I'm Broke!

After replenishing his supplies, Qu Jianlei spent three days finding a relatively safe area to set up camp.

It was on a small rise beside a stream.

There was a fairly gentle flat area atop the rise, with another ridge around the outer edge that blocked outside views.

Back when Qu Jianlei had been down on his luck, he never would have dared choose terrain like this.

But once he had some ability to protect himself, such terrain became quite rare and valuable.

He stayed there for fifteen days, until his body gave a slight tremor. Then he told himself, "Let's call it Qi Refining Stage Level Two."

Another ten days passed. Once he confirmed that the injections no longer had any effect on him whatsoever, he finally let out a long breath.

Over those twenty-five days, he had consumed less than half his food supply, but he was running low on water.

There was a small river nearby, but he did not dare use the River Water. He had not even seen a single living creature in it.

That was also why he had originally stopped by the river—in the Wasteland, rivers in the wild could basically be treated as trenches.

But those days had not been wasted. Not only had he reached "Qi Refining Stage Level Two," his physical condition had also improved tremendously.

Previously, he had probably been around five foot five, thin and scrawny. Now he was at least... five foot nine, right? Some muscle had grown on his body, which had long suffered from malnutrition. Not only was he stronger, but his reactions were faster too.

He was still skinny, though... Nutrition really could not be made up in a single day.

Over the past twenty-odd days, several people had approached from afar. It was hard to say what exactly they wanted.

Qu Jianlei would not make contact with them. Usually, he simply fired a shot into the open ground in front of them. "Get lost!"

His marksmanship was accurate, which was intimidating enough. And firing off a shot so casually proved that he was not short on ammunition.

Qu Jianlei felt that he had handled things rather decently—at least he had not ambushed anyone, right? But it was time to bring these days to an end. Staying too long could easily attract a Behemoth.

More importantly, he had used up quite a bit of his supplies. Though he could still hold out for a while, one should always prepare for a rainy day.

He had had enough of the wilderness. Now that he had a bit of capital, the proper thing was to find a way to make money.

Starting a business empty-handed was difficult, after all. He planned to get a good night's sleep, pack up early the next morning, and then scout out a suitable place to settle and develop.

But in the middle of the night, a faint sound woke him. One of his Alarm Systems had been triggered.

Now that he had the means, he had set up several layers of Alarm Systems, each with different responses.

The current alert was the lowest level—small, slow, and far away.

So the warning sound was quiet, just loud enough for him to hear.

For major threats, a piercing alarm bell was necessary—not only to wake him up, but to intimidate the other party as well.

He picked up his Night Vision Binoculars and took a look. It was a tiny human figure, still five hundred meters away.

A dwarf? Qu Jianlei paused for a moment, then... went back to sleep.

The Wasteland never lacked all kinds of strange people. The odds of encountering a dwarf were actually much higher than on Blue Star.

As long as the other party did not trigger a higher-level alarm, there was no need to pay attention.

Still, it was hard to fall asleep... With an unknown danger nearby, who could sleep soundly? Especially someone like Qu Jianlei, who had little sense of security to begin with. Out in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night—what the hell were you trying to do?

Fortunately, the figure moved a few more steps, then curled up there and barely moved.

Even so, Qu Jianlei slept poorly for the rest of the night, almost constantly hovering between sleep and wakefulness.

As soon as dawn broke, he woke up and began packing his things.

He had lived on that small rise for nearly a month, so packing up was not something he could finish in a moment.

It was not until noon that he was mostly done. As for some consumables... he could not be bothered packing them up.

Three months ago, he would never have left even those consumables behind.

But things were different now, especially with an unknown person nearby.

Still, that guy had actually dared sleep out in the open, so Qu Jianlei could not be bothered caring what kind of freak he was.

Yet as he moved back and forth, he noticed that the figure... might not be a dwarf after all.

He had encountered quite a few dwarves and mutants, so he knew them well enough. This bald figure before him was simply too small and thin.

Adult dwarves and actual children were truly different. Anyone with experience could tell at a glance.

But so what? It had nothing to do with him.

Still, just as he was about to leave, he could not help himself. He walked over and gave the child a kick.

"You alive? If you're dead, say something... I'll bury you."

There was a mandatory rule in the Wasteland: when a Survivor died, they had to be laid to rest in the ground.

First, it prevented Fallen or Mutated Beasts from gnawing on the corpse. Second... there were supposedly other concerns.

The small body rolled over from the kick, revealing a pale, swollen face and a shriveled stomach.

"Purple Flower Lichen poisoning." Qu Jianlei saw the problem at once—he had been poisoned by it himself.

It was just that this child's poisoning was rather severe. If he recovered naturally... he would probably starve to death before recovering.

Qu Jianlei shook his head speechlessly and turned to leave.

However, just as he was about to push his motorcycle away, he stopped again.

After thinking for a moment, he helplessly shook his head and sighed. "Sigh... Guess I'm unlucky."

He returned to the child, squatted down, pried open his mouth, and roughly squeezed a tube of Nutrient Solution into it.

After doing that, he muttered to himself, "It's not that I forgot the lesson from last time. It's mainly because... I can't exactly bury him alive, can I?"

It only took two or three minutes for the Nutrient Solution to take effect, and the child's eyes slowly opened.

Purple Flower Lichen was not very toxic. At most, it caused diarrhea and facial swelling, and the body's own recovery mechanisms could heal it.

But the recovery process naturally required nutrition—at the very least, the person had to be able to endure it.

This child had not so much been poisoned as fainted from hunger. The poisoning was real, but there had long been nothing left in his body to excrete.

So it was perfectly normal for him to wake up so quickly.

Seeing that he was awake, Qu Jianlei took a plastic bowl and poured in some water... about five or six mouthfuls.

Then he added a pinch of salt and said coldly, "Drink."

This would also speed up his recovery. Qu Jianlei did not want to waste a tube of Nutrient Solution only for the other party to fail to pull through and die anyway.

The child's eyes gradually focused. He made a few "ah, ah, ah" sounds, though it was impossible to tell what he meant.

"A mute?" Qu Jianlei paused slightly, but did not care much. There were mutants everywhere, so what was strange about a disability? He assumed the child did not understand why he was being told to drink, so he explained, "Rehydrate."

Whether the child could understand or not was none of his concern.

Unexpectedly, the child closed his mouth and swallowed hard several times before opening it again. "I... I'm not mute."

His voice was extremely hoarse, but if one listened carefully, it was still understandable.

"Oh." Qu Jianlei nodded, still unconcerned. "Not mute. You stutter."

The child swallowed a few more times before speaking again. "I... I don't stutter either."

"Hurry up and drink," Qu Jianlei said, too lazy to argue with him.

After waiting a moment, the child slowly sat up, picked up the plastic bowl, and drank the water one small sip at a time.

Throughout the process, Qu Jianlei merely watched him curiously without saying anything.

Once the child finished drinking, he reached over, took the plastic bowl, turned around, and left.

When he had arrived, he had pushed both the handcart and motorcycle up the rise. Now that he was leaving, he had to push the handcart down first, then the motorcycle.

By the time he pushed the motorcycle down the slope, the child had recovered a bit of strength and was timidly following behind him.

You're getting addicted to free meals? Without looking back, Qu Jianlei said, "Hairless Freak, don't follow me."

The child had no hair, eyebrows, or eyelashes, so Qu Jianlei casually gave him a nickname.

The timid little fellow froze. "That just now... wasn't payment for my life?"

His voice was still somewhat hoarse, but much better than before.

"Why would I buy your life?" Qu Jianlei replied dismissively. "With a body like yours, all you can do is freeload."

The Wasteland did not lack people willing to sell their lives to work for others, but a frail little thing like this was useless even if bought.

Hairless Freak's eyes shifted. "I'm useful, sir."

Qu Jianlei ignored him. After pushing the motorcycle down the slope, he began securing and tying down the handcart.

The child did not say anything either. He simply stood to the side and watched.

After Qu Jianlei finished securing everything, he mounted the motorcycle without looking back and started the engine.

There were quite a few things on the handcart. Though he had secured them, he still should not start off too quickly.

Watching the motorcycle begin to accelerate, Hairless Freak grew anxious and shouted, "Sir, I really am useful!"

"Can't afford to use you either. I'm poor!" Qu Jianlei continued accelerating. He did not want to go through the story of the Farmer and the Snake a second time.

Seeing this, the child truly panicked. "I can pay you!"

Having experienced near death once, he truly did not want to experience it a second time.

At first, he had thought the other party had ulterior motives. He had even suspected that he might become a living organ donor for trafficking.

But at the time, he had no ability to resist, so he could only tell himself: this was still better than starving to death.

Yet step by step, the other party had acted as though... he had simply saved someone for the sake of saving them.

That completely overturned his understanding. Though he was young, he knew the Wasteland deeply.

Playing the saint in the Wasteland... that kind of behavior was truly far too unusual.

More importantly, judging by how the other party had a large cart towing a smaller one, he clearly did not lack resources.

Someone like that could definitely be trusted... at the very least, he would not stoop to harming others.

"Payment?" Qu Jianlei laughed dismissively and twisted the throttle harder.

The least trustworthy thing in the Wasteland was a stranger's promise... If someone could truly afford payment, would they have nearly starved to death? Seeing this, Hairless Freak panicked and took off after him, shouting as he ran, "I know this place very well!"

"You know it better than I do?" Qu Jianlei snorted and stopped paying attention to him.

Forget whatever experiences you might have had—at your age, how much information could you possibly know?