Inside the brothel's courtyard, a man with a distinctive mustache, hearing that Ning Zhe had a gun, stepped up beside Xiao Qi and spoke in a low voice. "Boss, the people inside the stronghold keep a tight watch on firearms. Aren't you on decent terms with someone in the Industrial District's enforcement squad? We could turn this into a chance to kill with a borrowed blade, let them go after Ning Zhe for us."
The man with the mustache was called Huang Mancang, second-in-command within the Black Banner Gang, something of a scheming advisor to Xiao Qi, and also the one responsible for managing the gang's brothels.
"Nonsense!" Hearing this, Xiao Qi snapped back sharply. "I've built my name on these streets. My own brother just got stabbed to death out in the open, and you want me to go get revenge behind the scenes? Word gets out about that, and who's going to take me seriously ever again?"
"Brother Qi, didn't you hear? Ning Zhe's got a gun. If we don't bring in the enforcement squad, how else are we supposed to fight him?" Huang Mancang shrank back a little at the scolding, then asked, a touch aggrieved.
"Brother Qi, I know how to build guns! All I need is steel piping!" Li Bin, standing on the steps below, cut in the moment he heard this exchange.
Li Bin wasn't lying. He genuinely did know how to build firearms, having done exactly that back in his old bandit camp. Big Beard, the leader of that gang, had once promised him a spot into the city if he could get his hands on the water purification chip, but when it came down to life or death, Li Bin had sold Big Beard out without a second thought. Which was exactly why he now held onto the chip with no idea who to even contact about it.
Li Bin knew the water purification chip was valuable, but he also understood it was a curse waiting to happen, one wrong move and it could easily get him killed. So for now, he wanted to latch onto Xiao Qi just to get by, and slowly figure out how to turn the chip into something usable later on. He'd never expected to run straight back into his old enemy Ning Zhe of all people.
In trying to get the job done on Ning Zhe, the men Li Bin had brought with him had either died or fled. Alone now, staying alive would only get harder from here, which left him no choice but to cling tightly to Xiao Qi.
"You've got a gun, but where are you getting bullets?" Huang Mancang, though he didn't understand how firearms actually worked, at least grasped the basic idea.
"What I build is a powder gun. No bullets needed, just iron shot. The gunpowder mix is simple too, one part saltpeter, two parts sulfur, three parts charcoal. As long as I've got potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal, I can make black powder!" Li Bin paused, then explained more plainly. "This kind of gun's slow to reload and doesn't have much range, but it still packs a solid punch."
"Didn't peg you for someone with real skills." Xiao Qi had originally intended to throw Li Bin out for botching the job, but hearing this, he looked him over again with fresh interest. "Sulfur's easy enough to find, it keeps bugs away, general stores sell it. What's potassium nitrate?"
"Nitrate can be scraped straight off latrine walls, and there's plenty of salt-alkali land around here too, you can dig up saltpeter deposits from it. I know how to refine it." Li Bin added quickly.
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"How fast can you build one?" Xiao Qi blinked, studying him. His interest in having Li Bin build guns wasn't just about revenge against Ning Zhe anymore, it was also about tightening his grip on the settlement. A gun didn't necessarily need to be fired to be useful, just holding one in hand was enough to give a man real confidence.
"The design I use is fairly simple. Given enough raw materials, I can put one together in just a few hours." Li Bin nodded firmly.
"Starting now, the rest of you work with him! Get this done as fast as possible!" Xiao Qi pointed at the men around him, laying out the plan at once.
Meanwhile, Ning Zhe had already made it back home, finding the alley crowded with bewildered people, though the alley itself had held up well enough. Most of the buildings were still standing, only a corner of Jin Zhi's roof had caved in, and she was still leaning out her window, waving at everyone passing by. "Come here, I've got something good to show you!"
Ning Zhe ignored her, skirting around and hurrying into Zhao Yi's house instead. Seeing the three of them safe and sound, he let out a heavy breath of relief.
"Brother, you're back! Any luck finding medicine?" Lin Xun turned to him the moment he walked in.
Ning Zhe shook his head. "No luck. The situation at the North Market wasn't good either. What happened with you two, why didn't you get out during the earthquake?"
"The fat guy's still unconscious. Zhao Yi and I couldn't carry him, and besides, her roof's just straw and mud, even if it collapsed it wouldn't kill anyone. If we went outside and the Black Banner spotted us, that'd cause more trouble than staying put." Lin Xun laid out his reasoning clearly.
"Fair enough. Stay put a while longer then. I'm going to find Su Fei, see if he's got any way to get anti-inflammatory medicine." Satisfied everyone was safe, Ning Zhe turned and left once more.
"Cough, cough!"
Once Ning Zhe was gone, the chubby young man lying on the kang coughed twice, opened his eyes, and spotted Lin Xun beside him, a flash of joy crossing his face. "I'm not dead! I'm still alive?"
"Yeah, of course you're alive! Good thing the doctor got here fast, if he'd shown up any later, your wound might've closed up on its own!" Lin Xun rolled his eyes. "Li Dongfa, how does someone built like you end up with a heart this small?"
"I..." The chubby young man's mouth twisted, and he lowered his head, falling silent for a long moment, his voice dropping to barely a whisper. "Brother Xun, I'm sorry."
"You don't owe me an apology. Not being able to kill someone isn't your fault." Lin Xun looked at him, exasperated. "Brother Zhe once told me something, and I want to pass it on to you too. Out here on the wasteland, choosing to be a good man means laying down your blade and pulling in your fangs, and that means choosing to be the one who gets slaughtered instead. In this world, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be a good man, but before you can be one, you'd better learn how to deal with the bad ones first."
By the time Ning Zhe reached the mouth of the alley, Su Fei, in his role as warden, was already organizing the crowd for emergency evacuation. Spotting Ning Zhe, he handed his torch off to someone else and pulled him aside. "Hey, that crew of killers earlier, they were after your life. You really think it's wise to show your face out here like this? Not worried they'll come back for you?"
"I crossed the Black Banner Gang. Those people have serious power throughout the settlement, and I've got nowhere else to go besides here. What am I supposed to do, hide?" Ning Zhe gave a slight smile. "I can't very well abandon my own home just because the Black Banner's looking for me and go running off to some refugee village instead. That'd get me killed even faster."
"Just be careful all the same. Whoever's after you doesn't look like the forgiving type." Hearing this, Su Fei let out a wry chuckle. He supposed it was true, given how brutal life already was in the refugee zone, leaving the settlement entirely would likely be even more dangerous than the Black Banner Gang itself.
"Brother Fei, I actually came to ask you for a favor. Could you help me find some anti-inflammatory medicine?" The moment he'd said it, worried Su Fei might misread his intentions, Ning Zhe quickly added, "I'll pay for it."