Chapter 217: Apocalyptic Monopoly

“Stop!”

On the station platform, the crowd was chattering, starting to argue and even bid against each other over the unprecedentedly good prices.

Just as the argument was heating up, Lin Xian directly called for a halt.

At that moment, everyone fell silent.

Lin Xian stood in the middle, his gaze sweeping across the crowd, and said in a clear voice, “This isn’t all our stock. We have more on the train. There’s no need to argue. Everyone is just trying to survive.”

Lin Xian wasn’t here to hold an auction. Besides, these were all ordinary survivors, and he had no intention of squeezing them for profit.

These favorable conditions were all thanks to his Mechanical Heart. He wasn’t looking to do a one-time business deal either. Thinking of this, he began to feel that KIKI’s idea was indeed very forward-thinking. If the Infinity’s reputation was established, perhaps it could develop into an integrated center for weapons and resources in the future. Then, obtaining any resources he needed would become very easy, and the team’s survival would be greatly guaranteed.

“For real?” Cao Hong heard this, looked suspiciously at the few weapon crates in front of Lin Xian, and then his gaze swept over to the train behind him. His expression became complicated.

The Infinity’s presence was ridiculously powerful. Its entire body was covered in standard heavy armor, and its dozen-plus carriages stretched for hundreds of meters, several times larger than his Night Charm. He subconsciously wanted to make a scene but quickly held back.

“What, you don’t believe me?”

Lin Xian glanced at him, then looked back at the middle-aged man. “You can take the vehicle-mounted machine cannon and that light machine gun. I have more than one set of each. But I need to trade them for canned food or biscuits.”

“No problem!”

Cao Hong immediately said magnanimously and hurriedly called to a female subordinate beside him, “Quick, bring the stuff to trade for the guns!”

The female team members of the Night Charm were instantly energized. A group of them hurried to open one of the storage carriages of the green train. With a clatter, the door opened to reveal neatly stacked survival supplies of all kinds. Lin Xian noticed that among them were dozens of boxes of canned food whose outer packaging looked like military supplies.

He noticed this detail because the middle-aged man’s van also had canned food with the same packaging.

“How do you have military rations?” Lin Xian’s gaze swept over, and he asked directly.

“You mean this… We bought it from the Fu Lu Shou convoy.” The middle-aged man in the hat, named Liao Ming, said bluntly, “Most of the survivors here trade for supplies with them, but their prices are a bit higher than yours.”

“How much higher?” KIKI’s eyes lit up.

“It’s alright. They have a lot of supplies, almost everything. Most of it is standard official survival supplies.”

The fat man from the Night Charm, Cao Hong, said in a stern voice, “It’s just that the price of weapons and ammunition has always been relatively high. That’s why so many people in the vicinity heard your broadcast and rushed over to see if it was really such a good deal.”

The middle-aged man, Liao Ming, picked up an automatic rifle, pulled the bolt, and inspected it. He nodded and said, “The quality of this gun is indeed good. At first, I also thought you were fishing, or that they were all broken goods.”

“Every gun can be inspected on the spot,” Lin Xian said. “Quality is guaranteed, but the stock is limited. Food, canned goods, biscuits, and medicine have priority. If that’s not enough, you can use blood essences.”

“No problem.”

Lin Xian narrowed his eyes slightly and said to Chen Sixuan, “Teacher Chen, let’s start with the trades we just discussed.”

“Mmm.” Chen Sixuan nodded and said to the crowd, “Those who want to buy guns, come to me. I’ll register you one by one.”

Members from countless convoys surged forward, scrambling to trade their supplies.

“Hey, hey, hey, me first! We’re locals!” The fat man Cao Hong, looking unapologetic, gritted his teeth and had his subordinates push to the front, afraid of being beaten to it. “Quick, babies, buy up all the good stuff first!”

“We want to trade for three sets of guns, and I wonder if this detector can be repaired.” Other survivors also swarmed forward.

“We want two sets of guns, a shotgun, a light machine gun, and bullets…”

“What are the prices for your level 1 and level 2 water purifiers?”

Besides food, there were also various medicines and blood essences. Lin Xian was prepared to clear out all these idle weapons in one go. A few large convoys even had their eyes on the light and heavy machine guns and the Roarer K23 electric rotary machine gun in Da Lou’s hands. He was also prepared to go back to the train to “get” more stock. These heavy weapons could be traded for a lot of supplies; the only trouble was their huge demand for ammunition.

As the crowd surged forward, Chen Sixuan was suddenly swamped. KIKI and Shu Qin quickly went to help. Da Lou, Lu Chang, and Miao Lu were all busy moving weapons and ammunition.

Vroom~

At this moment, a series of rapid, roaring car engine sounds suddenly broke the trading atmosphere. Out of caution, everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and looked back warily.

Outside the station, a dozen or so off-road vehicles with camouflage paint, plus a transport truck, burst through the barbed wire gate that the survivors had set up to block zombies, and drove directly onto the platform.

Seeing this, everyone retreated to their own vehicles.

Swish, swish, swish. Soon, dozens of heavily armed people got out of the dozen or so vehicles. Several of the vehicles had vehicle-mounted machine cannons on their roofs.

Thump.

At this moment, two people got out of the lead, imposing armored vehicle.

The leader was a man in a plaid shirt and a dark red suit, wearing toad-style sunglasses. He had a lean face and looked a bit thuggish.

As soon as the man got out of the car, he stretched his neck, lifted his sunglasses, and walked towards Lin Xian with an arrogant expression. The people behind him also followed with their guns, looking menacing.

“Hey, hey, hey!”

“Are you the convoy that was making a fuss on the radio about trading a gun for a box of biscuits?”

The lean man walked through the crowd of survivors who were about to trade, looked at Lin Xian with a scrutinizing gaze, tilted his chin up, and spoke with an impatient tone.

“Yes.” Seeing the other party’s unfriendly demeanor, Lin Xian’s face immediately turned cold.

“Then you’re the leader of this convoy?”

“I am.”

“What do you want?” KIKI’s eyes narrowed. She crossed her arms and walked to Lin Xian’s side. “Want to buy something? Get in line at the back!”

Lin Xian’s gaze swept over. This convoy was extremely formidable. The dozens of people were all holding high-powered guns, and their vehicles had machine cannons. At the same time, behind this thuggish-looking lean man, there stood a… woman.

She had short-cropped red hair, distinct features, and was nearly 1.8 meters tall. Under her tight tank top, her wheat-colored skin and well-defined muscles gave off an impression of health and powerful impact. If it weren’t for the bandages suppressing the waves on her chest, most people wouldn’t even be able to tell she was a woman.

Most importantly, the woman’s right arm was a silver-black, weapon-grade prosthesis that looked incredibly formidable.

Among everyone, the most eye-catching was this woman who looked like a mechanical Contra character.

“Buy something?” the man said arrogantly. “Good kid, do you know who I am?”

“I don’t.”

“They are the Fu Lu Shou convoy.” At this moment, the middle-aged man Liao Ming, who had just traded weapons with Lin Xian, spoke up. “We bought a lot of our things from them.”

Seeing this, Cao Hong of the Night Charm convoy immediately lost his boisterous energy. He gave his subordinates a look, and they began to retreat into the crowd, afraid of getting into trouble.

Many other convoy members also had complicated expressions. Most of them had traded with the Fu Lu Shou convoy before. Seeing this situation, many guessed that the Infinity’s cheap weapon prices must have displeased the Fu Lu Shou convoy.

Lin Xian and Chen Sixuan exchanged a look. Well, well, they had run into a competitor.

“Yo, where did you guys pop out from? Haven’t you heard of our Fu Lu Shou convoy? Don’t you know the rules? Don’t you know that by arbitrarily setting such prices, you’re disrupting the apocalyptic market? And how many broken guns do you have to dare to shout prices on the radio, destroying the market environment of integrity, friendliness, and harmony? Can you take responsibility for that?”

Lin Xian’s gaze swept over the group of people behind the man, and he frowned. “Do survivors need your permission to trade with each other?”

“Hey!”

The man in sunglasses raised his hand. “It’s normal for survivors to trade for what they need. No one would care if you traded a gun for a single biscuit. But you’re directly advertising on the radio that you have this and that, and you’ve set such a low price. That means you’re selling a large quantity of goods. This is no longer an ordinary trade. You’ve broken the rules, understand?”

Chen Sixuan stepped forward and said coldly, “That’s too unreasonable. Do we have to sell at a high price?”

The man in sunglasses was immediately annoyed. “Are you guys really stupid or just pretending? Today, you’re trading a Spark-26 fully automatic tactical rifle with 120 rounds for just one box of biscuits. How am I supposed to sell my guns? Will my brothers have enough to eat? Other survivor teams could have traded for a box of canned food, but because of you, they might only get half a box. Tell me, is this just your business?”

Lin Xian placed a hand on Chen Sixuan’s shoulder and looked ahead. “He means we’re new here, and our stock is limited. Private trades are fine, but we can’t announce prices on the radio and sell openly, otherwise we’re ruining the market price.”

The man in sunglasses looked at Lin Xian, his nose in the air. “That’s right!”

“So what do you want? Are you trying to threaten us?” KIKI was not happy to hear this and immediately stepped forward.

The dozens of Infinity team members behind them also stopped what they were doing and gathered around Lin Xian with cold expressions, their hands on their weapons, ready for his command.

The survivors who had come to trade all backed away at this scene. Their expressions were complicated. For them, buying was buying, no matter from whom, but Lin Xian’s incredibly favorable prices were very tempting. From a profit perspective, they definitely supported the Infinity. However, these people clearly knew the strength of the Fu Lu Shou convoy. Many could only swallow their anger and retreat far away.

At the same time, the dozens of people behind the man in sunglasses also raised their guns in unison. The vehicle-mounted machine cannons on their cars also turned, and a series of cocking sounds rang out.

The red-haired woman behind him, seeing the change in the situation, also slowly clenched her fist without a word. The independent servo system of her right arm prosthesis activated, and the gears in her wrist and knuckles made a faint hissing sound as they moved.

The surge of electrical energy caused a faint blue electric light to flicker on her knuckles.

“NO! NO! NO! I’m a businessman, not a bandit!”

Seeing the tense atmosphere, the man in sunglasses gave a disdainful smile and clapped his hands. Whoosh~ His underlings opened the truck’s doors, revealing a truck bed completely filled with neatly stacked supplies. The other survivor convoy members’ eyes widened, and they gasped in unison.

Extravagant, absolutely extravagant!

The man in sunglasses clearly enjoyed being the center of attention. He said to Lin Xian arrogantly, “Since you’ve shouted this price today, well, however many guns you have, at your price, I’ll take them all. Then, get the hell out of here, pronto!”

As soon as he said this, the faces of everyone on the Infinity’s side changed. Not only was this disrespectful, but most importantly, he was pulling this kind of market monopoly stunt in front of so many survivor convoys. It was simply too arrogant. The faces of the other survivor convoy members also darkened.

Lin Xian almost laughed when he heard this. He hadn’t expected to meet a group of principled apocalyptic profiteers. He nodded. “Oh, I get it. You’re here for wholesale, right? Fine.”

“May I ask, what should I call you, boss?”

“The name of the convoy is my name. I am Fu Lu Shou!” the man in sunglasses replied faintly.

“Is your surname Fu?” Shasha peeked out from behind Lin Xian and asked in surprise.

“None of your damn business if I’m ‘fu’ or not!” (A pun on ‘fu’ meaning ‘happiness’)

“No, I mean your surname is Fu. That’s a rare surname.”

“My name is Fu Lu Shou! Fu as in ‘shan he fu hai’ (mountains, rivers, blessings, seas), Lu as in ‘zou lu’ (to walk), Shou as in ‘chang shou’ (longevity)!” The man in sunglasses felt a bit insulted and got agitated.

“Shan he fu hai?”

“Is there a problem?”

The red-haired woman behind him couldn’t stand it anymore and spoke in a low voice, “His surname is Hu. The ‘hu’ with a mouth radical and a moon. Hu Lu Shou.”

“Hulu Shou (Gourd Beast)? What a strange name,” Shasha muttered with a frown. KIKI, beside her, immediately covered her mouth, almost bursting out laughing.

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