Chapter 124 Window Glass

Li Tie and the others saw the trio come down from the roof and asked, “What happened? How did it go? Are they willing to move out?”

Zhang Yi rolled his eyes and turned to Yan Fei, “You’ll have to seal up the door in a few moments.”

Yan Fei shook his head, “In case there are roof problems, people will have to come up for repair. If we seal it, we would happen to open the door each time for them. All the people are gone.”

“What if someone sneaks upstairs?” Xu Mei was somewhat worried.

The group looked helplessly at each, the mentality of people who wanted to live on the roof was understandable. But compared to empathy, they had to protect their homes, could not leave any possibility of danger.

Yan Fei was thoughtful, “I have a way, when those people are gone we will have a way to monitor above.” He only smiled at the curious looks and did not explain.

About an hour later, Yan Fei was on the roof. Sure enough, those people and the neighbors were gone. He took out a small metal ball and activated his power. In an instant, the ball turned into a large, thin net and spread across the roof.

It was a metal mesh, silk thread thing and light. There were traces of silver all over the roof, people could walk and hardly feel anything. But the net was fixed to the wall and Yan Fei could detect any movement on the roof through the vibrations.

This would easily let Yan Fei judge the situation on the roof. Someone occasionally on the roof would not be a problem, but if something landed in the middle of the night, they would need to check it out.

It was equally unrealistic to seal the door and not let anyone on the roof. After all, there were other people in the building. There were five entrances in each building with four homes on each floor!

After taking care of this matter, the group sighed in relief. Some were thankful that they had come early this morning. If it had been as usual, only the two women at home, even if they had abilities, they dealt with crops, not the top floor. If they had not paid attention to the mess upstairs, waited for people to come back from work…who knew what would happen.

This matter had been settled, Song Lingling sighed, “Heard that the law is much better on the other side of the city, but we cannot move over…”

The so-called ‘New Town’ referred to the new area built near the barracks, originally a flower field before the end. Most of the buildings were seven storeys high. The buildings were not too spacious but the military and ability users were responsible for security, so policing was much better than other areas.

The neighborhood was rented specially for various power teams, with a certain size, level, task completion both personal and military. They also had to pay rent (but cheaper than a house outside).

In general, the area was open to ability users and teams, but an ordinary person could not enter unless someone was willing to vouch for them in addition to paying a lot of nuclei and points each month.

The new town could be considered a paradise for ability users, the most obvious difference between treatment of ability users versus ordinary people.

However, because of all the requirements, not all ability users could live there. Especially those who could not find a team and could only form temporary teams each time they went out.

By now, except for some ability users were hanging around with a strong team, and those unable to pay for their loved ones, or preferred living outside all the regulations, the vast majority of power users moved in.

In fact, early during the neighborhood’s establishment, the base sent text messages to all the known ability users. Yan Fei had also received the message, but since half of the team consisted of regular people, and they were living here well, they did not think about moving.

Luo Xun laughed at Song Lingling’s words, “We have too many good things, if you suddenly moved, you might be targeted by other teams.”

Song Lingling quickly waved her hands, “I was just saying, there’s no other merit other than stronger policing. I heard that the houses are like cages, a room only 30 square meters. We have so many things and there would be no space!”

The small space was one of the factors that caused some teams to refuse. Of course, even it could be easy to move, Luo Xun did not want to go. How good was their current situation? How comfortable? It was difficult to renovate the home, set up and farming, a waste to move away!

Today was the last vacation day for most of their members. So after confirming there was nothing else, everyone went back home to rest and relax.

In the evening, Luo Xun fished out the prepared duck intestine and gizzards from the brine and distributed it to the team.

The meat could continue to soak in the brine or taken out for storage. But if they were not eating too much at a time, it would be best to freeze and defrost the day before use.

Luo Xun took his and Yan Fei’s share home and continued to marinate it – add some more flavor before eating. These days his home had enough meat for them to eat, their cravings were controllable.

A good sleep until dawn before the pair washed and reported to the barracks. Along with buying and bringing some stuff back.

The two of them had a number of nuclei in their bags. The other elements were little use to their team and needed to be replaced for lower level ones. In addition, there was another important task – buy car window glass.

The two men turned the window space into a metal mummy and entered the barracks. The car was completely sealed, before there were a few metal strips. As a result it was discovered that car seats had been gone, though some were not successful for some reason.

Luo Xun and company let Yan Fei completely seal the windows with metal. Now the gaps were too small to take advantage of.

At the meeting place, the truck was loaded and the group set off. Before the holiday a stage of work had been completed – the outer metal thorns were repaired. The work continued with the team returning to build bridges.

The four metal users were responsible for distilling, fusing and manipulating the metals mid-air. After upgrading to level three, everyone’s work was much faster, though it could not compare to Yan Fei. Their speed was slower but the end result was within requirements.

But once Yan Fei was done the base, there was no problem for the remaining people to add metal to the foundation.

After a busy day’s work, the two drove straight to the exchange window. Luo Xun exclaimed at the price lists, “So expensive?!”

The window staff had a calm face, no movement, “This is the price.”

Luo Xun’s expression twisted and he showed the list to Yan Fei. The smallest piece of glass would sell for 10 first level nuclei – was this not robbery?!

That was just the smallest, the larger were 20 nuclei at minimum. Front pieces wanted 50! Larger vehicles were more expensive, minimum of 80 and increasing to one or two hundred!

These days, the average team could not buy even window glass…wait how much did these things exchanged for when first collected? The streets were full of abandoned vehicles, if not for the bombing destroying supplies, how else would things get so crazy.

“No buy? There’s a group of people waiting in the back.” The staff had an impatient face and rolled their eyes.

“…Buy, two pieces of front window, then six side window glass.” Luo Xun took a deep breath and ground his teeth.

The staff was surprised – even the largest base teams were hesitant to buy, these two men were so rich?

Yan Fei tugged Luo Xun away and smiled, “Let’s go make a phone call before buying.”

Luo Xun was puzzled, “Call? Who are you calling?” He thought of Yan Fei’s father, not him?

Yan Fei rummaged through Luo Xun’s phone and pointed at a name. “Call him, see if he is still responsible for this stuff.”

Luo Xun saw the name and then facepalmed…was this not the buy who Captain Guo introduced when they bought solar panels?

One phone call later, Captain Wang did not come but they got the glass at 20% off. Also helped them find someone specializing in nuclei exchange..find the ones they needed…

Have to say, words had really helped Luo Xun and company. Not just the car glass discount, but also crystal core exchange. The front desk would have some, but only a small portion. Water, fire and soil were hot commodities, but the rest like Yan Fei’s metal ones, could be exchanged for two or three pieces. The sand nuclei that Yu Xinran needed were put on watch.

Luo Xun did not exchange too many fire, water or wind since they were easy to find, though they did get some level three cores. Captain Guo had already gotten the metal cores for the team. There was not a large number of sand nuclei for Yu Xinran.

After getting the stuff, they moved the glass after saying goodbye – they were ready to replace the car glass.

Smashed glass was not very troublesome before the end. In the apocalypse it was a crisis – there were factories, but no materials.

Of course, there was the equipment and workers, but for the time being there was not enough base energy and resources to devote to this.

The city could find needed materials everywhere, if there was a need, teams could go out and collect. For the time being, there was no need for production, so it was put aside. More so, waiting for someone who needed replacements – how could this be so expensive?! Who could afford it?!

Ordinary glass was like this, not to mention car window glass?

When the two brought back the glass, Luo Xun was still seething, “20% percent still cost more than 40 nuclei, these things were scattered all over the street, if we had known it was so valuable, we would have picked up more…”

He had been on missions throughout his life but always looking for a temporary team – he always got a lift! When had he dealt with these things? Of course he did know the price of these things!

No wonder he had seen some teams with windowless cars, he had thought the people were too cheap to repair or buy…Now he knew…regular squads could not afford it! How many nuclei did he have before leaving? One purchase of glass and it was all gone!

Yan Fei just laughed, he changed the metal’s shape and put the glass in. The metal wriggled over to keep the glass in place.

The glass the bought was not actually used for their cars – the actual was more expensive, but who gave him metal powers? With his powers, regardless of the glass’s shape, he could make it stable.

As for the reflector…as long as one looked for similarly sized pieces of glass, Yan Fei could wave his hands and create a dozen. The next time they went out they might need some.

Even if the prices were outrageously high, Luo Xun did not wish to reborn again to collect these for riches. His last rebirth was an accident to be honest, unless something really went wrong, being reborn over and over again would be really tiring.

Because other than him, even one’s closest friends and relatives would not have the same memories and experiences. Perhaps being reborn again, an intimate lover would become a stranger – because the two would meet under different circumstances.

In this life, he was able to change his present and he also met Yan Fei, which was the real prize.

When everyone returned home in the evening, Li Tie brought the latest gossip. The group that had attempted to move in on the roof had left the area  and settled near the end of a street. The occupants of the 16th floor also temporarily sealed the door so no outsiders would enter.

“Xu Mei just said that people were looking for us, all occupants of other buildings.” Li Tie ate duck gizzard with a happy expression.

“What did they want?” Luo Xun and Yan Fei did not get a phone call or message while out, realized it was not a big deal. They were likely repelled by Zhang Yi and Xu Mei.

Zhang Yi leaned back against his chair and yawned, “They realized yesterday that there was such a large area and wanted to grow vegetables and food on the roof. I asked them – what about leaks?”

Xu Mei also nodded, “The matter was discussed, but people know that water on the roof would be troublesome. Isn’t the military promoting solar panels? If others wanted to do the same, it would be a conflict if someone had already planted vegetables.”

Now, many of the occupants, like Luo Xun hung solar panels on the wall to provide electricity. But each wall would receive varying amounts of light during different times and seasons. The lower floors would be obscured by other buildings, the roof was a very good place to set up panels instead.

Luo Xun also agreed, “This kind of thing is too troublesome, easy target. We take good care of crops at home.”

There homes had food spots, vegetables areas but it was electricity intensive. But they made enough energy since they covered the outer walls with panels. There was no need to take any more chances – unless they could find a safe place.

After this, Luo Xun mentioned the incredibly painful price of glass and then patted Yan Fei’s shoulder, to the amazement of the others. “Before we came up Yan Fei covered the window glass with a layer of metal, lest we go down and find our glass broken again. When we go out on a mission, we try and strengthen with some metal.” In the even of a crash, it would protect the fragile glass.

“Great, thank you Yan Fei.” Everyone was startled by the price of glass, Yan Fei silently laughed on the side, did not explain that car body repair was much higher than glass.

If it was not for having Yan Fei the metal user on the team, it would be enough for them to cough blood at the memory of vehicle repair.

In October autumn was in full bloom, there were few traces of plants. There were signs of green, but as time went on, the colors of fall appeared.

Then good news spread from the army – rice was ready to harvest!

Because gasoline was becoming scarce on base, the farmland became unsuitable for harvesters. Coupled with the abundance of staff, the military decided to use an entire barracks of soldiers to harvest the land!

The base seemed poised to have enough rice or wheat for everyone on base to have rations, so there were not any special harvesting requirements.

However, this matter was not related to the metal construction team – worked overtime to complete this major project. Even now, the road to the east gate has not been repaired – there were three more of them waiting! There was no work without overtime!

Although they did not harvest rice, they were among the first to taste the harvest. The army had already consumed most of the grains. After examinations, the superiors decided to replace the old grains with the new rice.

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