Every step Su Yue took made the wooden ladder beneath her creak and groan in protest.
Yet somehow, it didn’t break.
Maybe because she was just too skinny.
Once she climbed onto the roof, she stared at the thirty-centimeter-wide hole before her and fell into deep thought.
How am I supposed to fix this thing?
Their house was half adobe hut, half shack. The roof was made of tiles, bamboo, and wood, but years of wind and rain had blown away a section of the tiles.
The wooden supports and woven bamboo matting underneath were still intact.
I just need to smear mud over the bamboo mat, right?
Whether it would work or not, she decided to try.
Without a trowel, she had no choice but to scoop up mud with her hands and plaster it over the hole.
The mud had been mixed with dry grass stalks, which would make it stronger once it dried.
Before long, the repair was finished.
It actually looked pretty decent.
As long as the next couple of days stayed sunny and it didn’t rain, the mud would dry quickly under the sun.
Then the roof would be considered repaired.
Just as Su Yue was about to climb down, however, she noticed something beneath a nearby roof tile beside the hole.
Curious, she crawled over and lifted the tile.
Underneath was a small, flattened iron box.
She had no idea what was inside, so she slipped it into her pocket and carefully climbed down the ladder.
Back inside the house, she opened the box.
Inside was a pendant necklace.
At its center was a circular photograph.
The picture showed two little boys with their father and mother.
Su Xing came over curiously to look.
She barely remembered their father.
But Su Yue had inherited the original owner’s memories and immediately recognized one of the boys as Su Dad.
A pendant like this clearly wasn’t something people in the refugee district owned.
It looked more like something wealthy residents of the Safe City would wear.
The realization immediately triggered a memory.
Before Su Dad died, he had pointed toward the roof and said,
“The roof…”
And then, following the universal law that important information is always cut short, he died after uttering only those two words.
At the time, Su Yue had thought he meant the hole in the ceiling needed repairing.
She never imagined he had been trying to tell them about a hidden iron box connected to his identity.
The photograph had faded somewhat, but it was still clear that the family of four had been dressed very well.
If Su Dad had originally come from the Safe City, how had he ended up settling down in the refugee district?
The Safe City and the refugee district were practically different social classes altogether.
The gap between them was like an uncrossable chasm.
Unless there was unrest in the refugee district, the Safe City rarely sent people out.
And for someone from the refugee district to enter the Safe City was even more difficult than ascending to heaven.
There were only two ways.
One was obtaining crystal cores from mutated beasts.
The other was finding energy stones buried underground.
Crystal cores were relatively straightforward.
Every mutated beast possessed one inside its skull, though the size varied.
Energy stones, on the other hand, were also known as Light Diamonds.
Scattered throughout rugged mining regions, they were extremely difficult to find.
Many people made a living hunting mutated beasts for crystal cores.
They were known as Beast Hunters.
Others worked as miners, searching for energy stones.
Both professions were extraordinarily dangerous.
Most people still scraped by as scavengers instead.
Unable to figure out why Su Dad had ended up in the refugee district, Su Yue wondered if his family had simply fallen on hard times.
In the end, she stopped thinking about it.
If his family had fallen from grace, seeking relatives in the city probably wouldn’t help.
If he had fled because of enemies, then looking for relatives would be even more dangerous.
Either way, Su Yue had no intention of seeking out family connections.
For now, she put the matter aside and hid the iron box beneath the bedboards.
She would enter the city through her own efforts.
By now it was already around two or three in the afternoon.
Su Yue planned to head to the reed marsh and gather some reed fluff.
The marsh lay beside a river, about an hour’s walk from the refugee district.
Before leaving, she sliced up some more plantain leaves and boiled them into soup.
This time, however, she added salt.
“Xingxing, if your sister isn’t back by evening, drink some soup by yourself, okay? I’m going to gather some reed fluff, so I might be a little late.”
Su Xing nodded obediently.
“Sister, take some with you too~”
“No need. I’ll be back soon.”
Besides her cloth bag, Su Yue also brought a large burlap sack to carry the reed fluff.
The family’s quilt had long since become lumpy and no longer retained warmth.
It needed fresh stuffing.
Leaving the house with her cloth bag in hand, Su Yue’s heart brimmed with hope for the future.
Their family might be poor, but she and Su Xing would definitely build a better life.
As she walked, she quietly listened to the conversations around her.
“Winter’s almost here. The beast tide is coming too. Think the Beast Hunter teams are still recruiting this year?”
“Of course they are. Every year they take anyone willing to join. But it’s dangerous work—you’ve got your life hanging from your belt.”
“Hmph. Better that than starving to death.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
The beast tide.
Su Yue knew of it, though the original owner had never participated and only heard rumors.
Apparently, beast tides usually occurred in early winter and early spring.
The early winter one was considered a minor beast tide.
The early spring one was the major beast tide.
Before every beast tide, Beast Hunters formed teams and headed to the forward defense zones to hunt mutated beasts.
Anyone else could tag along if they paid a fee.
However, the hunters only provided access.
They made no guarantees about safety.
Whether you lived or died was entirely your own responsibility.
If you died, you became winter food for the mutated beasts.
If you survived, you rode home with the convoy.
The lucky ones not only obtained valuable energy crystal cores but sometimes even acquired edible mutated beasts.
Still, there was some time before the next beast tide.
The road to the riverside reed marsh had been worn into a clear dirt path by years of foot traffic, making the journey easy.
Before long, she arrived.
Many others were already gathering reed fluff.
Everyone hoped to make winter clothing or refurbish old quilts.
The reeds here had mutated as well, growing exceptionally tall and abundant.
Fortunately, radiation levels didn’t matter for reed fluff.
High or low, it could all be used.
Su Yue deliberately chose a spot farther inside, away from the crowd.
Opening her burlap sack, she got to work.
First she cut down the reed stalks with her small blade.
Then she collected the fluffy tops.
Since she wanted to weave reed-fluff shoes for herself and Xingxing, she gathered extra stalks as well.
Because none of it required radiation testing, her work progressed quickly.
Soon she had filled an entire sack.
After compressing it down, she estimated it weighed over ten pounds.
It wasn’t as good as cotton, but it would help them survive the winter.
The amount she’d gathered was enough to make two thick new quilts.
By now it was nearly five o’clock.
The scattered groups collecting reed fluff had already begun heading home.
Just as Su Yue tightened the mouth of the sack and prepared to leave, she heard a faint, crisp chirping sound nearby.
Could it be a mutated beast?
She gently set the sack down.
Her left hand tightened around her small knife.
Her right hand summoned a vine using her wood-element ability.
The vine slowly extended outward, parting the reeds.
After probing more than ten meters into the reed bed, she finally found the source of the sound.
It wasn’t a mutated beast at all.
It was a small nest of reed-chicken chicks, hidden deep within the reeds near the edge of the forest.
That forest had been marked as a danger zone because numerous mutated beasts lived there.
Most people collecting reed fluff deliberately avoided this area.
Su Yue nearly started drooling.
This was chicken!
And not just chicken—baby chickens.
If she raised them properly and tamed their wild instincts, they could become domestic fowl.
And domestic chickens meant eggs. Lots of eggs.