Chapter 203

In front of the trading platform made of manganese crystal plates, Zhao Hu slammed his axe heavily on the table, causing ice shards to fall down in a flurry.

He squinted at the refugees in front of him, tapped the "Exchange Rules" posted on the board with his finger, and said in a rough voice like sandpaper: "Look carefully! 1 Tier 1 Demon Core can be exchanged for 2 kilograms of ice, and 3 cores can be exchanged for 1 bottle of high-level heat-resistant medicine."

"If you don't have a demon core, you can trade manganese crystal equipment, food, or even fragments of supernatural abilities. Don't even think about touching the door to the ice cellar if you're missing any of those!"

Behind the trading platform, Scarface was directing several laborers to reinforce the entrance to the ice cellar—they used the stolen manganese crystal supports to build a half-meter-high fence, with sharpened steel pipes inserted into the fence, the tops of which were still covered with unmelted ice shards, reflecting the blinding light of the polar day.

The ice blocks in the ice cellar were neatly stacked. Scarface would occasionally pick up a piece of ice and casually throw it on the ground, listening to the crisp sound of the ice breaking, a sickly smile on his face, completely ignoring the chapped lips and longing eyes of the refugees next to him.

The first to step forward to exchange was a middle-aged man, who tremblingly pulled out a first-tier demon core that emitted a faint glow—

He handed it over, his hands trembling, saying, "I...I'll exchange it for 2 kilograms of ice and half a bottle of medicine. My wife is about to get heatstroke..." He had managed to kill a mutated rat yesterday, but the skin was still attached to it.

Zhao Hu snatched the demon core, weighed it in his hand, and a mocking smile appeared on his lips: "Half a bottle of medicine? It's clearly written in the rules, 3 demon cores per bottle, and this one is only enough to exchange for ice!"

He turned to his subordinate and shouted, "Give him two kilograms of ice, quick, don't delay the people behind!"

A subordinate filled a bucket with manganese crystal and handed it to the man. Ice mist rose from the rim of the bucket. Just as the man was about to take it, Zhao Hu kicked the bucket, scattering ice all over the ground: "What's the rush? Take off your heat-resistant clothing! This ice is enough for two buckets. You're still short one piece of clothing to pay the 'handling fee'!"

The man's heat-resistant clothing was torn, but it was still a lifesaver against the high temperatures. He instinctively shrank back, saying, "I can't give you this clothing; I still need it to block the sun..."

"You won't give it to me?" Zhao Hu raised his axe, blade pointed at the man's shoulder. "Either take off your clothes or get out of here, and don't even think about getting the ice!"

Looking at the scattered ice shards on the ground, and thinking of his unconscious wife at home, the man gritted his teeth, took off his tattered heat-resistant clothes, revealing the sunburned and swollen skin on his back, took the remaining half-bucket of ice, and rushed into the dense forest without looking back.

In the group, a girl in a blue dress gripped a cloth bag tightly, her knuckles turning white from the force. Her name was Lin Xiao, a second-tier ice-type ability user, and the bag contained half a fragment of a third-tier manganese crystal—

She found it in an abandoned laboratory. She originally wanted to keep it to enhance her superpowers, but her younger brother hadn't had cold water for three days, and his lips were so dry and cracked that they were bleeding. So she had to come and exchange it for ice.

When it was her turn, Lin Xiao took out a manganese crystal fragment and placed it on the trading table: "This is a third-tier manganese crystal fragment. How much ice and medicine can I exchange for it?"

Zhao Hu's eyes lit up. He picked up the fragment and examined it against the light. The fragment glowed with a pale blue light, indicating extremely high purity, making it much more valuable than an ordinary demon core.

He turned and winked at Scarface, who immediately came over, pretending to weigh the shards in his hand, then suddenly shoved them into his pocket: "These shards are worth at most 3 kilograms of ice, no medicine! Trade if you want, otherwise get lost!"

"You're talking nonsense!" Lin Xiao rushed forward anxiously. "A third-tier manganese crystal fragment can be exchanged for more than 10 bottles of medicine. What right do you have to steal my things?"

She activated her ice-based ability, and a pale blue light emanated from her fingertips. Several tiny ice blades appeared out of thin air and flew towards Scarface's hand.

But as soon as she activated her power, she was kicked in the knee by one of her subordinates, causing her to fall to her knees in pain, and the ice blade instantly dissipated.

Zhao Hu grabbed her hair and slammed her face against the cold trading table, his voice fierce: "You little brat, you dare to lay a hand on me? In these deep mountains, I say it's worth whatever! Either you obediently take 3 kilograms of ice and get out of here, or you stay and do hard labor. You can leave when you've paid off the 'penalty'!"

Lin Xiao's face was pressed against the ice, the biting cold making her shiver, but her anger only intensified. She struggled and shouted, "You band of robbers! 'I am the God of Wealth' will not let you get away with this!"

"'I'm the God of Wealth'?" Scarface laughed, stepping on her back. "If she could really come, she would have come long ago! This ice cellar is our territory now, you'd better know your place!"

He turned to one of his men and said, "Drag her to the back and make her chisel ice for us. We'll consider giving her some water when she's chiseled 50 kilograms!"

The subordinate dragged Lin Xiao to the back of the ice cellar. Lin Xiao's skirt was torn by the steel pipe, and her knees scraped against the ground, leaving two bloody marks. She looked back at the manganese crystal fragments on the trading table, tears mixed with sweat streaming down her face, but she could only cry out helplessly, "Let me go! That's my brother's life-saving money!"

Beside the trading platform, the displaced people dared not speak out against their anger.

A refugee in gray clothes, carrying half a bag of compressed biscuits, had intended to exchange them for some ice for his sick mother. Seeing Lin Xiao's plight, he was terrified and quickly stuffed the biscuits back into his clothes. He turned to leave, but was stopped by Scarface's henchmen: "Want to leave? Hand over what you have! Otherwise, you're not leaving!"

The gray-clad refugee, his face deathly pale, trembled as he pulled out a biscuit: "I...I only have this. Could you exchange it for some ice? Just a little..."

The henchman snatched the biscuit, threw it on the ground, and crushed it with his foot: "You think you can trade this piece of junk for ice? Get back to breaking ice! You can leave when you've broken 20 kilograms!"

The gray-clad refugee slumped to the ground, staring at the rotten biscuits, tears welling up instantly—those were his mother's last rations.

Deep inside the ice cellar, several laborers were chiseling ice. Most of them had been forcibly detained because they couldn't hand over supplies. Each of them had blisters on their hands, and some of the blisters had burst, leaving dark red streaks on the ground with blood mixed with ice shards.

The woman who had been holding the child earlier was also among them. Her child was placed on a stone next to her, with a small piece of ice in his mouth, staring blankly at his mother's busy figure, occasionally letting out a faint "thirsty" sound.

The woman was secretly stuffing ice fragments into the child's mouth while chiseling ice, but was discovered by Zhao Hu, who was on patrol.

Zhao Hu kicked her in the waist, and the woman fell to the ground. The chisel fell onto the ice with a crisp sound.

"You dare steal ice?" Zhao Hu grabbed her hair and slammed her head against the ice wall. "You think you can just take my ice like that? If I don't teach you a lesson today, you won't know who's in charge here!"

The woman's forehead slammed against the ice wall, and blood instantly flowed down, dripping onto the ice and quickly freezing into dark red shards. Enduring the pain, she scrambled to her feet, shielding her child, her voice weak: "The child is thirsty... please give me some ice..."

"Beg me?" Zhao Hu raised his foot to stomp on the child, but was stopped by Scarface: "Don't kill the child. Keep him alive as bait so that his mother can cut more ice."

Scarface crouched down, pinched the child's chin, and looked at his mouth filled with ice shards. A ruthless glint flashed in his eyes: "If you want the child to live, you have to chisel 30 kilograms of ice a day. If you're short even a pound, the child will go hungry for a meal!"

The woman could only nod through her tears, pick up the chisel, and desperately smash it against the ice. The chisel broke the blisters on her hands, and she trembled with pain, but she dared not stop—she knew that if she stopped, her child might not survive.

On the other side of the trading table, Zhao Hu and Scarface were arguing over the unequal division of the spoils.

Scarface pulled out a third-tier manganese crystal fragment from his pocket and threw it on the table: "I saw this fragment first, so it should belong to me!"

"Why should it belong to you? I was the one who stopped that girl!" Zhao Hu snatched the shard back. "Besides, you got two extra bottles of the antipyretic medicine we robbed yesterday, so this shard must be mine!"

The two men were on the verge of fighting, and their subordinates quickly took their places beside their masters. Just as a fight was about to break out, one of the men suddenly shouted, "Boss! Another group of refugees has arrived outside, and it looks like some of them have superpowers!"

Zhao Hu and Scarface stopped fighting instantly, exchanged a glance, and their eyes flashed with greed—superhumans often carry more valuable supplies, and may even have high-level demon cores.

"Bring them here!" Zhao Hu gripped his axe tightly. "Follow the old rules: beat them if they disobey, and kill them if necessary. Let them know who's in charge in this ice cellar!"

There were about twenty new refugees, led by a second-tier lightning-type ability user. When he saw the ice on the trading table and the heat-resistant medicine bottles next to it, a hint of wariness flashed in his eyes: "We have 5 first-tier demon cores and 2 second-tier manganese crystals. We want to exchange them for 10 kilograms of ice and 5 bottles of heat-resistant medicine."

"Five bottles of medicine?" Scarface sneered. "Two second-tier manganese crystals are only enough to exchange for three bottles of medicine, plus 10 kilograms of ice and one demon core. If any of these are missing, it's out of the question!"

The lightning-type ability user frowned, a faint crackling of lightning appearing at his fingertips: "You're asking for an exorbitant price!"

"This is the price. Take it or leave it!" Zhao Hu raised his axe. "If you don't want to change it, get lost. Don't delay our business, or don't blame me for my axe being ruthless!"

The lightning-type ability user was about to make a move when his companion stopped him: "Don't be impulsive. We've run out of water, and without ice, none of us will survive the day."

The superhuman looked at his companion's cracked lips and weak figure behind him, and finally gritted his teeth and took out an extra demon core: "Deal, but you have to make sure there are enough ice and medicine."

Zhao Hu took the demon core and manganese crystal, smiled with satisfaction, and said to his subordinates, "Replace their medicine with ice, don't try anything funny."

He turned to Scarface and lowered his voice: "This superhuman is quite strong. Once they get the ice and medicine, we'll sneak up behind them, rob them of all their supplies, and maybe even capture a few superhumans to use as laborers."

Scarface nodded, a ruthless glint in his eyes: "Alright, I'll take a few men and circle around from behind. You hold them off from the front. Make sure we wipe them all out in one fell swoop!"

The conversation between the two was clearly heard by Su Jing, who was invisible. She had received a request for help from the chat area of ​​the Chinese nation half an hour earlier, activated her invisibility ability and quietly sneaked into the valley. At this moment, she was hovering in the air above the ice cellar. Her Qi Refining Level 2 spiritual power allowed her to completely conceal her aura, and no one could detect her presence.

Looking down at the abused refugees, the arrogant gang, and Lin Xiao being dragged along, Su Jing's eyes grew colder.

A pale blue lightning-based supernatural power emanated from her fingertips, and the laser gun in the space was already silently loaded—these villains had occupied the ice cellar, oppressed the refugees, and even tried to harm those with supernatural abilities; today, they would pay the price.

Beside the ice cellar, Lin Xiao was being forced by her subordinates to chisel ice. Her wrists were rubbed raw and bleeding, but she still stubbornly refused to bow her head, glancing at the trading platform from time to time with resentment in her eyes.

Meanwhile, Zhao Hu and Scarface had quietly gathered their men, armed themselves, and prepared to make their move after the new superhuman left.

Su Jing landed slowly on the ground, her footsteps making no sound as she remained invisible.

She watched as the gang of thugs gradually surrounded her, and saw the helpless look in the eyes of the refugees—her lightning-based supernatural power coalesced at her fingertips.