23: Chapter 23 Secretary Xu, you don't want to lose your job, do you?

"Thunder... Hajimi Team."

Xu Daili muttered with a somewhat strange expression. Looking at Chu Hong and hesitating for a moment, she still asked,

"Captain, how many people are in our team?"

Chu Hong smiled, reached out to point at the other person, and then pointed at himself. The result was self-evident.

Xu Daili: "..."

In an instant, Xu Daili inexplicably felt that the source energy crystal card in her hand had become a bit hot to handle, but to just let her give it up and return it?

Xu Daili couldn't bear to part with it.

Given her current situation, being able to have a job related to Pioneers was already quite rare, let alone a generous captain who directly gave her a million source energy points right off the bat, which was hardly ever seen.

Chu Hong looked at her with a smile, directly stepping into the identity of her boss.

"From now on, you will be the team manager of our Thunder Hajimi Team, concurrent captain's secretary, concurrent logistics director, concurrent..."

Xu Daili weakly raised a small hand.

"Ca-, Captain, my place is small, it can't hold this many people..."

Chu Hong ignored her and continued speaking, "Of course, your primary job as a synthesizer cannot be put aside either. I will provide you with enough collectibles, and your current first—uh... second..."

Chu Hong was also a bit embarrassed.

"Ahem, this team has just been established, and indeed many things have piled up all at once. Like this... Secretary Xu, you go first and register the Thunder Hajimi Team. I'm not a person from Huangshan Base City, so just use your ID verification to register it."

"As for the team's office, no rush... I think your place here is pretty good."

Chu Hong said with a smile as he looked around the neatly tidied room that carried a faint fragrance of orchids in the air.

Xu Daili's hand holding the source energy crystal card couldn't help but grip tighter.

"Wants my person, and also wants my house?!"

"Captain, I..."

She mustered up her courage, wanting to say that she could work for him, but he couldn't exploit her like a landlord or wealthy capitalist. What she was selling was her skills and labor time, not her entire self, plus her own house—she, Xu Daili...

"Snap!"

A streak of a small golden thing was slapped onto the coffee table in front of Xu Daili by Chu Hong.

After seeing the appearance of that thing clearly, the words that had reached Xu Daili's lips were instantly swallowed back amidst massive shock and astonishment.

That was a gold watch.

To be precise, that was a red-grade collectible [precious gold watch].

Xu Daili's facial expression performance was quite good.

Chu Hong smiled half-heartedly, "I know the work is indeed a bit much, and indeed somewhat inhumane..."

"Captain! What are you saying?!"

Halfway through his sentence, he was abruptly interrupted by an excited Xu Daili. With lightning-fast speed, the latter snatched up the gold watch on the coffee table.

At the same time, the hesitation and entanglement originally on her face instantly turned into excitement and agitation.

With burning eyes, she looked at Chu Hong slumped on the sofa, as if seeing God radiating divine brilliance.

"Isn't it just a house? It's not a luxury villa in the core area. I only need a bedroom on a daily basis, and the remaining area can serve as our office. I think that's very reasonable!"

"It can even make my work more convenient, and the captain also relieves me of my commuting problem. I..."

If it were a few years ago, when she was still at Source Energy University.

Faced with this red-grade collectible, if anyone wanted her to sell even her private space, Xu Daili would have flatly refused without even thinking about it.

Her skill could synthesize red-grade collectibles after all; as long as she wanted such things, her warehouse would easily be overflowing.

But the slaps of reality had now slapped her awake.

That touching success rate had turned her proud initial skill into a huge joke well-known throughout the entire Huangshan Base City.

"Life, you know, making money, you know, it's not disgraceful..."

Xu Daili puffed out her chest, her slender legs pressed together and slanted to the side, already looking like she had stepped into the role of a secretary.

Chu Hong smiled with satisfaction, and then threw the backpack he had been carrying ever since he arrived onto the coffee table.

"The things inside are considered materials for your subsequent synthesis. I only have one requirement... Don't be afraid of wasting them; synthesize them all for me in the direction of material production collectibles."

"Contact me when the materials run out, and I'll send you more. But as long as the synthesis succeeds once... a bonus of one hundred thousand source energy points!"

Xu Daili's expression was infatuated.

How could there be such a magnanimous, handsome, and fascinating man in this world?

She swallowed a mouthful of saliva and nodded repeatedly with a mix of excitement and restraint.

"Rest assured, Captain, I will definitely do my utmost!"

They exchanged contact information.

When she saw that the communicator Chu Hong took out was of golden quality [portable radio walkie-talkie], Xu Daili gained an even higher understanding of Chu Hong's strength.

After giving a few simple instructions, Chu Hong walked out of the building amidst Xu Daili's reluctant gaze, which looked like a devoted wife watching her husband leave.

Once again in a place where no one could see, he removed the [Masked Worm].

With a turn, he headed straight for the building opposite Xu Daili's home.

Returning home and looking through the window at Xu Daili jumping up and down with excitement in her home, cheering endlessly like a little girl, Chu Hong couldn't help but slightly curl the corners of his mouth.

In this way, he could be considered to barely have his own core team.

...

"Entering the Investigation area [Cliffside Epidemic Hospital]!"

Landing at the north gate entrance, [Main Hospital Building] position one.

Chu Hong only carried a simple backpack. Aside from some consumables prepared in advance inside the backpack, he did not carry any extra things this time.

First, he went to the [weapon box] supply point.

Searching [weapon box]: G17 pistol (green), G17 extended magazine (green).

Better than nothing.

After searching this place, Chu Hong immediately headed toward the parking lot.

The dozen or so wandering zombies in the parking lot could no longer pose any obstacle to Chu Hong. After clearing out the entire parking lot in a few quick moves, he routinely went to the bus to snag a large-capacity backpack for free.

His luck was pretty good this time.

It actually spawned a 30-slot [military weight-bearing backpack].

Coming to the high-value supply point.

Searching [briefcase (high-value supplies)]: confidential meeting minutes USB flash drive (purple), exotic beast spiritual fluid (purple).

Two items.

But seeing the second item, Chu Hong's eyes couldn't help but light up.

A small 1×2 purple item, but it was the beginning of his officially possessing source energy back then.

"Wonderful, now the two-slot safe box is finally put to use..."

Chu Hong unhesitatingly placed the [exotic beast spiritual fluid] into his two-slot source energy space, which he had traded for after running naked in front of the Lizardmen who knows how many times.

Looting this place.

The Staff Dormitory with a large safe box was directly bypassed by him.

It wasn't that he didn't want to loot it, but it simply took too much time. His purpose for entering the [Cliffside Epidemic Hospital] this time was to do quests.

[Logistics Department · Self-sufficiency (I)]: Proceed to the action area "Cliffside Epidemic Hospital", Main Hospital Building area, investigate and bring back the quest items "portable pharmaceutical workstation", "pharmaceutical raw materials", "external pharmaceutical refrigeration equipment".

Until now, Chu Hong finally dared to try this quest to activate the crafting station.

He took out homemade small paper boxes one by one from his backpack.

In the middle of each was placed a time bomb, while surrounding the bomb was a circle of fresh blood plasma stored in metal containers.

He set the timers on the time bombs.

One by one, he began placing them around the helipad and parking lot areas.

Afterwards, after confirming the time,

he quickly walked directly along the outer wall toward the eastern [Underground Anatomy Center].

Observing cautiously along the way and eliminating a few zombies he inevitably encountered, Chu Hong quickly found an abandoned small room that looked like a storage room and ducked into it.

Time passed minute by minute.

Through the gaps in the room, Chu Hong could not only see the vast majority of the [Main Hospital Building] area, but he could also clearly monitor the [Exotic Beast Research Laboratory] and the ground buildings of the [Underground Anatomy Center] right before his eyes.

Just as Chu Hong was silently counting down the seconds in his heart,

"Boom!"

a violent explosion strong enough to startle the entire [Cliffside Epidemic Hospital] instantly came from the direction of the helipad.

Chu Hong's expression tightened.

Immediately after,

the exaggerated zombie horde scene—which he had watched countless times before when he boarded the helicopter and was about to evacuate—immediately reappeared from the [Main Hospital Building].

With sweat on his forehead, he watched the zombie horde pouring out like a waterfall, continuously leaping out from the rooftop or windows, and then crashing onto the ground to become a puddle of pulp.

Merely a few seconds after the explosion,

at least a thousand zombies surged out from the [Main Hospital Building].

"Roar!"

Amidst the familiar beastly roar, Chu Hong's pupils shrank slightly.

A disgusting, tentacle-filled, lizard-like monster capable of gliding in mid-air also broke through the building of the [Exotic Beast Research Laboratory] at this moment, rushing toward where the explosion had occurred.

Chu Hong did not dare to delay in the slightest.

He immediately opened the room door and began sprinting all the way along the outer perimeter of the wall.

"Boom!"

"Roar!"

Another pre-placed time bomb exploded. The huge commotion attracted even more zombies toward the southern parking lot and helipad areas of the map.

Passing the [Underground Anatomy Center] and the [Exotic Beast Research Laboratory] whose wall had a huge hole smashed into it, Chu Hong quickly circled around and returned to his spawn point when he entered the map.

The north gate entrance.

And at this moment, the [Main Hospital Building] before him had unexpectedly grown mostly quiet...