You were supposed to hoard supplies, why the heck did you hoard zombies!

Zhang Meng thought to himself that salt wasn't valuable and, after considering to confirm there wouldn't be any issues, he directly agreed:

"Fine, whatever Peng Liu says, we'll do!"

"Hahaha, I'll listen to you!"

He didn't take the salt seriously.

On the contrary, he was more concerned about the rice, flour, grains, and oil Peng Yue mentioned in the latter half of his sentence.

After all, Peng Yue didn't seem to be lacking food or clothing at this moment. With so many precious canned goods being sold, could his people still have nothing to eat?

Who the hell would eat those bland white flour cakes if they had meat in cans?

That would be insane, right?

Moreover, apart from these cans, there was specifically a truckload filled entirely with processed instant noodles.

These two items combined formed a phrase in Zhang Meng's eyes.

That was: rolling in money.

What is wealth?

Food.

For the people now, the one with more food has a solid foundation and strong power.

So why would Peng Yue, who had such strong foundations and power, come all this way, to trade processed cans and instant noodles for those raw materials which were obviously lower in value?

To take them back for processing and then sell them to oneself?

Unlikely.

Accounting for the to and fro and the loss en route, they probably wouldn't make much of a profit.

Moreover, these items were clearly processed in a factory somewhere.

Since there's a factory, there must be workers. Now that the entire city area had lost power, besides the workers' food and wages, they needed generators and fuel among many other things.

All these messy conditions added up would definitely exceed the profit gained from processing the raw materials brought back.

Zhang Meng shook his head helplessly upon this thought.

It didn't make sense.

The only certainty was that Peng Yue now possessed the capability to process and produce his own weapons, ammunition, and food, which was a bit different from what he had understood before.

For Zhang Meng, this was actually a good thing.

A tremendous good thing.

There were materials in the district.

A lot of them. Find your adventure at My Virtual Library Empire

The raw materials exchanged would ultimately end up back in their hands in various ways because all transactions in Wanhao District were conducted in New Currency.

All they needed to do was to firmly control the currency, and they could continuously reap the resources from other settlements.

And even population.

The more people who came here to trade, the richer the resources of Wanhao District would become, and the stronger its power would grow.

And the more chips Zhang Meng would hold in his hands.

The economy is the core of everything.

For him, it was the foundation of his current status and power, and even more so, a prerequisite for achieving that future goal.

So after considering these conditions repeatedly, Zhang Meng finally agreed to all of them.

"Then that's settled."

"The district just recently collected a batch of salt."

"We'll go by the current market price, about one hundred New Currency for a can, how about that?"

Looking at Zhang Meng's face filled with sincerity and forthrightness, Peng Yue didn't hesitate and directly agreed to the price he proposed.

The New Currency used in Wanhao District wasn't issued based on instant noodles as the equivalent.

It was directly pegged to rice.

One tael of rice for one yuan.

It was precisely by leveraging the abundant food reserves of Market Street that Li Wanhao was able to promote his New Currency throughout Wanhao District, and eventually extend it to all the surrounding survivor settlements.

And because canned goods are easy to preserve and are generally meat-based, their prices naturally remained high.

A regular can of luncheon meat would cost about fifty yuan.

That would convert to five pounds of rice.

Zhang Meng had just quoted a price that was significantly higher than that of regular canned goods, not because he was kindhearted, but because among the canned goods in that vehicle were the more precious kinds containing seafood and fruits.

Both seafood and fruits were considered rare luxuries in today's world.

Even he himself didn't know how long it had been since he last tasted fish.

Not to mention fresh fruit.

Just thinking about it made him salivate, these cans didn't need to be sold at the market—they would be completely divvied up by the various leaders in the district.

As for the ordinary survivors below, they definitely wouldn't have this luxury.

So, the price was actually moderate.

He couldn't lose much on the deal.

After agreeing on the exchange price, Peng Yue immediately had the Hunters open the truck to move all the canned goods and instant noodles out.

Zhang Meng hurriedly called several people to bring over a few small trucks.

The street suddenly became busy.

"Hiss, so many canned goods, do you think we'll get a few to eat when we get back?"

A city management worker moving the goods whispered, holding a can in his hand.

Hearing this, his companion immediately signaled for him to lower his voice, and after stealthily glancing around a few times, he responded:

"Are you dumb?"

"Do you think these good things would come our way?"

As he spoke, he lifted his hand and pointed upwards, then said in a hushed tone, "Even if it gets to us, we have to wait for the big bosses above to finish their share."

The two were chatting when a team leader of the city management walked over and scolded sharply:

"What are you two doing!"

"No talking during work! Move it!"

The pair didn't dare raise their heads; they mumbled a few responses and quickly ran over to the truck with the cans in their arms.

Meanwhile, Peng Yue and Zhang Meng sat down together again.

The two were quietly talking about something.

"Director Zhang, last night my Peng Liu accidentally killed a few people, and among them, there seemed to be..."

Peng Yue hadn't finished speaking when Zhang Meng, already unconcerned, interjected, "There's a nephew of the Li family, right?"

"Yeah."

"Peng Liu has a bit of a temper."

"That kid tried to rob him of his gun in the middle of the night, and as a result..."

Peng Yue didn't directly mention the incident of Peng Liu and others taking Liang Zhijie back home the night before but made it sound like it was because the other party tried to steal his gun, which led his Peng Liu to kill in anger.

Zhang Meng, however, clearly didn't care about the specifics of what had happened.

He just snorted coldly and said:

"The Li family always relies on their status, sending that kid over here to stir up trouble."

"I've been fed up with him for a long time."

"He got what he deserved."

"What's there to be afraid of?"

At this, Peng Yue's mouth curled up slightly, satisfaction evident in his eyes. He then stealthily raised his eyelids to glance at Peng Liu beside him.

Noticing this, Peng Liu immediately laughed and reached for the bottle of alcohol on the table, pretending to pour a drink for Zhang Meng.

"Hehe, thank you, Director Zhang! Thank you, Director Zhang!"

"Let me pour you a glass!"

Zhang Meng was also feeling very smug at the moment.

His gaze passed through the doorway to the bustling crowd outside, already imagining how much good those items would bring him.@@novelbin@@

Now, the supply of materials in Wanhao District was almost entirely in his hands.

Over time, who would remember who the real district head was?

Was it Li Wanhao?

Or was it him, the head of the city management bureau?