Invasion of the United States
Chapter 343 - 7: Oil Refining
CHAPTER 343: CHAPTER 7: OIL REFINING
After delivering a ’brainstorming’ ambush plan, Omar managed to establish some prestige among the survivors who refused to submit, becoming a ’temporary leader’ alongside a guy named Scott.
The reason for being ’temporary’ was that these survivors mistrusted each other, were disorganized, and lacked communication tools.
During the meeting, rather than a discussion, it was more like a long-suppressed outburst of anger.
Twenty or thirty people were red-faced, spitting as they cursed at how the "Holy Light" and those "yellow-skinned monkeys" had climbed on top of them, thinking it gave them some sense of existence.
After the meeting, everyone vented their anger but left hungry, scattering like monkeys, each searching for food to fill their bellies.
Omar felt a sense of powerlessness. His original small team had long since disbanded, and the little food saved up was mercilessly confiscated.
He wandered around the town, clutching a thin QR code ID card, like a dog that had lost its home, returning to the "Holy Light" camp to continue playing the role of the lowest-tier "basic labor force."
His unexplained absence in the afternoon resulted in a downgraded dinner.
Nedved, who had skills, got canned meat; those who were obedient could gnaw on bread with tomato sauce; while he only had brine potatoes, and in limited quantities.
Receiving those few soft, mushy potatoes, Omar squatted alone at the edge of the scavenger dump, leaning tiredly against the tire of an abandoned car, gnawing sluggishly.
Not far away, the makeshift equipment for "native method oil refining" had been set up, and at nightfall, it began to spew billowing black smoke for test production.
Pyrolyzing plastics emitted a pungent smell, and the workers bustling around the equipment had to wear thick masks and goggles, otherwise, they couldn’t get close.
Guo Yi, in charge of the refining, was also helpless about it, spreading his hands to explain, "Native method, this is native method! If it could be clean and pollution-free, it wouldn’t be called native method, would it?"
However, for the long-term operation of the "refining business" and for his own health, Guo Yi promised to quickly set up a purification device — to find ways to transfer air pollution to water and then discharge it.
Even from a distance, Omar could clearly smell the suffocating odor of plastic burning in the air.
But he was too lazy to move, just leaning there lazily, and not long after, he had wolfed down the three fist-sized potatoes.
This stuff was nothing but starch, bland and unfulfilling. At this moment, he couldn’t help but envy those who diligently worked, especially Nedved, who even got to eat meat.
"Hah, what’s so great about it? Isn’t it just because his two young daughters caught the eyes of those yellow-skinned monkeys? Who knows, maybe even his wife might be next..."
Omar thought viciously in his heart. The workload in the afternoon had been hefty, leaving him exhausted. Three potatoes were far from enough, and by midnight, he was bound to wake up starving.
Thinking about it, he struggled to stand and headed toward the "kitchen" where food was distributed, hoping to beg for two more potatoes to tide him over at night.
The kitchen was just a room, stocked with food brought by Pika and the ’Warthog’, watched over by Nedved’s wife.
Omar thought that with his connections, asking for some potatoes as a supper shouldn’t be a problem, but who would’ve thought... Nedved’s wife, now in charge of ’food distribution’, refused to comply and cursed him out.
"Bastard, get away from here, don’t think I don’t recognize you. You’ve come several times at night to set fires to steal food, trying to burn us all to death.
Even if God came, I wouldn’t forgive you. If you want potatoes, you have to exchange labor points for them. Starve to death without them."
The ’Holy Light’ team implemented a labor point system for the ’basic labor force’, awarding labor points according to the amount of work done. These points acted as currency to exchange for all living supplies.
And labor points were linked to a QR code on the ID card, scanned for transactions.
Omar had skipped half a day’s labor, so he had no labor points left and could not have a potato supper. Angry, he cursed outside the ’kitchen’ door,
"Damn you, shrew, I only asked for two potatoes, and you won’t give them. If I had a gun in my hand, I’d shoot you right away."
The ’kitchen’ door was fitted with iron bars, preventing direct interaction from inside and outside.
Omar grasped the finger-thick bars and shook them hard, cursing menacingly. If he had a gun in his hand, he really would have shot the annoying woman in front of him.
Unfortunately, the ’Holy Light’ team had turned the place into a camp with three days by surrounding it with scrapped vehicles, setting up a circle of surveillance cameras, and leaving only two entrances and exits.
Remote-controlled machine guns were mounted on the walls, highly intimidating.
Every time ’basic labor force’ returned, they had to go through a security check, a measure that many resented but provided immense security at the moment.
Nedved’s wife stepped back two steps in fright, confirming that Omar couldn’t do anything to her, she cursed even louder, even picking up a walkie-talkie, saying she would call Zhou Qingfeng over.
"Omar, let it go." A figure walked out from the shadows outside the ’kitchen’, grabbing the black man’s arm and pulling him away, "I still have a potato, take it and eat."
Nedved’s wife wanted to see who it was, but she stood in the light of the ’kitchen’, while outside it was already dark, and she couldn’t make out the person’s face.
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Omar didn’t recognize who was pulling him either, only vaguely feeling that they were familiar, and after thinking for a long time, he remembered it was a stranger he saw at the noon ’meeting’.