Chapter 103: Robbed?

For a full half month, the Ironwood Forest black market showed no interest whatsoever in the new neighbor who had suddenly appeared just twenty kilometers to the south. Even as Ye Hai’s camp grew quite substantial, only a handful of people ever appeared outside the camp.

During this time, Ye Hai took the initiative to inquire extensively about Ironwood Forest. He also traded a significant amount of cotton clothing—surplus in his possession—for lumber on the black market. However, these transactions were almost exclusively conducted in a business-to-business manner.

Though the traders Ye Hai sent to the black market observed that the survivors in Ironwood Forest were extremely eager for such scarce winter supplies as cotton clothes, the moment Ye Hai’s cotton clothing entered the black market, it was immediately intercepted wholesale by the Four Great Religious Patriarchs. The survivors dared not engage in any private trades with Ye Hai.

This clearly demonstrated the dominant control the She Sha Sect held over the Ironwood Forest black market. After some investigation, Ye Hai roughly understood the doctrine of the She Sha Sect.

“Sharpen yourself through pain, patiently awaiting the grace of the She Sha God?” Ye Hai scoffed. “Hah! They really know how to play tricks… Using the excuse of self-discipline to brutally exploit their own members… And then casually claiming it’s all ‘for your own good’! Look at that—what a way to save money and effort!”

As a former highly civilized planet, Zombie Star was no stranger to this kind of manipulation, yet no one seemed to see through it.

From Ye Hai’s perspective, for the She Sha Sect’s methods to have grown to such a scale was practically unbelievable.

Joe responded from the side, “Don’t make careless judgments before reading the full report I prepared… Otherwise, I’ll think you don’t respect the work I’ve done recently.”

Ye Hai rolled his eyes and retorted sarcastically, “I’m not disrespecting your recent work… I just never respected what you call your ‘work’! Anyone I send could get this information. Honestly, I think you should be like Mr. Big Lung and teach the kids! That way, if you and Zero have children in the future, you won’t be so clueless.”

Joe sneered, “Only a fool would have a child with that crazy woman! Besides, I don’t have the kind of love Mr. Big Lung does… The whole corpse hunter organization, he’s the only one who actually enjoys keeping pets.”

“Even if those ‘pets’ are downright unlovable!” Ye Hai smiled faintly. He knew well that Mr. Big Lung liked raising all sorts of strange creatures—from zombie dogs to tentacle monsters, all were his pets. No matter what, Mr. Big Lung was the most caring person in the whole organization.

When Ye Hai decided to restart education, Mr. Big Lung voluntarily took on the role of the first principal of the “Corpse Hunter Children’s School” and selected a dozen or so intellectual survivors as substitute teachers.

Before the outbreak, Zombie Star’s average education level was very high. Pulling out a few teachers with higher education to teach a few dozen unruly kids in the camp was almost a waste of talent.

Thus, the first school after the outbreak was established in the makeshift camp of the corpse hunter organization. Bright classrooms and glaring slogans adorned the walls: “Study well and improve every day!” “Why sleep long in life? After death, eternal rest awaits!”

If you thought Ye Hai built this school out of some noble “education is the foundation of a century-long plan” ideal… well, you’ve overestimated this guy’s enlightenment.

The real reason the school appeared was because Ye Hai personally witnessed the terrifying destructive power of these wild kids during camp construction. They nearly blew up the armory once and once completely crippled the cotton clothing production line. Luckily, some survivors skilled in mechanical repair prevented a prolonged shutdown.

If these unruly kids were left unchecked, who knows what disaster they might cause one day.

So after some discussion, they decided that since these kids had boundless energy, they should just send them to school to grind through exercises—anything like the Huanggang handbook or Haidian exam papers, whatever they could get their hands on. No weekends off. Families with kids even got free electricity at night.

With the kids shooting daggers from their eyes, Ye Hai, as honorary principal, even proposed a “fifteen-year compulsory education” policy, which brought both children and parents to tears.

If you think the She Sha Sect could control the survivors of the Ironwood Forest black market with slogans as hollow as those Ye Hai used to manage the kids, Ye Hai didn’t buy it.

Soon, Joe answered Ye Hai’s doubts.

“They say at the heart of the She Sha Sect, there is a place of miracles. Every winter, the four great patriarchs select thousands of young and able-bodied followers to enter that place…”

“And by early spring, about half of them emerge.”

“These survivors gain supreme power and join the patriarchs’ core forces…”

“Their families’ living conditions change overnight—from barely surviving refugees to black market elites with bread every day and beef every week!”

“In your words… one person attains the Way, and even the chickens and dogs ascend!”

“I think this is the main reason the She Sha Sect commands such loyalty.”

Ye Hai was momentarily stunned, puzzled by the “supreme power” Joe mentioned.

“Have you heard how powerful those who emerge from this miraculous place really become?”

Joe sneered, “Apparently, every spring, those blessed by the She Sha God hold a grand hunting event. Some even manage to capture sixth-stage mutants alive.”

“If the information I gathered isn’t embellished…”

“I almost want to kneel and worship the She Sha God myself.”

“To elevate ordinary people to sixth-stage mutants within one winter, with a fifty percent success rate—that’s enough to send chills down your spine. Not even the Sun Ladder Virus can achieve such excellence.”

After Joe’s report, Ye Hai fell silent.

If Joe’s intelligence was true, Ye Hai had to completely reassess the armed forces under the Four Great Patriarchs.

At that moment, Liana approached them with a grave expression.

Seeing her two beloved slackers, Ye Hai smiled faintly and teased, “Our logistics chief, Miss Liana, actually has time to visit us idlers?”

After some time of training, Liana was no longer the timid girl she once was.

She rolled her eyes at Ye Hai—though Joe thought there was a hint of playful teasing in her gaze—but what she said next made both Ye Hai and Joe frown.

“When we inventoried the warehouse this month, nearly a third of the cotton clothes and quilts were missing!”

“Food consumption tripled compared to last month…”

“Worse still, in the heavily guarded armory, two hundred high-energy weapons and fifteen high-energy cannons have vanished without trace…”