Hearing that Lin Xun had finished off the two fleeing bandits as well, Ning Zhe felt some of the tension in him ease. "We can't stay here. We need to move, now."
"What about the bodies..." Lin Xun asked, eyeing the men on the ground, testing the question.
"Leave them. No one saw us fight, and if we stick around to deal with the bodies, someone spotting us now would be far more trouble." Ning Zhe thought it over briefly, then led the other two away at a quick pace.
The three of them circled around and came back out on the other side of the alley.
"Rumble!"
The moment they stepped onto the main street, a low, heavy sound reached them. Following it, along with the tightening groan of steel cables and the grinding of gears behind the wall, they saw one of the stronghold's massive gates slowly rising open.
"It's almost dark already. Why's the gate opening now? Brother, seems like people from the stronghold have been coming out more often lately." Lin Xun murmured, watching the gate swing wide.
There were many gates around the stronghold. The ones used daily by laborers entering the outer city were simple iron grilles, but this massive gate, whether for security or to keep it separate from the refugee zone, didn't connect to the outer city at all. It led straight into the inner city through a tunnel.
"Yeah. These people rarely come out this late in the evening." Ning Zhe eyed the alloy-forged gate with a flicker of curiosity himself.
Inside the dark gateway, a column of figures gradually emerged, not just mounted mercenaries but a large contingent of guard troops as well.
The mercenaries' yellow-brown combat gear stood in sharp contrast to the guards' grey uniforms.
Unlike the mercenaries organized independently by stronghold administrators, the guard troops belonged to formal armed forces raised by the great conglomerates, nominally part of the Federation's official military. Their full title was the Free Federation Armed Guard Corps, though refugees more commonly just called them the guards.
"Rumble, rumble!"
Following the mounted troops, several steel-frame vehicles soon appeared.
A steel-frame vehicle was exactly what it sounded like, a rough car-shaped frame welded from steel tubing, covered with waterproof canvas, and fitted with a car engine bolted on top, cobbled together just enough to get it moving. Performance couldn't compare to a proper factory-made car, but it was far faster than a horse and could handle rougher terrain besides.
Out on the wasteland, steel-frame vehicles were the most common type of transport, but by no means something an ordinary person could afford. Beyond the engine itself, which was worth a fortune, fuel was an even scarcer resource than drinking water.
The army's steel-frame vehicles were an upgraded version, modeled after the old pre-catastrophe "Lynx assault vehicle." Each one seated three men and could be fitted with weapons like machine guns. The waterproof canvas had been swapped out for steel plating, and even the wheels were shielded behind steel plates. These plates were welded all over with jagged spikes of metal, giving the whole vehicle the look of a hedgehog, which was exactly how it had earned its nickname: the Hedgehog car.
Watching the vehicles roll out, a flicker of curiosity crossed Ning Zhe's eyes. This column looked bound for somewhere far off, and heading out this late at night wasn't like the city people at all.
Had something important happened?
Before the sun went down, Ning Zhe's group of three picked up the chubby young man and made their way to the finest restaurant in the settlement.
"Mr. Zhuo! You've arrived!" The restaurant owner, spotting Zhuo Mingyuan, hurried over to attend to him eagerly.
"I'm treating my friends today. Money's no object. Don't try to fob me off with the garbage they feed refugees!" Zhuo Mingyuan, in high spirits, his face flushed with excitement, handed over a twenty-yuan tip.
"Right this way, sir, we've got private rooms in the back courtyard, nice and quiet!" The owner led the group to the back courtyard and settled them warmly into a room, then gave Zhuo Mingyuan a mysterious smile. "Mr. Zhuo, if you'll wait just a moment, I'll go arrange your meal right away!"
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"What's with all this secrecy? I've got business to take care of after we eat, so hurry up!" Zhuo Mingyuan, worried the owner might waste his time, said impatiently.
"Please, be patient. I promise you, the wait will be well worth it!" The owner gave a knowing chuckle and turned to leave.
"You've all worked hard on my behalf. Have some water first." Zhuo Mingyuan picked up the water jug and poured a cup for each of them.
"Baaa!"
About five minutes later, while the group was chatting, a strange bleating sound came from outside the door, and the restaurant owner walked in leading an animal slightly smaller than a bison, horned, with thick curly white wool, a cloven-hoofed creature.
"Watch out!" Lin Xun, having never seen such an animal before, instinctively grabbed the hunting bow off the table.
"Aaah!" The chubby young man let out a startled shriek too, leaping out of his chair and cowering in the corner behind them.
"Long legs like that, it's probably not much of a threat." Ning Zhe glanced at the animal's legs and reached a quick conclusion.
"No need to worry, everyone, this is tonight's dinner!" The owner, seeing everyone tense with alarm, smiled at Zhuo Mingyuan. "Mr. Zhuo, I went to a great deal of trouble to get this sheep smuggled out of the city. We're having this for dinner tonight, what do you say? I'm not exaggerating when I tell you, there aren't more than three shops in the whole ring of settlements around this stronghold that can serve mutton. And I won't overcharge you either, two legs of lamb, just two hundred yuan. How does that sound?"
"..." Zhuo Mingyuan stared at the sheep the owner had brought in, his whole body struck as though by lightning.
"So that's a sheep?" Lin Xun let out a breath of relief, looking the animal over with fresh curiosity, though the chubby young man still didn't dare come any closer.
"Sir, is the price too steep for you? All right then, how about one hundred eighty? I really can't go any lower than that. To be honest with you, I was planning to slaughter this one for a passing transport crew, and if I hadn't seen how well-off you are, I wouldn't have brought it out at all." Seeing Zhuo Mingyuan fall silent, the owner offered to lower the price on his own.
"You're telling me that's a sheep? But... shouldn't a sheep have five fingers? Why does it have hooves?!" Pulled back from his thoughts, Zhuo Mingyuan remembered the half side of mutton his father had brought home ten years ago, and asked the question, trembling like a leaf.
"Sir, you're quite the joker, since when does a sheep have fingers! They've always had hooves, since ancient times!" The owner grinned wide.
"That's not right!! Shouldn't a sheep have five fingers! Shouldn't a sheep have five fingers?!!" Zhuo Mingyuan stood frozen for a long moment, then let out a sudden roar, completely losing control, and lunged at the sheep in a frenzy. Vomiting violently even as he moved, he clamped both hands around its throat and squeezed.
"Hey! Hey! What the hell's wrong with you?!" Seeing what Zhuo Mingyuan was doing, the owner staggered backward, looking at Ning Zhe and the others in fear. "What's wrong with your friend here? Is he out of his mind?!"
"Shouldn't a sheep have five fingers?!"
"Shouldn't a sheep have five fingers?!"
"Baaa..."
The roaring and the sheep's dying cries rose and fell together inside the private room.
Zhuo Mingyuan had lost his mind.
He went running wild through the streets, screaming out the name "Zhuo Xiaomei," but somewhere along the way, even his sister's name slipped from him entirely.
To secure that one spot into the city, Zhuo Mingyuan had spent nearly everything he had. As the "friend" who'd come with him to the restaurant, Ning Zhe naturally felt some duty to look after him, and once he'd gone through Zhuo Mingyuan's wallet, he found barely a thousand yuan left inside.
Zhuo Mingyuan had given up everything, willing to abandon a comfortable life on the wasteland, all just to get into the city and find his sister.
Inside that wallet was also a city resident's identification card. Its owner was a white man, listed as an overseer at the very mining site where Zhuo Mingyuan had worked.
Everything made sense now.
Zhuo Mingyuan, who had carried the thought of his sister for ten long years, unable to bear the inhuman conditions and the overseer's abuse any longer, had killed the man, taken his belongings, and fled the mining site.
He'd made his way back to the stronghold alone, through who knew how many dangers and hardships along the road.
He'd hoped to find his sister and return to something like a normal life, but the sheep with five fingers he'd once eaten had shattered every illusion he still held about what that life could be.
With winter closing in, Ning Zhe was desperate for money. If he'd simply taken everything off this now-broken man, no one would have questioned it.
But he didn't touch the money. After paying the restaurant for the sheep Zhuo Mingyuan had strangled, he handed over every last yuan that remained to the owner, watching Zhuo Mingyuan still running wild through the streets. "Starting today, give him two bean cakes and a bowl of water every day, until this money runs out. Don't even think about pocketing it instead, or I'll come find you."
"Don't worry, I know exactly who you are." The owner glanced at Ning Zhe and gave a resigned nod.
As the two of them spoke, someone in the main hall wearing a hooded robe, eating with a group of others, caught every word of the exchange. Once Ning Zhe had left, he lifted his head and watched his retreating back. Had Ning Zhe turned around at that moment, he would have recognized the man at once: Su Fei, the newly arrived warden of their district.
From that day on, the refugee zone lost one stubborn young man searching for his sister, and the settlement gained one more madman.
He wandered the streets every day after that, repeating one single sentence, over and over:
"Shouldn't a sheep have five fingers?"