Chapter 7: The Benefits of Purified Water and Old Karl's Greed

The cold wasteland night finally passed. A lead-grey dawn once again grudgingly spilled over the ruins of "Hope Outpost." The deep pits along the rim of the hollow were silent, only the whistling wind sweeping up sand and dust to quietly bury last night's blood and violence.

Lin Mo woke inside the shack, his whole body aching—especially his throat and the wounds on his body, which burned painfully. He struggled to sit up and saw Sister Ai Li already stationed at the shack's entrance, her back to him, watching the outside world like a statue. Her cloak was soaked with dew and dust; clearly she had not slept all night.

"Morning," Lin Mo rasped.

Sister Ai Li did not turn her head, only gave a slight nod. "Water," she said, concise and to the point.

Clean water! It was the cornerstone of their survival and the bond of the alliance. Lin Mo immediately sprang into action. Clutching a metal bucket and under Sister Ai Li's cover, he carefully made his way to the lowest point of the hollow. Sure enough, there was a small puddle of murky, muddy water there, giving off an unpleasant smell.

He laboriously scooped up most of a bucket of filthy water, then swiftly returned to the relatively safe shack. Sister Ai Li stood guard outside, her gaze sweeping sharply across the rim of the hollow—especially toward the west—clearly not daring to relax her vigilance against any possible retaliation from the "Blood Claws."

Lin Mo skillfully assembled the crude water purifier, inserting the intake tube into the bucket of dirty water. As the murky water passed through the filter layers, the clear source of life once again dripped, one drop at a time, into the chipped bowl set out to catch it. Watching those pure droplets, Lin Mo's heart swelled with a sense of accomplishment and security. With this, they had the foundation to establish themselves on the wasteland!

He handed the first bowl of purified water to Sister Ai Li outside. She took it, still with her back to him, lifted one corner of her face wrap, and drank it down quickly and silently. Lin Mo took a few sips himself; the sweet, clear water soothed his parched throat and exhausted body, as if injecting new vitality.

With a relatively reliable water source, the pressure of survival eased a little. Lin Mo began pondering how to reinforce this crude "Hope Outpost." Using strips of cloth looted from the marauders and some relatively tough metal wire he had found, he tried to patch the tattered canvas flap at the shack's entrance, doing his best to make it denser so it could block wind and dust. He also hauled over some relatively flat chunks of concrete and metal plates, stacking them inside the shack to build a sturdier little platform for holding the precious water purifier and bucket.

Sister Ai Li watched Lin Mo's clumsy but earnest busyness without stopping him, only occasionally pointing out some weak point in the defenses, or reminding him to watch for blind spots in the line of sight in some direction. Her wasteland survival experience showed itself thoroughly in the details.

Near noon, the silence of the hollow was broken by a rhythmic metallic tapping on the ground—"tap… tap…". The sound drew closer from afar, carrying a slow, yet unusually piercing clarity.

Sister Ai Li was instantly on alert, her hand-crossbow rising to point at the source of the sound—a path on the east side of the hollow, half-hidden by ruins.

Lin Mo also nervously tightened his grip on the rusty blade.

Soon, a figure appeared at the end of the path. It was an old man wearing a greasy leather apron, his hair grey and sparse, leaning on a metal cane. He looked to be in his sixties, his face a landscape of deep wrinkles; his left leg, from the knee down, was a crude metal prosthesis that made a "tap… tap…" sound as he walked. He carried a bulging large backpack sewn together from various scraps of cloth and leather, and held a filthy cloth bag in one hand. A pair of cloudy eyes rolled about, sizing up the shack and the two people in front of it.

"Yo! New faces?" The old man stopped, a mercenary and false smile spreading across his face, his voice carrying exaggerated warmth. "Someone actually managed to set up home in this godforsaken place? Tsk tsk, not easy! I'm 'Old Karl,' the 'traveling merchant' of these parts, here to provide… uh, necessary help to brave pioneers like yourselves!" He deliberately shook the cloth bag in his hand, producing a clatter of metal parts inside.

A traveling merchant? Old Karl? Lin Mo's heart stirred. The handbook had mentioned that there were indeed peddlers on the wasteland, drifting between survivor settlements and ruins, trading goods and well-informed, but also often extremely cunning.

Sister Ai Li's hand-crossbow remained pointed at Old Karl, her gaze icy, not relaxing in the slightest. "Get lost," she spat out a single word.

"Hey hey, don't be so cold, little lady!" Old Karl didn't seem afraid; instead, leaning on his cane, he shuffled two more steps forward, his cloudy eyes greedily sweeping the inside of the shack, lingering for several seconds on the water purifier Lin Mo had just assembled and which was still dripping. Deep within his pupils, a barely perceptible glint flashed. "This old man came with sincerity! Look—top-grade compressed biscuits! A bit hard, sure, but they fill the belly! And precious anti-inflammatory powder! On the wasteland, that can save your life! And tools! Just look at these lovely screws and nuts!" With a clatter he opened the cloth bag, revealing a few blackish "biscuits," two small medicine bottles with faded labels, and a small pile of rust-spotted metal parts.

Lin Mo's gaze was instantly drawn to those screws and nuts! This was exactly what he desperately needed! With enough parts, he might be able to try repairing things, or even… make some tools? And the anti-inflammatory powder was also vital for his wounds!

"What do you want?" Lin Mo couldn't help asking, a hint of urgency in his voice.

The smile on Old Karl's face grew wider, like a wrinkled chrysanthemum. "Heh heh, the young man knows his stuff! This old man likes straightforward people the most!" He rubbed his hands together, his gaze flicking toward the water purifier again. "In this godforsaken place, what's the scarcest thing? Water, of course! Clean water! I see you two… seem to have some tricks?" His eyes were full of probing and greed.

Lin Mo's heart chilled. This old fox had indeed set his sights on the water purifier!

"We don't have any water to spare," Sister Ai Li cut in coldly, her tone absolute.

"Hey, don't be so quick to refuse!" Old Karl hurriedly waved his hands, lowering his voice with a tempting tone. "I know the rules! Clean water is hard currency! How about this—one bottle of water! Just one bottle! In exchange for this whole bag of lovely parts, plus a compressed biscuit and a packet of anti-inflammatory powder! How about it? Generous, right? You just got here, you need these things to settle in!"

One bottle of water for all this? It sounded tempting. But Lin Mo knew the purifier produced water slowly, every drop extremely precious. And Old Karl's cunning eyes made him very uncomfortable.

"Half a bottle," Sister Ai Li's voice remained icy, brooking no argument. "Only in exchange for the parts and the powder. No biscuits." She clearly valued practical supplies more.

Old Karl's face immediately fell, as if he'd taken a huge loss. "Half a bottle? That's too harsh, little lady! These are all good things! Look at these screws—standard M6, hard to find across these ruins! And this powder, top-quality old-world goods…"

"Deal, or no deal?" Sister Ai Li's hand-crossbow rose slightly, the ghostly blue glow on the bolt seeming to intensify a fraction. The threat was unmistakable.

Old Karl, stung by that cold killing intent, shrank his neck, his cloudy eyes rolling rapidly as he weighed the pros and cons. Finally, he gritted his teeth and put on a pained expression: "Fine! Fine! Consider it this old man doing a good deed today! Half a bottle it is! But… it has to be real clean water! Don't try to cheat me!"

Sister Ai Li looked at Lin Mo and nodded.

Lin Mo carefully filled half a bottle of the filtered purified water into a relatively clean chipped bottle and handed it to Old Karl. Old Karl took the bottle, impatiently unscrewed the cap, greedily held it under his nose and sniffed, then cautiously tasted a small sip. An expression of ecstasy and wild joy instantly spread across his face! He swiftly shoved the cloth bag of parts and powder into Lin Mo's hands, and clutched the water bottle tightly to his chest as if guarding a treasure.

"Heh heh, pleasure doing business! Pleasure doing business!" Old Karl grinned from ear to ear. "If you need anything in the future, just look for me, Old Karl! I live over at the 'Gear Graveyard' to the east, I'll come by every so often!" As he spoke, he leaned on his cane and clip-clopped quickly out of the hollow, as if afraid Lin Mo and the others might change their minds.

Watching Old Karl's retreating figure disappear into the ruins, Lin Mo breathed a sigh of relief, yet felt uneasy. "This guy… can he be trusted?"

"A profiteer. One-time deal only," Sister Ai Li lowered her crossbow, her tone flat. "All he sees is water and profit. News—he might sell to others."

Lin Mo's heart sank. Old Karl now knew they had a Water Method here! That was definitely a hidden danger! But looking at the heavy screws and nuts and the precious anti-inflammatory powder in his hands, the risk seemed unavoidable. He immediately carefully applied the powder to his wounds; a cool sensation spread, and the pain and swelling really did seem to ease.

With parts in hand, Lin Mo's "infrastructure maniac" soul began to burn. Using those screws and nuts and the metal scraps he had found, he clumsily began reinforcing the shack's door frame and that tattered canvas door, trying to make it sturdier and easier to open and close. He also tried using metal wire and a spring he had found to make a simple sound-emitting alarm device to hang at the shack's entrance.

Sister Ai Li watched Lin Mo intently tinkering with those parts, a barely perceptible ripple passing through her eyes. Silently she picked up Lin Mo's rusty blade, walked to the rim of the hollow, and began hacking at some relatively tough, thorny brambles. Her movements were practiced; she soon gathered a large bundle.

"Ring it around," she dragged the brambles to the perimeter of the shack. "Keeps out beasts, and people."

Lin Mo looked at those sharp thorns and immediately understood Sister Ai Li's intention. Working together, they arranged this bundle of thorny brambles in a sparse ring around the shack. Crude, but at least it formed a psychological and physical barrier.

Hope Outpost, under their joint efforts, was bit by bit starting to look like a "home." They had water, simple defenses, and precious parts and medicine.

However, as Lin Mo stood at the shack's entrance looking toward the Vulture Cliff shrouded in grey mist to the west, Old Karl's greedy eyes and the bone-deep chill in Sister Ai Li's voice when she mentioned "Lame Wolf" hung over his heart like dark clouds. The Blood Claws' threat had not been lifted with the disappearance of those three thugs; on the contrary, with the exposure of the water purification secret, it had become even more imminent.

Sister Ai Li silently slid her newly sharpened dagger back into the sheath on her thigh, picked up her hand-crossbow, and began her routine guard patrol. Her figure, set against the bleak ruins, looked lonely and tenacious.

Lin Mo clenched his fists. He had to grow stronger, faster! He looked at the bag of 【Radiation-Resistant Potato Seeds】 and the bottle of 【Basic Soil Improver】 in his system space. Food was another huge survival challenge. Perhaps... it was time to try farming?