The night was deep, and the wind wailed mournfully.
The howls of lone wolves and the shrieks of Night Demons came from somewhere in the distance. The sounds echoed through the night, making the place seem even more silent.
The patrolling Sentinel robots made faint mechanical noises. Some people were already snoring loudly, while others lay with their eyes closed and brows furrowed, completely unable to fall asleep.
Tang Yuan had originally been on night watch, but he hadn’t expected to actually catch someone trying to escape.
It was the information officer from their group.
Tang Yuan didn’t have much of an impression of him. He only remembered that the man was extremely timid and seemed to worry about everything first.
Tang Yuan walked over and grabbed him.
“Hey,” Tang Yuan whispered. “What are you doing?”
The man jolted and stiffly turned his head, revealing a smile uglier than crying.
“I… I can’t sleep…” he whispered back. “I wanted to go outside to use the bathroom…”
“Is that so? Then I’ll go with you.” Tang Yuan smiled kindly. “Are you scared to go outside alone?”
“No, no, no.” The information officer, Yan Xiaochu, clasped his hands together and begged for mercy. “I won’t leave, okay? I just wanted some fresh air, just some fresh air!”
“Forget it. Go back to sleep now, and I’ll pretend nothing happened.” Tang Yuan waved his hand.
“…Uncle Tang, aren’t you worried?” Yan Xiaochu lay back down, tossing and turning for a long time before finally asking, “What if this Ling Chairwoman is even worse than the town mayor? What then? At most, the town mayor makes people go hungry without actually starving them to death. I know there are some places where they really take an entire day’s harvest from hunters, and the payment is only a piece of rye bread.”
“President Ling doesn’t look like an easy person to deal with either. I’m genuinely scared…”
Tang Yuan stroked his chin and motioned for Yan Xiaochu to come closer.
Yan Xiaochu leaned over, only to be greeted by a huge fist.
“Seriously, what are you two whispering about? What if you wake everyone else up?”
With one chop to the neck, he knocked out the increasingly excited Yan Xiaochu. Tang Yuan glanced at Old Li, who was lying on the ground with his eyes darting around, snorted, and left.
The information officer fell asleep, but Li Shangshan, who was lying beside him, still couldn’t sleep.
A few days ago, he had still been complaining about this place, basically cursing the whole situation together with his family. But he also knew that he had only felt that he couldn’t get in anymore, so there was no harm in complaining.
But now… he had unexpectedly been given this opportunity under such circumstances, and he found himself at a loss.
One moment, he felt certain he wouldn’t make the cut; the next, he felt that he absolutely had to perform well.
If President Ling didn’t want him… then at the very least, he wanted his two daughters and mother-in-law to stay here.
As he thought about it, Li Shangshan slowly fell asleep with his foot resting on Lin Xiao beside him.
…
After staying up through two consecutive nights, Ling Zhao still forced herself to get up.
She had no choice. She was genuinely afraid that when she woke up in the morning, everyone would be gone and they would have all run away.
Just one last all-nighter. Next time, I’m never staying up late again…
Thinking this, she washed up and returned to the surface.
The good news: Nobody had run away.
The bad news: They had all packed their luggage and were sleeping beside it.
Ling Zhao had gotten up very early. These people had been completely exhausted yesterday and hadn’t woken up yet. Judging by the looks of things, they were planning to mooch a breakfast from her before setting off.
At this moment, Ling Zhao saw Bei You.
She had gone back with a group of extremely anxious people last night to check on the situation, and some of that group had actually returned.
Ling Zhao waved to Bei You. The girl swung her ponytail and trotted over, looking like a little cat wagging its tail.
“How’s the situation?” Ling Zhao asked.
“The people are mostly fine. Those hiding in the warehouse and those who stayed at home are okay. But a lot of the people who ran outside are missing. Since it happened at night, they’re probably in serious trouble. Their families have also decided to give up and aren’t planning to search for them.”
Going into the wasteland forest was dangerous. The chances of someone returning safely alone were extremely low.
There was no point sacrificing another person just to search for one missing person.
Bei You continued, “Then I went back and checked. The town mayor really did leave. The people who left earlier said they’d come over once they found their families. It shouldn’t take too long.”
“And… I tried tracking the Night Demon leader, but it was too alert. I only followed it for less than 200 meters before it shook me off…” Bei You said guiltily. “I’ll definitely kill it next time!”
“Don’t chase it next time.” Ling Zhao raised a hand in a stopping gesture. “Don’t pursue a cornered enemy. You’re much more important than that thing.”
This was currently her only official employee. Until she had her basic infrastructure and employee promotion system properly established, she didn’t intend to have too many employees.
“Oh… okay…” Bei You froze for a moment, then smiled with the satisfied expression of a cat. She coughed twice before continuing. “Although the people are mostly fine, most of the buildings were destroyed. When Night Demons search for people, they don’t care about the surroundings. They’ll destroy anything they can. I saw them tear apart all the sheet-metal houses.”
As she said this, she finally suppressed the urge to laugh wildly.
Hah. You stole my stuff?
Looks like karma came pretty quickly!
“Hmm, she’s starting to understand the problems she didn’t realize yesterday. She asked: What about the town’s land tax?”
“What? Well, you can just pick up a few pieces of sheet metal and put them together to make a house. The problem is that these kinds of houses don’t have locks. If you live alone…” Bei You frowned. “And the larger the space, the more sheet metal you need.”
“I do, but it seems the others don’t. If you want to know, I’ll call someone over.”
After saying that, Bei You quickly ran to a corner and hauled Tang Yuan up from where he’d been sleeping near the fortress entrance.
Tang Yuan had stayed awake almost the entire night and had only managed to sleep for a little while that morning. He was still somewhat dazed when she woke him. Rubbing his eyes, he made his way through the sprawled-out crowd and came before Ling Zhao.
“I heard you wanted to learn about some things?”
“Yes. What taxes did your town mayor usually collect?” Ling Zhao asked.
“Mainly seasonal taxes.
“In spring, there’s the farming tax. Every person has to clear three mu of land for the town mayor before she’ll begin selling spring grain. The longer we delay, the more people starve. So every year, those who delay clearing the land are thrown out. Most of them are elderly people. Children aren’t required to do it, so they aren’t thrown out.
“In summer, there’s a hunting tax. Summer is when animals give birth and raise their young, so after the breeding season ends, every household has to hand over at least one hide by the end of summer.
“In autumn, there’s a firewood tax. We have to pay wood according to the number of people in the household, usually three to five jin per person. This year, it became ten jin.
“There are no taxes in winter. The town mayor sells coal during winter, but only those who have paid the firewood tax can buy it. The exchange rate is the same as the firewood tax. This year, it should be ten jin of wood for one jin of coal.”
“If you cut firewood yourselves, why don’t you just burn it yourselves?” Ling Zhao asked in confusion.
“You only woke up recently, right?” Tang Yuan pointed toward the forest outside. “Do you know where we are? This is the Corrupted Forest.”
“There are fungi invisible to the naked eye on every piece of wood. When they’re exposed to excessively high temperatures in winter, they burst open. If we use the wood directly, we’ll become infected and turn into zombies.”
“That’s why there are always zombies in this region.”
“If we fail to pay taxes for even one season, we risk being driven out of town. And the entire town’s food and daily necessities are sold exclusively by the town mayor’s family.” Tang Yuan smiled bitterly. “The soil in the Corrupted Forest is all covered in fungi. Apart from the town mayor, who knows how to farm here, none of us can grow anything. Boss.”
Ling Zhao: “…”
She had come here to understand one problem.
Now she’d discovered an even bigger one.
“The town mayor lends us loans to survive the winter. If we can’t repay them for a long time and don’t want to be driven out, we have no choice but to become tenant serfs of the town mayor’s family.”
Tang Yuan pointed at the people Ling Zhao had seen earlier. “Half of them are the town mayor’s serfs. The other half will become her serfs after this winter.”
“The town mayor only wants slaves and retainers,” he concluded.
Ling Zhao then asked Tang Yuan several more questions about Lingfeng Town, and he could practically be said to have answered everything without holding anything back.
After finishing her questions, Ling Zhao took a deep breath.
The problem hadn’t been solved.
There were now even more problems.
No wonder…
No wonder the potatoes sold by that merchant were potato powder, and the cassava was also powdered. The other products likewise had no plant husks or seeds and had all been processed so they couldn’t sprout anymore.
She had thought that processed food simply had higher profit margins, and that drying things into powder made them easier to preserve.
Now it seemed someone was controlling which crops could actually be planted.
She had originally been thinking about whether she could find seeds herself and bypass the system’s project requirements to reclaim land and farm.
She hadn’t expected reality to smack her in the face so hard.
Fortunately… fortunately, she’d chosen the option to select everything at the very beginning!
It was already mid-September. She could worry about food production next spring. As for this winter, she could use her remaining water to trade for food, so getting through the winter shouldn’t be a problem.
Ling Zhao could now determine what her second project would be.
She activated the Energy Module.
This was the thing she was truly in desperate need of.
Those 30 points of electricity were dropping frighteningly fast. Once the shelter shut down, she wouldn’t even be able to open the shelter’s main gate.
After the Energy Module was unlocked, she chose thermal power generation. Later, she would be able to unlock geothermal energy.
Using these logs directly would cause people to drop dead, but she refused to believe that burning them inside an enclosed machine would still cause people to die.
Winter fuel was another problem…
Ling Zhao took out her notebook and wrote down fuel, then drew a question mark after it.
Winter supplies?
Repairing the fortress on the ground and building transitional structures primarily out of wood would both be much better than those drafty sheet-metal walls. This winter was most likely going to be a particularly cold one; otherwise, the mayor wouldn’t have raised the taxes.
If they couldn’t finish repairing the houses before winter arrived, every single person here would end up frozen solid.
Logging, construction, and road repairs—these were three jobs that could be assigned. But before any of them could begin, they first needed to investigate the surrounding environment. Ling Zhao needed to know the terrain at the very least before she could plan where different areas should be built.
Solving the fuel problem and figuring out how to farm were the two most urgent matters for her next stage of development.
Ling Zhao closed her notebook. On the other side, Sentry Type-I was still diligently cooking porridge. This time, it was using rye mixed with a little cassava flour. It looked thick and sticky. Although it was still a mushy porridge, it had a completely different flavor from yesterday’s.
The aroma made the people lying on the ground unable to sleep any longer. Those pretending to be asleep were rolling around restlessly.
“Get up.” Ling Zhao tapped the armrest of her wheelchair. The metallic sound echoed through the empty fortress. “Since you still want to eat this meal, I have a few things to announce.”
The people on the ground rustled as they got up. Some looked around nervously, some appeared extremely anxious, while others simply sat where they were, yawning.
Ling Zhao didn’t waste any time. She drove her wheelchair to the highest point and looked down at everyone.
“First, your mayor owes me a large debt. She sold you to me.”
She had to sever their connection with Listening Wind Town, even though this was simply the truth.
She took out a contract and read aloud, “For the entirety of winter, the jurisdiction and ownership of everyone in Listening Wind Town will temporarily belong to Shelter No. 999, Noah Corporation. Signed, Huacao Alina.”
“Second, you will work for me as temporary employees, and I will give you the compensation you deserve. Your compensation will include food and drinking water. In addition, I will ensure that none of you freezes to death this winter.
“If you want to go back, I will give you one day. Anyone who still wants to return can come back before tomorrow evening. I know you’re worried about your families. Last night’s disaster severely damaged the buildings in Listening Wind Town. After you return, you can bring your families here as well.
“If you miss the deadline, I will assume that you have refused my offer.”
“Third, this is an assessment. The closest you will probably ever come to a shelter corporation in your entire lives is right now. Every task I assign you will count toward your employee points.
“As long as you complete each task according to my requirements, once your points reach the required standard, you can become trainee employees, regular employees, and citizens under my protection. If you want to climb higher, I can promote you all the way up.”
The people below gradually began to stir.
They had almost grown accustomed to working for the mayor for free, and now this shelter was actually offering them compensation?
They looked at one another, unable to believe it.
“But—”
When they heard the word but, they actually felt relieved.
See? They knew it. How could these people possibly be so kind?
They were probably offering compensation with extremely harsh conditions. Just give them some token benefit and call it a day.
The mayor’s wages could basically keep them fed, and after three days they could afford a packet of salt. Among the nearby survivor camps, that was already a salary people were quite envious of.
Although saving enough for a single piece of clothing took at least half a year, and buying anything substantial took even longer, that was simply how the wasteland was. On a wasteland where all kinds of monsters, mutants, raiders, and slave traders roamed, people could survive only by banding together.
While they were lost in their various thoughts, Ling Zhao clasped her hands together, drawing everyone’s attention back to her.
“After you become my citizens and regular employees, I will give you a home! Within four or five years, you will be able to use your points to exchange for a house of your own! You won’t be driven out. You won’t have to worry about being unable to pay taxes! You won’t have to worry about what happens when you grow old!”
“Think about where you live now! Sheet metal that could be blown away by the wind at any moment during winter! No matter how long you work, you’ll never be able to build a house of your own. If you can’t pay the taxes, the mayor can drive you out of town!”
Ling Zhao said, “Don’t you really understand? Why are the taxes for the elderly the same as those for adults, and why do they increase every year?”
She looked at the bewildered faces below and let out a deep sigh.
Ling Zhao understood now.
They genuinely didn’t understand.
It wasn’t that they were stupid. It was that the era had made them ignorant.
The taxes and workload forced them to spend every day scrambling just to obtain enough food for that day. They had no time to do anything else. The moment they stopped working, that meant one day without income.
Without income, they would starve to death within two days.
If they looked ahead more than three days, they’d starve to death on the second day.
And they wouldn’t complain about it, either.
As far as the survivors of the wasteland were concerned, they were among the hardest-working people around. As long as they had somewhere they could stay alive, that was already enough.
“Let’s talk about something practical. I’ll divide you into groups of five.”
Ling Zhao gave them her shortest statement, but it was the one that caused the loudest cheers.
“Every day, the first three groups to finish their work and pass inspection will get meat. Groups four through ten can eat as much rye bread and meat soup as they want. Everyone after that gets only black bread.”
Li Shangshan counted the people and realized there were at most thirty of them here. For a moment, he felt as though his days of drinking meat soup every day were already within reach.
Then Ling Zhao’s next sentence shattered that fantasy.
“The people who went back earlier will bring all their family members here. There will probably be around fifty to seventy people here by then,” Ling Zhao said. “Like you, they’ll be temporary employees, and they’ll participate in the competition as well.”
“Now, go to work. Build the camp, repair the buildings, cut down trees, and level the land—”
After speaking, Ling Zhao looked toward Lin Xiao, who was standing nearby.
“Can I hire you, Hunter?”
“Of course.” Lin Xiao lowered his eyes and bowed. “What do you want? As long as you can afford the price.”
“I want enough meat for the first three groups today,” Ling Zhao said. “Thirty liters of Level-One purified water. Is that enough?”
“More than enough, boss.”
Lin Xiao snapped his fingers, jumped down from the platform he was standing on, pulled up his hood, and entered the forest.
“See?” Ling Zhao pointed toward Lin Xiao’s retreating figure. “You should know what he’s capable of. The promise I’m making to you today is already being fulfilled. Your work should begin after breakfast as well.”
“Tomorrow, your food will be distributed according to the work you do today. Those who do not work shall not eat.”
Ling Zhao stared deeply at Lin Xiao’s retreating figure.
【Lin Xiao (Lone Mercenary)】
【Star Rating: Four (？) Stars】
【Age: 23】
【Traits: Lone Wolf, A Man of His Word, Master of Time Management, ？？？？】
【Attributes: Strength A-, Constitution B+, Intelligence A-, Agility A++, Charisma D】
【Skills: ??? LV MAX, Expense Reimbursement LV9, Assassination LV8, Breath Concealment LV7, Blade Mastery LV7, Firearms Mastery LV6, Survival LV5, Danger Perception LV5, Appraisal LV5, Frugality LV5, Cooking LV1.】
【Employee Description: Formerly an employee of a large shelter corporation. He was dismissed for some reason. Although he appears carefree and laid-back, he actually calculates the cost of every order and every bullet down to the last detail. His childhood experience as a scavenger gave him extensive relevant experience, which eventually turned into extensive experience with expense reimbursement after he became an adult.
He has his own unique insights when it comes to work arrangements and can handle multiple processes simultaneously. As long as he isn’t assigned more than twenty-four hours’ worth of tasks at once, he can finish everything within a day and clock out on time.】
【Special Status: Genetic Collapse in Progress. Estimated lifespan: Six months.】
【Recommended Salary: 3,000 Management Points.】
At present, Systrom recommended an exchange rate of 1 Management Point for 10 Small Nuts. The salaries of the previous employees had all been around 3,000 Small Nuts, but this one was ten times higher.
It was a price she absolutely couldn’t afford to pay.
But for some reason, he hadn’t run away either.
The special status of genetic collapse was obviously related to those question marks in his profile… but there was nothing she could do about it for now.
Afterward, Ling Zhao drove her wheelchair down from the elevated platform.
Systrom was mainly responsible for calculating and supervising the points. Sentry Type-I would serve as a deterrent and recharge once the first batch of fuel returned today.
Its battery was at 19%—a number that would trigger obsessive-compulsive tendencies in anyone from the smartphone era.
Afterward, while they were eating, she assigned jobs and teams based on the general profiles she had seen. Once she finished dividing everyone into teams, she witnessed a scene that looked almost like a zombie outbreak.
The people who had originally planned to leave weren’t leaving anymore. They dropped their luggage and rushed off to collect tools. If there weren’t any suitable tools, they would cut down a tree, then go to the shelter, get some sheet metal, and craft the tools themselves.
Whatever management points and employee points were, they didn’t understand any of it.
They understood only one thing, and they could see it clearly—
Lin Xiao had gone hunting!
And whatever he hunted would be their food for today!
The strongest hunter in Listening Wind Town, a man who had never failed, the hunter whose catches always made everyone else drool when he returned—today, they would finally get to eat the prey he brought back!
For the sake of eating a bite of the meat they had been longing for, the survivors worked harder than ever that day.
After all, the competition was still small right now. By tomorrow, there would probably be no chance left. They could understand that much.
…
Ling Zhao divided them into five groups:
Scavenging Group, Logging Group, Repair Group, Logistics Group, and Guard Group.
The Scavenging Group didn’t need to go far. The Repair Group had no materials today, so for the time being, everyone in it was transferred to the Logging Group to clear out a specific area.
The Guard Group had the most people, ten in total, responsible for patrols and standing guard.
The Night Demons and zombies had only just left the area last night, so there might still be other monsters wandering nearby, as well as scattered zombies.
Tang Yuan was responsible for standing guard. Simply standing guard without having to supervise anyone was a strange experience for him, but just his presence here seemed to make everyone else uncomfortable.
After noticing this, he ran back and returned wearing a ragged hood that covered his face.
Everyone knew who he was, of course, but not seeing his face made things considerably more comfortable.
Tang Yuan knew that on his first day, he absolutely couldn’t switch positions without permission. Otherwise, if the others saw him do it, they’d follow suit. Everyone would want the easier assignments, and before work had even begun, everything would descend into chaos.
Going to the boss to ask for a change was even worse. That would make the boss think there was something wrong with her decision. And if the problem couldn’t be resolved, his evaluation in the boss’s eyes would drop.
He would rather wear a tattered burlap sack over his head than spend the entire day standing guard.
These people simply weren’t used to it yet. They’d get accustomed to it later.
…
Li Shangshan was holding an axe and chopping down trees, with something supposedly called a mask covering his face.
The robot handing out the masks had said that conditions were limited for now, and better protective equipment would be provided later. He hadn’t understood what that meant.
As far as he was concerned, there was no need to wear a mask at all. It made breathing difficult and affected his ability to exert strength.
He had never seen anyone die from chopping wood, after all. What happened more often was that people would use the wood directly for grilling, eat the food, suddenly drop dead, and then get back up as zombies.
Li Shangshan was the laborer of the town. In Listening Wind Town, laborers were mainly responsible for various kinds of heavy work, such as chopping trees, repairing fences, transporting supplies outside, and so on.
Sometimes he had to do everything in a single day. Afterward, the mayor would simply have one of her guards toss him a few Nuts.
Those few Nuts were enough to buy, at most, a rye cake—the kind that was two fingers thick and more than half an arm’s length. If you broke off a little each day and rationed it carefully, one person could make a single rye cake last for nearly half a month.
There were three people in his family. His two daughters did some mending work and occasionally helped out in the mayor’s fields.
After a while, he saw Yan Xiaochu slowly making his way over.
“Brother Li.” Yan Xiaochu gave him an exaggerated wink. “Come over here for a moment.”
“If you’ve got something to say, say it here.” Li Shangshan didn’t even raise his head and continued chopping wood.
“No, I was just thinking… do you really think we can have a way out of this?” Yan Xiaochu also held an axe, chopping the tree beside him with loud bang, bang, bang sounds. “Do you remember that guy from last winter? He said he’d found a great place outside where they provided three meals a day. All he had to do was work a little, and he’d have enough to eat.”
“I remember.” Li Shangshan spoke in a muffled voice. “In the end, he only came back for a few days. On his last day, he was even bragging about how good the food he’d eaten the day before was. Then he disappeared for half a month.”
The next time they saw him, he had already become food for the raiders.
The ones making him work had been a group of slave traders. He was responsible for their daily maintenance and repairs. Later, when the slave traders left, they sold him before departing.
“People like us might be fine as long as we just keep living like this, but the moment we try to climb higher, countless opportunities will be waiting for us to fall.” Yan Xiaochu sighed, his expression looking quite conflicted. “I want to believe that we’ve finally encountered a good employer this time, but the mayor really has done a fairly decent job already.”
On the wasteland, there were countless survivor camps that fell apart within two months. Listening Wind Town, however, had existed for more than ten years. The mayor had grown it from an initial population of just over fifty people to more than three hundred. That already put her among the more capable leaders in the surrounding area.
There was even a camp next door whose new leader had ruined everything within three months of taking over from his father. He thought that becoming the leader meant he could eat whatever he wanted every day, opening up the food stores and distributing food freely to everyone else. At first, people were indeed grateful to him.
Unfortunately, his expenses exceeded his income. In the end, within just a few months, the other furious survivors burned him alive.
“We don’t have a choice.” Li Shangshan still wore that serious, solemn expression. “Just focus on chopping your trees.”
Yan Xiaochu stopped talking as well. He began carefully observing everything around him, committing what he saw to memory.
He discovered that the Logging Group’s main task was to clear the surrounding area while preserving samples of the different types of wood and placing them beside the entrance fortress of the shelter.
Yan Xiaochu spun his axe around and struck each of the nearby trees once, eventually remembering the one that had the softest feel.
Boss Ling only wanted them to clear this area. She hadn’t said what kind of trees they had to cut.
Yan Xiaochu wanted to eat meat too, but he wasn’t very strong, so he could only do lighter work.
Thus, he chose the softest wood, which was the easiest to chop.
No one noticed what he was doing. Before he knew it, it was already noon.
That enormous metal machine came over carrying a large metal bucket. Raising a ladle, it announced, “Lunch! Take a half-hour break after you finish eating!”
They were actually providing lunch as well?
Together with dinner, didn’t that mean three meals a day?
Even the mayor’s household didn’t eat like this!
Yan Xiaochu noticed everyone around him exchanging glances, all looking secretly delighted. No one pointed this out, though, and he was wondering whether he should say something when the enormous machine continued:
“From now on, you’ll have three meals every day. Until the employee cafeteria is built, you’ll eat here for the time being. Once it’s finished, use the vouchers given to you to eat at the cafeteria.”
Someone nervously asked, “What are vouchers? They aren’t useless pieces of paper, are they?”
“They’re water vouchers. Two per person per day.” Ling Zhao rolled her wheelchair out from behind them. “Each voucher is worth one liter of water. I’ll prepare the water every day. If you don’t feel comfortable holding onto the vouchers, you can exchange them directly for water on the spot.”
Today, Ling Zhao had designed a water voucher inside the shelter.
On the front was the number 1, surrounded by wave patterns. The patterns formed a stylized L. The back bore the words 999 Shelter and Water, with a small note stating that it was issued by Noah Corporation.
Afterward, she spent the rest of her time printing them and cutting the sheets apart with a paper cutter.
These were one-liter water vouchers. Later, she would also issue 0.5-liter and 0.1-liter water vouchers.
“Later, when you come for meals each day, hand over one water voucher and you’ll be able to eat for two days,” she said. “I’ll eventually open sales windows near the cafeteria. You can also go back and cook for yourselves.”
This was the price she had calculated.
One liter of her water could buy seven pounds of grain. An adult ate roughly half a catty to one catty of grain per day. Even for the biggest eater, two days’ worth would amount to no more than two catties.
That meant every water voucher she recovered would bring in a difference of roughly five catties of grain.
And the value generated by their labor in the process would be far more than those five catties.
The main currency circulating within Shelter No. 999 would be Level-One purified water.
Level-Two partially purified water would become the primary water source for planting and animal husbandry.
As for Level Three, she had no intention of including it in the drinking-water supply. It would become the primary water source for everyday household use.
Price regulation was extremely troublesome. Ling Zhao only intended to control the overall direction. Fine-tuning prices according to each period would be Systrom’s responsibility.
“When you return your tools tonight, you’ll be told today’s work statistics, and you’ll receive tonight’s dinner and your compensation,” she said. “For now, finish eating, rest for half an hour, and continue working.”
That afternoon, Yan Xiaochu noticed that everyone was working with even more enthusiasm.
Especially after they saw Lin Xiao drag back a two-headed reindeer.
However, he also noticed that whenever some members of Logging Group Two went to deposit their wood, they always went together as a group. Whenever the machine wasn’t watching them, they would secretly drag some logs over from the neighboring group’s pile.
Not much—just one or two logs at a time.
Yan Xiaochu frowned and decided to expose them during dinner that evening.
The sun set, marking the end of the day’s work. Once again, the robot dragged something over.
“Today’s top three are Logging Group One, Logging Group Three, and Guard Group One.”
Logging Group Two had originally been smug, every member wearing a delighted expression. But when they heard that their group wasn’t among the top three, someone immediately protested:
“Our pile of wood is bigger than theirs! Why aren’t we on the list?”
Logging Group Three hadn’t noticed anything at first, but after taking a closer look, they immediately became furious.
The group leader shouted, “I clearly chopped this tree! How did it end up over there? Look! I even carved an X into it!”
“Anyone can carve an X!” The members of Group Two were red-faced, shouting and spitting as they argued. “Who can prove it’s yours?”
“You—!”
When Group Three saw Li Shangshan and the others, their eyes immediately lit up.
“Take a look! They definitely stole from more than just one group!”
Bang!
A gunshot rang out, and both sides immediately fell silent.
Before things could spiral out of control and turn into a full-on brawl between several groups, Bei You fired a warning shot to interrupt them.
“I have supervision and surveillance.” Ling Zhao pointed toward Tang Yuan. “You all know to hide from the Sentry, so why didn’t you think to hide from a living person?”
When Group Two looked at Tang Yuan, they were instantly dumbfounded.
The man had been wearing that hood the entire time, and his presence had become so inconspicuous that they had subconsciously regarded Tang Yuan as one of the people from Listening Wind Town. They had assumed he would naturally cover for them.
It had never occurred to them that he might be watching them.
In reality—
Tang Yuan had reported them at the very first opportunity.
“If you think this evidence isn’t enough…”
Yan Xiaochu was hiding among the others below. He figured he wouldn’t have to stand up and expose them in front of so many people.
Then he heard Ling Zhao call his name with perfect accuracy.
“Yan Xiaochu,” she said. “You should be able to tell which logs belong to which group.”
“Huh? M-Me?”
Yan Xiaochu froze.
The next instant, everyone’s eyes turned toward him.
Cold sweat instantly broke out across his back, and it felt as though his soul had nearly flown out of his body.
H-Help…
There are so many eyes on me… So many eyes… They’re even more terrifying than the Night Demons…
“Come up. You only have to say this once. Afterward, I’ll transfer you to an internal position where you won’t have to interact with people very much.” Ling Zhao gave him a devilish smile. “You can choose.”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and frantically encouraged himself internally. After mentally preparing himself thoroughly, he finally stepped forward.
Ling Zhao handed him a megaphone.
“Th-that…”
The moment he spoke, he startled himself. But things had already come this far, and since he was already here, he could only continue.
——A job where he wouldn’t have to interact with people!
“People in our group usually work in pairs, cutting trees from both sides at the same time. A lot of the lower halves of the trees have a V-shape, while in Group Three… a lot of people are very tall, so they cut the trees a little higher up. The average height of the people in Group Two… Group Two is relatively short…”
“T-that’s… basically it…”
“In conclusion.” Ling Zhao rescued Yan Xiaochu before he was completely frightened into fainting by all the gazes. She pulled him down and continued in his place, “One person makes a mistake, and everyone bears the consequences. Today, you’ll have one meal deducted from your rations, and today’s wages will also be deducted. If this happens again, all of you will be expelled.”
“As for the person who was the first to come forward, you’ll go without three meals.”
“Time to eat. Let this be a warning!”
The meal period and the time for distributing wages were staggered. While the first batch of people went to eat, another group stood nearby to receive their water vouchers.
They had never seen paper this beautiful before. Each voucher was about half a palm in size and exquisitely made, with varying shades of blue on it. Every character was printed in exactly the same font.
After receiving their water vouchers, they could exchange them for purified water in front of Beiyou. Beiyou had bottles of one-liter water lined up in front of her, and they could choose whether to exchange all their vouchers or just one.
As the remaining people squatted nearby, watching the others exchange their vouchers for water and eat, they suddenly felt that they had much more strength for their own dinner that evening.
Not to mention that they could even drink the Level-One purified water that they had once thought they would never get to drink in their entire lives!
After all, this was something that only the important figures inside the inner city of a shelter could drink!
Watching these people eat while covered in dirt and grime, Ling Zhao finally decided what she would choose after completing the first batch of shelter missions.
【Shelter Mission One completed. You now have 25 temporary employees.】
【Shelter Mission: Build a micro-enterprise with 25 people. Reward: Two basic facilities. Choose from a cafeteria, toilet, employee dormitory, employee exercise room, or employee medical room.】
She chose the cafeteria and toilet.
The employee dormitory could temporarily be replaced by cleaning up the external fortress. Beiyou would temporarily live on B1. B1 had originally been the floor for field personnel and guests, so there were already rooms available.
Only the cafeteria and toilet were urgently needed.
As for the toilet’s drainage system, she had no way to deal with that for the time being.
……
Meanwhile.
On her way to her next destination, the traveling merchant picked up a refugee.
She instinctively felt that there was something unusual about it.
It wasn’t that there were no refugees in the wasteland. Rather, there were basically never any refugees traveling alone.
A lone refugee would either end up as a slave or become someone’s food.
Most of the time, it was the latter.
Information was of utmost importance to a merchant. She waited there for an entire day, waiting for the refugee to wake up.
It was only today that this person, so filthy that even their gender was difficult to make out, finally stirred awake.
The first thing they did was drink a large bowl of soup before finally coming back to life.
“Shelter No. 47 next door chose to carry out an autumn hunt this year,” she said. “I heard it from someone else, so I don’t know how accurate the information is. But supposedly, there’s a migration of a corpse tide somewhere very far away this year. To prevent the number of corpses from increasing, Shelter No. 47 cleared out all the survivor camps in its vicinity and even drove away everyone living in its external slums.”
“Many survivors who lost their homes attracted slave-catching groups. Others were captured by raiders, and the raiders nearby are also moving toward this area.”
“Some of them even became raiders themselves.”
Author’s Notes:
Ling Zhao’s To-Do List:
Employee Observations:
……
Note: Why are there so many damn problems? What kind of hellish starting situation is this? I can’t even plant crops!