"What, that's it? It's all gone?" Jing Shu ran around the empty warehouse, her footsteps echoing sharply against the cold concrete floor. She peered into the shadows of the empty racks, only to see a bunch of worthless handguns and scattered weapons lying around, many of them rusted or missing key components.
"This is just the passageway," Jun Jia replied lazily, leaning his shoulder against a steel support beam. "We're not even inside the real armory yet."
"Then let's go in! What are we waiting for?" she urged, her eyes scanning the heavy doors at the far end of the hall.
Jun Jia looked at her as if she had lost her mind. "You kidding me? That's classified. You can't just walk in there. These are the weapons that were decommissioned for material exchange. What is left is what you see here. Even if you make a scene in front of my brother-in-law, the only stuff you can take is right here. And even if you somehow got access to the inner vault, you still couldn't get a legal possession permit for military-grade hardware."
Jing Shu deflated like a punctured balloon, her shoulders sagging as she looked at the meager pickings. She had come ready to grab a massive haul of modern equipment, but apparently, after a few months of exchanges across a dozen districts, the armory was basically picked clean of anything high-end.
Still, she wasn't about to give up so easily. She searched the place anyway, her hands brushing over dusty shelves and empty racks, hoping to find something valuable that had been overlooked. Aside from a few RPGs no one wanted because of their bulk and the scarcity of rockets, there wasn't much left.
"Fine, I will take twenty RPGs then."
"You just used up five hundred thousand worth of credits," Jun Jia said with a smug grin, clearly enjoying the look of frustration on her face. Jing Shu hadn't paid anything out of pocket, but she was walking off with weapons worth several rounds of exchange. Worse, he had to dip into his own material quota to allow her to take them. No wonder the man was pissed off.
"If it really can't be helped, I will just take some old junk guns. I have already got plenty of weapons from America anyway." She sighed, about ready to give up on the venture, when she turned a corner into a deeper section of the corridor and froze. Rows upon rows of sturdy wooden crates stacked against the walls caught her eye, stretching toward the dim rear of the warehouse as far as she could see.
"What is this…"
"That's the ammo depot."
Jing Shu's eyes lit up instantly. Ammunition! That was the real treasure of the apocalypse. She had plenty of weapons tucked away in her space, but ammo was always too precious to use freely in a fight.
"If the weapons are gone, why is there still so much ammo?"
"Didn't they stop making bullets after the apocalypse?" she asked. "I thought every bullet was supposed to be precious?"
Jun Jia shot her a pitying look. "Before the apocalypse, China's ammo reserves exceeded sixty billion rounds, with hundreds of billions more stored as backup. They might have stopped production now, but since there hasn't been any major conflict lately, the current supply is more than enough for daily needs and security."
"Then I will trade the rest of my credits for bullets," Jing Shu said, rubbing her hands together. Jackpot. She knew from her memories of the future that by the fifth year of the apocalypse, new species began invading the urban centers, causing a massive ammo shortage. Materials ran out, production stalled entirely, and bullets became priceless.
With a secure supply of ammunition, her future survival would be guaranteed. Without bullets, even the best gun was just a heavy paperweight.
Jun Jia frowned, his smugness fading into a look of concern. The whole reason the government exchanged outdated weapons for materials was to guide people toward trading officially for ammunition later. Ammo, not weapons, was the true strategic asset. Like how cars needed gas to run, bullets were the real consumable resource that mattered. Whoever controlled them controlled power itself.
"The answer is no," Jun Jia said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest. "First, bullets are way too expensive to make it worth it for a civilian. Second, there's no way I can release that much ammo at once under your personal quota."
"How much are they per round? And what is in those crates?" she asked, stepping closer to the nearest stack.
"Thirty virtual coins per bullet. Each crate holds a thousand rounds, worth thirty thousand virtual coins."
Her jaw dropped. That was insane. Before the apocalypse, a bullet cost four cents to make in a factory. Now thirty virtual coins could buy ten steamed buns. Food prices had inflated dozens of times, and bullets were still ten times pricier than food. It was all a scheme to trick traders into exchanging precious resources for lead and brass.
"If you won't give me ammo, even if I take every rusty weapon here, it still won't meet my quota. Besides," she smirked, watching his jaw tighten, "I'm sure Madam Jin already told you what happened today. If things go well, her husband is going to live a lot longer than anyone expected."
Jun Jia wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, remaining silent for a long beat. This girl was nothing but trouble. If she didn't get her ammo, she would probably go straight to file a complaint, crying her way up the chain of command just like his sister used to do as a kid. And honestly, she wasn't wrong; the weapons left here weren't worth her assigned quota anyway.
Then suddenly, an idea struck him.
"Alright," he said, snapping his fingers. "You can have the bullets. Whatever you can carry out today is yours. But only once. No helpers, no extra tools. You can use whatever you have on your person, but you have got thirty minutes to move everything from here to the exit. It's about five hundred meters away. What you get out in time is yours to keep. If you don't agree, just grab some leftover weapons and get out."
So basically, whatever she could move out of the ammo depot to the exit in one trip would belong to her.
Jing Shu raised a brow and picked up one crate. It weighed more than ten kilos, the wood rough and smelling of old pine. A thousand bullets per box, ten boxes would weigh over a hundred kilos. No normal person could carry that much weight, not even with leverage.
A thousand rounds might sound like a lot to a novice, but with a machine gun firing thousands of bullets a minute or a rifle with a rate of 650 rounds per minute, even short bursts would eat through that supply in no time.
Still, she wasn't wasteful with her resources. Over the past two years, she had only fired a few hundred bullets total, saving them for emergencies. But she knew the days ahead would be different. Ammo would only get scarcer as the world fell apart. This was her chance to stock up.
At current prices, each crate was worth thirty thousand virtual coins. If she could take 120 crates, that would be 120,000 rounds. But from the look on Jun Jia's face, there was no way he actually thought she could take that much.
"Alright," she said finally, smirking back at him. "No helpers, no outside tools, and only one trip. I get it. I just want to confirm one thing—no matter how much I manage to carry, it's all mine, right?"
Jun Jia nodded, confident in his trap. "That's right."
She raised her wristband, the screen glowing in the dim corridor. "Good. You said it yourself. I'm recording this."
Jun Jia snorted. "Go ahead. Let's see how much you can actually move."