The First Order
chapter-716

Chapter 716 Bestselling lipstick

As Ren Xiaosu was the one who personally witnessed and smashed the statue, he naturally had to describe the events in detail to everyone. “At the time, I was keeping watch right here when a statue suddenly floated over. It looked extremely ferocious after fixing itself up from the shattered fragments yesterday. Do y’all understand what I’m saying? Its face was full of cracks…”

At the side, Cheng Yu’s expression darkened. He realized the more Ren Xiaosu talked about it, the eerier the atmosphere became. When he looked at the expressions of the others around him, they were basically the same as his. Even though they were very nervous, they needed to understand what happened exactly.

After Ren Xiaosu finished talking, he didn’t care what the rest of them thought and just went to bed.

For some reason, Ren Xiaosu felt it had been too peaceful since they entered the Sacred Mountains.

The statue incident was definitely someone’s doing. When the statue was secretly observing from outside the campsite, Ren Xiaosu was secretly observing the statue as well. Then he realized the statue was watching the tent where the girlfriend of that person who had died earlier was staying.

Therefore, Luo Lan’s guess was most likely correct. The murderer was Wang Yun. Putting this matter aside, they had actually not encountered the Pyro Company members ever since they came into the Sacred Mountains.

Yet this place was the Pyro Company’s core strategic location. If they had encountered sneak attacks by the Pyro Company before coming in here, why weren’t there any more attacks after they had arrived?

This left Ren Xiaosu feeling wary instead. Whatever tricks the Pyro Company had in store for them next would probably be even stranger!

The entire mountain range covered a very large area, spanning hundreds of kilometers in length. Based on their current marching speed, they would probably arrive at the true center of the Sacred Mountains in another ten days.

While Ren Xiaosu and the others continued venturing deeper into the Sacred Mountains, a convoy of off-road vehicles had arrived outside Stronghold 144 in the Northwest from the Central Plains.

Zhang Xiaoman had been waiting here for quite a while now. But this time, he was only an escort. The officer in charge of welcoming the convoy was Wang Fengyuan, the intelligence director of Fortress 178.

Generally, any matters that required Wang Fengyuan to oversee personally would be handled with the utmost confidentiality.

Next to him, Zhang Xiaoman probed, “Boss Wang, who’s the person coming this time? They even needed you to come here personally?”

Wang Fengyuan glanced at him. “Oh, I haven’t seen you for a few months, but our Zhang Xiaoman knows how to use honorifics now. Why is it that the higher your rank is, the more polite you become?” “Heh.” Zhang Xiaoman did not mind Wang Fengyuan’s sarcasm. “This is an improvement that I’ve made.”

“Not bad, not bad at all.” Wang Fengyuan nodded approvingly. Then Zhang Xiaoman realized Wang Fengyuan had simply changed the topic. It did not seem like he intended to answer his question at all.

When the convoy of off-road vehicles reached the base of the stronghold walls, the people in the vehicles did not even need to get out of their cars. Wang Fengyuan got into one of the vehicles, and they drove off farther northwest. The rest of the convoy that had traveled here from afar was following right behind.

Zhang Xiaoman watched as the convoy drove off and curled his lips. “He always acts so secretively.”

The convoy continued to drive for more than a 100 kilometers westward before finally coming to a stop at a hill. Someone had already set up a temporary military camp in the flat of that hill. It was not very large in size, and Lin Yuze, who was in charge of the logistics here, was beckoning to his cooks to make food.

When Zhang Jinglin heard the commotion outside, he walked out of the military tent he was in. Someone from the convoy that had just arrived quickly retrieved a wheelchair from the trunk and carried Wang Shengzhi, who was sitting in the backseat, onto it.

Wang Shengzhi kept smiling throughout and even had time to wave at Zhang Jinglin. “Long time no see. When I passed by Stronghold 144 earlier, I noticed a lot of merchant trucks were parked outside. It looks like the decision to reopen the trade route was right.”

Zhang Jinglin said with a smile, “It’s always a good thing to do business with one another. But you probably wouldn’t have expected that the bestselling product in the Northwest from your Central Plains would turn out to be lipstick.”

Wang Shengzhi really was taken aback. As the true controller of the Wang Consortium, even if he were to pay attention to the ongoings of the trade route, it would be data related to staple goods. He really had not expected that lipstick would be the bestselling product in the Northwest.

Even Wang Fugui, the biggest lipstick distributor, could not have expected that either.

Back then, Zhang Xiaoman had forced some of the local businessmen to pick up the goods when Wang Fugui brought in a few truckloads of lipstick with him. The businessmen were all complaining the goods might be left unsold on the shelves.

But who knew that Wang Fugui would have such great foresight? This batch of lipstick everyone thought might end up unsold actually turned out to be the hottest item as soon as it was released on the market!

Before this, everyone was wondering who would want to buy lipstick with their spare cash when there was still a shortage of necessities in the Northwest.

In the end, it turned out they did not understand a woman’s love for beauty.

Later, other people also wanted to jump on the bandwagon and start a lipstick business, but something unexpected happened. Zhang Xiaoman, that hooligan, came up with the idea of issuing an exclusive distribution license for lipstick and awarded it to Wang Fugui.

With that, the lipstick business essentially became Wang Fugui’s exclusive source of income.

When Zhang Xiaoman’s superior, Zhou Yinglong, heard about this, he wanted to get someone to take care of this matter. But on second thought, since lipstick was not considered a strategic resource, and this matter also involved Ren Xiaosu, he decided to just let it slide. Nowadays, whoever encountered Wang Fugui on the trade route would have to greet him politely and address him as Mr. Wang or Director Wang. Everyone knew Wang Fugui had to have a backer in Fortress 178. Otherwise, he could not possibly enjoy a monopoly on the lipstick business.

Some people even approached Wang Fugui to ask for his help in recommending someone to solve their troubles.

However, Wang Fugui was someone who knew his limits. He just focused on doing his own business and did not care about other people’s messes.

Wang Fugui felt that since Ren Xiaosu would be taking over Fortress 178 one day, he did not want to tarnish his reputation.

Zhang Jinglin looked at Wang Shengzhi. “It’s no longer peaceful in the Central Plains, right? Why do you dare to come to the Northwest so lightly escorted?” Wang Shengzhi said with a smile, “The troublemakers have all headed to the Sacred Mountains. That’s why I’ve ventured out like this.”

“You were the one who lured them there, right?” Zhang Jinglin got straight to the point. “Haha, what delicious food did Chef Lin prepare today?” Wang Shengzhi said as he pushed his wheelchair into the military camp by himself. He did not seem to want to answer the question.

Actually, what Zhang Jinglin really wanted to ask was whether the Anjing House and the Wang Consortium had already joined forces and set a trap for everyone in the world.

Ever since the cave-in of East Lake, the wide net the Anjing House had cast for so many years started tightening and began to affect the Central Plains as well. But that was only the beginning, and the impact was still not widespread yet.

But now, the entire Central Plains had sprung into action over the No. 001 Experimental. Zhang Jinglin felt that 70% of the supernatural beings in the Central Plains had already ventured into the mountains. Why was Wang Shengzhi doing this? He was probably trying to eliminate all of the unstable elements that were in his way.

Wang Shengzhi suddenly turned around and said with a smile, “Mr. Zhang, are you guarding against me by coming to an agreement with the Qing Consortium to connect their railway to the Northwest so they can trade with the Central Plains through you all?”