Chapter 89 Seeking the Skin of a Tiger (Subscription Request)

  Chapter 89: Seeking the Skin of a Tiger (Subscribe)

  The snow started to fall non-stop.

  The north wind whistled, and the forest whistled. The forest outside the outpost was dark, and it seemed that there were people hiding behind every tree, and every blade of grass seemed to be breathing.

  The guards on the wall were nervous, fearing that they would be killed by the plot, just like the fisherman who was trapped.

  OB on the official website, it was too torturous.

  Not only the players on duty were nervous, but Chu Guang was also nervous.

  He had already eaten two groups of people from the Blood Hand Clan. It was impossible for the other party to leave him alone. Even if he was seriously injured, he had to get the ground back.

  However, the predators in the north had been silent, and Chu Guang was always uneasy. He sat upstairs in his exoskeleton for half the night, and did not come down until after one in the morning. He slept until eight or nine the next day before getting up.

  On the other hand, the players were full of energy and took turns to work. They seemed to be unaffected by the heavy snow and their work was not affected at all.

  I envy them.

  Anyway, the body is not their own, and they cannot feel the excessive pain. Even if their hands and feet are numb from the cold, they can recover after eating some meat and carbohydrates and lying in the incubator for a few hours.

  Of course, winter has just arrived and the coldest time has not yet arrived.

  Don’t say that minus ten degrees is not cold. Go to the south to feel the magic attack? It doesn’t even need to be below zero. A gust of wind can blow away half of your life.

  ”We should add a heating pipe to this exoskeleton.”

  ”Forget it, let’s wait until they make the armor lining first.”

  Looking at the truckloads of bricks being transported from the warehouse to the industrial zone, Chu Guang smiled and nodded with satisfaction.

  Not bad.

  These players are very sensible.

  Brother Ce Suo and Brother Levin, who had received the budget, were also very generous in spending money. As soon as they went online the next day, they used the budget given by Chu Guang to buy 5,000 bricks and 500 kilograms of cement directly from the warehouse. Under the envious gaze of a group of players, they took them to the industrial zone.

  Since the silver coins used were all from the company account, they just had to debit the account directly in the account book. Old Luca was already able to complete this work skillfully, and Chu Guang didn’t even have to worry about it.

  As for the sand used for plastering, there was not much in the warehouse, and it was basically used up when the wall was repaired.

  But it didn’t matter. Spend some silver coins to rent a cart and hire two people to go to the abandoned construction site in the north direction to pull it. 1 silver coin per cart, calculated at five carts per square, pulling about nine carts is enough for the time being. Anyway, it’s only a little

  over 2 kilometers to go and back, and the road is flat and not difficult to walk, and many people are rushing to do this job.

  There are piles of sand and gravel there, all used to build a hundred-meter-high building. It’s hard to tell what the ingredients are by looking at the variety, but I think the quality of things in the pre-war era will not be bad.

  Although some of the sand was washed into the foundation by rainwater, the part buried in the soil on the surface alone was enough for them to use for many years.

  To build an 18-meter wall, one square meter requires 96 bricks, 10 kilograms of cement, and more than 50 kilograms of sand.

  A 20X10 steel plant, if fully sealed, would require 30,000 to 40,000 bricks and about 4 to 5 tons of cement. Even if the warehouse was emptied, there would not be so much material.

  But it doesn’t matter.

  There is no need to be so particular in the wasteland. If it really doesn’t work, you can paste up the north wall first, and then pick up some scrap metal and plastic sheds to build a “same”-shaped semi-open factory building. The materials can be directly saved by more than half.

  The wasteland should have the atmosphere of the wasteland. The shack that Chu Guang had on Bethe Street before didn’t use a pound of cement, but it was still habitable.

  That’s called post-apocalyptic style.

  At least the two factory managers, Brother Ce Suo and Brother Levin, don’t care.

  The most urgent task is to build the converter for steelmaking first, then use scrap metal to melt and cast two rollers, and then build a powerful armor for the great administrator!

  This is their top priority at the moment.

  In addition to hiring two people to transport sand, they also hired three players who had worked on the construction site to help build walls and build the base of the converter.

  Everything is going in an orderly manner.

  However, compared with the smooth progress of the “No. 81” Steel Plant, the progress of the Niuma Brick Factory is not so smooth.

  Lao Bai and Fang Chang, who were a step behind in going online, were stunned as soon as they arrived at the warehouse.

  My goodness, where is that pile of building materials?

  There was such a high pile yesterday, and it was sold out as soon as it went online? !

  ”Fuck!”

  ”How come they’re so fast?!”

  ”Tsk, that’s a mistake.”

  ”The bucket carriers are professionals… Forget it, don’t panic, brothers. Let’s go check out the terrain first and then think of a solution.”

  The four of them went through the warehouse and chose, and finally bought only a wooden cart and a shovel, an axe, and a hatchet for land reclamation. They set out in the heavy snow with four people’s worth of dry food.

  It’s not that they want to save money for the shelter.

  It’s just that they really can’t spend the money…

  By the way, since the corporate account can only be used in the warehouse, it is not allowed to buy guns at the weapon store.

  In order to verify, Fang Chang even went to try it, but the owner of the weapon store was too lazy to pay attention to him, so he had to give up helplessly.

  The snow outside the outpost was heavy, and the north wind was blowing.

  Ye Shi, holding the iron pipe rifle in his hand, bared his teeth, freed his arm to wipe the snow hanging on his bangs and eyebrows, and complained in a low voice.

  ”The wind is so strong. Is it really that bad to do it in late September?”

  Lao Bai was optimistic and said with a smile.

  ”It’s probably to test whether the weather system is stable. In the game world, whether it snows or not is up to the planner. I wouldn’t be surprised if it snows in summer.”

  Fang Chang glanced at the only perception system in the team and reminded him.

  ”You better be careful and alert. We are now at war with the Blood Hand Clan. Although this river is in the wetland park, it is not far from the north gate. If the predators attack, we may be the first to encounter them.”

  Ye Shi grinned.

  ”What are you afraid of! The forest is our home ground! When the predators come, I’ll go up – hiss, it’s not good, there seems to be someone in front of us.” “Fuck

  ? Really?!”

  Although Ye Shi is not very reliable, this guy’s perception is the highest among all the players.

  After receiving Ye Shi’s alarm, the other three players did not dare to hesitate. They hurriedly threw down the cart and scattered to the vicinity with their weapons. This

  is not the first time they have teamed up to hunt.

  It is also not the first time they have faced predators.

  Ye Shi leaned against a tree, his usual playful expression gone, leaving only seriousness and alertness.

  He carefully poked his head out, and his eyes swept along the snowy forest. Suddenly, his eyes were fixed on one place.

  He gestured a general direction with his hands, and Ye Shi gave the other three teammates a reassuring look.

  ”Flank them.”

  ”Understood.”

  The outermost Lao Bai took action first, and the four of them moved forward in tacit understanding, spreading out in a quadrilateral to surround them.

  Ten meters.

  Fifteen meters.

  Twenty meters!

  In the vast snow and fog, a sneaky figure finally emerged.

  The man was wearing a gray coat, a thick cotton felt hat on his head, and an iron rifle on his back. He pressed the brim of his hat that was constantly blown up by the wind with his right hand, and walked towards the direction of the outpost.

  It was obvious that he was not a good guy!

  Fang Chang made a judgment immediately. Before the man discovered them, he immediately pulled the bowstring, put an arrow on it, aimed at the man’s right arm, and released the string with a snap.

  There was a whoosh sound of breaking through the air.

  The man had no time to react, and was shot in the thigh by an arrow. He fell to the ground with a scream of pain.

  ”Don’t move if you don’t want to die!”

  Lao Bai rushed forward first, kicked the gun in his hand away, and put the javelin on his head with great momentum.

  The man was terrified, and he was yelling, and no one knew what he was saying.

  Fang Chang suggested.

  ”We need someone to take him back.”

  ”I’ll do it.”

  Kuangfeng raised the crossbow in his hand.

  Although it is an intelligence type, things like crossbows don’t need too many attribute bonuses.

  The other three were also very confident in Kuangfeng’s carefulness and had no objections.

  Lao Bai returned to the cart, found a rope to tie up the man, and poked his back with a javelin to threaten him.

  ”If you dare to run away, we will remove your other leg!”

  After that, regardless of whether the man understood or not, Lao Bai handed him over to Kuangfeng, and watched Kuangfeng escort the limping prisoner away in the direction of the outpost.

  …

  Earlier, after watching the Cow and Horse Squad leave the outpost, Chu Guang saw that it was getting late, so he went to the warehouse to chop off a crab leg and found a room in the former sanatorium to roast it.

  In this snowy weather, food is not so easy to rot, and this crab leg should be fine for two or three days.

  This stuff is high-quality protein, and you have to eat more of it to build muscle.

  Chu Guang is now idle every day, just wearing the exoskeleton without turning on the power to take a walk, or carrying a nitrogen-powered hammer to do push-ups and bench presses to train arm strength.

  After each exercise, he goes to the bathroom to take a shower, takes the clothes he changed to dry, and makes some food for himself when it’s time for dinner. His life is much more comfortable than when he was on Beth Street.

  Although the training marks on his body are not very obvious, and the attribute panel has not changed at all due to exercise, he can still clearly feel that his strength and muscle coordination have improved slightly. Chu

  Guang speculated that the data scanned and summarized by the physical examination equipment mainly measures the “basic hardware” of the body, and exercise may provide efficiency bonuses for the hardware in the form of BUFF.

  For example, “Strength +3%” or “Strength +5%”.

  The larger the basic value of the attribute, the more obvious the effect of training.

  For players with strength gene sequences, training can also accumulate the development progress of the gene sequence and break through the limits of hardware.

  At present, Chu Guang’s strength attribute is 10, and the hardware foundation is about 200% of the normal adult male (base value 5).

  Even if there is no skill and the coordination of muscles cannot be maximized, it can easily crush opponents of the same weight class with the attribute.

  If he encounters the crawler again, even without the exoskeleton and nitrogen-powered hammer, Chu Guang can’t say how easy it will be to win, but at least he won’t be as embarrassed as before.

  However.

  This assumption is unlikely to be true.

  After all, let alone going out, even in the outpost base, he wears the exoskeleton inside the deerskin coat whenever he has something to do.

  It’s just that the power is not turned on at ordinary times, just as weight training.

  Two and a half kilograms of the five-jin crab legs are shells, but the remaining two and a half kilograms of crab meat are also quite solid. After eating, Chu Guang clapped his hands and put out the fire.

  At this moment, a player came in from outside, holding a native in a coat. After

  taking the captive to the main building of the sanatorium, Kuangfeng stood at attention with a serious face and reported to the manager.

  ”Dear manager… we have captured a scout of the looters!”

  ”Captive?”

  Chu Guang wiped his mouth and squinted at the man in front of him.

  The man was covered with snow, mud and dead leaves, with a broken arrow stuck in his thigh and dark red blood staining half of his pants. He looked very embarrassed.

  He gritted his teeth and said,

  ”Is this your way of hospitality?”

  ”Hospitality is for guests.”

  Chu Guang felt that he didn’t look like a looter, but he didn’t look like a scavenger nearby, so he continued in an interrogative tone.

  ”Who are you? Why did you enter our territory? There are signs at the three entrances of the wetland park, and it is clearly written that no outsiders are allowed to enter. Even if you can’t read, you should recognize the skull logo.”

  ”I’m here to mediate!”

  ”Mediate?” Chu Guang narrowed his eyes and said in a somewhat unfriendly tone, “Are you from Blood Hand?”

  ”No! I don’t belong to anyone!”

  Sensing the unkindness in the tone, the man hurriedly clarified, but the wound was too painful. The excitement involved the muscles, and he grimaced in pain again. It

  took a long time to recover. The man tried to stay awake and squeezed out a few words from between his teeth.

  ”…Can you take care of my wound first? I might be gone if I wait a little longer.”

  It’s okay if I’m gone.

  Seeing you so calm, I thought you were not seriously injured.

  Chu Guang smiled, but didn’t embarrass him.

  He threw 5 silver coins into Kuangfeng’s hand and sent the little player away. Then he took out a roll of bandage from a blind box and threw it to the man. He

  had never tried the hemostatic effect of this thing.

  It was just right to use him as an experiment.

  The man obviously knew how to use this thing. After skillfully disassembling it, he first broke the arrow shaft, used the tool inside to pierce the flesh, and took out the arrow head while enduring the pain.

  The blood gushed out like a tap, flowing down the trouser legs and all over the floor.

  Chu Guang frowned as he watched from the side, unable to help but gasp in amazement, but the man seemed fine, gritted his teeth and tied the bandage, and then heaved a sigh of relief.

  ”Do you feel better?”

  ”Better,” the man nodded, took a deep breath, and continued the previous topic, “My name is Haien, a businessman from Honghe Town.”

  ”Why would a businessman from Honghe Town mix with the looters?” Chu Guang looked at him with interest and continued, “And it’s about 50 to 60 kilometers from Honghe Town to here.”

  ”50 to 60 kilometers? Oh, that’s the straight-line distance. If you want to bypass the city group, you have to go at least 130 kilometers! Of course, if you want to be safe, you have to bypass the highway bridge… about 150 kilometers.”

  ”So?” Chu Guang looked at him and raised his chin, “You didn’t answer my question, why did you mix with the looters.”

  ”Well, it’s not mixed, it’s just… we have some business dealings.”

  Haien’s eyes were a little wandering, and he continued after an awkward moment.

  ”Okay, let me get this straight. I’m a merchant…or employee of the Horseshoe Trading Company in Red River Town. Because of our boss, we occasionally do business with some trustworthy raider tribes in the southern part of the River Valley Province, mainly for population. Don’t look at me like that. Without us, those captives wouldn’t survive the winter. At least we gave them a chance to start a new life!”

  ”So you’re in the slave trade?” Chu Guang touched his chin with interest, but didn’t show his interest on his face.

  ”That’s right!” Hein nodded and continued, “This time I was sent to Qingquan City by my boss to buy some slaves from them. But when I got here, I heard that you were fighting?”

  Chu Guang smiled kindly and said.

  ”Yes, and the enemy of your trading partner is now considering something. Assuming your boss doesn’t know that you’ve been to my place–”

  Hein swallowed his saliva and nervously interrupted Chu Guang’s words.

  ”I know what you want to say, but it’s meaningless. People die every day in the wasteland, and my death is of no concern to my boss.”

  ”Really?”

  ”Instead of deciding how to deal with me, don’t you want to hear my proposal first?”

  ”You say.”

  Hain continued quickly.

  ”Blood Hand wants to cease fire with you. They are willing to pay a ransom of 20 chips for each prisoner… Of course, if they are missing limbs, they are only willing to pay half.”

  ”Oh, then what about the contract they gave you?”

  ”Mine? Contract? What contract–”

  ”Okay, stop pretending,” Chu Guang said impatiently, looking at Hain who was playing dumb there, “Do you think you can fool me? You said that people die every day in the wasteland. Will anyone risk their life for something that has no benefit? Or is it good for you if we cease fire?”

  Hain said with a wry smile.

  ”I’m not hiding it on purpose…it’s just that I really don’t have a contract with them. Well, I’ll tell you the truth. Their leader promised me that as long as I can bring their people back, they are willing to ‘deal with’ the wounded at a low price. But this is actually good for you, isn’t it?”

  ”No one wants to fight in the heavy snow, and your neighbors are also troubled by this weather. Why don’t you sit down and have a good talk? In fact, it’s not a deadly conflict. The misunderstanding here can definitely be resolved.”

  ”I’ll take the prisoners back to report, and you’ll get a war compensation, and shake hands with your neighbors…all three of us can win!”

  Chu Guang smiled.

  But the arc of his mouth was cold.

  Misunderstanding?

  Resolved?

  Hahaha.

  He had never heard such a funny joke.

  If he hadn’t run into him and happened to run into this group of players, if it was any other survivor base, not to mention what would happen to the men and women, even their bones would have been sucked clean.

  Make peace?

  Those people are just waiting for an opportunity.

  For example, the snow stopped.

  ”Mr. Hein, I feel like you are making me laugh. Reconcile with the predators? Do you believe what you said?”

  Hein’s expression was a little awkward.

  In fact, before entering this outpost, he had already had a hunch that this group of people were different from the survivor bases he had visited before.

  Walls, trenches, sentries on duty, hunting sentries…

  No one here is a professional soldier, but everyone seems to be able to fight very well, and the most important thing is to dare to fight.

  They wear blue coats, but they don’t have any illusions about the kindness of this world.

  This negotiation is about to collapse…

  ”I understand, you have your difficulties. Since we can’t talk, I won’t force it… Can you let me go? I will keep my mouth shut about everything I see.” Hein made a decision to stop the loss in one second.

  However, Chu Guang did not speak, but just stared at his eyes motionlessly, and stared straight at him for a long time.

  The latter felt scared by being stared at by a crawler, and sweat gradually seeped out of his back. Unable to bear the oppression, he spoke with trembling lips.

  ”Even if you kill me, you won’t get any benefit… Why bother? I have no grudges against you, you can continue to fight, I promise not to get involved.”

  ”But there is no harm.”

  For a moment, Haien felt that his heartbeat had stopped.

  However, Chu Guang’s next sentence rekindled his hope of life.

  ”You said that you are in the slave business?”

  ”Yes, yes!” As if grabbing a life-saving straw, Haien nodded in panic, “You need slaves? I can serve you! We not only import slaves, but also export them, and provide door-to-door delivery. If you need it–” ”

  Follow me.”

  Looking at the man walking out of the door, Haien was forced to stop talking, swallowed his saliva, dragged his legs that felt like they were filled with lead, and limped after him.

  The snow outside was getting heavier and heavier, and the wind blew on his face like a knife, especially on the wound. Haien felt as if his blood was about to freeze.

  Fortunately, it was not far away.

  The man took him to a simple shed, and then said a few words to the old man on duty at the door. The old man nodded, turned back to the house, and took out a wooden box.

  Chu Guang weighed the box and handed it to Hai En.

  Hai En felt his hands sink after taking the box, and looked at the man who handed him the box in confusion.

  ”…What is this?”

  ”Open it and have a look.”

  Although he had a bad feeling in his heart, Haien still freed one hand and opened the box.

  When he saw the ornaments made of finger bones in the box, the blood in his body seemed to solidify and his face lost its color.

  Having dealt with predators for many years, he certainly recognized these things.

  Those people would take the index fingers of their prey as trophies, dry them, wash them, make them into ornaments and hang them on their bodies, and they would be inseparable from them like their lifeblood.

  This devil in blue skin! He

  didn’t even keep a single one…

  ”Winter is coming, and I don’t have so many cells here. I’m afraid you can only find the captives you want from here.”

  Looking at Haien who seemed to have lost his soul, Chu Guang smiled nonchalantly.

  ”Let’s make a deal.”

  ”I promise that you will get a large number of captives… and a large number of captives. Perform well in front of your boss and you will reach the peak of your career from now on. If you are lucky, you can even say goodbye to the life of having your head on your belt.”

  ”And I can solve the trouble in the north once and for all.”

  (End of this chapter)