Chapter 208 — Declining Moral Standards
This time, Luo Xun and the team were driving a large truck plus an older pickup truck. The large truck was not one of the red ones they had recently found, but rather the one that had been left outside the glass factory when they swapped vehicles and was later brought back home.
Although the truck was quite beat-up, it was still functional after a bit of metal modification. Aside from some broken metal racks and other discarded metal parts, the truck bed was loaded with dead wood to use as firewood, empty paint buckets scavenged from small workshops, and broken school desks and chairs. It didn’t look like much, but when evening came and they piled these items into corners, the metal walls of the truck bed could be retracted to reveal the hidden bedding, pillows, food, and other supplies inside.
The floors of both the large and small trucks were still significantly thicker than normal, naturally concealing the fresh vegetables and other goods they had brought out.
After traveling through the night, the group arrived at the main gate of the Southwest Base early the next morning. They registered, entered the base, had their personal backpacks scanned, and had the truck doors opened for inspection.
This time, the gate guards inspecting the vehicles were noticeably more meticulous than during their previous visits to the base. Even though Luo Xun’s truck was filled with nothing but junk, they still insisted on taking an empty paint bucket and several pieces of wood. Inside the truck bed, He Qiankun and the guys almost got into an argument with the inspectors. In the end, the guards looked at them with fierce expressions and sneered, “Return them to you? Sure, if we return them, don’t even think about entering the base! Just a bunch of junk anyway, you think I actually care about this crap?”
Not only did everyone have to pay an entry fee of five crystals upon arrival, but the inspectors checking the truck beds also took the opportunity to pocket whatever they liked. Luo Xun and the others saw with their own eyes that some people at the main gate were barred from entering simply because they refused to give a “tribute” to these guards.
“Seriously, what is wrong with these people?!”
“The base wasn’t like this before. Why are they getting more corrupt?”
Complaining all the way, the group drove their vehicles to the resource exchange center. Another reason they had come to the base this time was to buy salt—this essential seasoning was indispensable for pickling vegetables, cooking, and processing dried meat.
However, when they arrived at the counter to exchange their goods, they suffered a second blow.
Right after the first zombie tide of the year had passed, the new leadership that took power had thoroughly swept away the stagnant atmosphere of the old administration. The public-facing departments had completely turned their attitude around, and the staff used to be incomparably more welcoming and enthusiastic. But now? The personnel handling the exchanges had once again adopted an arrogant, entitled attitude. The guides outside would often pull clients aside first to pitch their private businesses. If someone wanted to exchange items, the guides would claim to have private channels where the rates were far better than the official exchange, doing everything possible to coax visitors away with them.
With Luo Xun leading the group, when a guide pulled them aside to ramble on, Luo Xun cut him off with a crisp refusal. He turned and walked straight to the official window to handle their exchange—he would have to be insane to follow those people. Who knew what shady place they would be taken to? Stories of people being robbed or forced to trade their crystals for absolute junk in those private alleys were widespread. It was much safer to just find a fixed, reputable stall on the main street to make trades!
From the official window, they exchanged as much gasoline and table salt as their personal limits allowed, and spent a large number of crystals to purchase some solar panels and storage batteries before returning to their vehicles.
After loading the supplies and contacting the squads that wanted to buy vegetables, they agreed on a meeting spot. Luo Xun and the guys moved the fresh vegetables to the designated area, and handed the dried vegetables hidden beneath the pickup truck’s floorboards to Xu Mei and the others. They sent them to the marketplace to see if they could trade them—fresh vegetables had a very short shelf life, so Luo Xun and the team usually dried their surplus produce to store it, used it in stews, saved it for traveling, or, like now, brought it back to the base to test the market demand.
Before long, the buyers arrived. The first two people to show up chatted and laughed with Luo Xun and the guys, acting familiar. After about five minutes of small talk, one of them smiled and said, “We need quite a lot of vegetables this time, but our truck is packed with stuff we just bought and can’t fit any more. How about you guys help us deliver them over? It’s not far, just in the residential compound over there.”
Luo Xun maintained a bright smile on his face, but clearly and amiably uttered two words: “No way.”
The two men froze. Before they could say anything else, Luo Xun continued with a smile, “Go ahead and put your stuff back first, then come back to haul them. I’ll give you half an hour. There are several other groups coming to buy after you, so if you’re later than half an hour, I’ll be terribly sorry.” With that, he spread his hands and offered a regretful smile. “If the vegetables sit around for too long, they won’t fetch a good price.”
The expressions on the two men’s faces shifted uneasily as they glanced around at the people passing by. They were at a major intersection, and the pedestrian traffic was quite heavy.
Yan Fei discreetly manipulated a piece of metal in his hand. When the two men finished scanning their surroundings and looked back at Luo Xun and Yan Fei, they noticed that a perfectly round piece of metal in Yan Fei’s hand had somehow transformed into a sharp, gleaming dagger.
The two men exchanged a look and smiled awkwardly at Luo Xun’s group. “We’ll go back and unload our stuff first. Be right back, be right back.”
Watching them disappear into the crowd, Luo Xun deleted the contact info with a look of regret and made a note in his notebook: Another squad down.
Only a fool wouldn’t see what those two were plotting. Perhaps their original squad had disbanded, or perhaps they had gone rogue on their own. Whatever the reason, Luo Xun and the team would never contact them for a trade again.
The squads that came afterward didn’t buy up all of Luo Xun’s vegetables, but fortunately, he had anticipated this. He directly opened a few crates and laid out the produce right there. Many passing pedestrians bought small amounts, half a? or a? at a time, and after a while, everything was successfully sold.
After liquidating the vegetables, Luo Xun called the rest of the team. Xu Mei and her group were still trading dried vegetables for supplies, having also set up a small makeshift stall to clear out the stock. The others were either browsing or trading.
After agreeing on a meeting time for the afternoon, Luo Xun packed up his things and went to browse the market with Yan Fei. If they saw anything their base might need at a reasonable price, they would trade for it.
By the time they met up in the afternoon, they had actually scavenged quite a few good items.
Table salt, solar panels, storage batteries, clothes and shoes for the little girl—even the dried vegetables Xu Mei and the others brought had completely sold out.
“Captain, the dried vegetables sold really well! A lot of people were asking when we’d bring more, so I told them we might come back to the market at the beginning of next month.” Xu Mei smiled and jingled the pouch of crystals in her hand, then pointed to a textbook inside her backpack. “We even managed to trade some vegetables for a complete set of primary school textbooks, along with a few middle school and high school ones. They’re perfect for Xinran! And the baby can use them in the future too.”
Although the team had found plenty of books before, they hadn’t been able to secure many proper textbooks for the kids to study from. They had found plenty of essay reference books and Math Olympiad workbooks, but the kids needed a solid foundation before those would make any sense.
He Qiankun pulled out a large pack of pens. “We saw someone selling these while we were browsing, so we spent a level-two crystal to buy up the whole lot.”
“Oh, and one more thing! We saw someone selling meat jerky by the roadside earlier, though we couldn’t tell what kind of mutated animal it was made from. Should we bring some bacon or cured meat to sell the next time we come out?” Wu Xin suggested, his eyes shining.
Luo Xun wasn’t too fond of the idea and frowned. “Meat isn’t easy to sell. You can certainly bring it, but selling it is too much of a hassle. A lot of people simply don’t dare to buy it—especially when it’s processed into a finished product. Even if it looks normal, it’s hard to guarantee that people won’t suspect where the meat came from…” Although the difference between zombie meat and normal or mutated animal meat was vast, many people still worried about buying fake or contaminated meat. Even if they truly wanted meat, most survivors preferred to buy it fresh from a newly killed mutated animal.
The fact that dried vegetables didn’t sell as quickly as fresh ones followed the exact same logic—people couldn’t be certain if the vegetables had been tampered with before being dried, so they hesitated to buy. Today they had only brought a relatively small amount of dried vegetables; otherwise, there was no way they would have sold out so quickly.
Everyone sighed in unison. There was truly nothing they could do about it. Unless they could open a long-term grocery store with a steady supply, who could guarantee they would successfully liquidate their goods every time they came to the base?
After taking inventory, everyone loaded the traded supplies into the vehicles, preparing to leave the base.
When they reached the main gate again, they noticed that a lot of new notifications had been posted on the bulletin boards.
Taking a closer look, Luo Xun and Yan Fei exchanged a look, registered their exit, and left the base. It wasn’t until dusk, when they set up camp at their usual resting spot far from the base, that they brought the matter up.
“When we were leaving the base, we saw the new notifications posted by the administration,” Luo Xun explained as he washed his hands by the campfire. “It says that after the eighth of this month, no squads are allowed to leave the base. Any squads currently outside must make it back before the eighth.”
“Why?” Wang Duo asked, his brain failing to catch on.
Beside him, Zhang Su leaned his chin on his hand and shot him a sidelong glance. “The zombie tide.”
“Right, the zombie tide will arrive in this vicinity in about two weeks. Both our base and the Southwest Base are likely within their path. The base can receive satellite photos to predict the trajectory of the horde. Barring people from leaving after the eighth allows everyone to prepare in advance, so they’ll be ready by the time the zombies arrive.” As Luo Xun spoke, he let out a soft sigh and turned to smile at everyone. “This time, we’ll ride out the zombie tide at our own base. Let’s see if we can hold the line, and if any issues crop up.”
“Awesome!”
“All our gear is at the new base anyway, why would we go back there?”
“Exactly. The Southwest Base won’t fall apart just because we’re missing, especially since they’ve prepared in advance.”
There were only about ten of them, and their base wasn’t particularly large. Furthermore, they didn’t fully know the exact defensive capabilities of the mutated plants yet. There was no telling if any issues would arise when facing the zombie tide. This would be the ultimate test and the perfect practical trial for their new base. Fortunately, this particular zombie tide was relatively small. As long as they weren’t completely surrounded and pinned down, the horde would likely pass through in a day or two.
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