With Zhuo Mingyuan and Lin Xun in tow, along with the handful of clumsy tails trailing them from a distance, Ning Zhe soon made his way back to the street where he lived, stopping in front of a standalone brick-and-stone courtyard house at the corner. This was the residence the stronghold assigned to whoever served as warden for the district. After Hu Zhida's death, Su Fei had naturally taken up residence there instead.
"Knock, knock!"
Ning Zhe reached out and rapped on the closed courtyard gate. No response came, but the gate swung open a crack under the pressure of his knock.
"Wait here." Ning Zhe glanced across the empty courtyard, then walked in alone, stopping in front of the house. "Mr. Su! Are you in there?"
"..."
Hearing nothing from inside, Ning Zhe thought it over for a moment, then lifted the door flap and stepped into the room.
Ning Zhe had stayed wary of this new warden from the start. All the wardens in the settlement were normally elected from among the hundred households they'd oversee, but after Hu Zhida died, the stronghold had simply dropped Su Fei into the post out of nowhere, a total stranger. That was highly unusual.
Precisely because of this, Ning Zhe wanted to get a clearer picture of who this man really was. Hu Zhida had nearly cost him his life not long ago, and this new warden Su Fei was someone he couldn't afford not to keep an eye on.
Su Fei's house looked no different from any other refugee's home. The furniture inside was all rough-hewn stone, and aside from the roasting pit, the kitchen area had a rare cast-iron pot.
In the bedroom next door, a set of bedding lay heaped carelessly on the kang, and against the wall stood a large wooden chest.
"Tramp, tramp!"
Ning Zhe noticed traces of freshly turned earth scattered on the floor beside the chest, and walked over toward it.
"Clang!"
Just as Ning Zhe took a step forward, the chest's lid flew open on its own, and Su Fei climbed straight out from inside, finding himself face to face with Ning Zhe.
"Warden Su, what exactly are you doing? Some kind of magic trick, pulling a person out of thin air?" Ning Zhe froze slightly at Su Fei's sudden appearance.
"Ah... that, well, there's rats in the house, I was trying to catch one." Su Fei scrambled out of the chest quickly and shut the lid. "Place is a bit of a mess, have a seat wherever."
"Sorry about this, I knocked and no one answered, so I let myself in. You know how unsafe things are around here, I was worried something might have happened to you." Ning Zhe smiled easily, his manner perfectly composed, though a shadow of suspicion had already begun to form in his mind.
Just as Su Fei shut the chest lid, Ning Zhe had clearly caught a hollow, echoing sound, which meant the space beneath the chest was empty. Combined with the fresh earth beside it, that was more than enough to suggest Su Fei was digging some kind of tunnel underneath.
More telling still, the moment the lid closed, there'd been the distinct clink of metal knocking together, as though something had toppled over from the jolt.
Metal goods were a rare sight indeed in the refugee zone.
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"Have some water." Su Fei picked up a large water jug and poured a cup, holding it out to Ning Zhe. "What brings you here?"
"I've got a friend who wants to get into the city to look for a lost relative." Ning Zhe smiled. "You told me before that if I ever needed help, I could come find you, so I wanted to ask if you know any way to make that happen."
"That's simple enough. I can arrange for your friend to work at a factory. Do you know which factory his relative might be in?" Su Fei picked up the thread.
"I don't mean a factory. I mean the inner city." Ning Zhe sat down on a nearby stone stool, meeting Su Fei's eyes. "Do you have a way to make that happen?"
"The inner city... ten years driven through cold seas of exile, a lone subject here still gazes toward the throne! To refugees, that world just beyond the wall might look close enough to touch, but in truth it's a palace in the heavens, forever within sight, forever out of reach." Hearing Ning Zhe's request, Su Fei broke into a curious, knowing smile. "Don't you understand just how hard it is for a refugee to get into the inner city? Old Man Lin who runs the general store outside the walls, he's the actual uncle of the head of the Materials Bureau inside the city, and even with that kind of connection, he's never managed to get his own son in."
"It's exactly because I know how hard it is that I came to you. You're the only outside warden I've ever seen dropped into this district. If they placed you here out of nowhere like that, you must have something special going for you." Ning Zhe picked up his water cup, then added, "The man I want to get in there is wealthy. If you help him, he won't treat you poorly."
"Wealthy? You do understand, someone rich by refugee standards looks no different from a beggar to anyone inside the city." Su Fei brushed this off. "What, is helping him just about making money for you too?"
"Maybe so. I'm making fifty yuan a day off it as it is." Ning Zhe smiled, then went on, a little more seriously. "This man has been waiting ten years to find his sister, and made his way alone across the wasteland all the way from a mining site back to Stronghold 87. That's not an easy thing to do. Since I've taken his money, I want to do right by him and help however I can."
"Stronghold 87 belongs to the Pei conglomerate, and the Pei family's always kept a tight grip on this kind of thing, so I can only try. For five hundred yuan, I can introduce you to someone. Whether it works out or not is entirely between the two of you to sort out." Su Fei paused for a moment, then added, "And one more thing, tell your friend this too: life for a refugee inside the city might not be quite as wonderful as he imagines. I hope he thinks it through carefully."
"Thank you." Hearing this, Ning Zhe rose from the stone stool. "I'll send him in to talk with you."
Half an hour later, Ning Zhe and Lin Xun, together with Zhuo Mingyuan, arrived outside a pawnshop near the city gate.
Ning Zhe glanced at the pawnshop's sign, then turned to Zhuo Mingyuan. "Mr. Zhuo, the person Su Fei arranged for us is here. Whether you want to meet with him is up to you."
"I've already paid the introduction fee, of course I'll meet him. For my sister's sake, I'll pay whatever it costs." Zhuo Mingyuan didn't hesitate for a second, agreeing at once.
Once inside, the pawnshop's clerk took the letter of introduction Su Fei had written for Ning Zhe and quickly led the group to a room in the back courtyard, where they met the shop's stout proprietor.
"Which of you wants into the inner city?" The stout proprietor read through Su Fei's letter, then struck a match and burned the scrap of cloth to ash.
"Not them, me! I need to get into the city to find my sister!" Zhuo Mingyuan jumped in to answer first.
"Your sister? What district's she in?" The stout proprietor asked, a pipe clamped between his teeth.
"What district?" Zhuo Mingyuan looked utterly blank.
"Stronghold 87 has five administrative districts inside, plus four unregulated zones. Where exactly are you trying to go?" The stout proprietor, seeing that none of the three had any real knowledge of the city's layout, seemed to turn something over in his mind.
"I don't know what district my sister's in. As long as I can get inside, that's all that matters." Zhuo Mingyuan, not understanding the proprietor's question at all, answered with firm resolve regardless.
"All right then. As it happens, I've got a batch of openings, and I can spare you one. There's a job inside the city, repairing some specialized equipment. It's dangerous work, and heavily supervised. If you agree to it, I can get you into the inner city under the status of a laborer.
Once you're in, you'll need to find your own chance to slip away. If you manage to escape, you'll have a shot at staying inside the city, though the odds are slim, and you'd be living there without any registered status." The stout proprietor gave his answer plainly enough, then held out his palm. "One spot, five thousand yuan."