Chapter 170: Wasteland Marketplace, Special Employment Platform!

Clicking into the entry.Perhaps because Pinghai Tower didn't involve transcendent matters, the displayed information was far richer than expected.

Dense entries clearly outlined this "organization's" profile.

[Pinghai Tower]

[Organization Nature]: Transfer Point; Gathering Place; Employment

[Organization Leader]: Ling Ping (Deceased)

[Organization Territory]: Hai Province

[Organization Structure]: One of the transfer zones for unorganized personnel activities, loosely structured, serving only as a location for accepting tasks and submitting completed tasks for rewards, with no organizational constraints or fixed membership

[Founding Time]: Year 12 of the New Era

[Organization Characteristics]:

1. Task execution style: Results-oriented, no limitations on execution process, flexible methods (assassination, assault, theft, disguise, etc. all acceptable), allowing mercenaries to fully utilize their specialties, thus widely attracting various types of mercenaries to accept tasks

2. Personnel background checks: Those accepting high-reward tasks must pass basic information screening (excluding those with insufficient ability to ensure task progress) and must be infected with "Calamity Heart Worms" to guarantee important information won't be leaked

3. Internal organization atmosphere: Violent and dangerous, conflicts frequently erupt over task competition and profit distribution. Contains underground trading markets dealing in weapons, intelligence, and scarce materials, providing resource supply channels for mercenaries

4. Black market transfer: Large-scale black market resource transfer point, gathering various firearms, modified equipment, high-value materials, providing paid door-to-door delivery services

5. Insufficient permissions

6. Insufficient permissions

[Related search terms: Calamity Heart Worm]

[Calamity Heart Worm (Infection Source)]

[Origin]: Biological infection source developed by the organization 'Shanhai Tower' in Year 7 of the New Era, initially used to control subordinate mercenaries and assassins. Later leaked and spread to other organizations due to infection source breach, specifically used to bind important tasks and prevent mercenaries from leaking task details and organization-related information

[Incubation Period]: No obvious symptoms whatsoever, infected individuals' daily actions and thinking completely identical to uninfected state, only activating under specific trigger conditions

[Outbreak Period]: Trigger condition is when infected individuals undergo interrogation (including verbal coercion, torture, and other attempts to obtain task information). After outbreak, infected individuals immediately lose autonomous thinking, only mechanically repeating task target-related phrases until physical exhaustion and death

[Fusion Period]: Cannot progress to fusion entity form. Calamity Heart Worms always parasitize in infected individuals' brains as independent infection sources, never fusing with host body tissues, and are unaffected by any existing medications

[Removal Methods]:

1. Cranial surgery to physically remove infection source directly, mortality rate >99%

2. Infection sources corresponding to infected individuals periodically shed (cycles typically 7-10 days) tiny worm fragments. If fragments are ingested orally, infected individuals can neutralize and remove parasitic Calamity Heart Worms

"Transfer point, task publishing, Calamity Heart Worms..."

Cheng Ye's thumb repeatedly slid across the screen, quickly capturing key information.

So-called Pinghai Tower wasn't actually a formed assassin organization or mercenary group but rather a platform similar to task publishing?

Someone published high-reward bounties targeting him on this platform, and Wang Qing's group of four were mercenaries who accepted the task?

Comparing with Calamity Heart Worm outbreak characteristics, all four were currently affected and probably not far from death.

"High-reward bounty on me, a trainee inspection official..."

Cheng Ye's thoughts raced, combining previous details to deduce that the task objective was most likely investigating the abnormality about him.

"But what abnormality do I have?"

Cheng Ye couldn't help shaking his head. Recently, he hadn't exhibited any unusual behavior.

Including charging activities, since Master Zhang left, he hadn't risked going to the Works Department again.

Moreover, from task publication to assassins traveling from distant Hai Province would take at least two weeks. At that time he was still on duty at South Station, having just left the hospital barely two days prior.

Wait.

Suddenly a thought flashed through his mind, and Cheng Ye's expression changed slightly.

Although he hadn't been abnormal recently, his performance compared to his predecessor was like two different people.

Recalling the information Lee Matteo had found about Master Tian.

If there were comparisons, his current information profile should be highly abnormal, so much so that even a dog would shake its head.

That predecessor who loved poetry and classical literature, who would be scared to death by wasteland reality.

How could he be connected to his current identity as the rising standard-bearer of the inspection officials' younger generation?

The so-called abnormality probably investigated the reason for such dramatic change.

"This kind of abnormality is unavoidable. I can't keep maintaining my predecessor's persona and wait to die."

Understanding this connection, the knot in Cheng Ye's heart instantly dissolved by more than half.

He had worried about this before. When no one pursued it later, he put it behind him. Now suddenly an organization appeared to investigate, but it wasn't unacceptable.

Thinking back now, those prying gazes felt in the wilderness that night were probably also mercenaries who had accepted Pinghai Tower tasks.

Whether it was one of the four captured, the escaped fifth person, or other mercenaries hiding in the wilderness who hadn't shown themselves, was currently unclear.

Perhaps many people were still waiting in the wilderness for him to leave the buffer zone, seeking opportunities to investigate.

Fortunately, Shanhai Tower, which developed Calamity Heart Worms back then, seemed not to have completely blocked all paths.

This setting of "triggered interrogation leads to repeating task objectives" appeared to put a death lock on mercenaries, but actually transferred hatred from the platform itself to "the employer who published the task."

Like now, Cheng Ye's attention wasn't focused on how to deal with Pinghai Tower. A loose transfer platform, destroying it would just cause new ones to emerge. Meaningless.

What he really needed to find was that enemy hiding behind the scenes who published the abnormality investigation task.

Currently, the only one who could be called an enemy was Garcia.

Was it him?

Cheng Ye immediately dismissed this internally.

Garcia was only a second-term inspection official. Setting aside whether he had the financial resources to publish high-reward bounties at Pinghai Tower, even if he really had that money, it would be to eliminate him, not investigate abnormalities.

Moreover, with Garcia's clearance level, he might not even be able to access his information files.

Excluding Garcia, only one possibility remained.

Old grudges left by Cheng Long.

Those most likely to publish tasks at Pinghai Tower were Cheng Long's former enemies.

These people might still be within Happiness City's system. Constrained by certain rules, they couldn't openly move against him, so they took a roundabout approach through Pinghai Tower, having outside assassins and mercenaries probe his background.

"Even if these four are handed over to the inspection station now, probably nothing can be interrogated."

"And even knowing task information wouldn't allow tracing back to certain people within Happiness City. These old foxes are truly clever."

Thinking this, Cheng Ye didn't feel frustrated.

Although enemies were in the dark while he was in the light, seemingly a passive situation but no one would expect him to have a transcendent creature capable of sensing gazes and surveillance by his side.

Although Fire Sprout's counter-reconnaissance abilities couldn't yet compare to Liu Kun's giant blazing eagle, dealing with a group of merely Dao Embryo realm mercenaries was more than sufficient.

Even if Unity of Heaven and Man realm or half-step transcendent tough characters came, as long as they hadn't broken through to "transcendent" level, they still couldn't escape Fire Sprout's perception.

And as long as they still couldn't ignore threats posed by firearms, he was confident he could catch them all.

"Perfect. Mercenaries infected with Calamity Heart Worms all have 100% cooperation rates. Do they think I've been improving too slowly recently and are delivering skills to me?"

Cheng Ye took a deep breath. What surged in his chest was no longer wariness, but a steady hunting excitement.

He had Big Dragon bring Wang Qing again, noting 31% remaining charge.

"Information Search, direction: related to my task"

As the thought fell.

The originally vibrant flowing world suddenly sank into dark silence, everyone's movements instantly frozen.

Even Wang Qing's strange smile was now solidified at the corner of his mouth, like a still oil painting.

Whoosh.

The scene in his vision shattered in response, countless pixels falling like broken snow. The next second they gathered again following some mysterious order.

Boosted by 100% cooperation rate, this information search quality was very high.

Rather than a closed space, it directly constructed a massive scene.

Cheng Ye paused the image, switching to god's-eye view to look into the distance.

What met his eyes seemed to be an island?

The perspective couldn't pull too high, only fixed about a meter above character heads.

Even so, Cheng Ye still keenly captured the land's edge, with dark blue expanse in the distance.

As the scene resumed playing, that dark blue began gently swaying.

Sure enough, it was the boundless ocean!

"No wonder Pinghai Tower could survive from Year 12 of the New Era until now. On an island, elimination difficulty is really too great..."

Cheng Ye pondered silently.

Even if forces could organize dozens of ships to surround the island like catching fish in a barrel, island people could directly dive and escape.

Moreover, being an island layout, Pinghai Tower's headquarters might not be just one location. It could be three to five small islands connected, or scattered across different sea areas.

Ultimately, this kind of organization without strict rules and such loose structure would be extremely difficult to completely eliminate.

Cheng Ye even couldn't help suspecting that the two pieces of information Xinghuo deliberately blocked him from viewing might hide more complex entanglements behind them.

Perhaps this Pinghai Tower was secretly supported by some super sanctuary city.

Suppressing speculation about external information, Cheng Ye returned his attention to this small island's buildings.

What met his eyes was full Southeast Asian vacation island style.

Wooden plank-built bungalows were everywhere, walls painted in blue, red, and green colors, apparently dividing different areas by color.

The red-painted area was obviously chaotic, with relatively dilapidated houses.

Many people gathered in front of one building, seemingly cheering around gambling, with noise that seemed to penetrate the screen.

Cheng Ye focused his vision there, but unfortunately couldn't see specific details.

Information search recorded things from main perspective. What Wang Qing didn't see, he naturally couldn't spy on either.

The green area was much more orderly, with new houses, dried salted fish hanging on walls, even windows wiped spotless.

Some people sat in lounge chairs in front of houses, with huge coconuts and several small dishes beside them, looking content, clearly a comfortable living area.

The final blue area appeared to be Pinghai Tower's public office point.

Only five connected bungalows here, each with different signs hanging under eaves reading:

'Hai Province', 'Shi Province', 'Sha Province', 'Guang Province', 'Shan Province'

Wang Qing didn't linger, walking straight toward the bungalow marked "Shi Province."

You could see this Pinghai Tower organization was terrifyingly loose, not even a guard at the entrance.

Wang Qing pushed the door open. What met his eyes was typical Western tavern decoration style.

Heavy redwood tables exuded rustic atmosphere, with wooden stumps used as chairs, randomly placed.

The bartender sat behind the bar, boredly playing with a butterfly knife in his hands, the blade nimbly spinning around his fingertips, drawing flashes of cold light.

Walking to the bar, Wang Qing skillfully pulled out a silver-white badge from his pocket, saying in a low voice, "Sir, I need a menu."

The bartender took the badge and tapped it on the table surface. After a beeping sound, he pulled out a record book from below the bar.

"Silver Level" in large characters at the top was particularly eye-catching.

"Also, please give me an Orange Sunlight," Wang Qing added but what he pulled out this time truly astonished Cheng Ye, it was actually... Happiness Coins?

A 10-denomination Happiness Coin, just handed to the bartender.

Soon he received a small glass of orange liquid from the bartender.

Relative to Happiness City's purchasing power, Happiness Coins here had obviously depreciated somewhat, but considering this was a mercenary organization far away in Hai Province, universal acceptance was already remarkable.

"Didn't expect Happiness City's currency to really be as stable as rumored!"

Cheng Ye felt somewhat emotional.

As the perspective followed Wang Qing back to the table, he reached out to flip open that thick menu and began carefully browsing.

This should contain all tasks his level could accept.

When Wang Qing's gaze fixed on the first page, Cheng Ye quickly pressed pause and began carefully reading from top to bottom, word by word.

[Silver 1: Obtain Happiness City 'Happy Alloy'; Long-term recurring task; 150 silver points per 1kg]

[Silver 2: Obtain Happiness City second-generation 'Source Processing Chips'; Long-term recurring task; 100 silver points per 10 pieces]

[Silver 3: Obtain Happiness City third-generation 'Star Box Drawer Batteries'; Long-term recurring task; 55 silver points per 100 units]

[Silver 4: Obtain Happiness City 'Regeneration Reagent'; Long-term recurring task; 55 silver points per 50ml]

[Silver 5: Obtain Happiness City 'Ink Shield Encryption Modules'; Long-term recurring task; 55 silver points per 1 set]

[...]

?

This was targeting Happiness City for wool-pulling, wasn't it?

Cheng Ye was immediately somewhat dumbfounded.

Not knowing who published these tasks, the entire first page from top to bottom had 20 entries, all long-term recurring tasks with targets being various Happiness City technical products.

Among them were familiar Happy Alloy and third-generation drawer batteries, as well as unfamiliar Source Processing Chips.

Further down were Regeneration Reagent, Ink Shield Encryption Modules, Optical Hub Fiber Bundles...

A whole bunch of things Cheng Ye had never even heard of.

"Rather than figuring out how to obtain technology, they're collecting finished products here. Could they want reverse engineering?"

"But with real reverse engineering capabilities for these technologies, why would they need to purchase through loose platforms like Pinghai Tower? Wouldn't directly buying from Happiness City officials be more efficient and reliable?"

Cheng Ye stared blankly at the task list before him. This first page's content, rather than being an assassin mercenary task board, was more like a "Wasteland Marketplace recycling platform."

Not a trace of the exciting feeling of imagining front-page bounties on big shots but recalling the fourth point mentioned in 'Pinghai Tower' organization characteristics: Black market transfer.

Cheng Ye nodded slightly, somewhat understanding where these materials would ultimately flow.

Combining his previous duty experiences and information gathered from Sun Weicheng when establishing the merchant company.

Ordinary merchant companies entering Happiness City had no restrictions on selling materials, but purchasing Happiness City items required following a merchant company point system.

The higher you climbed in this system, the richer the weapon, medicine, and industrial goods lists you could purchase but there was an exception, all high-value materials with Happiness City's unique 'core technology' were non-sellable items.

They wouldn't let ordinary merchant companies take Happiness City's important materials everywhere to sell for profit.

Only "direct contact" channels were opened to other sanctuary cities, requiring sanctuary city officials to personally seek purchases.

In the wasteland era, compared to individual value, scarce material value was obviously higher. This explained why the first few pages were all acquisition tasks.

Of course, it might also be that bounties for "Silver Level" simply weren't as valuable as these materials.

Perhaps at higher levels, task focus would shift from "things" to "people."

Continuing playback, Wang Qing indeed didn't linger on the first page. His fingers quickly flipped through the menu, not pausing even half a second when scanning those material acquisition tasks.

Cheng Ye periodically paused to check, following through 20 pages in one breath. Task entries had reached number 240, still all item acquisition tasks.

Among them, tasks marked 'Happiness City' occupied 178 entries. Below were surrounding 'Yueye Sanctuary City,' 'Daxing Sanctuary City,' 'Baishi Sanctuary City,' 'Red Mountain Sanctuary City'...

All forces large and small within Shi Province territory, occupying different numbers of entries from dozens to twenty-plus based on scale.

Unfortunately, there was no way to control Wang Qing to check neighboring Guang Province. Cheng Ye was quite curious what prices Rainbow Sanctuary City's technologies could command at Pinghai Tower compared to Happiness City materials.

Finally, the menu reached page 27. After skipping through a full 540 various material acquisition tasks.

Wang Qing's finger finally stopped, beginning to read line by line downward.

Cheng Ye breathed a long sigh of relief. This page finally featured not materials but "names."

[Bronze 1: Assassinate Baishi Sanctuary City Industrial Research Department Vice Director Zhang Zhong; 100 bronze points]

[Bronze 2: Assassinate Shixin Settlement Lord Wan Huai'an; 95 bronze points]

[Bronze 3: Assassinate Sanshi Bay Settlement Vice Lord Damien Olson; 95 bronze points]

[Bronze 4: Kidnap Red Mountain Sanctuary City Foreign Trade Department Director's daughter Sophie; 93 bronze points]

[Bronze 5: Investigate Happiness City Inspection Station Trainee Inspection Official Cheng Ye; 90 bronze points]

[Bronze 6: Investigate Happiness City Redstone Machinery Factory R&D Group Leader Zhao Rui; 85 bronze points]

[Bronze 7: ...]

Seeing himself at the prominent fifth position, Cheng Ye was quite surprised but looking more carefully at the notation at the top of the list, he realized this menu wasn't exclusively Silver Level, but a compilation of lower-level tasks Silver Level mercenaries could accept.

"Could Silver Level tasks only target materials?"

Cheng Ye didn't pause, following Wang Qing's gaze as he continued turning pages.

Wang Qing didn't directly select tasks but pulled out a small notebook, recording interesting task entries one by one.

Further back, after Bronze Level tasks came even lower Iron Level tasks.

Wang Qing didn't look much at Iron Level tasks, but Cheng Ye still paused to scan them.

Iron Level tasks were all "group" collective tasks.

For example, sabotage tasks requiring 30 people, objective: destroy a certain settlement's supply warehouse.

Or interception tasks requiring 50 people, objective: stop a merchant company about to cross Shi Province.

One menu with varied task types, but the classification was clear when viewed this way:

Silver materials, Bronze people, Iron groups.

"Going up should be Gold Level tasks, right? Wonder what they'd be... Could they target technology, major figures, or even transcendents?"

Cheng Ye couldn't help speculating, but the scene suddenly shook violently.

The moment Wang Qing closed the menu, the entire information space shattered thunderously, countless pixels scattering.

No scene of Wang Qing accepting tasks, no scene of him checking task details but returning to the main topic, this information search hadn't deviated from its objective.

"This should be Wang Qing's first time seeing my name appear in the menu?"

Cheng Ye quietly looked ahead.

All scattered pixels gathered again. Wang Qing still maintained that strange smile, unaware the man before him had already seen through him to Pinghai Tower island thousands of miles away.

[Information Target: Wang Qing]

[Specified Direction: Related to 'my' task]

[Information Quality: Level 1.2 (Information quality decreased by 0.3 after specifying target, 100% cooperation rate provides fixed 0.5 boost)]

[Current Replay Available: 4 times]