The Zombie Tide that had spread across the wasteland all returned to Shangqing City, and the originally bustling wasteland instantly became quiet. Although the Zombie Tide had receded so suddenly, Feng Jun still suffered some losses, but fortunately, the losses were not significant. As for the losses on the Huaicheng District side, they were a bit more severe. The Zhu Hong Business Association lost an entire vanguard army plus an N1 Tank, as well as other various losses. The other families also had their own losses, but they were all less than those of the Zhu Hong Business Association. Fortunately, these losses were not enough to break the balance between the various forces. The Zhu Hong Business Association was still the number one force in Huai City, so on the surface, everyone continued to do business as usual.
That strange storm cloud still hovered over the central area of Shangqing City, and there was no change in its appearance. Not only Huai City, but even Longmen Town and some surrounding surviving small forces sent reconnaissance planes or spies to scout in the Shangqing City Wasteland, but all returned empty-handed. Gradually, a few days passed. Although the biting cold wind was still floating in the entire wasteland, the humans on the wasteland began to become active. Although living in the Doomsday, the survivors on this land had not forgotten about the New Year, and they came out of their Refuges one after another, hoping to exchange some food for the New Year with the resources in their hands.
Among these gathering places, the most lively ones were Huai City and Longmen Town. The former was because it was the largest gathering place with the largest population around Shangqing City, and it had existed since the first year of Doomsday. The latter was a newly emerging gathering place, but it was rich in various foods. Therefore, many merchant groups and survivors came to Longmen Town to trade for food.
As early as the next day, Feng Jun ordered people to clean up the corpses outside Longmen Town. The burned zombie remains outside the city wall could not be buried anywhere casually. He also ordered people to take out the helium crystal from them. After a rough estimate, there were probably more than 100,000 zombie corpses outside the city. If all these helium crystal were recovered, Feng Jun could make a small fortune again, but he was not short of helium crystal anyway.
These days, Feng Jun had been idle in Longmen Town. Besides playing poker with Li Lu, he was transporting supplies back and forth between the two worlds. Occasionally, when he had some free time, he would wander around Longmen Town, and basically left the rest of the big and small matters to Song Peng to take care of.
In fact, Feng Jun had wanted to return to the real world long ago, because he had promised his parents that he would go home for the New Year. However, there were still some improvements needed in Yan Xin's research on the manufacture and control of robot cats and dogs, so he wandered around Longmen Town to pass the time. As the number of merchant groups in Longmen Town gradually increased in the past few days, Feng Jun also saw some strange Doomsday people.
Walking on the streets of Longmen Town, you could see many merchant groups selling along the street. When building the houses, Feng Jun had specially reserved many shops and stalls, and now these places had all been rented out. All kinds of vendors were constantly hawking their goods. Feng Jun felt like he had traveled back to an ancient market.
After these foreign merchant groups rented the stalls, they would start selling some of the products they carried. Things like guns and ammunition were the most common, and some people would also sell some mutated animal meat with low radiation values and edible mutated plants. However, Longmen Town was not short of food, so these mutated animal meat and plants could only be sold at very low prices. On the other hand, the stalls selling various guns and weapons were always crowded with people.
Feng Jun saw many green leaves soaking in water at a stall, and saw that many people were surrounding them to pick them. The stall owner reached out and took a green leaf from the water. A large rhizome-like knot was growing underwater. The stall owner used both hands to break the knot open, and then used a knife to cut it into small pieces and handed it to the surrounding people to taste.
It was also the first time Feng Jun had seen a Doomsday plant that could be eaten directly, so he took a small piece and put it in his mouth to taste. The taste was very crisp, and after chewing it a few times, it had the taste of starch. After tasting it carefully, it also had a bit of sweetness. Feeling very novel, Feng Jun bought a few to take back and try.
The stall owner introduced that this plant was called 【Water Melon】 and grew in some underground rivers in the south. Because the underground ecosystem was relatively less affected by radiation, some edible plants and animals had been discovered one after another after the war. The boss who sold watermelons came to Shangqing City with a southern merchant group, and it took more than a month. He had been staying in Huai City, and came to Longmen Town after the Zombie Tide ended. There were many southern merchants like him, and they basically traveled between Ludong Province and Jianghuai Province, and each trip took two or three months.
Feng Jun also saw the transportation tools used by these southern merchant groups, which were a kind of extremely large mutated snails called Giant Snails. The shells of these snails were as big as small box trucks, and their bodies could be more than six meters long when unfolded. They were relatively docile and omnivorous, and liked to eat the roots of various mutated plants. Of course, these creatures also liked to eat the helium crystal in zombie bodies.
It was said that these Giant Snails had evolved biological reactors in their bodies, which could absorb the helium element in the helium crystal as nutrients for their growth. Moreover, this creature had extremely high physical strength and endurance. Just one could drag a truck weighing eight to ten tons at a speed of 27 kilometers per hour, which was comparable to some tractors. These merchant groups from the south often drove these Giant Snails to trade in the wasteland.
Feng Jun observed these Giant Snails up close for a while, and found that these Giant Snails were very docile, and even knew how to rub their heads or bodies against their keepers to get food. Their bodies still secreted a lot of mucus, but this mucus would immediately become dry and scabbed after leaving the snail's body, and finally turn into powder and fall to the ground and disappear. It was completely different from the disgusting snail mucus in the real world.
After Feng Jun observed for a while, he saw a businessman putting his hands in front of the Giant Snail's mouth after getting his hands dirty. The Giant Snail opened its mouthparts and put the businessman's hands into its mouth. After the businessman pulled his hands out, his hands had been sucked clean by the Giant Snail, and even the skin on his hands was much whiter than before.
Feng Jun became very interested in this Giant Snail. He carefully observed the southern merchant groups with Giant Snails. Soon, he discovered that everyone in these southern merchant groups with Giant Snails was clean and tidy. The men were well-dressed and dignified, and the women's skin was as white as silk.
You must know that this was in the Doomsday. Not to mention that cosmetics had long been extinct. The environment of Doomsday was a constant struggle against radiation and various pollutions. A person who lived in this environment all day long had a greatly increased probability of suffering from skin cancer. Feng Jun thought of his subordinates and the civilians in Longmen Town. The men were all rough and the women's skin was sallow. Only those women with status and status had time to take a bath or use a life support pod to care for their skin. Li Lu had once asked Feng Jun for cosmetics, but Feng Jun had never gotten them for her. When asked why, Li Lu directly told Feng Jun that 1/4 of her annual income as a Bounty Hunter was used to maintain her skin.
So when Feng Jun saw these businessmen using Giant Snails to wash their hands, Feng Jun realized that the mucus of these Giant Snails might have the effect of beauty and cleaning. So Feng Jun immediately called Song Zhan and asked him to find a way to buy a few Giant Snails for him to study.
These merchants were initially unwilling. Although Giant Snails were docile, they reproduced very slowly. A Giant Snail usually only laid eggs once every two to three years, and it took another two to three years to completely tame a Giant Snail and make it obey orders. Moreover, these merchants relied on these Giant Snails to travel north and south. In the end, Song Zhan exchanged five Giant Snails from the merchants for a price of 50,000 helium crystal points per Giant Snail, plus a lot of various canned foods.
Because Giant Snails were essentially variants of snails, they liked cool places. Feng Jun followed the merchant's instructions and led all the Giant Snails into an indoor breeding room, and took out a lot of mineral water and sprinkled it in the room. These Giant Snails showed great pleasure when they met anyone, constantly shaking the shells on their bodies, and even squinting their eyes and making squeaking sounds.
They liked water and could be fed with plant roots or dried mutated animal meat. It was best to feed them a small amount of helium crystal once a month. The water they liked here was clean water that had not been exposed to radiation, and the helium crystal was naturally even simpler.
Feng Jun took out a handful of helium crystal and held it in his hand. A Giant Snail that was drinking water immediately crawled over after seeing the helium crystal in Feng Jun's hand. First, it probed Feng Jun with the tentacles on its nose. After seeing that Feng Jun did not retreat, it tentatively put its head on Feng Jun's hand, and then sucked the helium crystal into its mouth one by one.
Feng Jun was very curious about the effect of the Giant Snail's mucus, so he imitated the businessman and put his hand to the Giant Snail's mouth. The Giant Snail immediately understood Feng Jun's intention and opened its mouthparts to carefully swallow Feng Jun's arm into its mouth. Feng Jun only felt that his right hand had entered a slippery space. He could not see any sharp mouthparts in the Giant Snail's mouth, and only felt a little sticky and slippery.
The Giant Snail swallowed Feng Jun's arm all the way to his elbow, and spit it out after swallowing Feng Jun's arm in its mouth for about a minute. Soon the mucus on his arm dried and then fell off naturally. Feng Jun's arm became like a piece of finely carved white jade, with delicate and smooth skin, exuding a natural luster. Even if he compared it with Li Lu's arm at this time, Feng Jun's arm would look even whiter.
Feng Jun put his two arms together. Although the size and thickness were the same, it was obvious that the skin on his right hand was whiter, and the texture and luster on it were more tender than that of a seventeen or eighteen-year-old girl.
The Giant Snail next to him thought that Feng Jun wanted it to lick him again, so it put its head over again. Feng Jun was so frightened that he quickly threw out a handful of helium crystal and walked away.
Feng Jun thought to himself; "This thing is simply a beauty artifact. Let Yan Xin find someone to study it and make it into cosmetics to take back and sell. It's much better than any essence mask. I have to ask Li Lu to try it when I have time."