24: Chapter 24: Jiang Yanxue joins the RV; new gold-level entry "Looting" added.

After completely breaking free from the pursuit of the corpse tide, Chen Chen drove the RV into a leeward area of rock pillars, sheltered on three sides by stone.

The mental shielding device was reactivated, and a purple force field expanded silently, completely erasing the RV from the world's perception.

Safe.

He killed the engine and turned to walk into the rear compartment.

Four people in a cramped space.

Jiang Yanxue sat on the metal floor in the corner of the compartment, her back resting against the armored inner wall.

She unhooked her water bottle from her tactical strap and unscrewed the cap; it had long been empty.

Chen Chen grabbed a bottle of water from a storage compartment and tossed it to her.

Jiang Yanxue caught it with one hand and gulped down more than half the bottle, her throat moving as she swallowed.

Water trickled down the corner of her mouth, washing away the half-dried blood on her chin.

She screwed the cap back on, wiped her mouth, and looked up, staring at Chen Chen.

"At the munitions factory, you said you wanted me. Now you can explain."

Chen Chen leaned against the partition frame, his arms crossed.

"Your talent is controlling Aberrants—right?"

Jiang Yanxue's pupils constricted.

She had never disclosed the specific details of her talent on any channel.

How did this man know?

"You used monsters as eyes to track me in the munitions factory; I knew the whole time."

Chen Chen raised two fingers. "Two in Workshop C, three on the perimeter of Workshop A. Their behavior was different from the other Aberrants—too quiet, their scanning frequency too uniform. That wasn't the instinct of a beast; it was a human habit."

Jiang Yanxue's expression didn't change, but her grip on the water bottle tightened.

She had been seen through.

The stealth reconnaissance method she had trained so hard to develop had its flaws identified by this man in mere seconds.

"What do you want from me?"

"Join my vehicle." Chen Chen said simply. "You live, and I live. But there is only one rule—on this vehicle, I have the final say."

Jiang Yanxue didn't answer immediately.

She glanced at Shen Wanbing and Shen Wanxing.

"Is this how he 'invited' you onto the vehicle as well?"

Shen Wanbing spoke up. "The system dumped me on this vehicle. Staying was my own decision."

Shen Wanxing lowered her head to fiddle with the cuffs of her windbreaker and added in a low voice, "He's not bad."

Jiang Yanxue raised an eyebrow.

She turned to Chen Chen. "I'm not the Shen sisters; I'm not used to being bossed around."

"And I'm not used to coddling people."

Chen Chen didn't intend to bicker. "Let me lay out your current situation for you—the Black Dragon Society has been scattered by the system, and your old man is god knows where. You sent out a summons, and those who came were either looking to save you or looking to get into your pants."

"The first batch, the Dragon Scar squad, all died by my hand. It's hard to say if there's a second batch, but you're alone on this road, without even a vehicle."

"The Black Fog doesn't wait for anyone. Calculate it yourself; how many more days can you hold out?"

The compartment fell silent for several seconds.

Jiang Yanxue crushed the empty water bottle, making it crackle.

She was, of course, well aware of her situation.

No matter how strong an SS-rank talent is, without a vehicle, it's just waiting for death.

The Black Dragon Society's structure had collapsed in this game; the leader was missing, and the middle and upper management had all been randomly scattered to different regions.

Of the summons she had sent out, only the Dragon Scar squad had returned within forty-eight hours, and they had only come to take her out.

The man before her—she didn't know him, but she knew the results.

He had charged into a munitions factory filled with elite monsters single-handedly, carried her out while fighting through the horde, and hadn't lost a single hair.

The two Shen sisters in the vehicle were living well—clean, well-fed, and armed.

This RV's defensive capabilities and material reserves were higher than most small outposts she had ever seen.

She had no better choice.

Jiang Yanxue closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, the defiance in her gaze had softened slightly.

"Fine."

Just one word.

That was the word Chen Chen had been waiting for.

With a thought.

[Ding! Target locked: Jiang Yanxue.]

[Appearance Assessment: 96 points (Top-tier).]

[Identity Assessment: Eldest Young Lady of the Black Dragon Society / Underground Queen (Possesses Violent Domination Luck).]

[Binding successful!]

[Congratulations to the Host for extracting the Gold-tier Trait—[Killing Feast / Loot Plunder (Lv.1)]!]

Golden text danced across his retina.

[Trait Effect: This beauty possesses strong Killing and Plundering attributes. When the Host or other beauties in the RV kill monsters, the quantity of monster drops is fixed +1. The Host's killing intent can cause monsters to become stunned for 1 second. Cooldown: one minute.]

Monster drops fixed +1.

This meant that for every monster killed, an extra piece of material would drop.

Coupled with Shen Wanxing's Lucky Critical doubling—

One becomes two, two becomes twenty.

The snowball would only keep getting bigger.

The one-second stun on low-level monsters was a god-tier skill in actual combat.

One second was enough for him to land two more strikes.

Three women, three Gold-tier traits. One managed resource production, one managed resource doubling, and one managed resource drops.

Plus Shen Wanbing's human radar.

The resources on this wasteland highway had been locked down by him from the source to the end.

Chen Chen looked at Jiang Yanxue sitting opposite him.

The curves outlined by her black combat suit were extremely aggressive. Tactical straps were strapped to her long legs, holding three knives of different models.

With the bloodstains wiped from her face, the deadliness of her features was laid bare—high brow ridges, long, elegant eyes, and sharp cheekbones that still maintained a feminine curve.

It was a different kind of cold than Shen Wanbing's.

Shen Wanbing's coldness was a high wall that kept people at arm's length; Jiang Yanxue's coldness was a blade still sheathed in its scabbard.

Three stunning faces squeezed into the same RV.

In the past, such a sight could only be seen in the exorbitant private rooms of Jiangcheng's top-tier clubs.

Now, it all belonged to him alone.

Chen Chen pushed open the armored vehicle door, and the cold wind poured in.

He took the 36-slot storage backpack off his shoulder, unzipped the main compartment, and turned it upside down.

Clatter.

Military-grade high-strength steel, precision gear sets, ammunition modules, and eight C-rank military explosion-proof tires taller than a person—

All spilled out onto the gravel clearing outside the vehicle like trash being dumped.

The sound of metal striking the ground merged into a continuous din in the night, piling up a small mountain of materials half a person high.

Jiang Yanxue leaned against the window to look out.

Her gaze swept over the eight explosion-proof tires marked with military serial numbers, then over the special steel billets stamped with the munitions factory's mark, and finally rested on a pile of perfectly sealed crates of ammunition components.

"That armored personnel carrier in Workshop C..."

"Dismantled." Chen Chen didn't even look back.

Jiang Yanxue opened her mouth, then closed it again.

A twelve-ton military vehicle, in the time she had been trapped in the command room, had been picked clean by this man—stripped to the bone and packed away.

She had hunkered down in that munitions factory for an entire day, risking her life to earn the kill count of eleven low-level monsters.

This guy had just gone in for a spin and emptied the entire factory.

Chen Chen walked back to the compartment and grabbed Shen Wanxing by the wrist, dragging her outside.

"Don't just stand there. Get to work—loot the crates."

Shen Wanxing stumbled, hissing as her bare feet hit the cold metal floor.

She slipped on those torturous high heels, wrapped her windbreaker tighter, and walked over the gravel to squat in front of the pile of materials.

Jiang Yanxue followed her out of the vehicle, standing three steps away.

With a face full of confusion.

The Shen family's big star, a top celebrity in the entertainment industry, was squatting next to a pile of military-grade steel, her posture no different from someone picking out cabbage at a vegetable market.

What was she doing?

Shen Wanxing pressed her palm onto the first piece of cold, high-strength barrel steel.

A white light exploded.

No—it wasn't just white light.

Golden light seeped from the surface of the steel, intertwining with the white light to illuminate everything within a ten-meter radius as if it were broad daylight.

System notifications popped up in a queue in Chen Chen's mind.

[Detected that the beauty Shen Wanxing has triggered her exclusive talent "Lucky Critical"!]

[High-strength barrel steel—triggered 2x reward probability! Obtained *100!]

[Precision mechanical gear set—triggered 5x reward probability! Obtained *400!]

[Ammunition synthesis module—triggered 2x reward probability! Obtained *60!]

The pile of materials expanded, split, and multiplied in the light.

The materials, enough to build one heavy machine gun, tumbled and multiplied, the numbers jumping to enough for two, with plenty to spare.

Jiang Yanxue stepped back.

Not because she was dazzled by the light, but because she was terrified.

She had spent so many years in the Black Dragon Society; she had seen all sorts of things—weapons, cash, territory—what hadn't she seen?

But the phenomenon of materials doubling out of thin air defied everything she understood about the rules of this world.