Building a Brewery

(Thanks to .NFNW. for the donation bonus chapter)

Li Qinwu now had a large supply of Poison Needles and Rage Drug. He first fed in eight Poison Needles to break them down into materials.

A batch of these took only twenty minutes, making the process highly efficient. Li Qinwu planned to do something else and check back from time to time, first breaking down all the medical materials.

Just then, a knock came from the entrance to the Hideout. Li Qinwu picked up his pistol, walked to the door, and looked outside through the small window. It was Little Knife.

He opened the door, and Little Knife set down two large barrels of food starch. Respectfully, he said, "Boss, this is the food I collected today. I brought it over for you. Is there anything you need me to do?"

Little Knife was now one of Li Qinwu's men, working for him.

Li Qinwu left odd jobs like collecting food from the Safe Zone to Little Knife. Every few days, Little Knife would bring food to Li Qinwu's door, set it down, and ask whether he had any work for him.

Li Qinwu rubbed his chin and glanced at the pipes on either side outside the Hideout.

He had a sales channel for liquor and grain, but nowhere to make it. It was time to start building a Brewery.

First, he would claim the land, build walls on both sides of the passageway, turn the area into his private territory, and then set up the brewing equipment.

Li Qinwu said, "Little Knife, I need people to help with masonry work. I want to build two walls nearby and turn this passageway into my private territory. Can you find some people? I'll pay them 100 Fertilizer Coupons a day."

Little Knife's eyes lit up, but he immediately considered the cost for Li Qinwu. "Boss, 100 is too much. You can make those rats work for ten bucks for several days. If you pay too much, people will think you're a sucker."

"Then pay them ten bucks a day. Go find people for me, and you'll be responsible for buying all the construction materials, including Ceramite Powder.

Report the costs to me. Make sure the work is solid—the kind that bombs can't blow open. If you handle this well, I'll reward you with an Autogun."

Little Knife's eyes widened, and he nearly started drooling. An Autogun—an actual Autogun!

With an Autogun, he would effectively rise an entire class in the Lower Hive!

"Bo... Boss! I'll definitely get it done! I'll find people right away!"

Little Knife ran off in a hurry. Li Qinwu watched his retreating back and chuckled.

He had intended to give the Autogun to Little Knife anyway. Little Knife was one of his few available men now. Keeping him armed at his side could sometimes produce unexpected results.

Before long, Little Knife returned with more than thirty people, all members of the Fertilizer Gang. They looked fierce and intimidating.

But when they came before Li Qinwu, every one of them lowered their heads and called him Boss Li. This man was a major patron; calling him boss cost them nothing.

They carried metal scrap and bags of Ceramite Powder, both common construction materials in the Lower Hive.

Li Qinwu began directing them to build the walls. Using the door where the Hideout was located as the center point, they extended fifty meters down the passageway in both directions, claiming a full hundred meters at once.

The passageway was essentially a huge cylinder six meters in diameter, so it was fairly spacious. Claiming a hundred meters at once was definitely enough for now, and they could continue expanding outward later if necessary.

Little Knife and the workers he brought immediately got to work. They used all kinds of tools to drill holes into the walls, then inserted steel bars one by one.

That way, the new walls would connect to the passageway's main structure and have guaranteed strength. Otherwise, a wall built in the middle of the passageway would topple over with a push from outside.

Once rebar had been installed above, below, left, and right, they began laying the walls with Ceramite and the Ceramite Blocks prepared beforehand.

As they built, they embedded steel plates within the walls to increase their defensive capability.

Li Qinwu required the walls to be at least half a meter thick. A Ceramite wall of that thickness, reinforced with embedded steel plates, could already stop direct fire from most conventional weapons on this planet.

If anyone wanted to attack Li Qinwu's Brewery, the half-meter-thick Ceramite walls would become their Sighing Wall.

If the attackers could acquire unconventional weapons capable of piercing those walls, Li Qinwu would not be afraid either.

Any force capable of obtaining such weapons would be anything but ordinary. If he could not beat them, he might as well wait to die.

Little Knife and his companions worked very efficiently. In just one day, they finished one of the walls.

At Li Qinwu's request, they left a doorway wide enough for two people to pass through side by side, with rail tracks running beneath it.

Every passageway in the Lower Hive had rail tracks embedded in the ground. This had been part of the Hive City's design since its construction, intended for small trains that transported supplies.

The Fertilizer Gang had many self-propelled little trains, like the kiddie trains children played with in shopping malls during the 2K era. The Fertilizer Gang used them to haul various raw materials back and forth.

As time passed, most of the Lower Hive's passageways had been abandoned, and little trains no longer traveled on these rails.

Li Qinwu needed to brew liquor, which meant transporting raw materials from the surface down to the Lower Hive.

From where he was to the ventilation ducts was roughly twenty kilometers horizontally and fifteen kilometers vertically.

If he relied solely on his legs to transport the raw materials, he would not have time for anything else. That distance would exhaust the hell out of him.

Therefore, he also needed to get a self-propelled little train, drive it all the way from the Lower Hive to the ventilation ducts to collect the rebels' goods, and maintain that delivery route.

On the second day, Little Knife and his companions finished the other wall as well, sealing it with a large iron gate twenty millimeters thick.

Li Qinwu now had a dark passageway one hundred meters long as his private territory.

But it was not over yet. Next, Li Qinwu needed to build a large Water Purifier, a large distiller, a heater, and a fermentation furnace.

Then he needed to get a self-propelled little train and send people down the passageway to see whether it could travel directly to the ventilation opening.