Xu An pulled her mother along, and it wasn't until they were dozens of meters away that she remembered she hadn't picked up the ID cards of the three men, nor their car.
"Mom, I'm going back."
"Why are you going back?"
"To get those three men's ID cards. We dealt with them, and I don't want others to profit from it. Plus, the car wasn't confiscated and is parked outside. It might cause trouble."
Xu Yan listened to her daughter's pointed words, "Are you suspecting that young man just now might take advantage and pick up the leftovers?"
"I don't know."
Xu An wasn't sure, but that didn't mean it was impossible. She herself had been a bit flustered, dragging her mother away and completely forgetting about the transaction coins and the car.
"You wait for me here. I'll be back soon."
"Okay."
When Xu An returned, He Ci was nowhere to be seen. She squatted by the bodies and rummaged for a long time before finally finding the ID cards. kAnshu伍.ξà
She looked at the ID cards in her hand. Although she had expected He Ci wouldn't be interested in these things, she still felt something was off. Could she really be overthinking it?
After stuffing them into her pocket, she turned and ran towards where the car was parked.
Instead of storing the car in her spatial dimension, Xu An drove it away.
Xu An had wanted to kill the other party so badly precisely because of He Ci's sudden appearance. Fortunately, she had never used her spatial dimension before; otherwise, He Ci wouldn't have left alive today.
To avoid such trouble from happening again, Xu An decided it was safer to drive away.
Fortunately, the woods here weren't too dense, and the Wuling Hongguang was small, so driving through it posed no obstacles.
Seeing her daughter drive back, Xu Yan opened the car door, brought Gou Dan into the car, and asked,
"Did you find them? But can we use these transaction coins?"
Within the lighthouse, private transaction coin transfers also required official channels, much like bank transfers before the apocalypse.
How would they explain the origin of these cards?
"We can use them. When we get back to the lighthouse, we can find a 'broker' in the black market to swipe them. We'll just have to pay some service fees."
Xu Yan became interested, "There are brokers in the lighthouse too?"
"Yes."
Xu Yan didn't need to ask; she could roughly guess that this was information Xu An had obtained in her previous life.
Before the apocalypse, brokers were people who introduced buyers and sellers and earned commissions. Xu Yan was surprised to find that such people existed in the lighthouse.
Water that is too pure has no fish; wherever there are people, there is demand, and wherever there is demand, there is a "black market."
However, the brokers in the lighthouse charged exorbitant fees, taking a 30% commission on all transactions. Yet, despite this, the number of people seeking brokers was still not small.
"Where do we go next?"
Xu An thought for a moment. Earlier, when she drove deeper into the woods, her spatial tree had given a slight tremor. She had been on the road constantly lately, and if not for the tree occasionally making some noise, she would have almost forgotten its existence.
"Let's keep going further in. We won't return to the lighthouse for a few days. We'll head back the day after tomorrow and exchange the transaction coins then."
"I've thought about it. The day after tomorrow will be the third day. I expect most people's observation period will be over by then, so it won't be too conspicuous for us to go out and rent a place."
The lighthouse's relief period was calculated by the hour. It started ticking once one entered the lighthouse, and after 72 hours, the relief period would end.
At that point, all the welfare policies for newcomers would disappear, and even riding the elevator would require swiping transaction coins.
Xu An didn't say the rest. After all, living in the relief quarters would attract the attention of ill-intentioned people. Why should they make themselves miserable? It was better to live openly outside.
Upon hearing this, Xu Yan agreed. It wasn't that the two of them were being fussy about the harsh conditions of the relief quarters, but rather that there were too many prying eyes, and they were restricted everywhere.
With their decision made, the two drove towards the depths of the woods. Because of that strange spatial tree, Xu An had a premonition that something was waiting for her ahead.
...
Hou Sui looked at Qin Chuan, who remained in his stance, unmoving, and said.
"Let's go, Xiao Chuan. We've been staking out for a day and a night. New orders have come from above for us to pick someone up at Pucheng Airport and escort them back to the lighthouse."
"But speaking of which, is the 'Night Demon' real or not? Can butterfly scales really confuse human minds?"
"I always thought the 'Night Demon' was just a legend..."
"I wonder where this Doctor finds all these strange species..."
Qin Chuan did not reply. He only focused on the results when doing missions and never bothered with the "why."
He inexplicably glanced in the direction Xu An had disappeared, then turned to Hou Sui.
"Who is it this time?"
For the past six months, Qin Chuan had been operating in various places, escorting top scientists from different fields who had not evacuated in time back to the lighthouse.
During this time, he also received assignments from the Doctor's research institute to handle some matters that were inconvenient to be done openly.
"I'm not sure either, but this time it seems to be a foreigner. I heard they are from..."
"Let's just rest here. I see trees all around, and no people. It's so dark now, we don't have to worry about being seen."