Chapter 150 - 140: Countdown

Outside the window, the morning sun was rising.

The morning light illuminated the eaves of the Arrow Gallery.

Today was the last day the Gated Community residents would spend in this forest.

hours, 14 minutes, and 32 seconds remained until the transmigration.

When the sun set today and rose again tomorrow, they would bid farewell to this forest.

Qin Ziwen ran into Wang Xiaoli. Usually, Wang Xiaoli would lower her head and avoid him at all costs, but this time she hesitated before greeting him, "Thank you."

"You’re welcome," Qin Ziwen said with a nod and a smile.

"Excuse me, is your team still recruiting?" Wang Xiaoli’s nervous voice came from behind him.

He stopped and looked back. On the stairs, the woman in black was holding a water bucket, looking at him with hopeful eyes.

"Our core member spots are full for now, but we still have openings for ordinary members."

Wang Xiaoli was overjoyed. "Then how can I join?"

"You’re in."

Listening to them head downstairs, Wang Xiaoli put down her bucket, covered her mouth, and wiped the corners of her eyes.

She had previously thought about joining the Alliance Association, but the people there knew about her past and refused to let her join.

But now, she had a team too.

Wang Xiaoli looked up, a brilliant smile spreading across her face.

Once they were out of the stairwell, Qin Ziwu asked in a low voice, "Brother, what’s an ’ordinary member’?"

"It just means a peripheral member."

Qin Ziwu understood. "Oh. ’Ordinary member’ sounds a bit nicer."

Qin Ziwen arrived at Building 6 carrying strips of cured meat.

The door had just opened. Guo Xiaochun was still yawning when he spotted Qin Ziwen approaching.

"Brother, you’re here so early! Come on in, have a seat."

Guo Xiaochun hurried inside to grab a stool for Qin Ziwen.

"Thanks for your hard work yesterday. I brought a little something as a token of my appreciation. Hope you don’t mind," Qin Ziwen said, raising his right hand and wiggling the strips of meat.

"Whoa, my dear brother, you’re embarrassing me! How could I possibly mind?" Guo Xiaochun said with a grin as he took the cured meat. "Riding on your coattails, my little intelligence agency has really taken off. Oh, right, Brother, I also have some inside information for you. After your news got out yesterday, the higher-ups in the Alliance Association scrambled to hold an emergency meeting. I don’t know the specifics, but it was probably about you. You can rest easy, though. Your reputation is so big now, they wouldn’t dare cause trouble for you. Otherwise, their own names would be dragged through the mud."

"Thanks."

"We’re all on the same side, don’t mention it." Guo Xiaochun suddenly remembered something and slapped his forehead.

"There’s something... I don’t know if you’d be interested, Brother. It’s just a rumor, of course."

"Go ahead, I’m listening."

Guo Xiaochun said, "A few days ago, a team from our Gated Community followed the river downstream. Since they weren’t planning on a same-day round trip and had to camp overnight, they went pretty far.

"Then, on a plain at the end of the downstream section, they found some ruins. They looked a bit like old-fashioned brick and tile houses that hadn’t been lived in for a long time. I suspect there might be natives in this forest, but our exploration range is too limited for us to have made contact."

Qin Ziwen was lost in thought after hearing this. "So you’re saying... is it possible they’re beings like us?"

Guo Xiaochun nodded. "Brother Qin, I’ve considered that possibility too. But if something like this had happened before, there should be some record of it in historical documents, right? And I’ve never heard of anything similar happening in the past."

Guo Xiaochun rubbed his hands together and asked shyly, "By the way, Brother... do you have any similar information... or maybe some goods you’d like to sell through me?"

"Not right now. We’ll see after we get to the next map," Qin Ziwen said, patting his shoulder.

"Alright then, Brother. Stay safe on the road."

After leaving Guo Xiaochun’s place, he happened to run into Xiao Xuemei and the others coming downstairs.

They were about to head to the river to set the Earth Cages. Qin Ziwen had to stay home and wait for Zhang Bo to deliver the fish later.

"Liu San, how much salt do we have?"

"Sir, we stocked up yesterday. We now have eighty pounds of coarse salt and sixty pounds of green salt."

"Alright. Keep up the good work."

...

"Chairman Zou, you were looking for me?" Zhang Bo said as he entered the room.

Zou Jianghe, who was sitting on the sofa, looked at Zhang Bo with a calm expression. "I heard from the Hunting Team that you’ve been taking live fish from them these past two days. What are you acquiring so many live fish for?"

Zhang Bo smiled. "Chairman, I didn’t take them for free. I traded salt for them with the brothers from the Hunting Team. That’s a fair internal trade, wouldn’t you say?"

Zou Jianghe pressed on, "I’m asking, what do you need so many live fish for?"

Zhang Bo answered casually, "To eat."

"Three hundred pounds? You ate it all?"

"That’s right, I... uh, I took them back to preserve them. Didn’t we hear the next map is the Gobi Desert? I wanted to stock up on more meat, and salted fish is perfect for that," Zhang Bo replied with a chuckle.

Zou Jianghe just sat there, watching Zhang Bo, who remained on the sofa like a hardened, shameless rogue.

Zou Jianghe stared at him, his gaze sharp. "But you asked for live fish."

Zhang Bo answered without hesitation, "Live fish are fresher! The dead ones stink. Chairman, you didn’t call me here just to ask about this, did you? As far as I know, private trades are allowed within the Alliance. Everyone’s doing it."

In the end, Zou Jianghe could only wave his hand in resignation.

Zhang Bo got up from the sofa, dusted off his pants, and turned to leave.

Watching Zhang Bo’s retreating back, Zou Jianghe felt a surge of frustration. The intelligence he’d gathered indicated that after Zhang Bo brought the fish back, he took them straight to Building 8.

The only one who could go through that much fish was probably Qin Ziwen.

That Qin Ziwen refused to join the Alliance Association, yet here he was, leveraging its power.

And to make matters worse, the news that the next map was the Gobi Desert had come from Qin Ziwen just yesterday. It had not only made the kid famous overnight but had also forced the Alliance Association to hold an emergency internal meeting, calling on its members to hoard water and food.