The Arms Supermarket

An armory! Inside the 310-square-meter bomb shelter stood neat rows of black-painted angle-iron shelves, each one meter wide and three meters tall. Arranged just like a supermarket, the racks were packed with every kind of weapon and piece of tactical gear imaginable. Russian, European, American—the world's top firearms, rocket launchers, combat uniforms, and more. Chen Ge even spotted a Mistral 3 MANPADS sitting on rack B2 in Section B. The scents of gun oil, anti-rust grease, and a faint trace of gunpowder drifted through the air. Overhead white lights reflected off the weapons, gleaming with a cold, hard metallic sheen. Thunderstone turned around, spread his arms wide, and chuckled. "Gentlemen, welcome to my arms supermarket! Feel free to pick out whatever you need!" Chen Ge's adrenaline surged. His mouth went completely dry, and he swallowed hard, his eyes practically bloodshot with excitement. For a man, the allure of this supermarket was dialed straight to the maximum—it blew the roof off! He stepped forward... no, he charged through the entrance. Big Bear and the others lost their composure even more than Chen Ge, practically drooling in an absolute frenzy of excitement. The entire underground shop was so quiet you could hear people breathing, broken only by the light shifting across cold metal. Each aisle felt like a corridor of death. On the left was Russian raw brutality—the ruggedness of the AK, the heavy heft of the PKM. On the right was Western precision engineering—the exquisite craftsmanship of HK, FN, and SIG Sauer firearms, the smart tech of the MK47, and the lightweight ergonomics of FAST helmets. Ammunition crates were stacked to the ceiling against the walls, magazines were piled by the box, and tactical gear of every make and model hung in dense layers from display racks. If it existed on the internet, it was here. Even top-tier gear impossible to find online was present, all genuine factory-fresh originals. This wasn't just an arms depot; it was an apex expo of global small arms. Every single item here was built to tear through flesh and shred armor on the battlefield. Under the cold white lights lay pure instruments of lethal art. Chen Ge pulled an M240L general-purpose machine gun off the shelf, stroking it gently like an infatuated man caressing an exquisite beauty. The flawless craftsmanship, the icy touch of the metal—the handling was simply superb. Like an addict taking a hit, his eyes narrowed in pure, rapturous bliss. He was utterly in love with this place. For the first time, he finally understood why women's eyes lit up and their legs turned to lead the moment they stepped into a high-end department store surrounded by endless displays of clothes, shoes, bags, lipsticks, and cosmetics. "Well... you're all professionals, so there's no need for me to give a tour. Shopping carts are by the entrance. Knock yourselves out." Thunderstone pointed toward a row of oversized shopping carts to the left of the door, strolled over to an office swivel chair on the right, and sat down. He crossed his legs, pulled out his phone, and began chatting with a new young fling, wearing a thoroughly sleazy grin. Chen Ge set down the machine gun, grabbed a shopping cart, and began his shopping spree. The first thing he needed to buy was... well, he honestly didn't know where to start, because he wanted everything. Big Bear trotted over eagerly, pushing his own cart. Glancing at the ballistic plates on the shelf in front of Chen Ge, he asked, "Hammer Brother, what model of body armor plates are you going with?" Without a second thought, Chen Ge reached out and picked up a black plate weighing 2.5 kilograms. American Feidan plates! Rated NIJ Level IV, capable of stopping a round of .30-06 M2 armor-piercing ammunition. Chen Ge had personally tested them three times in combat in Syria; during one engagement, a single plate had absorbed five rounds of 7.62x54mmR B32 AP. The only issue was the daylight robbery by greedy arms dealers, who charged a steep 1,520 dollars a piece. Thunderstone's wholesale cost was probably around a thousand dollars, making it well worth stocking up on a few spares. Russian GOST Level 6 Granit plates and Level 5 ceramic blocks weren't bad either, and their prices were reasonable, but their drawbacks were obvious: heavy and bulky. There were also export plates from Huaxia. Chen Ge looked them over one by one, but still decided on the Feidan. It wasn't that Huaxia's plates were poor. Huaxia was the world's largest producer and exporter of ballistic plates, serving as an OEM for numerous European and American brands, and its technology was quite mature. Their high-end export NIJ Level IV plates—such as silicon carbide combined with polyethylene—matched the Feidan in protection rating while costing roughly five hundred dollars less per plate. Where Huaxia's plates lagged behind was multi-hit protection and consistency. Feidan utilized an independent tile array design, with polyurea and elastomers filling the gaps between ceramic tiles, allowing the plate to sustain multiple hits without the ceramic fractures spreading across the entire plate. Huaxia's export plates, particularly the mid-to-low-tier models, mostly used monolithic ceramic tiles backed by a PE backplate. Once the initial round shattered the ceramic, backface deformation tended to be greater, causing multi-hit stopping power to degrade much faster. In extreme heat or freezing cold, the American brand was simply more reliable, likely due to greater batch variation among Huaxia's export models. "Go with the Feidan. Pick up a few extra for spares." "Got it." Big Bear had his eye on the Feidan as well. He pulled five front plates and five back plates off the shelf. He skipped side plates entirely, as wearing side panels severely restricted bending over and twisting at the waist. For a massive, burly guy like Big Bear in particular, inserting side plates made him clunky and slow. On the battlefield, being clunky and slow was equal to dying fast! Chen Ge skipped the side panels as well. He tossed five pairs of plates into his cart and turned toward the nearby helmet section. No deliberation was needed here; he was used to wearing an Ops-Core FAST SF. A ricochet had struck his helmet the previous night, gouging out a deep groove. It could technically still serve in a pinch, but as a cautious, steady operator, he insisted on replacing it. The battle-damaged used helmet could always be sold off to the cheapskates in the squad. Big Bear picked up a Team Wendy EXFIL LTP and set it in his cart. Chen Ge looked puzzled. "Isn't your helmet perfectly fine?" Big Bear scratched his head and gave an honest grin. "Trench's birthday is the day after tomorrow. On my birthday, he got me a helmet, so I'm getting him one too." Huh? Trench's birthday? Only then did Chen Ge recall that the day after tomorrow, the fourteenth, was indeed Trench's birthday. Trading birthday gifts was actually a tradition Chen Ge had started. Whenever circumstances permitted, they even threw small birthday parties to build camaraderie and boost squad cohesion. The tradition originated shortly after he first transmigrated. It happened to be Vice Captain Hailstone's birthday, and hoping to get closer to the man, Chen Ge had run to the black market to buy a Crye Precision JPC 2.0 tactical vest as a gift. Seeing Chen Ge give Hailstone a present, how could the others just pretend not to notice? And so, the tradition of trading birthday gifts became established. Everyone had a birthday, so nobody got shortchanged! Peregrine had another tradition: donating to the families of fallen brothers. Everyone contributed a fixed two hundred dollars per casualty; if three or more died, the contribution went up to four hundred, split evenly among the families of the fallen. If not for that rule, with so many men lost the previous night, how much would they have had to donate? Over six thousand dollars! It was a solid tradition. In a cutthroat trade like mercenary work, you essentially had one foot in hell and could die at any moment. You chipped in for your brothers while you were alive, and if you died, your brothers would chip in for you. Mutual support. "What should I get him?" Chen Ge rubbed his chin, scanning the shelves, unsure of what to pick. Big Bear walked over to the HK display rack diagonally across from them. Reaching out, he pulled down an MK23 bearing USSOCOM rollmarks, a military NSN number, and the serial number 23-1054. He racked the slide to inspect the chamber. It was in pristine condition, showing virtually no signs of use. He checked the serial number again to make sure it wasn't a counterfeit, his eyes brimming with delight. "It's actually the military-issue version! Trench loves the MK23, but he's never been able to get his hands on the military model. Hammer Brother, you could buy this gun for him." "..." Chen Ge's face went dark. Did this big lug have any clue how much a military-issue MK23 cost? The military MK23 Mod 0—the U.S. special operations version—had a total production run of only 1,986 units. One in condition this pristine, especially if paired with the complete original OHWS package including the gun, suppressor, and LAM, would easily sell for at least fifteen thousand dollars. It wasn't that he was too stingy to give it, but knowing Trench's personality, there was no way the captain would accept such an exorbitant gift. "Get lost! I'll ask Trench if he even wants it first, then buy it for him!"