Chapter 151: Liang Xiu, Why Not Follow Me?
"Comrade Li, where do we exchange the items?"
Exiting Villa No. 51, Meng Ci put the points card in his pocket and thought about going to exchange a few solar panels first.
Li Wencan pointed in a direction and said, "We still need to go further inside. It's about a ten-minute walk from here."
Meng Ci nodded, bid farewell to Li Wencan, and started walking in the direction he had indicated.
However, after taking a few steps, he heard a voice from behind.
"You three were the ones who killed the crocodile?"
Meng Ci turned around and saw someone he didn't recognize. He assumed it was an unimportant person and didn't want to get entangled, so he tried to leave.
But the man, who seemed quite thick-skinned, quickly approached him.
"Aren't you Meng Ci?" The man recognized Meng Ci and took a couple of steps forward, circling him and examining him up and down.
"Tsk tsk tsk!"
"I never thought that the son of M City's former richest family would be living such a miserable life."
The man then took a couple of steps back and waved his hand in front of his nose, as if Meng Ci emitted some kind of foul odor.
The man spoke with a look of pity, but Meng Ci couldn't recall ever meeting him.
However, the two burly bodyguards following the man reminded Meng Ci of the man who had asked for eggplants during the extreme cold.
"Oh, isn't this Manager Liang?"
"Did you find your young master?"
"I told you long ago that the Meng family is no longer what it used to be. In this post-apocalyptic world, follow me, and I guarantee you won't suffer."
Liang Xiu replied coolly, "Young Master Zhao, be careful with your words."
Indeed, the person in front of him was Zhao Jingyu, the only son of the second richest family in M City, the Zhao family.
"Is there something you need?" Meng Ci asked.
What was he pretending? He bathed every day, after all.
In his memories, the original host only attended a few banquets with Zhao Jingyu when Meng Wan was alive, and they didn't interact much.
After Meng Wan passed away, whenever there were such banquets, Zhang Lu would always make excuses for the original host to focus on studies, saying that attending these events would lead to moral decay, and always made Meng Ci decline.
However, Zhang Lu would always find an excuse to take the invitations and bring Li Xiaoya, dressed beautifully, to these events.
At many high-end banquets, the number of people exceeded the number of invitations, making it difficult for Li Xiaoya and her group to attend.
For some regular banquets, invitations would still be sent to the Meng family, assuming they wouldn't attend, which became occasions for Zhang Lu to socialize with Li Xiaoya.
Without the necessary status, one wouldn't have access to information from the upper echelons of society.
Meng Ci's sale of Meng Group's shares and the impending apocalypse were unknown to Li Shanyang and the others.
Finding no connection between Zhao Jingyu and the original host in his memories, Meng Ci felt relieved.
Since they weren't familiar, he could simply ignore him without fear of being exposed.
Zhao Jingyu shook his head. "Nothing."
"Just wanted to see who killed the crocodile, and unexpectedly ran into an old acquaintance."
Hearing that Zhao Jingyu had nothing to say, Meng Ci turned and walked away, with Shen Que eagerly following.
"Since you've seen him, Young Master Zhao, let's go back," Liang Xiu said, turning to leave as well.
Zhao Jingyu, who had finally found Liang Xiu, wasn't about to leave easily and followed him.
"Liang Xiu, I've told you before that you can join our Zhao family, and I'll ensure you live a comfortable life."
"And you definitely won't have to work hard like this."
"Especially not dangerous tasks like catching crocodiles."
Seeing Liang Xiu's wet clothes and the dried grass on his head, Zhao Jingyu would have left in disgust if he hadn't been trying to win him over.
Liang Xiu refused again, "No thanks."
Then he quickened his pace and left.
Zhao Jingyu snorted and waved for one of the bodyguards to come over, instructing him to investigate Meng Ci's situation over the past few days.
He mainly wanted to see if Meng Ci had been struggling over the past few months, and if so, he would feel satisfied.
After all, the Meng family had always overshadowed the Zhao family, and now that they were in decline, Zhao Jingyu naturally wanted to mock them.
In this post-apocalyptic world, information was scarce.
All that could be found was that Meng Ci had recently moved into the Xishan Wild Settlement and rarely went out.
Unaware of Zhao Jingyu's thoughts, Meng Ci and the others walked for a few minutes and saw a sign leaning against the wall.
Exchange Point for Wild West Mountain Items.
The sign looked new, as if it had just been made and not yet installed.
"Hello, I would like to exchange my points for items. Could you tell me how to do that?" Meng Ci stopped a woman wearing a blue badge with "Employee ID" on it; her name was Fan Yimeng.
Some of the residents of Wild West Mountain had already exchanged their items for points.
After all, compared to physical goods like food, points were safer. Exchanging required fingerprint and password verification, so even if someone found them, they couldn't be misused. Reissuing them was also simpler.
Therefore, after learning the exchange rules, the residents of the Wild West Mountain refugee settlement began converting their items into points.
And this was official, so there was no need to worry about any issues.
"It's inside."
Fan Yimeng led Meng Ci and the others into Villa No. 53. Upon entering, they saw tables, computers, and card readers set up in the courtyard.
"What would you like to exchange for?" Fan Yimeng asked, sitting behind the computer.
"I heard that we can now exchange points for solar panels?" Meng Ci asked.
"Yes, one thousand points for one solar panel," Fan Yimeng replied.
Meng Ci did some calculations. It was roughly ten kilograms of grain for one solar panel, which seemed quite reasonable. So he swiped six thousand points at once, exchanging them for six solar panels.
Fan Yimeng didn't react much when Meng Ci mentioned solar panels, but she was somewhat surprised by the large number he wanted to exchange. She couldn't help but look up at him.
Clearly, she was also puzzled as to why, with no sun in the sky, anyone would still want solar panels, and why the authorities had set such a high value for them.
However, she didn't say anything more, as the points belonged to him, and it wasn't her business to interfere.
After deducting the points, Fan Yimeng had someone bring out the solar panels.
These solar panels were approximately fifty by sixty centimeters in size.
They looked of average quality and had some dirt on them, suggesting they had just been dug up.
"Excuse me, if these solar panels don't work when I take them home, can I come back to exchange them?" Meng Ci pointed to one of the panels, which had a noticeable chip at one corner.
"Don't worry, all these solar panels have been tested by specialists and are guaranteed to be problem-free."
"Of course, if they don't work when you take them home, as long as it's not due to misuse, you can certainly bring them back for an exchange," Fan Yimeng replied.
Hearing this, Meng Ci felt reassured.
Although he didn't mind losing a few points, he didn't want to be taken advantage of and insisted on getting good quality items.
"Thank you," Meng Ci said gratefully.
He then asked Shen Que and Liang Xiu if they wanted to exchange for anything.
The two had already gone through the list of items available for exchange but hadn't found anything they needed. So each took two solar panels and left.