Artifact Report

Chapter 45 Jin Xueli: Tax Payment and Money Laundering
The two groups of people who had already finished shopping had not yet left. They were standing far away on the dim platform, talking in low voices.

Even though she couldn't hear what they said, Jin Xueli could guess roughly what they said.

They are all Jiapai hunters; for Jiapai, the product introduction in front of them has completely changed the meaning of vending machines.

To put it bluntly, the pseudo-hunters risk their lives to enter the nest just for money.

Vending machines were once neglected because their products were limited, limited, and offered little potential profit. For example, M&Ms expired 24 hours after leaving their nest. Who would pay a high price for something so nearly disposable? Selling at cost meant you had a wide network of connections, and a network of eager, vulnerable customers.

The restrictions on what vending machines can sell still exist—even more so—but even Jin Xueli, who doesn't have a family, can see that the potential profits are no longer what they used to be.

Unfortunately, that only applies to the family faction.

She spun her flashlight around the product description twice and found a picture of a blue plastic bottle of drink.

The gentle-looking female hunter, after reading the introduction, bought a bottle of water without saying a word and immediately stuffed it into her backpack. It was only thanks to Jin Xueli's sharp eyes that she found the drink she bought based on a piece of blue she caught.

Gate-Raid Sports Drink 500ml
Everyone knows that the gate of life and death is like a door. On one side of the door is the human world/nest. If you step through it, you will either go to heaven or go to hell.

(Just kidding, how can humans go to heaven? Hahahaha)
In life, we don't always face the inevitable, unpredictable, life-or-death struggle. Many unexpected situations can leave us on the brink of death. For example, if you're hit by a car, suffer a stroke, or get shot, you might discover that there's a precious window of time between life and death.

It's like having one foot inside the door and one foot outside; you must also hope that this side of the world can hold you back a little longer, right?
If this period of time is longer, giving the doctor more opportunities to try, you may be able to survive; if this period of time is short, or you miss it, you are destined to develop livor mortis.

This sports drink is perfect for those on the brink of death. It's like attacking the very gates of life and death! Amazing! It won't bring you back to life, but it will buy you a precious second—as long as you can safely drink liquids, every 1ml you drink adds 3 seconds to your rescue time.

Disclaimer: This product can increase the rescue time, but it does not mean that the patient can be rescued. Please refer to the emergency or surgeon's response for specific circumstances.

Validity period after leaving the nest: 4 hours
Price: $38
Taste: Blue corpse flavor
Thirty-eight thousand dollars for an artifact that is only valid for four hours is a deal that is doomed to lose money for a lone hunter or a small family. Without the network of relationships, information, manpower and material support of a large family, it is already extremely difficult to find a customer who is willing to trust you completely, but there is another even greater difficulty.

How do you deliver the goods?
For example, a client is in danger of his life, and his agent urgently notifies you to get the sports drink imitation within ten minutes.

A lone hunter must first enter the nest through the passage, rush to the hiding place or vending machine, get the pseudo-image, and then open the passage back to Blackmore City... By the time the person returns, the client has been buried.

But it’s different if it’s a large family pie.

Jin Xueli was not clear about the specific operation procedures and methods; but she had heard some bits and pieces, which might give her a glimpse of the whole situation - when the party encountered an emergency, they would dispatch helicopters.

Jin Xueli thought of this and couldn't help but glance back at the two figures still whispering in the distance on the platform. They were buying so easily, so their family must be quite large and had no trouble spending money. The cards they used to buy the items were probably all from their family.

Oh, that’s great, she turned her head away with a sad face.

The upper limit of her credit card is less than 36,000 - although Jin Xueli made a lot of money from broadcasting, when it comes to this issue, she can't help but envy the self-made people: her income is all gray income, which cannot be made public, cannot be turned into personal assets, and is of no help to her credit score.

But it’s different for family hunters.

Their income is distributed by their families, which can be in the form of salary, bonuses, dividends, commissions, subsidies and reimbursements... Not only is it legitimate, they can even pay a symbolic amount of tax to prevent the IRS from coming to their door.

So what about Jiapai’s income?

"As for me, besides doing accounting and finance," Amber once told Jin Xueli so clearly, "I am also responsible for laundering money for Jiapai."

Jin Xueli sighed deeply again.

She had already seen what she wanted to buy.

But the reason why she didn't buy it quickly, but stood there stupidly thinking about money laundering and paying taxes, besides the fact that she was a person who was easily distracted and had wild thoughts, was another most crucial reason: her credit card limit was not enough.

Jin Xueli looked around and her eyes stopped on the gentle-looking female hunter. After two seconds, she turned back to the two men in baseball caps who were sitting on the stairs and talking.

Just give it a try, she encouraged herself. It didn't cost any money to ask. The worst that could happen was someone saying "no," right?

As she reached the stairs, the man in the peaked cap raised his head.

"what's up?"

Jin Xueli suspected she might be feeling a bit embarrassed. "Um...Excuse me, are you family hunters?"

The girl chewing gum nodded and said, "Yeah, what's wrong?"

She seemed to like the baseball cap very much. After her left arm returned to normal, the two of them sat side by side, and they seemed to have a much better relationship than the other two.

"I'm working on my own, I don't have any family." Jin Xueli cleared her throat and said, "Um... vending machine, I haven't bought it yet. I've seen something that would be very useful to me, and I can't put it off any longer, I'd better get it right away."

The two looked at her, waiting for her to continue.

She was in a dilemma and said, "But I don't have enough money on my card...Excuse me, would you be willing to swipe my card for me? I have money on my savings card, but there's no magnetic stripe on it, so the vending machine can't read it..."

Even though they were in such an unrealistic place like the lair, they were discussing such a realistic and trivial issue. Jin Xueli always felt that something was wrong. Fearing that the other party would misunderstand, she quickly added, "I have cash, it's not that I don't have money!"

Under the shadow of the cap, a narrow dimple suddenly appeared on that half of his face. "Do you have any cash on you?"

Jin Xueli was desperate. "No, the cash is in Blackmore City..."

"So you're planning to borrow money?" The man in the baseball cap smiled even wider, his white teeth gleaming in the dim light.

"Now it seems, well, it seems so..."

The girl stopped chewing gum and looked at her with her mouth half open. Perhaps she had never been borrowed money from a stranger in the nest.

Jin Xueli also felt that the current situation was a bit too much. She stammered, "Well, of course, it's not that I can't come in again, but my access—ah, this is inconvenient to say…"

The man in the peaked cap suddenly burst into laughter.

When the laughter died down, she took off her hat, ruffled her short wavy hair with her hand, and raised her face to the dim light on the platform.

This was the first time Jin Xueli saw her appearance clearly, and she was dazed for a moment.

Although she should be in her twenties, she looked like an androgynous teenager; behind her wavy hair were a pair of narrow, deep blue eyes, like the pure sky reflected between the Arctic icebergs.

The gum-chewing girl looked at Jin Xueli, shrugged, and muttered the expression on her face: "I knew it."

"What?" Jin Xueli came back to her senses, feeling doubly embarrassed. "Well, never mind. I'll just come in again... After all, I wouldn't lend money to a stranger casually..."

The girl in the baseball cap—although she had taken it off now, Jin Xueli still didn't know her name—stood up and pulled a wallet out of her back pocket.

"My driver's license and credit card," she held up two cards and said to Jin Xueli, "Give me your driver's license, credit card and cell phone."

"Huh? You want a cell phone too?"

"Of course. How do I know you're carrying real ID?"

The gum-chewing girl agreed: "These days, the only things you have to redeem, besides your own children, are your cell phones."

Peaked Cap's request was reasonable: a driver's license was out of the question, but she certainly wanted to know who was borrowing the money. The credit card was an additional security measure, just in case Jin Xueli didn't pay back the money or died in the lair. Besides, they wanted the phone, not the password.

Jin Xueli hesitated for a long time before finally handing over the phone.

The woman in the baseball cap looked down at the illuminated screen of her phone. In the bright light, her clean face paused. She stared at the more than a hundred obscene messages still frozen on the screen, expressionless and silent, as she put the phone in her trouser pocket.

For some reason, Jin Xueli felt ashamed as if her clothes had been taken off.

"Here's my address and phone number." She seemed to have forgotten the text message, and wrote a note to Jin Xueli, asking, "Is there any information in your phone that I need to remember? Like a phone number?"

Anthony's phone call was already engraved in her mind; Jin Xueli shook her head.

"Jin Xueli, right?" The man in the baseball cap looked at the driver's license, then at her, and smiled. "It's rare to see an ID photo that looks as good as the person herself."

Jin Xueli thanked them profusely and exchanged some necessary information. The entire process felt like she was walking in a trance, unable to believe she'd actually borrowed a card from a stranger—a stranger? This was the lair, wasn't it?
For some reason, she didn't have the courage to look at the driver's license in the baseball cap; it was not until Jin Xueli walked back to the self-service vending machine that she quietly lowered her head and glanced at it.

Morando, even the name is very neutral.

Jin Xueli took a deep breath, turned her attention back to the vending machine, pressed a few numbers, and then put her credit card on it.

A notification that the $12 deduction was successful jumped up from the screen; with a "bang", a can of soda fell into the groove below.

Jin Xueli reached out and picked it up, putting it in her backpack.

She stood up and turned her head, just in time to meet Morando's gaze.

She didn't cover the can, and it was the only purple item; under the light from the vending machine, the purple stood out clearly. Anyone who had read the product description would have known that purple soda had only one function.

kill.

　How did I discover Puppet Master potato chips? A colleague in Shenzhen told me that Oley Supermarket had some imported potato chips that were the best she had ever tasted. I was definitely curious, so she gave me two bags.

　　It's really delicious. Whether it's the best is still debatable, but one of the flavors tastes like popping candy when you put it in your mouth!

　　I saw that it was bubbly serrano chilli, which, when translated, means little jumping chili peppers, right?!
　　The picture is still on my phone, I'm wondering if I should post it in the comments section of Doomsday...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)