Conveyor 7.
Garcia, an inspector from the West Faction, roared in fury, slamming his hand against the desk with a sharp crack.
"A whole family of paupers! You don't have this, you don't have that! Happiness City isn't a homeless shelter! You damn parasites coming here looking for handouts ought to drop dead and go to hell!"
Standing inside the iron isolation cage, the man showed a flicker of embarrassment and indignant anger across his face.
Behind him, the woman pulled a child of about five or six closer into her arms.
The Happiness City they had heard about on the radio did not require any kind of "entry fee."
Yet Garcia had repeatedly and bluntly made it clear: every member of this family of three had to produce something of value to get in. Otherwise, they would be thrown out immediately and permanently barred from the checkpoint.
"Sir, please give me a little time..."
After a few seconds of silence, the man licked the traces of blood on his cracked lips. "We will never be parasites. I have strength. I can haul bricks, I can unload cargo... As for the entry fee, we'll pay it as soon as we earn some money."
"'As soon as'! It's always 'as soon as'! How many times do you think I have to hear that phrase every day?"
Garcia sneered. "Do I look that easy to fool? Either pay up right now—one valuable item per person—or take your 'as soon as' and get lost in the ruins to feed the infected!"
*The West Faction is getting this disgusting?*
*Happiness City is flourishing right now, so how did it suddenly regress to late-dynasty decline, with inspectors blocking the gate to extort head taxes?*
Listening intently, Cheng Ye was inwardly shocked. He concluded that his father, Cheng Long, whom he had never met, had definitely been a core figure of the East Faction.
Otherwise, his death alone would not have shattered the balance between the East and West Factions so thoroughly.
*Should I take a gamble?*
Cheng Ye narrowed his eyes, sweeping his gaze back and forth across the iron cage as he quietly evaluated the family.
Well... he could hardly blame Garcia for holding them up to squeeze them.
The man was tall, standing at least a meter eighty-five. Beneath his ragged coarse shirt, his biceps bulged like solid rock, and the veins on his forearms twisted in corded knots. Thick, weathered calluses covered his knuckles. One look showed he possessed formidable combat prowess—nothing like the refugees who survived purely on luck.
The woman was somewhat slender, but her eyes were strikingly bright, gleaming like a flickering flame. The muscles in the arm wrapped around her child were taut. Though her emotions had to be complicated, her body showed no unnecessary trembling, proving she possessed strong mental resilience.
As for the child... his dusty face could not be called healthy, but surviving in the wasteland at such a young age was already an extraordinary feat.
*It's a bet!*
"You two go wait outside by the main gate first. I need to handle a dispute. Don't worry."
Cheng Ye stood up and first directed the man and woman who had just been transferred in to head back to the main gate to wait.
Then he walked briskly over to Conveyor 7.
"Garcia, three contribution points. I'll take this family."
"You want them?"
Garcia had already noticed Cheng Ye sending people away earlier.
Hearing this now, the narrow eyes visible behind his mask flickered with a suggestive glint.
"Sounds like... you can squeeze more than three contribution points' worth of grease out of these paupers?"
*Oh, trying to hike up the price on the spot?*
Cheng Ye gave a cold chuckle and tapped his knuckles on the desk.
"Listen, don't pull that on me. If you like making life hard for Easterners, maybe I should ask Brother Big B to keep you company after work?"
"Trying to scare me with Big B?"
Garcia scoffed, then held out his right hand. "Five contribution points, and they're yours."
"Deal!"
Cheng Ye could not be bothered to haggle here.
If he had Liu Bi's strength, he would have caught this bastard after work and beaten him black and blue to vent his anger. But when borrowing someone else's clout, knowing when to stop was wiser.
Besides, with field deployment approaching, he did not have many expenses beyond purchasing essential equipment.
Once the stage verification on yesterday's Deathwhisper Tentacle went through, he would receive around twenty points. Spending five was well within his acceptable budget.
"Fine. I'll reverse the line; let them go with you."
With unexpected income in hand, Garcia's attitude improved considerably. He no longer cared how much grease Cheng Ye could squeeze out of the family.
Extorting an entry fee was disgraceful after all. Cheng Ye's assumption that he was picking on Easterners gave Garcia a convenient way out; otherwise, if word reached the higher-ups in Hope City, heads would inevitably roll.
"Once you step out, get onto my Conveyor 8. I will inspect your identities," Cheng Ye instructed, then returned to his quarantine desk to wait.
The aged conveyor belt let out a grating screech. Its treads rolled slowly, and within a minute, it brought the family over.
Perhaps because the nameless fire in his heart had not yet gone out, or perhaps because he had waited too long to grow stronger, Cheng Ye felt his mouth go dry, and an inexplicable tension crept over him.
"Listen up. Everyone in this world does everything for a reason. I didn't save you out of the goodness of my heart—I have my own motives, too."
"You don't need to pay an entry fee. You just need to cooperate with me properly and answer my questions. Understood?"
Cheng Ye spoke first, seizing the initiative.
With conflicting emotions, the man nodded heavily, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes as he looked at Cheng Ye.
He had only just arrived, yet he felt as if he were being pulled into a vortex. Even so, he had no choice; to survive, he had to get into Happiness City.
"Names! Think carefully! I need your real names!"
"Chu Yunfeng. Yu Qinghui."
"What about the kid?"
"Chu Xuan."
As expected of the people he had handpicked. Cheng Ye checked his panel: after giving his name, Chu Yunfeng's cooperation rate was a pitiful nine percent. The other two were even lower—one at five percent, the other at zero.
He had no idea what the child had been taught, but the boy had no intention of cooperating with an inspector at all.
Fortunately, his only target was Chu Yunfeng; the other two's cooperation rates did not matter.
"Gender?"
"Huh?" Chu Yunfeng paused. "Are there other genders in Happiness City?"
"I ask, you answer. You need to obey. Do not try to question me. Understood?"
Cheng Ye repeated the last word, his tone growing sterner.
"Male, female, male."
"Very good. Ages?"
"Thirty-four, thirty-three, six."
"Where are you from?"
"Red Grass City."
"Where?"
Cheng Ye pulled out a map and flipped through it for a while before finding the location. "Don't play games with me. Red Grass City is nearly twenty thousand kilometers from Happiness City. Are you playing a wasteland edition of a maritime board game?"
"Sir, that really is a long story..."
Chu Yunfeng's face turned bitter, as if he had anticipated that the inspector would ask this question. He answered honestly, "My wife and I were sailors in Red Grass City's ocean-going fleet. We originally planned to trade with Hope City, but while at sea, we encountered a special infected mutant unlike anything we'd ever seen. It caused heavy casualties among the crew. In the panic, our fleet lost its bearings and drifted on the ocean for nearly a year..."
Recalling that dark period, Chu Yunfeng's brow furrowed into deep ridges.
"It wasn't until last month that we made landfall near Yangcheng. We heard that Happiness City accepts refugees, so we gave everything we had to make our way here."
*Man, who do you think you're kidding?*
Cheng Ye shook his head secretly. Even with modern ocean vessels stocked with abundant supplies, it was doubtful anyone could maintain a physique like Chu Yunfeng's over such a long voyage.
A story like that could only dupe ignorant inspectors in small, backwater settlements.
However, seeing that the cooperation rate on the panel was still climbing—already reaching thirty-one percent—Cheng Ye decided these were minor details.
As long as the man cooperated with this inspector, what did a little white lie matter?
"All right, save the rest of your story. Now pick up the measuring instruments on the counter and read out the numbers to me. You know how to use them, don't you?"
"I do!"
Chu Yunfeng nodded crisply, realizing at once that Cheng Ye did not care in the slightest about what he had just said.
This added another layer of anxiety to his already suspicious mind.
Take measurements, report the numbers.
Cheng Ye lowered his head and pretended to take notes, though his eyes were fixed on the fluctuating number on his panel.
Only when Chu Yunfeng's cooperation rate finally reached 50.1 percent did he let out a long sigh of relief.
Sure enough, cloaked in the authority of an inspector, pushing an outside survivor past the fifty percent mark was not difficult.
"Sir?"
"Wait in the cage for a moment. I need to think through your story carefully."
While replying, Cheng Ye used his mind to press the Search button for the very first time.
[Search Subject: Chu Yunfeng]
[Current Cooperation Rate: 51.8%]
[Current Search Range: Intelligence, Items, Skills]
[Target Confirmed: Skills (Lv. 1)]
[Searching...]
Lines of text flashed before his eyes.
After about five seconds, a lavish status screen unfolded slowly, making Cheng Ye's eyes widen.
[Chu Yunfeng]
[Lv. 1 Skills]: Proficient Swimming, Beast Instinct, Night Vision, Novice Mechanical Repair, Quick Draw, Basic Force Exertion, Basic Perception, Simple First Aid, Basic Trap Making, Iron Soles, Basic Wilderness Survival, Basic Carpentry, Basic Camouflage
[Lv. 2 Skills]: Locked
[Lv. 3 Skills]: Locked
[Lv. 4 Skills]: Locked
"How... how many?!"
Cheng Ye almost thought he was seeing things. Only after counting them again did he confirm that Chu Yunfeng possessed thirteen Level 1 skills.
What was even crazier was that the man also possessed Level 2, Level 3, and even Level 4 skills that were currently unsearchable.
Judging by what was displayed alone, this guy was ten times more formidable than old Joel from *The Last of Us*.
*Wait, buddy, did you come to Happiness City to be the main character?*
Having his luck explode into a golden legendary drop, Cheng Ye struggled to contain his excitement, the corners of his mouth curling upward despite himself.
Thirteen skills. It really was an embarrassment of riches. What should he pick?
Swimming, Night Vision, Mechanical Repair, First Aid, Trap Making, Iron Soles, Wilderness Survival, Carpentry, and Camouflage—skills that clearly had no direct combat application—were ruled out first. They would yield little benefit in the short term and offered limited help for his field mission.
Among the remaining choices—Beast Instinct, Basic Force Exertion, Basic Perception, and Quick Draw—Cheng Ye hesitated briefly, then commanded his thoughts to press down firmly.
The panel flickered, followed by an exhilarating notification of success.
[Search Successful]
[Civilization Collector has recorded: Basic Force Exertion (Lv. 1)]
"It worked!"
Succeeding on the very first try with a fifty percent success rate made Cheng Ye's excitement hard to suppress.
Immediately after, he had a second attempt. He directed his thoughts to click again.
The panel flickered.
Did it fail?
No!
[Search Successful]
[Civilization Collector has recorded: Beast Instinct (Lv. 1)]
"Two hits in a row! Today really wasn't a waste of waiting—my luck is through the roof!"
For a blank slate with nothing to his name to gain two skills—both of them practical—what kind of transformation would that bring?
Cheng Ye's heart pounded wildly. He took several deep breaths before suppressing the urge to equip the skills right then and there.
*Stay calm. I must stay calm. Now isn't the time to stand out!*
"All right, you may go to the back to process your residency certificates."
He pressed the button to unlock the iron isolation cage, and the door sprang open from the inside with a creak.
"Huh?"
Chu Yunfeng froze in shock, entirely unprepared for how easily they had passed.
Still, his reactions were quick. Realizing Cheng Ye was not joking, he nodded, voiced his thanks, and promptly led his wife and child away.
*Heh, we're bound to cross paths again in the future.*
Watching Chu Yunfeng's figure disappear from sight, Cheng Ye turned back, his smile widening.
Those five points had been an absolute bargain.
With his current search level, there was nothing more he could extract from Chu Yunfeng for now.
Yet sooner or later, he would search and copy every single one of those skills. When the day came that he could equip three Level 4 skills, wouldn't stringing Garcia up and giving him a thorough thrashing be child's play?
Chapter 6