Chapter 85 The Underground Black Market Opens: A Pack of Instant Noodles for a Luxury Apartment

The third month since the extreme heat disaster descended.

The sun overhead, like a fireball, had already scorched the surface into a wasteland.

Order—that thing had long since been reduced to nothing but ash.

Qian Duoduo's intelligence network intercepted a new piece of information.

On the other side of the city, in that abandoned air-raid shelter fifty meters underground.

Several of the strongest large-scale survivor bases had joined forces to set up an underground black market.

In the conference room of the Star Fortress, the air conditioning was blowing comfortably.

Lin Xingwan looked through the black market price list handed over by Wei Feng, and the corner of her mouth couldn't help but twitch.

"A property deed for a luxury apartment, in exchange for a pack of braised beef noodles?"

"A Ferrari car key, in exchange for half a bottle of mineral water?"

She tossed the list onto the table, finding it amusing.

"Are these people truly starving mad, or do they take others for fools? This piece of trash paper is too stiff even to wipe one's ass with."

Huo Yuan leaned back in his chair, toying with a lighter in his hand.

"At the end of their rope, they have to take things they used to think were valuable to maintain a shred of dignity."

He sneered, "But in the black market, only food and water are hard currency. A bag of moldy crackers is enough to make a female college student take off her clothes."

"We aren't short on food."

Lin Xingwan interlaced her fingers, resting her chin on them, her eyes becoming somewhat profound.

"But I am very interested in the few items mentioned at the very end of the list."

At the very end of the list were a few lines of extremely secretive trade requests.

[Wanted: High-purity purified water. Can be exchanged for special aerospace metal, high-precision machine tool blueprints, or retired individual exoskeleton fragments.]

These were the real treasures.

The Underground City of the Xingchen Base was undergoing frantic expansion.

No matter how skilled Zhao An and his brother were, they were limited by the available materials.

To build a super barrier capable of withstanding nuclear explosions, or even extreme mutant beasts, ordinary reinforced concrete simply wouldn't cut it.

She needed lighter, harder special alloys, as well as those cutting-edge blueprints hidden away by warlords!

"Want to go fish for some things?"

Huo Yuan saw through her thoughts at a glance.

"Yes." Lin Xingwan stood up, "Let's go give them some 'warmth.'"

Half an hour later.

The armored vehicle silently drove out of the Half-Mountain Villa.

To avoid drawing attention, the two changed into a new set of gear.

Lin Xingwan covered herself in a wide black robe, hiding her striking face within the hood.

Around her neck hung a voice changer.

She carried an extremely large tactical backpack.

Although it looked bulging, the actual weight had been offloaded into her space using her Mental Power, making it feel lighter than cotton.

Huo Yuan was more straightforward.

Wearing a pitch-black tactical vest, a ferocious Asura mask was strapped to his face.

He carried a Tang sword with a blood groove in his hand, and his entire body exuded a cold, murderous aura that screamed "keep away."

The vehicle stopped behind some ruins two kilometers away from the air-raid shelter.

The two headed to the black market entrance on foot.

The entrance was extremely hidden—a heavy iron air-raid door.

Outside the door stood four guards holding homemade shotguns, each as thin as a bamboo pole, but with eyes as fierce as hungry wolves.

"Stop! What are you doing here?"

A guard with a scar on his face, Scarface, raised his gun, staring vigilantly at the two.

Lin Xingwan didn't speak.

She reached out from under her black robe, and in her palm lay two packs of perfectly packaged compressed biscuits.

In the dim light of the torch.

The plastic packaging of those two biscuit packs reflected the light, appearing even more alluring than a peerless beauty.

The eyes of the four guards turned green instantly.

Their Adam's apples bobbed wildly as they swallowed hard several times.

"Ent... entrance fee paid, go on in."

Scarface snatched the biscuits, stuffing them tightly into his coat, fearing they would be stolen by someone else.

The look he gave Huo Yuan was filled with wariness; not daring to cause any trouble, he quickly let them pass.

The air-raid shelter was extremely dim.

Illuminated by torches stuck along the walls, the air was filled with a nauseating mixture of sweat, urine, and rot.

On both sides of the passageway, countless survivors were huddled densely.

These people were skin and bones, with tattered rags spread out in front of them.

On them were various luxury goods that had been worth a fortune before The Apocalypse: designer watches, diamond necklaces, and even out-of-print antique vases.

"Boss, have mercy, let me trade for a sip of water..."

A former wealthy lady, holding up a high-quality, full-green jade bracelet, pleaded tremulously with Lin Xingwan.

"This bracelet cost two million when I bought it, I only need half a sip of water!"

Lin Xingwan didn't even glance at it.

Items like this—she had just emptied an entire museum using her thoughts a few days ago, and now she had so many in her space that she could only use them to prop up table legs.

She and Huo Yuan walked straight through the outer refugee area and arrived at the "High-End Trade Zone" in the deepest part of the air-raid shelter.

There were significantly fewer people here, but everyone carried weapons, their eyes sinister.

Lin Xingwan walked to an empty stone platform.

She placed the tactical backpack on her back onto the stone platform with a "thud."

She pulled the zipper open.

"Clatter—"

Ten bottles of 500ml top-tier Nongfu Spring water, with the labels still intact, were neatly arranged on the table surface.

Plus five boxes of self-heating hotpot!

As soon as these items appeared.

The air in the entire high-end trade zone seemed to freeze instantly.

Silence.

Dead silence.

Immediately following that was the sound of gasping.

"Holy shit! Is that clean purified water?!"

"And self-heating hotpot? Am I dreaming? The water's been cut off for two months!"

The "lone wolves" and profiteers nearby had their eyes turn bloodshot instantly, their breathing ragged like broken bellows.

In this place where a cup of foul, dirty water could trade for a human life.

These ten bottles of purified water were essentially a nuclear-level temptation!

Several thugs holding knives exchanged glances, secretly gripping their weapons, preparing to rob them openly.

"Clang!"

Huo Yuan sneered.

The Tang sword in his hand was drawn in a flash, the tip stabbing firmly into the stone platform, sinking in by a third.

His eyes, hidden behind the Asura mask, swept coldly across the surroundings.

The terrifying murderous aura belonging to a top mercenary leader pressed down on them like a physical force.

The thugs who wanted to rob them felt a chill run down their backs instantly.

Being stared at by those eyes was like being strangled by the Grim Reaper; their legs went weak, and they couldn't even hold their knives steady.

The situation was forcibly suppressed by sheer force.

Only then did Lin Xingwan speak, unhurriedly.

Her voice, processed by the voice changer, was low and hoarse, making it impossible to tell if it was male or female.

"Only trading for hard goods."

She pointed to the ten bottles of water.

"Special aerospace metals, cutting-edge military blueprints, or crystal cores of rare mutant creatures. Don't waste your breath with other trash."

Once these words were spoken, the few profiteers who had originally wanted to exchange gold bars for water could only retreat in despair.

In less than five minutes.

A middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses, looking like a down-and-out researcher, pushed through the crowd and walked over.

He was trembling all over, taking out a bundle tightly wrapped in oil paper from his chest.

"This boss, I... I used to be a researcher at the provincial military industrial institute."

He swallowed his saliva, staring fixedly at the box of self-heating hotpot.

"I have a set of power core blueprints for a 'single-soldier exoskeleton mecha' that was half-destroyed. Can I trade it for a box of hotpot and two bottles of water?"

Single-soldier exoskeleton!

Lin Xingwan's eyes under her hood lit up instantly.

If Zhao An could build this thing, the combat power of the Xingchen Base team would definitely double!

She suppressed the wild joy in her heart, pretending to wave her hand reluctantly.

"Put down the blueprints, take the items, and get lost."

The researcher felt as if he had been granted amnesty; he put down the blueprints and scrambled away, clutching the water and hotpot.

This was like opening Pandora's box.

In the next hour, desperate researchers and profiteers with private goods flocked to them.

Lin Xingwan, at an extremely low cost, was winning big.

Not only did she trade for over a dozen tons of high-purity titanium alloy samples.

She even managed to get a formula for a special coating that could resist strong acid corrosion!

The water and food she brought were completely traded away.

She put those precious blueprints and samples into the backpack, though she had actually already secretly transferred them into her space.

"Done for the day, let's go home."

Lin Xingwan clapped her hands and gave Huo Yuan a look.

The two turned around, preparing to leave this foul-smelling air-raid shelter.

However, just as they were about to walk to the exit passageway.

"Clang!"

Two heavy iron gate doors suddenly descended from above, directly sealing off the way out.

The torchlight flickered.

A bald, burly man wearing an eye patch, accompanied by thirty-some subordinates holding homemade rifles, walked out from the shadows.

The one-eyed boss rubbed his bald head, laughing extremely arrogantly, revealing a mouth of yellow teeth.

His greedy gaze was fixed tightly on Lin Xingwan's backpack.

"Friend, on my turf, you've traded away so many good treasures just for a few bottles of water."

He raised the rifle in his hand, the dark muzzle aimed at Huo Yuan's head.

"Shouldn't you leave some 'road money' for me, the owner of this place?"