Chapter 37.1: The Black Market [1]
Author: He Feng Yang
Translator: HeXie
Editor: Larkspur
Chapter 37.1: The Black Market [1]
The rules of the black market were still the same. It prohibited ordinary people from entering, that’s why Ji Yun could only stay outside the black market and watch over the car. However, he didn't mind it at all as he took out the AI and began to analyze the data he gathered from the ‘Craniotomy Robot’ one by one, adjusting the bugs he found.
Every afternoon, at this particular hour, most of the ability users usually were almost finished with their work. Then, everyone would gather in the black market, either to sell the materials they got every day, or to buy the food, weapons, and gasoline they needed.
When Wu Ye entered the black market for the first time, he only felt that there were many people in the place and it was very noisy like the stall area in the city from his world. However, Qin Wuhua, Yang Qi, and the others were considered as regular customers. Therefore, they could detect that today’s atmosphere was obviously not right.
Several stalls that were well known by the ability users and operating in the black market, which sold them foods and weapons, were gone. Everyone knew that these stalls came from several high-level executives who had their eyes on the black market. So, though they didn’t sell many goods every day, they had the advantage of stable supply and fair prices.
To put it bluntly, it was the stalls that Lan Cheng’s upper-ups used deliberately to appease and rope in ability users. On one hand, it was an annoyance to be monitored that closely. But, on the other hand, these stalls greatly helped stabilize the prices of the supplies available in the black market.
After all, it has been almost 1 year and 9 months since the apocalypse outbreak happened, and Lan Cheng base itself had been established for almost a year and a half. So, of course, the scattered villages and small towns near the base of it had been searched over and over again for numerous times.
By now, the number of times the areas were searched over was unknown. And while one year ago, everyone might have had the luck to catch fish that escaped the net and found a few bags of rice, corn grains, oil, salt, sauce, and vinegar… Right now? Now those broken houses were even cleaner than when their owners had moved into it. So, wouldn’t it be strange if anyone could find food there?
Wu Ye was, at the very least, lucky he was able to encounter some wild vegetables in the wild when he was on a mission to get some points. Even if he drove a car to intentionally dig for these things, he guaranteed that at the end of his endeavor, he would have even lost his underpants.
After all, there are many mountains in Lan Cheng, hence it wasn’t surprising that there were many mutant beasts hidden on it. However, those guys weren’t as simple as they were in the past. They had become cunning and sly after mutation.
They understood the essence of guerrilla warfare, so even if they couldn’t beat you, they would just take advantage of the mountains’ complex geography to escape. As such, it would be akin to playing hide and seek with death if any zombie hunter wanted to earn their living expense by hunting on the mountains’ range.
Another thing to note was the fact there were not many gas stations in the countryside. The nearest gas stations were scattered on the nearby national highways and provincial roads. And those little remaining gasoline and diesel had been searched and cleaned up by prior survivors. What Lan Cheng was selling to the mass right now was imported from Qing Yuan base at a high price.
Furthermore, in order to get this source of energy, Ji Xiang had to organize more than 500 survivors to form a caravan northward; all for the sake of getting it back to the base. However, less than 300 people came back from this expedition. Therefore, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that every drop of oil that Lan Cheng base used was mixed with people’s blood.
The same was true for weapons. The only military factory in Lan Cheng base was firmly under the control of the five major forces controlling the area. However, the things produced by the military factory weren’t enough for them to use. As such, more than half of the thermal weapons in Lan Cheng base were bought from the capital through the special forces.
But, the special forces only do business with the higher up in the bases. Other, regular, people simply have no way to do business with them even if they want to.
In conclusion, people could only find these three things in the black market because of the low-tax concession product that was specially designed by the higher-ups of Lan Cheng base. So, it was normal that everyone knew that these stalls were sent by Lan Cheng’s upper echelon.
However, today these stalls were gone from the black market. How could everyone not be anxious over this fact?
And though her face isn’t that beautiful, Yang Li Na is still a woman with a good figure. This fact was enough for the male ability users to treat her politely when she asked them. “Brothers, what’s going on? How come those fixed stalls haven’t set their shops up today?”
One of the middle-aged men standing in the middle of the booing crowd glanced at Yang Li Na. His face was flushed red and swollen from holding back his anger. He then angrily explained to her, “It’s those three dogs Zhou Sheng, Xu Yan, and Chen Bao Guan! They bought out all the goods from those fixed stalls again! God d*mn it, they pissed Lao Zi up! See if Lao Zi won’t go back there and smash up all their shops!!!”