Chapter 4: Chu Guang and His Lollipops
Two hundred years ago…
To be exact, in 2125, a war broke out on this prosperous planet. Both sides were determined to wipe each other out and they used nearly every means they had at their disposal.
The war lasted only three years, but that was enough to wipe out everything on the surface of the planet. The long nuclear winter almost extinguished the flames of civilization, and both sides successfully dug a pit and buried the other. Ever since, a Wasteland Era that was more depressing than the Great Depression began.
Although two centuries had passed since the apocalyptic battle, and nuclear winter had more or less ended more than a century ago, mankind was far from returning to the top of the food chain. The proliferation of nuclear weapons, biological weapons, and even genetic weapons caused the planet's ecosystem to evolve in a particularly extreme direction.
Those so-called mutants were the main threat faced by survivors struggling in the ruins of the world. The weird wolfdog with two heads that Chu Guang first ran into was one of them.
They were different from ordinary species, but these differences came as both strengths and weaknesses. Deformed creatures like wolfdogs with two heads born from the mutation when exposed to gamma rays weren’t that strong. There were a rare few wolfdogs who got lucky with the mutation jackpot, but the rest were often weaker than before.
In comparison, Crunchers, Creepers, and other creatures whose mutations were caused by biological weapons to the point no one knew what creatures they used to be were the true monsters who had adapted to killing.
Their nervous systems were eroded by mutant fungi and they usually hid in ruins, sewers, subways, or other dark and dank facilities during the day. They would only emerge when night fell to look for food.
The situation in the suburbs was much better than in the city, especially in the outer suburbs.
Over the past five months, the most dangerous mutant that Chu Guang had encountered was only a mutant brown bear. Although it was strong, its reaction time was relatively poor. Chu Guang was able to carefully avoid it before it noticed him.
The faint light of dawn passed through the holey concrete wall, and together with the shadow of steel scrap, it fell on the street below full of car remains and gravel.
It was eight o'clock in the morning and there was a twelve-hour time difference between the world Chu Guang was in and his previous world.
Watching two mutant hyenas wandering on the street, Chu Guang clenched his fist around the sharpened water pipe as he carefully skirted around them to the back of the ruins. He might be confident in killing both creatures, but there was no need to get into unnecessary trouble. Besides, these beasts were clever and even knew to use their kind as bait; no one knew how many of them were hidden in the shadow of the ruins nearby.
Following a path through the ruined streets, Chu Guang felt a wave of relief wash over him when he saw the amusement park sign on Baker Street.
Baker Street housed a relatively large survivor settlement in the area, where more than a hundred families had taken up residence. Before the outbreak of the war, it used to be where children hung out. There was even an amusement park in the area and a massive lawn.
After the war, it was designated as a temporary shelter by the military and they attracted a large number of citizens who fled from the urban area of Clearspring City.
No one knew what happened to those refugees, but more than two hundred years later, Baker Street had turned into some sort of small town where people built shelters on the bare muddy ground with discarded plastic boards, rain sheds, wood, and metal brackets.
The scene greatly resembled the game Frostpunk.
The wall of the amusement park was a natural barrier; it had been through a bunch of rough repairs. Wooden boards laden with nails and wire could be seen around the walls.
In the center of the amusement park was a five-story medieval castle, which looked like it came straight out of a fairytale….
Well, maybe it could be considered a nightmarish fairytale at that point. The paint on the surface had long since fallen off, and most of the wall on the side facing the city center had collapsed, leaving only half a wall and a solitary tower on the northern side.
Despite looking dilapidated, it was still the most luxurious building on Baker Street. It was also where the mayor lived.
Chu Guang had lived on Baker Street for five months, but he had never met the mayor. He was a mysterious person and rarely showed himself.
"Hey, you came back early today." Old Walter, smoking his smoke pipe, narrowed his eyes when he saw Chu Guang coming from the corner of the street. Faint white smoke came out of his nose. He was holding a double-barreled shotgun in his hand. The gun looked old, but it was wise not to underestimate its power.
Chu Guang once saw with his own eyes the old man fire just two shots to kill a mutant brown bear that had rushed the gate of Baker Street. Since then, he had been eager to get his hands on a weapon like that.
"I spent all night outside."
"Outside?" The old man glanced at the sharpened water pipe Chu Guang was holding, his eyebrows raised in surprise. No one knew how dangerous the night was better than him.
Every time he was on night shift, his finger wouldn’t leave the trigger. Even the rustling of grass would cause him to tense up.
Although the mutants in the outer suburbs were not as dangerous as those in the city, there were too many raiders out there. Falling into their hands would not be much better than dying in the jaws of mutants.
Old Walter didn't quite believe that Chu Guang had actually spent the night out there peacefully with only a steel pipe.
"I ran into an accident." Chu Guang didn't explain. He simply gave Old Water a tired look before entering the gates.
There was only one recycling station on Baker Street, which was easy to find right next to the main entrance of the settlement. Under the rolling door lay an old-fashioned electronic scale that never gave an accurate measurement, and beside it stood a board that stated, "Fair Prices, Fair Trade."
The shop belonged to the mayor and was also the only place on Baker Street that bought scrapped parts and mutant skin. In order to monopolize the garbage-picking business, this dictator even enacted an arbitrary law that stated that no one was allowed to sell their captured prey and scrapped parts to any passing caravans.
His reasoning was that it was necessary to ensure that the goods on Baker Street could be sold at a reasonable price, rather than being conned by cunning merchants. It helped that the survivors were just ignorant enough for him to get away with such unreasonable rules.
The average caravan wouldn't risk offending the mayor by going to scavengers to buy the little poor supplies they had, anyway. They only operated on a large scale and only dealt with those they trusted.
"Are you selling, or are you here to buy something?"
The shopkeeper was a fifty-year-old man named Charlie. They said he used to be a resident of a shelter in another province. He was later arrested and worked as a slave until the mayor bought him from his owner. He was given the task of dealing with scavengers.
Most of the residents here were natives of the wasteland and were raised without an education. Their math abilities were terrible, to the point that they regularly made mistakes even with simple addition and subtraction, but Charlie was different. He was someone who lived in a shelter in the past.
Although no two shelters in this wasteland were exactly the same, one thing was pretty much the same everywhere: Everyone who lived in one was an elite member of a pre-war society. Those children not only inherited their parents’ smarts, but they also received a good education from the time they could learn. If it weren't for this world being so terrible, Charlie would have probably become an engineer, a doctor, or a scholar just like his parents instead of keeping accounts in such a small refugee settlement.
"I’m here to sell."
Without beating around the bush, Chu Guang took out six used batteries from his backpack and threw them on the tray of the electronic scale along with five tubes of adhesive. That was what he found in the wreckage of some nearby buildings before he found Shelter 404.
Old Charlie picked up the empty battery on the table, checked the model and whether it was damaged or swollen, and threw it on the scale beside him. They were definitely going to be scrapped, but the material inside was still good enough for recycling.
"The quality is alright. The garbage in this area should have been cleaned up by now. Where did you get good stuff like this?"
Can I even call these good stuff?
"I got lucky."
"Hehe, I’m just asking. Mhm, the battery is good, but the quality of the adhesive is average. The seals have been removed and I doubt that they can be recycled, so I can only give you half the value… the total adds up to three chips."
Chu Guang didn’t bargain with him and took the three white chips from the man.
Those plastic coins with a metallic texture were the currency issued by Boulder Town, the largest survivor settlement in Clearspring City. They could be exchanged for food and supplies in most survivor settlements under the jurisdiction of Clearspring City. The face of the chip had the value printed on it, and the back had a special anti-counterfeiting code and print, which would shine with a special luster under sunlight.
There were some advantages to using the chips. They were resistant to heat, easy to store and identify, and most importantly, practically impossible to counterfeit with post-war technology.
Small and medium-sized survivor settlements like Baker Street, which were small in population and lacked any industrial capacity, mainly did business with caravans from Boulder Town. They would trade agricultural products and prey, and collect garbage in exchange for necessary living supplies and weapons. Naturally, the currency would also circulate around Baker Street.
Of course, it wasn’t as though they were able to use those chips all the time. If the caravan didn't come, the prices of goods in the settlement would rise and fall. The mayor also tried to implement Baker Street’s own currency, a book-keeping ticket, but no one bought into it. Even the survivors of Baker Street knew that the scrap paper couldn’t even be used to wipe their asses, making it no better than garbage.
"Would you like to buy something? A new batch of goods from Boulder Town just arrived."
Chu Guang, who was about to leave, stopped and asked, "Do you have guns?"
"You couldn’t afford it even if we had one." Old Charlie grinned, looking at Chu Guang who was about to leave, and continued, "But there is some food and fuel. If I were you, I would definitely buy now before the price goes up."
Even the cheapest gun was difficult to get a hold of in places like Baker Street. When a caravan selling arms passed by, they would typically end up in the mayor’s warehouse and wouldn’t be placed on shelves for anyone else to purchase. Besides, as Old Charlie said, even if there was such a thing, it was not something that a scavenger like him could afford.
Chu Guang knew exactly why he said that.
As a well-educated shelter resident, Charlie would not fail to see that all the survivors living on Baker Street, whether they were scavengers or hunters, were being exploited by the mayor's family, even if the mayor never reached out himself to take their chips away from them.
"Are the prices of food and fuel going to go up?"
Looking at the surprised Chu Guang, Charlie smiled faintly. "Didn’t you notice? The temperature has been going down recently, but the mutants outside have only become more active."
Chu Guang frowned. He thought for a moment and said, "Is winter coming?"
"I remember you only came here five months ago, so you may not have experienced what happened. In previous years, it would be snowing around this time. But maybe it will start snowing in October this year…” Charlie paused for a moment and said meaningfully, "Winter is coming. Whether you’re a human or a mutant, it is best to make preparations in advance."
When Chu Guang first came to Baker Street, he was wearing a blue coat. Charlie figured him to be someone from a shelter, so he didn’t treat him badly. Although the treatment had never been reflected in the cost of their transactions, the old man did help Chu Guang by drawing from his own experience from time to time. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to adapt to life on the wasteland so quickly.
Chu Guang nodded seriously. "I see, thank you."
"You're welcome." Charlie smiled lightly. "Don't die."
It was already early September. If it was really going to snow in October, Chu Guang only had a little more than a month left to prepare.
For the survivors living in this area, snowfall was definitely not something to be happy about. It meant that in addition to food, they also had fuel to worry about.
…
The vast majority of people made a living by picking up scraps and hunting, and the nearby farms only needed people during the busy harvesting season. In winter, picking up scraps would only get more and more difficult, and no one would be able to predict whether items buried under the snow were recyclable waste or the fangs of mutant mice.
Animals like wild deer and rabbits would also go into hiding during winter.
The hardest part of winter was that the caravans wouldn’t come by anymore. Even if one managed to find good scraps, they could only be piled up at home and sold the following spring. That, or one could decide to venture to Boulder Town ten kilometers away. As the largest settlement of survivors in Clearspring City, the market there would remain open in winter.
However, its location was along the third border of Clearspring City. It was close to the northern district, and countless dangers hid along the way.
Traveling there in winter where the temperature could reach minus ten degrees was akin to suicide!
…
After leaving the recycling station, Chu Guang went back to his home. It wasn’t so much a home as it was a shack that could barely keep out the rain. He didn’t even have a decent door or window.
Up till the day before, he had still thought about saving some cement and PVC boards he had found to seal up the leaky wall before winter arrived. It seemed as though it was no longer necessary.
Taking out a rusty aluminum box from his moldy sleeping bag, Chu Guang strained to break it open and spread the plastic coins hidden inside onto the half-rotting wooden table.
A total of forty-seven white chips, each with a face value of one point, lay on the rotting wood. With the three coins he had just received, he now had fifty! He had been saving frugally, bit by bit, so that one day he could leave this damn place and move to somewhere nice in Boulder Town.
But now…
He developed a completely new plan. Since he could establish a place of his own, there was no need to remain on Baker Street!
"The ruins of the nursing home above Shelter 404 can be used, and the surrounding walls around the building are all concrete structures… If players can really come to this world, then they can collect material nearby. Reconstruction wouldn’t be too difficult.”
"There’s a marsh nearby, and it’s not likely to find metal scraps there. However, the surrounding vegetation is still lush, so there should be no shortage of material to burn. Plus, the wood can also be used to repair the buildings and make some furniture… axes! Yes, I’ll have to buy four axes."
Hunting monsters and leveling up? No such thing!
After all, he had already said it was a 100% realistic game. Since it was a game on hardcore settings, it was only right to start them with the most basic work!
"Shovels and saws, I’ll also need some of those!"
Before the players logged in, Chu Guang had already figured out how to set them up.
Of course, besides the tools he also needed food. Once the nurturing cabins were activated, they would immediately consume the active matter already stored in them to synthesize clones for players. After all, those clones needed to eat!
Though the clones could lie in the nurturing cabins and stay dormant at a lower metabolic level while the players were offline, it was impossible for them to lie down all the time. People had to eat as long as they were alive. That was an eternal truth!
"I’ll have to reserve at least enough food for five adults for a week… Assuming that everyone would need to eat one wheat biscuit a meal and two meals a day, I will need seventy wheat biscuits."
Wheat biscuits were the most common food on Baker Street, and he could exchange for two of them with one chip. These biscuits were generally palm-sized and very hard. They tasted like soil mixed with sand, but they could fill the stomach and provide a little bit of electrolytes needed for the human body. They could also be made into a paste by cooking them in a pot.
Seventy biscuits would be worth thirty-five points. Even if he haggled on the price, he would need to spend at least thirty chips. His savings were far from enough to sustain him in the long term.
Chu Guang furrowed his brow, but he soon relaxed. He had made the problem more complicated than it needed to be. There wasn’t any reason for the players to eat well. If he replaced the wheat biscuit with the raw materials for making wheat biscuits, he could buy a kilogram with only three chips! Hoarding five kilograms of green wheat was more than enough to feed himself for two weeks!
As for the other problems, he would cross that bridge when the time came.
"I’ll just prepare this much for now..."
After storing the chips in his backpack, Chu Guang put it back on. Even though he hadn't slept all night, he was feeling excited. It was almost as if he had found the meaning of life again and didn't feel the least bit tired.
When he opened the sorry excuse of a door and went outside, he saw a little girl squatting at the gate of his neighbor’s house, shooting him a curious stare.
Chu Guang recalled that she was called Yu Xiaoyu, and she was the youngest daughter of the Yu Family.
Most of the survivors of the wasteland were emaciated, with sallow complexions, the youngest daughter of the Yu Family being no exception. Her small arms and legs were as thin as reeds. It was hard to imagine that she was even old enough to get married.
Seeing that Chu Guang noticed her, she walked out of the house confidently.
"I heard some noises coming from your house, so I was just checking to see what happened…"
Every day at dawn, the men on Baker Street would go out to pick up scraps or hunt while women, children, and the old and weak generally stayed at home to look after the house or do small tasks to try to earn some extra money.
Even though everyone was poor and there was nothing valuable worth stealing, no one wanted other people to break into their houses when they were away.
The person known as Chu Guang came from outside their community. He left early and returned late, and rarely communicated with his neighbors.
She didn't know much about him. The only thing she could tell was that he didn't look like someone who could endure much hardship. Everyone was wary of him at first, and her mother even told her to beware of the stranger, but Xiaoyu didn't think he was a bad person.
Once, he gave her a bowl of the soup he made.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome, I can help you take care of the house when you are away." She blinked and added happily, "I'm idle anyway."
Poor child. If she were in the other world, she would still be in school.
Not wanting to offend the girl, Chu Guang hid the look of pity in his eyes before taking out a lollipop. He stuffed it into her hands.
"Take this. Feel free to eat it. Just don't tell anyone that it came from me. If you do, it’ll be the last thing I give you," Chu Guang whispered.
She’d never seen food like that. Yu Xiaoyu took a bite of the wrapping paper and realized that she had to tear it open.
After taking off the wrapper, she looked at the red fruity ball stuck on the plastic stick before cautiously licking it.
This… What is this taste?!
It’s so sweet!
With little stars shining in her eyes, she raised her head happily to thank him, but he was already gone.
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