Big Data Cultivation

Chapter 2520: Chapter 2512: Hardships

Medicine for limb regeneration? Of course Feng Jun was interested in this thing—this even exceeded his preset goal.

But he remembered that the Chen Family didn’t have much say in this area. "Seems like your family has the patent, but doesn’t have production qualification, right?"

"The Federation’s regulations are very strict," Ninth Brother answered resentfully. "If you weren’t under the Federation’s influence, setting up a production line wouldn’t be that hard... My Chen Family doesn’t just have one patent, we have a lot of patents."

"You have a lot of patents, but your family still isn’t qualified to run a production line," Feng Jun made a casual jab, not caring how dark the other’s face turned. "This production line... can’t be cheap, right?"

If you’re this blunt, you’re going to lose all your friends! Ninth Brother complained inwardly, but his face didn’t show it. "Sixty million tons of Energy Blocks... that was the pre-war price. Now you’d have to at least give me thirty million tons... This production line is a composite type, with a lot of smaller lines attached."

It really was a sky‑high price. Feng Jun complained silently in his heart. He had bought nearly three hundred mining machines, and their total value was still less than ten million tons of Energy Blocks. But in the Earth Realm, for three hundred specially customized mining machines, you couldn’t get it done without at least a hundred billion.

Actually, even that was an understatement. One ton of Energy Blocks was definitely worth more than ten thousand... fifty or sixty thousand would be perfectly normal.

And compared to the Earth Realm, the machining costs here were very cheap. For the same industrial products, the valuation here was extremely low.

Which meant that the real cost of this production line, if placed in the Earth Realm, no matter how you calculated it, would be on the scale of trillions.

Expensive? It really didn’t count as expensive. This was limb regeneration. In the Earth Realm, even if you had ten trillion, there’d be nowhere to buy it.

Feng Jun thought for a moment and asked in a low voice, "What’s the delivery time?"

"That’s uncertain... the fastest would still be five or six months," Ninth Brother answered vaguely. "Anyway, it won’t exceed a year. I mainly don’t know if you want it or not. If you can confirm, I can put in a word right now."

"We’re really not in a hurry," Feng Jun stated very straightforwardly. "We’ve got a lot going on recently and haven’t been paying much attention here. I came over to take a look and saw that your supplies are still fairly plentiful, so I’m about to leave."

"No wonder you’re taking it so lightly," Ninth Brother gave a wry smile. "If you’d been around all this time, you’d know that quite a few people are attacking you, saying that your Super Gene Warriors... are sharing the Insect Race’s biotech."

"Is that so?" Feng Jun was slightly startled, then he reacted to a problem. "You’re sure I’m part of the Super Gene Warrior faction? You’re pretty good at fishing for words."

"How is this fishing for words?" Ninth Brother smiled bitterly. "Everyone knows in their hearts: if you weren’t from that faction, how could you have quietly shipped in so much stuff?"

"Then just assume I am," Feng Jun really didn’t care. "Anyway, for such a big amount of money, even though we’ve got a lot of Energy Stones, we can’t give you that much deposit. And we’ve got other business right now; we don’t have the mind to focus on this kind of small matter."

"This is limb regeneration—how is that a small matter?" Ninth Brother was stunned. A while back, that production line for boosting immunity and treating diabetes, didn’t you happily accept it too? Isn’t limb regeneration at least as difficult as those?

But Feng Jun just smiled indifferently. "We’ve had limb‑regeneration tech for a long time. What we lack is a mature, mass‑producible medicine. We’re buying the production line just to save ourselves some trouble... If you don’t believe it, I can give you a demonstration."

"I believe you," Ninth Brother nodded without the slightest hesitation. He absolutely did not want the other party to demonstrate—limb regeneration meant the limb had to be cut off first, right? You’re definitely not going to cut off your own limb. "Actually, I’m not in a rush either... Just give me a word."

Feng Jun’s brows furrowed. "You’re not in a rush... then what are you bouncing up and down for?"

"Still want to get some supplies," Ninth Brother answered without hesitation. "Xiajing is about to be impossible to hold. Only a large amount of supplies can boost morale... I know you guys can do it."

"Of course we can," Feng Jun really didn’t want to expose the existence of Cultivators—though even if it got exposed, it wasn’t his call to make. But he just couldn’t hold it in. Anyway, the existence of Cultivators couldn’t be hidden for much longer. "But why should we help you?"

"Because... we’re all part of the Human Race," Ninth Brother answered as if it were a matter of course. "If you’re Insect Race, pretend I never said it!"

"Listen carefully: we don’t owe you anything!" Feng Jun’s face went stiff as he spoke each word clearly. "If we want to help you, that’s our sympathy. If we don’t help, you have no right to accuse us... did I eat your family’s rice?"

Ninth Brother definitely didn’t get the ’eating rice’ joke. He froze for a moment and said, "But Xiajing... is about to fall!"

All of a sudden, Feng Jun lost interest in chatting with him, because this guy was living way too earnestly—if Xiajing can’t be held, is that your responsibility or mine? That’s the defenders’ responsibility, okay?

Everyone’s willing to defend their own homeland, but the legal Guardians ought to bear more responsibility, right?

So he nodded. "I know. Sister Qin’s mall has collapsed too; everyone’s done their best... How is Sister Qin?"

"You actually know Sister Qin’s commercial building?" Ninth Brother couldn’t help being surprised again, since this time he was dealing with a stranger. But very quickly he accepted the situation, then smiled. "Her commercial building had to collapse... she even set me up."

According to him, Sister Qin had also gotten a lot of supplies; whether the building collapsed or not was secondary.

Strictly speaking, from the very beginning this commercial building shouldn’t have been maintained like that. With that much manpower, materials, and Energy Blocks, wouldn’t it have been better to put them into a military fortress?

But Xiajing City needed a model like this to boost the people’s confidence, and Sister Qin couldn’t bear to let go of the commercial building she’d built with so much effort, so she kept it going, burning through a massive amount of funds.

Spending money works like that: if you never start, fine; but once you’ve put in a lot, it’s hard to stop. When she felt she really couldn’t hold on any longer, the City Government Mansion notified her that the money she’d spent could be refunded in the future through tax deductions.

In other words, Sister Qin had already been at her limit; it was just that some people didn’t want the commercial building to fall—Frontier Star’s tax policy was already very generous, how much more could you really deduct?

Last time she got a large batch of Energy Blocks, which could have been used to keep the mall alive, but the mall sold some daily necessities at discount prices to old customers, which drew the attention of several major powers.

Not only did some people try to forcibly buy up daily necessities, there were even people who started demanding Energy Blocks from the mall.

Sister Qin simply took the opportunity to cut back on maintaining the commercial building, a kind of ruthless self-amputation—"I can’t even keep my mall, where am I supposed to get so many Energy Blocks for you?"

The damage to the mall had a big impact in Xiajing City and forced Sister Qin’s faction to halt. The government even went to see her specifically, hoping she would restore the mall to its former state as soon as possible.

Sister Qin flatly refused, saying she just didn’t have that capability, but she reluctantly agreed she wouldn’t give up protecting the mall.

Her younger brother-in-law was indignant about the damage to the mall and had complained in private that Chen Jiu clearly had more resources, yet these people came to make trouble for them instead; it was really going too far.

Even though it was a private complaint, word still got out somewhat, so Ninth Brother also felt he’d been screwed. But he knew this wasn’t what Sister Qin intended, so he could only gripe about it behind her back a bit.

After hearing all this, Feng Jun shook his head speechlessly. Being in a war zone was just too damned unlucky.

Thinking about the five True Sages going out to hunt the out-of-body Insect Race, he felt the chance of cultivators being exposed was getting higher and higher, so he couldn’t help asking, "If I can top you up with some supplies, what would you most want? Medicine? Food? Or Energy Blocks?"

"I want all of them," Ninth Brother answered with a bitter smile, then fell silent for a while before making up his mind. "Energy Blocks. As for food, we can still choke down nutrient paste. Medicine... we don’t have many people afraid of dying anyway. What we regret most is not having weapons to fight with."

Feng Jun pointed at the storeroom behind him. "Your underground warehouse still feels a bit too small."

"That’s easy," Ninth Brother instantly got excited. If the place was too small, then obviously he was going to get a lot of stuff. "A while ago, I traded Energy Blocks and medicine for a small hospital with a very large basement."

Even though he hadn’t seen Feng Jun for four months, Ninth Brother had already made plans for the future: the aboveground warehouses really couldn’t be kept up, but the underground warehouses had to be preserved; otherwise, even if he had supplies, there’d be nowhere to receive them.

On top of that, he’d bought an abandoned hospital at cabbage prices. It wasn’t that he was trying to take advantage; it was just that no one was sure whether the planet could be held, so property was dirt cheap.

In fact, he preferred to think that he was just finding another way to send supplies to others—at least when the other side received the supplies, they were so moved they had tears streaming down their faces.

But Ninth Brother also got what he wanted: a very deep and very large underground basement system.

This hospital was a private one, with a sizable footprint and a nice environment. Most importantly, there was a hard rule on Frontier Star that all hospitals had to be prepared for war and able to convert into a Warfield Hospital at any time.

This hospital was the same. They dug three basement levels deep underground, each level with more than a hundred thousand square meters of floor space and a height of seven to eight meters, giving them more than a million cubic meters of volume.

These basements had even been put into use in the early stages of the war, but later, as medicine and Energy Blocks grew scarcer and the military requisitioned supplies from private hospitals, this hospital gradually couldn’t hold on.

The war was getting more and more brutal, yet the number of patients they admitted was actually decreasing. As medicine dwindled, most patients were transferred out, and in the end the City Government Mansion decided to close the hospital and move out all usable medical equipment and remaining drugs.

This was an overall wartime arrangement; the hospital’s owner had no reason to object. If the planet fell, then nothing would be left anyway. If the Human Race eventually won, the City Government Mansion would give him an explanation in the future.

After the hospital had been emptied, he went to Ninth Brother: "Do you want that piece of land of mine?"

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