Chapter 167: Highway Entrance
Huai Yu started feeling sad as well.
She regretted digging deeper, but Uncle Zaozi, after a moment of silence, was surprisingly calm:
“I had two kids before, but later they both went to the wasteland… Little Yu, you’ve got a lot of good stuff, so you must know quite a few capable people.”
“If we keep a good relationship, when someone you know goes to the wasteland, help keep an eye out for me.”
“Back when everything was fine, I even complained that cemetery plots were too expensive. I thought, once you’re dead, it’s all meaningless anyway, and ashes can be put anywhere… But now that I’m older, I kind of want to leave something behind for the kids.”
Huai Yu nodded seriously and promised solemnly:
“Uncle Zaozi, I also have someone very important to me in the wasteland. When I have the ability, I’ll go too!”
“I’ll definitely keep an eye out then!”
Uncle Zaozi was surprised—after all, Huai Yu looked like a frail young woman, yet she had such bold ambition!
No wonder she dared to live in the Rose Corridor…
He pedaled harder, riding fast:
“Good! Whatever you want in the future, just tell me!”
“I haven’t rubbed shoulders with many big shots over the years, but I do have a lot of connections.”
Huai Yu wasn’t shy at all:
“Then… Uncle Zaozi, do you know where I can buy eggs or piglets?”
Uncle Zaozi: “…I know.”
Before Huai Yu could get excited, he quickly added:
“But you can’t afford them, and you can’t get them.”
“Resources are scarce now; everything is centrally and scientifically farmed by the Livestock Institute, and nothing is allocated to individuals for now.”
“At the institute, eggs are strictly controlled to ensure hatching rates. Even the unfertilized ones are specially supplied, so they don’t come our way.”
“Chicks are a bit easier because some die early, so a few can be smuggled out—though at a steep price of 250 points! It’s really risky.”
“If you weren’t living in the Rose Corridor, it wouldn’t even be safe.”
“But piglets are a no-go! They’re heavy right from birth. You’ll have to wait a bit longer. Our country’s livelihood progress is moving fast now; in two or three years, it might open up.”
Uncle Zaozi was pretty optimistic:
“Think about it—compared to the six years of disasters before, isn’t life getting better now?”
Huai Yu: “…”
Hard to answer.
Because life had been tough since she woke up! And now hearing it’ll take two or three years just to raise a pig made it feel even tougher.
As they chatted along the way, the night wind blew and stars twinkled. Uncle Zaozi, panting, biked for another 20 minutes until a run-down highway entrance appeared ahead.
“Tch, all of this was smashed up before by wild overgrown plants. It was a huge job cleaning it all up!”
“Luckily, they patched it up enough for vehicles to pass. Otherwise, we’d have to make a huge detour through the wasteland—national roads are in even worse shape!”
Knowing Huai Yu came to broaden her horizons, Uncle Zaozi kept chatting as he pushed the bike, then expertly wheeled it onto a patch of grass and locked it. He spread a burlap sack by the roadside:
“Come on, rest for a bit. No cars yet.”
After sitting on the bike for over an hour, even though the seat had been modified, Huai Yu’s butt was sore.
She secretly rubbed it and wandered nearby:
“Are all these people like us?”
On both sides of the wide highway entrance, plenty of people were sitting or lying around—it looked like a small market at first glance.
The difference was that no one was setting up stalls here; it was more like a queue of scalpers.
Uncle Zaozi nodded:
“Lots of people who haven’t found jobs they like just come here to try their luck. After a while, they get good at spotting opportunities. They also get familiar with certain fleets and can still earn a bit.”
“After all, many small teams, or individuals in big teams, want to offload goods quickly for points. They rely on these folks.”
Uncle Zaozi gave an example:
“Take Chen Xing—at first, she had no experience and thought she could sell her stuff for a good price.”
“And you know that pile of junk, right? Once it’s collected, it gets sold off here. Everyone crowds around and splits it up. Prices aren’t high, but at least the stuff moves quickly.”
He pointed out the scattered tricycles parked nearby—not motorized or electric, just old-fashioned pedal trikes, but great for hauling stuff.
Huai Yu stared longingly, really wanting one herself.
But after thinking carefully about the distance from Rose Corridor to downtown, her enthusiasm quickly faded.
—She couldn’t seriously pedal a tricycle full of goods to the city, right?
Her legs would break, and by the time she arrived, it’d be dark!
She looked away just as Uncle Zaozi continued:
“…But she insisted on selling herself and didn’t realize a trip to the wasteland would mean needing a long recovery… All that pile of junk in your shed is her tuition over the years.”
Uncle Zaozi laughed:
“There’s quite a bit of good stuff in there, right?”
Huai Yu happily nodded:
“Yeah! There’s a spatula, a salt jar! A grater, expired dish soap…”
All sorts of things, though none of particularly high quality.
Uncle Zaozi’s judgment was sharp—those items, if sold, would be the kind of common second-hand goods most easily bargained down, making the transaction process drag out.
But anyway—
“Sister Chen Xing has been gone a while now. Will she be back soon?”
Uncle Zaozi thought for a moment:
“She brings kids along who are still pretty young, so she’s generally not too reckless—usually, a week’s trip is about right.”
Seeing Huai Yu looking eagerly toward the station, he quickly added:
“But don’t worry. There’s no navigation now. She can afford a phone, but the signal’s always cutting in and out…”
“If everything goes smoothly, she might be back in less than a week.”
“If there’s little to collect and plenty of supplies, staying out 10 days or half a month is normal.” Normal, though not common for small teams.
If it really was 10 days or half a month, then probably…
“In any case, explorers, right? High risk, high reward. I’ll show you around tonight, and when I have time, I’ll come keep watch. If I hear anything, I’ll tell you.”
Huai Yu nodded.
At that moment, from the direction of the station, two beams of headlights shone over.
Huai Yu’s eyes lit up:
“Uncle Zaozi! A car’s coming!”
Uncle Zaozi jumped up from the ground, grabbing his sack and sprinting forward—after a couple of steps, he noticed Huai Yu hadn’t moved yet, so he rushed back to pull her along.
Not just him—the group of people who’d been lazily sitting or lying around now surged forward like grannies storming a supermarket for discount eggs.
On the other side of the highway entrance, defense soldiers waved to stop the car, and several vehicles behind were quickly surrounded by the crowd—
“It’s Zhao Senlin’s team—”
“Whoa! They’ve been out more than half a month, haven’t they?”
“Look at all that stuff in the truck bed?!”
“Wow! This trip’s a jackpot! Looks like everyone’s cashing in—Captain Zhao! Captain Zhao! It’s me, Old Li, from when we worked together before…”
