Chapter 15 - Black Market

The Black Market of Ability Users was located inside an abandoned factory, right along the borders of the Lan Cheng territory's safety zone. It appeared to be a desolate place, but after passing through its gates, one would immediately be greeted with the lively sight of a crowded clearing, packed with cars. An even livelier scene of bustle could be seen inside its several large warehouses.

Just like the vendors in any other trading areas within the base, sellers in the black market lay their goods on the ground and let people come and choose what they like. Once they have agreed on a price, each party would trade. But unlike the official trading area in the base, gold isn't as popular a currency here. In fact, it had almost disappeared from circulation in this market. Instead, crystal nucleus and grains were the hard currency here.

Both Wu Ye and Ji Yun were ordinary people, thus they were not qualified to enter the black market. They could only stay outside with Yang Li Na who was seriously injured.

Just as zombie's crystal nuclei could help improve ability users' strength, ability users' flesh and blood could also greatly nourish zombies. Thus the black market, being a hub for ability users, had become a holy land for zombies following their acute senses. This is why wandering zombies always followed their scents and ended up gathering around the area. the zombies following their scents have gathered and formed a group, keeping ordinary people away, and making the black market even more hidden.

Wu Ye's car was parked a few kilometers away from the black market and was relatively hidden. However, this did not stop some wandering zombies from accidentally passing by their hideout.

"…Sh*t! How come there's another wave when the first one isn't over yet?" Wu Ye swore and for the first time, he held a rifle, aimed it at the group of zombies, and fired it with no hesitation. Thanks to the excellent teaching course he traded with the system and a bit of training with from using bows and arrows, it didn't take a long time before he could use the rifle decently. Forget about getting a perfect 10; For a beginner like him, taking down six or seven zombies using only 10 bullets was already quite a good achievement. However, his arms were not used to enduring recoils from the rifle, and so they ended up sore.

"Boss, hold on for a little longer. Qin-Ge and the others should be out soon." Ji Yun's marksmanship was very accurate, shooting with accuracy, absolutely hitting a zombie's head each time. He's like the sharpshooter deity in Celestial Empire, able to shoot down the zombies while talking.

Yang Li Na did not speak and only focused on absorbing the crystal nucleus to replenish her power. She would only act if there was a critical situation that Wu Ye and Ji Yun couldn't handle.

Wu Ye pursed his lips and focused his attention on aiming, shooting, and aiming his rifle again. He was very tense that he did not notice the faint air current flowing quietly in his body.

After clearing the wave of zombies, Wu Ye stayed half-prone on with his rifle on top of the dump truck they rented, guarding on high alert against incoming waves. Meanwhile, Ji Yun jumped out of the dump truck to collect the loot and cut open zombie's brains with a skill more superb than surgeons, quickly extracting one crystal nucleus after the other.

As time went by, zombie corpses piled up around the dump truck, forcing them to go hunting in another place.

"Boss, we're running out of bullets," Ji Yun said while looking at the continuous flow of zombies around him with a tight expression.

"It's alright…" Originally Wu Ye wanted to say that they didn't have to worry about bullets. However he stopped himself when he saw a familiar pickup from a distance driving towards them at full speed and changed his words, "It's Wuhua and the others. They're back!"

Qin Wuhua and Yang Qi were standing side by side on top of the car roof with their guns ready; faint sounds of muffled gunfire floated in the air while zombie corpses fell silently to the ground. With four guns working together, the zombies that had gathered around them were soon cleared. Ji Yun quickly jumped out of the truck to harvest the crystals nucleus again. While he was doing that, Qin Wuhua took a huge military green canvas bag from the car and approached Wu Ye.

"Have you sold all of it?" Wu Ye asked excitedly, his eyes sparkled, and he felt his exhaustion vanished in an instant.

"Yes," Qin Wuhua nodded his head slightly and threw the backpack to Wu Ye. Wu Ye opened it and saw that the backpack was filled to the brim with crystal nuclei. There were transparent Level 1 crystals, pink-colored quasi-Level 2 nuclei, and even some quasi-Level 3 nuclei that flickered with orange light. These fingernail-sized nuclei were clearer than crystals and more attractive than diamonds. If they were fashioned into jewelry, they would absolutely drive countless women crazy.

However, these nuclei were ten million times more precious than crystal and diamonds. They represented power.

These nuclei contained tremendous and mysterious energy that could replenish ability users' depleted energy and also enable lower-level ability users to break through their innate shackles so they climb up to the peak of power.

In this apocalypse age, power was more precious than food.

If clear crystals and brilliant diamonds could make women obsessed, these smelly crystal nuclei could turn all survivors crazy.

Wu Ye was not a gambler, but he had followed his friends in and out of the underground casino before. He even saw stacks of Grandpa Mao piled up into a mountain. But that experience wasn't so moving for Wu Ye now compared from seeing these sparkling glow of the nuclei in the bag.

The system silently scanned the bag, counted the amount, and converted it to a readable data – 1235 first-level nuclei.

Wu Ye's mind immediately filled with only one thought. I could finally get a ticket to return home! I could go home!

System: [Insufficient points.]

Wu Ye trembled and looked at the bare 180 points on the upper right corner of the control panel; it is the total amount of points he currently had. His excited feeling shriveled down like a deflated balloon, his cheek that still had its baby fat slowly bulged up, expressing his current mood.

[Good deception.]Wu Ye scolded in his heart.

The system snorted and refused to answer Wu Ye again.

Qin Wuhua looked at the puffed face in front of him and felt his palm was somewhat itchy. Thus, he unnaturally coughed and said, "There were others selling salt at the black market and the common price was around 65 nuclei for one catty." Qin Wuhua was not talkative, much less good at explaining, so he spoke bluntly about it.

Wu Ye shook his head to clarify, "You misunderstood. I'm not upset because of this. The price you sold it for was quite good." He proudly patted Qin Wuhua's shoulder. "Today, I made a small profit so you should go with your boss to eat."

Ji Yun's ears were very good. Therefore when he heard Wu Ye's words, he laughed loudly as he cut open a zombie's head with a sharp zap and said, "Boss, is there enough meat for us?"

"Absolutely. That's necessary."

Qin Wuhua looked at Wu Ye's brilliant smiling face, and suddenly thought of the phrase, 'Smile as colorful as spring flowers'. When he thought of this phrase, he suddenly felt like his ears were caught on fire.

Zhao Jianguo sat in the car and snorted, "What is this stench? Oh right, it's the stench of nouveau riche showing off."

Luo Yang was a good company executive before the apocalypse, thus he had more tact than Zhao Jianguo who was merely a security guard. "Speak less," he whispered, a thought flashed through his deep eyes.

Zhang Ling regarded Wu Ye from a distance and wondered out loud, "What is his identity?" She murmured to herself. From her point of view, it seemed like Qin Wuhua and Ji Yun were revolving around Wu Ye as their core when it was obvious Wu Ye was only an ordinary person. Surely those salts weren't Wu Ye's possession? But if it was, would he have more supplies?

Luo Yang silently looked at Zhang Ling and plotted a useful scheme.

Yang Qi sat back in the car and silently held his rifle, his thoughts unknown.

The car full of people, each with thoughts of their own, returned to the city in an unusual silence. After handing in their task, Qin Wuhua paid each team member their commission according to their agreed price then turned around to leave. However, Zhang Ling suddenly looked at Wuhua and spoke in an alluring tone, "Wu-Ge, this mission is really thanks to you."

Wu Ye looked at her who had a similar face to Lianyu, his head became slightly dizzy and a trace of disdain rose within his heart. "Something's wrong."

Zhang Ling didn't expect that Wu Ye would be so disrespectful to her. But when she saw Yang Li Na's sarcastic smile, she couldn't help but feel resentful. She could guess that Yang Li Na must have said something ill about her behind her back. Could she really blame her when she couldn't control her own man's belt? So what if you broke through the second level, you're still a tomboy, she thought. But when she looked at Yang Li Na's graceful figure, she couldn't help but be jealous

However, she was still proud of her lethal weapon, so she stood proudly and showed off her two snow white peaks that were about to burst out from her tight clothes. With a delicate voice she said, "Wu-Ge, can you leave us some contact information? Don't get me wrong. I don't mean anything else. I just want to have it so we could continue to work together in the future when there's a chance."

Wu Ye sneered and looked at Zhang Ling several times with undisguised mockery. When she could not bear his 'hot' eyes and wanted to shout at him, she suddenly heard Wu Ye's cold words, "Do I look like a Kaizi?"

T/N: Kaizi is slang for rich, good-looking guy.

Zhang Ling's expression changed several times, from red to white and back again. Her hands clenched tightly and her eyes were filled with tears of humiliation.

Zhao Jianguo was like a lighted firecracker that exploded at once when he heard this and roared, "How f***king capable are you when you only bully women you only have some dirty money?"

Wu Ye was a little angry. Since Zhang Ling wanted to hunt for a Kaizi for herself, she should be conscious of the chance she'd be exposed. Was there any meaning in trying to protect your reputation when you're acting like a hussy? He thought but did not voice it out as he didn't want to be involved with them anymore. He turned to leave but Zhao Jianguo refused to let him go. "Hey pretty little boy, you stand still for Lao Zi. This time, you won't leave until you apologize to Zhang Ling!"

There were many people coming and going outside the zombie hunter union. When they saw a beautiful woman standing there crying, one after the other they stopped to watch a lively show.

Wu Ye looked at them and sneered, "I bullied her? Okay, so why don't you tell me how I bullied her? Did I touch her? Did I sleep with her?"

The spectators watching this hilarious scene burst into laughter. Some of them even shouted, "Yes, that's it! Talk about it. Let us hear it too!"

Luo Yang felt like he was losing face. However, despite everything, Zhang Ling was still his woman. Thus, he looked at Wu Ye with black face and said, "Don't be too much."

This time, Yang Li Na, who had been watching the show from the side, stood up and sneered, "Too much? Did she ever think too much about it when she slept with her 'good sister's' man? She has no sense of honor and shame. Women like her immediately try to suck up to any capable-looking man that comes their way. Hehe, Luo Yang, be careful. Don't be like me and have your significant other stolen by someone else. I might not care about being cheated on, but men are different. Don't put too much effort raising someone else's son. Now, that would be too funny indeed."

Zhang Ling was dying inside at this time. The roaring laughter around her was so loud it could overturn the roof, making her want to throw up.

Zhang Ling had a problem. She would begin to retch when she felt nervous.

She and Yang Li Na had worked in the same office in the same company before the apocalypse. Their relationship then was just like what Yang Li Na said – they were 'good sisters'. Naturally, she knew her of her problem and was deliberately embarrassing her.

When Zhao Jianguo saw that his favorite goddess was being humiliated, he threw a fireball directly at Yang Li Na. But before it even hit her, an earth wall suddenly rose in front of Yang Li Na and protected her from the impact. The wall turned into sand that coated the fireball, extinguishing it.

Yang Qi stood up with a somewhat awful complexion. "Zhao Jianguo, Nana and I had discussed about it and have reached our conclusion. We had contributed a lot of effort to the team. You are all fully aware of how many times we have saved the life of you three. If it weren't for Nana and I, would you live up to this day? Well, let's not mention the past anymore. Since we now split into two sides, it's no longer appropriate for us to form a team and do tasks together. Let's not cross our bridges and go on our own ways." After saying all these, he took Yang Li Na's hand and followed behind Wu Ye and the others without looking back.

Surrounded by all the buzz, Luo Yang's expression sank like water.

They deliberately acted this play yet Luo Yang couldn't deny a thing. Both Yang Qi and Yang Li Na spoke the truth, and any excuses he would say would only make him lose face.

He will definitely remember today's humiliation!

"Wu Ye, thank you for today. If you need me in the future, just let me know." Yang Li Na walked out of the crowd, her face turned relaxed. She had long wanted to leave behind those baggages, but she never did, because she and her cousin each had a large family to support. Now that she had broken through to the second level, and the harvest of this mission was good enough for them to use for supporting their families for a while, there was no more need to associate with those people.

Yang Qi took something from his pocket and handed Wuhua a note with a five-digit number written on it. "This is my communication number. If you have a task, contact us. The price is negotiable." Yang Qi could see that Wuhua's people were extraordinary, and he was optimistic about Qin Wuhua's strength and potential. Therefore, he intentionally wanted to befriend him.

Wu Ye took the note and said with a faint smile on his face, "Today we acted as a gun for you all, you should go on a few missions with us for free, right?"

Hearing that, Yang Qi laughed out loudly and patted Wu Ye on the head with a smile. "I just wanted to say, how did younger brother look like Kaizi? He's clearly a little fox."

Wu Ye finally couldn't bear it anymore and swore, "Little brother your sister, Lao Zi just look tender, that's all!" These Yang siblings were so annoying! Just a moment ago he was blind to deliberately help them! Scoundrel!