Apocalypse Queen: My Space, My Rules Chapter 219: Can You Hear Me Now?

Chandler packed everything up, took the empty box, and they stepped ashore together.

He used the walkie-talkie to contact Number One. "The wooden boat is here. When you send people over, bring today's gold, silver, emeralds, and the ledger."

He also gave the location.

About 20 minutes later, Number Two arrived with Number Three and Number Six in an inflatable boat.

It carried the exchanged gold, silver, jewelry, and ledger. Mariella and Chandler boarded it.

Number Two reported seriously, "They went early this morning with cash and waited outside the shops. Everything was done in under two hours. Gold was 700 dollars per 0.04 oz, silver was 15 dollars per 0.04 oz, and jewelry was the same as gold."

Cash was losing value, but gold, silver, and jewelry were losing value even faster.

Cash could still buy food and supplies, but jewelry was almost worthless, like pieces of scrap metal.

When people heard cash could be exchanged for "scrap metal," survivors got excited.

They dug out all their gold and valuables. Women even took off every piece of jewelry. After exchanging, they could finally enter the stores to buy food and fuel.

The government was providing subsidies. Anyone with an ID could enter stores once per day to purchase food and oil.

"We used flame tools to test gold and silver purity, but we don't really understand gemstones. Not sure if there were mistakes," Number Two said, opening a box and dumping the jewelry out.

Mariella looked through it casually. She wasn't an expert either, but storage space could check authenticity.

"Thanks for your hard work. I'll take the ledger to Dr. Lester for archiving. You can exchange your jewelry with me for supplies."

After the transfer, Number Two, Three, and Six happily boarded the wooden boat, turned it around, and headed toward the other side of the hill.

Once they were gone, Mariella stored the gold, silver, and jewelry in the storage space.

The gold and silver had been tested with flame guns, so there wasn't much chance of cheating there. But gemstones were a different story.

Not only were the quality levels uneven—some were outright fake.

Those shiny, sparkling diamonds were actually cheap moissanite. The bright green emerald rings were just green glass made from beer bottles. Those impressive-looking white pearls turned out to be worthless quartzite.

It wasn't that the survivors were trying to scam people on purpose. They had bought those things cheaply to begin with.

Since they couldn't afford real jewelry, they went for fake ones and never thought those fakes would one day be traded at gold-level prices.

Mariella clicked her tongue, pulled out a pile of low-grade fake jewelry that even her storage space rejected, and tossed it into the water.

Even though she had been tricked quite a bit, at least the gold and silver were real. She also learned a lesson—never trade jewelry with survivors again. Most of it would end up being fake anyway.

Even the real pieces weren't of great quality most of the time.

Most of the gemstones were cheap yellow stones, barely better than quartzite.

Or they were low-grade chalcedony, not even close to jadeite or agate.

The sapphires were man-made, the pearls were cultured, and many others were just garnet, crystal, or other inexpensive stones.

Before the disaster, anyone could buy piles of that kind of jewelry for about 100 dollars.

Still, Mariella chose to follow the ledger records and exchange the promised supplies for her teammates. She would take the loss herself.

Next time, she would only accept real gold and silver.

She yawned.

After overindulging the night before, she felt drained and just wanted to go home and lie down.

She was about to tell Chandler to start the boat when Denton suddenly called her.

The signal was already weak on the 2G network, and near the Hillcrest Range, reception was even worse.

The call kept cutting out, and she couldn't make out what he was saying, so she had to step off the inflatable boat.

Chandler told her to store the boat, then lifted her and climbed upward at incredible speed.

As they went higher, the signal slowly got better, and the call became clearer.

"...Can you hear me now?!" Denton shouted hoarsely.

Mariella finally answered, "I can hear you now. Start from the beginning again."

He said all the homeowners at Celestine Ridge were buying huge amounts of winter supplies. He was currently moving expensive coal by wooden boat and asked if she wanted some.

Mariella already knew how crazy expensive coal had become.

She had already stored enough high-quality washed smokeless coal for half a year to run the floor heating boiler during extreme cold. She also had plenty of premium charcoal for the fireplace, so she decided not to join the rush.