Chapter 145: What Can 3 Million Points Do?

Just like that, the Shi family inexplicably gained another lunatic.

Shi Chengyu refused to eat or drink every day, shrinking into the same corner like a frightened bird with a broken wing.

She ignored anyone who tried to speak to her.

Even when offered food, she wouldn’t touch it.

As people age, it’s easy to develop dementia.

Shi Chengyu’s case was especially severe—she seemed so far gone that she couldn’t even recognize food anymore.

With dementia compounded by mental issues, it was almost certain that buying Shi Chengyu had been a waste; she was completely useless.

Every time Commander Qiao saw her like this, he was terrified that Shi Yuebai would beat him up.

After all, Shi Chengyu was utterly worthless in her current state.

Yet, she was still visibly putting on a little weight, albeit not much.

Commander Qiao cautiously observed Shi Yuebai’s attitude and discovered that Shi Yuebai simply left Shi Chengyu in the corner, paying her no mind.

She didn’t mention any treatment for Shi Chengyu, nor did she say anything about kicking her out.

Relieved, Commander Qiao focused on his own tasks each day.

He delivered 1,000 vacuum-sealed packs of potatoes to the front lines.

With his growing experience in teleportation, he was now completely at ease traveling to the front lines via the teleportation array.

Shi Yuebai had Pang Ziyuan make several palm-sized stone tokens.

She carved strange patterns onto the tokens—blood-red lines forming what looked like some kind of mysterious sigil.

As long as Commander Qiao wore the set of paired tokens Shi Yuebai gave him, he could teleport freely—from the Tongzi Compound to the perimeter, and back again.

The speed was truly impressive.

After delivering the potatoes, Commander Qiao didn’t linger. He slung on his backpack and set off to sell points.

His current job was to carry a large backpack full of prepared food from the canal every day and head to the big city to trade for points.

Commander Qiao’s prepared food was cheap—much cheaper than what was sold in the city.

But every time he went to the city, sales were painfully slow.

He never dared to sell to the same people repeatedly.

What’s more, the moment he entered the city, the police would keep an eye on him.

With the “Cannibal Commander” label stuck to his name, there was no way to shake off the stigma.

As he played this cat-and-mouse game with the police, Commander Qiao gradually stopped trading inside the city altogether.

The way people looked at him in the city made him deeply uncomfortable.

He learned to stay anonymous, arranging to meet buyers outside the city for transactions.

But this only made things feel even weirder.

Most people would only come out once.

Once they realized the person they were dealing with was Commander Qiao, they’d get extremely nervous.

They’d keep asking him why the deal had to be outside the city—was there some kind of hidden plot?

Once the transaction was done, they’d bolt as fast as they could.

The next day, if Commander Qiao tried to arrange another meeting, they’d never agree to come out again.

Damn cannibal!

Selling food so cheap—wasn’t he just trying to lure people out of the city?

Luckily, they ran fast the first time.

Getting a pack of prepared food for so few points—it was like risking your life for a bargain.

Once was enough; no one dared to try a second time.

Otherwise, next time, they’d end up on Commander Qiao’s dinner table.

Commander Qiao’s business was tough.

He left early and returned late, using anonymous messages on the communicator to lure people out of the city to buy food.

He even learned to make spam calls.

“Hello, survivor, please don’t hang up. I have some prepared food here. Not 9,999 points, just 999 points per pack…”

“Hello, congratulations on receiving my call. We have a batch of prepared food here, only 999 points per pack…”

Most of his anonymous pitches were hung up on, but Commander Qiao still managed to trick one or two people out of the city each day.

Most of those people weren’t thinking clearly, either.

In the fifth month of Shi Xiangrui’s tenure, Shi Yuebai received a short message from Yi Zhe:

[Yi Zhe: Yuebai, tell Commander Qiao to tone it down a bit. He’s being way too obvious.]

Yi Zhe had returned to the city for official business today and heard the police talking about Commander Qiao.

Everyone was sighing.

They couldn’t understand how a decent commander had sunk to this level.

That’s when Yi Zhe realized that Commander Qiao was now infamous in the city.

Infamous for his craving for meat!

And it had reached a truly deranged level.

He had no idea how those horrifying rumors had started.

Still, Yi Zhe trusted Commander Qiao’s character.

After thinking it over, he decided to gently remind Shi Yuebai—just in case Commander Qiao’s antics ended up dragging her into trouble.

Shi Yuebai stared at the message with a bewildered expression, like an old man on the subway looking at his phone.

Suddenly, she roared, “Qiao! What the hell have you been doing?!”

She’d only ignored her account for a few days, and now her points had skyrocketed to three million.

???

That many points?

Just how much prepared food had Commander Qiao sold?

Commander Qiao hurriedly crawled out of the canal and stood in front of the Tongzi Compound.

Inside, all the goods the mercenaries had carried to the sub-arrays had been instantly teleported by Shi Yuebai to the open space behind the reservoir.

Anything that couldn’t be cleared in time was piled up on the garbage mountain.

Shi Yuebai had Xu Xuejiao organize people to clean up the trash and rubble while stacking the crates neatly.

Everyone was busy.

But everyone had enough to eat.

And there were public toilets for everyone’s needs.

The environment was visibly improving.

Commander Qiao hung his head, looking ashamed.

“Yuebai, there are no more seeds for sale in the city. I can’t even spend all these points.”

He’d asked the person who sold people.

Now, when you buy a person, they don’t give you seeds anymore. Instead, it’s buy one, get one free.

Buy one person, get another person.

Commander Qiao wanted to see how things played out. While selling prepared food every day, he also tried to quietly find out if there were still seeds for sale anywhere in the city.

So he hadn’t spent any points these past few days.

Naturally, Shi Yuebai’s points kept piling up.

Shi Yuebai took a deep breath. “What can you do with three million points?”

Commander Qiao thought for a moment. “You could buy a storefront in the city.”

No survivor outside the city could ever save up three million points.

The authorities had designed the points system to ensure you earned just enough to spend.

They would never allow ordinary people to cross class lines so easily.

Even the mercenary groups that earned the most points were no exception.

Now, with prepared food growing scarcer, most people had no choice at all.

If you could get a meal—even if it was 100% radiation-contaminated—you’d eat it.

Especially for the mercenaries.

They had food, but were always short on points.

They couldn’t eat the low-radiation food; they had to trade it in the city for points to buy medical supplies.

Once the mercenary groups had exchanged all their points for medical supplies, they still had to scrape together points to buy water, weapons, and ammunition.

Points were earned quickly, but spent even faster.

Unknowingly, it was almost December again.

It felt like nothing had been accomplished this year, and just like that, another year had passed."