The First Order

None of the residents in the stronghold seemed to have heard the news that the Experimentals had disappeared from Stronghold 113. Everyone behaved no differently on the streets from before, as they continued heading out to work, did grocery shopping, or attended plaza dancing as they used to do.

At night, Ren Xiaosu delegated tasks to Wang Fugui and the others. An unexpected incident had happened this morning. A black off-road vehicle stopped outside the shop’ entrance, and out came two young men who said to Ren Xiaosu, “We’re here to take away the goods. Yang Xiaojin said she already mentioned it to you.”

The goods these two people were referring to was probably Dong Funan. Ren Xiaosu did not suspect them since only Yang Xiaojin and he knew of this matter.

Curious, he asked, “Are you two Yang Xiaojin and Luo Xinyu’s colleagues?”

The two young men gave each other a look and laughed. “We’re not qualified. There’s no need to ask further questions.”

What was with that? Ren Xiaosu was starting to wonder about the structure of Yang Xiaojin’s organization and how many ranks there were.

But it wasn’t time yet. The palace had still not informed Ren Xiaosu about the completion of the quest. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was still about half an hour before the full seven days would be up.

Ren Xiaosu looked at the two young men and said, “You can’t bring her away yet. You’ll have to wait a while.”

Suspicious, the two young men asked, “Why do we have to wait? Is there still something important you need to do?”

Ren Xiaosu thought to himself, ‘It’s not like I can tell you two that my quest hasn’t been completed yet.’ He gave it some thought before saying, “Yes, there’s still something important that I need to do. You two can go and wait in the backyard while I speak to her about something.”

Less than five minutes later, the two youths saw Dong Funan whose swelling had already started going down sitting on a small bench obediently in the backyard. Meanwhile, Ren Xiaosu was speaking in a serious tone in front of her, “I believe you’ve recognized your mistakes after your hard labor reform? So, I’m going to hand you over to someone else today, so I hope you can be a good person when you get there. Be someone who contributes to society, be a supernatural being who contributes to society…”

His talk with her went on for over half an hour.

The two young men from the Saboteurs were shocked. How the heck was this a while?!

They had thought Ren Xiaosu was only going to say a few words, but little did they expect he could go on for so long.

What atrocities had this Dong Funan committed that she would need such a lengthy ideological reeducation?

When Ren Xiaosu noticed Dong Funan gradually breaking down, he finally heard the palace say, “Side quest complete. A new product has been unlocked for purchase in the vending machine!”

Ren Xiaosu heaved a sigh of relief. He managed to delay the handover of Dong Funan until now. When Dong Funan saw that Ren Xiaosu had finally stopped talking, she nearly burst into tears. Previously, she still had some disbelief when Chen Wudi mentioned that his master was Ren Xiaosu. But to her surprise, Ren Xiaosu truly turned out to be as naggy as Tripitaka! ¹

Ren Xiaosu happily said to the two young men, “Alright, you can take her away now.”

The two young men looked at the anticipatory expression on Dong Funan’s face and thought they might not even have to carry out any further reforms on her. They felt that as long as they could get Dong Funan away from Ren Xiaosu, she would be more than touched by their actions.

Ren Xiaosu finally had the opportunity to have a look at the vending machine inside his mind palace after Dong Funan was taken away. He saw a new transparent window slot had appeared in it.

Ren Xiaosu looked at the item inside the window and felt a little confused. It looked like a set of poker cards? ‘After going through so much trouble to complete the quest, what is the meaning of giving me a set of poker cards? Do you intend to have me play “Fight the Landlord” ¹ with Wang Fugui, Yan Liuyuan, and the others?’

As poker was also a form of entertainment in this era, Ren Xiaosu was a little confused when he saw the new vending machine item had turned out to be a deck of cards. Though there was a title written at the bottom of the slot: Explosive Poker!

Ren Xiaosu gave it a try by slotting in a gratitude token. As a result, the vending machine dispensed a “three of clubs” card.

Wait, but there was nothing special about this card when he held it in his hand. ‘What’s so explosive about this? And people sell cards by the deck, yet you’re fucking selling one card per gratitude token?!’

Ren Xiaosu did not believe it and proceeded to put another gratitude token in. This time, out came a “five of diamonds.” He looked up and shot that vending machine a look of surprise.

Having thought of something, apparently, he quickly slotted in over a dozen gratitude tokens in a row. Even more cards were dispensed.

Ren Xiaosu had a look at the words “Explosive Poker” written above the vending machine slot, then had a look at the four “threes” he had just gotten his hands on and sank deep into thought.

…

The next day, Ren Xiaosu and Wang Fugui headed out separately for their tasks. There were two gates in Stronghold 109, one in the east, the other in the west.

Stronghold 113 was located northeast of Stronghold 109. If the Experimentals were to arrive here, they would definitely reach the west gate first. Ren Xiaosu had Wang Fugui rent a courtyard house at the east gate. They would move over there tonight.

This way, if anything happened, they could at least escape easily from the east gate.

Now, all there was left to do was to purchase supplies!

Knowing in advance that a disaster was coming, Ren Xiaosu definitely wouldn’t be unprepared for an escape like the previous time. This time, they could not leave anything out as they prepared supplies for their journey.

But before that, what they needed to prepare most of all was… cash.

In fact, nobody had much money on them. The black medicine had not been sold for long, and there was also no time to trade in Old Wang’s anti-inflammatory medicine for cash either. Therefore, the most urgent task that Ren Xiaosu had to get done was to sell the gold for money!

He had been worried he would reveal his identity and get investigated by the Public Order Division if he went to cash in the gold. So he kept delaying it.

After all, what would he do if Luo Lan started suspecting him?

But Ren Xiaosu did not have to worry anymore. Since he was going to leave this stronghold, what was there to worry about?

Besides, Xu Xianchu had shown up at this stronghold as well. So wouldn’t it be expected that he would trade the gold for cash in Stronghold 109?

In the span of a day, Ren Xiaosu wore a baseball cap and went around visiting over a dozen gold shops. The gold he sold at each shop was in the form of a gold bar that weighed about a 100 grams. Based on the gold prices in the stronghold, that would amount to roughly 40,000 yuan.

One gold bar weighing about a 100 grams was not exactly much to the gold shops and shouldn’t attract much attention either.

But such unbranded gold bars would definitely stand out. Who would have the free time to smelt gold to make them into gold bars? Most people who came to sell their gold would just sell it in its jewelry form.

But what other choice did Ren Xiaosu have? If he didn’t smelt the gold into gold bars, the oxidized jewelry would be even more eye-catching than this.

So when he left the shops, some of the gold shop owners immediately reported him to the Public Order Division. When the last gold shop owner that Ren Xiaosu visited saw the gold bars, he got a little hesitant. “You’re… Xu Xianchu?!”

Ren Xiaosu acted shocked. “How did you know!” Then he turned around and ran out of the gold shop, looking disconcerted and flustered.