This is the second snowfall in Qingquan City since September.
And it happened to be when the players were rotating in and out of the game. Many people pushed the door and saw the silver dots scattered by the torches.
"It's only late September... winter is coming too early."
"It's really early."
"Let's analyze it rationally. Maybe the orbital debris in outer space blocked part of the sunlight, causing the planet to absorb insufficient heat. In addition, the civilization activities caused by the war declined rapidly, and the lush vegetation weakened the greenhouse effect..."
"No, can this game be so realistic?"
"That depends on how the game operator sets it. Anyway, the official website says that they have reached the sky, so they can talk nonsense, but I can't?"
"Nah..."
There was a knock at the north gate.
After confirming that it was his own people, the guard on the wall greeted him, and the player next to the door lifted the bolt and let the people outside in.
Chu Guang looked at the north gate.
A strength player and a perception player walked quickly with a man who was tied up like a dumpling and missing an ear, and threw him in front of them.
Also thrown on the ground was the body of a mutant hyena.
"Dear administrator, we found this guy near the observation point of the northern elevated road!"
Both players were injured, but the man was obviously more seriously injured. There was a broken arrow stuck in his knee, and he grimaced in pain.
The man lying on the ground didn't understand what the two people behind him were saying. He just stretched his head with a look of panic and begged for mercy from Chu Guang.
"Sir, I am a scavenger nearby. I don't know how I offended you."
"A scavenger would not be outside at this time."
"I accidentally delayed for a while..."
Ignoring this pale rhetoric, Chu Guang took out 5 silver coins from his pocket and handed them to the players, letting them divide them among themselves. Then he leaned over to look at the man and hooked the necklace on his collar with his index finger.
There was a human finger bone strung there.
And it looked like it was an index finger.
In the Blood Hand Clan, the skull was the "royal" vessel of the leader, and the finger bone was a favorite decoration for most plunderers.
He would cut off the index finger of the captive, dry it and make it into bracelets, necklaces, pendants and even bone armor to show off his bravery and barbarity.
Disdainfully throwing away the greasy necklace, Chu Guang stood up expressionlessly.
He did not look at the man with a dead face, but at the two players.
"Plunderer."
"Send to the gallows."
The two players said respectfully.
"Yes!"
"As you command!"
Bringing him back alive was just because the reward was higher. Most players were already familiar with the methods of the plunderers.
So after hearing the order to send him to the gallows, there was no surprise at all.
But for the man who was about to be hanged, it was a different mentality.
As if he had guessed his fate, he was dragged all the way to the north gate with hysterical wails and pleas for mercy, adding a bit of fear and blood to the desolate woods outside the gate.
The sound and the sin stopped abruptly.
The north gate closed again, and the two players dragged the body towards the morgue.
Chu Guang, who was standing in front of the sanatorium, had no pity in his heart, and even yawned. Seeing the furnace of the extractor start to operate, he turned and walked towards the elevator of the sanatorium.
It was already twelve o'clock in the morning.
He had to get up at six o'clock tomorrow.
The enthusiasm of these players to go online was higher than expected. Chu Guang felt that his biological clock was about to be messed up.
…
The snow was not heavy, but it lasted for a long time. It snowed from early morning to five o'clock the next morning.
There was a layer of white frost on the ground, which made a rustling sound when stepped on. When the sun rose, it disappeared completely, as if it had never been there.
"There seemed to be fewer alien species in the city at night."
"Is it because of the snow?"
"I guess so. They may have hidden themselves because of the cold weather. However, the gnawers didn't seem to be affected. I saw them walk out of the community and wander around the street until four or five o'clock, and then they slowly moved back."
"Do you remember where they came from?"
"I remember it roughly. I'll go offline to eat first, and then mark the map and post it on the forum."
"Brother, be steady!"
The players who came back from the reconnaissance point talked with other players in the square of the base. Chu Guang, who was standing at the door of the sanatorium, took in all the voices.
Since there is no radio, these players usually exchange information in the square, especially during the peak hours of logging on and off.
For Chu Guang, this is another good channel for obtaining intelligence besides the forum.
These players are like his eyes.
However, he has things to do in a while, and it is impossible for him to stay here all the time.
He has to go to Brown Farm again before the heavy snow blocks the road and exchange some supplies. This time he prepared some new trade goods, some guano stones.
It should be sold at a good price at Brown Farm.
"Mr. Manager, the supplies you ordered are ready, and we can set off at any time!"
[Canyon Fleeing Mole], wearing a hyena skin coat, came over excitedly.
He carried a temporary 7mm bolt-action iron barrel rifle on his back, a nailed wooden stick and a short knife on his left waist, and a Molotov cocktail filled with wood tar on his right, looking more and more like the natives of this wasteland.
However, he has not yet grasped the essence.
Chu Guang tried so many weapons, but the one that worked best for him was the water pipe with a "fork".
Seeing him nod, Chu Guang said.
"Wait for me."
With that, Chu Guang turned around and went back to the shelter. After a while, he came out wearing KV-1 power armor, and also carried the nitrogen-powered hammer that he had extracted from the system on his back.
Seeing the manager's outfit, the players around him were all stunned.
"Fuck, this hammer is pretty cool!"
"Awesome! Did I miss some plot? When did our NPC change his equipment?"
"I don't know, maybe it was originally in the shelter... Didn't the official website say that there is a huge freezing hibernation facility underground? Maybe there is an equipment warehouse?"
"Fuck! I want to build one too!"
"Don't think about it, the NPC's equipment is just for you to see, but I'm curious if this thing is really useful in the wasteland? Facing bullets."
"You are stupid, just because you haven't seen awesome armor doesn't mean it doesn't exist, maybe this thing is used in conjunction with other things."
"The atmosphere suddenly becomes cyberpunk."
"What cyberpunk, this is wasteland punk!"
"I know, but you look stupid if you take the meme so seriously."
As a competent NPC, Chu Guang neither picked up their memes nor paid attention to their excited exchanges. He performed his duties on his own and walked to the caravan that had been prepared.
Chu Guang had previously assigned [WC Really Mosquitoes] a task to design a medium-distance transport vehicle with a cargo capacity of more than five tons.
It turns out that as long as he makes tools within the scope of normal people's understanding, this guy's technology is still quite reliable.
The entire caravan is 2.5 meters long and 1 meter wide. The space inside is quite spacious. The chassis also uses springs to make simple shock absorbers, so it is no problem to transport goods and people.
Considering rain and dust protection, the roof is covered with two layers of picked-up plastic cloth, and door curtains are made at the front and back.
In this way, even on rainy days, there is no need to worry about the things inside getting wet, which can be said to be quite useful.
The only drawback is that the outpost does not have cattle or mules, so the players can only pull them temporarily.
"Let's go!"
With Chu Guang's order, the caravan team consisting of 6 players and 1 NPC left the south gate of the outpost and headed towards Brown Farm under the envious eyes of other players.
Different from last time.
This time, the noise is so loud that it will inevitably attract the attention of some alien species.
Especially like the mutant cockroaches as big as puppies and the mutant flies as big as washbasins, these insect-like alien species seem to have lost their fear of humans after mutation, and they crawled out of the shadows when they heard the noise.
However, these players are no longer new to the game, especially after the baptism of that battle, they can already do it handy when facing the enemy.
Chu Guang did not take any action at all. He sat in the back and watched the players kill these miscellaneous soldiers with swords, guns, sticks and stones.
If there were aliens that they could not deal with, or other high-threat targets, he would naturally take action.
What is more interesting is that Chu Guang found that his gene sequence was not only a basic exercise, but also could accumulate a small amount of development progress when leading players in battle.
This unique way of evolution made Chu Guang very curious.
However, he could not record the development progress of the gene sequence in real time for the time being, and could only wait until conditions were met before doing in-depth research.
They walked and stopped along the way, bypassed the ruins that could not be passed, and finally arrived at the destination before 9:30.
Outside Brown Farm.
When Chu Guang and his party arrived near the door, they saw a strong man with a hunting rifle on his back, leading a thin serf out of the wall.
The two sides met, and Chu Guang was not nervous, but the other party was nervous.
Especially when he saw the exoskeleton on Chu Guang and the slightly exaggerated hammer behind him, he subconsciously reached for the shotgun behind him.
"We are passing merchants, don't be nervous."
"How can there be any merchants at this time? Hey, is it you?"
Liu Zhengyue, who was standing on the wall, was stunned for a moment, and the barrel of the gun that had just been stretched out was retracted, staring straight at Chu Guang's exoskeleton and hammer and the blue jacket under the exoskeleton.
He clearly remembered that this guy was not dressed like this when he came here last time.
"Yes, it's me." Chu Guang smiled lightly and shouted at the wall, "We need food, steel and copper."
"What are you going to exchange?"
Liu Zhengyue stared at the group of people outside the wall vigilantly, looking back and forth at their equipment, and was a little undecided.
This group of people is obviously much stronger than the last time they came.
In principle, this is not a good time to do business. Today's winter comes earlier than in previous years, so they have to save some food for the winter and prepare some surplus food to prevent the looters from taking advantage of the situation.
The looters from the north come here from time to time. Although there are guns in the farm, no one is willing to take the risk of fighting with them.
If they harass them during the spring plowing, the loss will be more than the tribute of food.
However...
The gun on the other side made him think carefully and refuse the risk.
Chu Guang didn't say anything, but walked to the front of the caravan, lifted the curtain, took out a sack from it, and tore the rope tied to it.
Liu Zhengyue narrowed his eyes, trying to see more clearly.
"This is..."
"High-purity magnesium ammonium phosphate. If you don't understand, you can understand it as guano. In short, it is high-quality fertilizer." Chu Guang looked up at Liu Zhengyue on the wall, and said with a slightly unhappy tone, "Can you come down to talk? I'm tired of talking like this."
"Wait for me for a while... I have to ask my master for instructions."
After throwing this sentence, Liu Zhengyue disappeared on the wall, but not long after, he led a serf out and reappeared at the main entrance.
"My old friend... you have changed a lot."
"I've made a fortune recently."
"Are you really nomads?" Liu Zhengyue stared at the blue coat under Chu Guang's exoskeleton, and it was obvious that he was not so sure of his judgment.
"Is it important?" Chu Guang smiled faintly and said, "Don't worry, I picked up this coat."
Seeing that Chu Guang did not intend to reveal more, Liu Zhengyue stopped asking and looked at the bag of fertilizer.
"I need to inspect the goods."
This was a reasonable request, and Chu Guang nodded.
"Please."
The inspection method was the same as last time. Liu Zhengyue kicked the serf next to him and pointed at the bag.
The slave stepped forward, stretched out his index finger and wiped it in the bag, then put his finger into his mouth and tasted it without paying attention to others.
"It's guano."
Hearing this, Liu Zhengyue smiled.
Although he didn't know where this group of people got these good things from, these things were indeed what they needed.
After being heated, livestock and human feces are also a kind of fertilizer, but the nitrogen content is not enough, and the comprehensive fertility is obviously not as good as guano after precipitation and rain.
Often a handful of guano is equivalent to a large bucket of cow dung. If the latter is used, it must be mixed with urea.
Brown Farm itself is not capable of producing high-quality urea in large quantities. Using urea directly will not only burn the roots, but also easily cause soil compaction when mixed with manure.
Therefore, they often import synthetic and organic fertilizers from Boulder City or Red River Town and mix them with fermented manure.
Not only Brown Farm, but also the entire Qingquan City surrounding area, almost all the survivors' settlements that farm land are like this.
"Name your price!"
"We only brought 300 kilograms. Give me a sincere price and we can still cooperate in the future."
One acre of land requires about 10 to 50 kilograms of fertilizer, which cannot be generalized according to the crops, soil conditions, fertilizer types, and expected harvests.
From the pre-war map, the area of the entire farm is not large. At most, it can gather 80 to 100 acres of arable land, which is equivalent to 7 to 9 standard playgrounds.
Of course, it is not ruled out that they are engaged in vertical agriculture and indoor planting. After all, similar technologies were not uncommon before the war.
Chu Guang couldn't guess their needs, so he simply asked them to quote their own prices.
Liu Zhengyue hesitated for a moment and said tentatively.
"300 kilograms... How about 2 tons of green wheat?"
Chu Guang couldn't help but sigh in his heart when he heard this number.
Fortunately, he didn't speak first.
The wholesale price ratio he found on the Internet on the Earth was about 1:5, and his psychological expectation was about 1:6~7.
Now it seems that the prices in the parallel world can be said to have no reference value at all.
Chu Guang looked at him and said.
"Minimum 5 tons."
"5 tons?! This is impossible," Liu Zhengyue exclaimed, "Our yield per mu of land is only 500 kilograms of green wheat."
"That's because you didn't use our fertilizer. Starting next year, it will be 1,000 kilograms."
The yield of this mutant crop is not good...
It would be great if we could get the pre-war seed bank.
Compared with wheat, the yield per mu of land on the Earth in the parallel world is at least 600 kilograms. It's not a problem to have a high yield of more than a thousand kilograms, but tens of thousands of kilograms is definitely bragging.
Chu Guang thought to himself, his own shelter is fine, but normal shelters should have some seed stocks, right?
I don't know if it's because of the distance or the climate that the pre-war crops didn't become popular in the wasteland.
Or is it just that there are no seeds in this area?
"Are you dreaming? One thousand kilograms per mu?" Liu Zhengyue's eyes widened and he shook his head and said, "Friend, if you are really sincere, 3 tons... This is the bottom line I can accept. We have a stable supplier to supply a large amount of goods. Do you think your guano is irreplaceable?"
"But it is definitely the most cost-effective, and I don't think they will sell it to you cheaply after transporting it all the way here," Chu Guang looked at him and said, "1 kilogram for 12 kilograms of grain. Considering that winter came early this year, this is my biggest concession."
"We will also supply a large amount of this stuff next year. If you can't accept this price, I would rather return the same way and sell it to passing merchants."
The guano stones by Linghu Lake are scattered in the shallows on the south side and extend all the way to the east side. The reserves are not rich, but definitely not a small amount. It can be dug with some time and manpower.
Chu Guang didn't know why these survivors didn't find that Feng Shui treasure land, but in any case it is now his territory.
Liu Zhengyue hesitated for a while, but finally nodded.
"Okay, you better not lie to me... Next spring, we need 3 tons of guano stone for the sowing season. Where are you? Qingquan City or the surrounding area? If it's not far, we can pick it up at your door."
"No need, we will deliver it to your door after this winter."
Chu Guang smiled and stretched out his right hand.
"Then I wish us a happy cooperation."
Although his face was painful, Liu Zhengyue still forced a smile and shook his hand.
"...Happy cooperation."