Chapter 3 – Those Who Play with Economics Have Dark Hearts

“Every single day of the novice period is critical.”

Su Ziyun’s gaze swept across the group, her voice cold as ice.

“We have no food, no water, and no fuel. Talents alone are just castles in the air.”

“I will first use my talent and try to see if I can obtain the supplies we need.”

With that, Su Ziyun closed her eyes and issued the command in her mind.

[S-rank Talent ‘Daily Check-in’ activated!]

A soft translucent screen, visible only to her, slowly unfolded before her eyes.

[Today’s selectable rewards are as follows:]

[Option 1: Vacuum-sealed, individually packaged high-energy compressed biscuits (30 portions).]

[Option 2: 500ml standard bottled purified water (30 portions).]

[Option 3: 10-liter standard can of gasoline (10 portions).]

Su Ziyun opened her eyes and repeated the three options word by word to everyone.

“Thirty portions of compressed biscuits, thirty portions of purified water, and ten units of 10-liter gasoline.”

As soon as her words fell, the bus, which had been deathly silent ever since the revelation of [Many Children, Many Blessings], was suddenly filled with audible sighs of relief.

“That’s great!” Gu Qingyan was the first to cheer, her delicate face beaming with joy.

“We’ve got food! Teacher Su, pick the food!”

With her neat short hair, Qin Lan also relaxed and said bluntly, “I agree.”

Most of the girls showed signs of relief. Under the immense pressure of death, food and water represented the most basic sense of security.

However, Su Ziyun didn’t make her choice immediately. Her gaze swept past those excited faces and landed on the other core brains of the team.

“It seems my Check-in talent can provide us with basic survival supplies.”

Su Ziyun’s voice wasn’t loud, but it firmly pulled everyone’s attention back.

“But if we want to survive or even live better than others, relying on just this basic survival supplies is far from enough.”

She habitually made a light sweeping gesture in the air.

“Everyone, display your talent panels.”

Following her words, each person unfolded the pale blue light screen, visible only to teammates, before themselves.

S-rank [Infinite Synthesis], S-rank [Fair Value], S-rank [Matter Reconstruction], S-rank [Story Direction]…

A total of nine S-rank talents!

Then her gaze turned to Zhou Siyu, who had been quietly contemplating. Su Ziyun felt that this genius of philosophy and logic had likely picked up on some of her thoughts.

“Zhou Siyu, explain your talent.”

Hearing this, Zhou Siyu withdrew from her thoughts. She lifted her head and looked at Su Ziyun with clear eyes. She answered concisely:

“Offer a single item as a sacrifice, then choose one reward from three randomly appearing options, each reward consisting of 100 of that item. Usable once per day.”

Hiss—

The moment she finished explaining, the air in the carriage grew heated again, even overshadowing the earlier craving for food.

One for a hundred!

And choose one from three at that!

What a terrifying resource multiplier!

A hint of approval flashed in Su Ziyun’s eyes.

“Excellent! This means each of our talents can likely form a perfect synergy with the others.”

“Therefore, I propose—”

Su Ziyun’s tone turned extremely solemn.

“For the next three days of the novice protection period, we don’t go anywhere. We stay right here.”

“Our only goal is this: leverage the combined effects of our all-S-rank talents to maximize our initial rewards! Within these three days, we will stockpile enough survival supplies to amass power that surpasses everyone else!”

This “staying put” strategy struck like lightning, shattering the group’s initial mindset of “move as fast as possible.”

They were all top geniuses in their respective fields. In an instant, they understood the immense courage behind Su Ziyun’s decision.

Not chasing temporary leads, but exploiting the rules to maximize their advantages, seeking absolute dominance after accumulating strength!

“I agree.” Qin Lan was the first to respond, a gleam of excitement shining in her sharp eyes.

“Stockpile supplies, bide your time, and strike in one decisive blow—this is classic tactical doctrine.”

“The expected long-term return of this plan is very close to maximization.” Lin Wanqing, who had been silently calculating, quickly nodded as well.

“No objections.” Chen Xi’s reply was brief. For her, thinking about academic research was more important than development plans. In this brand-new world, the physical rules to be discovered would definitely be interesting.

Seeing that everyone had reached a consensus, Su Ziyun nodded with satisfaction.

“Now, back to the problem at hand.” Her attention returned to the original three options.

“Food, water, or gasoline. What do we exchange for today?”

“Obviously water and food. Gasoline is useless right now, we’re not even driving. Filling our stomachs is the most important thing.” Gu Qingyan blurted out without thinking.

This idea immediately garnered nods of agreement from several other girls. It was the most instinctive biological choice.

But then, a voice as cold as ice cut through.

“I object.”

Everyone turned to look at the source of voice. It was Lin Wanqing, the economics genius who had been rapidly jotting something down in her notebook while adjusting her rimless glasses.

She raised her head. Behind her lenses, her gaze was sharp and clear, as if capable of piercing through all appearances to reach the core of value.

“Choosing food and water is the lowest-yield decision in our current situation.”

“Why?” Gu Qingyan asked in confusion, frowning slightly.

“Food is essential! Without it, how will we have the strength to move in three days?”

Lin Wanqing didn’t answer directly. Instead, she extended her slender finger and pointed at the air inside the bus.

“Open your regional chat channels and see for yourselves.”

The group paused, then opened the feature in their minds, one that had appeared not long ago and was now flashing frantically.

Messages flooded everyone’s eyes like a burst dam.

[Help! Can someone tell me where this is? I’m so hungry!]

[Is anyone forming a team? The rules said it will be randomly matched. I’m scared to go alone!]

[Haha! I found a supply box! It has water and bread inside!]

[Anyone have food? I’ll trade you with my lighter!]

The vast majority were terrified wails or exchanges of basic information.

But among them, some crucial intelligence was mixed in.

Lin Wanqing extended her slender, fair finger and seemed to swipe through an invisible screen in the air.

“I have compiled a total of 3,721 valid messages from the chat channel.”

“Among them, the words ‘supply box’ was mentioned 812 times. Of those mentions, 304 explicitly stated that they obtained supplies.”

“Of those 304, 291 opened either ‘food’ or ‘water’, accounting for 95.7% of cases.”

“And only one instance explicitly mentioned opening ‘gasoline’, a mere 0.3%.”

A series of cold, precise numbers down to the decimal point flowed calmly from Lin Wanqing’s mouth, but each one struck like a hammer against everyone’s hearts, plunging the entire bus into instant silence.

Everyone was stunned speechless by her terrifying ability to process and analyze information.

Lin Wanqing pushed up her rimless glasses and said her final conclusion.

“During the novice period, food and water are high-probability resources found in roadside supply boxes. They are basic resources accessible to almost everyone, with relatively low acquisition difficulty.”

“Gasoline, on the other hand, is an extremely rare strategic resource that can only be obtained with an extremely low probability.”

“Based on the most basic economic theory of supply and demand, scarcity determines the upper limit of value.”

“Therefore, among the three options provided by Teacher Su, the potential value of gasoline far exceeds that of food and water.”

Her gaze swept across everyone and finally settled on Su Ziyun and Zhou Siyu.

“My recommendation is to choose gasoline.”

“Then, we immediately execute two actions.”

“First, use Zhou Siyu’s [Unequal Exchange] talent. We sacrifice one unit of ’10-liter gasoline’ and exchange it for 100 units of another resource from the options.”

“Second, use the remaining nine units of gasoline for trading. This resource is currently as valuable as gold. It can easily be used to obtain enough food, water, and any other basic resources to sustain us for days, by trading with players who have surplus supplies but lack fuel.”

Lin Wanqing’s words cut through the current dilemma like a scalpel, laying out two paths of capital operation with outrageously high returns.

Inside the bus, there was a deathly silence.