Han's land was adjacent to the Yu brothers' house. Apart from the two brothers, the household comprised their father, Yu Zun, the youngest sister, Yu Lan, and Yu Hong's wife, Yu Zhen. Among the three siblings, Hong was the eldest.
On Han's land stood a dilapidated two-room house, its walls marred with breaks, with only the ceiling barely intact. Han forged a pact with the Yu brothers—he would join them in hunting, and the loot from their endeavours would go to them. In return, they agreed to assist Han in repairing his run-down house.
Within three days, the collaborative efforts of Han and the Yu brothers transformed the dilapidated house. Using scavenged materials and wood, they repaired the structure, turning it into a more secure and habitable space.
Han had no intention of making the rundown house his permanent residence, preferring the comfort of the shelter. Instead, he saw it as a strategic move to familiarize himself with the townspeople, recognizing that such connections could become a significant advantage in future planning. The modest dwelling served as a stepping stone for Han to integrate into the community and lay the groundwork for potential alliances and collaborations in the post-apocalyptic world.
After days of hunting with the Yu brothers, Han became a seasoned veteran, skillfully navigating the challenges of the post-apocalyptic landscape. He engaged in regular exchanges with the mayor's accountant, bartering the spoils of his hunts for necessary items. Additionally, Han ventured alone to scavenge around the periphery of the city ruins. Due to the repeated scavenging by other survivors over the past 200 years, valuable finds were scarce. However, Han remained hopeful, knowing that luck could still lead to a jackpot discovery in the unforgiving remnants of the post-apocalyptic world.
As time flew by, the last day of Han's three-month survival mission arrived. "Yo, you came back early today." Looking at Han coming from the corner of the street, Old Huang, who was smoking his pipe, narrowed his eyes, faint white smoke coming out of his nose. He was holding a double-barreled shotgun in his hand. Although the gun looked old, no one would doubt its power.
"I spent all night outside."
"Outside?"
The old man glanced at the pointed water pipe behind Han, his eyebrows raised in surprise. No one knew how dangerous the night was better than him. Every time he was on night shift, his index finger would not dare dislodge from the trigger. Any movement of wind and grass would make his nerves tense.
Although the mutants in the outer suburbs were not as dangerous as in the city, there were too many plunderers in this area. Falling in their hands would not end up much better than dying on mutant hands.
Old Huang didn't quite believe that this guy actually spent the night in the wasteland peacefully with only a steel pipe.
"Had an accident."
Han didn't explain, just giving Old Huang a tired look before going straight through the gate of the fence.
There was only one recycling station in this camp, which was easy to find. It was just next to the main entrance of the mall boundary. Under the rolling door lay an old-fashioned electronic scale that could never show an accurate result, and beside it stood a board: "Fair Prices, Fair Trade".
This shop was the property of the mayor and was also the only place in Bai Settlement that bought scrapped parts and mutant moleskins. In order to monopolize the garbage picking business, this dictator even enacted a law arbitrarily: "No one is allowed to sell their captured prey and scrapped parts to caravans passing by here."
The reason was to ensure that the goods in Bai Settlement could be sold at a reasonable price, rather than being conned by "cunning merchants". Such unreasonable rules could also be passed partly due to the ignorance of the survivors here.
Not only that, but the general caravan wouldn't risk offending the dictator by going to scavengers to buy the little poor supplies they had. They only did big business. And only did business with trusted people.
"Sell? Or buy?"
The shopkeeper was a fifty-year-old man named Chang. It was said that he used to be a resident of a shelter in another province. He was later arrested and used as a slave until the mayor bought him from a slave owner. The work of dealing with the scavengers was given to him.
Most of the residents here were "wasteland people" born and raised here without any education. Their math was very bad, so much so that they could even make mistakes when doing simple addition and subtraction. But Chang was different. He came from a shelter. Although none of the shelters in this wasteland were exactly the same, one thing was similar. Everyone who could live there was an elite of the pre-war society. Their children not only inherited the clever mind from their parents but also received a good education from the age of enlightenment.
If it weren't for this world being so terrible, he would probably become an engineer, doctor, or scholar just like his parents. Instead of keeping accounts here.
"Sell."
Without talking nonsense, Han took out 6 used batteries from his backpack and threw them on the tray of the electronic scale along with 5 adhesives. This was what he found in the wreckage of nearby buildings of Shelter 222.
Old Chang picked up the waste battery on the table, randomly checked the model and whether it was damaged, and threw it on the scale beside him. Those things were definitely scrapped, but it was okay to recycle the materials inside.
"The quality is alright. The garbage in this area should have been cleaned up. Where did you get the good stuff?"
Could those things even be called good stuff?
"Got lucky."
"Hehe, I'm just asking. Mhm, the battery is good, but the quality of the adhesive is average. Their seals have been removed and I doubt that they can be recycled, so I can only give you half of its value... And the total adds up to 3 chips."
Han did not bargain with him either and took 3 white chips from him. This kind of plastic coin with a metallic texture was the "currency" issued by Frontier City, the largest survivor settlement in Qincheng City. It could be exchanged for food and supplies in most survivor settlements in Qincheng City.
The face of the chip was printed with face value, and its back had a special anti-counterfeiting code and printing, which would show a special lustre under sunlight. This chip had many advantages, such as heat resistance, and its ability to be easily stored and identified. In particular, the most critical point was that it was basically impossible to counterfeit with post-war technology.
Small and medium-sized survivor settlements like Bai Settlement, which were small in population and incapable of industrial capacity, mainly did business with caravans in Frontier City, trading agricultural products, and prey, and collecting garbage in exchange for necessary living supplies and even weapons. So naturally, this currency would also circulate in Bai Settlement.
Of course, it didn't work every time. If the caravan didn't come, the prices of the entire settlement would be messed up. The mayor had also tried to implement Bai Settlement's own currency, a book-keeping ticket, but no one wanted it. Even the survivors of Bai Settlement knew that; that kind of paper could not even be used to wipe a butt, making it no different from waste paper.
"Would you like to buy something? A new batch of goods from Boulder City just arrived in the store."
Han Xiao, who was about to leave, stopped and asked back.
"Are there guns?"
"No, you can't afford it even if we have it." Old Chang grinned.
Han replied, "Forget it."
Guns, even the cheapest kind, were difficult to buy in places like Bai Settlement. That's because even if a caravan selling arms passed by occasionally, those weapons would usually end up in the mayor's own warehouse and would not be placed on the shelves here for anyone to choose. Besides, as Old Chang said, even if there was such a thing, it was not something that a scavenger like him could afford.
Han knew exactly why he said that. As a well-educated shelter resident, Chang would certainly not fail to see that all the survivors living in Bai Settlement, whether they were scavengers or hunters, had their surplus value exploited by the mayor's family. Even if the mayor never reached out personally to take the chips away from them.
When Han first came to Bai Settlement, he was wearing a blue jacket. Chang subconsciously regarded him as someone from a shelter, so he didn't treat him badly. Although this kind of treatment had never been reflected in transaction prices, the old man did help Han a little in terms of experience. Otherwise, he would not have been able to adapt to life on the wasteland so quickly.