The most ruthless person in the apocalypse

Chapter 1273 He's a treasure trove!
"This is definitely not a zombie corpse. Have you ever seen a zombie with pants so intact? Even if it died here right when the disaster broke out, it would have been reduced to dust after so much time!"
What's this material? It feels so strange, not like cloth, more like leather! Damn, it's leather pants!

Then, Pingping discovered other problems.

"Huh? If it's not a zombie, then it's a human corpse."

The woman named Xiaowei was startled by her friend's words and quickly let go, her leg falling to the ground with a thud, splashing up a handful of soft snowflakes.

"That's strange. Even if it's leather, it should be frozen solid in this cold weather. Look, Xiaowei, it can still be bent back and forth. It seems to be a top-quality material..."

Pingping's attention was immediately drawn to the leather pants.

"Pingping, look here! There's blood. This is a human corpse, and it shouldn't have been dead for long! But that's not right. If it hadn't been dead long, why would it be buried under the snow?"

Xiaowei shone her flashlight to the side and discovered clusters of dark red in the snow!
"Who knows where this person came from? Could they be from our camp? Do you know anyone who likes to wear leather pants? I don't think I've ever seen them before."

Pingping stood up and looked around. She was not in the camp, but she was not far from the camp either, only about a kilometer away. Logically speaking, there should be no people from outside the camp around.

However, given the heavy snowfall recently, there are some unforeseen circumstances that make things difficult to predict!
"Why didn't this corpse turn into a zombie? I know..." Pingping had a strong ability to spot problems, and answered herself, "Its head was probably smashed too, thank goodness!"

As she spoke, she scooped up the snow beside her and piled it above the corpse's waist, as if she were afraid to see the bloody, mangled head.

"What should we do, Pingping? Maybe we should just ignore it and pretend we didn't see it."

Xiao Wei stared at the half-dead body in the snow with a troubled expression; a human corpse is the least valuable thing.

“We can’t just pretend we didn’t see it. This leather is useful, and his boots are pretty good too! Better than the boots worn by those officials in Zone Zero. Take them all off!”

Pingping acted immediately, clearing away a patch of snow, then plopped down and started untying her shoelaces.

Xiao Wei asked with a puzzled expression, "Sister Pingping, what... what's the use of a boot?"

"Look around. The other leg probably isn't far away. Hurry up and find it. If the pant leg isn't torn, we can sew it back on. A pair of leather pants and a pair of leather boots!"
"Feel these boots. Let me tell you, with this material, if we get Hu Heizi to use his connections to sell them to those guys in District One, after he calculates his cut, he'll at least give us one gold voucher!"

Pingping spoke with great enthusiasm, showing no disgust for the corpse, only a strong desire for the gold vouchers, her hand stroking the surface of her boots.

"A gold voucher? That's worth that much? What if you also include the leather pants?"

The high returns tempted Xiao Wei. For the laborers living in District 3, one gold voucher was equivalent to ten days' wages. If they used it all to exchange for food, it would be enough to eat for half a month!

If you use the money to buy charcoal, it will be enough for heating for half a month.

In other words, a gold voucher can guarantee seven or eight days of comfortable living.

"The leather pants are probably no good. I can't tell what kind of leather they are. They're in very poor condition and they're damaged. They're probably not worth much. We can wear them ourselves, or we can alter them into hats or gloves and exchange them for some grain."

Pingping considered herself to have a keen eye and had seen many high-end goods. The material of the leather pants in front of her was strange. Apart from not freezing solid, she couldn't see anything unique about them.

"It can be exchanged for grain? I'll go look for some nearby..."

"Wait, wait a minute!"

Xiaowei was about to go to the nearby area to look for her leg when she suddenly heard Pingping call out to her in a trembling voice.

Looking back, I saw that Pingping had thrown her leg onto the snow, and her foot seemed to spring away, narrowly avoiding falling into the snow.

"Xiao Wei, this...this person might not be dead. His joints are flexible!"

"Yes, yes, how could we have overlooked such an important phenomenon!"

Upon hearing that the person was still alive, Xiaowei was no longer as nervous as before and helped Pingping to her feet.

What's so strange about flexible joints? The skin and flesh are also soft, and no one noticed... They were so focused on taking off someone's pants and shoes to exchange for gold coupons that they naturally ignored everything else!

"What do we do if this person isn't dead... what do we do then?"

Now it was Pingping's turn to be undecided. If zombie corpses were the most valuable and human corpses were worthless, then half-dead people were the most troublesome! "If he's not dead, let's see who he is and save him."

Xiao Wei looked at her companion with a slight confusion. If he wasn't dead, he was injured and alive, and could be treated!
"Help, help us? Us?"

Pingping seemed to have heard something unbelievable.

"If he's a member of the camp, he'll definitely thank us. If he's a survivor who accidentally wandered here, we give him three silver vouchers for recruiting him, and he can work for us for another month afterward. Have you forgotten?"

Xiao Wei held up three fingers, wearing one-size-fits-all winter gloves; her fingers, as thick as carrots, were a bit comical.

She was referring to some of the camp's policies regarding the recruitment of survivors.

Pingping's lips twitched as she pointed to the empty space beside her legs: "You call disabled people 'laborers'? Then you're even more of a beast than those guys in Zone Zero..."

"Oh, I forgot, oh dear..."

Xiao Wei rubbed her nose in frustration and kicked the snow next to her leg, as if to say, "Why can't I be a healthy person?"
"People with disabilities are the lowest level of survivors. Unless they have special abilities, they don't receive a single penny. We have to pay out of our own pockets to get them legal status and take care of their daily needs..."

There aren't many jobs suitable for disabled people. Working a month might barely break even, and it's exhausting and doesn't pay well—it feels pointless!

Pingping was very shrewd, and her tone was tinged with disdain.

“Sister Pingping, your calculation seems to make sense, but you may have forgotten something.”

Xiao Wei pointed to the pants and shoes.

“If we rescue him, all his belongings should be ours. The leather pants and boots should cover our expenses, and we can earn some more by working.”

"Yes, I overlooked other sources of income. Let's bring that out!"

Pingping's eyes darted around after hearing Xiaowei's words. Someone as shrewd as her would overlook something so obvious. She hadn't said anything because she had other thoughts. Since she had been exposed, she would just let it go.

Without further ado, the two women worked together to clear an area and then pulled the person buried in the snow out. A strong man appeared before them.

When they turned him over, they discovered a number of problems.

"No identification tag? You're not from our camp!"

Pingping touched the man's neck and found nothing, so she could be fairly certain that he wasn't from the camp. The camp had a rule that everyone had to wear their identification tag around their neck, even the higher-ups!

Even if the rope broke for some reason, long-term wear should have left some marks on the neck, but none of these were found.

"His leather jacket is much better than his leather pants. Is he a savage? It's made of animal hide? Not bad, not bad. This leather jacket must be worth some money. Xiaowei, we're guaranteed to make a profit this time!"

As she spoke, Pingping was already calculating the price of the leather jacket in her mind, including how to bargain with Hu Heizi and how to conceal the truth and give Xiaowei a share. Her eyes brightened.

Xiao Wei didn't respond. She placed her hand on the man's chest and shone her flashlight on his cheek: "He's definitely still alive. He has a heartbeat and is breathing. It's over forty degrees below zero. Even the elite soldiers couldn't withstand that. This savage is amazing. He didn't freeze to death even when buried in the snow!"

Everyone's body has been strengthened to some extent, and their ability to resist heat and cold has also improved. But no matter how powerful they are, if they are buried in the snow at minus forty degrees Celsius, it will only take them an hour or two to go from life to death.

"It's a pity he broke a leg. What... how did he get this wound? Holy crap! It was cut off right from the thigh, and the wound is so smooth! It's already healed a bit. Good heavens, if you pointed any higher, he'd look like a eunuch!"

Pingping shifted her attention to the man's severed leg. The bleeding had stopped, and the wound was remarkably clean, reminding her of laser cutting...

"They must have offended some big shot!"

In Pingping's mind, only the most skilled combatants in the camp had the ability to sever a leg with a single blow!
"An important person..."

Xiao Wei pouted, looking at the other person's mutilated body. Thinking of her own disfigured face, she suddenly felt a sense of shared suffering. But the next second, what her companion did left her speechless.

(End of this chapter)