The First Order

They barely managed to turn a goat into cured meat with all the salt available at the outpost. Li Qingzheng was a little excited as he seemed to have discovered a new business opportunity.

“It’s almost the Lunar New Year, right? Every household, including the refugees, will want to enjoy themselves for a few days. Since we get our meat for nothing, we can keep selling them in town as long as the Wolf King continues sending their game to us,” Li Qingzheng said. Thinking of this, Li Qingzheng seemed to already be dreaming of becoming an esquire in town.

Ren Xiaosu looked at him as he rubbed the salt onto the meat. “Wouldn’t the Li Consortium’s forces do something if you try that?”

“I’ll sell them secretly,” Li Qingzheng said with a chuckle.

Ren Xiaosu asked, “Are you familiar with any of the shops?”

“No.” Li Qingzheng said, “But since meat is quite scarce, I think it should be easy to sell.”

Ren Xiaosu sighed, “Have you ever eaten meat during the Lunar New Year before? Everyone just makes do with some lard in their cooking and considers that a New Year celebration. The meat will only be valuable if you can sell them in the stronghold. I’ll introduce you to a friend of mine. He’s called Wang Fugui, and it won’t be difficult to get to know some people in the stronghold with his skills.”

Li Qingzheng’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

He also knew what Ren Xiaosu said was true. All of a sudden, this outpost had become a wholesale market for meat. However, the town’s purchasing power was too low for them to make much of a profit, and they might not be able to sell the meat off easily unless he was willing to reduce the price. Therefore, it was extremely important to have a qualified distributor.

Meanwhile, Ren Xiaosu still needed to stay undercover in this outpost and wait for more opportunities to get more nanomachines… so he needed Li Qingzheng to front the dealings.

By acting as the intermediary between Li Qingzheng and Wang Fugui, he could travel frequently between the outpost and town. Moreover, they would also be able to rake in the majority of the profits.

Old Wang was still quite capable in this aspect.

But at this moment, Li Qingzheng felt a little puzzled. “Aren’t you a student from the stronghold? How did you know about life in town?”

Ren Xiaosu glanced at him and said, “I’m a refugee too.”

When it came to the day for the supplies to be delivered, Li Qingzheng instructed everyone to hide the cured meat and everything else in case the ruffians delivering the supplies got any ideas. “We must hide everything. If not, those bastards will for sure seize a lot of the meat when they see them.”

The truck carrying the goods and supplies came up via the mountain road. But they only unloaded a bag of rice and a bag of noodles without giving them any salt. Li Qingzheng was stunned. He asked, “What about the salt?”

“You’re already very fortunate to have rice and noodles.” The two soldiers said as they smoked their cigarettes, “Hurry up and sign for it. Otherwise, you won’t even get rice and noodles.”

“You should at least give us some salt,” Li Qingzheng said after hesitating for a moment.

“Do you want it or not? If you don’t, we’ll bring it back with us,” said one of the soldiers delivering the supplies.

Li Qingzheng said through his teeth, “Yes, I want it!”

“You’re still so picky, huh? Do you know how many refugees don’t even get to eat?!” After he said that, they got back into the truck and left. Li Qingzheng did not dare say anything else in front of them.

After the truck left, he cursed out loud, “Those bastards must have embezzled our provisions for themselves. Are they trying to force us to dig for wild vegetables in the mountains to pair with rice and noodles?”

When they opened up the bags of rice and noodles, they were shocked to discover that sand had been mixed into them!

“They are not treating us as people!” someone said indignantly.

Ren Xiaosu sighed to the students, “This is the world that y’all have never come into contact with before.”

Just after the resupply truck departed, another military transport truck drove up from the bottom of the mountain. Everyone watched quietly as they waited for the vehicle to arrive without knowing what they were here for.

When they saw a platoon with loaded guns getting out of the truck, everyone realized this was probably the combat troops of the Li Consortium. Li Qingzheng calmed himself down and put on a placating smile. “Sirs, may I know the purpose of you coming to our outpost?”

The officer in charge sneered, “Did anyone come by to inspect the outpost a few days ago?”

When Ren Xiaosu heard this, he was thrilled. He had been waiting for the past few days for these people to come and investigate the incident, and they had finally arrived!

At first, he wondered if he could bait a few more people who had these nanomachines to come to the outpost through this incident. But he never expected that they were not stupid either as they sent over a full-strength platoon.

Of course, this was reasonable. After all, two elite members of the organization had mysteriously gone missing, so they would definitely have to take extra precautions.

Ren Xiaosu felt that this officer would probably be carrying nanomachines as well, but he could not possibly take such a big risk as attacking them now.

Li Qingzheng explained, “Yes, they’ve been here. The two of them were very young officers, but they just stayed for ten minutes before leaving.”

“Is that so?” The officer paced around the front of the outpost when he suddenly asked, “I can smell the scent of blood. Did a battle break out here?”

Everyone was stunned as they did not expect this guy to have such a keen nose. After all, several days had passed since they had skinned and cut up the meat. The scent of blood should have already dissipated from around here.

Immediately, all the soldiers behind the officer cocked their weapons and pointed them at Ren Xiaosu and the others. Li Qingzheng quickly put on a placating smile and said, “We hunted some game with our guns, and we haven’t had the time to take the cured meat we preserved out to dry.”

Then Li Qingzheng hurriedly went to open the kitchen door and revealed the cured meat on the kitchen stove.

The officer raised his eyebrows and said, “It’s no wonder there’s the gamy smell of goat in the air.” Then the officer said, “Search the outpost.”

Five soldiers stayed behind while the rest swarmed into the houses to conduct a search. Ren Xiaosu and the others did not dare move.

After a while, the soldiers trickled back to report, “We found nothing out of the ordinary.”

The officer said coldly, “It’s just a routine inspection. Please do not mind, my fellow colleagues.”

Actually, he did not feel that anything was off with this outpost. Hunting was also common at several of the other outposts, except they did not have as abundant a harvest as here.

He was mainly concerned with finding the vehicle, corpses, and belongings of the two officers. After all, it would not be easy to hide the vehicle after killing them. If anyone coveted the belongings of the two missing officers, they would surely leave behind some clues.

As he had not found any signs of a battle taking place or an abandoned vehicle on the road, he had already lowered his guard.

Based on the two officers’ patrol route and schedule, they should have been in the vicinity of these few outposts located nearby when something happened to them. However, the officer in charge of the search did not find anything unusual here.

While he questioned the outpost’s soldiers one by one, someone would make detailed notes next to him. During the questioning, he did not even notice any unusual behavior from anyone.

After questioning for a long time, he found that the people here were either obedient students who had escaped from a disaster or former refugees and hooligans. They did not even have enough sets of uniforms and weapons, so how could they possibly kill two elite soldiers?

The officer said coldly, “Let’s head to the next outpost.” He decided to have a look nearby at the other outposts first.

Ren Xiaosu felt a little sorry when he saw this great harvest of nanomachines leaving.

However, he knew the investigation would not end so easily. They would definitely come back with a more rigorous investigation, especially when the two people who had died were… the family members of the organization.

But as the military transport truck started driving down the mountain, everyone saw some wolves lurking in the forest. It seemed like the wolves were planning on following the truck.

Ren Xiaosu was taken aback. Were the wolves planning to kill the Li Consortium’s combat troops?