Chapter 42: Battery

With Xu Lie acting as their guide, Chen Jian and his team immersed themselves in the festivities, adopting the local customs. Their purpose, of course, was not to revel, but to use this large-scale event as a window to deepen their understanding of Hanshui City and the societal conditions of humankind in this post-apocalyptic era.

He had witnessed many celebrations. To be fair, this celebration held within a post-apocalyptic human settlement was not vastly different from others he had seen.

Cheering crowds, illuminated lanterns, unprecedentedly bustling trade, all kinds of entertainment activities...

If there was any real difference, it lay primarily in the content.

There were no games like popping balloons or tossing rings here. Instead, there were wild boars corralled by fences on the spacious ground. As long as you paid two catties of rice or a single bullet, you could step into the enclosure and try your hand.

The prize for catching a pig wasn't the animal itself, but a double refund of the entry fee from the proprietor.

After watching from the sidelines for a few minutes, Chen Jian noticed that the payout rate of this game was actually quite high.

On average, out of every two or three people, one would manage to pin the pig down within the time limit and claim their reward.

The proprietor wouldn't lose money, but he wouldn't make much either, showing that even the difficulty level had been meticulously calibrated.

Xu Lie, standing beside him, was itching to try and turned his head to ask Chen Jian:

"Chosen Ones, don't you want to give it a try?"

"The wild boars here are all domesticated, not real ones. With your physical stamina, dealing with them will be a piece of cake."

"Better not."

Chen Jian waved his hand and said:

"Just watching is enough—though I am a bit curious, where did this kind of activity originate?"

"The North," Xu Lie replied.

"There is a city on the northern snow plains called Liaodong. The people there primarily subsist on wild boar and deer."

"Every year, they hold a similar hunting gathering specifically to hunt wild boars."

"The person who accumulates the most wild boar pelts is honored as the First Baturu, and they not only receive various rewards but also become eligible to serve as the city lord."

"The proprietor here came from Liaodong. He was in Jinling four years ago, came to Hanshui two years ago, and brought their game here as well."

Good grief, the First Baturu.

Coupled with the term "wild boar pelt," it felt somewhat like a direct, deadpan slap to the face.

On the other hand, it also showed that the social ecology of this land had indeed regressed to a rather primitive state. Hunting and gathering, as the primary means of obtaining food, had dramatically increased in importance.

So much so that the "game" itself was filled with a primal, martial atmosphere.

So, what exactly was the cause of such regression?

Judging from Chen Jian's previous interactions with everyone else, no one could articulate an answer to this question.

They only remembered that roughly two hundred or three hundred years ago, a great cataclysm almost completely destroyed civilization and nearly wiped out the human race.

No one remembered the cause of the destruction, nor did anyone know how the survivors managed to start anew and rebuild a relatively primitive civilization.

If one wanted to uncover the truth...

Perhaps they would have to venture deep into the actual urban area of Hanshui, seek out official institutions, and search for written clues.

Chen Jian was calculating the key priorities for the subsequent reconnaissance of Hanshui's urban area when Xu Lie, noticing his lack of enthusiasm, spoke up:

"Actually, I knew from the start that you wouldn't be interested in such a celebration, but that's not the main point."

"The point is, whenever there's a celebration like this, many new commodities appear in the market."

"Even the people from the Church of Mechanics will bring out their treasured artifacts and try to sell them for a good price."

"So... would you like to take a look?"

"Of course."

Chen Jian nodded immediately.

He had seen enough of the sights; it was time to get down to business.

Thus, the group of eight, each holding a bamboo tube filled with sweet rice wine, pushed through the crowd and squeezed deep into the market.

Unlike the market Chen Jian had seen during the day, the "night market" here was more chaotic, and the variety of goods was far more complex.

Calcium carbide lamps suspended overhead emitted a slightly dim, cold light, casting mottled shadows over the goods on the ground and making them difficult to discern clearly.

The group inspected the merchandise item by item and indeed discovered quite a few interesting things.

LED light strips that could still emit light, old-fashioned hand-crank generators, loose gunpowder, kerosene lighters, and matching kerosene...

Wait.

This stuff probably wasn't kerosene, was it?

Observing the small amount of kerosene the vendor ignited for a demonstration, Chen Jian suddenly understood what the Church of Mechanics wanted the recycled plastic bottles for.

Good grief, they hadn't even established a petroleum industry, yet they had already developed catalytic hydrocracking technology?

Then again, polyethylene plastic took an extremely long time to degrade, the difficulty of hydrocracking technology wasn't high, and the recovery rate could reach over 60%. It truly was a brilliant method for refining oil in the wasteland.

However, Chen Jian honestly hadn't expected this stuff to be put up for sale.

It was entirely possible that the Church of Mechanics' research in this area had reached a relatively mature stage.

"Buy a little."

Chen Jian motioned for Xu Lie to negotiate the price. In the end, less than 50 milliliters of kerosene cost 10 grams of gold—a frighteningly high price.

Still, it was fine.

Chen Jian breathed a sigh of relief.

It wasn't that he didn't want technology to advance; it was just that those folks in the Church of Mechanics were truly too abstract. With this kind of technology in their hands, Chen Jian was genuinely afraid they might concoct some other freakish monstrosity...

Walking along, Chen Jian didn't find anything particularly worth acquiring.

Most of the items that seemed magical and valuable to the indigenous residents were nothing more than children's toys to his four-person team, lacking any practical utility.

He was already prepared to return empty-handed, but just as he finished browsing almost the entire market and reached the final few stalls, Chen Jian's eyes suddenly lit up.

He had spotted something good.

A sleeve-arrow launcher, along with several micro-missiles that looked to be in decent condition.

"We'll take these."

Chen Jian spoke decisively, and Xu Lie didn't waste any extra breath, stepping forward to hack mercilessly at the price.

The vendor's identity was evidently extraordinary; he even knew Xu Lie's name and was aware that it was his team that had wiped out the nearby Blood Skull's lair.

In the end, the vendor struck a deal with Xu Lie at a remarkably favorable price. Once the transaction was complete, he continued:

"Actually, I have some other good things here, though you might not need them."

"Hey, what about your friends? Do they need anything?"

Xu Lie turned back to look at Chen Jian, who nodded and replied:

"We can take a look."

Beaming with joy, the vendor lifted the canvas behind him, revealing the items that had been covered underneath.

The moment he laid eyes on that pile of objects, Ray's expression changed.

He took a step closer to Chen Jian, lowered his voice, and said:

"Batteries!"

"Lithium-air batteries!"