A Fair Interrogation

Mine Town. The cold wind burrowed through the gaps in the doors and windows, letting out mournful whimpers.

By the stove, Lin Tuo looked at the girl biting her lip so hard without saying a word, feeling somewhat helpless.

Torture to extract a confession?

He was not some villain.

He had only come in here because he happened to be passing by and wanted to find someone who could tell him about this Wasteland. There was no need to use torture, but since she was unwilling to communicate, the conversation could hardly continue.

"Looks like you aren't willing to cooperate." With a sigh, disappointment tinged Lin Tuo's voice as he raised the steel pipe in his hand.

On the floor.

Hua Xi immediately tensed up and watched him warily. Here it comes, here it comes. So he was still going to torture me, wasn't he?

What should I do?

Talk? Or hold out a little longer?

A jumble of thoughts surged through her mind, yet in the next second, Lin Tuo's actions left her stunned.

Lin Tuo merely turned the chair around, no longer looking at her, and used the steel pipe to poke the huge backpack on the floor. It was hard and made a clattering sound.

Curiosity immediately flickered in Lin Tuo's eyes.

After all, when this little girl had run away earlier, she had not forgotten to take this thing with her. It had slowed her down, and otherwise, she might really have escaped.

"Riiip..." Reaching out, he gripped the slightly rusted metal zipper on the backpack and pulled it open. The contents were revealed.

Lin Tuo's pupils narrowed slightly in surprise.

The backpack was actually filled with brand-new weapons and ammunition!

More precisely, most of it consisted of batches of bullets of the same model. They felt bone-chillingly cold to the touch and gleamed golden-yellow in the firelight.

They filled more than half the backpack. A rough estimate put their number at several thousand at least.

Besides that, there were a few disassembled firearm components, dozens of grenades, scopes, and other items in the backpack.

They were all brand-new. There was even grease on the barrels that had yet to evaporate. They seemed to be new guns.

This little girl had been carrying around a whole backpack full of arms!

Lin Tuo shot her an odd look. "Those soldiers were chasing you because of these things, weren't they? Did you steal their arms cache?"

"I didn't! They didn't belong to anyone in the first place! And I found them first!"

Hearing that, the fierce little girl seemed quite angry as she argued back.

"Not stolen? I don't think so..." Lin Tuo tossed the bullet in his hand back inside, then pointed beneath the bed at the food Hua Xi had dug out. "Didn't you come in here to steal their food?"

Hua Xi was struck speechless, choked into silence.

After a long while, she muttered sullenly, "They extorted all this. I'm robbing the rich to aid the poor!"

As she spoke, the hunger-induced cramps in her abdomen made her frown, and she shut her mouth.

Lin Tuo did not press further. He merely examined the food curiously.

The largest portion was cured jerky, along with strange-looking vegetables and plant roots he had never seen before.

Presumably, they were all plants that had mutated and survived on the Wasteland.

By comparison, the foods that clearly carried the air of the Old Era drew more attention.

For instance, honey sealed in glass jars, unlabeled white liquor... and...

"Canned food?"

Lin Tuo curiously picked up a perfectly sealed tin can and wiped its surface. The brand label was still faintly visible.

After searching for the production date and comparing it with the "Destruction" date marked in the Operation Log, he found that this can had indeed been manufactured before the Destruction.

In other words, these really were foods preserved from a long time ago.

He just did not know how long it had been since the Mad Emperor had brought about destruction.

"Grrumble~ grrrumble~"

Just as Lin Tuo's thoughts began to drift, the sound beside him tugged his attention back.

Turning to look at the little girl named Hua Xi, a trace of amusement appeared in Lin Tuo's eyes. "Looks like you really are starving."

"I'm not hungry!" Hua Xi turned her head away with great backbone, only for her stomach to continue growling traitorously.

The solemn atmosphere in the room instantly became rather strange.

"Want to eat? Answer my questions, and I'll give you food." The amusement in Lin Tuo's eyes deepened.

When Hua Xi did not answer, he left the can alone. There was no telling how long it had been sitting around, and who knew whether it was still edible.

Instead, he opened the jar of honey, took an iron basin from the table, and placed it over the fire to melt.

He deliberately tasted a little, clicking his tongue in amazement. Then he used an iron skewer from beside the stove to pierce some jerky and plant roots that looked much like potatoes, shoving them all into the fire to roast.

Before long, the faint aroma of food drifted through the room.

To be frank, Lin Tuo had no appetite for any of it.

Especially since he had just eaten hotpot not long ago. Yet on this Wasteland, these foods were clearly already precious delicacies.

That much could be seen from the gaunt refugees in the town square, who were obviously not getting enough to eat.

And in this silent contest, after quite some time, Hua Xi finally could not endure any longer. Gritting her teeth, she said, "I agree!"

"What?"

"I said ask whatever you want. Hurry up and give me food!" the little girl said through clenched teeth, unwillingly.

Lin Tuo smiled.

"Fine. I'm a person who believes in fairness. Answer one question, and I'll let you take one bite. Fair, isn't it?"

"Mm. My first question is, what year is it now? Or rather, how many years has it been since that disaster that destroyed the world?"

Lin Tuo sat back down in the chair and asked seriously.

??

On the floor, Hua Xi's expression grew increasingly strange.

To her, the question was simply too bizarre. Still, it was indeed not something everyone could answer.

For example, the mutants and refugees at the very bottom of the Wasteland might not be able to answer it.

"It's now Year 31 of the Cataclysm. At least, that's what everyone agrees on, so it should have been thirty-one years since the Old Era," Hua Xi said.

"You aren't sure?" Lin Tuo asked.

Enduring the cramps in her stomach and feeling as though she was about to starve to death, Hua Xi could only answer honestly.

"I never lived through the Old Era. How could I know for sure?"

Mm, true enough. Judging by her appearance, she was only around ten years old. If thirty years had really passed, she should have been a native of the Wasteland era.

Or, as these people called it, the Cataclysm era.

Lin Tuo nodded inwardly. Thirty years... it was not too surprising. From the moment he saw the state of disrepair in the town's buildings, he had already suspected as much.

"I answered you. You should give me food now," Hua Xi reminded him when she saw him fall into thought.

Only then did Lin Tuo come back to himself and hand over the iron skewer.

Hua Xi did not even care that it was hot. Activating her bodily recovery ability had digested the last scraps of food in her stomach. She really could not hold out any longer.

Opening her mouth, she swallowed an entire half-cooked mutated potato in one huge bite.

After hurriedly chewing it a few times, she tried to swallow, only to choke and roll her eyes.

"Is that really necessary... How long has it been since you ate anything..."

Lin Tuo's eyelids twitched as he watched. After hesitating, he poured her a cup of water and made her drink it.

The water had been boiled, but it still looked murky and rather unclean.

"Cough... cough, cough..." Seeing that Hua Xi was all right, Lin Tuo continued, "Second question: what is human society like on this continent now? I mean, how many people are there, who rules them, and how many industrial facilities are still operating? Or are there none left?..."

This question was far more complicated, and Hua Xi did not understand it all at once.

It took Lin Tuo quite a while to explain before she intermittently gave him the information she knew.

Only after Lin Tuo pieced it together and reconstructed it did he roughly understand the situation.

Simply put, conditions in the Wasteland were indeed a little better than he had expected, but only a little.

According to Hua Xi.

After the Great Cataclysm, the environment of the entire "world" deteriorated, all living things withered, and countless people died. The cities of the Old Era also nearly came to a complete standstill.

Many cities near the west had collapsed. Those farther from the "epicenter" fared somewhat better, but humanity's industrial structure still suffered total, irreversible destruction.

Massive numbers of humans died, knowledge was lost, and intense energy interference rendered electrical equipment useless. The entire industrial foundation collapsed... In an extremely short period, human civilization regressed by several centuries.

To survive, people began frantically fighting over stored food, which led to riots and the wars that followed.

It was precisely by relying on those stockpiled foods that humanity survived its darkest days.

But this did not come without a price.

The struggle for food caused humanity to completely miss the opportunity to rebuild its industrial structure.

Later, as global temperatures dropped and radiation clouds blanketed the entire continent, the surviving humans suffered another round of disaster.

The energy currents caused by the Annihilation Bomb killed many normal lifeforms, but some lifeforms tenaciously survived through evolution and mutation.

Wild animals were the first to mutate, becoming fiercer, more terrifying, and more bloodthirsty... competing with humans for precious resources needed to survive.

Then mutations began to occur among humans as well.

Most humans developed all manner of strange illnesses, suffered mental breakdowns, or had skin that festered and rotted... The descendants they bore were often malformed as well, but at least they survived.

A small portion of humanity underwent the opposite change.

Their physical qualities began to improve. Their endurance, agility, and strength all increased, and they rarely fell ill.

Though they still retained human appearances, in truth, they seemed to be evolving toward becoming "superhumans."

The descendants born from this minority not only inherited this "superior" mutation, but also had a chance of being born with certain special, extraordinary abilities.

It was precisely because of these people that humanity finally managed to gain a foothold on this Wasteland.

Some powerful individuals began, following the Old Era model of "companies," to gather subordinates, occupy cities that had been preserved relatively well, and drive refugees who had not "evolved" to collect Old Era creations from the ruins.

They scavenged whatever they could.

Then they attempted to use machines that had survived for decades to restore production.

Yet this was ultimately far too difficult.

The regression of civilization and the loss of knowledge meant people could not understand the "principles" at all. They could only rely on the creations left behind by the Old Era to carry out a few simple production activities.

And under such circumstances, the entire Wasteland gradually formed a three-way balance among three major powers.

They were:

Burning Fire Company, Gray Mountain Group, and Floating Apocalypse.

And Hua Xi belonged to the last of them.

Thanks to readers Wei Moumou Ren, Ran Shang Xin Li, SAWYER-SUN, Ning Qi Gongzi Ning An, Love in My Heart 1314, Subscribe to His Little Target, Thief Emperor Expert, Is It a Black Cat, Reader 2018...1488, -Song, Reader 2020...2013, Thousand-Faced God, European Emperor's Life Is Extremely Short, and Jiujiang South Mountain for their support!