The Sanctimonious Captain Chu

"Nana struck a deal with Chen Ye, trading four 500-milliliter cans of beer for a carton of Lotus cigarettes and a carton of Tazi cigarettes."

"Nana believed Chen Ye had ripped her off and was very unhappy with him."

"The girl considered Chen Ye a heartless, unscrupulous merchant."

"Iron Lion was still dormant in the bus, recovering!"

"The bus welcomed a new member!"

"Xu Jiaojiao was still rallying other survivors in an attempt to overthrow the oppressive regime, but her efforts had accomplished little. After the incident in Longevity Village, her credibility had taken a hit. Overthrowing the Fairness Convoy's rule would be difficult!"

"..."

Inside his tent, Captain Chu Che mixed a bucket of red paint while listening to the information picked up by the Eavesdropping Radio.

A smile appeared on Captain Chu's face when he heard that Chen Ye and Nana had struck a deal.

He had never expected the seemingly gloomy Chen Ye to actually talk Nana into a trade.

When he heard that Iron Lion was still dormant, Captain Chu did a quick mental calculation and estimated that he should wake up tomorrow.

As for Xu Jiaojiao...

She was the woman who had fled Deer City. She had always advocated equality between men and women, but had achieved very little.

Of the convoy's four Sequence Transcendents, three were men. Xu Jiaojiao found this deeply unfair and had even considered overthrowing Captain Chu's rule at one point.

Unfortunately for her, Captain Chu had left the militant feminist utterly humiliated with just a little scheming.

He had not expected the woman to keep at it, still working behind the scenes.

But she had no idea that the Eavesdropping Radio picked up every last thing she did.

Captain Chu Che had once been an upright, cheerful young man.

But ever since acquiring Oddity 01257, the Eavesdropping Radio, his compulsion to eavesdrop had grown increasingly severe.

Hearing secrets nobody else knew was the highlight of his day.

Who would have imagined that the outwardly respectable Captain Chu had such an unsavory secret habit-that he enjoyed listening in on other people's private affairs?

Nobody in the entire convoy knew more secrets than Captain Chu.

Perhaps this was a side effect of possessing the Eavesdropping Radio.

Humming a tune, Captain Chu carried the paint bucket out of his tent.

Before long, two sloppily painted red characters appeared on the off-road vehicle's body: "Fairness!"

[Spend 362 Slaughter Points to upgrade and process the materials before you?]

Three hundred Slaughter Points?

That expensive?

Upgrading the canopy with discarded clothing had only cost a little over two hundred Slaughter Points last time.

Now, modifying just a few parts would cost over three hundred Slaughter Points.

And that was only the cost of modifying the parts needed to reinforce the canopy.

It did not include the parts needed to modify a trailer.

If he included his earlier plan to build a trailer using bicycle wheels, the cost would shoot straight up to a thousand Slaughter Points.

The main problem was that he lacked enough materials, so the system would have to supply some of them.

Materials accounted for the bulk of the Slaughter Point cost.

For that reason, Chen Ye could only shelve his trailer plan for now and upgrade and reinforce the canopy first.

After a brief hesitation, Chen Ye confirmed his choice.

A Slaughter countdown appeared over the pile of bicycle parts.

"00:59:59!"

The upgrade would be finished in an hour.

That was an acceptable wait.

Chen Ye sat leaning against the vehicle, lit a cigarette, and waited.

Using his newly acquired ability, he shaped the smoke around him into a tiger one moment and a giant python the next.

Smoke mimicry was probably his strongest means of attack at the moment.

When facing enemies in the future, he could conceal himself with smoke first, then attack using mimicry.

However, despite practicing the mimicry skill, Chen Ye still could not get the hang of it.

He had only ever seen tigers and giant pythons on his phone or on television.

The animals he could mimic most proficiently were still cats and dogs.

An idea suddenly struck Chen Ye. If mimicking living creatures did not work, he might as well try inanimate objects.

He tried using his mimicry ability to reproduce a hand crossbow, and it went surprisingly smoothly.

It lacked the hand crossbow's ability to fire bolts, though. It was only a look-alike.

Even so, Chen Ye had a great time playing with it.

Time slipped by unnoticed as Chen Ye tried mimicking other useful objects around him. He only stopped when a needle-like pain stabbed through his head.

It took a long rest for the headache to ease.

The desert was quiet at night. Aside from the soft conversations coming from the surrounding vehicles and tents, there was only the wind.

Well...

Occasionally, he could hear some rather indescribable sounds too.

There was no need to go into detail about those.

The temperature kept dropping, but fortunately, Chen Ye's enhanced physique could still withstand it.

A day earlier, never mind modifying the canopy-even sitting beneath it would have left him shivering with cold.

The hour passed in a flash.

[Your parts have finished upgrading!]

At the system notification, Chen Ye hurriedly stood and walked over.

By the faint light of the blood moon, he saw that the spot where he had placed the bicycle parts now held numerous steel tubes and assorted clamps.

The parts looked purpose-built for constructing a canopy. There was no sign that they had been converted from bicycle components.

Delighted, Chen Ye picked up the parts to inspect them. They were a perfect match for his tricycle.

He brought out his old toolbox, took out his tools, and began installing them on the cargo bed.

First, he used clamps to install the bases on the cargo bed, then secured the metal tubes to the clamps one by one.

He fastened the heavily patched canopy to the frame.

The old canopy had been a soft cover, serving only to provide shade and a little privacy.

Even a slightly stronger gust would make it sway from side to side.

In harsh weather like a sandstorm, it would probably be torn apart in minutes.

Now that it had a fixed frame, the entire canopy looked much more secure.

There was even a small luggage rack on the roof.

According to the system's design, the roof rack could carry up to forty kilograms of supplies.

It could not compare with Captain Chu's or Nana's modified off-road vehicles, but Chen Ye was still very satisfied.

He had to admit that the system produced solid-quality goods.

Chen Ye reached out and shook the canopy frame, but felt no noticeable wobble.

He put all the supplies he did not need for the moment on the roof, freeing up considerable space in the cargo bed.

With a little tidying, he had a reasonably spacious place to rest, which pleased him greatly.

Still fully dressed, Chen Ye lay down in the makeshift bed he had prepared and felt comfortable all over.

This was much more comfortable than resting in the cargo bed before.

In this apocalypse, where supplies were desperately scarce, having a private space like this to rest was truly a stroke of luck.

If a small car and this tricycle had been placed side by side a day earlier...

Chen Ye would have abandoned his tricycle without hesitation and chosen to upgrade and modify the car.

But now, looking at the tricycle he had painstakingly modified, Chen Ye would hesitate.

After all, he had upgraded and modified this tricycle bit by bit himself.

With the canopy added, the Motor Tricycle's carrying capacity had improved, putting it nearly on par with the Zhou Sisters' small car.

Although it could not match a four-wheeled car...

Its fuel consumption was also much lower.

Chen Ye rolled over contentedly in the cargo bed, ready to go to sleep.

Suddenly, his hand brushed against something that felt like a twig.

He picked it up and held it before his eyes. It was a willow branch.

Was this... a willow branch from the Big Willow Tree in Longevity Village?

How had it ended up here?