The sun already hung low on the horizon. It was getting late, and making the trek back now would definitely take too long.
Chu Guang would rather spend a night at Bet Street than travel in the dark.
Having had several unpleasant experiences in the past, he knew all too well how dangerous it was; surviving them had been pure luck.
Chu Guang wrapped the newly bought pipe rifle in a plastic bag and bound it together with the sharpened water pipe on his back. From its outward appearance, no one would be able to tell it was a gun.
Although Bet Street didn't forbid survivors from carrying weapons, Chu Guang didn't want the mayor's informants to discover his private dealings with the outside caravan.
Fifty grams of Blue Parasol mushrooms for a measly single chip.
Those bloodsucking leeches really had some nerve!
Passing through the gate of Bet Street, Chu Guang saw a dense crowd gathered around the entrance of the recycling station—men and women, young and old.
They were ragged and emaciated, carrying woven sacks or wicker baskets on their backs, clutching plastic buckets or other containers in their hands.
Their daily routine was simple: exchange scavenged junk for chips, then spend those chips on daily necessities.
"Fresh shipment of soap! Straight from the Boulder City Chemical Plant. Just three chips to wash away the sickening stench off your bodies! Hurry up and buy a bar for your wives. Only thirty left—first come, first served!"
"Cooking oil! Don't ask what it's rendered from, it's fresh and good, hauled all the way from Brown Farm. Just ten chips per liter... A bit steep, sure, but you get what you pay for. Best if you pool your chips with someone."
"Let's see... Right, we've also got coarse salt! Thumb-sized chunk for only five chips... Never mind where it came from, do you really expect fine dining? Come and get it!"
"And tobacco leaves—great whether you smoke 'em yourself or use 'em to cure meat. Also from Brown Farm... Ah, forget it. Pick what you want, I'm taking a break."
Old Charlie called out lazily at the doorway, his attitude not resembling a businessman in the slightest.
In truth, this wasn't really doing business; it was more like a master doling out charity to servants.
Not just Bet Street—within a five-li radius, many goods could only be bought here. The people living in these parts had no choice.
And don't assume five li was a short distance.
Although Qingquan City sat on the great southern plain, it had long since devolved into a graveyard of steel and concrete, far more perilous than any forest...
Old Charlie wiped away his sweat, handed off the money-collecting duties to the shop assistant, and sat to one side, resting with narrowed eyes.
Just then, a scrawny young man in a gray coat stepped in front of the crowd, brandishing a wooden placard.
"A mobilization order! An order from the mayor!"
"Before the end of the month, each household must hand over one hundred kilograms of firewood and two square meters of pelts!"
"Spread the word!"
A commotion rippled through the crowd. Complaints erupted one after another, but no one stepped forward in defiance. After all, this was how they had gotten through every previous year.
Bet Street collected no taxes, but that didn't mean living here was free. Beyond the soft exploitation of trade monopolies, the mayor always found one way or another to levy a batch of supplies.
The mobilization order was one such method, issued every year in August or September.
And what happened if someone refused the levy?
The punishment was quite straightforward.
Every man and woman in the settlement aged sixteen or older was considered a separate household as long as they were unmarried, regardless of whether they lived alone or with their family. Once married, the two counted as a single household.
If someone failed to hand over the required supplies, the steward in charge of the household registry would strike their name from the ledger, confiscate their shack in Bet Street, and cast them out of the survivor settlement.
In a world where human life was paper-thin, losing shelter was virtually synonymous with death.
Especially in the freezing winter.
Bet Street wasn't prosperous, but it was far better than neighboring Brown Farm; at least the survivors living here still possessed a pitiful sliver of freedom.
'Looks like the mayor intends to squeeze out another fortune before the year's final caravan arrives, so he can enjoy a lavish winter with the traded supplies.'
Chu Guang mused to himself, not taking this so-called mobilization order to heart at all.
He would be leaving here before winter set in.
When the time came, he would leave on his own without anyone needing to drive him out.
Bypassing the recycling station, Chu Guang headed straight for his shack. Before he reached the door, however, he spotted Yu Xiaoyu standing outside with a young man, arguing over something.
The guy was around fifteen or sixteen, short in stature—a youth. Chu Guang didn't know him well, only vaguely recalling that he was the Wang family's third son, named Wang Defu.
His shack was in the furthest corner of the settlement. Diagonally across was the Yu family, and beyond them was the Wang family; people rarely dropped by around here.
He had no idea what was going on for the third Wang son to come knocking on his doorstep.
"Out of the way."
Wang Defu shoved Yu Xiaoyu with an impatient scowl. The little girl stumbled backward, but she still spread her arms like a mother hen shielding her chicks, refusing to budge.
"I won't! This isn't your home!"
"It's not yours either."
"He asked me to watch the place!"
"What's there to watch in a dead man's shack?"
"He isn't dead!" Yu Xiaoyu glared at him, her eyes bulging like a goldfish's.
"Cut the crap. That outlander hasn't been back in four or five days."
Wang Defu pressed on impatiently, "Doesn't your family just want a share? I never planned to keep it all to myself anyway. How about this: the shack's beam and this door belong to me, and your family can take the rest."
When a dead man's shack sat empty, neighbors usually carved it up.
There was no hard rule on how many days someone had to be missing to be considered dead, but if someone vanished for days on end, everyone assumed they had either been captured by slave traders or marauders, or dragged off by mutants to feed their young.
No one could survive several consecutive nights out in the wild.
Even experienced hunters could scarcely pull that off.
Yu Xiaoyu bit her lower lip until it turned pale, her eyes wide like a little goldfish. She refused to give ground, though she took no other action either.
Wang Defu didn't want to wait any longer. If he stalled until the Yu family's men returned, he wouldn't gain anything on his own, so he moved to shove her aside by force.
Just then, a hand settled onto his shoulder.
"Who said I was dead?"
A jolt went through Wang Defu, the hair on his neck standing on end. He leapt violently to the side, eyeing Chu Guang warily like a beast on guard. Yu Xiaoyu quickly slipped behind Chu Guang to hide, whispering her report:
"He came yesterday too! He wanted to tear your shack down!"
"Thank you."
Chu Guang looked at Wang Defu with a faint, mocking smile. "Are you going to leave on your own, or do you want me to help you out?"
Wang Defu knew he was in the wrong and couldn't argue his way out. Glancing at the steel pipe on Chu Guang's back, its tip stained with dark blood, he ultimately turned and slunk off in silence.
He didn't fear the Yu family, nor did he fear this outlander, but nobody wanted to provoke a well-built man.
Especially a loner with no attachments—and therefore no weaknesses.
Watching the young man walk away, Chu Guang suddenly felt a twinge of pity.
Some people might be alive, but they were no different from the hyenas and vultures out in the ruins.
He had once seen a mutant hyena snap the neck of its injured companion and tear into its flesh. At the time, he hadn't thought much of it, chalking it up to the law of nature. Now, he felt an uncomfortable pang of resonance.
He had only been away for a few days, yet these scavengers were already itching to pick at his bones.
Yu Xiaoyu remained tucked behind Chu Guang. She figured if she waited a bit longer, she might get another taste of the candy she had eaten that day.
She had never tasted anything so sweet in her life—she'd nearly chewed up the plastic stick along with it.
Noticing the big pair of eyes staring up at him, Chu Guang blinked in surprise before realizing what was going on. Smiling, he fished a lollipop from his pocket—one he had forgotten to eat—and pressed it into the girl's hand.
"Thanks for looking after things these past few days."
"Not at all!"
Xiaoyu happily tore open the wrapper, popped the lollipop into her mouth, and mumbled around the candy, "I don't have anything else to do anyway. Whenever you leave, I can keep watch for you."
Just then, the men of the Yu family returned from the recycling station, hefting their spoils. Judging by their bulging bundles, they had brought in quite a haul.
The moment she spotted her eldest brother, second brother, and father, Xiaoyu scurried back inside like a flash.
Earning candy was merely a side gig; keeping tabs on the outlander was the actual task her elders had assigned her, and Xiaoyu hadn't forgotten their instructions.
However, fast as she was, she couldn't escape a hunter's eyes.
The patriarch of the Yu family—a robust old man with deeply weathered wrinkles—cast a glance at Chu Guang without saying a word, then walked into the shack alongside his eldest son, who was carrying two bags of green wheat.
The second son, Yu Hu, paused in front of Chu Guang.
Chu Guang recognized him.
Most locals gave him the cold shoulder, but this youth of eighteen or nineteen was one of the few who would proactively talk to him.
It was just that the guy was always bluntly direct, as brash and reckless as his name suggested.
"You weren't around these past few days. I thought you were dead," Yu Hu said.
Chu Guang replied, "Looks like your intuition was off."
Yu Hu blinked, then grinned and scratched his head.
This outlander was interesting; his way of speaking differed from everyone else, always taking a roundabout turn.
Brushing it aside, he continued, "I ought to let you know, the mayor just issued a mobilization order. Before the end of the month, each household has to turn in one hundred kilograms of firewood and two square meters of pelts."
With three adult males, the Yu family had to submit three hundred kilograms of firewood and six square meters of pelts, making them major "taxpayers" on Bet Street.
The firewood was manageable enough. Vegetation grew everywhere across the city, and the outer suburbs to the north boasted sprawling woodlands. Even without the mayor's mobilization order, they would have had to chop wood to prepare for the winter anyway.
The pelts, however, were another matter entirely. Six square meters of hide meant killing at least four, maybe even five mutant hyenas.
"I heard on my way back," Chu Guang said.
"That's good, then."
Yu Hu didn't beat around the bush and went straight to the point. "We were just discussing it with the Li family. We're planning to try our luck in the northern woods—supposedly there are signs of a migrating deer herd. If we can bag a couple, we'll get meat as well as hides. Want to come along?"
"I'll pass. I'll figure something out on my own."
Chu Guang tactfully declined, though he made a mental note of it.
The scavengers of Bet Street planned to hunt up north. Linghu Wetland Park happened to be slightly west of north; he only hoped their paths wouldn't cross.
Naturally, Yu Hu had no idea what Chu Guang was thinking. Assuming Chu Guang was just being modest, he pressed on, "I can tell you're a capable guy, but there's only so much one man can do. That Wang punk only dared to pick on you because his family has numbers.
"Tell you what—my sister will be of marrying age next year. Why don't you marry her? That way, we'd be family.
"If you're in a hurry, throwing a wedding feast tonight wouldn't hurt either."
Chu Guang nearly choked on his own breath. Clearing his throat with a cough, he replied, "No need."
What the hell?
How on earth did the topic jump to that?
Besides, what these wasteland survivors considered a marriageable age was completely unacceptable to Chu Guang, who came from a civilized society.
After all, he was still young himself, and getting married was way too early.
"Ah, fine then."
Yu Hu didn't push any further, though he felt a pang of regret.
People from the shelters were sharp. Take Old Charlie, for example—for as long as Yu Hu could remember, Charlie had worked for the mayor and stood as a big shot in the eyes of the neighborhood.
Old Charlie had said Chu Guang came from a shelter too, so that was probably true; his head had to be just as sharp.
If Chu Guang had a son with his sister, maybe the Yu family could produce a big shot like Old Charlie down the line.
Yu Hu had even prepared himself to persuade his father.
Now, it seemed he had gotten ahead of himself.
Hauling his gear back inside, Yu Hu pulled his sister aside.
"Xiaoyu, let me ask you: if we marry you off to Brother Chu Guang next door, would you want that?"
Xiaoyu, her mouth still stuffed with the lollipop, mumbled, "Sure."
It was right at their doorstep anyway, not far at all.
In her eyes, marriage was just sleeping in a different spot. There was hardly any difference, and maybe she could even get a couple more pieces of candy.
Yu Hu, who had just been ready to give up, perked up happily. "Then I'll try to persuade him again for you!"
"Mm-kay," Xiaoyu replied absentmindedly. She was only interested in enjoying her candy and couldn't care less.
Yu Hu, on the other hand, was enthusiastically scheming. "Alright, I'll go talk to Big Brother and Dad. But don't just stand there doing nothing—when you have time, go learn how to make flatbread from Mom... Wait, what are you eating? Give me a taste!"
"No!"
Seeing her second brother reach for her candy, Xiaoyu bristled instantly. She crouched low, ducked away, and vanished in the blink of an eye.
Chapter 15