Dividing the Supplies 2

Chu Che's mouth twitched at the Long-Legged Girl's behavior, and a pained expression crossed his face.

They were drinking pu'er today, from his collection before the apocalypse.

After the apocalypse broke out, everyone else had brought food or easily portable supplies. He alone had brought tea leaves.

This was the apocalypse. Every bit of tea he drank was one bit less, and no amount of money could buy him more.

Even he rarely felt willing to bring it out.

Yet Nana had gulped it down just like that. What a waste of good tea.

"Captain, you're way too stingy! Every time I come over, you only give me this little bit!"

"It's not even enough to fill the gaps between my teeth!"

Nana set the teapot down on the table, sounding thoroughly dissatisfied.

Chu Che looked at the empty teapot, the veins on his forehead throbbing with anger. She had even eaten the tea leaves.

It was simply...

Nana smacked her lips, savoring the rich fragrance of tea filling her mouth. Some of her energy had returned, too.

Chen Ye was dumbfounded as well. He hadn't expected the Long-Legged Girl to be so uncouth, completely at odds with her delicate appearance.

Still, he now understood that his actions in Longevity Village had apparently made the Long-Legged Girl consider him one of her own.

"Ahem... Uncle Abao, how many people didn't make it back this time?"

Uncle Abao stood nearby and answered directly, "Our convoy originally had 124 people. Now only 44 remain. Between Longevity Village and last night, we lost eighty people in total."

"There are sixteen men and twenty-eight women left in the convoy."

Everyone fell silent at the figures Uncle Abao reported.

In just one night, they had lost over eighty people.

Before the apocalypse, a death toll like that would have made headlines that shocked the entire country, perhaps even the world.

But now, no one knew except the people in the convoy.

Even the convoy's survivors didn't care.

Chen Ye hadn't expected them to lose so many people either.

At first, he had thought the losses would amount to roughly half.

More than half of those who had gone to gather supplies in Longevity Village had been men.

Men were stronger and faster, and could bring back more supplies. But for that very reason, many of them had never made it out of Longevity Village.

The survivors who had cars last night had all lived. Those who hadn't reached the camp had all died.

"What exactly happened in Longevity Village? How did we lose so many people?"

Chu Che finally had time to ask that question.

Nana recounted everything that had happened from the moment they entered Longevity Village.

Chen Ye filled in some details along the way.

Chu Che, Uncle Abao, and Old Li all listened intently.

When they heard that a Big Willow Tree covered in hanging Corpse Puppets stood in the center of Longevity Village, Uncle Abao and Old Li both went a little pale.

As ordinary people, merely imagining it sent chills through their bodies.

Then there was the Hunchbacked Old Puppet with human heads on his back.

He was even more the stuff of nightmares.

"You're saying the Hunchbacked Old Puppet never attacked you?"

After hearing them out, Chu Che sank into thought. That was the first question he asked.

Nana paused, then realized that the Hunchbacked Old Puppet really hadn't seemed to attack any survivors in Longevity Village.

That was truly strange.

Anomalies and humans were natural enemies. Most of the time, when anomalies encountered humans, they attacked without restraint.

Their attacks only stopped when one side was dead.

Chen Ye confirmed it for Chu Che. "No. The Hunchbacked Old Puppet only watched what we were doing, and he showed a certain degree of intelligence."

That puzzled Chen Ye as well.

He couldn't shake the feeling that the Hunchbacked Old Puppet was preparing something big.

Chu Che turned to Chen Ye and asked, "Chen Ye, what do you think?"

Chen Ye considered it for a moment before saying gravely, "I have a theory. The anomalies seem to be gradually growing stronger. They might even be developing intelligence!"

Chen Ye based that claim on the Hunchbacked Old Puppet in Longevity Village and the Paper-Crying Child in Apricot Blossom Town.

The Paper-Crying Child might not have been especially intelligent, but clearly had ideas of its own.

Chen Ye had never encountered anomalies like these before.

His words left everyone feeling ice-cold, their hearts sinking.

Anomalies were already so difficult to deal with. If they developed intelligence, they would probably become even harder to handle.

Silence hung over the group for a long while!

"Forget it. No point dwelling on it. The world's already like this. How much worse can it get?"

"Let's divide the supplies we brought back from Longevity Village!"

"Iron Lion hasn't woken up yet, so Old Li will stand in."

"As agreed, I get thirty percent, Nana gets thirty percent, and Chen Ye and Iron Lion get twenty percent each!"

"Does anyone have any objections?"

Chen Ye shook his head, indicating that he had none.

Though Chu Che hadn't entered Longevity Village, the convoy probably would have ceased to exist long ago without him.

As for Nana, she was the convoy's only Sequence 2, and she had contributed a great deal in Longevity Village.

Ultimately, Chen Ye had yet to demonstrate his value to the convoy. Getting twenty percent just like that was already a tremendous bargain.

Chen Ye's backpack was the first to be opened.

Chen Ye had two backpacks, one on his back and one against his chest.

Neither backpack was particularly large, though.

They moved all the tables and chairs out from under the canopy and opened Chen Ye's backpacks.

Without hesitation, Chen Ye emptied the contents of both backpacks onto the ground.

Well over half the supplies in the first backpack were cigarettes.

There were Chunghwa, Lotus, HTS, and other brands, covering the high, middle, and low ends of the market.

There were several bottles of baijiu as well.

Chen Ye had cleaned out practically all the cigarettes in that little supermarket.

The other backpack contained some food, all packaged convenience foods.

There were plenty of spicy strips and other snacks.

There were also some condiments.

He had packed quite a bit of Lao Gan Ma chili sauce, soy sauce, cooking wine, salt, and the like.

This was the apocalypse. As long as people still needed to eat, these things were indispensable!

Naturally, their division of the supplies drew the attention of the other survivors.

The sisters Zhou Lan and Zhou Xiaoxiao were among those drawn over.

They knew Chen Ye and the others must have gathered several times as many supplies as they had. They wanted to take a look, and perhaps trade with them for supplies they needed.

Disappointment flickered in Zhou Xiaoxiao's eyes when she saw all the cigarettes and alcohol.

"Why is it all this stuff?"

Zhou Xiaoxiao spoke quietly.

Zhou Lan raised a finger to her lips, signaling for silence.

A stir also rose among the surrounding survivors.

To some, these were luxury goods. To others, they were useless.

Chu Che examined the supplies Chen Ye had brought back, showing no disappointment.

"Cigarettes and alcohol are good stuff. I don't smoke, but these are all hard currency!"

"If we run into other convoys later, they'll be very useful for trading for supplies."

"And even this many cigarettes weigh very little. They're easy to carry!"

"As for the alcohol, this stuff..."

Quite a few of the surrounding survivors stared at the cigarettes and alcohol with greed in their eyes.

If they hadn't feared the strength of the Sequence Transcendents, they probably would have started grabbing things right then.

A trace of surprise flickered in Zhou Xiaoxiao's eyes at Chu Che's words.

"Sis, you can't eat or drink these cigarettes. What's so good about them?"

Zhou Xiaoxiao muttered to her sister.

"Keep your voice down. Look at the eyes of the people around you, and you'll understand!"

Zhou Lan rebuked her sister quietly.

Zhou Xiaoxiao curled her lips. Hmph! What's so great about them?

Even as she said that, though, Zhou Xiaoxiao began studying the expressions and eyes of those around her.

Zhou Xiaoxiao didn't like smoking, didn't like people smoking around her, and liked drinking even less.

But when she saw those naked looks in the eyes of the people around her, all those greedy stares left her utterly bewildered.