Chapter 3: How Could This Be

Seeing Xia Qing stay silent, Feng Wen got out of bed, wandered to the door, and reached to rummage through the grain sack she had brought back, but Xia Qing got there first and pressed it down with her hand.

Feng Wen gripped the sack and wouldn't let go. "This much food will go bad before you can finish it—what a waste. Give me half, and I won't take it for nothing. How about this: if you really survive and grow something, give me thirty percent, and I'll have my brother run errands for you. Deal?"

Feng Wen clutched the grain sack tight, looking smugly at the smelly woman before her, who lived even more slovenly than a man. "My brother is a triple-speed Evolver."

Xia Qing looked up coldly. "Can't afford it. Let go."

A scent Evolver couldn't beat a strength Evolver. Feng Wen, unwilling to let go, stared greedily at the grain sack and threatened, "Xia Qing, don't be ungrateful. My brother is with the Sufeng Squad—outside the Safe Zone, he has plenty of ways to kill someone. You really think being a quadruple-strength Evolver is something? Three ordinary men could beat you to death!"

Xia Qing, carrying the grain sack and canvas bag, glanced back. On her filthy face, a pair of black-and-white eyes shone especially bright. "If Tang Lu finds out you like Yang Jin, and that your brother secretly resells Sufeng Squad intel, how many days do you think you siblings will last?"

Having said that, Xia Qing no longer paid any attention to the pale-faced Feng Wen, and walked out of the suffocating dormitory building feeling refreshed. Before she'd gone far, she heard acquaintances at a nearby street corner planning to rob her.

"One haul today is enough to eat for two months. Careful not to kill or cripple her—our four brothers need her to keep us fed."

Listening to the disgusting lewd laughter, Xia Qing, carrying sacks in both hands, stepped forward a few paces and stopped at the street corner, facing the four ordinary men who meant to rob her.

This is… a fat sheep delivering herself right to their door?

Zhao Jie froze for a beat, then shouted "Go!" in excitement and lunged at Xia Qing.

A quadruple-strength Evolver woman's strength was on par with three strong young ordinary men. The four of them had pulled this stunt dozens of times over five years—sure thing, easy pick…

"Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!"

Zhao Jie's trembling, excited hand hadn't even reached the grain sack before Xia Qing kicked him flying into a wall, and he crashed down onto his good buddy.

No…

Zhao Jie stared in terror at the dark, thin woman before him. Impossible—how could this be?!

The groups of people lying in ambush on both sides of the road, emaciated to the bone, were stunned by Xia Qing's casual kick that sent four big men flying, and didn't dare make a move.

Feng Wen, standing at the third-floor window of the Evolver dormitory, gaped as she watched Xia Qing walk through the danger zone carrying her things with ease.

"Xia Qing, sis! Here, let me carry that for you!" Zhong Tao, who had been craning his neck at the Safe Zone gate, finally saw the person wearing the green tag marked "Xia Qing" on her chest. He jogged over to take the half-person-tall canvas bag from her right hand, but nearly got yanked off his feet by the bag's weight.

That heavy?!

Xia Qing steadied the canvas bag and handed the grain sack in her left hand to the overly familiar Zhong Tao. "Brother Tao, what are you doing here?"

The sixty-plus-jin grain sack, Zhong Tao lifted it with ease. "Our squad took an escort mission for the territory people. Which patch did you get, sis? I'll take you there."

People came and went at the Safe Zone gate. Xia Qing only vaguely replied, "North of the city."

"You got it!" Zhong Tao led Xia Qing to a light truck, opened the door and greeted his buddy in the driver's seat, then told Xia Qing to get in. "This one's heading north of the city. Sis, hop up front and chat with your Brother Kui for a bit. Once we're full, we're off."

"Thanks." Not having to sit in the truck bed getting bounced around and eating dust, Xia Qing certainly wouldn't refuse. She greeted the driver Zheng Kui, then easily hoisted her canvas bag onto the truck, stuffed it in front of the passenger seat, and sat in the passenger seat hugging her grain sack, waiting to depart.

Once she was settled, Zheng Kui pulled out a small tin for tobacco, rolled a cigarette with a cut piece of old book paper, and handed it to Xia Qing. "Have one, sis. This is triple-Evolved tobacco—great for perking you up."

Most survivors after the Catastrophe lived for the moment—cigarettes, alcohol, sex ran rampant. Xia Qing didn't say she didn't smoke, just waved it off. "This tobacco's too strong, I'm not used to it. You have it, Brother Kui."

Women liked Evolved tobacco that smelled fragrant. Zheng Kui struck a match, lit up, and took a deep drag. "Which patch did you get?"

"Plot Three." Xia Qing hadn't had a casual chat with anyone in a very, very long time. Seeing Zheng Kui not respond, she added, "It's a hundred and twenty kilometers north of the city, by Longpan Reservoir—a pretty small reservoir. You might not have heard of it, Brother Kui."

Zheng Kui blew a puff of smoke out the truck window. "That's a nice spot. Not far from the regiment base."

"Mm." Xia Qing's voice carried an unmistakable cheerfulness. One of the reasons she'd picked Plot Three was that it was close to the military base—if danger came up, she could call for help nearby.

After the thin hand-rolled cigarette was finished, Zheng Kui asked another question. "Just you alone?"

Xia Qing nodded. "Mm. Alone is peaceful."

Having been cooped up with two million people in a tiny Safe Zone for nearly ten years, Xia Qing would have gone stir-crazy long ago if she hadn't been able to get out for a breath of fresh air on missions.

"Out of 1.8 billion people, only a little over a hundred million are left. Outside the Safe Zone, there's nobody anywhere—just beasts." Zheng Kui's voice was heavy, and he casually rolled another cigarette and stuck it in his mouth.

Hua Nation was already the country with the highest survival rate on Blue Star after the Catastrophe; many small countries had been wiped out entirely. Xia Qing silently gazed at the ten-meter-tall reinforced concrete wall of the Safe Zone—at the large patches of dried, dark-red bloodstains, and the scorch marks and cracks left from repeated battles between humans and beasts—and said nothing more.

"Miss, I've finally found you!" The man who had been queued behind Xia Qing at the territory office ran up to the truck and greeted her warmly. "I'm Zhao Ze. I got Plot Four, so we'll be neighbors from now on."

Plot Four was east of Plot Three—the next-best option in Xia Qing's mind. She glanced at the dozen-plus people behind Zhao Ze, staring fixedly at her grain sack, and gave a slight nod. "Xia Qing."

Xia Qing's attitude was cold, but among Evolvers it already counted as decent. Just as Zhao Ze was leaning against the window trying to get chummier, Zhong Tao came over with a group of people and hurried them onto the truck. "Everyone get on. Any more dawdling and we won't reach the spot before dark."

Zhao Ze and the others scrambled noisily into the truck bed. Once Zhong Tao climbed up and sat between Xia Qing and Zheng Kui, Zheng Kui floored it and the truck lurched forward.

The once extensive road network before the Catastrophe had long been destroyed by strong acid rain and Evolved plants. The road the truck traveled now was a dirt path cleared bit by bit over the past few years, and with the truck bed carrying quite a few people, once they left the flat stretch near the Safe Zone, the speed dropped. They set out from the Safe Zone at ten in the morning and only stopped past five in the afternoon under the signpost at the edge of Plot Three.

After watching the light truck head back, Xia Qing, the last passenger, picked up her sacks and ran wildly through her fields for a while. Tripped by a tree root, she flipped onto her back, lay there staring at the sky and giggling foolishly for a bit, then scrambled up and ran toward her dwelling.