What Do You Smell? What Is This Scent?

At 3:40 p. m., the rain stopped and the sky cleared in the low-lying area.

The thunderstorm that had raged all night had completely subsided.

The rain, which lasted for nearly ten hours, not only brought a terrifying 700ml of rainfall, but also painted two rainbows, one light and one dark, hanging high in the sky above the depression.

If you were to stand at a distance and look out over the entire depression at this time, you would see two plumes of smoke rising into the sky from the silvery-gray Iron Stone Mountain, which has been washed clean of all dust by the rain, intertwining with the rainbow.

Peace and tranquility.

Like the secluded Fishing Village, Hope Village, under the protection of Su Mo, is free from conflict and harassment by other races. Although it has a small population, its cohesion is undoubtedly among the best in the wasteland! Of course, on this day worth celebrating, the village is much more lively.

Standing on the Mountain Road, two militiamen guarding the entrance to the mountain cautiously surveyed the distance while occasionally chatting in between their busy work.

The militiaman on the left is named Su Yuan. Because he shares the same surname as Su Mo and was previously a fitness instructor, he was fortunate enough to stand out in the militia selection.

The militiaman on the right is Chen Kai, the cousin of village chief Chen Shen. He also has a muscular physique and extraordinary strength.

With these two guarding the mountain entrance, not only were the management at ease, but even the villagers joked:

These are the door gods of our Hope Village! But today, the two door gods seem a bit dazed.

"Kai Zi, Kai Zi, quickly open your Game Panel and see if your brother has sent you a message. I'm so worried! Ask him how much it's sold so far!"

When he said this, Su Yuan looked nervous and even swallowed twice in an exaggerated way to relieve his anxiety.

He was in a real hurry! It was the kind of eagerness that couldn't be faked!

Summoned by him, Chen Kai first looked around, and after noticing no suspicious figures, he shook his head helplessly.

"Brother Yuan, don't be in such a hurry. Look at you now, you can't even hold the spear properly. I'm not trying to be mean, but we've only been on guard duty for less than two hours, and this is the fourth time you've asked me. What's wrong? Are you worried that the things the station chief personally ordered won't sell and will just become a burden on our hands?"

"Don't worry at all, I guarantee you, when you go up there, they will definitely give you a satisfactory number!"

As Chen Shen's cousin, Chen Kai clearly knew more and was much more composed. At least his hand holding the iron spear was very steady, and he showed no signs of panic.

But Chen Kai didn't know that the more he acted this way, the more flustered the man standing opposite him became.

This time, the village spent an astronomical sum to purchase the colloid from the White Sap Tree, a sum that even a large shelter could hardly imagine!

Like oak trees, White Sap Tree are not uncommon in the wasteland.

This means that if you want to make an acquisition and clear out the market inventory as soon as possible before others can react, you have to spend a lot of resources to replace it.

The taxes paid by each villager after the previous harvest were simply not enough to cover this exorbitant purchase price.

And so, the crowdfunding began!

As the initiator of the plan, Su Mo naturally set an example by subscribing to 50% of the quota.

Of the remaining 50%, 8% was taken by the village's remaining tax revenue, and the other 43% was taken by the villagers' personal savings.

Of course, because each villager had different grain reserves during the previous Welfare Disaster harvest, the amount of supplies each villager contributed during this purchase was also different.

The more ruthless ones take out 80% of their savings, leaving only three months' worth of food during the disaster, to prevent the predicament of having nothing to eat if the operation fails.

The more conventional approach is to keep half a year's worth of food rations and give 70% to the village, which is the safest option.

But besides these two types of people, there are also a few wolf-killers.

Su Yuan was one of them! At this moment, after hearing Chen Kai's words of comfort, Su Yuan's hands trembled even more, and even his forehead was covered with a fine layer of sweat in the cool weather.

"Kai Zi, I'm not trying to fool you, but this time everyone else put in 70% of their supplies, some even 80%. Do you know how much I put in? A full 95%! Of the grain we harvested before, I basically only had enough for half a month's rations left. The rest I handed over to the operation. If we lose money like this, I'll be back to square one!"

"It's not that I don't trust the director. Didn't we all see it on the notice board? The director subscribed to a full 50%, which is no small sum. But you also know that I almost starved to death. If the director hadn't forcibly ended the blizzard, and if you hadn't taken me in from outside, I might have died in that freezing cold a month ago. How could I be alive to see our village getting better and better? How could I be standing here with you in this cannibalistic apocalypse, talking about our harvest?"

Su Yuan spoke these words with tears streaming down his face.

Not everyone who lives in Hope Village is lucky!

Not to mention Su Yuan, more than 60% of the people in the village today almost lost their lives before they were lucky enough to join.

Seeing this tough guy who had insisted on working in the fields despite being frostbitten all over his body without shedding a single tear, Chen Kai pursed his lips.

Then, he replied in a muffled voice, "Brother Yuan, I understand all of this. To be honest, if it weren't for the director, I would have died at the Saltpeter Mine. You don't know, back when the Maeda Japanese Devil forced us to work, each of us would only get a potato smaller than a fist after a day's work."

"It was a potato that no one would even pick up if it were lying on the ground in such a civilized era. Back then, I would think about it every night before I fell asleep, wondering when I could eat two, three. I was really hungry. You could dig in the mine all day and only get this little bit of food. I felt that if the director hadn't come to rescue us, I, Chen Kai, would have died there after digging for another week. But in the end..."

"When I saw the director, clad in armor, blow open the camp gate and rush in, killing everything in sight, haha, just thinking about that scene now makes me incredibly happy!"

"Back then, when we were all standing up there and saw the warden killing the kobolds, we were so excited. These bastards had oppressed us for so long, and finally we got our chance. So, with that kind of stubbornness, we don't know where we got the strength from, we rushed down and followed the warden. But do you know what happened after that?"

At this point, Chen Kai paused, and Su Yuan across from him also became interested. Although he looked worried, he still cooperated and replied, "What? Hurry up and tell me, don't keep me in suspense at a time like this!"

Without keeping you in suspense, Chen Kai nodded and continued, "Hehe, I knew you wouldn't guess. This is practically my cousin's dark history. He usually forbids me from telling anyone about it, but don't spread it around today!"

"At that time, we had been starving for so many days, and then we rushed down and fought fiercely for a while. Everyone had low blood sugar and collapsed on the ground, looking like they were about to die. In a state of confusion, my cousin Chen Shen, I don't know where he got the idea, thought that the director was a general who had traveled from ancient times. And he was also naive, so he directly associated him with Lu Bu, the number one warrior in the Three Kingdoms, and told us to do what the TV series did, to bow down and see if this Lu Bu general would take us in!"

"These other people have been starving for so many days and are so frightened, so naturally there's nothing we can do but do as they say. But do you know what I was thinking when we asked Lord Lu Bu to take us in?"

Su Yuan raised an eyebrow. "Thinking you can finally join the director's team and enjoy the good life?"

"No, no, no, how could it be so profound? Imagine if you were about to freeze or starve to death, would you still be thinking about this?"

Chen Kai shook his head. "What I was thinking at the time was, could General Lu Bu, considering that we fought alongside him and are now kneeling down, share some of the supplies we captured from the camp with us? And I didn't even want much; I just wanted two potatoes. Really, even if it meant my death, I would have been willing to die for two potatoes."

"But it was at this moment that the director, oh, the director, he was such a good man!"

"Back then, supplies were so scarce, but the director insisted that we find all the food we had and set up a big pot in the camp. He didn't take a single potato; he made us put them all in the pot and eat them."

"In that one meal, I ate two and a half, each the size of a fist. I almost bit my tongue off from all that eating. Seriously, at that moment, I felt like I had never eaten such delicious potatoes in my life. I even drank two bowls of the potato soup afterwards."

After a pause, Chen Kai continued, "I know you might not believe me now, but before the director left, he not only pointed out the location of Candlelight Village to me, but also left us a stack of flatbreads. From that moment on, from the moment I saw the flatbreads, I thought that if the director took me in, as long as he gave me something to eat, I would be willing to risk my life for him."

"So this time, even though I seem as steady as a rock, I still invested 95%, and my cousin invested even more. He invested everything except for the last week's worth of food!"

After saying so much in one breath, Chen Kai was a little out of breath, but his expression revealed his fervor for the village, and...

Loyalty to Su Mo!

"And Brother Yuan, even though we're just gatekeepers now, you know that with the director, our village will definitely grow bigger and bigger, and it's not impossible for it to return to the way it is on Earth. There will definitely be more powerful people then. If we want to maintain our current position and climb up, we need to use our brains more and make more contributions, instead of being as anxious as we are now."

"You wanted to know the details of the transaction, right? We don't need to know the numbers; you just need to smell this aroma!"

Pointing to the mountaintop where wisps of smoke drifted down with the breeze, Chen Kai smiled, his smile conveying everything without words.

"Smell?"

Standing opposite Chen Kai, and receiving Chen Kai's almost accusatory but earnest instruction, Su Yuan was not angry. Instead, he nodded in agreement and began to smell it seriously.

A look of confusion appeared on his face at first glance.

In the next second, his doubt turned into surprise.

But in the third second, he seemed to suddenly realize something and nodded repeatedly.

He was familiar with the smell coming down from the mountain; it was the smell that came from mixing beef and carrots together, wrapping them in buns, and steaming them in a steamer.

After seizing the supplies from these villains at Zeus Shelter, the village once held a steaming party to celebrate.

The smell was so strong that everyone was unable to concentrate on their work all day. It wasn't until dinner was distributed and everyone finished eating that normal order was restored.

Having been terrified of hunger, Su Yuan remembered that smell very, very well!

But now, on this ordinary day, we smell that scent again, that scent that represents "celebration".

Looking at Chen Kai's relaxed expression, and feeling his own intelligence being severely suppressed, he silently stood back and didn't say anything more.

Su Yuan's appearance made Chen Kai, who was standing to the side, nod silently.

But just as he was about to continue speaking, his sharp eyes caught a black dot on the horizon.

"Su Yuan, 9 o'clock!"

"Be ready to transmit signals at any time!"

Without guns and facing unknown enemies, the two militiamen's gatekeeping duties were more like guard duty; all they had to do was pass on messages.

But as the black dot got closer, the two of them slowly relaxed.

Although the vehicle that appeared was slightly "fatter" than before, they could still recognize it as Su Mo's ride, the Earth Tiger.

After the car came to a stop, the group of people who got out of the ground tiger were all very familiar with each other.

It was the intelligence team that appeared and disappeared every day.

Considering that Chen Kai had just told him a few minutes earlier to use his brain more, and seeing Pei Shao walking at the front looking lost and bewildered, not knowing what he was thinking.

Su Yuan smiled.

At the same time, he stepped forward, a meaningful smile on his face, "Team Leader Pei, is the mission finished? You've worked hard!"

Hearing someone greet him, Pei Shao, who was deep in thought, nodded and continued walking, "Yes, the mission is over. Thank you!"

As he was saying this, Pei Shao was so preoccupied with his thoughts and the road was slippery that he tripped and fell right into Su Yuan's arms.

But the next second, when Pei Shao looked up and was about to thank her, he saw Su Yuan looking at him with a maternal smile.

Pei Shao: "???"

Su Yuan: "Team Leader Pei, I know you're anxious to find the answer, but don't rush. Take a good sniff. What's this smell?"

Like a riddle teller, Su Yuan's expression was full of gentleness, yet also carried a hint of intellectual suppression.

Instinctively, upon hearing Su Yuan's slightly commanding tone, Pei Shao subconsciously sniffed.

Hmm? After the rain, there's a pungent, earthy smell.

But there's also a refreshing scent of Rebirth of All Things.

The smell of exhaust fumes from the Earth Tiger hadn't dissipated on the intelligence team yet. What would the smell be like after the rain? Just think, in the past six hours, under Su Mo's command, the Earth Tiger changed directions twelve times, always circling within 100 kilometers of the depression.

After reflecting on their journey, the taste of the food, and the abruptness of the weather, Pei Shao suddenly understood Su Mo's true purpose in choosing this day and such harsh conditions for their journey.

"It turns out that the director's plan was to alert the enemy and see if the alien race would give themselves away. And to prevent the presence of a traitor within the base, he even lied to me."

"Damn it, Pei Shao, Pei Shao, even a gatekeeper could think of that, how could you, as the intelligence captain, be so stupid!"

Suddenly realizing Su Mo's true thoughts, Pei Shao shuddered and stood up from Su Yuan's embrace.

Then, a solemn expression appeared on his face.

"Brother Su Yuan, I wonder if you've ever considered joining the intelligence organization? We desperately need someone as observant and capable as you!"

"Oh? Captain Pei, you can't accept that title. Every position has its purpose. The intelligence team is important, and so is our role as gatekeepers!"

Knowing full well that he was a "big bad wolf," Su Yuan was also startled when he saw Pei Shao's appearance.

But his humble demeanor made Pei Shao nod again.

With a sense of mutual respect, Pei Shao didn't say anything more. After patting Su Yuan on the shoulder with a touch of emotion, he led the intelligence team and disappeared down the Mountain Road.

"Kaizi, your brother Yuan did a pretty good job this time!"

Looking at Chen Kai, who was dumbfounded beside him, Su Yuan raised his hand with a smug expression.

But he was met with a sharp shout from Chen Kai: "Stop talking nonsense! The director is here!"