Chapter 275: Drought World 3
The leader stared intently at the backpacks behind the two, “Hand over your things, and we’ll let you go.”
Chu Yian heard this, took off her backpack, and threw it on the ground.
There was nothing inside; if they wanted it, she’d give it to them.
But the group was clearly after their supplies, and the two backpacks felt light, indicating there was nothing inside.
“Where are the supplies you just exchanged?”
“They were robbed by the previous group.”
“Bullshit! We’ve been following you two since you came out. Where did this ‘previous group’ come from?”
The robbers weren’t fooled at all. They glared fiercely at the two, “Tell us, where did you hide the food?”
Chu Yian looked at the five strong men, then charged at them with a steel bar.
Head, joints.
She specifically aimed for the most vulnerable parts of the human body.
Zhu Shen had received no prior warning before Chu Yian made her move, and now he was completely flustered. He nervously gripped the steel bar, closed his eyes, and screamed as he rushed to Chu Yian’s side, wildly flailing the steel bar, almost hitting Chu Yian herself.
“Zhu Shen, aim carefully.”
Chu Yian narrowly dodged his swinging weapon. The next second, the steel bar, missing its target, swung with full force into the face of the most muscular man among the five. With a dull thud, the young man collapsed straight down.
The destructive power was astonishing.
“Big Chu?”
Zhu Shen thought he had hit his own thigh and was so scared the steel bar in his hand almost flew out.
“…It’s fine, just improvise.”
While Chu Yian was speaking, she was hit in the abdomen, and her internal organs felt as if they had shifted, causing immense pain. At the same time, the robber leader aimed for her head and swung down.
No sooner said than done.
She flung out the treasure box, and the robber leader was instantly crushed to death by the treasure box, which had suddenly grown in size. Before they could react, she retracted the treasure box, making it palm-sized again, and threw it at the three uninjured men.
The remaining robbers, seeing the situation was dire, all fled.
Chu Yian looked at the bloodstains and the corpses on the ground, picked up the robber leader’s fire axe, and quickly left. There was no order left in this world; whoever had the strongest combat power was the true boss.
##
The city ruins looked close, but they walked for a long time.
At night, the temperature plummeted. It was a dry cold, and the night wind scraped across their faces, occasionally stinging like small knives. Yellow sand would also blow up at night, making it impossible to open their eyes and often getting into their mouths.
They also had nothing to tell the time.
It wasn’t until the moon was directly overhead in the sky that they finally reached the city.
The two found a large rock, using it to shield themselves from the yellow sand, and managed to get through the night.
Game Day Two
Yellow sand raged, and the sky was cloudless.
Many parts of the city were buried by yellow sand, with broken bridges and collapsed buildings emerging from it. Many prospectors who came to the city had already begun their activities, using axes and hacksaws to extract steel bars buried in the buildings.
The drought had lasted for two years, and the prospectors in the city had long since cleared out anything of value.
Forget about food, daily necessities, or medicine; even doors, windows, and floor tiles had been pried out of the buildings. Every room contained nothing but the yellow sand blown in.
The two searched on the ground for a whole morning but found nothing, so they decided to move underground.
Without sunlight, it got darker the further down they went.
And it was precisely because it was so dark that they had a chance to find something overlooked.
The buildings buried underground were filled with yellow sand. They walked in the dark, occasionally sinking their legs into the sand, stumbling all the way.
For an entire morning, the two found nothing in the pitch-black building.
They sat on the yellow sand, eating the black brick biscuits they had bought. They tasted bitter. There was no texture or aroma to speak of; they were very hard, and the flour even contained sand, often requiring them to spit after a couple of bites.
But if it filled their stomachs, they couldn’t ask for too much.
One black brick biscuit was enough for two people to eat for a day, and Chu Yian was already very satisfied.
Water scarcity, but at least not food scarcity.
“Big Chu, why don’t we learn from those people outside and get some steel to sell?”
Finding nothing this morning made Zhu Shen a bit anxious, “Instead of wasting time like this, it’s better to focus our energy on things that can earn water.”
He was very practical.
However, digging for insects and selling steel were not Chu Yian’s first choices for earning water.
20 jin of steel could only be exchanged for 100ml of water.
A normal person needs at least 1500ml of water per day, which means to sustain two people, they would need to get at least 600 jin of steel daily. If they also wanted to save water for the next 14 days, they would need to get 1200 jin of steel every day.
Not to mention the transportation between the city and the survivor market, even if the two of them worked 20 hours a day, they might not be able to get that much steel.
Therefore, Zhu Shen’s plan was not feasible.
They needed a fast way to accumulate water. If prospecting didn’t work, then they would try other methods.
In the afternoon, they went to even more remote areas.
The two fumbled around in the darkness and actually found something. However, it was too dark inside, and by touch, it was a bag of powder. They put the item into their backpack and continued searching. Unfortunately, they only found this one thing all afternoon.
When they climbed out, they realized what they had found was a bag of salt.
Is this valuable?
This question was on both their minds.
“Salt can be used for disinfection and anti-inflammation. Since it has medicinal value, the price of salt should still be good.”
Moreover, the salt weighed 500g.
Chu Yian put the item into her treasure box, then she and Zhu Shen found a dilapidated building that offered shelter from the wind to rest.
For three consecutive days, they searched for supplies in the building until they had eaten all the water and black brick biscuits they had brought. At the same time, they gradually gained some experience in finding supplies: the darker the place, the deeper it was buried underground, and the more dangerous the place, the more likely they were to find something.
Their harvest over these three days wasn’t much, but it wasn’t completely nothing either.
Besides the edible salt they dug up on the second day, they also dug up a bag of chocolate (expired), a lighter, and a flattened pack of cigarettes.
Neither of them knew how much these items were worth, so they put them all into the treasure box, waiting to go back and find someone to appraise them.
However, as they walked to the broken bridge leading out of the city, several people suddenly sprang out and surrounded them.
It was another robbery.
Zhu Shen’s face instantly turned pale, and he consciously took out his steel bar and stared at them.
Unfortunately, his small frame was not taken seriously by the robbers. A man with a centipede-like scar from his forehead to his eye squinted at their backpacks, “Finally out, hand over everything you found inside.”
Zhu Shen tightened his grip on the steel bar, his expression serious.
He was waiting for Chu Yian’s signal to attack.
