Then I won’t be polite,” Li Yan said. Deep down, he was still partial to his own men, but he also understood the current state of the military. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t allocate more. Now that someone was willingly offering supplies, he certainly wasn’t going to decline under the pretense of generosity.
A dozen people worked enthusiastically, and before long, all the water was loaded onto the truck—over five hundred barrels, along with several boxes of instant noodles and sausages.
Li Yan didn’t take any of the food. Wu Yue took the initiative and gave 300 barrels to the military, keeping the remaining 200 for himself. His generosity was appreciated, and Li Yan didn’t hold back either. After delivering the donated water back to the military base, he took the two barrels gifted by Wu Yue and had the soldiers help exchange the rest for supplies.
The list of items to be exchanged had been written by Ning Yuan, including the exchange rates. Wu Yue handed it straight to Chen Zhong and the others without even looking at it. As soon as they entered the Longmen community, they saw Bai Miao and Chen Zhong beaming, followed by Li Family’s manager, Li Ling, and two of his men.
“Brother Wu, Boss Li is willing to take all of our water in exchange for supplies. I figured it would be simpler to sell to one buyer, so I agreed. Is that okay?” Bai Miao, young and sharp, immediately spoke up when she saw Wu Yue. Her words made it seem like she made the decision independently, not under Wu Yue’s orders—so even if anything went wrong later, Wu Yue wouldn’t be blamed.
“As long as they’re offering supplies, anyone can buy it.” Wu Yue got down from the truck and told the others to wait a moment. He looked at Li Ling and asked, “Have you agreed on the price?”
“Yes, this is what we settled on. Have a look, brother,” Bai Miao handed Wu Yue a sheet of paper. Wu Yue glanced at it, and his heart nearly leapt out of his chest. The top half showed the original prices provided by Ning Yuan, and below that were the improved rates Bai Miao had negotiated.
Seeing Ning Yuan’s proposed rate of 500ml of water for 10kg of fruits and vegetables; 5kg of meat; 10kg of instant noodles; or 15kg of rice and flour already felt unbelievable. But Bai Miao had raised it even further—to 15kg of vegetables; 15kg of instant noodles; 20kg of rice and flour; or 40kg of wheat and corn.
“Since the priority was fresh food like fruits, vegetables, meat, and eggs—but Boss Li didn’t have enough—he agreed to make up the difference with rice, flour, wheat, and corn. Brother, what do you think?” Bai Miao added helpfully.
“Alright, we’ll go with this price.” Wu Yue suppressed his excitement and returned the list to Bai Miao. Then he turned to Li Ling, “Boss Li, you’re taking it all?”
“Yes, I want all the water you’re selling, Brother Wu.” Li Ling had originally thought Wu Yue wouldn’t sell to the Li family at all, especially after the situation with Li Ji and Zhuang Mingxu. Li Ji had explained everything when he returned, and they had first approached the Gu family.
Now that Wu Yue showed no signs of hostility, Li Ling understood: even a hero can be defeated by a lack of supplies—Wu Yue simply couldn’t hold out any longer.
“Fine. I’m selling 200 barrels at 20 liters per barrel,” Wu Yue said, pointing to the truck behind him.
“Two… hundred barrels?” Li Ling was stunned, and so were Bai Miao and Chen Zhong, who hadn’t known the full situation.
Li Ling had only expected a few dozen barrels at most. Even if the price was high, it wasn’t a problem—he just couldn’t let the Gu family get them. That’s why the price Bai Miao wrote down had been a result of him raising the stakes against the Gu family. But 200 barrels? That much water could be exchanged for a massive amount of supplies, and now he was hesitating.
“Yes. If you can’t handle it, I’ll ask someone else. These days, people in the base are desperate for water. No one would say no.” Wu Yue knew Lu Weiyi wanted to screw over the Li family—he wasn’t sure how, but he followed his lead and provoked them.
“…I’ll take it.” Li Ling hesitated briefly, then made up his mind. The Li family could afford the supplies—at worst, they could store them and resell at an even higher price later. “Brother Wu, we’ll take it all. Same price as discussed. If everything checks out, I’ll take you to get the supplies right away.”
The water came from Lu Weiyi’s personal space, so there was no issue. After an inspection, Li Ling beamed. Though the price was high, rare resources like this would only become more valuable. Besides, Wu Yue’s team only had four ordinary people—if anything happened, who could say who the supplies would end up with?
After confirming the count, Li Ling had two warehouses opened. No single category of goods could cover the full amount, so he split it into various types of supplies. Per Ning Yuan’s request, Bai Miao prioritized fresh vegetables, fruits, and meat, followed by staple foods.
Li Ling, head of a large household, was no pushover like the folks from Yongping County. When Bai Miao suggested bartering with wheat and corn, he outright refused. Not only did 500 grams of flour not require 1kg of raw grain to make, but corn and wheat kernels could also be eaten raw in desperate times—by weight, it just wasn’t worth it.
In less than a day, Wu Yue exchanged 200 barrels of water for over 100,000 yuan worth of supplies from the Li family. This caused some of the people he had driven out earlier to start having second thoughts. As soon as he returned from borrowing a military warehouse from Commander Li to store the goods, he found himself surrounded by a few people at the villa gate.
“Wu Yue, we collected those supplies together. What right do you have to sell them and stash the goods without even discussing it with us?”
“Yeah, exactly! That water belongs to all of us. The goods you got should be shared too!”
“You’d better give us our share now, or don’t blame us for being rude!”
“Collected together? Who did? You? You? Or you?” Wu Yue sneered. “Ungrateful bastards. I gave you your share before kicking you out—that was already more than fair. If you clueless fools keep making trouble, don’t blame me for breaking your legs.”
He leaned in close and spoke in a low voice, “You’ve already become someone else’s dogs—go bark somewhere useful. If you keep pushing it, I’ll put out a bounty on all of you. Want to bet your lives on it?”
Wu Yue had blood on his hands and carried a murderous edge. His cold tone sent chills down their spines, and the troublemakers backed off. They had only come because Li Ji and the others egged them on—after all, they’d just been kicked out with a few supplies, only to watch Wu Yue trade a massive amount of goods the next day. Of course they were bitter.
At this moment, no one dared to speak up after being intimidated by Wu Yue. In peaceful times, people with money and power could easily kill someone, let alone in this chaotic world, where it was not uncommon for a loaf of bread to be traded for a life. No one dared to gamble with their own life. The few people looked at each other, waiting for someone to speak first.
Seeing their cowardice, Wu Yue snorted and cursed, “Get lost.”
The group stood there for a while, then left in defeat, still wanting to say something harsh. But when they met Wu Yue’s cold gaze, none of them dared to speak further.
Wu Yue directly placed the non-perishable items like flour and rice into the military warehouse. With the military around, no one would dare touch those supplies. The other perishables, like vegetables and fruits, which couldn’t be stored, were sent to the villa and then directly stored in Lu Weiyi’s space.
After taking care of everything, Wu Yue felt much more at ease. Especially after hearing from Ning Yuan that Lu Weiyi had plenty of water in his possession, he realized this was no big deal. He immediately felt like he had gotten a good deal from the Li family. Just as his excitement hadn’t yet subsided, Li Ji was finally ready to lead a team to search for supplies.
This was the first time Li Ji led a team to search for supplies after joining the Li family, which showcased his abilities and his future position. Naturally, Li Ji had made thorough preparations. The reason he hadn’t gone out earlier was that he was observing Wu Yue and his team. At first, he genuinely believed that the people who had saved Zhuang Mingxu were back, which was why Wu Yue was able to kick everyone out so decisively. But after waiting for a few days with no action, he started to feel more at ease.
Additionally, because other small teams in the Li family had mocked them after the base’s supplies were lost, Li Ji thought this was a good opportunity to shut them up. He chose a farm on the outskirts of Qingyuan City as their destination.
I wonder if the farm is going to end up being the place that was already cleared out by the mc