Chapter 39.1: Digging Gold in Qingmin County [1]
Author: He Feng Yang
Translator: HeXie
Editor: Larkspur
Chapter 39.1: Digging Gold in Qingmin County [1]
The dinner was destined to end up in discord because an agreement couldn’t be reached. Zhou Sheng insisted on his distribution idea. Thus, he threatened Xu Yan and Chen Baogan. If they still insisted on distributing the goods and materials equally, then everyone could go their own way and there was no need to cooperate.
Wu Ye’s reason to stand on Zhou Sheng’s side in regard to the distribution method was actually very simple. It was because he wanted to use this operation to cover the real source of his goods. Moreover, he didn’t have as many people as Xu Yan or Chen Baoguan. So, there was no need for him to covet so many resources. Besides, if he rashly recruited nearly 100 people to form a hunting team, could his heart feel at ease binding his life to those people?
In the end, once the dinner was finished, Xu Yan and Chen Baoguan left the restaurant with bad complexions, leaving only one sentence: Wait another three days, and we would talk about it again later.
Naturally, Zhou Sheng knew that he wanted to use these three days to explore the route to Qingmin County on his own. Of course, he couldn’t prevent them from doing what they wanted. So, after some bargaining, everyone decided to come to Yi Xiang restaurant at noon the day after tomorrow to discuss the matter again. At that time, regardless of whether the cooperation was successful or not, Zhou Sheng would act on the third day.
Wu Ye had already agreed with Zhou Sheng’s idea of distribution. So, he just actively prepared for the trip to Qingmin County in the next day and a half. And to that effect, Wu Ye even stopped going on a mission and hunt.
The first step he did was to count the equipment he had on hand. After he checked, Wu Ye found that he had 3 heavy machine guns, 1 sniper rifle, 5 rifles that were similar to AK47 rifles back in his world, 10 domestic semi-automatic rifles that were either bought or picked up from the field, and 5 ordinary pistols.
In addition, there were 2800 rounds of various types of bullets to complement the guns and rifles, 5 mines and 1 incendiary bomb. Among the tens of thousands of crystal nuclei Wu Ye spent from the beginning up to now, a huge portion of it was spent on purchasing these pieces of equipment.
However, these equipment alone were far from enough for him to ensure his safety when he went to Qingmin County.
Furthermore, not only there wasn’t enough equipment, but the number of his team members were also in short supply. There were only six battle-ready team members in his team, and this included Wu Ye and Qin Wuhua. With just these, it was very unlikely that they would be able to control the overwhelming number of zombies there. How could they go into the store?
Although the real purpose of Wu Ye coming along with this operation was to hunt third-level zombies and cover up the source of his goods… After working hard to enter the county, why should they return empty-handed?
Recruiting new people was a necessity. Wu Ye knew this. But he was still uneasy tying his little life to those with an unclear ability, background, and personality. Moreover, who he should recruit, how many people, and how much he should pay them remained unanswered. These were the most pressing issues Wu Ye was facing right now.
He could give the recruitment task to Qin Wuhua. However, he must handle the matter of these people’s remuneration on his own. Every zombie hunter knew how dangerous the city was. They had talked about it with everyone.
The story of the first person to be in charge of Lan Cheng Base before Ji Xiang took the position was famous. The story went like this.
At the beginning of Lan Cheng Base’s establishment, the person in charge of the base was an official in charge of Qingmin County. At the time, his mind conceived an idea of looting Qingmin County to obtain supplies. Therefore, he organized a team of 5.000 zombie hunters and proceeded there. However, the end result was… Less than 500 people returned from the county. As for the person in charge, well, he was unable to survive and was killed in Qingmin County.
More than a year has passed by. At this moment, no one knew exactly how many zombies there were in Qingmin County.
According to Zhou Sheng's information, once they entered the commercial street, they would have ten to twenty minutes to act. However, that window of time was only if they were lucky.
But no one would be able to find many goods and materials in this period of time if they lacked manpower. So, Wu Ye was stuck in a dilemma. If they recruited a lot of people and happened to have bad luck with few to minimal harvest, the loss they incurred would be great. However, no one would take the job if Wu Ye offered low remuneration to the zombie hunters he would recruit to form a temporary team. After all, in accordance with the danger level of the city, the payment shouldn’t be low.
What to do?
After discussing the problem with Qin Wuhua, the number of zombies hunter Wu Ye decided to recruit was only 30 people. Moreover, as long as they had good skills, Wu Ye wouldn’t mind recruiting them even if they weren’t ability users. So, after debating with Qin Wuhua, Wu Ye set a list of terms and conditions.
The ability users would be paid 6.000 transparent crystal nuclei as guaranteed base salary, while the ordinary zombie hunters would only be paid with 4.000 transparent crystal nuclei. Half of this base salary would be paid upfront with the other half paid after the job was done regardless of their status. And if anyone died during this job, the other half of the remuneration would be given to their family members or pensions depending on the situation.