After leaving the shopping center, the sky at half past six in the evening was already shrouded in twilight.
After the lively demolition ceremony ended, the constructed stage was dismantled completely, the gathered residents had also dispersed without a trace, leaving only the empty block, contrasting with the quietly falling snow.
The snowflakes were fine and dense like cotton, drifting down from the lead-gray sky. Before long, they covered the world with a thin layer of white.
"Sir, please wear a hat, don't catch cold."
Big Dragon clutched an old leather hat and chased up from behind, his tone filled with concern.
"It's fine, just a short distance."
Cheng Ye shook his head instead. The snow particles falling on his face felt slightly cool, but made his whole body feel refreshed.
"Big Dragon."
"Yes sir."
"Take a break for a while. Such a large community can't rely on you alone, don't wear yourself out."Hm?
Big Dragon was obviously stunned, his mouth opened and closed, but he couldn't say a word.
Perhaps everyone was used to working, working themselves to death, as if dedication should naturally be taken for granted but the recognition he hadn't received from the district elder was unexpectedly noticed by Cheng Ye, this "outsider."
Before Big Dragon could recover, Cheng Ye added another sentence, "Also, you don't need to go to Dapo Town for now, I have another important task for you."
"Please tell me, sir!"
"Don't rush, wait until the situation outside settles before we discuss it."
Cheng Ye breathed out a puff of air, seeing Wang Kang approaching from the distance, and smiled, "Remember, rest for a few days."
"Yes!"
Meeting up with Wang Kang, the two walked shoulder to shoulder toward the residential complex, their footsteps making soft "crunch" sounds on the accumulated snow.
This wasn't the first snowfall in Happiness City, but it was their first snowy day shared in the buffer zone.
Chatting and laughing along the way, Cheng Ye suddenly remembered that he probably wouldn't be able to return to his own room to sleep for the next couple of days.
Sure enough, upon reaching the fifth floor, the room had only finished cleaning the wall surfaces and applying moisture-proof coating, the floor tiles hadn't been laid yet.
However, the wall between the two rooms had already been knocked through, looking seamless. Whether hanging a curtain or installing a small door later would be no problem.
"We'll work through the night to lay the floor tiles, and it'll be ready the day after tomorrow."
"Alright, arrange it as you see fit."
Cheng Ye nodded in agreement, walked around once, then picked up his bedding and headed to the convenience store downstairs.
He hadn't thrown away the belongings Uncle Dong left behind, including that folding cot, which would come in handy right now.
Standing downstairs under the street lamp's halo with snowflakes dancing everywhere, the world was so quiet you could hear the sound of falling snow.
Cheng Ye suddenly had a thought.
How wonderful, my life should be wasted in this kind of world!
So beautiful!
Especially after entering the convenience store, he set up the folding bed and lay on the reclining chair looking out at the street.
Snowflakes rustled down, occasionally pedestrians wrapped tightly in clothes hurried past. This leisure was difficult to describe in words.
However, what surprised him was that after opening the door, several people actually came to buy things.
Only when they came closer and saw it wasn't Uncle Dong and the shelves were empty did they shake their heads regretfully and leave.
"The convenience store could indeed be reopened in the future, this is also a revenue source."
Cheng Ye pondered, and when the sky turned completely dark, he pulled down the rolling shutter.
He took out a can of canned yellow peaches from the basement, leaned on the reclining chair to finish eating, and drowsiness surged up.
He hadn't slept well in the wilderness last night, and was too busy during the day to catch up on sleep. At this moment, it wasn't even eight o'clock, but he wrapped himself tightly in the blanket and soon fell into deep sleep, with even his dreams filled with the tranquility of falling snow.
However, his biological clock seemed to have completely settled. Before the alarm clock rang, he woke up first.
The small window above the convenience store entrance was so dark you couldn't tell the time. He fumbled for his defense communicator and pressed the screen to light it up, only to discover it was just past four o'clock.
When he sat up, his head suddenly felt a familiar dizziness, and his throat was somewhat dry.
Did he really catch a cold?
With the blessing of his Wild Grass Physique, he had thought these common ailments could no longer affect his body but when he touched his forehead, it was somewhat burning hot, clearly indicating a fever.
"Perhaps it's also because I went out to the wilderness for a trip, and when I came back, my tense nerves relaxed, causing this."
He hadn't expected that the first step of his new beginning would be a fever and cold.
Cheng Ye shook his head helplessly, fumbled through his backpack for the medicine bag, took out a fever-reducing pill and swallowed it.
Medicines in the wasteland were inherently potent.
Plus, the medicines he bought were all enhanced with crystal powder for stronger effects. Soon he felt somewhat dizzy.
So he lay down again and took another nap.
When he woke up again, it was already seven-thirty, with faint light seeping through the window.
Cheng Ye touched his forehead again and found the fever had actually broken, leaving only some residual drowsiness that didn't affect normal activities.
"Really powerful, this medicine!"
He couldn't help but exclaim, got up and pulled open the rolling shutter.
Wow.
The snow had stopped.
Last night's snow had actually fallen all night long. The street was covered with a thick layer that would go past your ankles when stepped on. The distant rooftops and tree trunks were all wrapped in white snow clothes, making the entire world blindingly clean.
Several women in thick cotton coats and half-grown children were clutching brooms, struggling to clear the accumulated snow at the community entrance. The brooms were covered with ice chunks, requiring considerable effort with each sweep. They appeared to be cleaning workers arranged by the community.
"Let me do it."
Cheng Ye walked forward and took the large broom from one person's hands.
With sufficient arm strength, he positioned himself and swept the broom against the ground. The accumulated snow was gathered into neat piles. Before long, he had swept out a path wide enough for people to pass through the street in front of the community entrance.
After bustling back and forth several times, he worked up a thin layer of sweat all over his body. The aftereffects of his cold completely dissipated, and his head became clear again.
After helping pile the swept snow to the roadside, Cheng Ye returned to the convenience store and took out four packs of yellow-bag nutritional paste to consume.
After finishing the nutritional paste, he pocketed his defense communicator and strolled toward the newly established flea market in the community.
Unfortunately, on such a snowy day, few people were willing to brave the severe cold to set up stalls. The usually lively vendor area was empty, with only a few snow-clearing workers bustling back and forth.
Cheng Ye walked around for a full circle without finding a single person to ask prices from, so he had to stroll back to the convenience store, moved a chair, and sat at the entrance basking in the sun.
The cooling brought by the Void Mist was strange, it didn't affect the temperature of the sun, which was warm and very comfortable.
Cheng Ye lay there for a while and actually felt somewhat at a loss.
From crossing over to the wasteland, becoming an inspector, to experiencing various dangers and adventures, for nearly four months, he had been working non-stop almost every day, his nerves constantly tense, never daring to relax for half a moment.
Now that he rarely had such a free day, he actually didn't know what to do.
Practice martial arts?
The fusion of Tiger Force had reached the middle stage, what was needed was gradual time, it couldn't be rushed.
Supervise construction?
The pedestrian street had just finished demolition, new materials would take another day or two to arrive, they didn't need him for now.
The Dapo Town planning also had to wait for today's quota results to see if he was included before making adjustments.
Find a place to charge up and start fusing skills?
This was doable!
But without Master Zhang's connections, going to the Works Department to freeload electricity wasn't legitimate, and other places were both unfamiliar and difficult to obtain charging cards for.
"Right, today would be perfect to research vehicles!"
Cheng Ye suddenly sat up from the reclining chair, his eyes brightening considerably.
House, he had one.
Car, well, it wasn't like he didn't have one.
The armed military armored vehicle that Cheng Long left behind was definitely tough enough, but it happened to run on fuel.
In Happiness City, gasoline was a strictly controlled strategic resource. Using it for daily purposes was too cost-ineffective, he couldn't waste life-saving strategic resources on commuting.
After pondering for a while, Cheng Ye didn't rashly go to the checkpoint to inquire about information, but instead took out his defense communicator.
Opening the contact list, he scrolled through the contacts, ultimately passing over Jiang Chuan.
He stopped at the three characters 'Lee Matteo' and pressed the call button.
"Hey, Inspector Cheng?" The phone connected, and Lee Matteo's voice carried a hint of surprise, "How rare, this is the first time you've called me, right? Do you have something to ask me?"
"Of course, otherwise I wouldn't dare to call our busy Inspector Lee."
Cheng Ye chuckled, "Do you have time? I want to ask about something."
"I'm free, I'm just hanging around anyway. I'm at Giant Wall Station, planning to lease a shop, and I'm worried about not having anyone to help me evaluate it."
After saying this, he added, "Aren't you on leave today? Come over, we can chat properly."
"Alright, I'll head over right now, wait a moment."
Cheng Ye readily agreed.
Compared to directly asking Jiang Chuan, this clerk, Lee Matteo, an old hand who had been mixing around the checkpoint for many years, obviously understood the ins and outs of the station better.
With so many veteran inspectors at the checkpoint, even Liu Bi didn't have a private car. It definitely wasn't because they couldn't afford or use one, but because there was a special set of rules behind it.
Perhaps "buying a car" itself wasn't the optimal solution. These insider tricks, asking Lee Matteo would definitely be right.
After hanging up on Lee Matteo, Cheng Ye called Wang Kang, wanting to inform him of his whereabouts.
Unexpectedly, Wang Kang on the other end sounded drowsy, mumbled a few "I know, Brother Cheng," then went silent again, clearly having fully entered vacation mode.
"I didn't have such happiness when I started duty."
Cheng Ye shook his head, but the smile on his face didn't disappear.
He was beginning to understand the feelings Huang Sheng had when he said our generation could endure hardship.
Grabbing his backpack and pulling down the convenience store's rolling shutter, Cheng Ye walked quickly toward the bus stop.
More than ten minutes later, the bus slowly approached Giant Wall Station. Before it even stopped completely, Cheng Ye saw Lee Matteo on the platform.
He was holding up his defense communicator making a phone call, his brows furrowed tightly, cursing under his breath, clearly quite agitated.
"What's wrong?" Cheng Ye got off the bus and couldn't help but be curious.
"Didn't you check your defense communicator? The first batch of contract zone list has been released!" Lee Matteo waved his defense communicator, his tone full of suppressed anger.
"Hm?"
Cheng Ye's heart stirred, and he quickly took out his own defense communicator.
Sure enough, there was an unread message flashing at the top of the screen, with a particularly eye-catching title:
[Checkpoint Notice Regarding First Batch Contract Zone Allocation and Qualification Confirmation]
His fingertip quickly tapped in, his gaze first sweeping toward the contract zone list, where the first batch of twelve zones to be opened were prominently listed.
They were all the previously marked "hot favorites" on the map, like Wenlu County, such transportation hubs, or renovation sites near Happiness City's core area.
"As expected, the first batch doesn't include Dapo Town, but that's not surprising."
Cheng Ye thought to himself, not surprised at all.
Compared to these twelve hot zones, Dapo Town really didn't have even the slightest advantage worth mentioning.
Fish catch, he had never seen any inspector pay attention to this stuff.
After all, the purpose of building satellite cities was to gather refugees. Having refugees go fishing and causing casualties would directly deduct satisfaction points to zero. Then there would be no rewards and a pile of punishments to face.
The hydroelectric station, needless to say, might matter if it were within Dapo Town itself but located in villages around Dapo Town, no one would pay attention to this thing.
He continued scrolling down, and when his gaze fell on the "Zone Corresponding Inspectors" column, he suddenly paused.
Each zone corresponded to not the previously rumored two inspectors, but three to four, clearly intended to determine the final person in charge through 'screening competition.'
Seeing Lee Matteo's name appear among them, Cheng Ye immediately understood why he was cursing.
Lee Matteo had chosen Dongping Town, not in Happiness City's periphery, but adjacent to the industrial zone.
It was an affiliated town of Xiasha County, which had some industrial foundation in its time, but due to its remote location, it wasn't included in the industrial zone because of the sixty-kilometer bilateral screening, Dongping Town had never entered Cheng Ye's selection range from beginning to end but others were different. For example, Lee Matteo obviously hadn't thought too much about it.
He just thought that since Dongping Town had industrial foundation and was close to the industrial zone, it would definitely develop first.
Now, four inspectors had all chosen Dongping Town and would have to compete.
It happened to be two Easterners and two Westerners.
The two Easterners were not unfamiliar to Cheng Ye, they were precisely Song Hai and Gu Xinjing, those two factional fanatics, third-term inspectors like Lee Matteo.
The other Westerner, he was even more familiar with, familiar to an incredible degree!
Garcia!
"Inspector Lee, your luck is quite good," Cheng Ye tried hard to restrain himself but still couldn't help teasing.
What was this called?
Enemies are bound to meet, when fate comes, you can't stop it.
Lee Matteo was already full of anger, and being teased like this by Cheng Ye made his face even darker: "It's definitely intentional, there's definitely something fishy going on, making me partner with Garcia, that idiot. I'd rather go to the wilderness and build from scratch with refugees."
But not choosing Garcia meant choosing the Eastern factional fanatics?
There was no choice at all, and Song Hai and Gu Xinjing were obviously old partners, with a high probability of eliminating him.
Scrolling further down were the contents of the third round assessment.
However, at this point, he no longer had the qualification to view the attachments, and could only look at Lee Matteo with a regretful expression.
"Let's go, weren't you going to look at shops?"
"Sigh, this ruined my whole day's good mood. I might as well get eliminated, I'm not going out."
Lee Matteo shook his head.
Although he was a slacker, in such a major event that all inspectors were participating in, a third-term inspector staying at the checkpoint wouldn't be called slacking.
That would be called incompetence!
But there was no choice, no matter how he chose, whoever he partnered with would be trouble.
"It's only the third round, you're not directly eliminated. Maybe they'll let you change locations in the end?"
"Maybe."
After walking a few steps, Lee Matteo's mood quickly adjusted.
"I plan to invest in a shop here at Giant Wall, specifically for industrial fast-moving consumer goods."
"Oh? Are you planning to find sales channels for your contract site?"
"Half and half, I guess." Lee Matteo sniffed, his tone somewhat ambiguous, "Mainly, I think investing at Giant Wall Station won't lose money no matter what you do."
What he didn't say was that if not for the unexpected issue with the contract site screening just now, he would have directly said "paving the way for the contract site." But now, whether he could even get the contract site was questionable, so this path obviously wouldn't work. He could only change his words to cover it up.
"How much are you planning to invest?"
"Five thousand points, I guess. The shops here start at two thousand points, plus stocking and renovation, five thousand points is just enough for the foundation. Not cheap."
"Rich man." Cheng Ye clicked his tongue, suddenly feeling somewhat envious.
He had originally thought his accumulated points were already quite substantial, but didn't expect Lee Matteo to casually pull out five thousand.
"It's all coffin money I've saved bit by bit over the years from field work and station duty." Lee Matteo smiled, but you could clearly tell he was being evasive.
The two chatted as they strolled, their gazes sweeping over the newly built Giant Wall Station district.
Since the night of the Stand-In Starfish outbreak when this place was bombed into ruins, the reconstruction speed had been astonishingly fast.
However, this time, the district was no longer the winding alleys of before, but had been changed to a modern pedestrian street style:
The roadside shops were lined up one after another, with flying eaves and wooden railings in the design. It looked somewhat like the Lijiang Old Town that Cheng Ye had visited before crossing over, and you could tell at a glance it wouldn't be pleasant to shop in.
Why?
It wasn't down-to-earth!
He casually asked about a shop located toward the inner side, and the rent for that shop was actually three thousand points.
As for the two-thousand ones, they had to be tucked away in the deepest corners of the district where hardly anyone would browse.
Therefore, people investing here were basically all wealthy, and would never allow small items to enter.
So don't even think about doing business with ordinary people from the outer satellite cities. As Elder Zhou said, you could only sell to bureaucrats with positions in the buffer zone.
"How about it, is my shop okay?"
Lee Matteo stopped walking. Cheng Ye looked it over, the shop was spacious with bright street-facing windows.
Moreover, the location was in the middle of the entire street, so looking at the hardware alone, it really wasn't bad.
"Do you want to hear the truth or a lie?"
"The truth, of course."
"This shop is terrible, at best it can recover costs. Making money is basically impossible." Cheng Ye spoke bluntly.
Lee Matteo was stunned, then stepped aside to let him into the shop to talk, his tone full of surprise: "Oh? Tell me, how is it terrible?"
"First, let me ask you a question. What kind of people make up the main customer flow at Giant Wall Station?"
Lee Matteo thought for a moment and said confidently, "Definitely two types: newcomers who just arrived in Happiness City and are curious about the inner city, and merchant caravans of various sizes traveling between the buffer zone and the wilderness."
"So you're selling industrial fast-moving consumer goods to do business with them?"
"What else?" Lee Matteo asked back, "Have the caravans buy in bulk, then they take them to satellite cities and refugee camps to sell to ordinary people. I can't directly connect with satellite city consumers, can I?"
"It sounds fine, but you haven't calculated one thing." Cheng Ye shook his head, "After your goods go through the caravan middlemen, they'll definitely mark up prices to make profit. If I open a direct store near a satellite city and sell goods directly to consumers at prices lower than the caravan's quotes, do you think anyone will still buy your goods?"
Lee Matteo's expression changed slightly. He really hadn't considered the impact of "factory direct sales."
Goods that went through second-hand dealers, no matter how the prices were calculated, couldn't compete with getting goods directly from the source.
"And don't forget, you're not the only one who wants to build factories and make fast-moving consumer goods in satellite cities right now." Cheng Ye added another sentence, "Unless you can guarantee your products have particularly good quality or particularly low costs with absolute competitive advantage, you'll easily be squeezed out."
Seeing Lee Matteo fall silent, Cheng Ye continued: "This is the first point. The second point is more critical, the competition here is too intense. Look at this street, there are dozens of shops available for rent alone. When they're all rented out, hundreds of shops crammed together selling everything, customers won't even know which one to browse. Then either the entire street becomes deserted with no visitors, or everyone undercuts each other's prices, and in the end nobody makes money, which further alienates ordinary people."
"I haven't not considered this point." Lee Matteo frowned in thought, "But the buffer zone is only so big. If I rent somewhere else, ordinary people might like to browse there, but caravans won't want to come. This is inherently a contradiction."
"Wrong, that's the old buffer zone, not the future buffer zone."
Cheng Ye shook his head, but didn't promote his own pedestrian street.
Even if it was a pedestrian street, he didn't want to build it in this format, building many shops just to sell things.
To serve as the center of buffer zone construction, it had to have unique competitive advantages.
His understanding of the pedestrian street was simple, a large information hub, supplemented by high-end service facilities. Even if selling things, they had to sell good things that scavengers absolutely couldn't afford, things that would immediately demonstrate the pedestrian street's strength to everyone!
As for places serving ordinary people, that was precisely the important matter he planned to entrust to Big Dragon last night.
To build image and credibility in ordinary people's hearts, you had to start from small details step by step.
Once enough was accumulated, then find a place to establish an outpost. Even if it was in the southern or northern suburbs, there would be no worry about ordinary people not coming to browse.
And this point, Happiness City currently showed no signs of.
"I plan to establish a caravan that only runs transportation routes between satellite cities, taking a completely untraveled new path. Do you want to invest?"