"I’ll bring my boat closer. You move the beehives and all your supplies onto the speedboat’s deck and secure them. Tie your raft to the stern, too. You’d better not make any moves that could be misunderstood, or this weapon in my hand might get ’nervous’ and go off!" Qin Haonan continued.
"Okay!"
Qin Haonan steered the speedboat closer to the man. The first thing the man did was carefully lift his beehives and push them onto the deck. In his eyes, the beehives were more important than any of his other supplies.
After setting down the beehives and taking measures to protect them from the rain, the man returned to his raft and casually tossed the rest of his supplies onto the deck.
Seeing this, the corner of Qin Haonan’s mouth twitched. ’This guy really loves his bees!’
The man, who was wearing a protective hat made from a mosquito net, walked over to the cabin door. He gently shooed away the bees buzzing there, then held up a cell phone in his hand.
With one hand on his automatic rifle, Qin Haonan opened the cabin door just a crack. The man decisively tossed the phone inside.
Seeing how cooperative the man was, Qin Haonan took out two peaches and handed them over.
"Welcome to the Peach Blossom Base. This is a little welcome gift from me," Qin Haonan said with a smile.
The man’s eyes lit up. "Thank you, thank you!"
Qin Haonan thought for a moment, then handed over the peach he had taken a couple of bites from.
"The bees were already after this one. Just put it on the hive and let them have at it."
Seeing the half-eaten peach, the man didn’t seem to mind at all and kept thanking him profusely.
Qin Haonan waved his hand and closed the cabin door, but then he saw the man break open both peaches and the half-eaten one and place them all on the beehive!
He hadn’t eaten fresh fruit in so long, and he might have even been starving, yet the man managed to resist eating them and gave everything to the bees he was raising.
’Maybe he’s only joining the Peach Blossom Base for the sake of his five beehives.’
Qin Haonan reported what he saw to Ren Yuanyang and the others.
"Is there something wrong with him?" Qin Haonan finally asked.
"Maybe he just really cherishes those five beehives. Don’t overthink it. We can observe him over time," Ren Yuanyang replied, shaking his head slightly. "Since you’ve picked up a new member, you can come straight back."
"Okay, but there are still some survivors in this area. I’ll make a quick loop on my way," Qin Haonan responded.
"Alright. Safety first!"
As they spoke, Qin Haonan piloted the speedboat near a few small boats. It was clearly a group of survivors who had teamed up.
They grew extremely tense as the speedboat approached.
But Qin Haonan stopped the speedboat about five meters away and spoke through its loudspeaker, "Hello! We’re a merchant team from the Peach Blossom Base. We were wondering if you have any plants. We can trade food for them!"
The people on the boats were stunned for a moment when they heard Qin Haonan’s announcement, then they were overjoyed.
"We do! But they’re just plant seeds. Do you take those?" someone called back.
Qin Haonan paused. He had only asked as a matter of routine, not expecting to actually find anything!
"Of course we do. How many seeds do you have?" Qin Haonan asked.
"Over twenty. We didn’t count them carefully!"
Hearing they had over twenty seeds, Qin Haonan’s eyes brightened. He then made his request: "Send a picture over first so I can take a look!"
They immediately sent a photo. It showed many dark, reddish-brown, nearly round seeds.
Qin Haonan had no way of telling if they were really plant seeds, so he forwarded the picture directly to Ren Yuanyang.
As soon as Ren Yuanyang saw the photo, a system notification sounded.
[Sound Box seeds, Euphorbiaceae family, Hura genus, tree...]
"Looks like your luck is good today. Go ahead and take all those seeds!" Ren Yuanyang replied with a laugh.
"You got it!" Qin Haonan chirped, then called out to the other boat, "You can trade those twenty-something seeds for five pounds of Cherry Tomatoes or one pound of peaches. Your choice!"
"Is that really all we can get for so many seeds?" one of them asked, apparently trying to haggle.
"These seeds are all the same type. For us, the quantity isn’t that important," Qin Haonan said, shaking his head. "Are you trading or not? If not, we’re leaving!"
As he spoke, he started the speedboat’s engine.
Hearing the engine start, the survivors immediately shouted, "We’ll trade, we’ll trade!"
Those seeds were completely useless to them. Being able to trade them for a pound of peaches was already a huge win in their book.
Their attempt to haggle was just a probe to see how badly the Peach Blossom Base wanted the seeds.
If they had succeeded in bargaining, they could have gotten a little more out of the deal!
Qin Haonan immediately prepared a pound of peaches, placed them in an inflatable raft, and then used a bamboo pole to push it over to them.
By now, all the bees were preoccupied with the peaches that had been broken open, so none of them came to interfere with Qin Haonan’s business.
When the inflatable raft reached them, one of the survivors cautiously peeked out, took the peaches from the raft, and then tossed a small bag onto it.
Seeing that the trade was complete, Qin Haonan pulled on the rope to bring the inflatable raft back.
He collected the seeds. There were twenty-three in total.
"Pleasure doing business with you. If you get any more plants in the future, you can contact our base!" With that, Qin Haonan drove the speedboat away.
Only after Qin Haonan had left did the survivors let out a sigh of relief.
"That Peach Blossom Base isn’t bad. They didn’t use their strength to just rob us!"
"Yeah. How about we cut up one of the peaches so everyone can have a taste?"

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