Chapter 597

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Main Character:

Shen Yao

Her phone connected to the internet, and the screen popped up with messages all about various disasters, as if there wasn't a single peaceful place in the whole country.

Then looking at the townspeople with their relaxed and peaceful expressions, and the carefree laughing children around, Shen Yao always felt this world was somewhat fractured.

The gap between online and offline was so huge, no wonder everyone would be in a trance.

Shen Yao only occasionally went online to understand the outside situation, never easily expressing any opinions.

As their time in the small town grew longer, many unfamiliar faces appeared one after another in the surroundings.

"Sister Shen, Sister Shen!"

He Jie came running over in a hurry, flusteredly telling Shen Yao that many people had moved into the town during this period, without exception, all from the coastal areas or high economic zones.

"The coast is developed, high economic zones have large populations," Shen Yao glanced at He Jie, pointing at the newly renovated house next door, "The price has doubled compared to when we came."

The neighbors who originally lived here had other properties; hearing someone was willing to buy this old, run-down small place at a high price, they were so delighted they transferred ownership and sold it that very day.

Shen Yao didn't know if this person would regret it in the future; right now, similar situations were countless. Before the real disaster arrives, who can resist the temptation of money?

"Sister Shen, should we move to the countryside?" He Jie raised his hand and touched his chin.

"This isn't much different from the countryside, and besides, we aren't locals."

Shen Yao narrowed her eyes, thinking that going to the countryside would mean needing to constantly face the clique exclusion from local forces.

The countryside is simple, but also the least observant of etiquette and rules; once resource shortages appear, outsiders are the first fat sheep to be robbed.

Shen Yao didn't want to make things more troublesome; the countryside could only be the last backup option. During this period, if any new direction appeared, she would abandon it without hesitation.

He Jie opened his mouth, but in the end said nothing.

Shen Yao speaking like this definitely had her intention; he couldn't help much, so he might as well obediently lower his head and listen to the commander.

He Jie left with his round figure, and Xu Hai followed close behind after this person left.

He didn't say anything about going to the countryside; Xu Hai felt they could prepare one hand first. The money on them should be spent buying what should be bought and spending what should be spent. What if the town gets too crowded to live in? What if the whole town has to migrate southwest?

Money later on is just a pile of numbers and waste paper. While it still has use now, securing it in the bag is the right principle.

Shen Yao: ……

Shen Yao thanked Xu Hai for the reminder, while also telling the other party not to forget herself.

"Hehe, I came over also thinking wherever Sister Shen buys, I'll follow and buy there."

The ultimate mystery of hugging a thigh: don't act on your own initiative, don't cause trouble.

With a big shot kindly carrying you lying down, why waste your few brain cells?

Xu Hai scratched his head, a foolish smile on his face, but it didn't delay him calculating the pros and cons clearly in his heart.

Seeing Xu Hai off, Shen Yao turned her head and seriously searched for a new residence online. Requirements in all aspects didn't need to be too good; after all, it was as a backup.

"This many?"

Xu Ningchen was surprised. Who let Shen Yao's phone be full of residence photos she had seriously selected.

Shen Yao: ……

Shen Yao pursed her lips somewhat embarrassedly. "Currently still not certain about the official site selection location," they could only take the cast-a-wide-net-to-catch-more-fish route. If they bump into one, holding the property certificate proof would also give them a place to settle.

Xu Ningchen borrowed the phone screen to observe for a while, and from them selected a few places to keep.

"When interacting with Li Ge and them, there was mention of these places in passing."

Perhaps nothing special, but better safe than sorry. Their money (with He Jie's funding) was temporarily enough.

Enough is good. Shen Yao spent it without hesitation, bringing along Xu Hai and He Jie together. The four people bound together, counted as formally allied.

The initiative of the alliance was in Shen Yao's hands. He Jie relied on money ability, Xu Hai relied on petty cleverness. Both had used actual actions to prove their existence was very useful.

"These people, couldn't think of us when good things happened, now they eagerly crowd over saying nice words."

He Jie shook his own phone, complaining to Xu Hai about the Guild other people's thoughts.

Xu Hai had long seen through those Guild colleagues' virtue. The relationship between both sides was more plastic than plastic. Let alone sharing hardship, even sharing joy required guarding a hand.

"Let them go. That batch of people who stayed in Feng City back then all regretted it."

Xu Hai shrugged his shoulders. Feng shui takes turns. What use is regret? Now wanting to come from Feng City to here, there are neither planes nor trains. All rely on driving themselves.

"Road control. Without a pass, it's hard to move an inch. They can't get out."

He Jie felt that them leaving Feng City back then was also taking a huge risk.

Only now the situations of both sides have reversed. The people who stayed in Feng City, without the territory token's filter, instantly felt they had done things too stupidly back then.

"Ugly words placed in front: no matter what they say, we absolutely cannot get involved."

Afraid Xu Hai wouldn't think clearly and would drag himself into a pit, He Jie simply spoke the words transparently.

Hearing this, Xu Hai gave a "ha" sound, indicating he wasn't some stupid person. Not to mention Feng City and him weren't the same route people. Even those who came together with them back then, right now also couldn't be said to be on the same page.

He Jie raised an eyebrow, thinking this person looked foolish, but actually saw things transparently and clearly.

Not bad, not bad. A good partner. Not dragging the team down can beat ninety percent of people.

…………

"Little Shen, going out today?"

"Mm, going to the vegetable market to take a look. Heard there's new vegetables today."

"That should go take a look. Otherwise it's radish cabbage yardlong beans every day."

"……"

In the time of a few sentences, Shen Yao had already walked out from inside the residential complex.

The weather outside gradually turned cold, and the long sleeves and long pants on everyone were replaced with thick clothing.

Shen Yao wore casual clothes, had a wide-brimmed hat on her head, and rode her electric scooter onto the road.

The vegetable market was in the center of the small town; because the town didn't have several main roads, the electric scooter traveled for no more than a few minutes before the signboard name of the vegetable market came into view.

Inside, besides a crowd of vegetable peddlers, there were also some middlemen acting as second-hand dealers.

Shen Yao found a relatively familiar and talkative merchant among them, and conveniently placed the fresh, water-spirit vegetables onto the footboard.

"These are newly bred eggplants and potatoes, take them back and taste the flavor."

Li Jie the vegetable seller and Li Ge the building materials dealer are a couple; with elders above and children below, they work hard to support the whole family.

Because of Xu Ningchen's connection, Shen Yao gets along fairly well with Li Jie, so every time she goes out to buy vegetables, nine times out of ten she chooses Li Jie's place.

"Li Jie, these eggplants and potatoes" are large and water-spirit; looking at them, they don't seem like things that can be grown right now.

"New varieties collected from the countryside; it's said they are seeds distributed free by the official side, you have to first hand over the full catty quota the official side requires, only the remainder can be taken out to sell."

After Li Jie finished speaking, she proudly squeezed her eyebrows and eyes, indicating that her being able to get this much stock was also thanks to her good relations with the vegetable-growing families; for families with ordinary relations, there simply wouldn't be this opportunity.

Shen Yao thanked Li Jie for her generosity; having a few more vegetable varieties also better satisfied her cravings.

Handing over the money that should be given, Shen Yao rode the electric scooter back to the residence.

Xu Ningchen hadn't gone out today; seeing Shen Yao return after leaving, he curiously looked around a few times, and as a result saw some familiar yet unfamiliar vegetables.

"Improved varieties?"

Xu Ningchen looked at the purple-black eggplant in his hand, large, thick, and straight.

"Perhaps a gene mutation."

Several circles larger than normal eggplants; buying one root is enough for a family to eat and drink their fill.

"New fruit-vegetable varieties officially bred," certainly have many advantages that existing varieties cannot compare with; "Li Jie said the official side is promoting large-scale planting."

The official side is preparing, for unforeseen needs.

"For ordinary people it is a piece of good news," the more abundant the supplies in the official side's hands, the more ordinary civilians can survive in disasters.

Placing the purple-black eggplant in hand back in its original spot, the two cooperated with each other, and in no more than an hour they made a full table of dishes.

Picking up chopsticks and tasting a mouthful, the flavor was passable, not as stunning as imagined.

But this is also unavoidable; after all, high-yield fruit-vegetables will have some flaws; pursuing delicious taste is on the basis of having no worries about food and clothing; when survival is placed first, eating one's fill and dressing warmly is the first priority.

Unfamiliar yet familiar fruit-vegetable varieties seemed to have lifted a corner of life; every day going to the vegetable market, Shen Yao could get fresh fruit-vegetables from Li Jie's hands, growing in weird shapes, textures mostly above the passing line.

Shen Yao basically reported to the vegetable market every day; the more special vegetable varieties there were, the fewer ordinary vegetable varieties became, until the entire vegetable market completely had no trace of ordinary vegetables.

Shen Yao specially asked Li Jie about this; helplessly, Li Jie also couldn't explain clearly, only saying new fruit-vegetables taste not bad, are cheap and large in quantity, plus the official subsidy policy, most vegetable farmers are willing to plant them.

Originally the planting area here in the Southwest Highlands was limited; new vegetables squeezed the survival space of ordinary fruit-vegetables, and coupled with vegetable farmers driven by their own interests, ordinary vegetables naturally disappeared without a trace.

For ordinary people who buy vegetables every day, this has no too great influence; new fruit-vegetables aren't inedible, and even because of the advantages of being cheap and large in quantity, the price of new fruit-vegetables is half cheaper than ordinary fruit-vegetables, more in line with ordinary people's choices.

It's just that certain groups of people who are neither up nor down collectively suffered misfortune.

But this isn't Feng City; the population is small, the elderly are the majority; Shen Yao at most hears some ear-entering complaints; on the internet it's calm and still, still very peaceful and quiet.

Of course, this is limited to economically underdeveloped and remotely located inland cities; as for other big cities, clamorous voices haven't stopped from the very beginning.

The rumors intensified; the official side, knowing they couldn't block them, also gave up resistance, only silently doing their own things; this approach seemed to encourage the atmosphere on the internet, words full of hostility and aggression frequently exposed in the public view; if not for offline life still being fairly normal, Shen Yao would have thought she was in a doomsday survival.

Putting it this way isn't wrong either; cities large and small, various thunder-explosions and deaths; involving their own life safety, everyone loses the instinct to stay calm, becomes irritable and easily angered, makes irrevocable decisions.

The small town where Shen Yao is located also boiled over because of a food poisoning incident.

The cause was a restaurant of relatively large scale; customers eating at the restaurant felt unwell, and after experiencing severe diarrhea, dehydration and other problems, they went to the hospital and were diagnosed with food poisoning.

The restaurant, as the most direct food contact source, had its entire procurement process investigated, which in turn revealed a problem with the restaurant's procurement channels; the vegetable farmers selling to the restaurant used unqualified herbicide/pesticide on their farmland, causing farmland toxicity content to exceed standards; humans eating such dishes, even if cooked and heated, would still cause poisoning symptoms to appear in the body.

What's even more terrifying is that the vegetable farmer is a locally somewhat famous seller; his family's vegetables, although moving volume doing wholesale, cover the entire small town in buying and selling range, even including official recovery.

Hiss—

The internal news was brought back by He Jie; the specific truth Shen Yao couldn't know, but reasoning backward from the small town's final handling result, the true-to-false ratio is approximately eight to two.

Because of this incident, the vegetables sold at the vegetable market became more popular; those with a bit of ability all cook for themselves, those without ability also slowly learn to operate manually; otherwise going out to eat a meal could get hit.

"Is this the reason you two freeload food and drink?" Shen Yao rolled her eyes at He Jie and Xu Hai, holding freshly cooked dishes in her hands.

He Jie and Xu Hai, hearing this, looked at each other, and followed with a hehe laugh, "Sister Shen, we're just afraid."

With their body-enhanced points, food poisoning wouldn't be fatal, but who knows if there aren't even more terrifying dangers after food poisoning.

Still, following beside the Big Shot is the safest and most reassuring; even if something happens, the Big Shot can fish them out; the two of them, small weaklings, just obediently lie flat and hug the thigh.

Shen Yao: ……

Truly a simple and unadorned reason; being able to live until now is with omen.

"Being afraid is better than being recklessly bold; at least they won't jump out and stir up trouble."

Xu Ningchen felt this batch of Changping Guild people are all a bit interesting; whether those who left with them, or those who chose to stay in Feng City.

"Just afraid they won't look for trouble, but trouble actively finds them."

Changping Guild people don't just refer to He Jie the two of them; several others who came along and live scattered around the surroundings are also there.

The instance situation is tense; although He Jie discussed countermeasures with Xu Hai, they truly aren't some people's opponents, especially when the prepared calculate against the unprepared.

Shen Yao and Xu Ningchen both kept a mind's eye; not guarding against He Jie the two, but preventing someone from calculating against them through them.

………

"He Jie, what's up with your phone?"

Shen Yao took out her own phone, adjusted the interface to the two people's dialogue box, above clearly displayed the reason He Jie wanted to invite Shen Yao to go to a certain place.

Coincidentally, that place had an incident the day before yesterday; the road was sealed and only a small path could be taken.

He Jie: ……

He Jie scratched his head, "I didn't send this message."

If there's something, directly finding the person isn't good? Why chat through the phone.

Besides, he'd been going in and out with Xu Hai lately; inviting Shen Yao out, he couldn't possibly have forgotten Xu Ningchen.

"Someone tampered with your phone; you'd better check if anything's missing."

Shen Yao put away her phone, poured a cup of water, and handed it to the directly flushed He Jie.

He Jie:...

He Jie's trembling hands opened the bank card info; his sum of money had vanished.

"That was reserve funds," used to patch gaps when they escaped; who let his people be rich Nth generation, among the four people only he could pull out a large sum of resources anytime, anywhere without being suspected.