Because of the robbery and the sudden coma, Ren Xiaosu returned later than expected. One glance at the sky told him darkness was about to fall. Passing through the market town with prey at this hour was extremely dangerous.
During the day, people from the refugee fortress still came out to maintain order. But at night, those people returned behind the walls.
Of course, the people in the refuge fortress weren't doing it out of kindness—they only worried that too much chaos in the market town would affect the labor of the drifters outside.
"Yo, Ren Xiaosu, looks like you've had a good haul today!"
As Ren Xiaosu ran into the market town with an iron pot on his back, someone greeted him. The man's face was pitch-black, as if he'd never washed it since the day he was born.
Many people in the market town looked like that. To trade for food, they dug coal in the mines nearby. The coal was transported into the refuge fortress, and the workers received just barely enough black bread or potatoes to stay alive.
It wasn't just coal. Any dirty, backbreaking job the fortress needed—those outside the walls did it.
Water was rationed in the town—everyone had only a little each day. There were no clean water sources nearby, or if there were, they were far too dangerous, crowded with beasts drawn to water. So everyone in the town was filthy, their faces indistinguishable. Ren Xiaosu was no exception.
Only, he never went mining. He had his own way of surviving.
Ren Xiaosu didn't answer the greeting. He only wanted to get back to his shack as quickly as possible.
As he passed along a narrow path in the town, he saw the towering fortress wall looming not far away—so tall it seemed to swallow the sky, suffocating just to look at.
There were hardly any stone buildings in the market town—mostly just shacks.
Ren Xiaosu had been relaxed a moment ago, but after entering the town his vigilance spiked. He even drew a bone knife from his waist. The atmosphere on the street grew tense, as if danger lurked inside those shacks. But the moment Ren Xiaosu drew his knife, the restless figures quieted down again.
The first thing Ren Xiaosu learned living here was: never trust anyone… except Yan Liuyuan.
Whispering came from a nearby shack:"Ren Xiaosu actually caught prey again.""That's prey? It's just a sparrow.""Not the same as the sparrows in old textbooks. I'd guess an eagle before the Cataclysm was only about this big.""Don't mess with him," a voice said, ending the whispers—someone clearly knew Ren Xiaosu's past.
Ren Xiaosu lifted the door curtain of his home, and the warmth inside made his cold-stiffened body relax a little.
Yan Liuyuan, doing homework inside the shack, looked up in surprise: "You got a sparrow?"
"Why didn't you light the kerosene lamp?" Ren Xiaosu frowned.
Yan Liuyuan wasn't usually well-behaved—at least not in front of anyone but Ren Xiaosu. But whenever he faced this "older brother," a strange gentleness surfaced. "I wanted to save some kerosene."
"What if you end up nearsighted?" Ren Xiaosu put down the sparrow.
Yan Liuyuan brightened. "The teacher at the school said, before the Cataclysm, there were things called glasses. He said they still exist now, inside the refuge fortress. With those, even if someone becomes nearsighted, it doesn't matter."
Ren Xiaosu scoffed. "I've seen someone wearing that thing. Out here in the wilderness, entrusting your vision to something that can fall off at any moment is basically suicide. Don't believe everything your teacher says. He's not always right."
"Oh…" Yan Liuyuan nodded. "Then why do you still send me to school?"
Ren Xiaosu choked a little. "So many questions."
"When can I go hunting with you?" Yan Liuyuan pressed.
"You're only fourteen. What hunting?" Ren Xiaosu said. "If you study well, you won't have to hunt. Learn accounting, learn physics and chemistry—won't that be better than risking your life out there?"
"You're only seventeen," Yan Liuyuan muttered.
Even in this brutal era, people understood how important knowledge was.
That was why the schoolteacher could survive in the town. No matter what kind of trouble happened, the teacher was always the safest person—no one dared touch him.
But the tuition was expensive. Otherwise, Ren Xiaosu would've wanted to attend too.
As he set up the iron pot, he skillfully began cleaning the sparrow. "What did the teacher talk about today? You can only have some of the sparrow's organs. The rest I need to sell tomorrow."
"You're hurt?" Yan Liuyuan frowned, noticing the cut on Ren Xiaosu's palm—made by the sparrow's beak, still bleeding.
The fire in the pit cast flickering shadows on Ren Xiaosu's face. "Just a scratch."
The room fell quiet. After a while, Ren Xiaosu scooped the cooked organs from the pot and handed them to Yan Liuyuan. "Eat."
Yan Liuyuan's eyes reddened. "I don't want it—you eat it. You need to heal."
"I'll drink some broth," Ren Xiaosu said. "I still have black bread."
"I'm not eating it. It's not a small wound. I saw someone in town die the other day from just a tiny cut—got infected. We don't have medicine." Yan Liuyuan's voice trembled; he was on the verge of crying.
Smack.
Ren Xiaosu suddenly slapped him. "Remember this: if we want to survive in this world, we cannot shed tears. This world doesn't believe in tears."
He continued, "Look at the people around us. If you don't eat and stay strong, what if someone breaks in tonight and stabs me to steal our food? I send you to school so you won't have to live like me, scraping out a living in the wilderness. You have talent—if you study hard, you won't have to become like them… savage."
Yan Liuyuan suddenly grabbed the sparrow organs and wolfed them down, forcing back his tears. He had to learn to be as strong as Ren Xiaosu.
"Cough, cough—after you're done, get some clean cloth to bandage my hand," Ren Xiaosu said.
"Okay," Yan Liuyuan replied.
"You're so mischievous outside, but you come home and act like a scared little rabbit," Ren Xiaosu sighed. "Did anything happen in town today?"
"Oh, right—" Yan Liuyuan said while searching for clean cloth, "a group from the refuge fortress came out. They said they're looking for a guide who can take them to Refuge 112 by cutting straight across Mount Jing."
"To Refuge 112?" Ren Xiaosu frowned. "And they insist on going through Mount Jing?"
"You think they'll come to you? Everyone in town knows you're familiar with the outside. I heard they're a band and some singers from Refuge 113. They were invited to perform at Refuge 112. I've never seen a singer before."
"I'm not going," Ren Xiaosu shook his head. "Mount Jing is dangerous. If they want to go, let them. Just stay away from them. Something's off about that group."
His mood was complicated. In times like these… there were still people who sang? There was even a band?What kind of world existed inside those refuge walls, anyway?