Li Ban had just discovered the treasure in the monster nest, and someone else already had their eyes on his prize.
This was not good news.
'I wonder if they're after the nest with the black liquid, or the ejectors overhead.'
'If it's the latter, then they're probably after the waste elements.'
Li Ban looked away, lowering his gaze to the empty plate in front of him.
'Waste elements aren't entirely worthless in the Recycling Station. From what we've discovered so far, both the rye crops and the monsters seem to utilize them.'
He stayed silent. Someone else was bound to ask the questions for him anyway.
"What do you want with a monster nest?" The first to speak up was the deputy captain of Blue Sea Camp.
Even sitting down, he was two heads taller than everyone else.
An uproar swept through the hall.
Anyone who had spent enough time here knew about the monster nests and their terrifying black liquid, even those who rarely went adventuring.
Its potent corrosiveness dissolved whatever it touched.
"People actually want that stuff?"
Li Ban could hear people from both his own camp and the neighboring Blue Sea Camp discussing it.
"Maybe they want to use it as a weapon."
"They'd have to figure out how to contain it first."
"If they want it, they must have solved that problem."
Even Lu Dong was deep in thought. He whispered to Li Ban, "If Red Fruit Camp really figured out how to contain the black liquid, we could trade for that secret."
"That depends on whether they're willing to share," Li Ban said, shaking his head. "I think they'd rather just hire us to do the grunt work."
The three camps guarding the monster nest hadn't found a method in all these years, yet the distant Red Fruit Camp had cracked the puzzle.
They weren't saints. Why would they share the fruits of their labor?
Besides, if they simply handed over the secret, they would definitely be cut out of any future monster nests.
Weiqi hopped back onto the stage. "Miss Shu, how exactly did you solve the problem of containing the black liquid? If there's no way to hold it, we wouldn't be able to help you transport it even if we did help you attack the nest, right?"
Wearing an expression of innocent curiosity, he shamelessly probed for their trade secrets.
Shu Yu chuckled. "I don't mind telling you. If you have the capability, you're more than welcome to try to replicate it."
"Our camp breeds a specific type of spider. The silk it spins is immune to the black liquid from the monster nests, and we weave it into bags to contain it. But while the bags resist corrosion, they're easily slashed by sharp objects, so we normally don't bring them out."
"Spiders?" Weiqi's eyes widened. "There are still spiders around in this day and age?"
"Not in the outer regions, of course, but there are still some special animals across the White Strait. However, we don't have many spiders ourselves, and we won't be selling them. If you want some, go across the White Strait and catch them yourselves."
The trade officers from all three camps immediately stepped forward to ask what kind of spider it was.
Even though it was highly unlikely they would actually cross the White Strait, there was no harm in gathering the information first.
Watching Shu Yu share the information with everyone so casually, Li Ban couldn't shake the feeling that things weren't that simple.
Red Fruit Camp hadn't brought anything else to trade. Their goal was incredibly clear: recruit people to help clear out the monster nest.
Any camp that agreed to participate would receive a ten-percent share of the black liquid—which they had named "corrosive liquid."
Aside from the corrosive liquid, they would also provide another form of compensation to the participating camps: Red Fruit Camp's specialty, the red fruit.
"What is a red fruit?" Li Ban asked Lu Dong, who had just returned to his side.
"It's a toxic fruit currently only produced by Red Fruit Camp. They say ordinary people feel incredibly awful after eating one—not physically, but emotionally."
Lu Dong looked quite excited.
"Does something like that have any use?"
"It's useless for ordinary people, sure. But if someone accidentally eats human flesh, eating a red fruit can stop them from turning into a monster, provided it hasn't been too long and they didn't eat too much."
Li Ban raised an eyebrow. "How long is 'not too long'? And how much is 'not too much'?"
"Supposedly, the longest time on record is within one day, and the amount of flesh eaten was no larger than a wheat flatbread."
That meant it might still be possible to save someone who had eaten more or waited longer. It was just that the people of Red Fruit Camp didn't know the exact limits themselves and probably needed to test it out little by little.
However, if they were truly going to test it little by little, who knew how many lives would be sacrificed.
Li Ban figured that even if Red Fruit Camp did experiment, they would only do so in secret. After obtaining precise results, they would only release an ambiguous threshold to the public.
Regardless, these red fruits could indeed save those who had been framed or had eaten human flesh by mistake.
Now that they knew such a thing existed, who wouldn't want to keep some on hand just in case?
With the red fruit offered as payment, Li Ban realized that the three camps probably wouldn't pass up on this collaboration.
Wrapping up her pitch, Shu Yu stood on the high platform and said, "I know this is no simple task. I'll give you three days to consider. If you're willing to participate in clearing out the monster nest, bring your personnel roster to Underwoods Camp in three days. We'll need to deploy our combat forces and allocate the shares based on the manpower provided."
With that, Shu Yu returned to her seat.
The other two men with her hadn't said a word the entire time. At first, they had seemed quite imposing, but as time went on, Li Ban started to think they were just a bit dull.
It was as if they had transferred all their intelligence points into their constitution.
With Red Fruit Camp's business concluded, the distracted crowd moved on to sharing the trade goods they had prepared.
There were no surprises.
The three camps weren't located too far apart and entirely lacked unique specialties like the red fruit. The whole process was essentially looking at what garbage you had scavenged this month, what garbage I had scavenged, and seeing if either of our trash happened to be useful to the other.
Li Ban listened from the sidelines. Mostly, it was just parts for reinforcing camp defenses or large mechanical attack equipment.
None of the people from these three camps had any intention of traveling far or taking the offensive.
Bored by the proceedings, he simply asked Zhu Yao to keep an eye on things while he walked straight out of the trading hall to take a stroll outside.
"A bit boring, isn't it?" Guo Kao followed Li Ban out and smiled at him. "They'll be haggling for a while. I imagine only a few people will stick around until the trading actually ends."
He pointed Li Ban down a different path.
"Walk this way. Over there is just a bare corridor with nothing to see."
"Don't you need to stay inside and host the trading?"
"Hosting the trading is Weiqi's responsibility. My job is to serve our guests who have traveled from afar."
Just as Li Ban was about to say something, they stepped into the next corridor. Standing inside were over twenty men and women.
Their one common trait was that they were beautiful.
And, just like Liu Peipei who had greeted them at the gates, they were a cobbled-together kind of beautiful.
Upon seeing Li Ban and Guo Kao enter, they all bowed in unison, then lifted their heads to reveal highly rehearsed, formulaic smiles.
"You can take your pick as you please. A man, a woman, a man and a woman, or multiple—anything goes."
Li Ban even spotted a set of conjoined twins among them!
Their upper bodies belonged to two different girls, but they shared a single pair of legs below the waist.
He knew that under normal circumstances, it was possible for natural humans to birth conjoined twins. However, he heavily suspected that the conjoined girls in front of him were not born naturally.
Suddenly, Li Ban felt that this world of the Recycling Station was truly, utterly rotten.
He looked back at Guo Kao. "What is the point of you doing all this?"
Guo Kao had also seen the conjoined girls.
A faint trace of sorrow surfaced in his eyes. "It is precisely because we no longer have any meaning in this world, Deputy Captain Li."
"But I can assure you, they chose to become like this voluntarily."
The men and women standing before Li Ban could hear his conversation with Guo Kao, yet their formulaic smiles didn't waver in the slightest.
It was as if they had long since grown accustomed to hearing such talk.
Li Ban turned on his heel and walked away.
He had zero interest in this kind of service.
Guo Kao hurriedly followed him, pulling the door shut behind him.
"Deputy Captain Li, they're only trying to survive. If they can't serve guests, they won't get enough rye to eat."
Li Ban stopped and looked back at Guo Kao, an inexplicable smile spreading across his face. "So that's my fault, then?"
Guo Kao suddenly felt a jolt of panic in his chest. Any further words of persuasion caught in his throat.
Li Ban didn't continue touring Underwoods Camp. He had essentially figured out the nature of this place.
He walked straight out into the woods, pondering how he could get his hands on the waste elements inside the ejectors if the three camps joined Shu Yu to clear out the nearby monster nest.
'I definitely have to go. Only by getting over there can I fish in troubled waters.'
'I absorb waste elements very quickly, and these people aren't aiming for the ejectors above anyway. They'll definitely send their main forces to deal with the nest and collect the corrosive liquid. Meanwhile, the ejectors above are both dangerous and of little value to them, so they'll probably pawn that job off on outsiders.'
'Wait, aren't I exactly that outsider?'
The more Li Ban thought about it, the more he felt that this job suited him perfectly.
'But they don't know that. So, if they come looking for me, I can even use the opportunity to wring some benefits out of them.'
However, it would be best to have someone coordinate with him for this.
Otherwise, even if it was extremely dark over there, someone might notice that he wasn't simply fending off the ejectors, but actively searching for something.
'Zhu Yao is one. Ed... Ed probably won't be able to join this operation.'
'But first, I need to make sure that Lu Shi and the others will definitely let me join the operation, and that the commander of Cliff Camp will participate as well.'
After thinking it over for a while, Li Ban realized there was nothing he could do right now. He would have to wait until they returned to camp before taking any further action.
With that in mind, he stood there and took in the scenery.
Though there wasn't much scenery in the Recycling Station.
Even the trees and grass here were entirely gray, varying only in shade.
If there hadn't been the occasional splash of other colors around, Li Ban would have suspected he had gone completely colorblind from staring at it for too long.
"Deputy Captain," Zhu Yao's voice rang out from behind him.
"Why are you calling me Deputy Captain too?" Li Ban turned around with a helpless look.
Zhu Yao wore a faint smile, but there was a touch of newfound mischief in her eyes.
She was completely different from when Li Ban had first met her in the Recycling Station.
"It's time to head back."
Li Ban nodded. "Once we're back, we'll have work to do."