Chapter 52: “Are You… Mugging Us?”
“What a surreal feeling,” Shelley mused. “Carrying takeout back home… feels like something from a past life.”
“That era feels so far away. Honestly, even now it feels like a dream… I almost doubted whether that Chinese Restaurant just now was real. Only seeing these containers in our hands makes me believe it,” Turner said, glancing at the two bags of roasted potatoes he held.
“Just what kind of person is that Boss Ling…? She doesn’t seem like an Awakener at all. Her eyes and skin don’t have a speck of unusual color,” Luo Xianghuai remarked.
“A hidden master, most likely,” Quick replied. He was carrying the Malatang skewers, and the savory aroma wafting through the bag was nearly enough to make him swoon.
“Amazing, right? That protective dome of white light! All those delicacies! And that mysterious, formidable Boss Ling! When I passed out in front of her shop yesterday and woke up, I thought I was in heaven!” Hall chimed in, gleefully clutching his bag of roasted sweet potatoes.
“And another thing! The mutant bull-lion that chased me yesterday was taken out by Boss Ling! She didn’t even have to raise a finger—she just rode her tricycle straight up to the C-rank mutant, and whoosh, the monster was obliterated into thin air!”
“For real?! Was that Boss Ling’s Awakened ability?”
“I don’t know if it’s an ability or some godlike power!” Hall was practically overflowing with admiration for Ling Jing. “She’s incredibly powerful and kindhearted. Last night, she even let me sleep on the benches outside her door! Otherwise, I’d probably be pushing up daisies by now. Someone that benevolent is basically a god!”
“True enough. Her shop even accepts items for City Coins…” Shelley recalled the scenes she had witnessed inside the restaurant. “Even if she chose not to reveal where she came from, she clearly harbors no ill will toward the people of Seed City.”
Zhou Xue spoke up: “Since Boss Ling preferred not to say, we shouldn’t pry.”
“Understood.”
“Got it.”
“Keep your guard up. We’re taking the long way around outside the perimeter wall. Even though we’re currently in the safe zone, dangers can still lurk anywhere,” Zhou Xue cautioned, taking point at the front of the group.
“Yes, ma’am!”
Hall answered briskly, then asked, “Carrying all these provisions, we should head back into the city first, right?”
“Yes. We’ll drop the food off back home first.”
“Then why aren’t we taking the West Gate?”
Shelley shot him a look. “You didn’t return within the walls last night. Care to guess whether your name is still on the city’s active clearance roster?”
“Uh… good point.” Realization dawned on Hall.
He had completely overlooked that.
Population control within the city was exceptionally strict, enforced through nightly roll calls in the quarters and daily logs at every gate. This was not only to keep an exact count of the living population, but also to monitor which sector outside the walls suffered the highest casualty rates.
Furthermore, every resident had a mandatory civic obligation to serve in the Black Fields. Leaving Seed City without official clearance to head for another frontier outpost was forbidden, as no other city would accept undocumented runaways. This was a standardized policy across all four frontier outposts.
Someone like him who failed to return overnight had almost certainly been written off as a casualty and reported up the chain.
Getting through the gates would indeed be a headache.
“Then if we enter via the North Gate… can I actually get in?” Hall asked.
“Keith is on gate duty at the North Gate today, and he knows our situation,” Zhou Xue explained. “You’ve awakened an ability. Coming back alive from outside the walls is a boon for Seed City. Once I explain the circumstances to him, it should be simple enough to restore your name to the register.”
“Ah, gotcha.”
“However, we need to get our story straight.”
“What do you mean?” Hall asked blankly.
“Captain, you don’t want them knowing about Boss Ling?” Shelley grasped Zhou Xue’s intention immediately.
“Yes.” Zhou Xue cast a glance behind them. “It appears the Commander is still in the dark regarding what’s happening outside the West Wall. If keeping a low profile is Boss Ling’s intention, we should respect it.”
…Though Dark Star was ostensibly in a cooperative partnership with the Commander, Zhou Xue constantly felt the suffocating weight of being manipulated.
The decision of whether or not to report their names to the Three Great Cities rested entirely in Yves’s hands; every time she entered his office, the Commander never failed to bring it up.
Zhou Xue despised having the fates of every Awakener in her organization dangling by a thread under his control.
What was more… the prior round of forced, rushed awakenings that had cost so many comrades their lives had driven an irreparable wedge between her and Yves.
She understood rationally that Yves was acting for the survival of Seed City, but the people who had perished were companions she had fought alongside for years.
In her head, she knew the dire crisis left little room for sentiment, but in her heart, she could neither forgive Yves nor herself.
The greater good. Those who ceaselessly preached about the greater good…
If they learned of Boss Ling and the Chinese Restaurant, would they move against her in the name of that same “greater good”?
Zhou Xue could not anticipate what choice Yves would make, nor did she dare gamble on it.
Who could say whether the people currently earning honest coin and savoring real food at the Chinese Restaurant would ever get to keep that life once the dice were rolled?
If the administration discovered a third party offering exchange rates far better than their own, or realized someone out there could produce untainted food, how would they react?
Zhou Xue didn’t know.
Even if word of the Chinese Restaurant would inevitably reach Yves’s ears as more and more people found out, the ones who leaked it should not be those who had just received her grace.
“Hmm… then let’s say Hall miraculously slipped away from the C-rank mutant last night, holed up in the safe zone until dawn, and crossed paths with our search party this morning,” Luo Xianghuai suggested.
“That works. An Awakener holding out in the wild for one night is plausible enough,” Shelley agreed, nodding.
With a few quick words, they hashed out a cover story about Hall navigating peril after peril in the dark and surviving by absorbing crystals.
Once the alibi was settled, Shelley asked, “We can’t just carry all this food through the gates out in the open, can we?”
“Stash it in our rucksacks,” Luo Xianghuai said.
Fortunately, two of the six were carrying packs.
Shelley and Luo Xianghuai emptied out their gear—field essentials meant for culling hunts: strips of cloth for makeshift bandages, water flasks, spare gloves, and assorted odds and ends.
Once the packaged dishes were all secured inside the rucksacks, Turner couldn’t help asking, “Captain, will this food pass the gate sensors?”
“What are the items explicitly forbidden from entering the city?”
“Any and all mutant flora, fauna, and seeds.”
Ever since Awakeners from the Three Great Cities erected the blue barriers at the gates, the guards had stopped manual pat-downs. That was because the blue barrier could effortlessly detect any tainted flora or fauna from the wasteland.
“The barrier triggers based on the presence of toxins and emerald contamination,” Zhou Xue stated.
Every time she carried beast cores or plant cores back into the city, the barrier would flash crimson. The guards, pre-briefed by the Commander, would conduct a brief check and clear them through.
Having been the first among them to awaken, she understood the mechanics of the gate barriers far better than the rest.
“Boss Ling’s food is completely devoid of contamination. It won’t trigger an alarm,” Zhou Xue said with absolute certainty.
The moment the words left her mouth, her senses flared, and she whipped her head around.
“Ha! You guys sure move fast!”
A pack of men leaped out from behind a nearby outcrop of boulders. “Thinking you could hide the goods, huh?”
“I saw it! They crammed it all into their packs!” one of them yelled.
“Listen up, toxic strays! This is a stickup! Speak up—do you want to get beaten half to death before handing over the food, or hand it over first and then get your beating?”
“Don’t be so crude,” another man chided as he stepped forward, a few strands of fiery red hair slipping out from beneath his face cloth. He eyed Zhou Xue and her squad with a smug sneer. “We’re not common bandits. Consider it your bad luck running into us today, but I’ll give you a way out. Hand over all your food and valuables, and I’ll let you join our gang. How about it?”
Zhou Xue and her squad: “?”
Hall tilted his head, genuinely bewildered. “Are you… mugging us?”
