Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 501 Iron Fortress
“No, you are,” Sun Hang corrected. “The researchers at Tian Shu Tower are all public officials, so the researchers must be too.”

Xue Yue: "Being...being studied?"

"Ahem, let's get back to the point." Sun Hang glanced at the little girl who was quite frightened by his joke, then turned to look at Zhulong, who was driving. "When you said you were going to buy gifts, I thought you were going to find something good, but it turns out to be this kind of mass-produced product that costs four or five hundred yuan a bottle? Is this stuff really useful? Can you hire someone comparable to the top hunters on the leaderboard with this?"

"This is just a stepping stone," Zhulong said. "It's used to buy information. As for those hunters..."

“Just tell me what you need to buy, we have plenty of budget,” Sun Hang said. “I’ve never fought such a well-funded battle before… Now I understand why people’s greed keeps expanding; spending money is truly addictive.”

“I will try to solve any problem with money, but this is not an option.” Zhulong shook his head. “Top free hunters are not short of money, and the things they want are hard to buy with money.”

"What do they want? Like what?"

“There was a free hunter named Lewis who posted a bounty on the hunter forum in Dragon City. His mother was suffering from a rare disease, and he was willing to work unconditionally for twenty years for anyone who could cure her, even if it was the most dangerous job in the world,” Zhulong said.

"Oh, what a filial child... If it were just a common illness, I think I could be of help. By the way, how capable is this Lewis?"

“It’s a pity that his mother passed away more than a decade ago,” Zhulong said. “As for Lewis himself, he went missing during an exploration mission in the no-man’s-land of the Hexi Corridor and has not returned to this day.”

"...So it seems that some of what these hunters want might not be difficult for me." Sun Hang took out his phone and typed "Dragon City Hunter Exchange Forum" into the search engine, but the search results were all irrelevant advertisements and fraudulent information.

"That's strange. I can't find that Dragon City Hunter Exchange Forum you mentioned online. Did I type the wrong keywords?" Sun Hang asked.

“The Dragon City Hunters Forum is only accessible to users with Dragon City IP addresses,” Zhulong said. “You can either use a VPN or wait until I drive another 20 kilometers into Dragon City before searching.”

Is this forum useful?

"To be honest, it's not very useful," said Zhulong. "Most of the information online is what people have left over; truly valuable information is rarely uploaded to the internet."

“This is not good.” Sun Hang shook his head. “It’s too out of touch with the times.”

“For those intermediaries and information brokers, this is their livelihood,” Zhulong explained. “If you want to make a living in Dragon City, you have no choice but to abide by the rules of Dragon City.”

As they were talking, Sun Hang spotted a blue sign with white lettering next to the national highway. The sign clearly read: “Longcheng Boundary”.

Sun Hang: "Have we arrived?"

Zhulong nodded.

Soon, a city that resembled an iron fortress came into Sun Hang's view.

Because they had registered in advance, Sun Hang and his group's vehicle was not stopped and inspected at the checkpoints outside the city. Instead, they took the fast lane into the city. After passing through the city wall, which was almost piled with defensive weapons, the vehicle finally officially entered the main urban area of ​​Dragon City.

Sun Hang's first impression of Longcheng was its incredibly high population density—it was just an ordinary street near the city gate, not even connected to the main entrance, yet the density of people on the street was comparable to the most bustling commercial street in Tianfu City.

All sorts of vehicles were completely blocking the middle of the road, and the sidewalks on both sides were crowded with hurried "tourists"—they were called tourists because most of them were wearing windbreakers, baseball caps or fisherman's hats, and often had huge backpacks on their backs. Many of them also dragged a suitcase, so it was obvious that they were not natives of Longcheng.

“It doesn’t look like a border fortress at all,” Sun Hang muttered. “It’s more like a famous tourist attraction.”

“These people aren’t here for tourism… Dragon City’s commerce is very developed, but it’s also very distorted,” Zhulong said. “Almost all commercial activities revolve around one thing.”

“A strange thing?” Sun Hang immediately understood what “something” Zhulong was referring to.

“That’s right.” Zhulong nodded. “To be honest, it’s not an exaggeration to describe Dragon City as a city sustained by ‘monsters’. The free hunters and mercenaries stationed in Dragon City need all sorts of equipment and consumables, while the monster samples they hunt and some ‘mutated items’ dug up from no-man’s-lands can fetch astronomical prices at auctions in inland cities.”

“Those companies analyze what they hunt, use the analyzed technology to develop new equipment, and then sell it to these hunters and mercenaries… This creates a virtuous cycle,” Sun Hang said.

“Although the reality is not that simple, what you said is not wrong,” Zhulong said. “Besides purchasing, those companies will also provide mercenaries and hunters with equipment and consumables for free under the guise of sponsorship and testing... Therefore, even those who are penniless can come to Dragon City to try their luck as long as they have enough courage.”

After passing through the fast lane into the city, Sun Hang and his group's car merged into the slow-moving traffic. The Longcheng military could reserve a fast lane for them, but they couldn't clear a deserted street for them after they entered the city.

After slowly moving forward with the traffic for two kilometers, Zhulong finally seized the opportunity and turned the car into a small alley.

"Finally here." Zhulong, gripping the steering wheel, breathed a sigh of relief. Even with his good temper, he was somewhat annoyed after patiently moving at a snail's pace for two kilometers.

However, his irritability had not yet accumulated to the point where it could be called a "negative emotion," so it did not attract Xue Yue's attention.

"Where are we?" Sun Hang asked immediately.

"PARKING LOT."

"Are you sure there are parking spaces in this parking lot?" Sun Hang looked around the quiet, somewhat eerily secluded alley with some suspicion. "Shouldn't this prime parking lot, so close to the city gate, be full of cars long ago?"

"This is a military parking lot; civilian vehicles are prohibited from parking here," Zhulong explained, clearing up all of Sun Hang's doubts. No wonder there were two automatic machine guns mounted at the entrance of the alley. Sun Hang had initially thought this was a characteristic of Dragon City, but he hadn't expected that this deserted alley was actually a military restricted area.

The heavy iron gate slowly rose, and Zhulong stepped on the gas and rushed up the slope. In an open area surrounded by high walls, all kinds of military vehicles were parked, including two tanks covered with tarpaulins parked in the corner.

After parking the car, Sun Hang and his group walked out of the parking lot carrying a case of Fenjiu liquor and several packs of cigarettes—it has to be said that in Longcheng's terrible traffic conditions, walking is much faster than driving.

"With traffic so congested, can't the road management department in Longcheng consider widening the roads?" Sun Hang couldn't help but complain. "Although the road outside isn't a main road, it only has two lanes in each direction, which is the same level as the rural roads on the outskirts of Tianfu City. If a car breaks down or stops for some reason, the road will be completely blocked."

“Dragon City is different from ordinary cities; it’s extremely difficult for its urban area to expand.” Zhulong glanced back, where the towering city walls two kilometers away were still clearly visible. “Haven’t you noticed how clean the outskirts of Dragon City are?”

"Clean... If you mean desolate, then it is indeed very clean."

“Dragon City is close to the Hexi Corridor and is often harassed by strange creatures. Therefore, when building this city wall, which is comparable to a fortress, all civilian buildings and facilities are restricted to being built inside the city wall. If you want to expand the urban area, you have to build another wall outside... In the past forty years, Dragon City has been expanded on a large scale three times, but the congestion problem still cannot be solved,” said Zhulong.

“Okay…” Sun Hang sighed helplessly.

Walking on the sidewalk in Dragon City, he could sense the aura of a strange meme from time to time. In Tianfu City or Chunming City, the alarms would probably have been sounded by now, but here, whether it was ordinary people, sheriffs or soldiers, they all seemed to be used to it.

Some hunters with highly mutated bodies even walked the streets without any disguise. Sun Hang even saw a hunter with a chameleon's head who suddenly raised his head as he walked and shot out a tongue tens of meters long from his mouth, intercepting a crow that was flying over the street and instantly pulling the struggling prey into his throat, which was almost as thick as an ordinary person's waist.

A few seconds later, the hunter with the chameleon head suddenly changed his expression and spat out a metal anklet that had been corroded and pitted by acid.

Upon seeing the anklet, his companion immediately complained, "You're such a damn smart aleck! You just ate, and you still had to go and bother the birds flying in the sky. Now look what's happened, they're not wild birds, just wait for their owners to come knocking on your door demanding compensation!"

"Damn, how was I supposed to know this bird had an owner? I don't think anyone would keep a crow as a pet, right?" the chameleon-headed man said in a very strange tone. "I just wanted to practice my tongue, and this is causing trouble?"

"Even if it's a wild bird, crows are protected animals, aren't they?" Sun Hang muttered to himself.

But to his surprise, the chameleon's head immediately turned towards him as soon as he finished speaking.

The two were more than 30 meters apart, and with the noise of the street, the fact that the other person could hear their whispers suggested that they had a special ability to hear.

Sun Hang smiled at the chameleon-like head, but the other party didn't make any extra moves. It merely glanced at Sun Hang and then began discussing the crows with its companions again.

"We'd better hurry up and run, the bird's owner might find us," the chameleon muttered.

"Run away? You have such a big lizard head, the security cameras caught it all. Where do you think you're going?" his companion complained. "You'd better prepare some money... To be honest, I don't know much about raising birds. I hope this crow isn't some rare breed."

"Sigh... Do you have any money left? Lend me some." Chameleon Head said a little embarrassedly, "I just bought a batch of inhibitors yesterday, and I've spent all my money. I'll go to the bar tonight and see if there are any quick-money jobs I can take. I promise I'll pay you back soon."

"Inhibitors? You lost the batch of inhibitors allocated by the federal government?" His companion immediately lowered his voice.

“I didn’t lose it… I used it all, but now the monthly dosage has become a bit high, and the amount I’m given isn’t enough.” Chameleon lowered his voice as well.

"When did this happen?" His companion's tone suddenly became serious. "Has your infection progressed again?"

"without……"

"to be frank!"

"It's only gotten a little worse, nothing serious." Chameleon chuckled. "It's probably from the injury I sustained on the last mission. The memes inside my body might have been stimulated by external factors. I guess it'll be fine after a while."

"During the last mission... because you were injured, the others received twice the reward. I haven't noticed you've bought any new equipment lately... You should still have a lot of money left after medical expenses. Did you spend all that money on inhibitors? Just how badly has your infection progressed?!"

Chameleon suddenly took two steps back, scratched his head, and said, "Ahem... Can we change the subject? It's okay if you don't have money to lend me, I'll go ask Old Wu..."

"Don't change the subject! Since your infection process has changed, why don't you report to the research institute? Have you forgotten the Free Hunter Code? There are only four days left for the routine check-up. You're not planning to skip it, are you?" His companion's tone became increasingly cold and hard.

"I...I'm fine...you believe me..." Chameleon took a few steps back, "We've been working together for so many years, haven't you seen how stable my infection process has always been?"

"You just ate that crow not because you were hungry, but because you couldn't suppress your killing intent and bloodlust, right?" your companion pressed.

"Nothing of the sort! You're right, I was just being a smart aleck!" Chameleon looked around before fixing his gaze on Sun Hang, who was still staring at him.

The conversation between the two was so dramatic that Sun Hang couldn't take his eyes off them.

“Zhulong,” Sun Hang suddenly said, “Wait here for me, I’m going to take a look.”

(End of this chapter)