Breaking Through and Fleeing at Full Speed

The manager wanted to analyze the other party's mindset through observation.

However, he ultimately failed. Qu Jianlei had long since gotten used to keeping his eyelids lowered.

Back on Blue Star, he had developed this little habit unconsciously because of his occasional episodes.

In fact, he was not surprised by what the other party had said. It was nothing more than impersonation.

On Blue Star, people had long since come up with all kinds of tricks for this sort of thing.

So he asked without changing expression, "I assume it wouldn't be convenient for you to provide us with information on these people?"

The manager answered without hesitation, "We never looked into it, because... we deal in high-end business."

It was a very clear attempt to distance himself, while not forgetting to advertise his own status.

"I understand." Qu Jianlei offered no further comment. "We'll come back tomorrow morning."

The manager looked at the Food Box in his hand and asked again, "You really don't want something to eat?"

"No need." Qu Jianlei waved a hand and walked out, with Xiao Jing following close behind.

The two spent the night outside the Energy Block shop, buying food from a roadside restaurant.

The Rich Area had night patrols, but the Energy Block shop had guards of its own.

When a patrol passed by and wanted to check their identities, Qu Jianlei simply answered coldly.

"We're sitting here and nobody's driving us away. Do you have anything else to ask?"

It had to be said that privilege existed everywhere. The patrolmen were used to seeing wealthy people and naturally did not want to provoke these two mysterious customers.

Nothing happened that night. The next morning, the manager returned, and this time he had truly settled everything.

For the crystals, his quoted price was ten kilograms of gold for a B-grade crystal and fifty kilograms for an A-grade one.

He had arranged a total of six crystals: five B-grade and one A-grade.

At those prices, the crystals alone would have basically drained all their gold.

Naturally, Qu Jianlei could not agree. He stated bluntly, "Half price. If that works, we trade. If not, forget it."

The manager naturally would not let him slash the price that deeply. After a lengthy negotiation, they finally settled on sixty percent.

Qu Jianlei had never liked haggling, but the amount involved this time was simply too large. He had no choice but to take it seriously.

The manager argued until his mouth was dry. He had truly never encountered such a difficult customer.

But the rest was much easier to discuss. One kilogram of gold could be exchanged for one thousand Silver Coins.

In other words, one gram of gold was worth one Silver Coin, and one Silver Coin could buy one Energy Block.

One kilogram of gold could buy one thousand Energy Blocks. With a thirty percent discount, that came to seven hundred grams of gold.

However, the Energy Block shop sold large Energy Blocks, each of which could be cut into one hundred smaller pieces.

They called these small pieces Li Blocks, with ten Li Blocks making one Fen Block.

Qu Jianlei simply exchanged two kilograms of gold for thirty large Energy Blocks.

He then exchanged eight kilograms of gold for eight thousand Silver Coins, leaving him with thirty kilograms of gold.

But eight thousand Silver Coins were far too many to carry around, so he exchanged them for the Energy Block shop's Silver Cards.

Silver Cards were similar to banknotes: anti-counterfeit plastic cards available in denominations of one hundred and one thousand.

The rare thing was that these notes were not only accepted in the Hong Wu Settlement. Other Energy Block shops accepted them as well.

Although they were essentially internal tokens, they circulated even better than the privately minted Silver Coins of the various Settlements.

In fact, eight thousand Silver Coins were enough to buy a decent armored vehicle.

After receiving the Silver Cards, Qu Jianlei headed straight to the various markets and began spending lavishly.

The Settlement only had a few tens of thousands of people. The sudden appearance of such a major customer naturally drew a great deal of attention.

Fortunately, guards from the Energy Block shop were escorting the Energy Blocks beside him. Even if others had their eyes on him, they had to think twice.

And he bought things very quickly, having calculated everything in advance.

In less than an hour, he had finished his massive shopping trip, spending more than six thousand Silver Coins.

Besides food, water, fuel, and ammunition, he also bought a generator, a winch, a water purification and circulation system, and other items.

He even bought some books, as well as an Electromagnetic Cannon.

After finishing his purchases, he hired people to transport the goods onto the off-road light truck and secure them tightly.

The guard who had previously been eyeing the Silver Card was dumbfounded when he saw this. "Just how much money do those two have?"

Under countless watchful eyes, Qu Jianlei drove the heavily loaded light truck out of the Hong Wu Settlement.

The moment he left, he floored the accelerator and sped away at full tilt.

At least four groups had been watching him for some time. Seeing the light truck race off, they immediately gave chase.

There were even vehicles ahead trying to block him.

Qu Jianlei circulated his Inner Breath into his eyes. Today's visibility was roughly three kilometers.

This gave him better vision than ordinary people using binoculars. After all, moving one's eyes was far more flexible than adjusting focus.

Relying on this advantage, he turned left and right, and after racing more than thirty kilometers, he forcibly broke out of the encirclement.

Bullets kept striking the ground around the truck. They were clearly trying to force him to stop, but Qu Jianlei paid them no heed.

He had a great deal of ammunition, as well as fuel and Energy Blocks, in the truck. If they truly aimed at him and fired, it could easily trigger a sympathetic explosion.

Of course, he still had to be careful. If some madman appeared who did not care about capturing the goods and only wanted to attack, that would be troublesome.

The moment he broke out of the encirclement, he spoke in a low voice. "Xiao Jing, go raise the protective plates!"

When he had modified the off-road light truck earlier, it had not been idle talk. He had installed grid-alloy protective plates on it.

The plates were not as protective as an armored vehicle—mainly because armored vehicles were integrated as a whole, while these plates were merely attached components.

But when it came to shielding vital areas, they were no worse than armored vehicles. If one layer was not enough, more could be added.

However, they were ultimately crudely made modifications. They did not even have a transmission mechanism and could only be raised manually.

During those thirty-plus kilometers of desperate flight, Xiao Jing had been tossed around until he was thoroughly disoriented, and his little face had gone pale.

Still, he truly was a child of the Wasteland. He had somehow managed not to throw up.

Hearing Black Sky Bro's words, he began unbuckling his seat belt. "Bro, remember to drive somewhere flatter."

With his nerves stretched tight, Qu Jianlei answered impatiently, "Do you need to tell me that?"

A belt was fastened around Xiao Jing's waist, connected to a clasp. He slowly climbed toward the truck bed.

It was an exhausting process, but fortunately he was young and light. Five minutes later, the protective plate at the rear of the truck bed rose into place.

When Qu Jianlei had modified the vehicle, he had only installed protective plates at the rear.

First, it made escaping easier. Second, adding too many protective plates would increase the load, even though the alloy plates he had chosen were already quite light.

In the end, it was still because he was poor. There were lighter and sturdier protective plates available, but he could not afford them.

After raising the rear plate, Xiao Jing began crawling forward again. This time, he was climbing against the wind, making it even harder.

More than ten minutes later, he finally crawled back into the cab. "I need to eat a Nutrient Solution and drink some water."

Qu Jianlei kept his eyes on the road while stuffing a Nutrient Solution into his own mouth. Hearing that, he nodded. "You've worked hard!"

The next moment, a series of dull impacts sounded from behind the truck. The pursuing vehicles had become enraged and began spraying it with machine-gun fire.

In another vehicle, someone cursed through the vehicle communicator, "Which bastard has gone crazy?"

"It's Madman's team," another communicator replied. "That guy's not right in the head."

"Patch into his Frequency Band!" The man who had cursed switched channels.

"Madman, are you sick? We didn't come all this way just to watch an explosion!"

A brazen voice came through. "What the hell do you know? That guy might have Mutated Beast Crystals on him!"

It was hardly surprising that this information had spread. Qu Jianlei had purchased six Mutated Beast Crystals in one go.

How many people were there in the entire Hong Wu Settlement? Anyone who could keep crystals in their possession was no ordinary person.

Those people all knew one another. It was only natural for them to ask around when an outsider wanted to buy crystals.

In fact, those who had received offers but had not sold their crystals were also watching the buyer's movements.

As for who the buyer was, there was no need to ask.

Even if Qu Jianlei had not gone on a massive shopping spree, anyone could tell from the Energy Block shop's guards constantly escorting him.

Madman's attitude was clear: if they could not keep the man's supplies, they would rather blow him up.

Although Mutated Beast Crystals were rich in energy, they were relatively stable and would likely remain intact.

"I fucking know that," the person on this side cursed back, as though he were the only one with information.

"You're looking at the Mutated Beast Crystals. I'm looking at why that guy bought so many crystals!"

Mutated Beast Crystals had plenty of uses, but someone making such a massive purchase might have discovered a new use for them.

However, Madman gave a sinister laugh. "Are you sure you can get him to talk?"

The other man replied leisurely, "How will we know if we don't try?"

"I don't fucking care about that," Madman refused decisively. "Blowing him up is better than letting him get away."

"Too bad we left in a hurry and didn't bring the Autocannon!"

"What the hell is in your head?" The man on this side was getting exasperated. "He's alone. Just keep biting his tail!"

There was one large person and one small person in the other vehicle. The smaller one could not even reach the accelerator, so the larger one had to keep driving.

But every pursuing vehicle had more than one person. As long as they could hold out, it would come down to how far the other side could run.

"What a pain," Madman muttered, but he did not continue arguing.

He acted impulsively and was more emotional than rational. The Wasteland never lacked people like that, but he would still accept reasonable advice.

Qu Jianlei had no idea that the pursuers' mindset had changed. He continued driving the light truck at full speed.

What surprised him was that although they occasionally fired at him from behind, they seemed to be deliberately conserving ammunition? He could not understand it. In his impression, nearly every Survivor of the Wasteland was ruthless.

If they could not get something for themselves, they would rather destroy it than let someone else have it.

And he still had thirty kilograms of gold. No explosion could destroy that.

What Qu Jianlei did not know was that the manager had truly kept the news of the gold secret.

It did not matter if other news got out, but no one could be allowed to learn about the seventy kilograms of gold already in his hands.

Qu Jianlei stopped thinking about it when he could not figure it out. All he could do was flee for his life.

He had obtained quite a lot of supplies this time, and the truck was carrying a heavy load, though it was still within the light truck's capacity.

Its fuel consumption would definitely be higher, but its speed was not much slower than the others'.

However, the distance between them was steadily shrinking. That was an undeniable fact.

(Update posted. Please support the new book.)