The lock on the secret door was not complicated. Xiao Wen fiddled with it a few times and it opened easily. The dark interior was filled with the distinctive smell of oil. Xiao Wen held up a lamp in one hand and took the damp cloth that Wen Le handed him to cover his mouth and nose. He stepped inside, and Wen Le followed closely behind, gently closing the secret door.
The area inside was as large as a factory floor, with countless pipes crisscrossing the walls on one side. Instead of heading straight for the pipes, the two of them each fixed six lamps to the wall, illuminating the interior clearly.
After installing the lighting, they went straight for the pipes. There were pipes of all sizes, with some as large as five meters in diameter and others as small as half a meter. Xiao Wen stood in front of a pipe and observed it carefully for a while, then bent down and touched the ground with his fingers before smelling them.
“This should be the gasoline pipeline,” Xiao Wen pointed to the pipe in front of him.
Wen Le also pointed to a valve next to him and said, “I think this one is diesel.”
Xiao Wen walked over to Wen Le and observed it carefully, “Indeed, it’s diesel.”
Looking around at the surrounding pipes, Wen Le said, “Out of all these pipes, only these two have any markings on them. We’ll have to try them out and see how much oil we can collect from them. Let’s leave the rest for now.”
“Okay, are the containers ready?” Xiao Wen asked.
Wen Le nodded, “They were prepared back at the base.” As he spoke, he waved his hand, and a custom-made box that was about ten cubic meters in size appeared.
“Fortunately, there’s enough space here, or we wouldn’t have been able to fit the box in,” Wen Le remarked.
Xiao Wen smiled, “If we couldn’t fit it in, we would have had to do it the hard way and transfer the oil little by little with small buckets!”
Wen Le smirked and refused to imagine such a scenario.
He then pulled out a pipe from his space that could connect to the gasoline pipeline and placed the other end into the box.
After securing it, Wen Le nodded to Xiao Wen, and he slowly opened the valve, allowing gasoline to flow into the container.
Wen Le sat on top of the container, keeping an eye on the oil level. Whenever the container was full, he immediately swapped it out with an empty one from his space to continue collecting oil. Xiao Wen caught the apples Wen Le tossed down from above and leaned against the valve, slowly nibbling on them.
“I don’t have a pipe that can connect to the diesel,” Wen Le said, closing his eyes and searching his space.
Xiao Wen looked up and examined the pipe opening, which was nearly one circle larger than the gasoline pipeline.
“How thick is your thickest pipe?” Xiao Wen asked.
Wen Le thought for a moment, “It’s somewhere between the size of the gasoline and diesel pipelines.”
“That’ll do. I’ll just open the valve a little and use the pipe to connect it. If we try to pour it directly into the container, we’ll end up spilling a lot,” Xiao Wen said. Suddenly, he furrowed his brows and looked around.
“What’s wrong?” Wen Le asked curiously.
Xiao Wen didn’t answer, but narrowed his eyes and looked around.
Seeing Xiao Wen’s actions, Wen Le also straightened up and scanned the entire factory with his spiritual power, leaving no small detail unnoticed.
After a while, Wen Le opened his eyes and met Xiao Wen’s gaze. He nodded and slightly gestured in a direction.
Xiao Wen walked over to where Wen Le had gestured. It was a weathered cement wall that, at first glance, seemed to have nothing except for some dirty marks.
However, Xiao Wen carefully felt around the wall with his hands and soon found a small protrusion.
“This should be the latest surveillance device from before the apocalypse. No wonder we didn’t notice it,” he said while patting the monitor and then walking away without bothering to turn it off.
“We might have been noticed on our way here,” Wen Le shrugged and didn’t say much about Xiao Wen’s behavior of leaving the surveillance device running.
After all, they were outsiders and there was no need to pick a fight with the local survivors. Moreover, since they had not blocked access to the oil products, this factory seemed to be a place where the local survivors extracted oil together.
Since the owner was so generous, there was no need for them to disrupt the locals. Besides, whether or not they were being watched had little effect on them, as long as they had such an incredible space at their disposal, there was probably no one who could really harm them.
Putting the surveillance device aside, the two continued to work together, searching for gasoline and diesel.
“The next time we come, we should bring a maintenance person for the fighter jet. The aviation gasoline used for the jet should be different from the gasoline we usually use. We should let them identify it so we can prepare some in advance,” Xiao Wen looked at the remaining pipelines on the wall and said.
“Okay,” Wen Le nodded, feeling a bit regretful as well.
Their base was in the early stages of development, and they were extremely lacking in all resources. If they had someone who knew the types of oil in these pipelines, it would be great. Because they didn’t know the types, they couldn’t even collect them. Who knows which of these pipes contained liquid or gas. If they encountered something that would explode on contact with air, they wouldn’t even have a place to cry.
“Let’s rest for now. There’s still a lot of oil left. We’ll continue after we rest,” Wen Le looked at the container that was about to be filled and said to Xiao Wen.
“Okay. You be careful. I’ll check if there are any leaks after I close the valves,” Xiao Wen said, standing up and forcefully closing the valves.
“Alright, neither of them are leaking,” Wen Le said as he jumped down from the container, letting Xiao Wen take the full container. He waved his hand and retrieved the two full boxes back into the storage space.
Just as Wen Le was about to return to the storage space with Xiao Wen, his expanded mental power picked up some movement.
“What’s wrong?” Xiao Wen asked curiously. As he was hugging Wen Le, he felt the tensing of Wen Le’s body when he sensed something.
“Someone’s here,” Wen Le whispered, leaning on Xiao Wen’s shoulder without moving.
He extended one hand and pushed Xiao Wen’s face away from the hidden door, and the two of them stared at a pipeline with a diameter of about two and a half meters.
As soon as Wang Zhixin opened the pipeline door, he was met with two pairs of straight and intense gazes that made him feel uneasy.
With a light cough, he gestured slightly to the person behind him, and then took the lead to walk out of the pipeline.
Including Wang Zhixin, there were a total of seven people who came this time. When all seven people walked out of the pipeline and came in front of Xiao Wen and Wen Le, Wen Le did not climb down from Xiao Wen’s body.
Wang Zhixin smiled awkwardly at the two of them. Xiao Wen nodded expressionlessly, while Wen Le looked at them with shining eyes.
The people on the opposite side really wanted to criticize.
Come on! You two are the outsiders, okay? Do you have to be so calm? It makes them, the locals, look like unwelcome outsiders.
“Hello, I am Wang Zhixin, the deputy chief engineer of the original Tarim Oil field,” Wang Zhixin said, introducing himself and extending his hand.
After hearing the last sentence, Xiao Wen’s eyes flashed with a glimmer of light, and Wen Le’s already bright eyes became even brighter.
Xiao Wen let go of Wen Le’s embrace and shook hands with Wang Zhixin.
“Hello, I’m Xiao Wen.”
Taking the opportunity, Wen Le stood behind Xiao Wen.
“I’d like to ask, where are you two from? Of course, we have no other intentions. If it’s not convenient, just ignore what I said,” Wang Zhixin said with a smile.
Xiao Wen smiled, “There’s nothing we can’t say. We’re from Apocalypse base in the Tibetan area.”
“Tibetan area” Wang Zhixin’s pupils contracted as he repeated the words in a whisper, firming up his resolve. “We are here to make a deal with you two. If possible, this transaction could potentially last for a long time. I wonder if you are interested,” he said, smiling amiably.
Xiao Wen raised an eyebrow. “Tell me more.”
“Not to hide anything from you, but we have very little stock of gasoline and diesel left, especially after the amount you took today. Given the distance between your base and here, I believe that the remaining oil in the pipeline will be taken by other survivors here before you come again. So next time, you may end up making a wasted trip,” explained Wang Zhixin.
Xiao Wen looked at him. “So what do you propose?”
“I suggest we make a deal. We provide you with enough gasoline and diesel when you come next time, and you provide us with survival supplies such as food, clothing, and medicine. Food is the most important. You provide us with the supplies, and we refine gasoline and diesel for you. If you can offer us something we’re satisfied with, we can even provide oil products exclusively for you,” proposed Wang Zhixin, maintaining his unwavering smile.
Xiao Wen nodded. “You provide oil products, and we provide survival supplies. That’s fair. But what do you want specifically?”
“Survival supplies, mainly food, but also clothing, medicine, and other essentials. If you can provide something we’re really satisfied with, we can even consider offering oil products only to you,” Wang Zhixin reiterated.
Xiao Wen narrowed his eyes. “You’re very smart.”
Wang Zhixin smiled but did not speak.
“How many people do you have? And how much oil can you provide in six months? And when I say oil, I’m not just talking about gasoline and diesel, but also aviation gasoline,” said Xiao Wen seriously.
Although they tried to maintain a calm exterior, Wang Zhixin and the six people behind him couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous when they heard about aviation gasoline.
“We have over 2,300 people in total, with 2,100 oil workers and 200 survivors who used to work in other logistical positions here. I’ll need to go back and calculate how much oil we can provide in six months. At the beginning, there were a lot of existing crude oil reserves, so production in the first half year will definitely be higher than in the later period. When the crude oil reserves are depleted, we will have to collect crude oil while refining, which will slow things down a bit,” Wang Zhixin explained.
“Okay, you go back and calculate how much oil we can take from you in six months, and we’ll calculate the supplies we can offer in return. Let’s meet here at noon tomorrow,” Xiao Wen said.
Wang Zhixin thought for a moment and nodded.
Watching the seven people walk back into the pipeline, Xiao Wen and Wen Le exchanged a glance but didn’t say anything. They opened the secret door and left the factory. After carefully scanning the building and finding no surveillance cameras, Wen Le pulled Xiao Wen into their safe space.
“It looks like we’re going to have a big harvest this time!” Wen Le let go of Xiao Wen and walked over to the box filled with gasoline, patting it with a smile.
Xiao Wen smiled and walked over to clean their dirty hands with Wen Le.
Thanks for the chapter! That’s better, a real cooperation and working with specialists.
That’s real luck 🤩
Thanks for the update!! 🤗 🤗