RIACMET chapter 53

 

After they finished eating, the two of them began planning how to distribute the supplies to their teammates. Oil, salt, rice, flour, and sugar were all necessities.

The timing was just about right, so I’ll mention the spatial ring as well.

They had so much food that they could afford to relax for a while.

However, Jiang Nian didn’t want to simply lie there and do nothing. Now that he had arrived at the base and his teammates were so capable, he felt he had to do something.

The whole world was already in ruins, and he no longer had any hope of achieving a grand ambition or undertaking a major endeavor. Making a living wasn’t difficult anymore.

For example, he could open a small grocery store in the apocalypse.

When he was tortured to the point of unconsciousness in his previous life, he had this thought:

If he had the chance, he wanted to open a little shop during the end times. He would sell all kinds of things and stay inconspicuous and calm. He would steal a bit of leisure and stability to survive the disaster.

He was very self-aware. If he didn’t have the ability, he would simply keep his head down.

This thought only grew stronger after his rebirth.

He brought it up while eating dinner with the team, and everyone was supportive.

Cheng Jing agreed wholeheartedly. After all, he hoped Jiang Nian wouldn’t go out every day.

Ding——

A notification chimed on his phone. Huang Qian had sent a group message, asking everyone to gather downstairs in five minutes.

By the time Jiang Nian and Cheng Jing went downstairs, everyone was already waiting for them.

After they greeted each other, quite a few eyes turned their way. The two of them, dressed in matching clothes, were certainly eye-catching.

“Wow, you even prepared matching outfits?”

Huang Qian sighed teasingly. She knew that Jiang Nian was shy around outsiders and couldn’t resist teasing her.

Sure enough, under everyone’s gaze, Jiang Nian’s face turned red immediately.

Cheng Jing remained calm. He glanced at them, then at Lu Ningzhou, and shook his head.

“Not only do you not have rings, but you don’t even have matching outfits? Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk…”

His tone was ten times more shameless than hers. He touched the ring on his finger and casually wrapped his arm around Jiang Nian’s shoulders to show off.

“…”

Huang Qian wanted to pounce on him and bite him, but Lu Ningzhou pulled her back and patted her hair.

“Let’s take it easy and not provoke them.”

They really couldn’t provoke them at all!

Jiang Nian was used to it by now, so he just smiled and didn’t say anything to the others, even though his face was still red.

After the brief commotion, the group got into the car and drove toward the west gate, following the base map that Li Sheng had provided.

South City Base had four gates—east, west, south, and north—and the roads at each gate extended from the outer area all the way inside.

Of course, heavy entry gates separated the two areas and were lowered at night and raised again at dawn.

Their dorm building was closest to the west gate.

They really had a special bond with the west side.

Along the way, they saw many rescue convoys searching for survivors, as well as patrols armed with real weapons and ammunition. Suddenly, they felt much safer.

Li Sheng had submitted their information in advance, so they just had to scan their fingerprints to receive a free point storage card.

The card worked like an ordinary bank card but also served as an ID for the entire base.

Cards issued by bases across the country were all similar.

The point cards at Nancheng Base were black with silver edges. The card number was printed on the front, and instructions and anti-theft tips were printed on the back.

The user’s information was stored in the embedded chip. To use the card, you pressed your finger on the chip location to match your fingerprint with the stored data. The process was not at all troublesome, and the anti-theft measures were excellent.

Everyone only had one card. If the card was lost or damaged, it cost 100 points to reissue it. The card would be canceled upon death.

After receiving the point cards, Jiang Nian took some rare supplies, such as tobacco and medicine, from the vehicle and exchanged them for points at the management office counter.

The three Li family members said it wasn’t necessary since Li Sheng had already given them plenty of points.

But Jiang Nian insisted. After understanding the situation, he gave each of his teammates 500 points.

In principle, these points should have converted to pre-apocalypse currency at a nearly one-to-one ratio.

However, due to market instability, the prices of everything else fluctuated wildly, aside from special goods like tobacco and medicine.

For example, a small loaf of bread might cost just one point, but at other times, it couldn’t be bought for even ten points.

Other than the official exchange, which was relatively reasonable, there were no market standards. What mattered was that both parties agreed.

After exchanging the points, the group left the management office and strolled around the base, occasionally stopping to familiarize themselves with their new living environment.

The entire base was essentially a city where survivors lived to avoid zombies.

Although clothing, food, housing, transportation, trade, and medical care weren’t as comfortable or prosperous as before the apocalypse, everything necessary was still there.

“Didn’t our godfather plan to open a grocery store? Let’s go check out the commercial street.”

Liao Yu brought it up with a smile, and everyone agreed. The group drove around the commercial street, parked the car, and started walking around.

After carefully analyzing everything, Li Kaiyun decided that Jiang Nian’s idea was quite good.

The commercial street was located at the intersection of the inner and outer districts. Shopfronts lined one side of the street, and street vendor stalls lined the other. A broad road separated the two.

The shops were single-story bungalows with insulated roofs. Their fronts faced the road and square, and their backs connected to the inner district’s isolation wall. The shops were built right up against the wall and arranged neatly in grids.

The vendor square was about the same size as the shop square. Management had used yellow paint to mark stalls measuring about 1.5 meters on each side on the rough concrete ground; each was labeled with a number.

Other than that, there were no facilities, so stall owners had to get creative with their setups.

The commercial street encircled the base’s ring road. From a bird’s-eye view, it looked like a belt wrapped around the base, which was pretty nice.

The main reason was that everything was laid out so neatly. It was satisfying for people with obsessive-compulsive tendencies to look at. It was completely different from the filthy, chaotic scenes he’d seen at Base Z in his previous life.

Unfortunately, now that the population was so low, the stalls and shops on the commercial street were mostly deserted. Only security posts stood at regular intervals.

Behind the square, separated by a sidewalk, were the residential dorms—by far the largest and most populated part of the base.

Though they were just rows of wooden huts and simple, one-room boxes, the place was clean and equipped with everything necessary.

Except for the commercial street, main entrances, and essential facilities, the entire outer district was filled with rows of prefabricated houses stretching all the way to the empty land by the isolation wall.

Anyone entering the base could receive free housing placement. However, if you wanted a more comfortable environment, you could rent or buy a place in the inner district.

The worst properties in the inner area were cement bungalows. Better ones were community suites with no elevators and no more than eight floors. The best were two-and-a-half-story single-family villas with yards.

While some people were doing fine with no worries about food or clothing, even in the apocalypse, others toiled only to scrape by. The gap between rich and poor didn’t disappear with the end of the world.

As the base continued to develop, that gap would only grow wider and deeper.

Some official policies issued by the base only served to maintain balance and coordination. In the end, everything stayed the same.

After walking around the commercial street for two hours, Jiang Nian talked with everyone and decided to rent a shop stall near the west gate where he could open his store and easily get back to the dorm.