"Truly worthy of being an old employee at the station, very spirited!"

Cheng Ye bent down and patted the dog's head.

The black dog was well-fed and not afraid of people at all. Its fur felt as smooth as silk to the touch.

What was even more amazing was that after being scolded by Snake, this dog became incredibly obedient.

Despite meeting for the first time, it kept nuzzling against his palm, showing remarkable intelligence.

"Little Black was brought back from another province by the Pioneer Corps back in the day. It's said to be a crossbreed with mutated beasts. Although it didn't inherit the combat ability of mutated beasts, its intelligence is quite high. We specially trained it to be sensitive to high-value items. As long as things aren't hidden too ridiculously, it can sniff them out with one hundred percent accuracy."

Cheng Ye caught the implication that Little Black alone couldn't stop all smugglers.

But this was normal. The road is one foot high, the devil is ten feet tall.

As long as the profit was thick enough, merchant caravans would always rack their brains to come up with new hiding methods.

"Let's go, time for duty!"

Cheng Ye swiped open the isolation door. Despite being just a trainee, his movements were smooth without a trace of unfamiliarity.

Behind him, Snake's eyes flickered imperceptibly, first showing a trace of surprise, then blooming with several parts of barely concealed joy.

"This Inspector Cheng doesn't look like a newcomer at all, very spirited!"

He praised silently in his heart and quickly grabbed Little Black to follow closely.

For inspectors, the four quarantine zones weren't much different, just distinctions in profit margins and risk levels.

But for these grassroots observers, the promotion conditions for each zone were worlds apart.

Take Zone A, for instance. The core focus was on stability indicators. As long as there were no serious accidents throughout the year, one could get a decent evaluation.

Zone C operated on a completely different set of rules, where performance indicators were everything. The more smuggled goods caught, the better the assessment scores.

Clang.

The inspection station bell rang, and entry and exit officially began.

However, before the four trucks could start their engines and enter, a crowd of people suddenly surged out from beyond the yellow line.

"So many people?"

Yesterday the inspection station had reopened, only allowing entry but not exit.

Today restrictions were finally completely lifted, and residents could finally leave the buffer zone and enter the wasteland.

Cheng Ye stood up to look, couldn't help but click his tongue. In less than half a minute, at least several hundred people had surged out, and there were more than ten vehicles mixed in among them.

Even though it was still raining, and judging by the weather, it probably wouldn't stop until afternoon.

But faced with the enormous benefits of being in the first wave to leave, there were still people willing to take risks.

Just like this merchant caravan, knowing the wasteland was full of dangers, they still traveled thousands of miles to get here.

Beep.

While he was looking out, the four trucks finally started up, honking their short horns as they drove into the inspection channel.

Zone C's channel had a built-in large scale, with the screen instantly displaying the total vehicle weight:

First truck, 17.7 tons.

"Whoa, loaded quite full indeed. This weight is substantial!"

Cheng Ye glanced at the data.

In the wasteland there were no traffic regulations, and no one cared about overloading. But a 9.6-meter truck could carry at most around 20 tons. Any more would seriously affect efficiency when crossing special terrain.

Generally speaking, 16 tons and above could be considered a full load.

"Sir, your..."

Seeing Cheng Ye pull out a Thunder-1 from his backpack and skillfully begin assembling it, Snake was stunned.

"Just in case."

Cheng Ye grinned, his hands not stopping. After assembling the Thunder-1, he picked up the Ranger and deftly began assembling it. "The more these things haul, the more diverse places they've been to. You never know what trouble might arise."

Better safe than sorry.

He didn't clip both guns under the desk like in Zone A, but brazenly placed them on the desktop.

If this convoy really had an infection outbreak, he could grab a gun and fight back immediately without delay.

Additionally, Cheng Ye had another purpose.

He looked too young. If the merchant caravan thought he was an inexperienced softie, their cooperation level would probably drop significantly.

Now with two guns placed on the desk, relying on his excellent vision, he vaguely saw the bearded man in the passenger seat of the first truck straighten his body that had been leaning against the seat.

"The ones behind stop for a moment, come one at a time. Enter after inspection is complete!"

Snake grabbed the loudspeaker at his waist and shouted.

The first truck had just entered the inspection area and hadn't yet come to a complete stop when the bearded man in the passenger seat pushed open the door and jumped down, immediately identifying himself.

Through the small window in the isolation net, he passed in a red mountain badge, clearly not his first time trading in Happiness City.

Snake didn't directly take it with his hand, but pulled out tweezers from his waist tool kit, gripped the badge with them, and walked back to Cheng Ye's side.

"Sir, when you processed C zone duty, your defense communicator should have already been granted access."

"Really?"

Cheng Ye questioned doubtfully and pulled out his defense communicator.

Surprisingly, there really was an additional icon on the desktop, one he was familiar with, a camera icon.

Below it were four characters: [Capture Recognition].

The moment he clicked it, the back cover of the defense communicator vibrated slightly and popped open a thin gap, revealing a hidden camera lens.

Holy shit, this brick actually had a photo function?

Cheng Ye was immediately astonished. When he first got the defense communicator, he had only thought it was an old-style mobile phone.

Later, when he discovered it could verify badges and had touch-screen functions to check information, he thought the technology level had barely reached the flip phone era.

But as he continued using it, functions kept emerging one by one. Looking at it now, it was almost catching up to modern smartphones.

Of course, the smoothness was still far behind. Like now with the camera function, if his hand moved slightly too fast, visible afterimages would appear on the screen.

"Every shelter city's badges have special anti-counterfeiting designs. These designs aren't told to ordinary people and only circulate between shelter cities. To verify authenticity, you just need to photograph the badge to match it with the database and get an answer."

"Good!"

Cheng Ye silently praised in his heart and tried his best to steady his hands as he photographed both the front and back of the badge.

The screen flickered for more than ten seconds before displaying a line of information.

[Identity Verification Passed, Hai Province Red Mountain Shelter City]

[Identity Attribution: Independent Merchant Caravan]

[Identity Level: Level Three]

Not only did it identify authenticity, but even the caravan's attribution and level were crystal clear.

The independent merchant caravan designation meant this team was only affiliated with Red Mountain Shelter City, not officially direct.

As for the level...

Each shelter city had different evaluation standards, and this wasn't covered in the trainee assessment.

But level three sounded like a medium level, not top-tier, but definitely not a bottom-tier merchant caravan either.

"No problems."

"Good, I'll have them submit their cargo manifest right away."

Snake gripped the badge and returned to the door, exchanged a few low words with the bearded man, and quickly returned with an envelope.

Cheng Ye put on rubber gloves and opened the envelope, which contained more than ten documents.

The first few pages had relatively neat handwriting that could barely be recognized line by line.

But as he flipped further, the handwriting became as messy as chicken scratches. Not only were the quantities written unclearly, even the product names required guessing based on the first few characters.

"Sir, this bunch are old smugglers, very difficult to deal with."

Snake glanced at the documents and concluded without careful examination, "The three merchant caravans that came yesterday basically all used this same routine. If they really hid contraband, the manifest would definitely be written ambiguously, but just looking at it like this, you can't see any tricks."

"Compared to the Red Mountain merchant caravan, which of yesterday's caravans was larger in scale?"

"Yesterday was the inspection station reopening, so the merchant caravan scale was a bit larger. But generally, out-of-province shelter city merchant caravans that can reach our Happiness City are all in the 3 to 7 truck scale. And don't let their trucks fool you, their escort armed vehicles are all parked in the wasteland, they didn't come close."

"Did yesterday's inspector find anything?"

"Yesterday Inspector Qiao was on duty. The registered high-value items that passed were about 2,100 points, and he found five additional items worth approximately 1,400 points, but these five items..."

Snake spoke and suddenly became hesitant, not daring to continue.

"Were they things the merchant caravan intentionally didn't hide, as a toll for the inspector?"

"Yes!"

Snake nodded. This wasn't anything shameful, but he couldn't be the one to say it, otherwise it would seem like he was criticizing the inspector's abilities.

1,400 in value...

Calculating at 15%, that would be 210 points.

Cheng Ye's thoughts flickered. Yesterday he had worked hard at Quarantine A entrance all day and only earned 150.

The toll that Zone C merchant caravans voluntarily offered was 210?!

And if people were offering this much as tolls, how much were the hidden goods worth?

"Based on previous cases, for this scale, how much could be hidden if fully searched?"

"Full search..."

Snake pondered, "There's no fixed number for that. It depends on the shelter city's scale, the routes the merchant caravan takes, and even the season. Generally autumn has the most, averaging at least five to six thousand contribution points worth of goods. Spring has the least, maybe just two to three thousand. But this year's weather is abnormal, winter came early, so maybe autumn's smuggling boom also came early."

Hiss.

How much?

Five to six thousand?

Cheng Ye was secretly shocked. If he could catch all that, calculating the commission, wouldn't he get several hundred points?

"So for this scale, the merchant caravan's normal cargo value should be around ten to twenty thousand points?"

"Correct."

Snake nodded, "Generally speaking, 25% to 35% of cargo value is gross profit. After deducting losses on the road, commissions to their home shelter city, and various unexpected expenses, about 20% ends up in their hands."

Calculating based on twenty thousand points in cargo value, pure profit would be four thousand points.

Compared to the risks of crossing the wasteland, this return really wasn't much.

But merchant caravans' profits lay in trading. For example, converting these four thousand points into weapons and ammunition in Happiness City, then selling them to settlements or small shelter cities without production capabilities, profits could multiply several times.

After completing a full circuit and returning to their home shelter city for winter, this year's trading would probably yield total income of around ten to twenty thousand points.

Adding the conversion of earnings into winter supplies along the way, calculating for a hundred-person merchant caravan, not counting the contribution points distributed, just those supplies alone would be enough for everyone to have a comfortable, well-fed winter.

Of course, to continue developing and expanding the merchant caravan, these things were far from enough. There had to be "additional income."

Cheng Ye immediately understood that this smuggling income was the key to merchant caravan expansion.

Trading these goods between major shelter cities for profit.

20% certainly had no profit potential, since high-value items were hard currency wherever they went.

30% would be a small loss, not only losing profit but probably having to add some, but still within these merchant caravans' acceptable range.

But once smuggling succeeded, calculating at 20% profit, five thousand would be one thousand points in additional income, equivalent to an extra truck of goods.

"Understood. Have them drive in and begin verification."

Since this cargo manifest was useless to look at, Cheng Ye simply tossed it aside.

This was his first time inspecting a merchant caravan.

He felt a bit excited, especially having just experienced the convenience of intelligence search, and couldn't help wanting to try it again.

It was simply too convenient, allowing him to see a person's inner secrets.

But at the same time, he was also curious whether searching for items could help him discover copies of the high-value goods these people had hidden.

"Previously I was focused on searching for skills, only now realizing this intelligence and item search function is an absolute perfect match for inspector work, definitely a god-tier feature."

Cheng Ye mused to himself.

Unfortunately, after searching for Lei Hu, his charge was only 27% remaining, back to the careful budgeting and choosing one of two options phase.

Fortunately, in today's situation, Liu Kun probably wouldn't return.

Otherwise, Lei Hu should have directly ordered him to switch positions with Song Hai from next door to prevent accidents.

With this thought, Cheng Ye felt slightly more relaxed.

The slow charging station could replenish about 15% charge in 8 hours, which wasn't enough.

It seemed after work, he'd have to visit the Works Department again to discuss pedestrian street construction with Engineer Liu!

Zhang the driver was on this route anyway, so pulling him along to charge the bus for a while wouldn't be a problem.

As he pondered, the isolation door clicked open with a "ka-da" sound, and the truck slowly entered the inspection area.

Having someone assist with inspections was convenient. Before Cheng Ye even stood up, Snake had already stepped forward quickly, raising his hand to signal the truck to stop at the designated berth.

The truck's driver door opened, and the driver jumped down efficiently, immediately raising both hands high and standing at the inspection position with extremely practiced movements.

"You understand our Happiness City's rules, right?" Cheng Ye sat behind the desk, his gaze sweeping over the other party.

"Understood, sir."

The driver nodded in response, his tone fairly respectful.

"Good then."

Cheng Ye raised his chin toward Snake, indicating for him to step forward for inspection.

Little Black had already approached the truck and began sniffing left and right, searching for scents.

"Sir, all data is normal, within standard parameters."

"Good, remove clothes for wound inspection."

As soon as Cheng Ye finished speaking, the driver had already begun removing his shirt, revealing a big belly covered in thick chest hair.

What made Cheng Ye's eyelid twitch was that this driver had virtually no unmarked skin anywhere on his body. Old scars layered upon each other, mixed with various claw marks and bite marks of different depths, clearly showing he had crawled through the wasteland.

Fortunately, those scars had all completely healed, with smooth, blackened edges that didn't look like they posed infection risks.

Snake circled around him and even pulled open the man's underwear for a look.

"No fresh wounds."

"Very good." Cheng Ye nodded, indicating for the driver to retreat to a corner of the inspection area.

It made sense that a merchant caravan of this scale wouldn't arrange for infected individuals to be in the lead truck.

Otherwise, if one person was found to have infection risks, it would immediately cause problems with the caravan's trading.

"Inspect the cargo!"

The truck's rear door opened.

Cheng Ye walked over and was immediately so surprised he could barely speak.

Green large square bricks like ice blocks filled the entire cargo hold, emitting a faint fragrance.

This fragrance was not at all unfamiliar to him, it was exactly the smell of nutrient paste!

"All nutrient paste ingredients?"

Little Black jumped onto the truck lightly, sniffing around among the stacked ingredients, trying to find scents other than the ingredients.

Snake also called over a team of eight workers and began moving the ingredients down one by one for careful inspection.

This really was hard labor.

One square brick of ingredients weighed at least around 200 kilograms, requiring four people working together to move it.

Watching the cargo hold gradually empty, everyone was already sweating profusely, and afterward they'd still have to move all these ingredients back onto the truck.

But there was no choice, this was the complete inspection process.

Snake led four people to begin inspecting the interior of the cargo hold, carefully checking for traces of infection source contamination.

The remaining four surrounded the unloaded ingredients, unable to use instruments for detection, they could only rely on touching, looking, and weighing to judge.

"Is there any possibility of hiding things inside these ingredients?"

Cheng Ye also bent down to examine one piece. The ingredients felt hard as rocks. If something were really hidden inside, they couldn't break the ingredients apart to inspect them.

"Sir, look at this marking. It's from Jade Field Shelter City."

A worker pointed to the upper right corner of the ingredients, where indeed a small green grass mark was carved.

"Generally speaking, small settlements might cooperate with merchant caravans in this kind of private stashing, but shelter cities, even the smallest ones, wouldn't allow merchant caravans to damage their reputation."

This Jade Field Shelter City and Red Mountain both belonged to Hai Province, one of the closest shelter cities to Happiness City.

Each piece of ingredients could probably make many bags of nutrient paste, but one piece was worth approximately 50 contribution points.

Calculating carefully, this truck's cargo value fluctuated around 3,500 contribution points.

If he could get a 30% commission like in Zone A, he'd get rich immediately.

But this belonged to important livelihood supplies. Bringing it to Happiness City might even earn additional rewards.

It was just that the specific rewards weren't detailed in the inspector handbook.

[NEXT CHAPTER]