Armor-Piercing Munition: Face Me, Carbon-Based Monster!
Chapter 125 - 36 Collecting Protection Fees

Chapter 125: Chapter 36 Collecting Protection Fees

The straight-line distance from Yellow Stone to Jinling is actually only 400 kilometers.

Even considering detours for traveling as much as possible on paved roads, the total route length would not exceed 800 kilometers.

The fuel carried by Chen Jian’s 8-man team is enough for the two vehicles to travel 1600 kilometers, with a high surplus of fuel, so he does not plan to strictly follow a direct route.

He intends to take an S-shaped route to pass through all known settlements, connecting them all.

On one hand, it’s to explore the map as much as possible, and on the other, it’s to start the operation of a simple trade route during the journey, constantly collecting materials needed by Yellow Stone City, to bring them all back in one go on the return trip.

Therefore, they did not choose the fastest water route but instead made the first stop at Caohe Town, 35 kilometers from Yellow Stone City.

According to the information previously learned from Zhao He in Wuxue Town, although Caohe Town is small, it is rich in a scarce resource and its level of prosperity is not much lower than that of Wuxue Town.

And this resource is plastic.

They would bundle up the plastic into rafts, transport them along Ji River to Wuxue Town, and then through the woods north of Wuxue Town, carry the required materials back to Caohe by manpower.

This back-and-forth trade often brought them a return that was not particularly lucrative but absolutely worthwhile, supporting the livelihood of over 300 residents living there.

In theory, their days should have been relatively comfortable.

But the actual situation Chen Jian saw was not like this.

A large number of plastic rafts were piled up in the river, people were numb and working on the rafts, but not a single raft left the river.

Chen Jian could see clear signs of hunger on the faces of the residents here; everyone was emaciated, and even some toddlers had slight swelling in their lower limbs.

This is a sign of food scarcity.

And the situation of food shortage should have persisted for a long time.

When they saw Chen Jian’s strange team approaching, everyone reflexively stood up.

Their eyes were full of curiosity, mixed with some hope, but more so with fear.

Chen Jian calmly parked the vehicle at the edge and sent Zeng Yi into the town to communicate, while he stayed with Shen Yue and the others to set up a simple sentry post.

Observing the surroundings, Shen Yue spoke:

"The situation in this Caohe Town is a bit abnormal... How could they be starving like this?"

"Similarly being towns by the water, Yellow Stone City’s situation is much better than theirs, right?"

"If it weren’t for the Mechanical God Sect consuming a lot of resources attempting to tame monsters, the people of Yellow Stone City could entirely live off fishery resources."

"The natural conditions here are not much different from Yellow Stone City, yet it seems like... they can only rely on plastic trade for a living?"

"Path dependency to this extent? It’s not possible, right?"

"It shouldn’t be just simple path dependency."

Chen Jian shook his head, replying:

"The ecology of the entire Ji River has almost been completely destroyed, get close and smell it, it stinks."

"The water flow of this river isn’t strong to begin with, its self-cleaning ability is limited, and the residents have been dumping a lot of garbage into the river and using river water to sift out the plastic they excavated."

"Who knows how many toxic and harmful substances have settled in the river, there probably haven’t been fish in this river for a long time."

"Indeed."

Shen Yue, deep in thought, nodded and then said:

"Should introduce some scavengers, those things eat anything."

"...You’re quite the King Yan, scavengers might survive, but would you eat what’s left?"

"When starving, what can’t be eaten?"

Shen Yue retorted:

"Didn’t you ever eat such things during training?"

"...Don’t mention it, I feel like throwing up."

Chen Jian waved his hand, and Lei Jie on the side replied:

"Water resource pollution shouldn’t be the main reason, after all, this isn’t a matter of a day or two."

"I think the reason they’ve become like this is still related to Huadu."

"The monsters trained near Wushan Lake in Huadu blocked their land trade routes, so even if plastic could be transported to Wuxue Town, it would be difficult to bring back the resources they need."

"Plus, as Zeng Yi mentioned before, Wuxue Town is often harassed by Water Ghosts, so it can be imagined that the nearby Yangtze River section is also occupied by Water Ghosts."

"With both routes difficult to pass through, it’s no wonder there’s so much plastic piled up that can’t be transported out."

"Luckily, both obstacles have now been removed, otherwise, in two more months, people here might have starved to death."

"Indeed."

Chen Jian sighed:

"Humans on the wasteland are really fragile... Just a barely Level 4 monster, plus some Water Ghosts with little combat power, nearly wiped out a town."

"One can only imagine how difficult life was facing these monsters before humanity truly gathered together."

"You’re only realizing this today?"

As soon as Chen Jian finished his words, Ji Xing, standing beside him, spoke up.

As her words fell, Xie Liu gave her a disapproving glare, while Ji Xing fearlessly glared back, then continued to say:

"On the wasteland, the weaker you are, the harder life is, and the stronger you are, the more resources you can seize."

"You indeed cleared this section of Water Ghosts and eliminated that monster, but don’t think that this means you’ve saved the 300 people here."