The Great Merchant in the Cataclysm

Chapter 118: Leaving Secretly

Zhang Mu felt that ever since the Obsidian Beetle broke out of its cocoon, he was out of favor. As it became smaller and more exquisite, it got cuter and Yuan Rui kept playing with it every day and ignored Zhang Mu. Also, Zhang Mu only ate her big pot of rice at the end of his meal so she was a little unhappy too. Hence, on the second day, Zhang Mu immediately got the notice to make his own barbecue to satisfy his hunger.

Whether I eat it or not is one thing, but whether you do it or not is another.

Zhang Mu spent another day in Luoyang as he needed to exchange the food supplies with Wang Liang as well as other survival bases. Wang Liang was still doing okay. Although he had a lot of injured men, he had the weapons that Zhang Mu provided for him so he could still subdue a group of more than a thousand walking dead.

Within this short period of time, he had cleared a whole piece of the area and had almost ten thousand crystals in his hand. He kept a thousand for himself and exchanged the rest with Zhang Mu for food supplies and weapons.

Wang Liang had passed the era where he lacked food supplies so he was actually not very interested in the food. However, Zhang Mu didn’t sell water on its own so he could only buy some food and water together.

He placed most of his attention on the special equipment and bought 100 sets of it. He took mostly on spears and double-handed shields.

As for the other survival bases, they needed the food supplies desperately so they exchanged almost all of their crystals for food. As for the weapons, the nine survival bases bought as much as Wang Liang combined. Every survival base got ten sets of special equipment on average.

By right, Zhang Mu didn’t destroy the distribution of the power for the bases in Luoyang city. Wang Liang had lost a lot of men in the battle against the North city and besides that, the special equipment was only useful against those stiff and brainless walking dead. It had no use against mutated animals that just unlocked their intelligence as well as the powers of other survival bases.

Hence, everything still depended on Wang Liang. Zhang Mu couldn’t give him much help. He could give the resources that normal humans needed but for the ones that would benefit an evolver, he would keep it himself.

Of course, this situation was within Zhang Mu’s expectation. If Wang Liang was still not able to have a steady supply of food after clearing so many shops in this area, it just meant that he was really unlucky. The shops he cleared must be fashion and daily necessities shops. These things were useless in this era.

That was why he used most of his crystals to buy special weapons. However, from the looks of it, the era merchant’s shop in Luoyang city would not be able to take in so many crystals. Zhang Mu placed his bets on the next city he was going to which had an era merchants shop too.

He had taken close to a hundred ton of food and 200 units of special equipment. That meant he had 25000 crystals on his hand. He gained 25% profit in one day. That was quite scary.

The craziest thing was, Zhang Mu still had 800 units of special equipment. Combining it with the additional 5000 crystals, the rest was his gross profit.

Zhang Mu had to make sure that he got a portion of each city’s primary requirements before the era sub-merchants from that city appeared. Hence, he needed to grasp every minute.

These ten survival bases were quite far away from each other so Zhang Mu had to run around the entire Luoyang city to deliver these goods to them. Some survival bases were still not familiar with him like how Wang Liang was and they had to count the goods slowly. Although they didn’t know what was the use of these crystals now, they knew that if Zhang Mu could use such important things like food and weapons to exchange it, it had a certain value. The price was decided by Zhang Mu but they still had to count the goods carefully. A ton of food might be able to support their base for one or two days so it was really important to them.

Even though they had the support from Zhang Mu’s special equipment and could start targeting larger groups of walking dead, no one knew if a stronger monster would appear and prevent them from going out to search for supplies. During that time, Zhang Mu’s 10 tons of food would be their food reserve that might save their life.

Zhang Mu had his own principals as a merchant. He knew that checking the stock was a normal request so he could only patiently wait for them to count the goods and leave with a smile after they had confirmed the stock.

One day past by really quickly. The sky was almost dark but Zhang Mu couldn’t wait anymore. He told Wang Liang that he was going out and then pulled the mutated wolfdog and Obsidian Beetle along. He brought Yuan Rui and they left Luoyang city before the sky got dark. They didn’t disturb anyone and the guards only saw two shadows flying past them. However, they got an order from Wang Liang to shut their mouth so they didn’t spread the news.

Wang Liang tried to persuade Zhang Mu to leave in the morning because a human was too weak at night. He had received a bloody punishment due to this before. Zhang Mu followed this principle last time but the situation was different now. He had his own considerations.

The Obsidian Beetle was a level 2 mutated beast now. As long as it was willing to, it could release a pressure that would force all the mutated beast in the area to retreat. This had nothing to do with the quantity. It was the strict hierarchy system among the mutated animals. Normally, they would not attack a mutated beast that had a higher level than them unless the higher level mutated beast overstepped upon their benefits or they met while they were hunting for food.

Last time, Zhang Mu didn’t dare to walk in the dark even if he had the Obsidian Beetle and the mutated wolfdog beside him. No matter how strong they were, their aura was the same as a level 1 mutated beast. They could not put any pressure on other animals.

If they attracted a few hundred level one mutated beast, Zhang Mu would not be able to subdue them even at his state now. If there was a chance to escape, Zhang Mu would feel that he was really lucky,

Zhang Mu was not trying now. He did this based on the experiences by the evolvers who had the ability to tame mutated animals.

Hence, similar to his expectation, he was able to run along the road and didn’t meet any mutated animals along the way. Those animals that did appear would just look at them from afar. In order to hasten the pace, Zhang Mu didn’t ride on the mutated wolfdog’s back. He asked the Obsidian Beetle to pull Yuan Rui while he and the wolfdog used their fastest speed to catch up with the beetle. The Obsidian Beetle was carrying a person and slowing down a little but they could only just manage to catch up with him.

Just like this, they reached a small village just as the sky turned totally dark.