Chapter 123: Chapter 117: Base and Commission Liu Yuqiang gazed at the distant mountains and fields, his heart heavy with melancholy.
It had been exactly one month since he left Capital Yong’an.
Because "Big Sis" had access to inside information, he had learned that wartime management was about to be declared long before the official live press conference.
After sharing the news, Big Sis ordered the members of the Qingmei Association to evacuate the city and head to a secret base she had established outside its walls.
Although this was an order from Big Sis, Liu Yuqiang knew that even if she hadn’t forced the issue, he wouldn’t have stayed in the city to live in a sanctuary.
However, choosing to come out here meant abandoning everything he had built up. The vast majority of his surviving employees had chosen to stay behind, either moving into or waiting to move into the sanctuaries. Only a handful of his most trusted confidants had come with him.
And this "Qingmei Base" was the place Big Sis had mentioned at that previous Qingmei gathering.
It was a sprawling, fully equipped base built inside a mountain.
Liu Yuqiang suspected it might have once been some kind of doomsday command center built for a nuclear war, but for some unknown reason, Big Sis had taken control of it and extensively modified it.
The renovations added many new functional areas, such as a prison for Ascenders. In the early days after the rules were announced, all the Ascenders captured from the various cities were imprisoned there.
After arriving at the base, Liu Yuqiang and the other Qingmei Association members were all assigned jobs and positions according to their specialties.
Liu Yuqiang was assigned to be the director of the logistics department. His daily job was to coordinate the distribution of various supplies. In return, he periodically received Sublimation Coins and some items as "wages."
This life was not what Liu Yuqiang had hoped for, nor was it what most Qingmei Association members wanted. But now that they were on this boat, they had no other choice.
Besides, they needed Big Sis’s resources to stay alive more than she needed them. Anyone with eyes could see that the rules set by the Fire Thief had always favored the young and strong.
For people like them, with an average age of over fifty, if they didn’t band together and use Big Sis’s power to seize resources from other Ascenders, they would inevitably be eliminated by the Fire Thief one by one.
That was a fate they were absolutely unwilling to accept.
"Director."
Just then, a subordinate came over, reporting to him with text on a tablet.
"The collection operation is about to begin. The higher-ups have requested the list of needed supplies."
Liu Yuqiang nodded and transferred the list to his subordinate.
The Qingmei Base had a large population, and its daily consumption of supplies was enormous.
After the state declared wartime management, all factories capable of producing supplies were taken over by the government. Combined with the documentation needed to enter or leave the city, transporting supplies to the outside became extremely difficult.
For this reason, Big Sis had previously instructed him to periodically compile a list of supplies that were often in short supply. She would then send people to "collect" them.
Liu Yuqiang knew perfectly well that "collect" meant raiding the camps of other wilderness gangs. Even if they didn’t get much each time, every little bit counted.
The subordinate who received the list quickly handed it to a short-haired woman.
The short-haired woman entered a room.
Inside the room were five people, all wearing uniforms imprinted with a black Qingmei emblem.
One was sitting on the sofa watching TV, one was in a corner listening to music with headphones on, one was fiddling with building blocks, one was toying with a curved blade, and a little girl was staring blankly into space.
As soon as the short-haired woman entered, all five looked over.
The woman used a device to convert text to speech: "A mission has come in. This is your first mission since forming a team."
"..."
The five of them stood up and approached.
The woman took out a supply list. "The mission is simple. Search for the supplies on this list within the areas marked A1 through A9 on the map. You don’t need to bring them back. Just eliminate any threats, send the coordinates back to the base, and the base will dispatch logistics personnel to retrieve them."
The young man wearing headphones typed a line on his phone and held it up for the woman to see: "What do you mean by ’eliminate any threats’?"
The electronic voice replied flatly, "Exactly what it says."
Gu Fei snatched the list, his gesture a clear acceptance of the mission.
The others didn’t object either and began to head out the door.
When it was the last girl’s turn, the short-haired woman made a point to pat her on the shoulder and said in her electronic voice, "You don’t need to fight when you encounter a threat. Just assist your teammates and let them know the exact number and location of the enemies."
The girl nodded slightly, her face a little pale.
The short-haired woman paused, then added, "After this rule ends, I will apply to the Commander-in-Chief to let you see your mother."
Upon hearing this, a flicker of light finally appeared in Chen Na’s eyes.
...
BOOM!
Guan Tong fired a series of No. 2 slug rounds, taking down another Sound Hunter.
[Received 350 Sublimation Coins]
’Still no Communication Secret Scroll drop...’
Guan Tong felt a tinge of disappointment as he saw the notification.
By now, he had already killed more than five Sound Hunters.
However, a Secret Scroll had only dropped on the first and fourth kills. The first time, three dropped, but the fourth time, only one dropped.
This showed that the drop rate for this thing was really not high; he had just gotten lucky the first time.