Chapter 565: Chapter 344: Foundation
The wardrobe door suddenly swung open, startling Tan Yunxi.
Seeing it was Yu Jing, she let out a small sigh of relief. To avoid being questioned about why she was there, she preemptively asked, "What’s up?"
Yu Jing just stared at her, and that calm gaze made her wonder if she had already been exposed.
"I have some affairs to handle, and wearing the Power Armor isn’t convenient, so I came back to change."
Only then did Tan Yunxi realize that, in her muddled state, she had crawled into the wrong wardrobe.
She breathed a guilty sigh of relief, and the bristling tail quietly retracted.
"Then let me get out of your way..."
She bent down, preparing to crawl out.
Yu Jing, however, had no intention of waiting for her and directly unzipped her white, tight tactical suit. The thin tactical suit pooled at her feet like a shed snake skin.
Tan Yunxi stared blankly upward, her beautiful beast eyes becoming round and wide, her nose even picking up the warmth and softness of the close proximity.
Yu Jing casually stroked her ear, picked up a casual outfit, put it on nonchalantly, and asked casually, "What are you thinking about?"
Tan Yunxi snapped back to reality, her delicate brow furrowing as she said hesitantly, "If there’s a choice..."
"The consequences are severe?"
"Yes, both are quite severe."
"Then just do what you feel like, it doesn’t make a difference."
"But what if the outcome is really bad?"
"Is there anything worse than offending Su Huan?"
Yu Jing finished tidying up her clothes and walked out, leaving Tan Yunxi dazed inside the wardrobe.
...
The major transactions in the first half were quite smooth, with the train and various small factions dumping a large amount of low-grade zombie materials, urban foundational living supplies, evolution information, and some vehicle manufacturing contracts.
Thanks to the armed train, seventy percent of the vast factories were related to train modification, with slight adjustments making them vehicle factories.
Although without the train as a framework, their manufacturing level wasn’t much better than the old Huang Sea, it was still better than having nothing; those small faction vehicles reduced by one with each use.
Thanks to these transactions, Zhijin’s unbalanced supplies were adjusted.
For instance, a large amount of scarce gunpowder, Storm Zone specialty plants, and materials.
Converted into points on the train, daily revenue fluctuated around 100,000 points, totaling 300,000 points over three days.
But the biggest significance of this transaction was enabling the previously isolated resources of most forces in the Storm Zone to flow. Even if you were a Scavenger, as long as you had something Zhijin needed, you could trade, unlike the limited inter-faction trading among the Big Four.
The auction was set up over the giant pit of Chenxi Square, more accurately encompassing the Glazed Pit.
The auction was held on the second floor, and only those who could prove their financial strength, or had traded with the train in the past three days, could obtain a ticket to the second-floor auction.
The entire second floor had not a single chair, a black curtain was drawn behind the auction platform, revealing half a sofa; unclear if it was a resting area or prepared for anyone specific.
The side walls, like the first floor below, were hung with various material samples, such as the train’s unique synthetic materials, armor steel, blue steel, titanium steel... there were over a hundred types, nearly emptying out the materials from Yu Jing’s laboratory. Although they weren’t used for train modifications, they might be useful for other forces.
For example, a type of brittle metal very suitable for making warning devices.
And some strange concoctions even Wan Xing couldn’t figure out the use for.
With the mindset of profiting from any sales and no losses if otherwise, everything was displayed, far richer in options than the previous three days.
Mr. Shu came early, lingering in each area for quite some time, to the point where his companion Zhong You found it somewhat dull. Feeling a scorching gaze, Zhong You turned back to see a burly man in a suit approaching, without a shirt underneath, exposing a broad expanse of chest hair and ostentatious chest muscles. His build was a couple of sizes wider than He Jie but fell far short of Liang Kuan’s all-around robust physique, and he was followed by a slightly scholarly-looking woman.
The excessively eager gaze from the opposite side made Zhong You somewhat uneasy, yet the other party merely nodded before turning their attention to Mr. Shu beside him.
He asked, "Isn’t potion-making Black Kite’s forte? Do you need to buy them from the train too?"
Mr. Shu pointed at batches of material samples in the hall, shook his head, and said, "I’m not looking at the items, but the growth trajectory of the train itself. Initially, I was puzzled why your Donghuang Heavy Industry let the train occupy one of our top-tier force slots, but now it seems that this substitution isn’t really an issue."
Lian Jin said gravely, "Although Su Huan’s Tier Three is indeed powerful, these items truly form a faction’s foundation. If it weren’t for the train establishing Zhijin, we wouldn’t have known they developed to such a scale."
This man had a meticulousness that starkly contrasted his rough exterior.
Mr. Shu remained silent, though the Black Kite’s foundation was still intact, out of the four directors, number one was in hiding, number three was missing, leaving him and number four to support the entire faction. The laboratory without number one was akin to losing its soul, barely able to function. Several months without much output, resource shortages, elite casualties severe in the skirmishes with the train, the western front, and the cleanup plan causing constant hemorrhaging of the company.
If they don’t engage, the initial investment will be completely lost; engaging is also challenging to sustain.
While other forces were developing wildly, only Black Kite kept depleting.
Between decrease and growth, Black Kite naturally slid from the top-tier power rank.
But Deep Blue Data was not faring well recently either.
The loss of the Genetic Primordial may not show much in the short term, but in the long run, it was akin to cutting a root; it’s hard to say who suffered more, but Donghuang Heavy Industry was certainly pleased, seizing a provincial capital and still having the leverage to dispatch their top fighter to the Storm Zone.
