Chapter 17

The black scorpions retreated like phantoms, leaving behind an even deeper chill and the two completely withered mysterious seedlings. Lingna guarded the broken bowl, tears falling steadily as her small hand gently stroked the wilted leaves, as if transferring her own vitality. Lin Mo watched, heart aching, powerless to help—only pouring the last drops of clean water, praying for a miracle.

The immediate priority is Ellie’s crossbow and defense!

Lin Mo suppressed his worries and turned again to the crude workshop. Though Ellie was severely wounded and weak, her experience and sharp eyes remained. Leaning against the wall, she used her still-functional right hand to painstakingly guide Lin Mo in repairing the crossbow.

“Latch… here… use the file… grind it down a bit… yes…”

“Spring… angle’s wrong… bend it back… careful! Don’t snap it!”

“String… new one… use that… mutated lizard’s… main tendon… soak it soft… twist tight…”

Ellie’s voice came in broken gasps, laced with pain, yet every instruction was precise. Lin Mo acted like the most focused apprentice, sweat dripping from his forehead onto cold metal parts; using scrap metal he’d found, he fashioned a crude file and small pliers, and under Ellie’s guidance, he slowly corrected bent components and replaced damaged ones.

Lingna also pulled herself from grief. Knowing she could not help the workshop, she devoted all her energy to the potato field. To her surprise, though the seedlings had withered, the potato sprouts previously nourished by the purple mist seemed more vigorous—their leaves thicker, their green deeper. She tended them with even greater care, as if they were the last hope.

Time slipped away in tense repair and silent vigil. When the last rays of sunset stained the ruins red, Lin Mo finally repositioned the final component and carefully fitted the new crossbow string—made from the lizard’s main tendon, soaked, twisted tight, and coated in animal fat.

He held his breath and handed the repaired crossbow to Ellie.

Ellie took it with her right hand. Though her left arm was useless, she relied solely on her right and her body’s stability to expertly check the mechanism’s movement and string tension. Then, slowly, she raised the crossbow, its pale blue arrowhead pointing toward a discarded sheet of iron outside the shack.

“Click.”

“Shhh!” The bolt became a streak of pale blue light, piercing cleanly through the rusted iron sheet twenty meters away—embedded to the fletching!

Fixed!

Lin Mo and Lingna both exhaled in relief, smiles breaking across their faces. Ellie’s cold lips seemed to twitch slightly—but quickly returned to grim seriousness. The crossbow was repaired, but her left arm was nearly useless; her combat power was crippled. The threat of the black scorpions remained.

“We need… stronger weapons.” Ellie’s gaze swept over several empty bottles gathered in the workshop’s corner, and the half-can of thick, black, mutated animal fat left over from Lin Mo’s earlier ash-burning.

Lin Mo’s mind sparked! A crude but devastating weapon he’d seen countless times in films and games flashed into his thoughts—a Molotov cocktail!

“Maybe… we can make this!” Lin Mo immediately described his idea to Ellie: fill the bottle with fat, plug the mouth with a cloth soaked in fat as a fuse, light it, and throw it—creating a blazing inferno!

Ellie’s eyes flickered with interest! This primitive flame weapon could be more terrifying than firearms in the narrow terrain of the wasteland—especially against massed charges… or dispersing toxic fumes?

No time to waste! Lin Mo sprang into action. Lingna helped clean the glass bottles; Lin Mo carefully poured the thick animal fat into each, leaving only a small space at the neck. Then he tore strips of cloth, soaked them in fat, and jammed them tightly into the mouths. Soon, three rough but dangerously potent Molotovs were ready.

Looking at the three glass bottles, Lin Mo felt a sliver of reassurance. This was their new trump card against unknown threats.

At that moment, from the eastern edge of the depression, the familiar metallic tapping—“tap… tap…”—sounded again, drawing nearer.

It was Anvil! The scavenger had returned!

Ellie instantly raised her crossbow, her eyes icy. Lin Mo gripped his shotgun, now with only two bullets left, signaling Lingna to hide.

Anvil appeared at the end of the path. This time he carried no large backpack—only a small cloth sack. His face still bore paint, but his expression was heavier. He stopped beyond the thorn wall, staring through the spikes: at the newly rebuilt thorn fence, at the withered seedlings by the shack, at the Molotovs in Lin Mo’s hands, then at Ellie’s tightly bandaged—but still visibly twisted—left arm, and beside her, the freshly repaired crossbow, gleaming with pale blue coldness.

“Tch.” Anvil made a meaningless clicking sound. “Seems things got lively after I left. The Mad Dog didn’t get the better of you—and you’ve even tasted the Black Scorpions’ ‘Sweet Dream’?” Clearly, he’d deduced the general situation from the scene and Ellie’s injuries.

“What do you want?” Ellie’s voice remained cold, the crossbow’s tip hovering faintly toward Anvil.

“Trade.” Anvil shook his sack. “Information. For water. Clean water.”

Lin Mo and Ellie exchanged a glance. Information—this was exactly what they needed most.

“What information?” Lin Mo asked, voice low.

“Two.” Anvil held up two fingers. “First: Limp Wolf is furious. The Mad Dog fled back badly wounded, lost three men. Vulture Cliff is gathering forces—twenty or more. Better armed. Their target: this depression… and that little girl who emits purple light.” His gaze flicked toward Lingna inside the shack; she shrank back.

Twenty men! Better armed! Lin Mo’s heart sank.

“Second,” Anvil lowered his voice, a trace of fear in it, “the Black Scorpions. You’ve stirred up a nightmare. They’re not ordinary raiders. They’re hunting ‘Pure Samples’—clean water sources, land that can be purified… and people like that little girl, who can grow things here, even trigger ‘anomalous phenomena’!” His gaze swept again over Lingna and the two seedlings. “The gas earlier was just a test. Their ‘Doctor’… is very interested in you.”

Pure Samples? Anomalous phenomena? Doctor? Lin Mo felt a chill crawl up his spine! The Black Scorpions’ goal was far more terrifying than Blood Claw’s simple plundering!

“Info delivered. Water.”

Lin Mo hesitated, then filled a broken bottle with half a liter of filtered clean water and carefully passed it through the thorns. Anvil snatched it, gulped deeply, and sighed with satisfaction.

“For the water, I’ll give you one more piece.” Anvil wiped his mouth, eyes grave. “Holding this place won’t work. Whether Blood Claw or Black Scorpion launches a full assault, you’re finished. To survive, either abandon this place before Limp Wolf’s force arrives and flee deep into the Rusty Canyon—gamble on luck. Or…”

He paused, his gaze sweeping over Lin Mo’s crude workshop and the three Molotovs, then twisted his mouth into a strange smile.

“…you’ll have to hope your broken little workshop can make something truly terrifying.”

With that, he turned, leaned on his cane, and vanished into the dusk with rapid “tap-tap-tap” steps.

Anvil’s information pressed down like two mountains, suffocating Lin Mo. Twenty-plus elite Blood Claws… and the mysterious, inscrutable Black Scorpions… Hope Outpost was a lone boat adrift in a storm.

Flee? Looking at Lingna’s carefully tended potato field, at Ellie’s injured hand, at the repaired crossbow and the three Molotovs… Lin Mo felt a fierce refusal rise within him! This was their home—built with blood and sweat!

“We won’t leave.” Ellie’s voice broke the silence—calm, yet carrying undeniable force. She looked at her ruined left hand, then at Lin Mo. “Workshop… keep going. Make… things that kill more.”

Her gaze settled on the empty bottles and the remaining fat.

Lin Mo understood. The Molotovs… weren’t enough. They needed more—deadlier weapons.

He looked at the crude workshop, at the piles of scrap metal, springs, screws… a wild, dangerous idea sprouted like weeds in his mind.

Maybe… it was time to try that?