…
“Whose man is this? Oh my god, with injuries like that, how is his whole family supposed to survive now?”
A man was carried down from an off-road vehicle in the rear, dressed in a grey-green anti-radiation suit, bleeding from his facial orifices—the classic hallmark of genetic collapse.
He was finished.
Awakening a supernatural ability was still a rare occurrence. To survive, most people joined mercenary corps and injected themselves with genetic drugs to boost their combat capabilities, but it was extraordinarily dangerous. If a genetic collapse was triggered by a battle with a mutant beast, you only had a month left to live.
Shen Tangtang watched the scene with calm eyes. This was the destiny he had chosen, but what would her own fate be? Would she still end up like the novel described, starving to death in a dilapidated shanty with not even a soul to shed a tear for her?
She shook her head. Absolutely not. In this life, she had bound a spatial storage, scored tons of food, and even dug up an energy stone; there was no way in hell she was going to die in a shanty town.
“Tangtang, it’s so terrifying. He’s bleeding so much.”
Lin Daiyu said with a nervous quiver in her voice. No matter how much she tried to act like a little adult, she was still an underage girl. Even though the wasteland world forced kids to grow up fast, everyone usually foraged in heavily sanitized and thoroughly cleared areas. She had never faced a mutant beast head-on, nor had she ever witnessed such a bloody sight.
“It’s fine.”
Shen Tangtang patted her shoulder, her eyes never leaving the off-road vehicle.
This was her first time seeing an off-road vehicle. She had always assumed only transport buses existed out here, but apparently, other vehicle models were a thing too.
“Aren’t those guys from the First Mercenary Corps?! How did they end up like this? Did they run into some kind of terrifying mutant beast?”
A man nearby piped up.
He was here to pick up his old lady. He hadn’t gone out scavenging today because he had some chores to handle, so his wife had gone out with her best friend instead, and they still hadn’t returned.
“Who knows? If even the First Mercenary Corps can’t handle it, then ordinary folks like us don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.”
“Yeah, looks like we’ll have to steer clear of the southern sector for a while.”
“Tsk, this damn apocalypse. I heard a brand new peach grove was discovered down south—could that be where it happened?”
“A peach grove? Tell me more, how big is it? If the mutant beasts are cleared out, can we go pick peaches too?”
The questioned man put on a profound, all-knowing expression, flashing a mouthful of yellow teeth. “I only heard rumors myself. They found hundreds of acres of newly emerged peach groves down south, but headquarters isn’t sure about the danger levels yet, which is why they issued a mission for the First Mercenary Corps to go clear it out. By the time it’s fully opened up, all the good stuff will definitely be pocketed by the corps and official headquarters. We’ll just have to see if there are any edible leaves left over by then—peach leaves taste amazing.”
With that, the man wore an intoxicated expression. Mutated peach leaves were plump and juicy; they tasted way better than actual peaches.
In reality, it was just that the low-radiation peaches had already been stripped clean by the mercenary groups, leaving only scraps that you couldn’t hope to find without a massive stroke of luck. Naturally, if you can’t reach the grapes, you call them sour.
Listening to this tidbit of information, Shen Tangtang blinked her big eyes as her mind raced through a dozen different calculations.
She remembered the novel describing how the female lead awakened her supernatural ability using an energy stone found inside a peach grove. She just wondered if this was that exact peach grove.
If she got the chance, she’d go check it out. The female lead wasn’t due to arrive for another full year anyway—finders keepers. She certainly wasn’t going to pass up a treasure just because it belonged to the female lead’s plot armor.
Natural resources born of heaven and earth were things she coveted just as much.
By the time the last sliver of twilight was about to sink below the horizon, the orphanage’s main convoy finally set off on the return trip.
Entering the safe zone, the outermost ring was the shanty town, moving inward led to the slums, followed by the noble district, and right at the dead center was the military zone, forming a series of concentric protective rings. The safe zone possessed four major gates.
The orphanage concentration camp was established within the slums near the East Gate, placing it right next to the shanty town.
The shanty town and slums covered the largest area and housed the highest population.
Passing by the shanty town, the air was thick and heavy with the bitter smell of boiled wild greens.
Rumblllle—
Shen Tangtang felt a sudden wave of hunger.
Lin Daiyu cast an amused look at her, when suddenly… Rumblllle—
Lin Daiyu’s smile froze right on her face.
Alright, neither bestie had any room to laugh at the other.
Back at the orphanage gates, everyone queued up for the weighing process.
Night had fully fallen, save for a crescent moon hanging in the sky, casting a pale, ghostly light over the ground and allowing people to vaguely make out what was ahead.
When it was Shen Tangtang’s turn to weigh in, after surrendering half her haul, she had 18 catties of food remaining. She traded all of it in for credits, netting a total of 18 credits.
That was a lot more than most people managed. On top of that, the orphanage handed out a standard nutrient paste stick along with 2 credits for the next trip’s bus fare.
Shen Tangtang sucked on her nutrient paste. It was a regular-grade paste; ever since last year’s manufacturing upgrade, it didn’t have that nasty plastic aftertaste anymore, leaving just a plain, neutral flavor with a hint of fresh grass fragrance.
The nutrient paste was a task reward. Orphans over thirteen years old were required to go out and forage for food to earn their paste rations; if you didn’t go out, you simply went hungry. After starving for three days, the orphanage would toss you a single paste stick just to keep you hanging by a thread—as long as you didn’t die, it was fine.
Of course, there were also boiled wild greens available. Most orphans chose to trade their nutrient paste for credits and buy wild greens instead—a bowl of wild greens cost 1 credit, while the credits from exchanging a single stick of nutrient paste could buy two and a half days’ worth of meals.
Plenty of kids who wanted to avoid going out scavenging would stretch a single paste stick over three days, living on absolute bare-minimum life support, reduced to skin and bones.
That was their own choice; the orphanage wasn’t a charity.
Lin Daiyu did the exact same thing as Shen Tangtang, cashing in all her remaining leaves for credits.
As for Bai Yanjun, he had taken his leaves back from Lin Daiyu when they arrived. Knowing that Lin Daiyu had 5 catties sheared off her weight limit, he had merely frowned without offering a single word.
Shen Tangtang despised people like him the most—other people helped them out, yet they acted like it was completely owed to them.
Only an idiot like Lin Daiyu saw Bai Yanjun frown and assumed he was feeling guilty, rushing over to comfort him endlessly.
All she could think was: My sister, he’s treating you like a sucker, yet you’re out here worrying about whether he feels bad? He’s probably still sitting there wondering how someone could be such a complete fool.
Sure enough, her bestie who was so sharp and calculative around her turned into an absolute airheaded simp the moment she was around the male lead.
After finishing her nutrient paste and taking a sip of water, Shen Tangtang felt her stomach comfortably full and nodded in satisfaction. A single stick of paste could split into two meals and offered great satiety; she had downed a whole one at once, yet didn’t feel uncomfortably bloated.
No worries, no worries, she was still growing after all…
She picked up her trusty little washcloth and basin, walked over to the orphanage’s water well, dipped the cloth into a drawn bucket of water, and used it to wash her face and wipe down her body.
Pure bliss.
“Tangtang, you came out to wash up too!”
Lin Daiyu emerged from the inner hall out of the dark. This was the girls’ living quarters, so they didn’t have to worry about boys wandering around.
The water in the well had been chemically treated, and the purification chemicals were cheap, so water wasn’t an issue for anyone in the wasteland world. The orphanage alone had three operational wells.
“Yeah, are you all done too, Daiyu-jie?”
Lin Daiyu also had a ten-year-old younger sister living in the orphanage. She must have just run over to the cafeteria to pick up her nutrient paste.
Before turning thirteen, every orphan was issued a stick of nutrient paste every evening, though that depended entirely on whether they completed their assigned chores during the day.
Kids under thirteen had daily tasks too: cleaning the grounds, looking after younger kids, or weaving burlap sacks if they had nimble hands—every two sacks earned 1 credit, while a regular nutrient paste stick cost 5 credits.
Naturally, the orphanage didn’t hand out those credits in cash since it was considered part of your daily mandatory quota, only giving out the paste stick. That drove many orphans to desperately wish they’d grow up faster so they could turn thirteen and finally start heading out to scavenge for real food.