You've Struck It Rich!

North of Qingquan City. Near the Fifth Ring Road viaduct, a six-man squad pushed against the howling wind, advancing slowly along the cold, dead street. Originally, the trip had been planned for only five. Back at the outpost's central plaza, Chu Guang had assembled four fully equipped players and was about to set out. But before they could even clear the South Gate, Luo Hua had jogged up, asking to come along. His reason was simple: "The products of a carbon dioxide scrubber can vary widely. The captain asked me to accompany you. While the chances of hazardous materials being stored in large quantities within the city are very slim, he was still worried you might run into danger through improper handling." Chu Guang naturally wouldn't turn down someone offering to help out of good will. While some of his players understood chemical engineering, they couldn't read the script of this world. Chu Guang, on the other hand, was literate here, but specialized symbols were beyond him. Opening blind boxes of industrial chemicals was nothing to fool around with. Having an expert in tow was definitely better. And so, the six of them hit the road together. What none of them had anticipated was that this clear, sunny day would abruptly turn into a raging blizzard halfway through their journey. Days like this were becoming more and more frequent lately. Chu Guang figured that once November arrived, the wasteland's weather would probably turn even more extreme, and life would grow harder with each passing day. He needed to push forward the progress over at the greenhouse ruins! Walking at the head of the formation, Old Bai tilted his head up and squinted against the suddenly intensifying squall. "The last time I saw snow this heavy was back in Harbin." "For me, it was on TV," Fang Chang said, gripping Daybreak as his gaze roved across both sides of the street. "Though more than the snow, I'm worried something might suddenly jump out at us from the side." Old Bai sighed softly. "Honestly, I kind of miss Ye Shi. Without his Perception stat, it always feels like something's missing." "+1. Our squad is missing a pair of eyes." Gale gripped a short spear in his right hand, sweeping his eyes over the streets on either side, looking even more on edge than Fang Chang. He couldn't help it; caution was mandatory. Their gear was more expensive by the day. If they slipped up and got wiped, they'd be sent straight back to square one overnight. This steel right arm was just too awesome—Gale was reluctant to even wash his hands these days. Having listened to them drone on the whole way, Edge Slacker finally piped up in protest. "Fuck! Am I not enough for you guys? I'm Perception-type too, dammit, and I'm practically Level 7, alright?!" Gale: "Doesn't matter how close you are, you're still a scrub." Fang Chang: "True. I'm already Level 8, Gale's almost there, and Old Bai is about to hit 9. You've gotta step it up, bro." Edge Slacker: "@#%!" Walking alongside Chu Guang, Luo Hua hadn't understood a single word the vault residents were saying and couldn't help remarking softly: "I always thought only the natives spoke languages nobody can understand..." Halfway through the sentence, he realized how that sounded and quickly added an explanation: "Uh, no offense meant, I just found it strange. Normally, vault residents speak standard Human Alliance tongue, rarely even with an accent." Chu Guang smiled faintly, unfazed. "No problem. I find it strange too. I wonder why that is?" When faced with questions you couldn't explain, simply tossing them right back was a tactic Chu Guang used to great effect time and again. Rather than cooking up a flimsy excuse that made people think you were insincere and hiding something, it was far better to mirror their confusion. Who knows, they might even start brainstorming explanations on your behalf. Why is the sky blue? Yeah, why is that? The editor is curious too—what do you all think? Luo Hua didn't press the matter. He had seen far too many bizarre things on this trip; such trivial oddities were hardly worth dwelling on. The party soon arrived at their destination. It was an abandoned office building. Looking at it from the outside, it was hard to tell what purpose it had served before the war. Perhaps it was precisely this nondescript exterior that had allowed it to escape notice through two centuries of recurring scavengers. Following the map Captain Lu had provided, the group moved along the edge of the lobby, slipped into the emergency stairwell, and climbed their way up, quickly reaching the target floor. The corridor was overgrown with dark green slime mold, necrotic patches of which had turned dark brown. Dozens of mutant corpses lay strewn haphazardly across the floor. The mutants here had already been cleared out, and no new ones had wandered in yet. "Holy crap... what is this thing?" Crouching next to a humanoid mutant over three meters tall, Edge Slacker prodded it with his rifle bayonet. Its dark hide was absurdly tough; stabbing it felt like poking the tire of a heavy truck, unable to pierce it in the slightest. Was this thing really a carbon-based organism? "A Tyrant." Chu Guang glanced at the creature on the floor, his brow furrowing slightly. "To think monsters like this exist around the Fifth Ring Road." "Lord Administrator, is that Tyrant tough to handle?" Fang Chang asked, looking up at him. "Very tough," Chu Guang said after a moment's thought. "In terrain like this, it could probably wipe out two squads like yours." In truth, he had never fought one. But talking it up to high heaven never hurt. Fang Chang swallowed hard, and Gale pulled his neck in. Old Bai and Edge Slacker didn't feel much of anything—their gear was only starter-grade anyway. If they died, they died. Stepping around the Tyrant's corpse, Chu Guang led the team through an alloy door marked [Authorized Personnel Only] and into the interior of the carbon dioxide scrubber. The space here was massive, taking up nearly half the entire floor, and the ceiling had been opened up to connect with the floor above. Carbon dioxide generated throughout the building was funneled here via the central ventilation system, to be broken down into graphite and oxygen as needed, hydrogenated, or modified by replacing oxygen with hydrogen. To the people of that era, atoms had been like toys in their hands. Nearly endless energy was theirs to squander, reshaping nature's creations into whatever form they desired. And the resulting products were packed into containers made of specialized materials, stacked beside dedicated freight elevators, waiting for staff members who would never arrive to haul them away. Looking at the hundreds of rectangular crates of various sizes piled in the room, Chu Guang roughly estimated there were about three to four hundred cubic meters in total. He couldn't resist asking, "Was your captain never curious about what was inside these crates?" "No need to be curious. Anything involving carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen can be produced as long as there's sufficient energy—it's mostly just a question of cost... For example, this row of black crates is obviously graphite. Looks like your luck isn't great." Luo Hua chuckled and strolled over to another row of crates. Shining his flashlight onto one, he read the text and offered his commentary with keen interest. "This one's decent. A batch of polymer fiber... label says X-4." "X-4?" "Just a designation. Their spatial structures are bizarrely complex, after all—we can hardly represent them with chemical formulas." Luo Hua paused, then added, "By the way, while it's primarily used for textiles, if you need to, you can also use it to replace wood fiber in smokeless powder. Detonation velocity and power will jump by at least twenty percent... That's what we do." Phrased like that, it was much easier to understand. Translated into gamer terms: [Rifle Ammo Damage +20%, Chamber Explosion Probability +?] Chu Guang made a mental note of its application and glanced over the number of similar crates—roughly forty to fifty. A conservative estimate put it at twenty to thirty tons. Looked like it would last a long time. Right then, Luo Hua, who was walking ahead, let out a sudden gasp. "Holy shit?!" Pulled from his thoughts, Chu Guang looked up and quickly stepped over to him. The four players, thinking they had triggered a cutscene, crowded around as well, craning their necks in curiosity. "What happened?" Chu Guang asked on their behalf. "Dilatant rubber!" Staring at the nondescript gray crate before him, Luo Hua took a deep breath, muttering in disbelief and sheer envy, "How could this stuff be here?! That makes no sense!" Chu Guang: "Is there a problem?" "Of course there is! A carbon dioxide scrubber's output is mainly determined by the industrial needs of the surrounding area. The most common products are starch, graphite, and polymer fibers. Near industrial zones, you might see olefins and alkanes, or even benzenes, aldehydes, and ketones. But Dilatant rubber... I've only ever seen that near aerospace industrial parks. Come to think of it, did Qingquan City even have an aerospace industry?" Taking a deep breath, Luo Hua concluded, "In a word: you've struck it rich!" Dilatant rubber: a nanocomposite material formed by chemically bonding organic and inorganic components at the molecular level. Indeed, it wasn't a purely organic compound. It couldn't be synthesized using only carbon dioxide and water; other substances had to be introduced into the reaction system. Even in Ideal City, it fetched a handsome price. That was why Luo Hua was so astonished. In an anaerobic environment, its molecular structure folded and aligned, existing macroscopically as a colloidal liquid. But once exposed to oxygen at room temperature, it would transition into a solid state in a short period of time, its molecular structure reorganizing to take on a crystal-like form. Much like cement undergoing a hydration reaction. Because its molecular composition altered in the process, this transformation was usually irreversible. This material possessed exceptional resistance to wear, acids, and alkalis, boasted heat tolerance approaching that of metals, and was far less prone to aging than conventional rubber—an extreme rarity among traditional high polymers. For this very reason, it was typically employed as an aerospace material. Chu Guang: "Can you guys produce it?" A slightly awkward look crossed Luo Hua's face. After all, he had just been boasting, only to have his face slapped less than two minutes later. Clearing his throat softly, he tried to explain, "...Strictly speaking, it can't be classified as a simple CHO compound! It contains a large amount of inorganic components, functioning as an organic-inorganic hybrid polymer." Chu Guang nodded thoughtfully, attempting to translate this statement he didn't really understand. In other words, they probably couldn't produce it. "At a conservative estimate, there's probably about fifty tons here..." Luo Hua gazed at the warehouse with undisguised envy and sighed. "Whatever you do, don't let our section chief find out." "Why?" "I'm worried he'll lose sleep." "..." Was it really that exaggerated? Chu Guang figured that if Li De truly wanted some, he wouldn't be so stingy as to refuse him outright. Still, it was quite a distance from here back to the operational camp, not to mention hauling the cargo down from an upper floor... Charging a freight fee wouldn't be unreasonable, right? At any rate, according to Luo Hua's description, Dilatant rubber had an extremely broad range of applications and immense value. Chu Guang tried to grasp it: its status in the rubber industry was probably akin to perfluoroelastomers in the early twenty-first century? And without the flaw of being difficult to process. Before encountering oxygen, it could be kneaded freely like glue; there was no rubber material easier to work with. Furthermore, thanks to its outstanding sealing properties, it saw extensive use in aerospace, nanodevices, bionic engineering, and mechanical seals. For example, pre-war power armors made use of this material! Of course, its applications went far beyond that. Many industrial production machines required rubber; if Dilatant rubber could replace it, maintenance costs would plummet while production efficiency saw a major boost. With this windfall, the outpost's industrial zone wouldn't have to worry about rubber for quite some time. Of course, moving so many crates with just six people was out of the question. Thus, Chu Guang promptly posted a delivery mission on the VM: [Mission: Transport cargo from the designated location back to the outpost (Strength-type recommended)] [Reward: 10 silver coins and 10 contribution points per crate] Work at the operational camp was winding down anyway; Chu Guang needed to find something to occupy these energetic little players... ... After returning to the outpost, Luo Hua headed back to the office to pack his luggage with his partner, Ai Si. The Pioneer was scheduled to depart the day after tomorrow, bringing their work here to an end. A vehicle would arrive before evening to pick them up. Thinking that this drinking buddy he had only just gotten to know was about to leave, Chu Guang felt a tinge of melancholy. He returned to the vault, selected a gold-painted bottle of red wine from Old Leech's private collection, and carried it over to the temporary office. "Thanks for everything during this time. I don't have much to offer you," Chu Guang said sincerely, pressing the bottle into Luo Hua's hands. "Take this wine as a farewell gift. Just remember not to drink it on duty." "Thank you! Your friendship is the most precious gift I could ask for!" Deeply moved, Luo Hua took the wine from Chu Guang's hands, then patted through his pockets with growing embarrassment. "...Damn it, I didn't prepare anything at all." His pockets were cleaner than his face. He'd clearly had a few banknotes earlier... "It's fine. Your friendship is just as precious to me," Chu Guang said with a smile. "Once you finish writing your Journey to the West, just send me a copy." "That goes without saying! But that's not the same. I have to give you something..." Luo Hua wracked his brain for a moment before his eyes suddenly lit up. "I know! I'll write a letter for you." Chu Guang gave him an odd look. "A letter?" Luo Hua nodded vigorously and said with excitement, "That's right! I have a drinking buddy back on the East Coast. He can't hold his liquor as well as I can, but he's decent enough! And he's not just a drinking pal—he's an engineer... While I forgot the exact name of what he specializes in, I always heard him complain about how boring life in Ideal City was, envying lucky bastards like us who get to embark on expeditions for the future of human civilization. Once I'm back on the Pioneer, I'll write him a letter and recommend he come work here with you guys!" Chu Guang couldn't help thinking the guy was a bit naive. How was that complaining? That was textbook humblebragging! But out of politeness, he nodded with a smile. "Then I'll look forward to hearing your good news." Luo Hua grinned broadly, thumping his chest in a pledge of assurance. "Don't worry! I'm completely dependable!" Beside them, Ai Si, who had finished packing her luggage, glanced at the fellow. If Chu Guang wasn't mistaken, that had definitely been an eye roll...