Hearing the number the stout proprietor named, Lin Xun's eyes went wide with shock. "Working as a laborer in the city costs five thousand yuan? What kind of logic is that? A laborer couldn't save up that much in a whole lifetime!"
"That's the price if you want in. If you can accept it, I'll arrange things." The stout proprietor blew out a puff of smoke, thick enough to make the others cough a little. "Inside the city, only the jobs even beggars won't touch ever go to refugees. And even then, out of hundreds of thousands of refugees, whoever gets picked counts himself lucky. If Su Fei hadn't vouched for you, I wouldn't be talking business with you no matter how much money you had."
"You said this job's dangerous. How dangerous exactly?" Ning Zhe asked, eyeing him sideways.
"I couldn't say. Not one person I've ever sent in has come back out. Whether they end up dead or manage to escape, nobody knows, because working as a laborer inside the city doesn't make you a city person. You've got no right to speak to or interact with anyone inside." The stout proprietor tapped his pipe against the sole of his shoe, his tone blunt. "If you miss this chance, you might be waiting months, even years, for another one."
"Five thousand, fine, I'll pay it! As long as I can find my sister, I'm not afraid of anything!" Zhuo Mingyuan hesitated for less than two seconds before agreeing, his gaze resolute. "When can I go in?"
"Come find me tonight at nine, we'll gather here." The stout proprietor stood up, handed Zhuo Mingyuan a pen and paper. "Fill out your information, then pay. Fair warning, once the money's handed over, whether you change your mind or miss the gathering time for whatever reason, there's no refund."
Zhuo Mingyuan took the pen and paper, then held it out to Ning Zhe, a little embarrassed. "Would you mind filling this out for me? I can't read or write."
Ten minutes later, the three of them left the pawnshop. Zhuo Mingyuan looked up at the towering wall beside them, over a hundred meters high, and turned to Ning Zhe with excitement. "Brother Ning, I really can't thank you enough for today. If it weren't for you, I might never have found a way past that wall."
"No need for all that between friends, let's just talk money instead." Ning Zhe grinned at how openly emotional Zhuo Mingyuan had become. "I took your money, so of course I'll see this through for you. But according to what that fat man said, once you're inside, getting back out again won't be easy. Have you thought about what you'll do if you can't find your sister after you're in?"
"That won't happen! You said it yourself, out on the wasteland, only people inside the stronghold ever get to eat mutton, so my sister must have been sold to someone inside! Once I'm in, I'll definitely find her!" Zhuo Mingyuan's eyes were full of confidence. "Brother Ning, tonight I'll be leaving this place behind. Thank you both for all your help and care. Let me treat you both to a meal, just to show my thanks. You have to let me! Come on, let's go grab the fat guy too!"
A man's spirits soar when good fortune strikes, and once Zhuo Mingyuan had his ticket into the city in hand, he stayed in high spirits the whole way, practically dragging Ning Zhe along the road back home.
Ten meters back, among the group of bandits who'd been tailing them all day, a man with narrow, slanted eyes turned to the bald man beside him. "Brother Meng, did you hear that? Sounds like our mark's about to leave the settlement! If we let him slip away, we've wasted two whole days watching him for nothing!"
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
"I asked around a bit. That Ning Zhe sticking close to the mark, he's got a real name for himself around the east gate, a dangerous man not worth crossing. Push him too far and it could get someone killed." Brother Meng watched the group's backs disappear, a troubled look crossing his face.
"We're already out here living this life, eating off the edge of a blade every day! However tough he is, is he tougher than us? That begging girl told us yesterday, the mark's got at least a few thousand yuan in cash on him. If we pull this off, we could have any woman in this settlement we wanted!"
The narrow-eyed man ran a hand over the weapon hidden at his waist, beneath his clothes. "Eat meat every day, or go back to gnawing on potatoes, is that really such a hard choice? You've been wanting to prove yourself to your brother for ages. Isn't this the perfect chance?"
"You're right! My brother always said, fortune favors the bold! Let's do it!" Stirred up by the narrow-eyed man's words, a vicious glint flashed in Brother Meng's eyes, and he took off at once toward where Ning Zhe's group had disappeared.
In an alley barely two meters wide, Zhuo Mingyuan pulled five hundred yuan from his wallet and held it out to Ning Zhe. "Brother Ning, this whole chance to get into the city and find my sister, it's all thanks to the two of you. This isn't much, but it's a small token of my gratitude. Please, take it."
"All right." Ning Zhe didn't bother with any pleasantries, simply took the money without hesitation. The whole reason he'd agreed to protect Zhuo Mingyuan in the first place was to get through the coming winter. Without stockpiling supplies ahead of time, there was no way he'd survive it. Taking money to do a job was only right and proper.
"Brother Ning, don't worry, if I manage to make a good life for myself inside the city, I'll never forget what I owe you." Zhuo Mingyuan's mind was already filled with images of reuniting with his sister, his heart pounding with excitement. The memory of his father selling her off to save his own life had stayed lodged in him like a thorn all these years. For a decade, Zhuo Mingyuan had thought of nothing else but how to finally pull that thorn out, an ache that had never once let him rest.
Just as Zhuo Mingyuan finished speaking, two figures suddenly stepped out from a fork in the alley ahead. One of them sneered. "Heh, look at this pathetic sack of a man, and you think you're getting into the city?"
"Friendly advice, don't go looking for trouble. Clear the way." Ning Zhe recognized the men as the tails who'd been following them all day, and drew his bone knife loose from his waist without haste. Lin Xun nocked an arrow, its bone tip angled down toward the ground.
"Ning Zhe! I know who you are!" Just then, Brother Meng arrived with three more men, blocking off the other side, addressing Ning Zhe's back. "I don't want any trouble with you, and I don't want to make an enemy of you either. How about this, we take this guy down together, and split whatever he's got on him, fifty-fifty."
"You've got the wrong man." Seeing himself boxed in on both sides, Ning Zhe and Lin Xun turned in unison, shielding Zhuo Mingyuan, who'd pressed himself against the wall, behind them. Ning Zhe's voice dropped low. "If you don't want to leave your lives here, clear off, now."
"Ha, what, you think that's not enough? Fine, you take sixty percent, we'll take forty between us brothers, that's more than fair, isn't it?" Brother Meng thought it over, then offered another concession. Thugs like these, who spent their settlement days shaking down shopkeepers instead of doing honest work, lived a fair bit better than most refugees. They liked to talk tough and pick fights, but compared to bandits out on the open wasteland, they still fell a notch short.
Facing off against Ning Zhe, a man with a well-earned reputation as a walking death omen, Brother Meng and his men couldn't help feeling a flicker of unease deep down, not only because even a simple infected wound could kill a man out here, but because their own living conditions were a good deal better than Ning Zhe's, and the better a man's life, the more precious he tends to hold it. That much never changed on the wasteland.
"Not interested." Ning Zhe didn't budge, keeping a sharp watch on both groups at once. He was hardly a good man by any measure, but he wasn't a cruel one either, and Brother Meng's offer held no appeal for him whatsoever.
"Brother Meng! Why waste words on these two? He's got a weapon, so what, don't we?" The narrow-eyed man beside Brother Meng had clearly run out of patience, pulling out what he'd been hiding behind his back.
A wooden club, studded all over with sharp stones and beast fangs.