The party on the other end of the call was none other than the checkpoint's station chief, Ding Yishan!
Cheng Ye was genuinely caught off guard.
In the more than two months since he had transmigrated to this wasteland world, he had never once met this mysterious station chief.
Searching through his predecessor's memories, he had only seen the man once: upon leaving the Inner City. Back then, Ding Yishan had personally welcomed him and made a point of instructing everyone to treat him well and nurture him, so that Cheng Long would not rest uneasy in death.
*Why is he calling me?*
Cheng Ye's mind raced instinctively, yet his hands did not falter as he pressed the answer button.
"Ah, Little Cheng, it's me, Chief Ding!"
A genial voice came through the defense comm. "I didn't disturb your sleep this early, did I?"
"Good morning, Chief Ding!" Cheng Ye's tone lifted slightly. He stepped toward the window, looking down at the street below, and continued with just the right touch of light laughter, "The rain was pouring so hard last night that I couldn't sleep past midnight. I figured I'd head out to see if I could lend a hand. As luck would have it, I only just got back, cleaned up, and was getting ready for work."
"Aiya, you truly take after your old man's spirit. It seems the title of our station's future model worker for enduring hardships is destined for you."
A hearty chuckle drifted from the other end of the line. "It's good for young people to endure hardship. A very good thing. I was just wondering how to bring this up with you, but now that makes it convenient."
"Please go ahead, Chief. I'm listening."
"Here's the situation..."
At first, Ding Yishan spoke at a leisurely pace, as warm and affable as the octogenarians Cheng Ye used to see sitting at the village entrance back in his hometown.
Yet the moment business came up, his tempo snapped back to normal, laced with the subtle authority of a station chief.
As a graduate student from a top university, Cheng Ye's subconscious had long been trained to automatically filter out extraneous noise.
Distilling the core points of Ding Yishan's three-minute spiel, it boiled down to just a few sentences:
Garcia had been beaten into emergency care by Liu Bi. The West Faction was furious, but because Garcia was at fault first, they had no leg to stand on.
The West Faction would undoubtedly target Cheng Ye, a probationary inspector, across the board—from his work duties to his daily life.
As the station chief, and as Cheng Long's former comrade-in-arms, I am pulling you out of the crossfire so you can lay low for a while.
"Chief, you've thought of everything for my sake. It's truly... *sigh*. Before my father passed, his last words to me were... Chief Ding is one of the few genuinely decent men left in this world, and if I ever faced something I couldn't handle, I must seek your counsel. It's my own uselessness... I'm always causing trouble for the station..."
As he spoke, Cheng Ye's voice took on a slight choke.
On the other end of the line, the authoritative tone softened instantly. "Little Cheng, your Uncle Ding is the one who let you down. Your father entrusted you to me, yet I couldn't even shield you from a squall like this..."
"Don't worry. Once your first field mission is done, I'll transfer you back. Let's see who dares utter a peep then!"
"Chief, please don't say that..."
Back and forth they went.
Two minutes later, the defense comm clicked off. Cheng Ye, who had sounded on the verge of tears just moments before, instantly wiped every trace of emotion from his face, his expression turning solemn.
From just those few minutes of interaction, Station Chief Ding's interpersonal finesse was more than enough to thrive in the wasteland—even back in the modern world, his top-tier bureaucratic tai chi and acting chops would have let him flourish in any iron rice bowl career!
*Could Station Chief Ding, like my predecessor, be another anomaly—an 'Old Era' human whose genes never mutated toward combat?*
*Still... transferring me from the main gate quarantine post to the rapid quarantine post is sending me to lay low?*
Cheng Ye couldn't help but sneer inwardly.
The isolation buffer zone currently possessed three checkpoints. Besides the main gate quarantine, the north and south gates were used for rapid quarantine.
The former processed incoming wasteland survivors, while the latter two were reserved strictly for credentialed personnel—such as scouts returning from field missions, sentries assigned to purge surrounding infected, and licensed scavengers.
At first glance, the former seemed higher risk. After all, survivors came from every corner of the wasteland, making the odds of encountering infected far greater.
Yet based on what Cheng Ye knew and had experienced firsthand, the reality was quite the opposite!
At the main gate quarantine, even though inspectors had to face outside survivors, vagrants, and refugees, every subject was confined within an iron cage. Even if infected, most of their offensive capability was neutralized.
Furthermore, in the guard tower behind each conveyor belt, an eight-man duty squad maintained an armed watch around the clock, aiming their rifles to protect the inspector's safety. At the slightest anomaly, the subject would be executed on the spot.
Thus, even though the probability of encountering infected was far higher than at the north and south gates, the annual casualty rate remained consistently below five percent.
The rapid quarantine post was the exact opposite: no iron cages, and certainly no duty squads training rifles over them.
Inspectors had to conduct searches face-to-face, at close quarters. Even if an infection was confirmed, the only backup they could rely on was the guard squads patrolling the vicinity.
Yet relying on those guards for protection was practically an illusion.
All it took was a quiet word from Ding Yishan, and the guards who were supposed to provide covering fire would leisurely unfold folding stools to enjoy a ringside view of him wrestling with an infected.
They wouldn't shoot him in the back before an outcome was decided, but if he got tainted by an infection source, he was guaranteed to catch a few "peanuts" of lead within two seconds for a physical exorcism.
*The annual casualty rate at the rapid quarantine posts has never dipped below thirty percent. Never mind a probationary inspector—even official Rank 1 and Rank 2 inspectors routinely slip up and lose their lives.*
Cheng Ye's thoughts moved swiftly, instantly discerning the underlying reason behind this maneuver.
Ever since Happiness City established the isolation buffer zone, the checkpoints had expanded continuously. Counting guards, staff, sentries, and others, the personnel had long exceeded two thousand.
Yet from start to finish, there had only ever been one hundred and fifty inspectors. That quota had never increased.
Presently, there were only two avenues to becoming an inspector:
First, hereditary succession—sons inheriting from their fathers.
Second, appointment by selection—when an inspector had no heir to pass the post down to, the station chief would select one candidate from personnel who had made significant contributions to the checkpoint.
This deformed, irrational system fundamentally dictated that at any given period, the caliber of personnel between the East and West Factions could diverge sharply.
For instance, before Cheng Long died unexpectedly, his combat rating was a 10. After Cheng Ye took over, that combat rating plummeted to 1, yet he still occupied an official slot, naturally dragging down the East Faction inspectors' overall strength.
Likewise, through ordinary turnover, if the West Faction's rising generation matured faster than the East Faction's, the East Faction would gradually decline and lose its dominance over the checkpoint.
*First, he instructed Brother B to beat Garcia into emergency care. As long as Garcia doesn't die, he continues occupying one of the West Faction's inspector slots, preventing any replacement.*
*Next, using the excuse of reassigning me to rapid quarantine, he shuts the West Faction's mouth while paving the way for the East Faction's subsequent plans. As long as I suffer an 'accident,' since I have no heirs, he can handpick an elite fighter to fill the vacancy, bolstering the East Faction inspectors' overall ranks.*
*Well played, Ding Yishan. What a venomous scheme to kill with a borrowed knife and bag two birds with one stone!*
An immense sense of urgency welled up in Cheng Ye's heart.
What his predecessor had done back in the Inner City naturally hadn't escaped Ding Yishan's watchful eyes.
In Ding's eyes, his combat rating probably didn't even reach a bare minimum of 3. In the East Faction's hand, playing him as a card would instantly put them at a disadvantage.
Meanwhile, although Garcia was equally young and unreliable in temperament, he had already cut his teeth in the inspector post for two years, completing over a dozen field missions of various scales, and possessed seasoned survival and combat experience.
In the West Faction, he was at least a "5" or even a "6." His presence might not dramatically swing the board, but his absence would immediately make many hands awkward to play.
Now, pitting a low card against a high card, if both cards could be made to bust as planned...
...it would be a tremendous boon for the East Faction.
*If it were Brother B, he probably would've been duped into believing it really was just laying low...*
*No, a ruthless killer like Brother B would probably never be assigned to a rapid quarantine post in his entire life.*
For rapid quarantine inspectors, authority was just as terrifyingly immense as the danger.
The moment they suspect you of being an infected, they can cut you down with a single stroke; if proven wrong afterward, all it takes is filing a self-criticism report.
Send Liu Bi over, and within a few days heads would be rolling in rivers of blood.
*Damn it. Before I even clear the hurdle of the field mission, I'm forced into the factional feud between East and West...*
*When all is said and done, it still comes down to the jade bringing ruin to the commoner who carries it... Because I'm too weak to hold onto this iron rice bowl, others will naturally covet it and scheme against me.*
*If I possessed Brother B's strength, whether it was factional strife or rapid quarantine, why would I ever fear the heat?*
Had it been last night, Cheng Ye might have hesitated, might have felt fear.
Yet at this moment, the drizzle outside was fine as silk, pattering obliquely against the glass panes as damp vapor seeped through the cracks, carrying the scent of earth.
Catching the earthy scent, an inexplicable calm welled up from the depths of his heart, washing over his nerves and gradually hardening into threads of resolve.
Basic Force Exertion had granted him experience and technique, barely allowing him to touch the minimum threshold for field missions.
Yet constrained by the weakest stave of the wooden bucket—his physical conditioning—the lethality he could unleash remained limited.
Now, a night had passed.
As his fingertips traced the newly formed sinew and tendon lines along his forearms, Cheng Ye could distinctly perceive the explosive power dormant within the muscle groups.
Everything was different now!
The muscle groups, specially conditioned through muscle memory, had patched his weakest shortcoming, vastly augmenting his overall strength!
Though worlds apart from a humanoid weapon like Brother B, if he were to take forty percent of that force head-on again, he would never be sent flying backwards without the slightest ability to fight back.
*Right now, this is both danger and opportunity.*
*If I can prove my worth and return to the poker table, I can secure my seat as an inspector once and for all!*
Cheng Ye raised his right hand, turning it slightly.
The pendant plugged into the power outlet flickered faintly, and an instant later, its outline manifested directly in his palm.
Yesterday, after expending both search chances on Chu Yunfeng, a night of experimentation had allowed him to grasp the general replenishment rules for the collector's charge.
For a Level 1 search with the Civilization Collector, each charge point required 100 kilowatt-hours of electricity—a massive drop compared to the 2,000 kilowatt-hours required for its initial activation.
More crucially, his control over the physical pendant's state had undergone a qualitative leap.
Now, within a ten-meter radius, Cheng Ye could switch it between solid and incorporeal forms with a mere thought. Moreover, regardless of where the pendant was within that range, a single intent would instantly recall it to his palm.
This alone made charging significantly easier.
As long as the torrential rain did not cease and the hydroelectric station delivered an abundant power supply, even using a 2.5-square-millimeter socket could replenish nearly fifty kilowatt-hours of electricity a day.
Calculated out, it would only take two to three days to accumulate one search attempt.
*Relying solely on searches won't be enough. The weapons and gear I planned to acquire right before the field mission will have to be arranged in advance.*
*The contribution points on hand are definitely tight, but borrowing some from Brother B should resolve the immediate crisis.*
*Still, since Ding Yishan assigned me to the north and south checkpoints, he must have anticipated that Brother B would step in to help. I'm afraid...*
Cheng Ye's eyes flickered. He picked up his defense comm and dialed Liu Bi.
...
Chapter 10