18 Floors Above the Apocalypse
Chapter 217

If the disaster hadn't hit, they could've checked with the food safety office or the health department, but now all these agencies were gone. The local council was too busy to handle everything, let alone these matters.

As the two men were discussing, Samuel suddenly suggested, "How about the police department? They managed to break down The Chaos and later disbanded two private bases, returning the confiscated supplies back to the people. That requires a lot of cooperation from various departments. "Even if it's not their job, as long as they tell us which department to seek help from, or if they could put in a good word for us, it's better than us bumping around blindly."

The two men thought this was a feasible plan, "You're pretty smart, kid."

Mark said, "Christian, how about we go tomorrow? If this is true, it could save many lives. We've been through the prime of our lives and recently received welfare from the city council. If we don't speak up, I'm worried we'll feel guilty." "Alright, we'll bring the squid with us tomorrow."

After making the decision, Christian asked Mark, "Stella saved my life. What should we give her as a token of gratitude?"

Times were hard, and Christian's family could hardly make ends meet themselves. The father and son were thin as rails, and what could they possibly give as a token of gratitude?

As old friends for two years, Mark didn't beat around the bush, speaking his mind, "I can tell Stella isn't someone who fusses over things. Rather than you showing up at her doorstep with a gift, she might prefer not to be disturbed. You could prepare some sweet potatoes. If you run into her on the road, you can give them to her. If she doesn't accept, don't force it. It's the thought that counts. If one day she needs help, you can repay the favor then."

Christian also felt that Jasper and Stella seemed quite unsociable. No, to be precise, they wanted to keep a certain distance from others.

In a post-apocalyptic world, without longstanding bonds, who would get too close to each other? Their approach wasn't wrong.

After several days without proper rest, Evan didn't get to the office until nearly noon.

As his assistant came in to give a work report, he recalled something, "Evan, two strange men came today. They brought half a squid, claiming it may be infected with an ancient virus, and and they almost died from eating it."

This wasn't the police department's jurisdiction, but since receiving mysterious letters twice, Evan had taken these matters seriously, instructing his assistant to inform him immediately if anything related to the "prediction" came up.

The ancient virus was the prediction, and he hadn't expected it to actually happen.

"Where are they?"

"They came early and left already."

"Did you tell them which department to contact?"

"I did." The assistant replied, "Since we received the first report and successfully dismantled The Chaos, the government has taken our second letter very seriously. In fact, the research department noticed anomalies a few days ago and has been sampling and researching, but the final result hasn't come out yet."

Speaking of this, he muttered to himself, "Those two messengers are indeed mysterious. Not only did they deliver the informant letter firsthand, but even the prophetic letter was the same. However, why did one of them stop predicting after the earthquake?" The other one lasted for ten years.

Strange, if they could really predict, why didn't they mention the hail and hot rain?

There were too many mysteries, and it's baffling. And why do they like to replace the police department? They were already too busy with their own affairs.

"What are you complaining about?" Evan glanced at him, "Our job is to help people in need. Of course. The public will come to us for help when they have problems."

The assistant hurriedly said, "Yes, yes, you're right, Evan."

Just as he was about to slip away, he was stopped by Evan, "How's the recruitment for the security patrol?"

"Not bad, quite a few people have signed up recently." Knowing that the private base had been captured, more people had signed up recently.

"We're seriously short-staffed, select a group of good performers from the security patrol and promote them to police officers."

...

When the agreed time came, Stella went to the trading street to replace Monkey.

At the trading street, seawater was still selling like hotcakes and there were quite a few hawking dried sea products. Stella looked around and noticed that most of the dried seafood was of normal size, but some were unusually large. People were buying them, but most of the people who came to the trading street were bottom-level survivors, so there were relatively fewer buyers.

No one could say for sure whether eating it would kill them.

Stella felt heavy-hearted, but she wasn't foolish enough to try to stop them. Unless she wanted to die. Even if she did stop them, no one would believe her.

Standing in the crowd, even with a mask on, Monkey managed to replace her, "Hello."

Stella was a bit curious, "You guys aren't selling seawater and dried goods anymore?"

Monkey looked around nervously and then pulled her aside, "Ever since Odeberg International's seafood business went under, Austin stopped doing this line of business."

Actually, it was not that they chose to quit, but that it was not easy to rebuild their networks and connections. Austin ran to Mount Barker and Lone Bay, both of which had no shortage of seafood, but the journey was long and it took time to assess the other party's character, to avoid being cheated.

"We hadn't even started cooperating yet when something went wrong."

"What happened?"

"There are different grades of seafood. Lone Bay overfished and depleted their seafood, but who knew that after the tsunami, their seafood suddenly became abundant. Large and fat, naturally, it was first supplied to the upper class. However, there was trouble, several people in the rich district died."

Austin, with his keen insight, felt that there was a problem with the seafood, so he cut off his own source of income.

"We do engage in speculative buying and selling, but we never make dishonest money. The boss doesn't do it himself, and he doesn't let us do it in private."

Monkey didn't forget to remind Stella, "Things are going wrong everywhere now. You can't eat seafood, it's hailing and raining hot water, and who knows when an earthquake will happen. You must be careful. I still want to continue trading with you."

Sigh, life was too hard. He didn't want to replace one day that he couldn't replace Stella, or that Stella couldn't replace him.

"Alright, just for your words, I'll contact you first for business in the future." Stella got to the point, "Did you replace the seeds I wanted?"

"For what you want, I would go through hell and high water to replace it for you." Monkey pulled out two bags of seeds from his bag, "It was a real pain to get, but they're all seeds from two years ago. Five pounds of rice seeds, and five pounds of sticky rice seeds. Take them back and see if they can germinate?"

If it weren't for the fact that rice cultivation required a lot of water, the seeds wouldn't have been saved.

He was a bit expectant, what would Stella exchange for these?

Stella weighed them in her hands. The weight was acceptable, and the seeds hadn't been eaten by insects. She took out ten pounds of something from her bag, "I won't let you lose out." Monkey took a look and immediately got excited.