Chapter 71: Chaos at W City Base
Despite her young age, the little girl was very familiar with W City Base. When she heard that they were looking for a place to stay, she immediately led them to an inn. The inn had been a residential building before the apocalypse, later privately contracted and converted. The conditions weren’t particularly good, but they were acceptable, and one could stay there as long as supplies were paid.
There were fewer than a hundred of them, yet they took more than twenty rooms. When the innkeeper saw the ability-user badges worn by Zhan Yun and the others, he proactively gave them a discount, but even so, staying for a week still required more than eighty jin of grain. Once again, they used fruits and vegetables to offset the lodging fee, and the group finally settled down in W City.
According to the agreement, the little girl should have received half a pack of biscuits, but Su Ruizhe kindly gave her a whole pack. She carefully tucked the biscuits into her clothes, thanked him sweetly, and then ran off like a little mouse that had just stolen a sack of rice.
Next, they needed to find the people in power at W City Base to discuss learning the soilless cultivation technology. However, being unfamiliar with the place, it wasn’t easy to find anyone. Guan Hong took a few people with him and went out to look for the local garrison.
With nothing else to do, Cheng Qi took a pack of cigarettes from Su Ruizhe and went downstairs to sound out the innkeeper. Since the innkeeper had been able to privately contract an entire building in W City Base, he was bound to have some connections. Getting information from him would definitely be faster.
Sure enough, when the innkeeper saw the cigarettes in Cheng Qi’s hand, his eyes lit up. Like beans pouring out of a bamboo tube, he talked endlessly, introducing Cheng Qi to the situation at W City Base.
W City Base was jointly ruled by several major factions. The most powerful was the Wang family. The Wangs were well-known wealthy merchants in W City, running multiple department stores and controlling supplies in two large warehouses. In the apocalypse, they could be considered extremely rich. On top of that, the Wang family’s only son had awakened a lightning-type ability and formed the Thunder Ability Team, which allowed them to pretty much do as they pleased within the base.
Second in power was the Hong family. Before the apocalypse, they had been involved in organized crime and controlled many underground forces. After the apocalypse, they instead came out into the open. The Hong family also had quite a few ability users among them.
Third was the Lu family. The older generation of the Lu family had served in the military before later going into business. They conducted themselves uprightly, and there were many veterans on the Lu family’s side.
As for the local garrison, because they had suffered heavy losses in the early days of the apocalypse, they had become the smallest group in terms of numbers. Whenever dangerous situations arose, the Wang and Hong families would often push the garrison troops to the front lines. Fortunately, the Lu family was principled and always helped them; otherwise, it was hard to say whether W City Base would even still have a garrison.
With four major forces jointly managing W City Base, it was no wonder the base’s systems were rather chaotic. However, although the Wang and Hong families were rough around the edges, they weren’t stupid. They understood that living off stored resources alone would eventually run dry, so they were very supportive of scientific research. W City was an agricultural city, and before the apocalypse it already had an agricultural laboratory dedicated to researching soilless cultivation technology—and it had been successful. After the outbreak, the researchers had either died or turned into zombies, but the experimental data remained. The four factions worked together to rebuild the laboratory, recruited talent in biology and scientific research, and restored the soilless cultivation technology. In truth, it wasn’t newly developed at all—W City Base had simply been lucky enough to reap a huge advantage.
Seeing that the soldiers who had come with them were all in uniform, the innkeeper knew they must have come specifically to learn the soilless cultivation technology. Recently, quite a few people from other bases had come for the same purpose—he had even heard of teams coming all the way from Shu Province and the northern regions.
“But if you’re thinking of learning it for free, that definitely won’t work,” the innkeeper said, legs crossed, smoking and shaking his head. “With the Wang and Hong families sticking their noses in, they’ll probably skin you alive.”
After hearing the innkeeper’s account, Cheng Qi finally understood. Although W City Base was said to be ruled by four major factions, in reality it was a three-way standoff. If not for the Lu family’s support, the local garrison might have been swallowed up long ago by the ambitious Wang and Hong families. After restoring the soilless cultivation technology, they had immediately sent invitations to survivor bases all over the country—not out of generosity, but to seize the opportunity to make a big profit.
Cheng Qi chatted with the innkeeper for a while longer, and then saw Guan Hong return with a gloomy expression. There was no need to ask—Cheng Qi already knew things hadn’t gone smoothly.
Sure enough, after coming back, Guan Hong gathered everyone together and told them one piece of good news and one piece of bad news. The good news was that he had made contact with the garrison at W City Base, and the other side had confirmed that learning the soilless cultivation technology was indeed possible. The bad news, however, was that the garrison said the laboratory was currently under the control of the Wang and Hong families. If they wanted to learn the technology, it would be impossible without paying a price.
As for this so-called price, it was nothing more than supplies that were extremely scarce in the apocalypse—grain, weapons, medicine, gasoline, and the like.
When W City Base sent out its invitation, it hadn’t mentioned supplies at all. The upper levels of the Southern Base had also considered that it wouldn’t be right to learn someone else’s technology for free, and had planned to share information about their newly developed bullets and fruit-and-vegetable juice with the other side. That was why they hadn’t brought much in the way of supplies on this trip.
They hadn’t expected W City Base to be harboring such intentions…
Although they had never planned to learn the technology for free, there was a world of difference between a voluntary exchange and being forced to give something up. Even Guan Hong was hesitant about whether to tell those people about the new bullets and the fruit-and-vegetable juice. Once they had bullets capable of dealing special damage to zombies, as well as juice that could increase the chances of awakening abilities, they would likely act even more recklessly.
“Then we’ll trade with supplies,” Zhan Yun suddenly said. “Don’t tell them about the new bullets or the fruit-and-vegetable juice. Only inform the local garrison.”
With the help of the new bullets and fruit-and-vegetable juice, the local garrison would be able to slowly consolidate its own power.
“But we don’t have enough supplies…”
“Then we’ll go out and gather them. Leave this matter to us.”
“All right, thank you for the trouble,” Guan Hong said gratefully.
There was only a little over an hour left until dawn, so it was clearly too late to go out collecting supplies. Everyone returned to their rooms to rest.
Cheng Qi and Cheng Jiao, however, planned to go out for a walk. W City Base might be chaotic, but it looked livelier than the Southern Base.
After thinking it over, Zhan Yun also pulled Su Ruizhe along. Since they were idle anyway, they might as well walk around and take a closer look at W City Base.
When the innkeeper saw Cheng Qi and the others coming downstairs, he greeted them with a smile. Upon hearing that they were going out for a stroll, he took out a red plastic round token.
“Kid, this is our local money. You can take supplies to the management office to exchange them. The purchasing power of one token is roughly equal to one steamed bun. Using this in the base will be more convenient. Like the cigarettes you gave me earlier—if you have more, one pack can be exchanged for ten tokens.”
These tokens were actually the chips people used to use for playing mahjong before the apocalypse. They had been repurposed by the Hong family as a form of temporary currency, with the Hong family’s emblem carved onto them. The Hong family had come from the underworld, and naturally had plenty of mahjong parlors under their control. After establishing the base, they brought out these tokens for convenience.
The Wang and Lu families had wanted to do something similar, but couldn’t find suitable substitutes. In the end, they simply exchanged for tokens from the Hong family as well.
“Thank you, boss,” they said. After asking for directions to the management office and thanking the innkeeper, they headed out.
Compared to the Southern Base, W City Base was far dirtier and more disorderly. Everyone swept only the snow from in front of their own doors, and no one managed the public areas at all.
They soon arrived at the management office. The people there were very lax—slouching when sitting, sloppy when standing. But when they saw the ability-user badges on Zhan Yun and the others’ chests, their attitudes improved considerably, and they quickly exchanged tokens for them. Just as the innkeeper had said, one pack of cigarettes could be exchanged for ten tokens. They traded two packs for twenty tokens.
They wandered around W City Base for a while and discovered that the lively areas were extremely lively, while the deserted areas were extremely deserted—the contrast was stark.
In the lively districts, there were neon lights and colorful signs. The people coming and going looked well-dressed, chatting and laughing, as if it were no different from before the apocalypse. In the deserted areas, everything was pitch black. The houses were ramshackle brick structures with no furniture at all, and people in ragged clothes curled up on the floors.
Seeing those miserable figures made Su Ruizhe think of his past life. Once upon a time, he too had curled up on a cold, hard floor, dragging himself through one day after another as though each day lasted a year.
There were also quite a few street stalls along the roads, but there was nothing they needed.
“Ah, honored ability users, would you like to come in and sit for a while?” Suddenly, several heavily made-up women in extremely revealing clothes appeared from nowhere, grabbing at them and trying to pull them toward a nearby building.
“No need!” Zhan Yun slapped the woman’s hand away and shouted sharply, frowning.
The women immediately retreated to the side, not daring to push their luck any further.
Only then did they realize that this area was full of such people, dressed thinly and provocatively, waving at passersby—clearly engaged in some unspeakable line of work…
In this base, life for ordinary people was simply far too difficult.
After making a full circuit and finding nothing worth buying, the group tucked away their twenty tokens and returned to the inn.
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