Captain Hui told them that Chu Sheng could fuse sacrificial items.
Two supernatural materials in exchange for one sacrificial item with an unknown ability.
For a Sequence Adept, that was a reasonable price.
Although most Anomalies could not be handled by a single combat Sequence Adept, two or three Sequence Adepts could hunt one down without much trouble.
Every Anomalies yielded supernatural materials, but if those materials could not be put to use, they were little more than a burden.
Their convoy had killed some Anomalies before, but they had never made a point of collecting the supernatural materials.
They were useless and took up space.
If not for Chu Sheng, they still would not have thought much of these supernatural materials.
Useless to keep, but a shame to throw away-that summed them up perfectly.
As a guide, Captain Hui had received official instruction before civilization completely collapsed. He knew supernatural materials existed, and he knew they could be used to make certain special things.
But what good did that do?
After all, they could not pin their hopes on the future and neglect the present.
But with Chu Sheng's awakening, the future had arrived.
Looking at Zhou Dun, Captain Hui had a fairly good impression of him.
Although he had formed the convoy as its guide, he generally did not restrict its members. As long as they did not slow the convoy down, cause widespread deaths, or leave people behind, he did not care.
But that did not mean he was unaware of what went on among the survivors in the convoy.
Theft, robbery, coercion...
Such incidents were not particularly common, but they did happen.
Zhou Dun had two reasonably attractive young women with him, yet unlike those people, he had not let lust take over his brain. That alone was enough to earn some respect.
And the fact that he had dared to approach them and ask questions only improved that impression.
"Here's a suggestion. Other convoys might have supernatural materials. You could try trading for them."
With that, Captain Hui left with Old Man Li.
Only Zhou Dun remained, frowning in thought.
Other convoys have supernatural materials, and I could try trading for them?
He understood the literal meaning, but he was not quite sure why Captain Hui had said it.
When Li Qian and Li Ling saw Captain Hui and Old Man Li leave while Zhou Dun stood motionless for a long time, they approached him worriedly.
"Brother Zhou, are you all right? Did the captain say something?" Li Ling glanced at Captain Hui and Old Man Li, who were already far away, and asked in confusion.
At her words, Zhou Dun came out of his thoughts and shook his head. "No, the captain told me some good news. I just haven't quite figured it out."
Wu Meng and Wu Jie had watched Zhou Dun's reaction.
"Sis, do you think that guy got told off by the captain?"
"He looks kind of dazed."
With his arms folded, Wu Jie leaned against the sedan and looked at Zhou Dun and the two women.
"Don't talk nonsense." Wu Meng glared at him, then looked thoughtfully at the three of them, her expression unreadable.
Not far away, Chu Sheng gave a bashful smile as he watched the zombie dissolve into black vapor.
"Phew, finally finished."
He wiped away nonexistent sweat. "That wore me out."
"Even if it wears you to death, you're not getting extra materials!" An Xi curled her lip beside him.
They had obtained three sets of supernatural materials from the zombie.
Ten long, slender, jet-black fingernails from its hands, four pure-white Zombie Fangs with blood grooves, and a spine that was emitting black smoke.
Chu Sheng had done the dissection, An Xi had fought, Zhu Qing had restrained the zombie, and Captain Hui had kept watch.
At that moment, Captain Hui and Old Man Li walked over.
Looking at the supernatural materials laid out before them, Old Man Li said with a chuckle, "Not bad."
"Getting this many materials from one zombie."
"But how are the four of you going to divide them?"
Chu Sheng looked at Old Man Li curiously. "You really don't want any?"
"Ah, I'd be lying if I said I didn't, but there's no need."
"When we meet other convoys, I'll get more than you will." Old Man Li waved a hand.
Given the effects of his supernatural plants, he was sure to be able to trade for supernatural materials, as long as the people in the other convoys were not stupid.
Keeping the convoy's rules as they were would benefit him too, even though he was not a combat Sequence Adept and his ability did not qualify him for a share.
"Now that's thinking big!" Chu Sheng gave him a thumbs-up.
If it had been him, he would have insisted on getting a share, yet Old Man Li showed no desire to compete for one at all.
"Don't flatter me, brat. I just don't see the need. It's the damn apocalypse. Anomalies are like cockroaches in a kitchen-how could we ever run short of supernatural materials?!" Old Man Li scolded with a laugh.
His words made everyone present nod.
True enough. There was not much of anything in the apocalypse, except for a whole damn lot of Anomalies.
Sequence materials were scarce, but not all that scarce.
After some discussion, they finally settled on how to divide the zombie's supernatural materials.
An Xi received the spine that emitted black smoke, while Captain Hui and Zhu Qing split the ten zombie fingernails equally.
The four Zombie Fangs went to Chu Sheng.
The shares were not equal in value, but no one objected.
Again, obtaining supernatural materials was not exactly easy, but it was certainly not difficult either.
The spine billowing black vapor clearly looked better than the other materials, but Captain Hui did not need to fight, so he passed on it.
Zhu Qing did not care about it either. All he wanted now was clothing that could expand and shrink freely. Nothing else mattered.
Chu Sheng valued the Zombie Fangs more.
An Xi, meanwhile, wanted to fuse the spine into her White Jade Spear, so it went to her.
Once they had divided the supernatural materials, they divided the supplies as well.
Unlike the previous haul, this one consisted mostly of dried goods, millet, and similar items, which made it much easier to divide.
All the dried goods and grain were split into five portions according to their respective shares.
Zhu Qing's large sack mostly contained convenient foods such as instant noodles, dried noodles, and bagged flour.
They divided those up without much trouble too.
Unlike Zhu Qing, however, Chu Sheng had also looted a small convenience store before searching the dried-goods shop.
Knowing that Zhu Qing and An Xi would definitely collect food, and that his own food would last several months, he had filled his backpack entirely with alcohol and cigarettes.
Seven bottles of baijiu, three bottles of beer, two cartons of Hua Zi, one carton of Soft Classic Red Double Happiness, one carton of Soft-Pack White Sand, and one carton of Li Ji.
For a moment, everyone fell silent as they looked at what he had taken out.
"These are the supplies you collected?" An Xi frowned at the cigarettes and alcohol, unable to hide the disdain in her eyes.
"Yep." Chu Sheng was utterly unapologetic.
"These things are useless!"
An Xi could not understand why he had collected such useless things. She knew plenty of people were addicted to smoking and the like, but as far as she was concerned, the apocalypse had been going on for so long that even smokers should have been forced to quit by now.
But just because she disliked them did not mean everyone else did.
Old Man Li looked delighted at the bottles of baijiu and beer. "Good stuff! What do you know, little girl!"
P.S. Yesterday's update was a combined chapter of four thousand Chinese characters, but something went wrong and the full text failed to copy when I posted it, so only a little over two thousand characters went up. I fixed it about half an hour after the update, though. If you missed it, go back and read it again.
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