Chapter 158: Third-Generation Batteries, Lee Matteo's Terrifying Connections!

The idea of establishing a merchant caravan wasn't something Cheng Ye came up with on a whim.As early as when he first encountered a merchant caravan at North Station, he had been amazed by the substantial profits from buying low and selling high within the caravan.

Mutated crystals, fur, bone powder, amber.

Just these common items, bought from settlements and sold in the buffer zone, could yield several times the profit margin.

At that time he had been tempted, but after making inquiries he gradually understood that merchant caravans needed to venture deep into wasteland settlements to collect goods, which not only required solid connections to navigate various checkpoints, such as difficulties and competition within settlements, but also had to deal with infection sources and mutated creatures along the way.

As a trainee inspector who had never even ventured into the wasteland, lacking a mature network of relationships made every step difficult, so he temporarily shelved the idea but now it was different. After going out into the wasteland once the day before yesterday, the dangers outside were basically clear to him.

Add to this that Happiness City had initiated satellite city construction, and the entire landscape around Chuan City would undergo major changes.

The old routes running to settlements were still monopolized by established merchant caravans that had been entrenched for years, but the new routes connecting various satellite cities were an undeveloped blue ocean.

Cheng Ye was crystal clear in his mind that there must already be merchant caravans pondering these new routes, hoping to get a slice of the pie through differentiated competition but could ordinary merchant caravans be in the same league as those led by inspectors?

The construction of satellite cities was led by various major inspectors to begin with. Before basic infrastructure was perfected and management systems took shape, inspection stations would be the most powerful individual departments in each satellite city.

Merchant caravans established by inspectors, if not enjoying special privileges, would at least have more conveniences and care than ordinary caravans in areas like transit, security checks, and material allocation.

These seemingly minor advantages were precisely the most crucial driving force when merchant caravans were starting up.

Once the satellite cities were fully built and market patterns were set, trying to squeeze in to compete would be as difficult as ascending to heaven.

"Merchant caravan," Lee Matteo repeated in his mouth, first instinctively shaking his head, but after a few seconds he nodded lightly, indicating for Cheng Ye to follow him outside.

The two walked out of the street and came to a sales center run by the Civil Affairs Department at the street corner, finding a private meeting room to sit down.

As soon as Cheng Ye's bottom touched the chair, Lee Matteo spoke directly, "Do you know? Inspectors aren't allowed to start merchant caravans. That's an old rule of the inspection station."

"Huh?" Cheng Ye was slightly surprised, this was something he truly didn't know.

Could it be that the higher-ups were worried about inspectors abusing their authority for personal gain?

Like using merchant caravan names to arbitrarily let vehicles pass, increasing the risk of infection source leaks?

However, judging by Lee Matteo's tone and the fact that he brought him here to discuss this, it didn't seem like the regulations completely blocked the path.

"This rule was established by the first-generation inspection station, and after all these years, it's still being enforced today."

Lee Matteo pondered, "A few years ago some inspectors proposed modifying the rules, saying that after the environment stabilized, inspection stations also needed to generate revenue, allowing inspectors to bring a merchant caravan when going on external duties to circulate materials, which could bring back considerable income to the inspection station. But in the end it never went to a formal meeting for voting, and the matter just fizzled out."

"That's impossible, the inspection station won't modify rules for our ideas," Cheng Ye shook his head lightly.

Although he already had some influence with Old Ding, he hadn't truly reached the level of carrying the flag.

Moreover, even if he really had that kind of influence, he couldn't openly propose modifying rules to start merchant caravans. Wouldn't that be pinning the label of seeking personal gain on his own head?

"It is impossible," Lee Matteo nodded in agreement with Cheng Ye's judgment, but the corner of his mouth curved into a knowing smile, "However, this rule has long been broken through privately. Here's the situation."

As he spoke, he simply pulled out his defense communicator and clicked on the inspection station logo to jump in.

Inside were many small icons that Cheng Ye had never seen, presumably functions that only third-term inspectors could unlock.

After some operations, an interface similar to a 'mission panel' popped up. Lee Matteo handed the device over, "Take a look at this."

"Can I look?"

"Of course you can. If you don't say anything and I don't say anything, who would know I showed you?"

Indeed an old hand, Lee Matteo had thoroughly figured out which rules could be bent and which ones required careful attention.

Cheng Ye took the defense communicator and scanned from top to bottom.

[Inspection Station External Procurement Mission Overview]

[1. Procure 18 tons of 'three-star' grade and above specialties from Hequan Sanctuary City (Difficulty 2)]

[2. Procure 10 tons of 'Devil Tree Flowers' from Tiancheng Settlement (Difficulty 4)]

[3. Procure 20 tons of 'Peak Gold' from Sixia Bay Sanctuary City (Difficulty 3)]

[4. Procure 80 units of 'Super Concentrated Photosynthetic Panels' from Rainbow Sanctuary City (Difficulty 5)]

[5]

"Eh?"

Scrolling down, each page of procurement missions showed 10 items, with currently 4 pages displayed.

Among them, the fourth item was Rainbow Sanctuary City, which was Greater Camphor behind Double Moon Lake Settlement, the super sanctuary city behind it.

Cheng Ye clicked on the super concentrated photosynthetic panels, and a line of descriptive text popped up.

It was a special technology that could efficiently store electricity in low-light environments, with very strong power generation efficiency.

"Procurement missions."

Cheng Ye was thoughtful, placing the defense communicator on the table, "What are the rewards for procurement missions?"

"1%-5% personal income, depending on the difficulty of the procurement mission."

Lee Matteo explained, "For example, going to Rainbow to procure these super concentrated photosynthetic panels, this is their core product. Even if they sell to us at Happiness City, the price will definitely be outrageously high. But Happiness City doesn't have that much funding for you to spend freely, they'll only give you a fixed amount of funds based on internal assessment prices. If you can buy back all 80 photosynthetic panels within this budget, you'll get a direct 5% commission reward, at least several thousand points."

"If you can bargain and get them for even less money, besides getting the commission based on the budget, the saved funds also belong to you, and you can get an additional cost control bonus."

"Procurement agent? Escort service?" After pondering for a moment, Cheng Ye immediately got the gist of it.

Large-scale transactions between cities required someone to negotiate prices, sign agreements, and be responsible for safely transporting materials back.

In Happiness City, the most suitable candidates were inspectors who were familiar with the wasteland and had authority to coordinate checkpoints.

"The inspectors who are currently out and haven't returned are basically all taking procurement missions, which means they brought at least one merchant caravan out, which actually already violates the inspection station rules."

Lee Matteo paused, his tone becoming serious, "This is how I understand it: what the rules prohibit is inspectors using their authority to steal ordinary people's livelihoods. For instance, if you start a merchant caravan specifically to run settlement routes that others have already established, squeezing out existing small caravans, that's called illegal personal gain, and the higher-ups will definitely investigate and penalize you."

"But procurement missions are different. When you bring a merchant caravan, it's to obtain urgently needed materials for Happiness City, you're making a contribution. If you can transport these things back, whether it's the station chief or the higher-ups, they'll be too happy to even think about punishment, let alone penalties. They'll even give you extra merit."

"So, if we want to establish a merchant caravan, we must first think clearly about one point."

Lee Matteo wasn't joking around, speaking word by word, "Do you want to rely on an inspector's authority to steal ordinary people's livelihoods and make quick money? Or do you want to use procurement missions to make contributions to Happiness City and satellite cities, while reasonably and legally earning income that ultimately feeds back into local development?"

"If you can't think clearly about this point, if we leave any loopholes for other inspectors at the station to find fault with, even if we can get the merchant caravan established, it'll be useless. One word from above and we're done."

A very realistic question.

Since Lee Matteo said this so seriously, he must have full confidence that this kind of situation would occur.

Cheng Ye didn't rush to answer, leaning back in his chair, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing his chin.

Lee Matteo's meaning was obviously that not only did they need to justify themselves, but they also needed to be able to shut other people's mouths.

This meant that the original simple approach of buying low and selling high for profit margins had to be overturned, and a more rigorous logic that better aligned with making contributions to Happiness City needed to be reconstructed, with the ultimate goal falling on promoting satellite city development.

After a moment of silence, Cheng Ye suddenly looked up at Lee Matteo, "That's manageable, but I need to ask you first: can you accept that the merchant caravan will only have expenses without income in the early stage, with no revenue for a period of time?"

Lee Matteo was stunned for a moment, then couldn't help but laugh, "The Fortress Wall Station shop I'm eyeing, I can handle losing money for even the first year or two. What's the big deal about a merchant caravan having no revenue? As long as it can make money later, I'm fine with however long the early setup takes."

"Then it's settled. Here's what I'm thinking," Cheng Ye sat up straight, speeding up his speech and laying out his new idea completely, "We establish a merchant caravan, but we don't do reselling business. We specialize in free delivery and fair-price sales for various satellite cities. Whatever the satellite city factories produce, we help them transport to buffer zones or other satellite cities. Whatever price we get goods for from satellite cities, we sell to consumers at the same price, not earning a cent of markup."

He paused and added, "But there are two prerequisites: First, all goods must pass quality standards. We won't accept any defective or inferior products, we can't damage the caravan's reputation. Second, we need to establish an after-sales guarantee system. If consumers buy problematic goods, we'll only exchange, not repair. The defective products we exchange will be handled by the supplying satellite cities for recycling and processing."

"Huh?" Lee Matteo was completely stunned, "Free transport and fair-price sales, this would indeed avoid suspicion of personal gain, but what's in it for us? If we change from free to paid later, we'll face the same problems."

"Well," Cheng Ye smiled without continuing.

This underhanded market-grabbing strategy had indeed been overused in modern times but in the wasteland, in Happiness City, this was the first time.

Satellite cities were just starting up, lacking channels to get their goods out. Consumers lacked trustworthy, affordable purchasing channels. The merchant caravan would perfectly fill this gap.

The early-stage free and fair-price approach might seem like a loss, but it was actually using goods from all satellite cities to help the caravan build reputation, having satellite city factories help with after-sales to establish credibility, while simultaneously figuring out sales channels.

Once enough time passed and all consumers recognized the caravan's fair-price genuine goods, would it still be difficult to sell things?

There were too many ways to profit, even just running advertisements would earn who knows how much but Cheng Ye didn't plan to explain these ideas to Lee Matteo.

Just like building Dapo Town, he could accept joint investment, since the caravan needed substantial funding in the early stages and having someone share the pressure was good. But he wouldn't accept having partners.

When it came to control, Cheng Ye wanted 100% decision-making authority.

As for whether Lee Matteo would choose to invest without understanding the full situation, that would depend on his vision and judgment. The ideas he'd already shared were sufficient.

Sure enough, Lee Matteo was stunned for a moment, repeatedly pondering the approach Cheng Ye had just proposed, then suddenly raised an eyebrow.

"Market?"

"You guess!"

Lee Matteo immediately grinned, his tone showing no hesitation, "Stop being mysterious, tell me how much you need me to invest up front?"

"Aren't you afraid I'll scam you out of money?"

"Aren't you afraid I'll tell others what you just said?"

"Haha, that's the spirit."

Cheng Ye couldn't help but laugh, giving a thumbs up.

Trust between men was sometimes just that simple. When you saw the right person, even risking financial loss, you were willing to take the gamble.

"How much can you come up with?" Cheng Ye put away the joking and became serious.

"Twenty thousand points, is that enough?" Lee Matteo spoke casually.

"That much?" Cheng Ye was surprised. Lee Matteo was indeed a hidden wealthy man.

He guessed that even Liu Bi, a fourth-term inspector, might not easily come up with this much money at once.

"I'm not a materialistic person," Lee Matteo explained with a smile, "Over all these years running missions and duty inspections, except for daily expenses, I've basically saved up all the points I earned. Plus my investment luck has always been good. Just like today, I was prepared for the shop to lose money for a year or two, but then I met you, and now there's a new opportunity. It seems I'm naturally not destined to lose money."

Cheng Ye quickly calculated in his mind. Ten thousand had its uses, twenty thousand had other plans.

Twenty thousand sounded like a lot, but when it came to actually implementing the merchant caravan, it really wasn't abundant.

"If we're going to run satellite cities, we need at least four brick transport vehicles, plus about 15 team members (drivers, loaders, security, sales). I can handle personnel expenses, but vehicles... I asked at the materials collection and sales office before. A brick vehicle with a 75-degree battery costs 15,000 points. Twenty thousand points could at most buy two basic versions with 35-degree batteries, and that still requires authorization."

Speaking of this, Cheng Ye brought up his original purpose for calling, "By the way, when I called you, it was also about vehicles. I want to get a vehicle for myself. If I can really get contract points in the future, whether for inspections or transporting equipment, having my own vehicle would be convenient. I wanted to ask you, besides buying directly or renting with contribution points, are there any other more cost-effective methods?"

Buy a vehicle?

"Hmm."

Lee Matteo pondered for a moment, his tone becoming practical, "Regarding vehicles, very few inspectors would buy them. First, whenever there are external duty missions that require them, the inspection station provides appropriate mission vehicles, so there's no need to purchase or rent your own. Second, when you need to temporarily use a vehicle outside, you can rent with points, so there's no need to spend big money buying one and pile all your contribution points into a vehicle."

"And the cheap point-based vehicle rental you're thinking of isn't that easy either. The inspection station's vehicle rental rules are strict. You must have reasonable mission justifications, like executing procurement missions or going to the wasteland to investigate infection sources. Reasons like establishing merchant caravans for cargo transport would never get approved."

Cheng Ye's heart sank. Indeed, things weren't as simple as he'd thought.

The inspection station's benefits only gave green lights to official business. Trying to use vehicle rental conveniences for merchant caravans was basically impossible.

"My suggestion is to rent batteries!" Lee Matteo changed direction, throwing out an idea Cheng Ye had never considered.

"Rent batteries? How does that work?"

"This requires starting with Happiness City's battery industrial system. From the first generation to now, three generations of batteries have been developed. The first generation was 'flat-spread' type, laid under the chassis bottom. Because they frequently traveled bad roads, they were quickly phased out. These batteries have the cheapest prices. The second generation changed to 'slanted tower' style, stacking batteries on one side of the rear compartment, avoiding chassis collision problems. But these two generations were both lithium iron phosphate batteries with average discharge power, prone to rapid power loss on long trips or when hauling heavy cargo."

"Currently, the widely used batteries are third-generation solid-state drawer-type batteries."

As Lee Matteo spoke, seeing Cheng Ye looking somewhat confused, he smiled and waved his hand, "Talking about this is too abstract. Come on, I'll take you to find a vehicle to look at and you'll understand."o ask Jiang Chuan this morning, but had asked Lee Matteo first.

With Jiang Chuan's status as a clerk, there was definitely no way he could discuss merchant caravans and vehicle rental details with him.

Especially since many of these processes involved treading on regulatory red lines and using gray channels.

Finally, after the last phone call ended, Lee Matteo let out a long breath, his face showing a confident smile as he began synchronizing all the details with Cheng Ye:

"The third-generation battery route won't work. Its interfaces and wiring harnesses are proprietary, only matching active vehicles, and can't be rented separately. If you want to rent, you have to rent the entire vehicle, which costs too much and isn't necessary."

"But the station still has quite a few retired first- and second-generation batteries, some are battle-damage repair versions that might have reduced capacity, but they don't affect daily use. The key is we have to pick them ourselves, testing range and checking for cracks in the battery housing on-site to avoid getting completely useless junk. Renting a 100kWh second-generation battery costs 500 contribution points per month, not credits. This is the inspection station's revenue generation project, and the price is fairly reasonable."

"As for car bodies, I don't recommend buying the inspection station's scrapped vehicles. Most of those cars were flooded or crashed. The frames might look intact, but their internal structures are already brittle. If we spend money refurbishing them ourselves, not only would we have to spend big money replacing parts, but we'd also need to have someone check for hidden problems bit by bit. If something breaks down in the wasteland during long trips, with no village ahead and no town behind, we'd be crying."

He paused and presented his solution, "I contacted a friend at the Industrial Department to help us get several new chassis, just empty frames fresh off the production line without any installed components. They're completely new without any usage marks. The key is the price, half cheaper than buying used frames."

"Then we buy new wiring harnesses ourselves and replace all the wiring from steering wheel to motor to avoid short-circuit problems from aging wires. A set of wiring harnesses costs only 200 points. For motors, electronic controls, and other core components, we'll go to scrap yards to dismantle them, specifically looking for crashed cars, having masters test the dismantled parts, and if there are no problems, we can use them."

"Finally, we'll ask masters from the Mechanical Department to help with assembly. This is free, I know several old masters, guaranteed no problems. Cars assembled this way have clear parts sources. If something breaks, you can see at a glance, and future maintenance is convenient. Much more reliable than buying ready-made used cars."

Rent inspection station batteries and get their own chassis?

Cheng Ye's eyes lit up. This solution seemed pretty good.

"So calculated this way, roughly how much would one vehicle cost?"

"Not counting dismantled parts, new chassis costs 800 points, wiring harness 200. We'll budget 1000 points for dismantled parts. One vehicle would total 1800 points, plus 500 for battery rental, that's 2300 points total."

Lee Matteo counted on his fingers, "A one-time upfront investment of 10,000 points would be enough for us to assemble 5 vehicles, and we'd use the remaining money for operations."

"Of course, the chassis I mentioned are all for brick transport vehicles. There are other chassis at different prices, plus various modification parts that can be added. Anyway, the chassis would be ours. If you think this plan works, we can finalize this matter today!"