BXBX NOVEL Chapter 59 - 59, Discussing Conditions_l
Her face was filled with terror as she stared at the semi-transparent ghost floating mid-air.
She couldn’t understand.
Other than the standing skeleton, how did a ghost appear?
And it appeared directly in front of her.
“Aunty, you don’t have to be nervous, Xiao Xiao won’t hurt you.” Xiao Xiao broke the silence.
“What are you?”
“My name is Xiao Xiao, my family owns the Fuheng Silver Store.”
Xiao Xiao? Fuheng Silver Store?
What a mess.
“What do you want from me?” the woman continued questioning, carefully inching towards the door.
Xiao Xiao floated around the room, and continued, “Uncle asked me to talk to you.”
“Your uncle? What does he want to talk about?” the woman kept asking.
The situation in front her was weird, but the ghost didn’t seem to want to harm her immediately.
“It is about the man you mentioned, the one with the skeletons.”
So it was true, someone was controlling the skeleton troupe.
“Is your uncle a superpowered man?”
“What is a superpowered man? I don’t know. He is King Yama.”
The woman frowned.
King Yama?
Now a King Yama surfaced.
“What does he want me to talk about?” the woman had backed up to the door, standing there as she asked.
“Hmm, let me think.” Xiao Xiao flew a small circle in the room, then continued, “Uncle said, he wants you to follow him.”
“Follow him? What does he mean?”
“Just be like Xiao Xiao, follow Uncle.”
Damn!
Who would want to be like you?
You obviously are not human anymore.
Other than the ghost, there is also the skeletons. If I followed this King Yama, would I still be alive?
zzzz~!
Just as the woman was about to speak, her walkie-talkie in her pocket beeped.
“Sister Hong, we have a problem, the skeletons are coming, they’re getting closer to us. Let’s go now!”
The woman carefully glanced at the ghost in mid-air, then took out her walkie- talkie and said, “Gather your stuff, prepare to retreat.”
“Alright.”
When the woman finished speaking, she looked back to the ghost girl in mid-air, asking, “What if we don’t want to follow him? What will happen?”
Xiao Xiao thought for a while, “Uncle didn’t say any specifics, I think he might have to kill you all. He killed my grandpa, and my dad.”
Upon hearing these words, the woman’s body shuddered.
Damn-!
This indeed is the real Yama.
“We need to consider this, we’ll get back to you soon,” continued the woman.
“Alright, I’ll go back and tell Uncle first,” Xiao Xiao finished speaking, then went straight through the wall and left.
The woman stood in place for a few seconds, seeing there were no special circumstances, she opened the door and ran out.
On the rooftop, she crouched beside the man who was on guard duty and looked into the distance.
Far away, there was a sea of shiny skeletons wielding various weapons, strolling down the street.
The attacking zombies were chopped down like melons and then became a part of the skeleton batch, standing up.
It was like an army of undead marching through, eerie and ominous.
“Damn it, they must have followed us back, these damn ghost things,” the lookout man cursed.
The woman, however, remained solemn, not saying much.
In the middle of the skeleton troupe.
Xiao Xiao flew back from a distance, and reported the conversation with the woman.
When he heard that the leader on the other side was a woman, he was somewhat surprised.
It wasn’t that women were inferior to men.
But in such circumstances, men with physical advantages were more likely to be in control.
Even just for a small group of survivors.
It was quite surprising.
After listening to the conversation between Xiao Xiao and the woman, Wu Heng decided to check it out himself.
With Xiao Xiao inside his body, everything in the garage workshop appeared in his mind.
The makeshift messy room, dimly lit bulb, walkie-talkie on the table, and not a lot of food.
Even if they assigned someone to go out and search for supplies, resources would be scarce.
If the half bag of rice in the corner was all of their stored food, they wouldn’t be able to hold out for many days.
He had thought before about them having electricity.
The spear in their hands needed to be drilled and polished, which would be hard to accomplish without electrical devices.
They must have a diesel or gasoline generator.
Releasing Xiao Xiao, he said, “Xiao Xiao, take Little Grey with you, ask them for a walkie-talkie.”
“Oh, alright!” Xiao Xiao called out to the back, “Little Grey!”
Whoosh!
Four dogs and a cat rushed over.
“Follow me over,” Xiao Xiao was the first to fly forward, with the five animal skeletons trailing behind.
Atop the garage roof.
Li Yahong, went over the incident in the room again with the group.
When they heard that the controller of the skeleton troop dubbed themselves Yama, and had killed the little ghost’s grandfather and father, everyone looked a few shades paler.
This fear was stronger than facing zombies.
Now it didn’t matter if the other person was a superpowered man or anything else.
What mattered was that they caught his attention.
People whispered plans among themselves, when suddenly someone cried out, “The skeletons are charging over here.”
All of them looked up, staring ahead.
A few animal skeletons were seen running our way.
“Damn, Damn, skeletons are rushing here, we have to run now.”
“What should we do, we probably can’t fight them.”
“If we start now, we have a chance to break out.”
Li Yahong bandaged her injured shoulder and continued, “Let’s go, leave everything else, we’ll get out from the roof.”
“Alright.” A few people said, ready to leave with their essentials.
Just as Li Yahong was about to leave,
A little girl appeared out of the floorboard below, “Auntie, there you are. My uncle wants you to give him a walkie-talkie. He’ll speak to you himself.”
A walkie-talkie?
Li Yahong’s step suddenly stalled as if glued to the ground, she held her walking posture.
She spoke to someone behind her, “Hand me a walkie-talkie.”
One of them unhooked a walkie-talkie and handed it over.
Li Yahong placed the walkie-talkie on the table, “Can you take it?”
“Little Grey!” Xiao Xiao called to the floor below.
A skeleton cat instantaneously jumped up onto the roof.
“Take this.”
The skeleton cat seized the walkie-talkie in its mouth and bounded away, disappearing in a cloud of dust.
In the team trailing the group,
Wu Heng held the walkie-talkie, pressing the communication key, “Can you hear me?”
Through the minor static,
A woman’s voice came through, “Yes, what’s the matter?”
Wu Heng spoke directly: “I can provide you a safe environment to live in, in return, you will need to work for me.”
The other side did not respond immediately.
After some time, there was static again, and the woman’s voice came back on, “Thanks for your kindness, we won’t be staying here for long, we’ll probably be leaving soon.”
Leaving?
Wu Heng glanced at the building in the distance,
Rejecting his offer of protection under these circumstances, it seemed they had already planned their destination.
“Where are you planning to go?” Wu Heng asked.
“To a settlement of our kind, humans.”
Your kind, humans?
Wu Heng frowned. Something about that didn’t seem right.
Before Wu Heng could continue asking, the voice on the other end spoke first, “We mean no harm, we hope to maintain a peaceful relationship with you.”
Wu Heng didn’t respond, thinking to himself.
His original development plan didn’t involve human survivors, but having them join could cover some areas that the skeletons couldn’t handle.
For instance, managing generators, cutting, and welding projects.
Neither he nor the skeletons could handle these tasks.
But from what it seems, the other party has no intention of working for him.
There are only two ways to deal with this now.
One, is to capture them and have them work for him as captives.
The other is to try and cooperate with them, and reach a mutual agreement.
To have them fulfill his requirements in exchange for something else.
The first option is the most efficient and straightforward, but it could leave many loose ends. For example, the survivors might see themselves as being exploited, and constantly plot mutiny.
And if he did it this way, he would be crossing some boundaries.
Even though it’s the end of the world, he didn’t have to resort to harming others to survive.
The second option is to have them work for him in exchange for something.
It isn’t very different from the first, other than offering some benefits which make them feel like they’re worker’s wages.
Actually, there isn’t much of a difference between the two.
After quickly considering all the options, Wu Heng continued: “Since you have your plans, I won’t insist. Before you depart, we could initiate some trades that could provide you with more resources.”
“Phew-!” A sigh of relief came from the walkie-talkie, then the woman asked, “What kind of trade?”
“I’ll exchange food for iron spears, the type you’re using.”
“How’s the exchange?”
“100 of them for a bag of grain.”
“That’s too much, this isn’t fair to us.”
Wu Heng continued: “In this environment, food holds higher value in human settlements. Even when you reach a human settlement, food still remains the most valuable currency.”
This was Wu Heng’s speculation.
The only thing that would drive survivors out scavenging would be a shortage of food.
“That’s too many, and we don’t have enough materials to produce that many spears,” the woman replied.
Wu Heng said, “100 iron spears, you have a generator, you wouldn’t be crafting them by hand, it won’t be that hard. I’ll provide you with the pipes and materials.”
There was another pause on the other end.
This time, she didn’t sound as determined, “One hundred spears – for a bag of rice, five half-kilo bags of sugar, and some antibiotic medication.”
Wu Heng thought for a moment, there was no need for negotiation, he was not short of these.
There wasn’t even anywhere to store it all.
Moreover, their choice between the second or first option didn’t make much difference. They would make iron spears in exchange for his food and materials.
The only difference was in the approach.
“Alright, if the workmanship is good, I’ll give you five cans of meat.”
“That can work, but we only have enough materials to make about 20 spears. We still need steel pipes and electrodes.”
“I will provide those to you in the next few days, you can start with the materials you have.”
“Alright.”
After they hung up, Wu Heng took another look at the auto repair shop in the distance.
Leading his team, they retraced their steps back to the water supply station, scavenging through the nearby shops.
Then, bringing back the dead bodies and scavenged items, they returned to their living quarters.
Only after the skeleton army had retreated did the people on the roof of the auto repair shop finally breathe a sigh of relief.
A slight breeze swept through, everyone shuddered.
Only then did they realize their clothes were soaked with sweat.
“Sister Hong, are we really cooperating with skeletons?” a younger member asked.
“Do you have a better solution? Plus, what he said makes sense, food is precious. Taking more food to the settlement will benefit us.”
Li Yahong clapped her hands and continued, “Alright, fire up the generator, let’s start making the iron spears.”