Chapter 36: Brown Farm, New Map Location
The construction of an outpost required tools, and it was a large number at that.
For example, tongs and hammers for forging, axes for cutting trees, and saws for breaking down wood. Small tools such as screwdrivers, screws, nails, and wrenches were necessities for construction.
Without the tools, a lot of work was either difficult to carry out, or even if they managed to try, it would be extremely inefficient.
For instance, the plastering scrapes used by players in the outpost to repair walls were all wood substitutes made by Mosquito.
In fact, if they were in the first few years of the Wasteland Era, better versions of those tools could be easily found in hardware stores, department stores, repair shops, and the like.
Thanks to the material technology developed before the war, those things had pretty great quality.
However, two hundred years have passed. Those easy-to-search places had long been raided many times. Resource-rich places such as department stores, supermarkets, and repair shops were where survivors hung out frequently in early years. It was impossible for there to be many things left.
However, nothing was absolute.
Just like how 211 years later, scavengers could still find some material from the wasteland, there would always be some treasures left by careless people.
Those items were usually sold by scavengers to nearby survivor settlements or placed on shelves as rubbish for passing caravans to take their pick.
Chu Guang's idea was simple.
He intended to bring two players while pretending to be a passing caravan and go to the nearby Brown Farm to trade supplies needed by the outpost.
Before leaving, he changed into the casual clothes he picked up.
Chu Guang brought Night Ten and Ample Time southeast, along the tattered path. Without a doubt, he avoided 76th Street.
The distance between the nursing home and Brown Farm was about the same as the distance between the nursing home and Baker Street. The straight-line distance on the map was about three kilometers. The difference was that one was in the south and the other was in the southeast.
As for why he chose Brown Farm, the reason was actually very simple.
Part of it was that no one knew him there, let alone his background. Another was that the road to Brown Farm was a little easier to traverse and there would be relatively fewer ruins to travel through.
But even so, they needed to travel far more than three kilometers on foot.
A group of people stopped from time to time along the way, passing the impassable ruins. During this period, not only did they have to beware of mutants, but they also had to be careful of being targeted by malicious survivors.
Finally, before nine o'clock in the morning, the group arrived near their destination.
At the end of the dirt road, there was a massive iron gate, and on both sides of the gate was a wall made of concrete stones.
The wall was not high, which was less than three meters tall. A row of aluminum alloy canopies and steel bars were inserted on them, seemingly reinforced using industrial waste.
The dense bullet holes on the wall and a gallow where a skeleton hung outside showed that the people inside weren’t easy to deal with.
It could be seen from the road signs on the side of the highway that this place was once a rural farmhouse before the war.
There were indications that in the early days of the collapse of order, the survivors who escaped from the city occupied this area. It was totally unlike Baker Street.
The owner of Brown Farm, Mr. Brown, was a real landlord, and there were only a few free people there.
There were only two identities for people living in Brown Farm. They were either Mr. Brown’s executioners or slaves.
However, Chu Guang was not too worried that the other party would have malicious intentions. The forces that already established themselves rarely actively attacked outsiders. After all, those who wore shoes had to weigh whether it was worth bullying those who were barefoot.
Walking to a position about ten meters away from the iron gate and stopping, Chu Guang raised his right fist and signaled to the two players behind him to stop.
At the same time the group stopped, a black barrel of a gun protruded from between the aluminum alloy plates on the fence.
Showing their weapon meant that there was no hostility.
It seemed his contact was quite successful, and Chu Guang heaved a sigh of relief in his heart.
The man standing on the wall shouted aggressively, "Hey, hey, stop! Who are you? What are you doing here?!"
"We don’t have malicious intentions. We’re here to trade!" Chu Guang signaled to the players behind him not to be nervous. Chu Guang looked at the man in front of him without changing his expression.
"Trade?" The man quickly glanced at the trolley behind the three of them, but he did not remove his index finger from the trigger. He still stared at Chu Guang with suspicious eyes. "I haven't seen you before. Where did you come from?"
Chu Guang used the excuses he had prepared in advance. "From the wilderness, we migrated to this area recently."
The man questioned, "Nomads?"
"It depends on how you understand it." Chu Guang shrugged and gave him an ambiguous answer.
Nomads were not uncommon in the wasteland, especially in the suburbs. It could even be said that they were everywhere.
Those people usually did not enter the city, and mainly wandered in the wilderness.
They didn’t farm and they lived on grazing and hunting, chasing mutants and herds, migrating from one area to another. They would occasionally do business like merchants, using the prey and garbage they collected to exchange for daily necessities.
Of course, they occasionally engaged in raids.
There were no good or bad people in the absolute sense on the wasteland. Under certain circumstances and conditions, anyone could become a marauder.
The man did not immediately trust the three people in front of the gate, but their guns made him afraid to act rashly. It was especially so since he didn’t know how many people were in their tribe.
"What do you have? And what do you want to trade?"
Chu Guang replied immediately, "50 kilograms of dried meat, 20 kilograms of smoked fish, and 10 sets of mutated hyena fur. We need hardware tools and grain. I promise that we will leave when the transaction is completed.”
Finally, the man believed they were there to make a trade. He slowly withdrew the muzzle that was sticking out of the fence, and said in a warning tone, "Wait here, I'll go back and ask for instructions."
"Okay." After speaking, Chu Guang stood quietly and waited.
The two players behind him started to whisper among each other.
"This survivor's stronghold is pretty cool... I'm talking about the architectural style here, which has that kind of post-apocalyptic taste."
"Indeed, it seems that there is a lot of content in this update."
"Is that a new NPC?"
"It should be, but I don't know what he is talking about."
"Yeah, me too, I only know that his expression looks pretty awkward..."
"I think so too."
No one liked a gun to be pointed at them.
Chu Guang didn't like it either.
But after all, he couldn't be resurrected, so he still had to restrain himself when he was outside.
Without waiting too long, the iron gate in front opened.
A wooden trailer was dragged outside by a shackled slave under the watch of two gunmen.
The trailer was stacked with sacks full of grain and tools stuffed in wooden boxes.
The man who had previously shouted to Chu Guang on the fence also walked out of the gate, staring at him with piercing eyes.
"Liu Zhengyue."
"Chu Guang."
The two shook hands briefly and quickly let go.
Looking at Chu Guang, Liu Zhengyue continued, "I want to know what kind of meat you’re carrying."
"The dried meat is made from mutant hyenas, and the smoked fish are catfish and crucian. You can check them if you like." Chu Guang said calmly.
He knew what the man was worried about.
Liu Zhengyue didn't waste any time talking. He stepped forward, reached out, and lifted the plastic sheet on the trolley while checking closely.
Especially those smoked meats. They were the focus of the inspection.
He took a small knife from his waist, randomly picked a good-quality jerky, cut off a thumb-sized section, and threw it to the slave pulling the trailer.
"Eat."
The slave did not dare to resist, and hurriedly stuffed the dried meat into his mouth.
"It's the meat of a mutated hyena. It has no salt and is air-dried."
It was normal that there was no salty taste. After all, they were inland. Liu Zhengyue didn't say much, and waited quietly with his eyes closed slightly.
Almost ten minutes passed. Seeing that the slave didn’t experience anything unusual, his frowned eyebrows smoothed out slightly, and he turned his head to look at Chu Guang and said with several gestures.
"For 1 kilogram of dried meat and smoked fish, we’ll exchange 2 kilograms of green wheat or 2 kilograms of shofar potatoes. As for trading the fur for tools… One set of fur for each piece.”
Shofar potatoes were a root crop. It tasted a bit like potatoes and shaped like goat horns.
Because it was rich in carbohydrates and easy to store and grow, like green wheat, shofar potatoes were the main food for survivors in this area.
When he was on Baker Street before, Chu Guang once saw survivors planting stuff like that at their doors. For example, the Yu Family who stayed opposite him.
Chu Guang had also tried to plant it before, but he quickly gave up.
It was not that he couldn't grow it, but he had to go out to pick up waste every day. Because he had no one watching it, someone dug all his shofar potatoes before he could harvest them.
It might be a good idea to buy some shofar potatoes and plant them at the outpost.
"1 kilogram of meat can be exchanged for at least 5 kilograms of grain and half a kilogram of green wheat and shofar potatoes. In addition, these fur are of great quality. One of them should be worth three tools,” Chu Guang shook his head and said, "I’ve been to Baker Street, so don’t assume that I don’t know the market price for those items."
The reason why he gave this price was that he believed that the other party would bargain further.
However, what Chu Guang did not expect was that after listening to his offer, Liu Zhengyue did not bargain, but instead gave him a look of shock.
Did I ask for too much?
Just as Chu Guang was thinking about whether to give in, the man in front of him finally recovered. He looked at Chu Guang with a strange expression and slowly nodded his head.
"...Deal."
Don't these people bargain when trading with other people?
Chu Guang was taken aback for a moment, but his previous experience in sales made him immediately understand what was going on, and he suddenly cursed in his heart.
Mother fucker! That fucking mayor, he even messes around with food prices!
The two players next to him were dumbfounded. After all, they couldn't understand the language, so they couldn't understand the communication between the administrator and the indigenous people in front of them.
But when they saw the other party nodding…
It seemed like the agreement had been made.
The only thing they were confused about was the look of annoyance on the Administrator’s face.
50 kilograms of dried meat and 20 kilograms of smoked fish were exchanged for 350 kilograms of green wheat and potatoes that were stuffed in more than a dozen sacks.
The remaining ten pieces of fur were replaced with thirty tools.
When Chu Guang chose tools, he chose those with better quality, preferably alloy products produced before the war.
They may be old antiques from two hundred years ago, in terms of quality, they were better than the imitations made of iron or pure steel by the aboriginal people on the wasteland.
Liu Zhengyue didn't say anything, and didn't care about Chu Guang’s actions.
Obviously, there were still many more of those tools on the farm, and most likely, they were sold by scavengers picking up rubbish nearby or left over by the passing merchant.
After the grains were weighed, they were all loaded on the trolley.
Liu Zhengyue and Chu Guang shook hands again, the faces strained from distrust finally revealed a stiff smile.
"You’re welcome to stop by again."
"I will."
"We still have some varieties of tobacco leaves here, do you need them?" Liu Zhengyue took out a handful of dried tobacco leaves from his pocket and showed them to Chu Guang, "It can relieve fatigue and add flavor when wrapped in food. It is very easy to use."
Chu Guang mumbled, "Next time then, we have nothing more to trade."
If possible, Chu Guang originally wanted to buy one or two slaves, but as he said, he had nothing left to trade.
So maybe next time?
"No, no, my friend, this bag is free, it is a gift to you."
Liu Zhengyue stuffed it into Chu Guang's hand with a smile. This time, his smile was much more natural than before.
Hearing that it was a gift, Chu Guang stopped rejecting it and accepted it decisively.
Although he didn't smoke, he should still be able to exchange it for one or two chips.
Keeping it? Nonsense! There was no need for it.
The trade was finally completed.
Chu Guang instructed Ample Time to drag the trolley onto the road, shook hands with Liu Zhengyue for the final time, and then turned around. Night Ten followed soon after.
On the way back, Chu Guang was in a very good mood.
This trade could be described as a bumper harvest.
The two players who came with him were equally in a good mood, and they were discussing excitedly at the moment.
"This is Brown Farm?"
Ample Time gasped, "Mhm, I think so... If there is no accident, what we tested today should be a trading system and a new neutral force base! But it's just my guess. In the next update, we will probably get a trading mission or something like that. Remember what the unreliable game designer told us before playing? The economic system of Wasteland Online will be designed according to a completely real demand and supply system, and the exchange of materials with other survivors’ gathering places is essential! I guess this part of the content will be released in the next update!"
Night Ten cheered happily, "Awesome! I can’t wait for the open beta after hearing what you said!"
"I think it is still too early for an open beta. This game company's ambitions are not small, and there is still a lot of content to be tested. However, I feel that there is no need to wait until the open beta. So far, the game content is already very rich!" Ample Time concluded.
Night Ten couldn’t help but continue, "But then again... Are you sure that Brother Light wouldn’t be able to hear us saying bad stuff about him here?"
Ample Time gasped.
"Shit… You’re right... Brother Light, I was wrong, please forgive me!"
"..." Chu Guang didn’t know what else to say.
Forget it. I’ll just pretend that I didn’t hear it.
As a conscientious NPC, Chu Guang did not participate in the discussion between the two players. His eyes were naturally looking around, seeming to wander carelessly, but in fact, he was observing the shadows where danger might lurk.
It was around 10:00 in the morning, which was a relatively safe time, but he still couldn’t lower his guard.
In the wasteland, anything could happen!
"Did you hear that sound?" Night Ten, who was tugged by Ample Time, suddenly stopped. He frowned and looked around.
"Sound?"
Ample Time was taken aback for a moment. Although he heard nothing, he still stopped.
Chu Guang frowned, glanced at his surroundings vigilantly, and unconsciously released the safety on the gun.
He heard the noises too… It was the breathing of mutants!
Chu Guang raised his head abruptly and looked towards the vines on the building in front of them. He saw a monster with an abominable face crawling on the wall. The gray-black complexion almost blended with the wall. Its scarlet eyes locked on everyone.
It had no legs. Instead, it had four slender and strong arms, with dry fingers-like hooks, firmly fixing its body to the concrete structure.
The muscles in its chest were undulating gently as it chewed on a human leg bone at the corner of its bloody mouth. Its hissing breath exuded desire for flesh and blood.
Chu Guang's pupils shrank, almost reducing to a mere pinpoint.
That’s a Creeper!
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