"I won fifty thousand." Ling Ling looked down, a little excited.
Tank gave a thumbs up, "Looks like we gotta regrade your Xiao Dou's combat rating, at least a B now."
Everyone suddenly had a new opinion of Xiao Dou's fighting power, they finally realized Jing Shu wasn't joking about the battle hen on the plane.
Most of the crew walked away with extra cash, the ones who trusted Jing Shu and put money on it were grinning from ear to ear, it was basically found money for them.
The market scene was chaos though. Jing Shu saw a few people pulling guns like they meant to aim at Xiao Dou, so she didn't linger. She cashed out nearly three hundred thousand in black market currency and slipped away with the others.
Back at the house Jing Shu geared up with a bulletproof vest and helmet, even Xiao Dou seemed to sense something and clambered into its little steel cap. When Xiao Dou strutted around with its prize in its beak Jing Shu swore it looked a size bigger, there was just something off about it when she glanced over, but when she looked closer nothing was different.
Whatever, she didn't care.
They came back with a whole ground of carcasses, leopards, wolves, eagles, wild boars and so on, Tank and the others were utterly jealous.
The Snake Spirit, for once serious, told Jing Shu, "I wanna trade contribution points for some viper meat, probably about half the pile."
Jing Shu looked at the heap of meat, they weren't short on food lately, and nodded, "Name your price."
"Five hundred contribution points, how's that?"
"Deal."
Her medicine was precious, only worth a hundred contribution points, the snake meat still wasn't as valuable as her drug. Besides, contribution points were genuinely useful, Tank said five hundred points would let you bring a lot of stuff back home.
After that Ling Ling traded for some eagle meat, Monkey swapped for some wild ox, only Tank spent fifty contribution points on a dried crocodile claw, said he'd bring it back for his little sister — she was a humanoid T-Rex and liked those sorts of trinkets.
Unconsciously Jing Shu collected another batch of contribution points, she felt like she could legitimately haul more supplies home now.
Because Jing Shu hit the black market jackpot that day, the whole place blew up. People hated that chicken, they swore that if they saw it again they'd kill it by any means and roast it.
To lay low for a bit the team rested a day, but Jing Shu didn't slack off. They roughly processed all the animal pelts to take home for further work.
They made snake stew with the viper meat, braised wolf meat into a rich stew, turned pork into cured meat for the road, dried and hand-tore the beef, a simple scallion-ginger crocodile dish, and the eagle-and-rabbit stew Jing Shu hunted down specifically to make. She roasted the last of the leopard meat, brushed it with golden oil, sprinkled cumin, roasted it to a crisp glaze, then tossed on sesame. Tearing it by hand and dipping it in the green onions Jing Shu grew had her teammates questioning their lives from how hungry they were.
But none of that was the point.
The real question was, on a post-apocalyptic mission abroad, how did Jing Shu end up with such a complete set of seasonings? God, who did they piss off to deserve this?
Of course not everything could be eaten. For example the giant lizard Jing Shu processed to bring home as medicinal ingredients.
As for the real hero of the day, they didn't forget Xiao Dou. Even though the hen gobbled up all sorts of gross things, its digestive system had long since taken care of the worst of it, but that day the eggs Xiao Dou laid were traded to the Snake Spirit to feed the snakes.
The next day Xiao Hei hired the same pickup from last time, they started converting the black market currency in batches, small amounts at a time, into rice, grains and materials more common here in America. They loaded everything onto the truck and drove to the docks.
Compared to China, where people were too poor to even afford red nematode patties, every small town in America had this abundant supply, and the team couldn't help feeling envious.
Maybe because of them, the third day the black market prices jumped ten percent, but that didn't stop them. Over three days they converted all the black market currency into goods, and you couldn't deny that hundreds of thousands in black market credits still bought a lot.
At least all that cash went into their personal stash, not mission supplies, which kept morale high. After all, why did these people risk coming to America in the apocalypse? To grab as many resources as they could.
Trouble still came. The black market announced that due to an emergency they'd pick one of the seven teams to promote to an S-tier mercenary crew, and that team would be sent on a secret mission with huge rewards.
Yeah, the black market was conscripting people, anyone rated A had to compete. Jing Shu felt the malice clear as day.
"Based on Xiao Hei's intel, this is targeting us. We won a ton of black market credits, then started converting them the next day. I think this 'promotion' is fake, the real goal is to publicly get rid of us," Jing Shu said.
"No, Goat's intel says something really did happen, maybe those nobles actually have something urgent to handle, that's why they're rushing to pick the strongest team," Tank countered.
"Then we'll play their game," Jing Shu said.
Their plan got thrown off early, and Jing Shu didn't know if it was because of her, but at that point it didn't matter.
Tank's jinx came true. The match that day was a massive battle royale with dozens of people, the map had been reworked, and the goal this time was simple: win the chicken, get the victory, become the black market's only S-tier mercenary team. Of course the other teams had an extra objective, kill the Asian team.
With every merc out to get Jing Shu's squad no one could be careless, everyone pulled out all the stops. Luckily they didn't split up, so there were no embarrassing moments like the Snake Spirit getting lost or Tank falling into a pit.
The host sounded wistful, black market money wasn't easy to take, but he said what had to be said. The crowd cheered, the nobles started placing bets from the stage, and they were especially focused on the Asian wizard team.
In the nobles' section.
"Sister Peggy, what are you planning? You dragged these Asian people into this, our plan can't afford any mistakes!" George frowned and demanded of Peggy.
Peggy sipped her wine and smiled, "They won't survive this round. Even if they make it and become the black market's only S team, they'll be forced to fight in a life-or-death match in the city center for us. If they win, we get out of here. If they lose, there's nothing left for them. This trade benefits us, we won't lose."
"All right, keep an eye on them. Those Chinese people came here with bad intentions, I think they want our supplies."
"They're joking if they think a few of them can pull that off. Don't worry, I've got everything under control."