Chapter 248 Brother Fang’s “Market Research”

  Chapter 248 Brother Fang’s “Market Research”

  The towering giant wall makes the Stone City a well-known paradise. Compared with the distant Yunjian Province and Ideal City, this place seems to be within reach.

  However.

  This grandeur does not benefit everyone here.

  On the way to the main gate of the Stone City, the first thing that comes into view is a huge slum.

  The shabby shacks grow at the foot of the giant wall like psoriasis, and look like a stinking ditch that can’t see the end from a distance.

  Most of the people living here are pale and thin, sitting in front of the door in a daze in a piece of clothing that they don’t know how long they have been wearing, or preparing to go out to pick up waste.

  There is no garbage to pick up in the nearby area. If you want to have a good harvest, you can only go to higher floors or go to farther places.

  The sewage and excrement that can be seen everywhere have dyed the snow, which should have been white, into other colors. I guess the situation will be worse when the snow melts. It is really a miracle that there is no plague.

  Fang Chang, who has never seen so many NPCs in this game, stared at the scene in front of him and asked.

  ”How many people are there here?”

  Xu Shun asked his question again, and Qian Lai answered in a nonchalant tone.

  ”Ten thousand, twenty thousand, maybe one hundred thousand, anyway, the number of people here has never decreased. Who would bother to count such things? It’s meaningless.”

  Xu Shun showed a surprised expression on his face.

  Tens of thousands? !

  This is too exaggerated.

  At this moment, Fang Chang, who was staring at the VM screen and reading the subtitles, was thinking about something completely different.

  ”Tens of thousands of people?!”

  ”…What do so many people eat?!”

  Anyway, it’s not farming.

  It doesn’t look like there is room for farming here.

  At the end of the slum is a crooked electric pole with several speakers wrapped around it, playing several boring channels in turn.

  A hundred meters ahead is the main gate of the Stone City.

  There are clean cement roads, militias on duty, caravans ready to go, and poor people looking for work everywhere, many of whom are even small children.

  For most people here, there are only two hopes for life.

  One is to be noticed by a caravan or a traveling merchant, and the other is to catch up with the factory recruitment.

  If you can’t rely on these two, and you can’t let go of your only self-esteem to beg or sell your soul, then you can only become a mercenary.

  Catch up with the trend, and you don’t even have to buy your own gun.

  Because they were carrying goods from the outpost, Fang Chang and his group were soon targeted as traveling merchants.

  A little boy with slightly curly hair and a dirty face followed Qian Lai step by step and said in a very shrill voice.

  ”Sir, do you need a servant? I can count, wash clothes, move things… I can also smell rats and cockroaches hiding in the cracks. I can do any job.”

  He has a good eye and can tell who in the group is most likely to be a businessman.

  However, there are a lot of people with abilities like him in the whole slum.

  ”No need.”

  ”Sir–”

  The boy wanted to argue, but Qian Lai interrupted him impatiently.

  ”I’ll only say this once.”

  Seeing his unfriendly eyes and the pistol on his waist, the boy took a step back, not daring to entangle anymore, and ran to the side to look for the next target.

  Xu Shun glanced at the boy’s lost back and said nothing.

  He is not a person with overflowing sympathy, and of course he would not naively think of helping the child or something. Once this kind of thing starts, the troubles behind will be endless.

  Who is not pitiful in this wasteland?

  For him, the task assigned to him by the administrator is the first priority, and everything else has to be put aside.

  However…

  looking at the towering giant wall, Xu Shun couldn’t help but sigh in his heart.

  The giant wall is very high, and it makes people feel safe.

  But it is still the northern suburbs ruled by the administrator that makes him feel warmer…

  Across the street from the main gate of Boulder City is the Far Wind Hotel, and the sign is hung on the magnificent gate.

  But the guests there seem to have a little conflict with the hotel.

  In front of the hotel waiter, a man in an old leather jacket, his face flushed with anger. Next to him was a suitcase. Judging from the scattered luggage, it must have been thrown out of the door.

  Behind him stood the guest who was kicked out like him.

  ”Didn’t we agree that it was only one chip a day?”

  The hotel waiter scratched his ear and said impatiently.

  ”Yes, our manager said so, but it was winter and the price has increased now. We didn’t stop you from renewing the room, did we?”

  ”Ten chips a day? Are you robbers? Why is it more expensive after winter?!”

  ”Of course it’s to make room for guests from afar. Why do you think it’s cheaper in winter?” The hotel waiter sneered, “Okay, take your luggage and you can go away.”

  ”What if I say no?” The man stared at him intently.

  ”What does that have to do with me?”

  The waiter yawned, turned around and walked towards the main door without even looking at him.

  When passing the main door, he glanced at the security guard at the door.

  ”Leave it to you.”

  The fully armed security guard nodded expressionlessly, standing there motionless, his eyes looking straight ahead, like a statue.

  The ignored man was annoyed and reached for his waist.

  However, just as his hand touched his waist, a gunshot rang out, and a bloody hole instantly appeared between the man’s eyebrows, and he fell backwards.

  The woman next to him screamed.

  Several other guests hurriedly stepped back, packed their luggage and left.

  Having witnessed the whole scene, Fang Chang looked at the militia at the city gate in surprise, but saw that they were too lazy to even look at this side.

  Xu Shun, who was walking next to him, asked for him the question in his heart.

  ”Those people… don’t care?”

  Qian Lai gave him a strange look.

  ”Those people? You mean the militia?”

  Xu Shun swallowed.

  ”Yeah.”

  Qian Lai said with a smile.

  ”The militia doesn’t care about disputes outside the Stone City, they only care about the land at the gate. Law enforcement has boundaries. The wasteland is so big, we can’t manage every piece of land. After managing this street, should we manage the next street? This hotel has a good reputation. The owner is a noble in the inner city, and the manager is a capable man. He has a good relationship with several gangs in the slums. If you come here to do business, they will introduce you to customers… Only 10% commission, and only once.”

  Qian Lai took out his rusty pocket watch to check the time and continued.

  ”It’s noon now, not many people. If it’s at night, it will be more lively here, but I don’t recommend you to have fun here.”

  ”Fun?”

  ”Nothing, forget it if you’re not interested. If you are interested, you can ask the waiter at the door just now, and he will introduce you.”

  ”……?”

  Xu Shun looked confused.

  Qian Lai urged him.

  ”Let’s go, we should go to the city gate to line up… By the way, have you prepared the city entry tax?”

  Xu Shun was stunned.

  ”Entry tax? You have to pay tax when you enter?”

  The manager told him that after selling these goods, the caravan would get a share, and part of the remaining money could be used as their activity funds.

  But the goods have not been sold yet, and he has no chips in his pocket.

  I wonder if those people accept silver coins…

  Qian Lai smiled and said, “Of course, three chips are required for each entry into the city, so most people will not enter and leave casually. It’s okay if you don’t bring any. I’ll pay for you this time.” There

  will be more opportunities to deal with each other in the future.

  Judging from the boss’s reaction that night and the manager’s attitude afterwards, Qian Lai felt that he needed to have a good relationship with them.

  This is a long-term investment.

  Six chips are just a small amount for both him and his boss.

  It didn’t take long to queue up.

  The main purpose is to check whether there are any dangerous goods in the goods.

  It is worth noting that explosives with an equivalent of more than 300g are contraband, but bullets and rifles are not. Perhaps because they have absolute confidence that they can kill the troublemakers at the first time, these militiamen don’t seem to care whether they bring weapons in at all.

  Think about it.

  There are several barrels of heavy machine guns visible on this huge wall. It is reasonable to arrange a few snipers or similar things in invisible places.

  When checking Fang Chang, several militiamen unexpectedly looked at him and the bow behind him for a few more times. After whispering a few words, they added a stroke to a notebook full of words.

  Of course, Fang Chang was doing the same thing, writing in a small notebook with a pen in his hand.

  […The militia leader at the gate of the stone city is very strong. I can feel the breath of danger. He is probably an awakener, but I am not sure what level he is. ]

  [In addition, awakeners will be registered when entering the survivor base. ]

  [But judging from the reactions of the people around, ordinary awakeners should not deserve special treatment. Registration is just a routine matter. ]

  The militia let the group pass.

  Looking at the towering gate passing overhead, Xu Shun, who was carrying a bag, couldn’t help but sigh.

  Finally arrived.

  ……

  ”…We followed the caravan into the stone city. The caravan leader paid the city tax for us, a total of 6 chips.”

  That night.

  After going offline, Fang Chang immediately posted a thread on the official website, bringing first-hand information about Boulder City to the forum.

  Not only were the players curious about what the bad planner had put in the new map, but even the planner himself was extremely curious about what Boulder City was like. To

  be honest,

  Chu Guang had been saving up chips for five months, planning to run there from Bate Street.

  If he hadn’t discovered Shelter 404, he might have already screwed in there.

  Because it was a serialized post, and Brother Fang Chang’s typing speed was not very fast, Chu Guang, who was sitting in front of the computer, clicked the option of [Only read the original poster] to temporarily filter out the comments of the stupid netizens.

  ”The situation inside the city is completely different from that outside. The streets here have been renovated, and the buildings are rebuilt on the ruins. The higher you go into the city, the higher they are, but none of them can be higher than the giant wall.”

  ”Good hotels are expensive, and the cheap inns and taverns are hidden in the intricate alleys. The conditions there are not much better than the slums outside. But it is worth mentioning that due to the construction of a drainage system, it doesn’t smell too bad.”

  ”Perhaps the planner is hinting at us that we should also consider adding some municipal facilities to the surface base?”

  ”Speaking of clothing, the residents here mainly wear cotton and linen, and the weaving industry should be very developed. For citizens who have jobs in the city, there is basically no problem with clothing, but they will wear a piece of clothing for a long time. Mercenaries prefer leather clothes, or bulletproof vests made of special materials, so even if they hide their guns, it is easy to distinguish them.”

  ”There are a few hospitals and schools scattered in several communities on the edge of the inner city. The mental outlook of the people living there is completely different from that of the outside world, and their spending power is also stronger.”

  ”There is another wall in the city center, which is the inner city of Boulder City. More than a dozen pre-war high-rise buildings have been renovated to form the top of the pyramid of Boulder City. The ruler who dominates all this is a man named Fang Ming. He rarely appears in front of the public directly, and often appears in holographic images. Most people are in awe of him, but quite a few people don’t care.”

  ”It is worth mentioning that Boulder City is not short of supplies, and productivity is not low. Many technologies have even reached the field of science fiction, but the vast majority of people still live in poverty. Especially for the uneducated lower class people, there are only two ways to get rich, either join a caravan or become a mercenary.”

  ”After solving the problem of a place to stay, we and the caravan took the devil cloth and spirit leaves to the trading post. All the bulk commodities in Boulder City are traded there, and there are hundreds of stalls inside, like a trade market. The stall owners there were amazed at our weaving craftsmanship. I have to give a thumbs up to Teng Teng Xiao Gaigai… but I can feel that they are obviously more interested in spirit leaves.”

  ”In the end, 10 pieces of devil cloth were sold for 5,000 chips, and 100 kilograms of spirit leaves were also sold for 5,000 chips… This was the result after bargaining. At the beginning, they only planned to give half of this number. The weight of the goods is actually not much different, but in my personal opinion, the latter is easier to obtain and obviously more profitable.”

  ”After the transaction was completed, the guard NPC and I walked around here and conducted a simple market research. We found that the demand for rubber and biomass oil here is very stable, the purchase volume is surprisingly large, and the most important thing is that the price is transparent! The only drawback is that the price is not high, but where to get so much rubber and oil is a problem.”

  ”In addition, cotton, flax, grains, as well as materials such as steel, aluminum, and even precious metals such as silver and gold can all be traded here.”

  ”The following is only speculation!”

  ”Considering that Boulder City highlights the characteristics of the two professions [Merchant] and [Mercenary], the next version may open up the gameplay of running merchants and mercenaries.”

  ”If you plan to run a business, you must pay attention to the weak consumption power of the residents here. It is estimated that it will be difficult to sell food at a high premium!”

  ”But in contrast, mercenaries have strong consumption power and clear needs. Cheap weapons, protective gear, auxiliary equipment, alcohol and even spirit leaves for relieving stress, as well as medical gauze and dry food, can all be sold at a good price here!”

  ”Maybe we should run a store in Boulder City? Our weapons are obviously in oversupply!”

  ”Of course, if there are brothers who are interested in strength, they can also go to the factory to screw in screws? But the triggering method is currently unknown, and the income is very low, and the process is suspected to be extremely boring.”

  ”Unless you have never been to a factory in real life, it is strongly not recommended!”

–

  (I was stuck while looking up information. It would be much more comfortable if I sorted out the details, but I didn’t have enough time. It’s really hard to cope without a draft… After laying the groundwork, I started a new plot. I will only update once today.)

  (End of this chapter)