In Mining Town, the cold wind slipped through the gaps of the windows and doors, howling faintly.
By the stove, Lin Tuo looked at the girl biting her lips tightly, refusing to say a word. He felt a bit helpless.
Torture?
He wasn't a villain.
The only reason he came here was coincidence—to find someone who could tell him more about this wasteland. Resorting to torture seemed excessive. But if she refused to talk, then no conversation could happen at all.
"Looks like you don't want to cooperate," Lin Tuo sighed, a touch of disappointment in his voice as he lifted the steel pipe in his hand.
On the floor, Hua Xi immediately tensed, staring at him warily.
Here it comes. So in the end, he really is going to torture me, right?
What should I do?
Speak? Or keep enduring?
A flood of chaotic thoughts rushed through her mind—until, in the next second, Lin Tuo's action stunned her.
Instead of swinging at her, he turned his chair slightly, stopped looking at her, and used the steel pipe to poke at the large backpack on the ground.
Clank, rustle…
The backpack was hard and heavy, filled with things that rattled metallically.
Lin Tuo's eyes lit with curiosity.
After all, when the girl had tried to escape earlier, she hadn't abandoned the bag, and carrying it had clearly slowed her down. Otherwise, she might really have gotten away.
"Zip…"
He grabbed the rusty zipper, tugged it open, and revealed the contents inside.
Lin Tuo's pupils shrank slightly.
The backpack was stuffed full of brand-new weapons and ammunition!
To be precise, most of it consisted of neatly bundled bullets, all of the same caliber. The rounds were icy cold to the touch, gleaming yellow under the firelight.
The bag was filled more than halfway—easily thousands of rounds, by rough count.
Aside from that, there were disassembled gun parts, a few dozen grenades, scopes, and other equipment.
All of it new, with the smell of fresh oil still lingering on the barrels.
This little girl had been lugging around an arsenal.
Lin Tuo gave her a strange look.
"Those soldiers chasing you—don't tell me it was for this? Did you raid their armory?"
"I did not! These were unclaimed! I found them first!"
The fierce little girl looked genuinely indignant, snapping back at him.
"Not stolen? Doesn't look that way to me…" Lin Tuo tossed a bullet back into the pack, then pointed at the food she had dug out from under the bed. "Isn't this stealing too?"
Hua Xi froze, at a loss for words.
After a long pause, she muttered weakly, "That was all exploited from others. I'm just taking from the rich to help the poor."
Her stomach cramped again with hunger, making her wince and close her mouth.
Lin Tuo didn't press further. Instead, he curiously examined the food.
Most of it was preserved meat, and some strange vegetables and roots he had never seen before—likely mutated plants that had survived the wasteland.
But what really caught his attention were the foods that carried the air of the "old era."
Honey sealed in a glass jar. A bottle of liquor with its label long gone… and—
"Canned food?"
Lin Tuo picked up a sealed tin, rubbing the surface clean. The logo was still faintly visible.
Checking for a production date and comparing it against the "Doomsday" timestamp from the Evolution Sand Table's log, he realized—this can had been produced before the destruction.
In other words, it had been preserved for decades.
Which only confirmed his suspicion: these foods had survived from long ago.
But how long ago exactly? Since the Mad Emperor had triggered the cataclysm, how many years had passed?
Grrrrllleee…
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a growling stomach.
He turned to look at Hua Xi and couldn't help but smile.
"Seems you really are starving."
"I'm not hungry!" Hua Xi snapped defiantly, turning her head. But her stomach betrayed her again, rumbling loudly.
The tense atmosphere in the room suddenly felt… awkward.
"You want food? Answer my questions, and I'll give you some," Lin Tuo said, smiling wider.
When Hua Xi still refused, he set aside the can. Who knew if it was still edible after decades?
Instead, he opened the jar of honey, poured some into a metal bowl, and warmed it over the stove.
He even tasted it himself—clicking his tongue in surprise.
Then, he used an iron skewer to roast some dried meat and tubers that resembled potatoes over the fire.
Soon, a faint but tempting aroma spread through the room.
To be honest, Lin Tuo had no appetite—he had just eaten hotpot not long ago. But on this wasteland, these foods were clearly luxuries.
That much was obvious from the starved, skeletal refugees he had seen in the square.
Finally, under the silent contest of wills, Hua Xi broke.
"I'll do it!" she blurted out, gritting her teeth.
"What was that?"
"I said you can ask me whatever you want! Just give me food already!"
Lin Tuo chuckled.
"Good. I'm a fair man. For each question you answer, you get one bite. Fair, isn't it?"
"…Fine."
"Then my first question: what year is it now? Or rather, how many years has it been since the disaster that destroyed the world?"
Lin Tuo leaned back in his chair, voice serious.
???
On the floor, Hua Xi's expression turned strange.
To her, the question was absurd. But it was also something not everyone in the wasteland could answer.
The mutated, the lowest refugees—they might not know.
"It's year 31 of the Cataclysm. At least… that's what everyone agrees on. So, I guess it's been 31 years since the old era."
"You're not sure?" Lin Tuo asked.
Clutching her aching stomach, nearly fainting from hunger, she admitted honestly:
"I didn't live in the old era. How could I know for certain?"
Fair enough. Judging from her age, she was no older than her mid-teens. If it had been thirty years, then she was a native of the wasteland era.
Or as these people called it—the Cataclysmic Era.
Lin Tuo nodded to himself. Thirty years… not surprising. The ruins of the town already suggested as much.
"I answered. Now give me food." Hua Xi couldn't resist reminding him.
Snapping out of his thoughts, Lin Tuo passed her the skewer.
She didn't even care that it was hot. Her body's regenerative ability had already burned through what little food she had left in her stomach. She was on the brink of collapse.
She opened her mouth and bit down—wolfing down an entire half-cooked mutant potato in one bite.
Chewing just a few times, she tried to swallow, only to choke and roll her eyes.
"Seriously… how long have you gone without eating?"
Lin Tuo winced, quickly pouring her a cup of boiled water. Though murky and unclean, it was at least drinkable.
"Cough… cough cough…"
Once she recovered, Lin Tuo pressed on:
"Second question. What is human society like on this continent now? I mean—how many people are left? Who rules? Are there still industrial facilities running? Or is everything gone?"
That one was far more complex. Hua Xi didn't even understand it at first.
After several rounds of Lin Tuo rephrasing, she finally managed to piece together what she knew.
And with his own deductions, he began to form a picture.
In short: the wasteland was slightly better than he feared—but not by much.
According to Hua Xi—
After the Great Cataclysm, the environment collapsed. Life withered. Cities of the old era fell silent.
Many western cities crumbled entirely. Those farther from the "epicenter" fared slightly better, but the global industrial system was irreversibly destroyed.
Mass death. Lost knowledge. Energy surges that fried all electrical systems. In mere years, human civilization fell back by centuries.
To survive, people looted stored food. Which led to riots, then wars.
Those stockpiles allowed humanity to survive the darkest years—at a cost.
The scramble for food cost them the chance to rebuild industry.
Then the climate cooled, radiation clouds blanketed the land, and the survivors faced a new wave of calamities.
The "Annihilation Bombs" killed countless normal lifeforms. Yet some mutated, adapting to survive.
Animals changed first—growing fiercer, bloodthirsty, competing with humans for scarce resources.
Then humans themselves began to mutate.
Most suffered diseases—insanity, rotting skin. Their children were often deformed… but still, they lived.
A minority, however, changed in the opposite way.
Their bodies grew stronger—faster, tougher, more enduring. Rarely falling sick.
Outwardly still human, but clearly evolving toward something more—superhuman.
Their children sometimes inherited these "favorable mutations," and a few were even born with extraordinary abilities.
Thanks to them, humanity managed to cling to survival in the wasteland.
Some powerful figures adopted the old "corporate" model—recruiting followers, seizing half-ruined cities, and driving unmutated refugees to scavenge relics of the old world.
Exploiting whatever could be salvaged.
They tried to restart production with decades-old machines—but rebuilding true industry was beyond them.
Knowledge was gone. Without understanding the principles, they could only repurpose leftovers for crude production.
And so, gradually, the wasteland stabilized into a tripolar balance of power.
Three great factions rose:
The Burning Flame Company
The Grey Mountain Group
Doomsday Floaters
Hua Xi, of course, belonged to the last.
(End of Chapter)