Wasteland Hideout: Upgrading from the Sewers

Chapter 12: Trading cigarettes, turmoil, and building the door to the hideout

【Sea Cube Shelter: Holy crap, which big shot listed so many cigarettes? @Cigar Shelter, is it you, boss? Why are they trading for supplies? Can I use survival points instead?】

【Burning Chariot Shelter: Is Cigar boss releasing cigarettes early? Isn't there still two days left? I've been craving nicotine for ages, let me go check it out.】

【Angry Whale Shelter: I went to look, all the cigarettes listed this time are premium quality, not Cigar boss's hand-rolled ones. Wasn't there a bucket for sale in Taotao Hole just now? Why was it taken down? Brother, I'll pay a high price for it!】

【Grizzly Shelter: Premium cigarettes can usually only be found in cities, right? Could it be some big shot from the city area making a move? That's terrifying. I happen to have an abandoned service station here, I'll go dismantle the hinges...】

.....

For a moment, the entire chat channel was buzzing with excitement over the sudden cigarette listings. In wasteland survival, cigarettes were the best way to relieve anxiety and unease, greatly increasing emotional stability.

But because they were extremely scarce, aside from Cigar Shelter periodically listing terrible-tasting hand-rolled cigarettes, others who found cigarettes would usually hoard them for personal use.

They rarely circulated on the market.

In a certain mountainous area, inside Cigar Shelter.

A cigarette as thick as a pinky finger was lit and placed into a man's mouth.Slowly exhaled smoke gradually enveloped his face as he calmly watched the flood of messages in the chat channel, a trace of disdain flashing in his eyes.

"Premium cigarettes? Pfft... probably some lucky guy dug up a few cigarettes from some forgotten corner and couldn't wait to trade them for supplies." His gaze turned toward the outside of the shelter, revealing a contemptuous smile.

"As long as this patch of wild tobacco doesn't have problems, tobacco is my exclusive resource. Cities? If cities were so easy to survive in, all those top-ranked guys wouldn't have disappeared one by one after getting overconfident."

"They're all fools. No matter how abundant city resources are, you need to be alive to use them. In the end, wasteland survival comes down to resources, especially monopolized renewable resources. As long as you have these, there will naturally be a steady stream of supplies for you to choose from."

As a former tobacco company executive, Yan Juan had discovered this patch of wild tobacco not long after entering the wasteland and established his shelter here.

His choice had proven extremely correct. After simply sun-drying, shredding, and rolling those wild tobacco leaves,

and leveraging Taotao Hole's anonymous trading convenience, he successfully obtained his first bucket of gold under the watchful eyes of high-ranking players, thus beginning his snowball-like development.

Even after people suspected he was the tobacco trader, he survived rounds of player confrontations and plundering, with his shelter ranking now reaching position 1978.

Therefore, he paid no attention to this cigarette-selling player. It wasn't like no one had sold premium cigarettes before - at most ten or twenty sticks, completely insignificant.

Still, he maintained a cautious attitude and opened the Taotao Hole page to search for cigarettes.

But the moment the search results appeared, Yan Juan's pupils contracted sharply, the cigarette dangling from his lips fell to the ground, and a flash of killing intent appeared in his eyes.

As far as he could see, the entire screen was filled with cigarette trading options - some offering 3 cigarettes for PVC pipes, others just one cigarette for metal hinges. Fifteen trading options in total, and as soon as some trades completed, new trading items would immediately appear.

In just a short time, about fifty or sixty cigarettes had already been traded, and the trading was still ongoing, far exceeding his previous expectations.

The amount of hand-rolled cigarettes Yan Juan traded every half month was only about 200 sticks, and that was already his limit.

Although this wild tobacco grew much faster than the tobacco he knew from his previous life, harvesting too much at once would still affect its growth.

On the trading page, cigarette transactions proceeded rapidly. Before long, more than half of the completed trades had been processed. Seventy or eighty cigarettes among tens of thousands of players - too many wolves, too little meat.

In the end, only five or six trades remained incomplete.

Yan Juan looked at the trading interface, snorted coldly, and closed it, but his mind was racing.

Although he didn't know who was trading the cigarettes, anyone who could produce this many cigarettes and was collecting industrial and daily supplies was probably a player who started in a city area.

Only city area players would need so many industrial and daily items for shelter construction.

He reopened the chat channel, where people were still guessing who this person might be.

One chat message caught Yan Juan's attention, his eyes flashing with thought and cold intensity.

【Moss Cottage Shelter: Do you think it might be that newcomer from this afternoon? After all, he jumped so high in rankings all at once, he must have scavenged a lot of supplies! @Yu Yuan Shelter, is it you!】

Yu Yuan also saw this chat message, a sharp light flashing in his eyes.

This guy really has a nose like a bloodhound, actually making that connection. Combined with the recent warning he'd received that Moss Cottage Shelter specialized in scamming newcomers,

plus this obviously inflammatory and provocative statement...

"He's targeting me!"

He opened the Shelter Event Memorandum and, after thinking for a few seconds, began recording.

--3. Wasteland Day One: Moss Cottage Shelter appears hostile with suspected attempts to manipulate public opinion, spy, and provoke incidents. Requires continued observation.

Before this memo entry, there were already two completed memo records.

--1. Wasteland Day One: When evacuating from Wutong Building, was ambushed. Although negotiated successfully to leave, was forced to surrender some supplies. Target extremely calm, cautious, decisive, eyes full of aggression but not blindly confident, similar to me!

This person extremely dangerous. If not necessary, avoid conflict. If opportunity arises, must eliminate with one strike.

Speculation: Suspected to have woman or child as companion.

--2. Wasteland Day One: Confirmed 'Cigar' Shelter is high-ranking player controlling tobacco resources.

After finishing the shelter memo, he checked the chat channel again. Finding no useful information, he closed it.

Under Moss Cottage Shelter's guidance, many people indeed @ him, asking if he was the one selling cigarettes.

But why would he reply? It's not like sending chat messages was free.

He retrieved all the traded supplies from Taotao Hole.

Opening the Facility Management Log, he began constructing shelter facilities.

【Security - Shabby Door】

Construction Materials: Wood ×10 units, Screwdriver ×1, Screws ×15, Hinges ×2

Construction Requirement: Shelter

Construction Time: 10 minutes

Construction conditions met. Begin construction?

--【Yes】

As Yu Yuan confirmed his choice, wood, screwdriver, screws, and hinges disappeared from the supply pile. The shelter entrance was once again enveloped in a green light screen, space becoming distorted as if time had accelerated countless times.

Ten minutes later, when the light screen disappeared...