Chapter 701: The Soil That Breeds Chaos (3/3)

Chapter 701: Soil Breeding Chaos (3/3)

The more complex the machine, the more finicky it is about its working environment; truly durable, perhaps only the mosquito-sized aircraft produced by Goblin Tech could be considered.

Maybe...

They should hire a few NPCs to do this.

As this thought crossed the mind of 【Shan He Ru Meng】, he noticed several pairs of gleaming eyes staring at them through the crack of the half-closed window.

He glanced at 【Ling Chong】, who was attuned to perception, and the latter shook his head.

"No killing intent."

Shan He Ru Meng walked to the door and raised his hand to knock.

The door soon opened, and a wrinkled face peered through the gap, its terrified eyes filled with unease.

"Sir?"

"We're sheltering from the rain for a bit."

With that, Shan He Ru Meng pulled out a one-hundred-value Xilan note and pressed it into the hand of the old man, whose face was etched with disbelief.

"Th... thank you." The old man stammered his gratitude, stepping back to make way.

The room was dimly lit, but just barely visible.

In a space less than ten square meters stood a table cluttered with pots and pans, and behind it hid those pairs of dark, glistening eyes.

They were children around eleven or twelve, with sallow skin and dirty faces, both boys and girls, each wrapped in a piece of cloth stitched with flax fibers, as if torn from a whole curtain or bedsheet.

Staring at the gleaming exoskeletons and the rifles hanging at their chests, the children's faces showed both fear and a hint of curiosity.

They had never seen these iron-clad men before, and they felt these people seemed even more imposing than the soldiers carrying rifles.

Two slightly older girls, their faces marked with fear and anxiety, quietly climbed the ladder to the upper floor at their mother's urging.

A flicker of reluctance passed through Shan He Ru Meng's eyes, but he said nothing, merely standing with his three teammates at the doorway to avoid the rain, trying not to disturb the family's life.

Thus, they faced each other in silence, with only the patter of rain outside the window.

After a while, perhaps feeling that these "iron men" weren't so frightening, and unable to see their eyes through the visors, the adults and children in the room gradually stopped paying them any mind.

Except for the three women who had gone upstairs and not returned, everyone else gathered around the table, scooping out fist-sized lumps of mud from an iron basin filled with reddish-brown sludge, spreading them flat on the table into pancake shapes.

The old man muttered something under his breath, reached with his mud-covered hand into a basket beside him, and grabbed some crushed wild vegetable leaves, pepper powder, and cardamom powder, sprinkling them one by one onto the mud cakes.

The players standing at the door exchanged glances, involuntarily swallowing saliva, and whispered in the communication channel:

"Is this... dirt?"

"Probably."

"Damn..."

"Looks like nutrient paste is better after all."

"But they have seasonings."

Shan He Ru Meng said nothing.

He remembered reading in Sisi's post that north of Golden Harbor lay a vast expanse of red soil.

That red soil was completely different from what they usually called "kaolin" in both color and composition, seemingly artificially modified. Though nothing could be grown on it, after boiling, filtering out the sand and gravel, and draining, it could be eaten directly.

The local poor would mix in some plant fibers and seasonings to make it less unpalatable.

Of course, while eating this artificially modified mud wasn't as dangerous as eating kaolin, it was impossible to subsist on it seven days a week.

Most of the lower classes in Golden Harbor relied on black beans and a chickpea-like but larger legume as staples, supplemented by various berries and wild vegetables. Their main source of protein came from insects and freshwater snails.

As for "mud cakes," they were merely a supplement when times were tight.

In short, because the area lay at the junction of tropical and subtropical zones, situated on the alluvial plain along the Eternal River, food sources were relatively abundant.

That was why this settlement could accommodate so many people—far exceeding the land's carrying capacity.

But the survivors living here merely existed, with even less dignity than the cattle in the barns.

At least only outsiders could eat those cows.

Before long, the old man finished his ritual of sprinkling seasonings, and the mud cakes on the table had become semi-dry.

He picked up a few cakes, placed them in a palm-sized bowl, and handed them to the eldest child, whispering instructions to take them to the mother and sisters upstairs.

Then he rubbed his hands together and called his family, who were already swallowing saliva, to start their meal.

Ling Chong, standing by the door, couldn't bear it. He took out the compressed biscuits from his backpack, ignored his captain's warning glance, walked forward, and amid the family's panicked expressions, shoved them into the hands of the nearest child, whispering in Common Tongue:

"Eat this."

He knew full well this was meaningless—like stuffing gold coins into the home of a destitute NPC, changing nothing.

But he did it anyway.

No special reason; wasn't playing a game all about achieving peace of mind?

Shan He Ru Meng shook his head but said nothing. Er Liang Yue Guang, standing beside him, quietly gave a thumbs-up.

The little girl, who barely reached the chest plate of his exoskeleton, stared at him with wide, dark eyes through her disheveled hair, then glanced at her father. Seeing no objection, she bit into the plastic wrapper.

When the plastic serrations pricked her lips, Ling Chong quickly gestured.

"You have to tear it open, like this."

The girl hesitated for a moment, clumsily mimicked his gesture to tear open the plastic, and then, after a pause, took another bite.

Instantly, her eyes widened, and a shimmering light seemed to coat them, rolling with a hazy glow.

It was a taste she had never known.

She wolfed it down greedily. Ling Chong looked around, saw no container for water, gritted his teeth, pulled a bottle of water from his backpack, unscrewed it, and handed it over.

"Don't choke."

Sure enough, the girl choked, coughing violently. She took the bottle and gulped down half of it before recovering.

Unlocking his helmet's visor, Ling Chong crouched down, smiled, and reached out to tousle her fluffy hair, speaking gently.

"What's your name?"

"Anuo."

That name sounds like a boy's?

Whatever.

Ling Chong didn't mind and continued smiling.

"My name is Ling Chong. If you ever see bad guys with those long-barreled guns, come find us over there."

He pointed toward the direction of the Lowell camp, where their hundred-man squad was stationed, along with the rebel forces.

Anuo, her mouth full of biscuit crumbs, nodded vigorously, licking her fingers with lingering relish, not sure if she had taken his words to heart.

The other children stared longingly, swallowing saliva, the sticky mud cakes in their hands suddenly losing their appeal.

Thinking he had already given some, why not give to all, Ling Chong pulled out the last few compressed biscuits from his backpack and distributed them to everyone present, including their father—the old man with a face full of wrinkles.

Watching the children wolf down the food, Ling Chong felt a surge of satisfaction, a contented smile spreading across his face.

A few compressed biscuits cost next to nothing, and besides, nobody really ate them—they were just emergency rations carried along as a precaution.

The slightly older boy led his younger brother upstairs, apparently intending to share the delicacies brought by the "Iron Man" with their sisters and mother.

The old man stared at the biscuit in his hand in silence, his face full of worry, as if pondering something.

Finally, as if he had made up his mind, he looked at the smiling Ling Chong with a pleading expression.

"Anuo is too young... pick someone else."

Ling Chong's smile froze instantly on his face.

"What?!"

Erliang Yueguang couldn't help but burst out laughing, clutching his stomach as he leaned against the earthen wall. Shanhe Rumeng, meanwhile, glared at the guy with a face full of black lines, then, feeling embarrassed, averted his gaze.

[Banben Chusheng], who had been silent all along, suddenly shook his shoulders as if coming back to life, and spoke.

"In the Brahmaputra Province, only elders and husbands can touch a woman's head. If she's unmarried, touching her head implies a proposal... I just logged off to check Lao Si's post."

"Damn?!"

Shanhe Rumeng sighed.

"Take him out and shoot him."

Erliang Yueguang, who had been giving a thumbs-up just a moment ago, nodded in deep agreement.

"+1, that's too fucking degenerate."

Banben Chusheng: "...?"

"Wait, I fucking didn't know! That doesn't count!"

Scrambling up from the ground, Ling Chong tried to explain with a mix of laughter and tears, but all three teammates looked at him with disgust.

The little girl named Anuo just kept licking her fingers, indifferent to the babble of voices around her, and didn't understand why her father was sighing.

Her dark, round eyes were fixed straight on the backpack full of goodies, her mind consumed by a single thought.

If only she could have another piece.

Unnoticed, the rain outside the house had stopped.

Just as Shanhe Rumeng was about to lead his three teammates out of there as soon as possible, a gunshot from outside the window suddenly shattered the post-rain stillness.

That was the sound of a Ripper rifle!

The four of them were instantly on alert.

Without even saying goodbye to the family, Shanhe Rumeng shoved the door open and dashed into the street, his three heavily armed teammates quickly following behind.

With the boost from their exoskeletons, the four moved like lightning, and in the span of a single breath, they had spread out in formation toward the direction of the gunfire, setting up their rifles behind cover.

But what they didn't expect was that the group of gun-toting men standing across the street were not their enemies.

They were their own people...