Business

When Li Qinwu opened his eyes, he had already resurrected naked on the bed in the Hideout. Eight hours had passed since he had been beaten to death.

Smacking his lips, he got out of bed, roasted a few potatoes to fill his stomach, then sat there blankly for a while.

Being beaten to death by so many people was a first for him. It was quite a novel experience, one worth savoring.

Once he had savored it enough, he got up to check the Hideout's output.

The Brewing Apparatus had produced one bottle of liquor. He took it out and loaded in more materials, setting the Brewing Apparatus to make another bottle.

Carrying the bottle to the Emperor Shrine, he found that its Holy Wine had finished brewing as well, and the candle had gone out.

Li Qinwu took out the second bottle of Holy Wine and stored it properly, then inserted another bottle of liquor to resume production.

After finishing all that, he found a set of clothes to put on, tucked the large-caliber pistol into his waistband, grabbed all the Holy Biscuits, and prepared to head out.

He planned to visit the Clean Water Guild first and see how Little Joel's family was doing, then take the Great Elevator up to the Middle Hive for a look around.

He walked all the way to the safe zone. It was still the same shitty place as before, full of Lower Hive rats struggling to make a living.

They scavenged everywhere and searched everywhere, their eyes full of schemes and calculations as they sized each other up.

Whenever the Great Elevator sent down a fresh batch of convicts, they would swarm over to celebrate.

Li Qinwu's last violent killing spree had not taught them the slightest lesson. They continued living in this world, brutal and vulgar as ever.

Ignoring those rats, he headed straight for the Clean Water Guild's shop.

As usual, a long line had formed here for water collection. Lower Hive rats waited to receive clean water, one of only two ways they could obtain a clean water source in the Lower Hive.

Li Qinwu bypassed the crowd and walked directly into the shop. The security guards stationed at the entrance instinctively pulled their guns to threaten him when they saw someone approaching, but they froze when they recognized Li Qinwu.

"Huh? Aren't you dead?"

The Clean Water Guild guards knew Li Qinwu. He had a good relationship with their boss.

Li Qinwu walked over, took out cigarettes and a lighter from his clothes, and lit one for each of them.

"Didn't die. I slaughtered my way out!"

He lied casually. The situation had been chaotic back then. He had been surrounded by hundreds of rats, so who could claim they had definitely seen him beaten to death?

As for the mush of flesh all over the ground, maybe it had belonged to some unlucky rat. In any case, it had not been Li Qinwu.

Everyone in Warhammer 40,000 had secrets, and there were plenty of things that defied common sense. A barely plausible explanation was enough.

The Clean Water Guild guards looked at Li Qinwu suspiciously, but they still stepped aside and let him in.

The moment Li Qinwu entered the Clean Water Guild shop, he saw Joel's family filling cheap Ceramite buckets from the pipes, portioning out the water, then carrying it to the front of the shop to sell. They looked as though they had been working for quite some time already.

Joel's father was carrying several buckets of water when he turned to restock the shop and ran straight into Li Qinwu.

The instant he saw Li Qinwu's face, his entire body froze, and the words slipped from his mouth.

"Ah! You... aren't you dead?"

Li Qinwu took a drag from his cigarette and said casually, "Didn't die. I fought my way out in another direction!"

With a thud, Joel's father dropped to his knees before Li Qinwu and knocked his head heavily against the ground.

"Benefactor! You saved my whole family! Benefactor, if you ever have any use for me, just say the word. I'll give you my life to repay you!"

His attitude was extremely sincere, which pleased Li Qinwu. At least he had not saved an ungrateful bastard.

Afterward, Joel's father called over his wife, Little Joel in his wheelchair, and Little Joel's younger brother, and they all thanked Li Qinwu.

Little Joel in particular tried to lie on the ground and kowtow to Li Qinwu from his wheelchair, but Li Qinwu quickly held him back.

"Your company commander asked me to take care of your family, and he gave me quite a lot in return. So you don't need to thank me. If you want to thank someone, thank your company commander."

Everyone began expressing their gratitude again, but Li Qinwu interrupted them once more and asked Little Joel:

"What's your situation now? How did you end up working here? Did Reno give you a job?"

Little Joel shook his head.

"Sir, yesterday we fought our way out of the crowd and gave them your name here. Lord Reno sheltered us.

Lord Reno did not give us jobs. My father simply believed that since we were receiving someone's protection here, we had to offer something in return.

We have nothing on us now. The only thing we have is my father and mother's labor, so they began voluntarily taking on whatever work they could manage."

Li Qinwu nodded inwardly. To be fair, Joel's family had solid values. Even in a time like this, they still thought of repaying someone's protection through labor.

Joel's father kept saying that wherever his life was needed, Li Qinwu could have it. The man intended to sell his life to Li Qinwu, hoping Li Qinwu would look after his wife and children in the future.

In just one day, the man had realized how difficult it was to survive in the Lower Hive. There were still several freshly gnawed skeletons near the Great Elevator!

As they chatted, the door deeper inside the Clean Water Guild shop opened. Reno poked his head out, looked surprised for a moment when he saw Li Qinwu, then beckoned to him.

Li Qinwu told Little Joel's family to wait there, then followed Reno into the office.

After closing the door, the two sat down. Li Qinwu said, "I got the Memory Panel. It's stored somewhere absolutely safe in the Middle Hive. I'll head up there in a bit and bring it down for you."

Reno nodded with a smile and very straightforwardly pulled out a stack of Fertilizer Vouchers from his desk, placing it on the table and sliding it toward Li Qinwu.

"Here. This is your payment. One hundred thousand Fertilizer Vouchers, not a single one short."

He was not worried in the slightest that Li Qinwu might be lying to him. Yesterday, he had clearly seen this man beaten to death by hundreds of rats, yet today the man was standing before him again. How could that be explained?

He was a junior supervisor in the Clean Water Guild and had seen a great deal.

He had once heard of a Clone Cult where every clone looked exactly the same, their genes all originating from the cult leader. Yet every one of them was also the cult leader.

He had also heard more secretive stories, stories about immortals.

Whatever kind of person the man before him was, he possessed immense potential. Reno believed that someone of this caliber would not throw away his credibility over one hundred thousand Fertilizer Vouchers.

Li Qinwu put away the hundred thousand Fertilizer Vouchers. He felt that Reno was a decent man. Since Reno trusted him so much, Li Qinwu could finish Reno's future jobs a little sooner.

After discussing the handover of the mission, Li Qinwu brought up Little Joel's family. He told Reno that they were actually injured soldiers and asked whether he had any suggestions for settling them down.

Reno stroked his chin and said, "I have no way to provide long-term accommodation for outsiders here. The workers employed here are all officially registered with the Guild. If outsiders stay in the shop long-term and my competitors find out, they may impeach me.

If you want their family to survive for the long haul, you can only follow the rules of the Lower Hive and find them work that can support them.

Even becoming gang enforcers would be better than wasting away outside and waiting to die."

Li Qinwu sighed. He did not want to do that.

Lieutenant Rudosen had given him benefits and asked him to take care of Little Joel's family. How could he throw them to a gang?

If this family were thrown into a gang, the result would be that Little Joel's father became an enforcer and died in a gang war.

Little Joel's mother would become a female laborer, worked to death or noticed and toyed with by some gang boss.

Little Joel himself was disabled. He probably would not live another half year before dying for one reason or another.

Little Joel's younger brother was too young, barely around ten. Either gang members would seize him for experiments or organ harvesting, or he would be kept at a boss's side and raised as a disposable loyalist.

Whenever the boss ran into trouble, he would be thrown out to take bullets. None of those were good destinations.

At that moment, Li Qinwu had another idea. Should he start a small gang himself?

With his abilities, the supplies produced by the Hideout, and the guns and ammunition he had stockpiled, running a small force would not be a problem at all. The only issue was finding a base.

But after thinking it over, even a base was not a problem!

A base did not necessarily have to be in some wide-open place. The Lower Hive had countless tunnels stretching in every direction. If he found some sheets of material and blocked off both ends, wouldn't that section of tunnel become his private territory?

Wouldn't the stretch of tunnel outside the Hideout be perfect? That tunnel was fairly large, roughly a six-meter-diameter circle. Its walls were made of construction Ceramite, covered with many pipes of unknown purpose, while a metal platform along the bottom allowed people to walk through.

All he needed was some Ceramite Powder and metal sheets to block off both ends of the passage. The more space he enclosed, the larger his territory would be!

Once he occupied an area, he could recruit underlings and build up his own force.

But there was still one problem. He had to provide jobs. He could not lock people in the tunnel, have them do nothing, and feed them for free. They still needed work.

Li Qinwu pondered for quite a while without coming up with anything. He looked at Reno across the desk and asked:

"Are there any products from the Middle Hive or Spire that are selling especially well right now? Could I get involved?"

Reno considered it very seriously for a while before saying, "If you truly want to invest, the only path should be brewing alcohol.

There really isn't much the Lower Hive can send upward, apart from alcohol.

And as long as you brew alcohol that does not taste outrageously terrible, it will always sell.

The situation is special right now. All the land outside the Hive City has been occupied, and everyone throughout the Hive City is anxious. At times like this, demand for alcohol is high.

And because the grain-producing regions have been lost, food supplies in the Hive City are running short. The planetary governor has ordered the emergency grain warehouses opened and rationing implemented. Under such circumstances, there is no surplus grain to allocate to breweries.

If you can find a way to secure a stable grain supply, you might really be able to establish a moonshine business."

Li Qinwu was somewhat tempted. No matter how many tens of thousands of years humanity developed, people would always have a demand for alcohol.

The current Hive City felt a little like an economic depression during the First and Second World Wars. At times like these, moonshine dealers emerged in many countries because market demand was strong.

Li Qinwu felt there was real potential here. As for a sales channel, Lieutenant Rudosen's route seemed pretty good, didn't it?

With the PDF's goddamn discipline, heavy drinking would practically count as a virtue. Since those rotten soldiers could drink themselves senseless, why shouldn't they drink liquor brewed by Li Qinwu?

Li Qinwu could tell Lieutenant Rudosen that if he helped sell the liquor to the military, Li Qinwu could take in more wounded soldiers demoted to the Lower Hive later on and provide work for them and their families.

He could even share part of the profits with those soldiers so they could support their families. Everyone would make money, everyone would have security—wouldn't that make this business hugely promising?!

The more he thought about it, the more promising it became. Li Qinwu grew increasingly excited.

A vast commercial empire took shape in his mind. He would build his fortune through moonshine, dominate every black-market industry in the Hive City, then buy a warship and fly into space to do business, completely escaping the limits of this agricultural planet!

He was a man of action, and he sprang straight out of his chair.

"Mr. Reno, let's stop talking for now. I'm going to the Middle Hive to retrieve the Memory Panel and bring it back to you. Little Joel's family can stay with you for the time being. Before long, I'll take them away."

Reno smiled and nodded.

"If there is anything you need help with, contact me. I'm very interested in brewing and have studied it in depth. If you get your Brewery running, I can come over and offer guidance."

Li Qinwu kept saying, "Sure, sure, sure," but inwardly he muttered, Didn't this guy once say the liquor he brewed was sour?

After leaving the office, Li Qinwu told Little Joel's family that he was heading to the Middle Hive and asked whether they needed any help from him.

"Sir, could you please deliver a letter to my younger sister and tell her we're safe? Before we were demoted into convicts and thrown into the Lower Hive, we used connections to arrange for her to become a nun at the Imperial Cult Cathedral."

Li Qinwu nodded. He also wanted to wander around the various facilities in the Middle Hive and see if he could unlock new contacts and take on other missions.

The Imperial Cult Cathedral was such an iconic Warhammer 40,000 structure. It looked like an important location for triggering key plot developments, and he wanted to take a look.

Li Qinwu borrowed paper and pens from the Clean Water Guild staff and had Little Joel's family write the letter. Once he received it, he bid the family farewell and headed toward the Great Elevator.

At that moment, an announcement came from the Great Elevator. It would soon arrive at the Lower Hive, and the Lower Hive rats began stirring, surrounding the Great Elevator with all kinds of weapons as they waited for a feast.

Li Qinwu scanned his genes in the safe zone and quietly waited with the Lower Hive staff for the elevator to arrive.

A small area to the right of the Great Elevator was enclosed by iron railings. To enter that area, one needed Middle Hive identification and had to undergo a gene scan.

Waiting for the Great Elevator there was completely safe. The Lower Hive rats did not dare act up in front of these staff members.

Before long, after a burst of mechanical roaring, the Great Elevator successfully arrived at the Lower Hive.

The doors slowly opened, revealing nearly a thousand prisoners surrounded by Arbites, along with shift-change workers huddled in the corner with bland, expressionless faces.

Li Qinwu and the workers boarded the Great Elevator, waiting for the Arbites to drive the endlessly sobbing Middle Hive prisoners off it.

After a long while of work, the Great Elevator doors slowly closed, and the elevator began ascending.

Li Qinwu found it strange. This was not his first time riding the Great Elevator, but he had always gone down before. This was his first time taking it upward.