Chapter 203: Terror and the Bittersweet Inventory Department

In the end, Gu Xu didn’t listen to anyone’s advice and piloted the patrol boat alone to the giant ship. The journey was fraught with danger—there were all kinds of creatures in the water, each one massive and ferocious. With a single sweep of their tail fins, they could stir up waves that looked like they could easily capsize the tiny patrol boat.

Everyone watching from this side was on edge, their hearts in their throats.

When Gu Xu finally made it to the side of the ship, the dozens-of-meters-high hull wasn’t the real challenge for him—the real problem was that there were still zombies on board.

Bian Changxi watched Gu Xu’s distant, tiny, blurry figure with a grim face. Under the gloomy, cold light of the sky, he seemed about to melt into the vast expanse of water. She couldn’t quite describe how she felt—her heart felt unsettled, mixed with anger, confusion, frustration, and contemplation.

But to others, she just looked like she was standing there with her arms crossed and a stiff, unreadable expression, making it impossible to guess what she was thinking.

Forty minutes later, Gu Xu returned, soaked to the skin and covered in wounds, his clothes torn into strips. Yet his calm and relaxed expression made him appear anything but disheveled.

As soon as he arrived, he didn’t waste words—he simply ordered everyone to line up and head back.

People exchanged puzzled glances. The day’s main task wasn’t even finished yet—were they just leaving? But no one dared question Gu Xu’s orders, so they quickly prepared to depart.

Bian Changxi didn’t say much either. She gave Gu Xu a quick once-over, tossed him a tracksuit and a large towel, then turned and walked away. Milk (the pet) craned its neck to look at both of them, then unhesitatingly followed Bian Changxi.

Gu Xu could only smile helplessly—she was definitely mad.

Since there had been no casualties and everyone had gotten enough rest to mostly recover their energy and spirits, the return journey was even easier. Still, perhaps because they felt they hadn’t met their quota for the day, everyone was extra motivated, hunting for targets along the way as if determined to make up for their “appearance fees and travel expenses.”

Gu Xu didn’t stop them, so after they’d thoroughly cleaned out anything movable at the docks, they went on to sweep up mutated beasts, zombies, and all sorts of shops along the way. On their way back down the mountain, they stumbled upon something amusing: the long-haired golden monkey they’d shaved earlier had gathered a whole troop of its kin, lying in ambush in the trees, ready to avenge its lost fur.

There must have been a hundred long-haired monkeys leaping and swinging through the trees, screeching arrogantly. Among them were a dozen or so especially agitated bald monkeys. The group nearly burst out laughing, and in the end, every monkey—including the bald ones—was captured. Bian Changxi contributed four large trucks, chopped down some trees blocking the road, and after much bumping and jostling, they finally managed to haul all the precious monkeys down the mountain.

When they reached the flat road at the foot of the mountain, Bian Changxi and the two spatial ability users took out the cars they’d stored earlier and sped back to base, leaving the others—still hunting for prey and chopping trees—watching enviously.

“See? That’s what a big team is like. Every time they go out, it’s a spectacle.”

“They can even fit cars in their space. Just how big are their storage spaces?”

“You don’t know? That woman in black just now—Bian Changxi from Jiangcheng—she’s ranked number one on the spatial ability leaderboard. Some say her space is as big as twenty football fields!”

“Seriously? I also heard their missions are always easy and the haul is huge. Everyone gets a cut—they must make a fortune.”

“Yeah, if only I could join them…”

Bian Changxi had no idea about all this gossip. After entering the base, she didn’t return to her villa but instead went straight to the factory with the four truckloads of monkeys.

Actually, it couldn’t be called a factory anymore. In the twenty-some days since the autumn equinox, this place had developed rapidly. Everyone had been told the weather was about to change, making construction much harder soon, so they’d all been working flat out, day and night in shifts. In just over twenty days, a whole cluster of buildings had sprung up, housing offices for various departments, production units for different factories, and all sorts of activity and operations departments.

The official name for this place now was the Jiangcheng Activity Center, living up to Gu Xu’s original purpose for acquiring this plot of land.

The trucks pulled up under the main archway of the activity center. After passing inspection, they slowly drove inside. Bian Changxi looked at the buildings on either side—though simple and plain in style, the construction quality was top-notch. Her heart ached a little; what was the point of building so well, when soon it would all be handed over to the zombies as their lair? Still, she admired Gu Xu’s patience and determination. For someone destined to leave early, he wasn’t gaining much from all this—the real beneficiaries were the entire Jiangcheng group.

The trucks soon stopped in front of a huge warehouse. On either side of the entrance were signs reading “Jiangcheng Inventory Department.” The supervisor, who’d been registering and boxing goods, immediately put down his work and hurried over. “Ah, we’ve been waiting for you! Park the trucks here and come have some tea—you’ve worked hard!”

When he saw the four truckloads of long-haired monkeys, his eyes lit up—what a haul! But then he couldn’t help but smile wryly. Monkey fur was great, but what were they supposed to feed all these creatures? Even though Jiangcheng folks were doing better than most, they barely had enough to eat themselves, let alone spare food for monkeys.

When he saw Bian Changxi get out of the truck, his wry smile deepened. “Miss Bian…”

Bian Changxi smiled at the young supervisor’s changing expression. “What, not happy to see me?”

“Of course not! Miss Bian, your arrival always means a huge haul. When you do well, everyone benefits—I’m thrilled!”

It was true—Bian Changxi never showed up for nothing. Whenever she appeared, it meant they’d brought back more supplies than even the spatial ability users could carry. He glanced at the two spatial users behind her. Since they always had to come in person to deliver goods, he’d gotten a sense of just how large their spaces were—both ranked high on the leaderboard.

Great, looks like it’s going to be another overtime day.

The young inventory supervisor was both happy and pained.

Still, he quickly had people move the four truckloads of monkeys to the livestock processing warehouse for inspection and registration. The monkeys would need to be penned up and arrangements made with the animal husbandry center, maybe even set aside a new area for them.

Of course, that wasn’t his department. He asked Bian Changxi, “Should we do the inventory inside the warehouse or out here in the open?”

The main warehouse of the inventory department was huge, designed to handle large team deliveries for inspection, registration, and value assessment. In fact, it mainly served teams personally led by Gu Xu, since his operations were never small—anything less and you couldn’t even fit the haul inside.

Only when Gu Xu wasn’t using it did they have time to handle other hunting teams’ business. Of course, those came with fees: official military and Jiangcheng hunting team missions paid a 3% inventory fee; private organizations, 7%; other Jiangcheng residents, 12%; and outsiders, 18%.

You might ask, why did everyone have to bring their loot to the inventory department? Well, you didn’t have to, but whenever a team got supplies, they had to divide the spoils, right? Everyone wanted their fair share. Smaller teams or those with strong leaders could split things up themselves, but bigger, more complex teams with lots of internal politics found it tricky. That’s where the Jiangcheng Inventory Department came in handy.

The staff here were all pros—sharp-eyed, quick-witted, and always up to date on current prices. Whether it was a wild pheasant or a tire, they could instantly give you a price, all calculated in first-tier white cores, accurate to within 5%.

For Jiangcheng locals, their own people were of course trustworthy. For outsiders, the department had no stake in their affairs and wouldn’t rig the numbers, so the valuations were reliable. In the half month since opening, business had only gotten better.

Just today, Supervisor Pei Chusan had turned down several big cases—after all, Young General Gu’s team was coming, and the main warehouse had been kept empty all morning for them.

Bian Changxi glanced around and sent the two spatial users inside the warehouse, while she stayed outside. With a wave of her hand, countless containers, vehicles, entire counters of cigarettes and alcohol, several beds and cabinets, piles of home appliances, boxes of unknown contents, a huge stack of glass panes, two truckloads of tiles, uncountable red bricks and yellow sand, bundles of packaged wild delicacies and seafood, barrels of carpet fabric, mountains of mutant beast carcasses…

Pei Chusan went from wide-eyed, to twitching at the corners of his mouth, to finally gaping in shock—he was completely out of it.

Bian Changxi was still reciting, “There’s a lot of timber too—I’ll just send that straight to the charcoal department. As for the boats, looks like there’s nowhere to put them…”

Pei Chusan swallowed hard. Just this haul alone would keep them working from dawn to dawn. Where did Miss Bian even get all this? If anyone else brought even a tenth of this, it would be a phenomenal harvest—let alone the two spatial users still inside the warehouse.

Thankfully, Bian Changxi mercifully said, “No need to register the building materials—just have the construction department come pick them up.” The construction department had their own spatial users, so transporting goods was easy.

Actually, she’d secretly kept some things back, especially anything she thought particularly valuable—about a third, in fact. As for building materials, she’d only brought out half; apart from earth- and sand-type users who could make more, things like bricks and glass were still consumables, and she didn’t want to use them all up here.

Thanks to Lucky Charm #7 for the blessing!

Thanks to titi-cat for the pink ticket!

Thanks to soi for the pink ticket!

Thanks to 941 Desserts for the pink ticket!

By the way, there was a tiny mistake in the chapter title for the third update yesterday, but it doesn’t really matter—just letting you know. l3l4

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