Cheng Ye knew exactly how good he was at sewing.
Back before PDD sold cheap stuff, he used to patch up his ripped jeans. Later, when a pair of jeans cost twenty yuan, why bother patching them?
When they wore out, he could drop them off at Rookie Station for recycling and get four yuan. Then he'd wait for a coupon and buy a new pair, spending at most ten yuan.
Over time, he'd all but forgotten the skill. He could manage the basics, and that was about it.
"So it seems Action Points search for my highest skill level."
Cheng Ye mulled it over, then sighed. Why was he even worrying about this?
There was no need to obsess over the exact standards for Action Point searches. Complex operations in the future would inevitably require the right skills, while simple tasks surely wouldn't demand much.
Even if he really couldn't manage something, it wouldn't take long to learn as he went.
The Wasteland wasn't the apocalypse, after all, and Xingfu City wasn't a city ruin crawling with zombies.
Human civilization had endured here. As an inspector, Cheng Ye might have trouble getting his hands on high-tech materials, but common knowledge that was widely circulated should be easy enough to find.
Besides—
Cheng Ye reached into the desk drawer and stuffed his backpack inside.
The Collector could mask Biological Sense while he was carrying out an operation, but it couldn't keep masking the finished product.
He'd have to remember that from now on and try to operate when no one was around.
Confined to the Quarantine Zone with nowhere to go, the four-plus hours of the morning flew by.
As the saying went, a sudden downpour never lasted, but a light rain could go on and on.
Last night's storm had come on so suddenly that by morning it had dwindled to a drizzle. Now the skies had cleared completely.
The temperature shot up, and the sun beat down until people felt dizzy.
At first, Cheng Ye worried that Infected might show up and be difficult to handle. He kept a sharp eye on the passage outside, occasionally getting up to stretch and stay warmed up.
But over the entire morning, at least a hundred people had been sent through Quarantine Zone B next door. In his Zone A, though, there wasn't a single sign of anyone.
"Could last night's downpour really have caused the road outside to collapse?"
"Wouldn't make sense. Anyone who could drive out there should've known it might rain, right?"
Cheng Ye was quite surprised.
If he could get through the first day this smoothly, that would be a good thing for him.
But Murphy's Law was a strange thing.
As luck would have it, just as the thought crossed his mind, a vehicle finally appeared in the distance.
Here it came!
Cheng Ye perked up and instinctively opened the Collector Panel to glance at the top-right corner.
After nearly five hours, Charge Value had recovered from 0% to 18%. That was impressive.
At this rate, by the end of his shift, he'd have enough for another search when he came to work tomorrow.
Besides, he'd been worried the search might fail. Now, even if it did, he'd get Action Points, so either way, he wouldn't lose out.
The vehicle drew closer. As expected, it was the Dajinbei van most commonly seen in the Buffer Zone.
Cheng Ye noticed that when it rolled onto the hard-packed road and passed through Passage One, its front tires were squashed unusually flat. Clearly, it was carrying a heavy load.
"Stop there and wait for instructions!"
Cheng Ye shot to his feet, grabbed the Loudspeaker from the desk frame, and called out to the approaching Dajinbei.
It was his first time working at the Quick Checkpoint, but he'd watched the procedure in Zone B next door all morning. He'd managed to figure out most of the ins and outs.
The process was basically the same every time:
First, direct traffic. Then inspect, elicit information from both sides, and verify the results.
The Xiren Inspector in Zone B seemed especially opposed to using instruments. Scavengers often couldn't give him answers he liked, and he'd slap the label "Infected" on them and shove them into an Isolation Pod for at least seven days.
Putting aside whether this approach was right or wrong, it was undeniably inefficient.
As a textbook member of the Academy Faction, Cheng Ye had spent two months working out his own methods. Add in the tips Luo Xiaoxue had taught him, and he was confident he wouldn't do worse than that blockhead next door.
The Dajinbei passed through the passage and came to a slow stop in front of the isolation gate.
The driver froze when he noticed an inspector of Dongren descent sitting inside.
"Get out and state your numbers. Don't you understand?"
Cheng Ye shouted. The people in the van finally seemed to snap out of it and hurriedly opened the doors and got out.
There were four of them in all.
Two had been sitting in the front, and two in the cargo compartment. All were Xiren.
"Do you have your paperwork for leaving the city? Pass it through the window so I can take a look."
"Yes, yes!"
The Xiren driver nodded quickly, turned back, and fished an envelope out of the storage compartment beside his seat.
"Please review this, sir."
There was a small, palm-sized window in the outer isolation gate for people being inspected to pass documents through.
Cheng Ye took the envelope, returned to the alloy desk, and opened it to inspect its contents.
To his surprise, six coins fell out first. The front bore an engraving of the Giant Wall of Xingfu City, and the back showed the number "100."
Six hundred?
Had he lost his mind?
Was this kid trying to wreck Xingfu City's economy?
Cheng Ye was momentarily stunned. Inspectors had plenty of ways to make money, and earning a thousand or so Happiness Coins a month wasn't hard.
But the official monthly salary wasn't much. He, as a Trainee Inspector, earned 500 coins, while Liu Bi, a seasoned Fourth Stage Inspector, only got 950.
Now some random person had just offered him 600 Happiness Coins as a bribe. What kind of nonsense was this?
He swept the coins aside and looked up slightly, studying the four people standing outside the isolation gate.
One look was enough to tell him what was going on.
The driver and the passenger beside him were fine, but the two who'd climbed out of the Dajinbei's cargo compartment were both injured.
The man on the left had hurt his arm, which bent slightly without him seeming to notice. The man on the right had injured his leg and could barely stand without leaning on the rear door.
"No wonder they brought such a generous gift."
"If they'd gone through Zone B next door with those injuries, the inspector probably wouldn't even ask questions. He'd toss them into an Isolation Pod for ten days or half a month. By the end of isolation, the man with the injured arm might still be hanging on, but the one with the injured leg probably wouldn't make it."
Cheng Ye immediately understood.
According to Raven, Dajinbei vans with four seats like this usually offered modest bribes, mostly local specialties from nearby settlements and Sanctuary Cities. They might be unusual, but were generally worth around 50 Happiness Coins.
After all, they'd already paid part of the "toll" at the Checkpoint before leaving the city.
Only large transport convoys would slip the inspectors a hundred or two coins during their entry inspection, just to ensure a smooth passage.
"Six hundred coins to buy a life. That's a hefty sum."
Cheng Ye unfolded the departure permit and looked it over.
There was nothing unusual recorded on it, just the usual trade approval. The cargo consisted of tools like wrenches, screwdrivers, and hammers, along with small industrial goods like radios, tape, and electrical wire. All were on the list of items Xingfu City permitted for export.
But something was off. This crew had returned with their vehicle loaded to the brim.
Suddenly remembering how flat the Dajinbei's tires had looked when it entered the checkpoint, Cheng Ye realized the problem had to be the cargo.
"Who's in charge?"
"Sir, I am!" The driver raised his hand.
"Name?"
"Ke Er Waters."
"I'm opening the isolation gate. Drive the van inside by yourself. I'm going to inspect the cargo. The others will wait outside. Understand?"
Cheng Ye's tone was crisp.
Ke Er's heart skipped a beat. He hadn't expected the Dongren inspector to figure out that there was a problem with the cargo without asking a single question.
At the same time, though, he realized that Cheng Ye hadn't refused outright. That meant there was still room to negotiate.
The isolation gate slowly rolled upward.
The isolation gate in Quarantine Zone A was much wider than the one in Zone B, easily large enough for the Dajinbei to pass through.
The support holding up the cargo compartment was removed. The man with the injured leg immediately stumbled awkwardly. Before his companions could catch him, he dropped heavily onto his backside.
Ke Er saw this in the rearview mirror. His expression changed, but he could only drive slowly into the inspection area, obediently turn off the engine, and get out.
Right in front of Cheng Ye, he said nothing and stripped off his shirt and pants, leaving only his underwear, then stepped into the marked inspection square.
This was standard procedure at the Quick Checkpoint, meant to show that the person had no obvious symptoms of infection and wasn't hiding any weapons.
"State your numbers first."
Cheng Ye glanced him over. Ke Er had several scabbed-over abrasions across his body, and his calves were swollen, but none of those counted as infected wounds.
Only scratches, bites, and punctures larger than 10*10 cm fit the pattern of an Infected attack.
"37.1 (body temperature)/66 (heart rate)/18 (respiratory rate)."
"You look pretty relaxed, don't you?"
Cheng Ye put on a faint smile. Ke Er shuddered and hurriedly replied:
"Sir, I've always been a cool-headed guy. Even when fighting Infected, my heart rate's never gone over 130."
"You think that's what I mean?"
Cheng Ye tapped the tabletop, making the six coins tremble and rattle against the alloy.
"I'll give you three sentences. Tell me something I want to hear."
"Yes, yes, sir!"
Ke Er swallowed. He was facing a young man more than ten years his junior, yet he felt the pressure bearing down on him.
It wasn't just the authority Cheng Ye held. It was also the unshakable confidence and forcefulness in his eyes.
"We delivered a load to Qingshi Gathering Place. On the way back, we met a Wandering Scavenger who wanted to make a deal. He wanted two weeks' worth of food in exchange for some information, and I agreed."
"The information was about the location of an undeveloped mineral deposit."
"We found the deposit, but we didn't expect the Scavenger to have already set a trap. Luckily, we won the fight and managed to dig up quite a few samples."
Ke Er spoke rapidly, afraid that if he didn't make each sentence concise enough, Cheng Ye would cut him off.
"A mineral deposit?"
Cheng Ye raised an eyebrow. "Is it Extraordinary Ore?"
"Don't joke, sir. How could we possibly dig up something that rare? It's a small lithium deposit in pegmatite."
"What? Lithium?!"
Before you continue