Chapter 68: Virtually Zero Useful Information
Watching the Commander across from her, Long Ya’s thoughts churned with complex emotions.
She felt no different from anyone else surviving in Seed City.
Ten years of cataclysm had ground the old civilization into rubble.
A peaceful life felt so distant it might as well have belonged to a past life.
Lost family, cherished memories—they had all long since burst like fragile bubbles, dissolving into the endless dark with a quiet pop.
They surfaced only in the occasional dream.
Under the corrosion of the emerald mist, the once-stable federation had degraded into its present state.
The authorities still enforced order.
Those who committed crimes within the walls found themselves staring down the black muzzles of the guards’ rifles.
Those who refused their mandatory labor service met the exact same fate.
Everyone had to step beyond the high walls.
It didn’t matter what your profession had been before the fall, what history you carried, what honors you had earned, or what kind of life you once led.
Inside these gray stone walls, everything was wiped clean.
Only the salvage brought back each day proved a person’s worth.
There was no comfort, no emotional refuge.
Still less was there any talk of hope or a future.
It was hard to say whether the people felt simple fear, bitter hatred, or desperate reliance toward the authorities.
Ten years was simply too long.
Across those grueling ten years, the populace had denounced the administration’s impotence, sparking uprisings and protests large and small.
The collapse of the federation, a chaotic and fleeting spell of lawlessness, factions rising only to be snuffed out.
The current system—the Three Great Cities presiding over the frontier outposts—had been hammered together amid that sheer madness.
Countless lives had bled out into the soil over the years, citizens and officials alike.
The cost humanity had paid to stumble this far was agonizingly steep.
No matter which side of the line you stood on.
Twenty frontier outposts had dwindled to four as humanity fell back behind safe zones.
Inside the walls, the timber shacks continued to empty out.
Every frontier outpost was shrinking in scale.
Ordinary scavengers and Awakeners, rulers and subjects, clung to the exact same driftwood adrift on a stormy sea.
Delicately, precariously sustaining the current balance.
Disappointment, rage, agony, trust, dread, supplication.
Hurled against the high walls, none of it produced so much as an echo.
Before the raw demand of survival, sentiment was a luxury.
You simply endured.
Every last one of them.
Even though everyone knew in their bones—the high walls formed a perimeter of safety, yet they were steadily draining the life out of everyone trapped inside.
Still, letting go of this piece of driftwood and walking away from the walls meant being swallowed whole by the apocalypse.
Unless.
Unless a sturdy, seaworthy vessel suddenly appeared upon that tempestuous sea.
…
“Commander, I’ve told you everything I know. I really don’t know anything else.”
Long Ya sat on a round stool in the center of the room, one leg braced against the floor.
Her posture broadcast a faint, restless irritation.
An overseer stood guard on either side of her.
Opposite her, the silver-haired man in uniform was flanked by two city guards.
Just as Long Ya had anticipated, these uniformed officials had first interrogated her regarding the precise details of yesterday’s incident when the iron black wheat went wild, then pressed her on why the toxic corruption on her and Number 86 had begun slowly receding.
She laid all the credit at the feet of the injection the field medic had administered.
All the while, her mind was racing: if the overseers had used this interrogation as a distraction to toss their dormitories, turned up physical evidence, and brought it in to confront them… she would truly be out of moves.
She’d have to resort to sheer rambling nonsense.
Yet they hadn’t pressed further.
The moment Long Ya insisted she knew nothing more, she watched Commander Yves lean over and murmur a few quiet words to the guard beside him.
The guard then spoke: “Very well. You may leave.”
He signaled for the overseer to escort her out.
That… was it?
Stepping out of the room, Long Ya let out a quiet, inward sigh of relief.
Evidently, Auntie Qian and the others hadn’t sent anything in today; otherwise, they would have walked straight into an ambush.
The food smuggled in yesterday was easily enough to last several days for a single person.
Once inside the Black Fields Quarantine Sector, communication became strictly one-way.
Outside deliveries were permitted through the overseers, but face-to-face contact was barred.
Long Ya understood Auntie Qian’s reasoning well enough.
Sending in several days’ worth of food at once was far better than making daily drops.
Daily visits drew too much attention.
Had she been on the outside, she would have done the exact same thing.
Auntie Qian and the crew had no idea what had transpired inside the Black Fields, so they likely wouldn’t return for the next couple of days.
Conveniently, after an incident like this, the brass was bound to keep a tight leash on her and Number 86.
She needed to keep her head down and act completely normal.
…
“Commander, we intercepted the parcel sent for Number 87 from outside earlier today. It indeed contained anomalous items. Why did you refrain from interrogating her face-to-face just now?”
Keith asked.
At 6:20 PM, right against the deadline before the city gates shut, someone had approached the perimeter of the Black Fields Quarantine Sector with a drop for Number 87.
According to the overseer on duty, the courier was not the same person who had delivered the parcel yesterday.
Yesterday it had been an older woman; today it was a younger man.
The man had even rambled an explanation, claiming that yesterday had only been clothing, while today’s drop was a freshly patched quilt. Hearing that the Black Fields were frigid, he worried his sister might freeze.
He was far more talkative than yesterday’s courier, and had even tried palming five City Coins to the guard.
The duty officer refused the bribe, confiscating the parcel in accordance with standing orders from high command.
Moments later, the bundle was laid out across the desk in the Black Fields administrative office.
The folded, thick quilt looked ordinary enough at first glance. Once spread out and the side stitching carefully sliced open, however, the contents extracted from the lining sent a shockwave through everyone in the room.
—Four wrapped roasted sweet potatoes, four paper bags of chestnuts roasted through some unknown method, three wrapped ears of corn, and two containers of rice porridge packed in plastic tubs.
Every single item was completely devoid of any trace of emerald corruption.
They were all nestled amidst batting cobbled together from scrap cloth, mineral wool fibers, and ragged garments.
In the apocalypse, an ordinary citizen’s bedding was largely made of such refuse.
The fortunate could sleep beneath pre-cataclysm cotton quilts, while the destitute stuffed whatever scrap materials they could scrounge inside to keep out the chill.
Had they not been specifically looking for anomalies, this might genuinely have slipped right past them.
Alongside the food, a slip of paper was tucked into the quilt.
Across it sprawled a wild, crooked chicken scratch.
Misspelled words and crossed-out attempts mingled in chaotic harmony, looking at first glance almost like an encrypted cipher.
The officials had to expend considerable effort just to decode the text:
—Ya-ya, Auntie Qian said she wasn’t gonna send you anything today, but the Boss rolled out new grub. Thought about it and figured I’d bring it to you anyway.
Paid for all this out of my own pocket, earned with my own blood and sweat, so no need to get too weepy.
Work hard in there, and your big bro will make bank out here. By the time you get out, I’ll probably be a tycoon, haha. Don’t be too gealous (crossed out) jelous, bro’s looking out for you. If you’re too broke when you get out, bro will bale you out.
Oh right, Gerry said the folks in the Black Fields are real nasty. Don’t go picking fights in there. If you gotta fight, keep it to a minimum, don’t wanna get slapped with convict status. And fix that fowle mouth of yours, stroke someone into an early grave and it won’t look good.
Guess that’s enough, send you more next time. Lost a whole afternoon of work just to bring you this, had to head back early to sow the quilt and pack the goods, nearly kilt me.
Haven’t written in forever, real rusty. Bro’s gonna practice, next time I’ll give you a proper rundown on how all the gourmet food tastes, haha.
—Long Shi.
Having strained their eyes to decipher the note, Yves and his guards stared at the paper in dead silence: “?”
How did someone manage to write that much text and have it consist entirely of utter nonsense?
Virtually zero useful information.
