Second Apocalyptic Plane.

Lu Ze woke up in the familiar low shed.

A five-square-meter space, piled together with tattered gray and black tarpaulins, patched and mended, supported by four sticks, was his habitat and home since childhood. It was fortunate that the temperature in the post-apocalyptic world remained constant at around 25 degrees Celsius; otherwise, he might not have lived to the age of 12.

He had heard from his uncle in the village that when his parents were alive, their original home was a brick and tile house, not big, but more than ten square meters, which his parents built brick by brick themselves. However, after his parents passed away, it was taken back by the authorities. Because the security authorities had a unified management system for houses, if no adult survived in the house, it would be taken over by the public and then redistributed to adults in need. Fortunately, with the help of his parents' friends, the authorities provided him with some food, enough to live on for a year. His uncle and aunt in the village raised him until he was more than five years old. Even though those memories were blurry, he remembered that he was not hungry, and his uncle and aunt in the village were really good to him.

"Lu Ze, you're awake." Tao Tao lifted the curtain and came in, seeing her friend sitting on the bed in a daze.

"Tao Tao, thank you. If it weren't for Uncle Tao, I would have definitely been assimilated." Recalling the last few seconds before he fainted, the person who ran towards him was most likely Tao Tao's father.

Sure enough, upon hearing this, Tao Tao became a little angry. "Didn't I tell you to come back quickly? Why did you have to work a little longer? We can't harvest the grain right away." Thinking of the dangerous scene yesterday, Tao Tao was still a little frightened.

"Thank you, Tao Tao, and thank you very much, Uncle Tao."

"Hey, we may not be blood brothers, but we're closer than brothers. We're like family!"

The two huddled together and whispered for a long time. Tao Tao's family called them for dinner, so they reluctantly went home and made a promise that they would come back to play with him after dinner.

After Tao Tao left, Lu Ze was a little hungry. He found the dry food he had stored, including vegetable buns, and ate them all with cold water, bite by bite.

After finishing his meal, Lu Ze prepared to tidy up and go back to the planting area to continue working, but unexpectedly a voice popped into his mind, "System starting up, please wait... Congratulations to host Lu Ze for becoming the host of this system. Now, please activate this system so that it can serve you..."

More than ten minutes later, Lu Ze received the system information with a shocked expression and opened the floating screen.

His screen opened to a large full-screen dialog box with a rectangular icon in the upper left corner: Exchange Dimension: Postmodern Yuan Zhuan.

Following the system's instructions, tap on Yuan Zhuan's image, then press and hold the bottom circle, speak, and release, "Hello? I'm Lu Ze..."

Out of curiosity, Lu Ze kept sending voice messages, and before he knew it, dozens of them had been sent.

When Yuan Zhuan logged on, he saw more than twenty text messages.

"Are you Lu Ze? I have food and thunderstorm talismans that can be used to kill zombies. What will you use to exchange with me?"

Roar! Roar! When Lu Ze saw someone speak in the chat box, he gasped in shock. Could this really be used to make deals with people from other dimensions?

"Are you a real person?" Could it be that the system is deliberately teasing him?

Yuan Zhuan laughed. His flustered appearance was no different from Zhang Xiaoxiao's. However, unlike Zhang Xiaoxiao, who needed her to teach him the transaction process step by step, this kid had a system that could teach him.

"Yes, I have some steamed buns here, would you like some?"

"I want it!!" The word "steamed bun" made Lu Ze's breath catch in his throat, and he instinctively shouted that he wanted it.

He lived to be 12 years old and had never eaten a steamed bun. Only the management could eat those kinds of steamed buns. If ordinary people ate a steamed bun once, they would have to go hungry for several meals. The grain they grew had to be eaten in very small quantities, otherwise they might starve to death.

"Do you really have steamed buns?" Lu Ze asked cautiously to confirm.

"Yes. If you have any supplies, you can trade with me, any supplies will do." It's okay to give away supplies for the first transaction, but the system only allows trading, not gifting.

The goods being exchanged? Lu Ze looked around the shed. It was bare. Other people had walls, but he didn't even have any. His gaze finally fell on a small tin box under the bed, which contained his favorite shiny little stones.

"Is this okay?" One instruction followed one step, and Lu Ze completed the uploading of the supplies.

When Yuan Zhuan received the pictures of the supplies, the bright green gemstones almost blinded her.

"Sure." Yuan Zhuan didn't hesitate. "System, how many gold coins will this be worth?"

"135 grams of emerald, 83% purity, can be exchanged for 12 gold coins, plus 7 silver coins and 3 copper coins."

Yuan Zhuan: ...

She intended to give it as a gift, but she didn't expect the little boy's exchange item to be so valuable.

"Lu Ze, I'll give you a bucket of water, a hundred catties of flour, and some daily necessities, is that alright?" In the apocalypse, needless to say, clean water and food are definitely scarce, as are oil, salt, dried meat, and vegetables.

Yuan Zhuan's text was converted into speech and sent to Lu Ze, who could hear it clearly. This was a function that the system had set up for him, because he didn't know many characters.

Lu Ze couldn't believe his ears; he thought he might be hallucinating.

One hundred pounds of flour and one bucket of water!!!

One hundred jin, how much is that?

System: It's your bowl, around two hundred bowls.

Lu Ze: ...

She pinched her thigh hard. "Sister, are you serious?"

The pebbles he picked up could be exchanged for so many supplies? Was he really not dreaming? But his thigh hurt a lot.

"Yes, after you redeem it, it will be stored in the system's inventory. You can take out as much as you need, but be careful to keep it confidential. By the way, do you know how to cook meat and vegetables?"

"No, how do you eat meat?" They grow rice and wheat, eat gray steamed buns, and exchange the harvested grains for the nutrient solution their bodies need. He has never eaten meat, and naturally has never seen it.

Yuan Zhuan: ...

This child seems to have had a worse life than Zhang Xiaoxiao in her world. Zhang Xiaoxiao's childhood was in a civilized era, but this child's is probably not. "How many years into the apocalypse in your world?"

"It's been over a hundred years, I don't know for sure. We're in a slum here, resources are limited. The superpowered people in the New Territories must know how to eat meat and what it tastes like."

"The New Territories?"

"Yes, sister, is your world in the modern era? Don't you have the New Territories? You..."

And so, Yuan Zhuan, unusually curious, started chatting with Xiao Luze.

In such harsh living conditions, children have very little chance of growing up, and the mortality rate among young adults is also very high.

In the end, Yuan Zhuan decided to buy meat to make steamed buns and exchange for ready-made ones. Otherwise, even if he exchanged them, the little guy would easily be exposed. After all, he was the only one in his family, and the house was drafty. It just wouldn't work.

"What? Making steamed buns?" Master Yuansun was puzzled. Why was the first thing Yuan Zhuan did after rushing back from out of town not to rest or eat, but to make steamed buns? "Isn't that a bit too much? A thousand? Are you having a banquet?"

"Let's go buy groceries." It's all done by machines. They just pour flour, meat, and seasonings into the machine. It doesn't take long, just steaming it, which takes a bit of effort.

Yuansun: ...

It's true what they say: employees have no human rights.

Before Yuan and Sun returned from grocery shopping, Yuan Zhuan transferred the candy, skewers, and unsold buns from the shop to his system inventory. "Lu Ze, this is a small portion. The remaining thousand buns probably won't be shipped until tomorrow night. I'll give them to you later."

Lu Ze stared blankly as he took out steamed buns and candies from his backpack, along with a plastic bag containing hot skewers.

Steamed buns? Are they this white?

Lu Ze grabbed one, stuffed it into his mouth, and bit down. The fragrant filling mixed with juice filled his mouth. Is this what a meat bun tastes like?

It's delicious, so delicious!

Lu Ze thought that if he were to finish this bun and then die, he would die without regrets.

After eating five palm-sized meat buns, Lu Ze finally stopped eating at the system's urging. Only then did he realize that his stomach was already bulging.

Looking at his bulging belly with bright eyes, Lu Ze felt incredibly happy at that moment.

He actually ate his fill...

modern.

Yuan Zhuan slept soundly through the night and arrived at the company promptly at 8:30 the next morning.

From the moment he met Cao Ming, this man's mouth never stopped, chattering on and on, until he got thirsty, drank some water, and then continued.

"So, you earned me a million and even renovated the factory." After a lot of preamble, Yuan Zhuan concluded.

"Ten thousand, take it, you're welcome." Yuan Zhuan generously offered the reward, and Cao Ming's chatter came to an abrupt halt.

"One hundred thousand?" Cao Ming was somewhat uncertain.

“One hundred thousand,” Yuan Zhuan affirmed.

"Wow!! My Zhuanzhuan! You are simply the most beautiful angel in my heart!" Cao Ming, grinning, went up to give her a bear hug, but Yuan Zhuan quickly laughed and dodged away.

"The factory building hasn't been bought yet?" It's such a large area, and the renovation would cost a lot. Buying it would definitely be more suitable.

"Of course, such a big matter, the company's capital increase, requires you, the boss, to come and discuss it." This is a matter of principle, and cannot be handled carelessly.

"Okay, inform Feng Sanshui's side, we'll go together then. You decide the time, I'll go see them."

"Okay." Seeing Yuan Zhuan get up to go to the training ground, Cao Ming hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but then stopped.

“Brother Ming, you haven’t finished speaking.” Yuan Zhuan stood up and looked directly at Cao Ming.

"They're back, and they've completed all the tasks you assigned them perfectly. However, they all have some issues, more or less. You'll see when you go and take a look." He had people scrape off the bloodstains on the walls every day and apply new paint, but new ones would appear the next day.

These kids were really provoked. This time, he had no choice but to wait for Yuan Zhuan to come back and deal with it.

Psychological problems… Yuan Zhuan frowned. She had thought about this. After all, even when soldiers returned from missions, some developed serious psychological problems, and many even had to leave the army because of it.

Therefore, mental illness is not a trivial matter. It is not easy to train the people under her, and none of them can be harmed.

As Yuan Zhuan walked to the door, he heard a series of self-destructive screams and pounding on the wall coming from the training ground. And it wasn't just one, it was dozens of screams.

As soon as he stepped into the training ground, Wu Tianqing saw him and immediately strode over to greet him, "Boss, you're back."

"Bring me the data they've collected since they came back." Yuan Zhuan frowned as he watched the team members who had returned from the mission engage in brutal combat, some of them smashing the wall to death, their punches leaving bloodstains on the walls.

"yes."

After receiving the data, Yuan Zhuan saw the rapidly improving physical fitness and the declining mental state, and he rubbed his brow in frustration.

This was her oversight; she should have provided psychological counseling before she left.

She forgot that this was not the apocalypse, but a civilized era. People had basically never encountered the kind of brutality that seemed normal in the apocalypse; they were even less able to calmly face and deal with the violent emotions caused by those abnormal situations as she did.

A glance swept over Wu Tianqing's appearance; he seemed alright, truly a one-in-a-million individual.

As for Bai Jianqiang, his emotional expression was very indifferent. Given his personality and state, this reaction was expected. He was incapable of empathy and would only mechanically follow orders.

"The rest of the team members will temporarily suspend training today. Everyone who is participating in the mission should stay behind."

"Yes." Wu Tianqing returned to the field, gave instructions, and everyone's eyes turned to Yuan Zhuan, but they quickly turned back and began to act according to the instructions.

Ten minutes later, only the 47 team members who participated in this mission remained on the field.

Yuan Zhuan stood at the front of the team with his arms crossed. Apart from Bai Jianqiang, even Wu Tianqing had dark circles under his eyes, but compared to the other team members, Wu Tianqing's mental state was much better.

Sit cross-legged.

Everyone murmured and sat down as instructed.

"This mission, codenamed 'Search and Rescue,' is now declared over."

The room was completely silent...

"I've kept you all here to have an open and honest discussion about the current work and nature of Yuan's Security. I founded Yuan's Security for only two purposes: first, to make money; second, to accumulate merit! Merit is exactly what it sounds like, and I believe you, as adults, understand the literal meaning of 'merit.' Currently, Yuan's Security handles two types of business: one is protecting the personal safety of our clients; the other is our self-motivated role as guardians, walking in the shadows to protect the future of the nation and its people. In the future, we will inevitably participate in many more search and rescue operations like this, and we will continue to travel to various regions across the country to carry out missions. I won't go into the dangers of these missions; I believe you all understand. During missions, there may be even more horrific situations than what we've seen and heard this time, so we need strong mental fortitude. However, your current mental state is insufficient." At this point, Yuan Zhuan's words elicited some response from the group, instead of them remaining immersed in their anger and violent emotions.

Yuan Zhuan's gaze swept over each face. "Now, close your eyes, and I will eliminate the negative spiritual energy overflow for you."

Everyone did as instructed.

A calming talisman appeared in Yuan Zhuan's hand without his knowledge. With a wave of his hand, the talisman burst into flames and instantly turned to ashes, dissipating into the air.

Yuan Zhuan formed hand seals, and golden light emanating from his fingertips drifted towards the crowd, dissipating above their heads.

When Cao Ming came in, what he saw was the team members who had participated in the mission all lying together, fast asleep.

Cao Ming's eye muscles twitched a few times before he walked over and asked, "You drugged them?"

Yuan Zhuan: ...

"A calming talisman to ward off lethargy. Do you want one?"

"Yes!" Calm down! How important!

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