Chapter 26: Starting Today, This Place Belongs to Us
The next morning.
Long Ya heaved a massive sack of sweet potatoes off her shoulder, twisted her wrists to tip it over, and dumped the entire load straight into the Item Exchange Box.
Clatter, clatter, clatter—
She bent down to scoop up the City Coins; judging by the sound, it was quite a haul.
“Thirteen? Whoa, you really packed that sack full.”
Having just finished his own exchange, Long Shi sauntered over to eyeball the cash in her hands, even helpfully counting it out for her.
“Jealous?”
“Hell yeah! Auntie stitched that giant sack for you last night, didn’t she?”
“Yep, holds way more than the old one.” Beaming, Long Ya tucked the coins into an inner pocket of her clothes. “Though… it still seems like more than I expected.”
“Look, there’s new writing up there.” Long Shi pointed toward the instructional placard beside the Item Exchange Box.
“Unit recycling rates increased by 5%?” Long Ya glanced over. “The boss is way too generous!”
“Naturally. Did you really think it was just because you hauled more spuds?”
Long Ya didn’t even waste breath on his cheekiness, planting a solid fist right into his chest.
“Ow, that hurt!”
“If it didn’t hurt, why would I hit you?”
Grinning, Long Ya unhooked the canteen from her hip, unscrewed the cap, and took a hearty swig.
Then she bent down, scooped up the burlap sack, and prepped to make another run.
With the recycling payout bumped up, she felt even more motivated.
Time to bust her back! Come lunchtime, she was going to splurge on a bowl of that one-pot hodgepodge stew all for herself!
She thought eagerly, drinking in the mouthwatering aroma of the miraculous boss cooking nearby.
Hm?
Long Ya’s gaze swept across the distance, catching sight of a large crowd marching this way.
They were coming from the direction of the city gates.
Over the past two days, more and more people had been flocking to the miraculous boss’s stall by the day.
Especially today—Long Ya had spotted plenty of unfamiliar faces that hadn’t been here before.
No doubt the folks who returned to the city last night had quietly tipped off quite a few others.
It was still early morning, yet at least thirty or forty people were already digging for vegetables over at the farm.
Adding those currently in line here to trade or buy food, there were easily nearly sixty people gathered, weren’t there?
By noon, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a hundred.
Seed City was the least populated of the Four Frontier Cities, currently housing fewer than five hundred souls in total.
People trickling over from the gates was nothing unusual now.
Yet this particular crew gave Long Ya an uneasy feeling.
Their bulky builds, the way they moved in tight formation, and the scavengers running ahead of them who kept looking back over their shoulders before sprinting toward the stall at top speed…
Long Ya narrowed her eyes.
She spotted the red bands tied around their arms.
“What are you staring at so hard?” Long Shi had traded for a roasted potato at some point, chewing away as he gave Long Ya an annoying nudge with his shoulder.
Long Ya didn’t bother joking around, merely jutting her chin forward. “Mad Dog’s men.”
Long Shi’s grin vanished instantly, his eyes tracking the line of her gaze.
…
“This is the place?”
“Yeah, that patch of white light!”
“Quite a crowd,” Aulier remarked with his hands shoved in his pockets.
He trailed behind Rong Na, leading thirty-four heavily armed men as they advanced toward the white light in an imposing display of force.
When they first stepped outside the walls, quite a few toxic strays had looked at them in wide-eyed shock.
Now, those strays were either trailing cautiously far behind or sprinting toward the safety of the white light, glancing back over their shoulders with every stride.
Tsk, pathetic cowards. Trash.
Serves them right to sit and rot in this apocalypse.
Reaching the edge of the white light, they reached out a hand to test the boundary.
There was no resistance; their hands slipped straight through.
It felt just like air.
Interesting indeed.
Rong Na eyed the white light and stepped inside.
Sure enough, just as Pat had reported, there wasn’t a trace of emerald mist here.
Most of the people within the perimeter had pulled down their face cloths, either munching on food or chatting merrily.
Yet the moment they looked his way, every face contorted with sheer terror.
Rong Na relished that look.
From the day the world ended until now, he always had.
Before the stall, the cheerful chatter steadily dwindled to a hush.
Those who noticed tugged at the ones who hadn’t. As every eye turned toward the newcomers, the lively “Chinese Restaurant” fell dead silent.
It was like a homeroom teacher suddenly barging into a rowdy, unsupervised study hall.
Ling Jing only looked up when she noticed her customers’ voices dying down.
The moment she raised her head, she saw a large group of men sporting red armbands.
The man in the lead pulled down his face cloth, revealing a face carved with pure brutality.
He drew in a deep, lung-filling breath of air, then arched an eyebrow. “Fine place.”
The moment the words left his lips, the thugs flanking him moved.
Six or seven stepped up to the line waiting for roasted sweet potatoes, roughly shoving people out of the way to take the front.
After eyeballing the food laid out on the counter, one turned back and called out, “Right on the money, Boss. It’s roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes.”
“What the hell are you doing?!”
Before Rong Na could speak, Rhodes, the middle-aged man shoved hard onto the ground, shouted in protest.
Seeing him speak up, the bystanders found their voices as well.
“There—there’s a line here! You can’t just ignore the rules!”
“Rules? You’re talking to us about rules?” The red-haired Aulier sounded as if he had just heard the funniest joke in the world.
The thugs around him burst into a loud, mocking chorus of laughter.
“Alright, we don’t feel like wasting energy beating your asses. If you know what’s good for you, get the hell out. Starting today, this place belongs to us,” a thug standing beside the red-haired man barked.
He carried a long, brown wooden crate strapped to his back.
“You—you bastards are crossing the line!!”
Hearing the thugs tell them to clear out, those who had been too intimidated to speak finally piped up.
Through all these bitter years of the apocalypse, they had scraped by from meal to meal in constant, paralyzing dread. Waking to the morning sun brought no hope, only the gut-wrenching terror of whether they would survive to see tomorrow.
At long last, a miraculous boss had descended to save them, offering food to eat and coins to earn. What right did these bastards have to chase them away just like that?!
These lunatics had already seized the entire east side—and now they wanted to stake out the west as their own territory, too?!
“What right do you have to drive us off?! This is the boss’s territory! You—you don’t call the shots here!”
This was a first-timer who had just bought his potato, not even halfway through eating it.
No one was willing to surrender the stable hope resting right before their eyes.
“Push a dog to the wall and it’ll leap! Even a cornered rabbit will bite! Don’t push us too far!”
“Push you too far? We’re giving you a chance to walk away, but you’d rather choke on your own face.”
Rong Na let out a cold sneer.
The thug carrying the wooden case was quick on the uptake, swinging the box off his back and unlatching it in his arms.
Immediately, the crowd watched in horror as Aulier reached inside and pulled out… a hunting rifle?!
“A gun?!”
“What—what are you doing?!”
“Murder? You dare commit murder out here?!”
“Just making sure you all understand who calls the shots from now on.”
Aulier curled his lip, loaded the shells, and handed the firearm into Rong Na’s hands.
Rong Na took the weapon, leveling the barrel squarely at the man who had just shouted about being pushed too far.
The faces of those who had dared talk back to “Mad Dog” turned deathly pale in an instant.
“What are we doing? Seeing whose word actually matters.”
Rong Na sneered with chilling malice.
Clang.
A dull thud echoed out.
It came from the tricycle counter.
Ling Jing had set down her spatula.
