"Channel merge?"

Bai Cheng was visibly stunned when she saw the notification.

"Because the population decreased?" She immediately checked the remaining number of people in the channel.

[Regional Channel Members: 5,999]

"How did so many people disappear all of a sudden?" Bai Cheng was shocked but quickly pieced it together.

At this point, the five-day safety period had effectively ended. The fate of those who hadn’t reached Station One was obvious...

Of course, some must have failed to defend Station One and were killed by the Infinite Raiders.

"Nearly half the population died in just five days." Bai Cheng’s expression turned grim.

That said, a trading market of six thousand people wasn’t as vast as before.

In a way, the channel merge didn’t seem to have a direct impact on most people. If anything, it benefited survivors like her even more.

"Right, and that[Team]function—" Just as Bai Cheng was about to check, the system followed up with more information.

[This channel will merge with nine other regional channels and be renamed as #2.]

[All original functions will remain unchanged. Upon completion of the merge, the [Team] function will be unlocked!]

[Channel merge in progress. Please wait...]

Bai Cheng froze. She hadn’t expected ten channels to merge at once.

The process was lightning-fast, almost instantaneous.

Before she could react, another notification popped up.

[Regional Chat Channel #2 has been successfully updated!]

[Daily message limit: 20]

[Current population of Regional Channel #2: 66,666]

"Over sixty thousand people." Bai Cheng wasn’t too surprised. On average, each channel had more than six thousand survivors.

This just proved that the casualty rates across all channels were roughly the same.

However, now that everyone had passed the novice period, the death rate would likely slow down.

Despite the dangers of Silent Night in the swamp, the channel was buzzing more fiercely than ever.

In fact, the flood of messages was even faster than before, so fast that Bai Cheng had to pause just to read them properly.

"The Infinite Raiders are that weak? I thought they’d be way scarier!"

"Never would’ve guessed! Those damn Infinite Raiders, those bandits! They got a direct hit from me, and boom! One-shot!"

"Hahaha, the channels merged! My business can expand now! Same deal! Scrap iron to iron ingots, 2:1 ratio! Buy over 100 and I’ll throw in 50 for free!!"

"??? Wait, 2:1? Isn’t the refining ratio impure? How are you even making a profit..."

"Fuck! Bai Cheng and Xiao Ran scammed us!"

"They dared to sell at a 3:1 ratio! If I ever run into them..."

"..."

"Big Brother, are you on the channel? Reply if you see this. I’ve found sister-in-law!"

Seeing her shady business tactics exposed, Bai Cheng’s finger slipped off the screen, and the messages instantly scrolled away.

She scoffed. "Great. Am I about to get cancelled?"

Sure enough, her inbox was immediately flooded with DMs, all of them cursing her out.

Luckily, Bai Cheng had thick skin. Without hesitation, she blocked every single one of them.

As for whether these guys could reach Station Two smoothly, Bai Cheng couldn’t care less.

"Who told you to be unlucky? Come at me if you have a problem!"

The sheer number of people in the merged channel meant that the proportion of those she had scammed was tiny. Their angry rants were quickly drowned out by messages from survivors of other channels.

Bai Cheng skimmed a little longer and noticed that most people seemed overly excited, and even euphoric.

She raised an eyebrow. "It’s just a channel merge. Why are they so hyped?"

But seeing all the reunion messages, a faint hope stirred in her heart. With the expanded coverage, maybe...

Should I say something too?

Then again, the flashy <Pioneer> title next to her name made her cringe a little.

Just then, a few brightly colored messages flashed past, catching her attention.

Bai Cheng quickly paused and scrolled back up, her eyes widening.

[Pioneer Leng Ningxue]: "Looking for teammates. Females only."

"..."

[Pioneer Niu Dali]: "Lookin’ fer2 a teammate! Join sincerely!"

[Pioneer Tang Yan]: "Recruiting Pioneers or survivors with talents. Don’t waste our time if you’re not serious. Current team size is three!"

"..."

Bai Cheng was genuinely stunned. She had assumed that her Pioneer title, despite not boosting any stats, was at least rare.

But now it’s everywhere?!

Leng Ningxue and Niu Dali were clearly from other channels, so she knew nothing about them. But she definitely knew Tang Yan!

A guy who relied on selling food early on, who didn’t even have a furnace, and whose second place was uncertain since his Station One completion rate was barely over 60%.

But he had the title too?!

Not that Bai Cheng looked down on him, but his performance had been underwhelming.

"Is it because of his unknown talent?"

From his message alone, she could tell that he knew things she didn’t.

"And he’s looking for other Pioneers... which means this title isn’t rare at all. In fact, there are probably a lot of us."

Realization struck. She quickly searched for Lin Qiuyue and Xiao Ran in the channel. Both of them had the Pioneer title as well.

"So this title is worthless." Bai Cheng rubbed her chin, then exited the channel and returned to the main menu.

Compared to the original six, a seventh button had now appeared:[Team].

She immediately clicked on it.

[Would you like to create a team?]

[Description: A team can accommodate up to seven members, including the leader. Joining requires mutual confirmation between the leader and the member, followed by a 30-day cooldown period during which leaving the team is prohibited.]

[Function: Team members can arrive at the same station together. Station difficulty and resources will be increased accordingly.]

[Hint: If the leader dies, the second member to join automatically becomes the new leader. All other rules remain unchanged.]

[Reminder: Some functions are not unlocked yet.]

"Multiple people can land on the same station?!" Bai Cheng was shocked. This would drastically reduce station difficulty.

Even though the system warned that difficulty would increase with more people, if everyone brought two employees, wouldn’t a group of twenty easily clear any station?

But this feature was irrelevant to her. She had no plans to team up right now. Besides, she had a legendary employee.

Bai Cheng didn’t create a team. Instead, she backed out.

With so many people now owning furnaces, the scrap iron exchange rate had plummeted. She needed to pivot and find a new way to profit.

As usual, she opened the trading post to browse offers.

But the first thing she saw was a clothing trade. Bai Cheng frowned. "Of course. The bigger the group, the weirder the requests."

She had thought that her original channel was normal. Even the desperate women hadn’t resorted to selling used socks or lingerie.

But now that the channels had merged, those kinds of people had appeared.

Bai Cheng scoffed in disdain, until she saw the seller’s name.

[Trader: Yu Nian]

[Item: One pair of worn white slouch socks3] 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

[Request: 5 iron ingots]

"Yu Nian?!"