Nobody in that drafty prefab room could sit still. Some were flaunting their previous identities as CEOs or directors, some were frantically texting for help through the stuttering network, and others were throwing visible tantrums, trying every desperate trick they had to avoid the inevitable. Captain Yan sat like a mountain of stone, completely unmoved by the noise. He was the kind of man you couldn't pressure into pity; he simply watched the room with a gaze that suggested he was counting the grains of rice each person had left.
Jing Shu didn't join the fray. She stared hard at the supply list shimmering on the left side of the projection screen. The price table was incredibly detailed, and as she ran the numbers on her various assets, she felt her jaw drop. Seeing it on paper made it clear, and it scared her. If everything were tallied according to this new official metric, she was sitting on a massive fortune. Honestly, everyone else in the room looked broke by comparison.
Right now, the most valuable things in the world were live poultry, fresh vegetables, rice, flour, and oil. She had fresh fruit and sky-high medicinal herbs she had planted herself. Even without counting the hidden contents of the Rubik's Cube Space, the livestock she kept in the villa alone put her far ahead of any tycoon. On top of that, she had stocked up on millions worth of pre-apocalypse supplies, rare snacks, cured meat, and bags of savory sausages. The value was astronomical.
But she couldn't just hand her best supplies over. Captain Yan was right; this was an assessment and a sweep of Wu City's middle class. If she revealed everything she owned, she would end up like last year's leeks—harvested for whatever the government wanted. So what could she offer that wouldn't make her last, wouldn't make her look flashy, and wouldn't earn the hatred of those around her?
She scanned her mental inventory and brightened. Of course, she could use the red nematode patties.
After the constant quakes and natural disasters, the state had no time or space to plant crops at any real scale. Lots of people had been displaced and couldn't produce any value for the economy anymore. So the government started burning through the second year's stock of red nematode patties. People were tired of them and even sick to death of the taste, but in this world, they still saved lives. They weren't glamorous commodities. They were like corn feed before the apocalypse; they were considered good only for feeding animals or the most desperate survivors.
"Twenty jin of red nematode patties equals one virtual coin," Jing Shu read, her eyes tracking the lines of text. "That's the going rate now. But I bought 200 jin for one virtual coin back then." Even accounting for water weight and compression, after calculating labor, storage, and shipping, her profit was still around 500 percent. It was obscene. And given current demand, she knew the prices would only go up from here.
Back then, she had raised a batch in the Space to feed the leeches, and she had also set up an extra breeding pool as seed stock. What started as one cubic meter of red nematodes had, after half a year, swelled to a full eight cubic meters, which was roughly eight tonnes of biomass. She knew that level of growth wasn't normal. In Wei Chang's breeding pool, the increase had only been maybe half as much. Red nematodes used to explode in population, breeding a new batch every seven days, but now growth rates had collapsed everywhere else.
Something was off, and everybody in the scientific community was trying to figure it out. They were all looking for a way to get the bacteria to reproduce faster, how to restore the old breeding rate, and how to make the red nematodes boom again. The state cared too, because red nematodes were crucial to avoid mass starvation among the lower classes.
Jing Shu knew her numbers weren't normal. If she could fix the reproduction problem, she might stop a lot of deaths and become a sort of mini Yuan Longping for the apocalypse. She even felt a little ridiculous thinking that, but she couldn't deny the thought.
So she put down a figure on her placard: one million virtual coins. That was her red nematode mogul price.
After everyone's resistance finally failed, Captain Yan told them to reveal their cards. People glanced around, comparing their numbers with nervous eyes. The man in the white suit had written 3 million. Jing Shu had put down 1 million. The rest of the numbers clustered between 100,000 and 800,000. Nobody wanted to be last, so most people inflated their numbers with imaginary wealth. There wasn't a single entry under 100,000.
The fat officer clapped his hands, looking satisfied as he surveyed the placards. "Alright, I will run the auction. Captain Wang, keep a tally of what everyone spends." Afterward, you donate the equivalent items. If you can't, you can sign an IOU. we're not that strict, hehe."
Jing Shu rolled her eyes behind her mask. The man was vile, stoking the donations until people bled out just to avoid being last.
"The first Type-95 automatic rifle starts at 1,500," Captain Yan announced.
"Sold. 1,800. 1,900. 2,500. Final at 2,700."
The hook-nosed officer grinned maliciously as he typed the data. The projection screen updated a ranking table showing who had pledged what. It was obvious who would end up last if they didn't start spending. The further the auction went, the higher the prices climbed as desperation set in.
The old man never bid; he sat there as if he were asleep. Jing Shu didn't bid either, since nothing on the list really tempted her yet. That wasn't the point. A few more rifles or submachine guns would be useful, but the bigger issue was the trap. Once you bought the guns, the follow-up ammo would be what kept you paying. Jing Shu would bet her little finger that those smiling old men would show up every few months asking for more donations or trying to sell bullets at a ridiculous price.
"It's too bad Li Yuetian isn't here; he would make this less awkward," she muttered under her breath.
Li Yuetian wasn't faring any better, though. Captain Yan wasn't lying about the monthly million quota. The director who had overseen the Banana Community had seen his people shifted under Lingshan's management, and now he had to scramble for donations elsewhere. There was no clean way out of the system.
The auction prices kept climbing. Jing Shu narrowed her eyes, watching the numbers tick upward. Maybe she should aim for some defensive gear instead of weapons.
Then the single-use rocket launcher appeared on the list, and her eyes lit up behind the glass of her mask.
"Model 08 single-use rocket launcher," the officer announced, lifting a dull green tube. "It's cheap to produce. Pre-apocalypse, they cost a few hundred yuan each. they're easy to carry and devastating in firepower. we have only got ten to sell; they're numbered, and we will inspect them every three months. Use requires registration and video proof. Ten pieces, starting bid 15,000."