Chapter 172: Red River Star Waterfall Fisherman Li Ming
Ya Luo held up the smart terminal and gestured to Li Ming, "The Land of Stars is located near the Red River Star Stream. The magnetic field interference from several meteorite belts is very high, making it almost impossible to communicate with the outside world."
"Only the owners of the floating islands can contact the outside world."
Li Ming took a quick look, took out his smart terminal, and joined the local network. A large amount of information was constantly being updated, including purchases, sales, and even team formation on the spot, which gave Li Ming a sense of déjà vu.
After putting away his smart terminal, he couldn't help but ask, "Who originally built these floating islands?"
"That... I'm not sure." Yaluo shook his head. "Anyway, the owner of the floating island changes constantly, but no one is allowed to destroy it, otherwise the major forces in the Land of Stars will attack them together."
Li Ming seemed to be lost in thought.
"Let's keep a low profile." Yaluo leaned forward and whispered, "The Star Hunters must have known we'd arrived at the Land of Stars. Although this is the Collector's territory, the Star Hunters' leader is also an A-level lifeform."
They killed Atom and came here in Duke Bai Ye's carriage. The shipyard's tight-lippedness was only relative. They certainly wouldn't dare to hide anything from the Star Hunters.
Li Ming nodded and asked, "Is there any place here where I can get a large amount of metal materials?"
"A lot of metal?" Yaluo was confused. After thinking for a moment, he asked, "Is scrap metal okay?"
"Scrap?" Li Ming pondered, "That's fine."
"Red River Star Falls." Yaluo uttered an unfamiliar term, then immediately explained, "The Land of Stars is at the edge of the Red River Star Stream. The Red River Star Stream is extremely long, passing through numerous star clusters."
"Every once in a while, a star waterfall erupts, like a meteor, spewing out a lot of debris and even the remains of civilization from the Red River Star Stream. Many people make a fortune from this."
"Red River Star Waterfall..." Li Ming thought of the red galaxy that stretched into the depths of the universe and couldn't help but ask, "Where did all those things come from?"
Yaluo also shook his head: "Who knows? The Red Star Stream is extremely dangerous. No one dares to go deep into it."
Li Ming seemed to be lost in thought. Ya Luo glanced at him and shook his head, saying, "However, to get a ticket, you must have a floating island."
"Hmm?" Li Ming frowned.
"The Land of Stars has been divided up by various A-level life forms. They can't afford to share their benefits for nothing," Yaluo whispered.
"The owners of the floating islands are basically all their people, and only their people are allowed to gain benefits."
"Each floating island has a gravity grabber, which is used to capture a large number of things in the Red River Star Falls."
"Is that so..." Li Ming frowned, and Ya Luo said helplessly, "Yeah, forget it."
Li Ming remained silent, then suddenly asked, "You said before that we could do business here?"
"Yeah." Yaluo was confused.
"Where is the rental shop?"
Ya Luo was slightly stunned and asked in surprise: "You want to open a store?"
Li Ming shook his head, meaning unclear: "No, I want to fish."
Yaluo led the way in front without saying a word. This area was a well-known trading zone in the Land of Stars.
All kinds of contraband that are rarely seen in ordinary civilization are available here, and many slaves in chains are openly displayed on the streets for people to choose from.
There are not many rules in this area, and one of them is that conflicts are not allowed in stores.
This boosted trade in the area, but also made prices in its shops extremely high.
"The minimum lease term is one year. No deposit is required and there will be no refund." The pot-bellied pig man, with a fishy smell all over his body, lay lazily on the huge metal recliner without even opening his eyes.
All the houses on the entire floating island belong to collectors and are divided according to areas, and the prices are very high.
There are no empty houses in the best core area, but in the slightly inferior area, there is a three-story shop that has just been vacated.
"Five million a year, paid in one lump sum." The pig man glanced and casually quoted a price.
Li Ming couldn't help but be shocked. The price of five million for renting for a year was really high.
However, this is the land of stars, the most chaotic place. These houses have some security attributes and are naturally extremely expensive.
Ya Luo glanced at Li Ming and nodded, "That's it."
The pig man reluctantly sat up, followed the procedure familiarly, and asked them to give their names.
"Qinglong." Li Ming simply said the name. The pig man didn't care whether it was true or not. He entered their current appearance into the data and reminded them:
"Remember the facial features on the mimicry mask. If you change your face, we won't recognize you."
Then he threw out a crystal card, which was the key.
The whole process was short and crude, with too many loopholes.
After walking through several blocks, they arrived in front of the shop they rented. The walls were covered with gray-brown marks, but at least it was made of metal.
The door number area is a black screen, which seems to be adjustable at will, which is quite good.
On either side are the "Small Armor Shop" and the "Old Saab Pharmacy."
There are quite a lot of people on this street. There are no regulatory departments here. As long as you have good skills and can far surpass others, no one will care no matter how high the price is.
When I opened the door with the key card, a bloody smell hit me in the face. The first floor was empty and there were spurted blood marks all over the ground.
"Fuck, these people are getting lazier and lazier. They don't even clean up." Yaluo cursed.
Li Mingze said, "Didn't you say that conflicts are not allowed in the store?"
"Rules are rules." Ya Luo hesitated. "That's nominally true, but if the enemy is too strong, they'll be killed without any reaction, and the bodies will be cleaned up."
"The island guards will declare it missing. How could a Class A lifeform possibly have the time to investigate such a matter?"
Li Ming made a "tsk" sound. Safety is relative. At least one must have the ability to protect oneself.
"So, by opening a store, we are simply setting ourselves up as a target for the Star Hunters," Yaluo said helplessly.
Li Ming ignored him and several people started cleaning the room.
With [Intelligent Assistance] turned on, Li Ming even dug out dried pieces of meat from many cracks, as well as monitoring equipment that he didn't know if they were still useful.
"I really like this place more and more." Li Ming shook his head, crushed the surveillance camera in his hand, opened the door number manager and adjusted it.
"Qinglong Machinery Shop."
Seeing Li Ming seriously picking a name, Ya Luo felt a sharp pain in his teeth. "Are you really planning to do business here?"
"What's wrong? Are there any other rules?" Li Ming was puzzled.
Ya Luo was helpless. "No, that's good. With your skills, you shouldn't be short of business."
"Collectors are quite fond of mechanics. I heard he has a lot of broken things and often asks people to fix them. If you make something special, maybe he'll take a fancy to it."
Having said that, Yaluo obviously didn't hold out hope, as the collectors were basically all great mechanics.
"You reminded me." Li Ming opened the door number management system again and added a few lines of words -
"We only accept customization and repair of weapons of C-rank and above."
The level is too low, you can't earn much, it's a waste of time.
"Hiss~" Yaluo took a breath, "Do you want to set a limit?"
"You reminded me again." Li Ming raised his eyebrows and added another line of words: "If it can't be repaired, double the refund!"
Yaluo stared in astonishment, "What if someone comes and harasses you with an A-rank weapon?"
"Come on." Li Ming didn't care. When fishing, you need to use big bait.
The new store didn't attract many people when it opened.
However, after adding this line of small words, it attracted many interstellar villains to stop, point, speak in an interstellar dialect from somewhere, and then laugh.
People also came out from the shops on both sides and opposite, looking quite surprised, and then shook their heads.
"It's easy to get killed by pulling this kind of gimmick." Yaluo couldn't help but remind that in a normal civilization, this kind of gimmick might attract some attention.
But in the land of stars, playing too big can easily lead to failure.
But Li Ming seemed not to hear it. There were six rooms on the first and second floors, which could be renovated at will during the rental period.
Li Ming directly opened up the entire third floor, and gave the second floor to Yaluo and Kai to live in.
Kai helped clean up. Due to the presence of the gene inhibitor, he was sweating profusely. After hesitating for a while, he finally found Li Ming and asked, "May I ask what arrangements you have for me, sir?"
After following him all the way, he has discovered that Yaluo has little say, and all the decisions are made by this man named Qinglong.
But this person doesn't seem to be from the Interstellar Alliance.
He hardly ever saw this person on the spacecraft, which made him anxious all day long. Now he finally had the opportunity to ask him about it.
Li Ming casually said, "I have just opened a new store and don't have any waiters. You can take over for the time being."
Kai's face stiffened: "Waiter?"
"How about three thousand five hundred star coins per month?" Li Ming asked with a smile.
"This..." Kai forced a smile and said, "Sir, just tell me what you think. I don't think you want to let me go."
"Indeed." Li Ming admitted frankly, and Kai's expression froze.
"I am a profit-driven person. I finally rescued you..." Li Ming smiled gently, but Kai almost couldn't hold back.
"You should also know that I am an exiled noble and I don't have much money on me." Kai said helplessly.
"No, you're very rich." Li Ming smiled. "The gene sequence of the golden-eyed people is called—Judgment Blade, right? I want the theory of evolution."
"Evolution?"
Although Kai's mimicry mask has two eyes, it has no adhesive, so it looks empty and no emotional waves can be seen.
But from his high-pitched tone, one could sense his turbulent emotions, and he flatly refused: "I can't possibly tell you."
Unexpectedly, the other party did not get angry. Instead, he laughed and said, "So, you really have memorized the theory of evolution. That's impressive."
Kai's face turned pale, and he said reluctantly, "Even if you get the theory of evolution, it's useless. Your gene seed and the Judgment Blade are completely incompatible."
Li Ming chuckled, knowing that this matter couldn't be rushed, and said, "Don't worry, the room on the right upstairs is yours. Also, Tepper will be following you, so don't do anything tricky."
Kai was angry and helpless.
Li Ming didn't want to let him go for the time being. This guy still had secrets. He hadn't figured out what the golden vertical pupil he picked up was used for.
Moreover, the anti-plunder organization of the Interstellar Alliance seems to be quite interested in him.
Li Ming was already thinking about how to squeeze enough urine out of this toad.
Ya Luo, who was not far away, looked over frequently, his eyes flickering, as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself.
What Yaluo didn't expect was that a few hours later, some living beings came to his door. They were several humans wearing simple armor.
"Everyone, we won't open until tomorrow. We're not accepting customers today." Kai said expressionlessly.
"Why are they still kicking customers out?" One of them looked at Kai. "Your shop is really interesting. It's okay to be so arrogant, but this waiter is actually wearing a gene inhibitor?"
Kai couldn't help but frown when he heard that. Yaluo walked over and said, "Hey everyone, it's true that we haven't opened yet. Look, there's nothing on this floor. Is it still open?"
The scarred man next to him grinned grimly, "I don't care. We're here to inform you that if you want to do business here, you'll have to give us one-third of your net profits."
"Remember, it's net profit, not turnover. We'll have people watching over it, so don't try to play any tricks."
Yaluo's expression softened. "Who are you? The Collector's men?"
The scarred burly man sneered: "How can the old collector have time to take care of these trivial matters? If you want to do business here, you must abide by our rules!"
"Otherwise, do you know how the original owner of this place died?"
Yaluo's face turned cold.
"No problem." A voice came from the stairs, and Li Ming walked down slowly. "One third, right? I understand."
Several people looked at each other, sized up Li Ming, and said with satisfaction: "You are the boss? Not bad, you are quite sensible."
After getting a satisfactory result, several people left cursing.
Li Ming casually threw out a [Positioning], which covered a range of 10,000 meters, enough to determine the direction where the other party returned.
Ya Luo frowned and said, "That shouldn't be the case. How dare someone collect protection money on the collector's territory?"
"Protection money?" Li Ming shook his head. "They're here to collect the money for not causing trouble. If they can't protect me, they can always cause trouble."
Ya Luo was stunned. "Yeah, damn, I used to come here just to buy things, but I didn't expect there are so many tricks here."
Then, he couldn't help but ask, "One-third of the net profit was just given away like that?"
Li Ming remained noncommittal. "Wait and see, they shouldn't be the first group."
Yaluo was a little suspicious and waited for about half an hour. Surprisingly, another group of people came. They were a subspecies of lizardmen.
It’s similar to what those people said before, they also want one-third of the net profit.
There were three groups of people going back and forth, and Ya Luo finally cursed.
"Each of them wants one-third. Giving it all to them wouldn't be enough. Protection fees should be collected piece by piece. How can there be such people?"
"Ha..." A low laugh came from outside the door. It turned out to be an old guy who was almost skin and bones, with messy beard, bald head, hunched body, and sinister eyes.
"You..." Yaluo stared at him, "Are you the owner of the pharmacy next door?"
"Saber," the old man introduced himself, his voice hoarse, "Since we're all human, I have a word of advice for you: close the shop as soon as possible."
"Who are they?" Yaluo was not angry, but asked instead.
"Travel together." Saber's words made Yaluo stunned for a moment: "Travel together?"
Saber sneered, "That's right. Mechanical repairs and weapon customizations are only accepted for C-level and above. With such a big tone, the mechanics in this area will definitely team up to crush you to death."
"You're quite clever. No one got into a fight. Don't be fooled by their ferocious looks. If you dare to attack them, believe it or not, they'll just lie on the ground and let the Collector's guards come to punish you."
Yaluo grinned, "I guessed that. They definitely won't do anything."
Then he asked tentatively, "Is there a solution?"
"Yes." Saber laughed, "but I don't want to tell you."
Yaluo's face froze slightly, and Saber had already turned and left.
(End of this chapter)
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