Chapter 185: Any Man Who Gets Within a Foot of Me Must Die

At four in the morning, deep in the night.

The temperature kept dropping.

No one knew exactly how cold it was now—they just knew that in five years on the wasteland, they had never felt this cold before.

Outside the tents, the new laborers were curled up in tight balls, shivering. At first, they tried to negotiate softly, but soon their voices turned to pleading.

So many people begging eventually woke up the old folks and pregnant women camped by the canal.

Cao Lingyun, irritable as ever, crawled out of his tent and kicked at the old laborers—the first batch of men captured from Scarface’s group.

“Are you done yet? Can’t you act like human beings?”

The other old folks in the tents chimed in,

“Yeah, weren’t you all brothers in the same team before? Why can’t you even take in a few people?”

“You did all sorts of bad things before, but your hearts are still this hard?”

“Exactly, exactly.”

A chorus of criticism echoed along the canal.

The old laborers, with no other choice and under pressure, reluctantly unzipped their tents.

Each tent took in one or two people.

Among this group of old laborers, two had not taken part in the first escape attempt.

One of them, Yang Wenyao, scowled and grumbled at his former teammates,

“What did I do to deserve knowing a bunch of idiots like you?”

He’d always been a nobody in Scarface’s crew.

If you wanted to talk about evil deeds, he really hadn’t done any.

He never bullied men or women.

But in a world like this, if he tried to stop his teammates from doing bad things, he’d probably be the first to get beaten to death as a warning.

When he was captured and forced to work, he just kept his head down and did what he was told.

When it was time to eat, he ate.

When Luo Yupeng and the others plotted to escape, he kept quiet—didn’t snitch, but didn’t join in either.

Now, he just wanted to mind his own business and not worry about anyone else.

But after his former teammates finished cursing everyone out and completely offended Shi Yuebai, they came to fight over his tent.

Yang Wenyao felt a deep sense of injustice.

With a cold face, he let the man into his tent, then wrapped himself tightly in two quilts.

He had two hot water bottles inside the blankets.

He didn’t give a single one to his old teammate.

As soon as the guy got in, he zipped up the tent, finally sheltered from the snow, and let out a huge sigh of relief.

But when he turned around, he saw Yang Wenyao bundled up like a silkworm cocoon.

The old teammate tried to snatch a quilt,

“Damn it, you’re using both quilts? Are you trying to die?”

Yang Wenyao snapped. He couldn’t take it anymore and punched his old teammate in the face.

“Trying to take my tent, huh?”

“Trying to take my quilt, huh?”

“You’re the one looking for trouble!”

The beaten man tried to fight back.

But he was no match for Yang Wenyao.

Lately, Yang Wenyao had been eating food with zero radiation and doing hard labor every day.

He’d gotten stronger without even realizing it.

Anyone qualified to join a big city team was already in decent shape.

With no radiation in his food, his body was getting healthier by the day.

Cao Lingyun stood outside, kicking the tent,

“Yang Wenyao, keep it down. There are old folks and women here.”

His tone was less irritable now.

He didn’t even tell Yang Wenyao to stop fighting—just to keep it quiet.

So Yang Wenyao landed a hard punch, knocking his old teammate out cold.

Then he found a rope and tied up the new laborer’s hands behind his back.

He had no choice—it was really late, and everyone needed to sleep, himself included.

Shi Yuebai had assigned them a ton of work. Without sleep, they’d have no energy for the next day’s tasks.

Yang Wenyao was also afraid that if he fell asleep, the guy in his tent would try to slit his throat.

So he tied his hands behind his back.

The situation in the other tents was pretty much the same.

Only a few tents ended up with actual fighting.

Gradually, the tents along the canal quieted down.

The next day, at 8 a.m., it was still dark.

Cao Lingyun banged a gong to wake everyone up.

“Get up, get up! Some of you need to clear the snow, or you won’t have hot water for your bottles tonight.”

Everyone got up one after another. Cao Lingyun called out to Yang Wenyao,

“Yuebai wants to see you. Come with me after breakfast.”

Da Jiao wore her hair in two braids and a brand-new pink vest embroidered with big floral patterns.

The collar, cuffs, and hem of the vest were trimmed with white rabbit fur.

She wore a pale yellow pleated skirt and pulled a cart behind her.

The path from the ditch to the canal had been leveled and paved with stone slabs.

The slabs were made by Pang Ziyuan with his mechanical arms.

He could make anything now—he could even play cat’s cradle with Da Jiao while wearing the mechanical arms.

As soon as Da Jiao, so pretty and lively, appeared, she caught the eyes of many new laborers.

A man approached her, deliberately breathing into her ear,

“Hey little girl, what’s for breakfast today?”

Da Jiao turned around, looked at the man standing less than a foot away, and blinked her big, bright eyes.

“Auntie said, any man who gets within a foot of me must die.”

As she spoke, she pulled a dagger from her sleeve and stabbed the man beside her.

This was the knife her aunt had given her.

Everything Auntie said was right.

From the moment she could understand the world, Da Jiao’s worldview had been shaped by her aunt—her aunt was her ruler!

Her aunt was the sky for all of them, their faith, their one true god.

The stabbed man doubled over, clutching his stomach, and staggered back in disbelief.

He looked at Da Jiao’s innocent, sweet face, completely unaware of how terrifying her actions were.

Da Jiao said, “Why did you get so close to me? See, you’re bleeding so much—you totally deserve it.”

The man raised his bloodstained hand, trembling as he pointed at Da Jiao.

Yang Wenyao and the other old laborers, old folks, and women all witnessed this scene.

They couldn’t help but curse, “Idiot!”

Shi Yuebai had managed to bring them here to dig dirt without anyone noticing.

That alone proved she was extraordinary.

If you paid attention, you’d see that all the kids around her were unusual.

Don’t be fooled by Da Jiao’s pretty looks, her innocent, pure demeanor, as if she didn’t know the dangers of the wasteland.

In reality, she and her sister Xiao Jiao had their entire worldview twisted by Shi Yuebai.

They might seem naive and silly.

But if you tried to take advantage of that, even a little—

No way.

“Not my problem. You can suffer. If you die, we’ll just bury you and plant vegetables over you.”

Da Jiao grinned, wiped the blood off her knife with a clean cloth, and slipped it back into her sleeve.

With a sweet smile and a soft, girlish voice, she called out,

“Breakfast time! Everyone, line up nicely. If you don’t behave or cut in line, you’ll get stabbed too!”

[Author’s note: Spent the whole morning and noon fixing the printer. The more I fixed it, the worse it got. Had to call customer service and send it back.]"