After leaving Dimitri's residence, Li Aoz and Qiu Ran headed straight for Doctor Chen Siqi's clinic.
Qiu Ran remained silent along the way. The once-simple, optimistic girl had a complicated look in her eyes.
"Feeling terribly disappointed?" Li Aoz glanced at her, noticing her low spirits, and asked casually.
"I used to think that our family of six squeezing into a scrapyard, spending every day either fixing cars or scavenging through trash, was already a miserable life."
Qiu Ran looked at the Outland Wanderers scattered across the ground, trembling and deathly pale from never having been exposed to artificial sunlight. She pursed her lips. "I wanted to compare myself to them so I could feel better, to think that I was fortunate. But I couldn't. Even a life like mine was only guaranteed because of the Four Nations... Li Aoz, if... if there were no Four Nations, would they be better off?"
"No."
Li Aoz answered without hesitation:
"Without the Four Nations, there would just be more small countries. To survive, they would wage even more wars. People from the Outland would be kidnapped as cannon fodder and forced laborers, laying bricks and building walls until even their corpses became part of those walls."
"Then is the way things are in the Four Nations now really right?" Qiu Ran asked in confusion.
Smack! Li Aoz raised a hand and rapped her on the head.
"Ow!"
"Why do you think that if something isn't right, it must be wrong?"
Li Aoz put on his mask, his voice muffled and hoarse through the respirator. "There is no such thing as right or wrong in this world. From emperors and presidents down to ordinary people, everyone is just muddling through life."
"But..." Qiu Ran hesitated. "If that's all we should do, wouldn't it