April 12, Year Two of the Wasteland. Cloudy.
Five in the morning.
There was still more than a full month before the end of the harsh winter, and the air was filled with biting cold.
The moon hanging at the edge of the sky remained bright, its light spilling onto the ground and condensing into strands of white frost.
Thin mist lingered in the air.
The heavy labor day after day had practically cured every survivor of insomnia and restless dreams.
At Taihu Territory, however, the area was naturally as silent as a Death Land at this hour.
Aside from the occasional patter of guards' footsteps during their patrols, there was not even the chirp of an insect or bird anywhere on the streets.
Hearing another set of footsteps pass by his door, Fan Fuzheng opened his eyes—or rather, he had barely slept at all the previous night.
All night long, his mind had been filled with all kinds of unrealistic fantasies.
At one moment, he imagined the wonderful benefits Su Mo had promised inside the Ten Thousand Paths Arena.
How happy it would be for his family to live in safety, never again having to worry about threats that might appear at any time or fret over how to develop in the future.
But then he imagined what would happen if the competition proved too fierce and they were left behind, becoming a backward force.
The benefits they had obtained with such difficulty would probably be withdrawn at once, and they would return to a standard of living that was no better than—or perhaps even worse than—their current one.
In summary, the first half of the night had been filled mostly with excitement, while the latter half had been consumed by worry.
His mind simply could not relax for