Uncle Wan let out a cold laugh and turned back to address everyone: “Everyone, I’ll say it again—I won’t force anyone to stay or leave, but sooner or later you’ll all realize that there will never be another person as generous as me in this place. Just like now, I want to distribute food to all of you more than anyone, to reward everyone’s efforts today, but that really won’t work. Once the four words ‘something for nothing’ become prevalent in our ‘big family,’ then no one will make any effort in the future. I really hope everyone can understand—if everyone can eat food and get their ‘jade’ today, then what about those who make efforts tomorrow?”

His tone gradually slowed, but a heavy scent emanated from him.

“Oh my, Brother Wan, don’t talk like that. We understand.”

“I truly feel heartache for everyone who contributes to this family.” Uncle Wan smiled bitterly. “But you’re not without advantages either. As I said, starting tomorrow, every person who joins must pay ten pieces of ‘jade,’ and the ‘jade’ they pay will eventually go into your pockets.”

I could never have imagined that from that day on, the number of people in our supermarket would grow exponentially.

And Uncle Wan kept continuously modifying the ‘rules’ of our big family.

According to him, because the number of people was more than he’d imagined, in order to let everyone obtain benefits more fairly, from now on each time new ‘family members’ were brought in, they could only receive ‘jade’ and not ‘food,’ but similarly, ‘food’ could be exchanged with ‘jade.’

Although Uncle Wan didn’t follow the rules that Dragon-Head person had mentioned, he still acquired a large amount of ‘jade’ in a short time.

On the third day, some people had completely familiarized themselves with the rules and began actively guiding other new members.

Uncle Wan’s strategy worked. Although each team received very little food, everyone could eat something every day and wouldn’t starve to death.

But what made me curious was that he would give me canned food every day, and I would take it to share with Brother Guyu and Sister Siwei.

We hadn’t done anything, yet we could have food.

Brother Guyu left early and returned late every day. I didn’t know what he was doing.

On the fifth day, the number of people in our ‘family’ reached two hundred.

Every day Uncle Wan would hold spirited meetings for everyone, and each time he would bring me before these people to smell their scents one by one.

Because I’d been constantly smelling everyone’s scents, my nose hurt a bit, but this was already quite good. Every day I didn’t need to do anything, only smell everyone’s scents.

On the seventh day, the first ‘Fragrance Bearer’ besides us finally appeared.

It was that chubby man.

At first he said he wanted to leave, but in the end he never did.

That day, the scent of ‘thunderclap’ clearly appeared on him, and I immediately told Uncle Wan.

Uncle Wan looked extremely happy and immediately pulled him before everyone, loudly announcing that our ‘big family’ finally had a ‘Fragrance Bearer,’ and had him immediately demonstrate his ‘thunderclap.’

But the chubby man looked completely bewildered, having no idea how to release that thing called ‘thunderclap.’

But Uncle Wan said it didn’t matter and directly gave their team double the food. He said, “The highest reward always goes to the first person to succeed.”

Although everyone didn’t see the ‘thunderclap,’ they knew someone had succeeded. They cheered and embraced, as if we’d already escaped from here.

Then Uncle Wan had the chubby man share his success experience, but the chubby man said he hadn’t done anything special today either—he’d just participated in a ‘Man-Chicken’ game, and when he came back he’d become a ‘Fragrance Bearer.’

What made me happy was that when Brother Guyu returned that evening, he actually carried a fragrant scent too—the same scent as when I first met him.

But his complexion looked terrible. He wove through the bustling crowd to reach Sister Siwei and me. Uncle Wan also noticed something was wrong and quickly came to our side.

“Well, what are you ‘core members’ doing here?” Uncle Wan asked.

“Brother Wan…”

Brother Guyu picked up a stone from the ground, gripped it in his hand, then turned his hand over to show everyone—the stone had disappeared.

“What’s this, Little Gu.” Uncle Wan laughed. “Are you performing magic tricks for me this late at night?”

“No.” Brother Guyu shook his head. “Brother Wan, this isn’t magic—it’s ‘fragrance.’ I’ve awakened.”

“Oh…?” Uncle Wan froze, then revealed a smile. “That’s a good thing, Little Gu. If we have to return to this cursed place next time, you’ll retain your memory.”

“Yes, but I feel this massive organization’s direction is wrong.”

Brother Guyu released his grip, and the ‘air’ in his hand fell to the ground with a crisp ‘clack.’

“How is it wrong?” Uncle Wan asked seriously.

“Having everyone gather here every day shouting slogans won’t turn them into ‘Fragrance Bearers.'” Brother Guyu said coldly.

“How, how could that be?” Uncle Wan hurriedly pointed to the chubby man in the distance. “Today we welcomed our own ‘Fragrance Bearer.'”

Brother Guyu looked in the direction of Uncle Wan’s finger, then sighed. “I ran into him on the street. He also obtained ‘fragrance’ because he participated in a ‘game,’ right?”

“This…”

“I’ve been exploring for these seven days.” Brother Guyu said. “But my ability alone is very limited. I can only roughly sense that… this superpower called ‘fragrance’ isn’t obtained by chance, but requires certain conditions.”

“Conditions?”

“Exactly.” Brother Guyu nodded. “I’m not sure if everyone’s ‘conditions’ are the same, but I did gradually reach this conclusion after participating in many games.”

“You mean…” Uncle Wan also began pondering. “If we need more people to obtain ‘fragrance,’ we need to have them go out and participate in games?”

“Yes.” Brother Guyu agreed. “If you truly want to build a superpower army, being content with the status quo won’t work. You must put these people into danger.”

I remember that night Uncle Wan went another night without sleep. The next day, he rearranged the distribution of each team and had everyone go out to participate in games.

He specifically instructed that games beginning with ‘Earth’ must not be participated in, but everyone needed to participate in games beginning with ‘Man.’ Each ‘family member’ must team up with someone, supervising each other in pairs. After winning games, they needed to bring back the ‘jade,’ and the next day Uncle Wan would distribute it uniformly. If anyone was caught privately swallowing ‘jade,’ the family would collectively punish them and stop all food supply.

I have to say Brother Guyu was truly smart. Following his method, the number of people obtaining ‘fragrance’ in the family increased day by day.

By the ninth day, there were already over twenty ‘Fragrance Bearers.’ Some people could even release their ‘superpowers.’

That day, the one who obtained ‘fragrance’ was the auntie who’d been in our room from the start. Uncle Wan was very happy and had her share her success experience.

After thanking Uncle Wan, she said to everyone with an excited face: “I suspect the reason I could so successfully obtain ‘fragrance’—first, it’s inseparable from Brother Wan and everyone in our big family’s help, and second, I went to pay respects to a ‘Divine Dragon.'”