“Did you hear something?” Liu Dong straightened up and asked.
Han Wei listened carefully as well. “It does sound like something, like a little girl.”
Liu Dong’s expression immediately turned excited. “Could it be… could it be…”
“We’ll know if we go take a look. Stay alert,” Han Wei said, grabbing an iron rod and walking ahead.
The three of them carefully avoided mutated animals and plants, following the faint cries for help until they arrived at a single story house. It looked like the area had already been cleared, there were no mutated creatures or zombies around.
The cries were coming from inside the house.
At that moment, another weak cry sounded. Liu Dong’s eyes instantly reddened as he rushed in with the rod in hand.
Chen Xu and Han Wei could not stop him and could only follow behind.
The moment the three of them pushed the door open and stepped inside, the ground beneath their feet gave way. They plunged downward rapidly, intense pain and darkness arriving at the same time.
All three of them lost consciousness. Before passing out, Chen Xu vaguely saw figures standing by the edge of the trap.
When they woke up again, they were already locked inside a rusty cage. Any slight movement sent piercing pain through their bodies.
Not far from the cage, two men stood there, rummaging through something. On the table were their backpacks and clothes.
…
“Meat still tastes best,” the younger brother outside the cage said with satisfaction as he took a bite of flatbread stuffed with meat.
The two of them chatted and laughed as they shared the entire piece of bread.
Their conversation made Chen Xu and the others feel a chill run down their spines. These two brothers were not only robbing people, they were also eating human flesh.
In fact, this was not uncommon after the apocalypse. Without the constraints of law and with shortages of food and clothing, the darkness within people’s hearts was amplified without limit.
Chen Xu and the others had heard of such things before, and at the time had only sighed in pity. They had never expected to encounter it themselves.
Chen Xu’s expression turned grim. All three of them were injured. Even if they somehow escaped, they would not be able to get far. He knew that today, they would likely die here.
“I’m sorry, it’s all my fault. I acted impulsively. But that voice really sounded like Taozi,” Liu Dong said, his face pale from the pain of his broken arm, filled with regret.
In truth, the cries they had heard came from an old radio. The two brothers had recorded the sound in advance and played it whenever they detected human presence. The cries of a little girl were the most likely to evoke sympathy, and they had used this trick to deceive many people.
“Looks like we’re done for today. I’m not afraid of anything, I just worry about my wife finding out,” Han Wei said. Both his legs were broken. He struck the iron cage in frustration. “It’s also my fault. I let my guard down when I heard it was a little girl.”
All three of them blamed themselves, which made Liu Dong feel even worse.
After the brothers finished going through their belongings and kept everything useful, they finally turned their attention to Chen Xu and the others.
“Brother, should we kill them now and dry the meat, or wait until we finish eating the previous one?” the younger brother asked, a hint of madness on his face. Long term cannibalism had made their personalities increasingly violent.
“Kill them. We can stew a pot tonight. It’s been a while since we’ve had something fresh,” the older brother said, licking his lips and letting out a crude laugh, revealing a mouthful of yellowed teeth.
With large machetes in hand, the two of them approached step by step. Chen Xu and the others closed their eyes in despair, the faces of their loved ones surfacing in their minds.
At that critical moment, a loud noise suddenly came from outside.
The two brothers paused and exchanged a glance before heading toward the source of the sound with their machetes.
“Ah!” A short, sharp scream rang out soon after.
“It’s a girl,” Chen Xu said, frowning. If it was a girl who had wandered in by mistake, encountering these two lunatics, her chances of survival were slim.
“Brother, it’s a woman! A woman is good, women’s meat smells better,” the younger brother’s voice trembled with excitement.
“Heh, don’t be afraid. As long as you play nicely with the two of us, we’ll make sure your death isn’t too painful.”
Their filthy words made Chen Xu and the others’ hearts tighten, but with their current condition, they could do nothing.
“Play your ass! Beat them until they call you dad!” the female voice rang out again, carrying a fierce yet youthful tone.
The three of them exchanged glances.
“I don’t know if it’s just me, but that sounded like Mayor Miao,” Liu Dong said.
“That can’t be right. The town is quite far from here. Besides, how would Mayor Miao know we’re in trouble?” Chen Xu replied.
Outside, the sharp clanging of blades striking metal rang out repeatedly, followed by several screams.
Unable to see what was happening outside, Chen Xu and the others grew even more anxious.
A few minutes later, the sound of orderly footsteps approached.
Chen Xu saw beams of light shine in. Under the intense brightness, they had no choice but to close their eyes.
“Chen Xu? Han Wei? Liu Dong? Are you alright?” a clear female voice asked.
Hearing this voice, the three of them became instantly excited.
Chen Xu had lived for more than twenty years and had never thought someone’s voice could sound this pleasant. At this moment, he even felt like crying.
“Mayor Miao? It’s really you! I knew it! I knew I, Han Wei, wasn’t meant to die here!” Han Wei laughed loudly in joy, only to grimace in pain as his wounds were pulled by the movement.
With the help of the lights on top of the security robots, Miao Suisui could finally see the miserable state the three of them were in.
“How did you end up like this? These injuries are way too severe. I got the key from those two. Let’s go back to the town first,” Miao Suisui said, taking out the key and unlocking the cage.
Chen Xu was about to say that they could not move and would not be able to walk, when he saw several robots commonly seen in the town approach. Working in pairs, they lifted the three of them up.
The feeling was both novel and slightly embarrassing.
When they stepped outside the house, they saw the two brothers lying on the ground, severely injured.
The three of them were filled with anger. If they had not been injured, they would have rushed over to kick them a few more times.
After hearing Chen Xu and the others describe what those two demons had done, the slight unease Miao Suisui had felt from hitting someone for the first time completely disappeared. She only felt that she had been too lenient earlier. How could anyone do something so cruel? Could they even be called human?
However, she still could not bring herself to kill them.
“Let them fend for themselves here,” Miao Suisui said after glancing at them, then led Chen Xu and the others away along with the security robots.
Not long after they left, the brothers’ blood attracted nearby mutated beasts.
They watched, fully conscious, as the creatures gathered and tore them apart bite by bite. The despair and pain in their eyes were even greater than those of the people they had once killed.
Miao Suisui and the others returned to where their vehicle was parked. The bullet shaped train like vehicle from the town was parked right in front of the minibus.
Looking at the metallic, futuristic vehicle, the three of them let out a gasp of amazement.
“Is this Mayor Miao’s vehicle? How did you get it? It’s so cool,” Han Wei exclaimed, momentarily forgetting the pain in his legs.
“No, it’s the town’s transportation, just in a trial phase for now,” Miao Suisui explained.
Their expressions grew even more astonished.
Having survived a life and death situation, their tightly strung nerves finally relaxed. Combined with blood loss, Chen Xu and the others soon fell into a deep sleep inside the vehicle.
At that moment, the system suddenly notified Miao Suisui that she had received a relatively large amount of crystal cores. She found it strange. It was not time to collect rent yet, so how could there be income? Had new residents arrived?
With that question in mind, she opened her personal panel. It showed that she had received twenty Level 2 crystal cores and twenty five Level 1 crystal cores, totaling two thousand and twenty five Level 1 crystal cores.
“These crystal cores were confiscated from the two malicious attackers just now. As long as someone attempts to attack the host, the system will seize their crystal cores while ensuring the host’s safety. This also serves as compensation for the host,” the system explained when Miao Suisui was puzzled.
Miao Suisui’s eyes lit up immediately. She finally understood why emperors in dramas liked to confiscate properties so much. This feeling was quite satisfying.
After grinning foolishly for a while, Miao Suisui remembered to check her reward.
Opening her personal panel again, a golden gift box was indeed waiting quietly behind the temporary mission.
When she opened it, a three dimensional white building appeared before her, with a striking red cross on it.
On the sign were four bold characters, Hope Clinic.
Miao Suisui placed the clinic next to the library. Looking at Chen Xu and the others lying on the seats, occasionally frowning and breaking into cold sweat from pain, unable to sleep peacefully, she could not help but feel that they were truly lucky. With such severe injuries, without medical resources, they would have had to rely entirely on luck to survive.
The return trip took one hour. When the vehicle stopped inside the town, it immediately attracted several gazes.
After getting off, Miao Suisui noticed three people standing in the open space of the town. Their eyes were fixed on the express train, their astonishment almost tangible.
Seeing Miao Suisui return, Sun Yu ran over and whispered in her ear, “Mayor, these three entered the town by accident while you were away.”
Sun Yu looked a bit hesitant. Miao Suisui asked, puzzled, “What’s wrong?”
“The younger couple is fine, but that older woman… she kept demanding that I buy food for her earlier. When I refused, she scolded me for having no manners and not respecting the elderly,” Sun Yu said, looking somewhat aggrieved. “She even tried to catch the chickens and ducks in the farm, but the robots drove her away.”
“Just ignore her,” Miao Suisui said, comforting Sun Yu. She handed her an apple and told her to go home.
The clinic had already been constructed. Miao Suisui instructed the security robots to carry Chen Xu and the others directly into the clinic. After they got off, the robot driver drove the express train around to the back of the town. Miao Suisui guessed it was to avoid drawing too much attention, since having it disappear on the spot would have been too shocking.
As soon as Chen Xu and the others arrived at the clinic, treatment began immediately. The clinic was not large at the moment. There was only a doctor robot in a white coat, two nurse robots in pink uniforms, and a robot in blue seated at the front desk.
Their method of treatment was also different from that of human doctors. Their eyes functioned as scanners, allowing them to identify the patient’s condition and then administer targeted treatment.