Ling Shaoqing, leaning against the front of the vehicle, instinctively looked toward the two girls in the shade. He hadn’t sensed wrong; someone had just been looking over in their direction.
“Shaoqing, is there something over there?”
Ling Shaoqing’s close friend and childhood companion, Zhou Xiche, followed his gaze. They were just two ordinary little girls, and right then another boy ran over to join them, clearly someone they knew.
Unable to resist a tease, Zhou Xiche said, “No way! Did you take a fancy to one of them?”
Hearing Zhou Xiche’s words, Ling Shaoqing gave him a perplexed look. “Was your brain eaten by a mutant snake?”
Fine, he was being subtly mocked for having no brains.
Zhou Xiche shrugged, not minding the man’s sharp tongue, and instead looked with rising interest at the trio across the way. Judging by their bearing, they didn’t look like scavengers from outside the slums at all. No matter how miserable their expressions were, their eyes remained bright and alert, bearing none of the numbness worn into people by the apocalypse.
Heh, interesting—truly fascinating. No wonder even Shaoqing, who usually couldn’t care less about anything, had glanced over twice.
Amusement flickered in Zhou Xiche’s eyes.
Ling Shaoqing’s words interrupted his mental musings.
“How was the harvest this trip?”
Hearing that question, Zhou Xiche lost his bored expression as a faint smile appeared on his face. “By noon, we wiped out a nest of mutant flower snakes—268 in total, with 127 possessing crystal sources. We also found two energy stones with around 3,000 units of energy each in the cave… and mainly… we found Miss Shen Yizhu’s necklace inside the cave. Nothing else turned up.”
As he reached the end, Zhou Xiche’s smile faded into unusual seriousness.
Ordinary people had all along assumed the Ability Squad was invited by the First Mercenary Corps to wipe out mutant beasts, unaware that their true objective was to search for Shen Yizhu, the second young miss of the Shen family.
Ling Shaoqing’s brows furrowed tightly. Second Miss Shen had heard that the First Mercenary Corps had found a peach orchard in the south, so she had secretly brought her maid along for a runaway excursion. In the end, the maid managed to escape back, but Second Miss Shen had gone missing.
“Go back and have someone keep a close eye on that boy.”
Zhou Xiche followed Ling Shaoqing’s gaze to find it fixed squarely on the boy who had just followed behind the two young girls. “You suspect him?”
“No, he doesn’t have that kind of strength.”
Ling Shaoqing shook his head, saying no more. He leaned back against the front of the car, closed his eyes to rest, and tried to soothe the throbbing pain in his head.
Seeing his friend’s face suddenly turn pale, Zhou Xiche guessed he had been using his abilities. But what on earth was so special about those three people to warrant him using his power?
Looking toward the three people standing in line, Zhou Xiche couldn’t help but deepen his gaze.
He’d have someone thoroughly investigate them as soon as they got back.
Standing in line, Shen Tangtang felt goosebumps prickle across her arms. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at the two figures who had already climbed into the off-road vehicle. It seemed someone had their eyes on them.
“It’s your turn, Tangtang.”
Seeing that her friend hadn’t stepped forward after all this time, Lin Daiyu couldn’t help giving her a gentle nudge.
“Oh, right.”
Shen Tangtang pulled back her gaze, hoisted her small bag, and placed it on the scale.
The mercenary in charge of weighing gave Shen Tangtang a sympathetic look and said expressionlessly, “5 catties, qualified. What’s your name?”
“Shen Tangtang, 17 years old.”
Shen Tangtang’s mouth twitched. Five catties had to be the lowest food harvest among all the scavengers.
The mercenary checked the log, nodded, and motioned that she could get on the bus.
Shen Tangtang reached out to take the bag handed back by the mercenary and walked calmly toward the bus. Right before boarding, she couldn’t resist glancing back in the direction of the off-road vehicle, locking eyes with a man who was looking over at the exact same moment.
Shen Tangtang: A dangerous man.
Ling Shaoqing: A strange girl.
Shen Tangtang walked to the very back of the bus and stood in the innermost corner, her mind replaying the two men she had just seen.
Those two men back there were definitely ability users. Why on earth would they appear here?
Shen Tangtang recalled the discussion between the two men suspected to be from the elite district the day before. Was it because of mutant beasts? Had the Ability Squad dispatched people to handle the mutant beasts here? She wondered if there would be any good loot in the mutant beasts’ den.
She shook her head. These weren’t things she should be coveting.
Finding an energy stone in a mutant ant’s den was a stroke of pure, off-the-charts luck, coupled with the Third Mercenary Corps members not wanting to make a fuss; otherwise, she wouldn’t have even been able to get within a mile of the mutant beast’s entrance.
“Tangtang, don’t be too upset. Scavenging for food in the wilderness is always like this. Being able to find even a single edible leaf is already pretty good.” As soon as she boarded the bus, Lin Daiyu spotted Shen Tangtang hiding in the back and squeezed in next to her to offer comfort.
Shen Tangtang raised her head, looking earnestly into Lin Daiyu’s caring face as she flashed two little canine teeth. “Sister Daiyu, I’m fine, I’m used to it. It’s just that my luck these past two days was a bit better, so I’m feeling a little down today, that’s all.”
“Phew~ As long as you’re okay, I was worried you were taking it really hard. It’s fine, it’s fine, next time you can just search for food together with me! …Uh, is Tangtang actually bothered by Jun-brother?”
Lin Daiyu pulled on Shen Tangtang’s arm to comfort her meticulously, then, as if thinking of something, looked at her with a hint of puzzlement and voiced a question that felt rather odd to her.
Shen Tangtang wasn’t surprised that Lin Daiyu could sense her repulsion toward Bai Yanjun; she figured her attitude had been pretty obvious all along.
“I don’t think Bai Yanjun is a good person.”
Hearing Shen Tangtang’s flat statement, Lin Daiyu looked at her in surprise. “Tangtang, do you have some kind of misunderstanding? Jun-brother is a really nice person, he’s not the kind of person you think.”
Shen Tangtang pulled her arm free from Lin Daiyu’s grip, raised her eyes to look at the people who had just boarded the bus, and asked, “I don’t believe you haven’t noticed—he’s always hanging around waiting for you?”
Having raised a younger sister through hardship since childhood, Lin Daiyu wasn’t completely clueless; precisely because she was an orphan, her instincts were all the more sensitive.
She knew Bai Yanjun was deliberately waiting for her, but she had always assumed Bai Yanjun was just pursuing her. Could he really have bad intentions?
“Daiyu, Tangtang, why’d you guys hide all the way in the back?”
Bai Yanjun cheerfully squeezed his way to the rear of the bus, only to be greeted by the sight of a bewildered Lin Daiyu and an expressionless Shen Tangtang.
“What’s wrong? Did you guys have a fight?”
Bai Yanjun reached out to ruffle Lin Daiyu’s hair, then took the bag from her hands.
Inside were the peach leaves and petals he and Lin Daiyu had foraged together today.
He had arrived a little late just now because he’d found too little food, prompting the mercenaries to subject him to a body search.
Feeling the bag being lifted from her hands, Lin Daiyu instinctively tightened her grip before letting go when she saw it was Bai Yanjun. “Jun-brother, how come you got on the bus so late?”
“I don’t know why, but a couple of mercenaries came over to search me, so I was held up a bit.”
Bai Yanjun didn’t mention that someone had just snatched a small stone from his pocket—he had just thought it looked pretty and wanted to pick it up to take home for his little sister, not even having had time to check what it was.
Shen Tangtang’s eyelids fluttered. Her thoughts instantly flashed back to those two men from earlier. Could it be that Bai Yanjun had discovered something?
Seeing Bai Yanjun’s cheerful expression, Shen Tangtang couldn’t help but feel suspicious of him.
Nobody who had just been subjected to a body search would still look that happy.
Scanning Bai Yanjun from head to toe, she couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.
Feeling the crush of the surrounding crowd, she hurriedly squeezed a bit further inward, just as the driver up front called out a warning:
“Stop cramming in there, we’re full and heading back to the city.”