A Fair Interrogation

Mine Town. The cold wind crept through the gaps in the doors and windows, letting out a mournful wail.

By the fire, Lin Tuo looked at the girl who was biting her lip tightly, refusing to say a word, and felt a bit helpless.

Interrogation by torture?

He wasn't a villain.

Coming in here was just a coincidence—he wanted to find someone to learn about this wasteland. There was no need to resort to force, but if the other party wouldn't communicate, conversation couldn't get started.

"Looks like you're not willing to cooperate." Sighing, Lin Tuo's voice carried a hint of disappointment as he raised the steel pipe in his hand.

On the floor.

Hua Xi tensed up immediately, watching him warily, thinking: Here it comes, here it comes, so it's still going to be torture after all, right?

What to do?

Talk? Or hold out a little longer?

A jumble of thoughts churned in her mind, but the next second, Lin Tuo's actions made her freeze.

He spun his chair around, no longer looking at her, and used the steel pipe to poke at the large, bulky backpack on the floor. It was hard and clattered loudly.

Lin Tuo's eyes lit up with curiosity.

After all, when this little girl had been fleeing earlier, she hadn't forgotten to bring this thing along. It had slowed her down, or else she might have actually gotten away.

"Rip..." He reached out, grabbed the slightly rusted metal zipper on the backpack, and pulled it open. The contents were revealed.

Lin Tuo's eyes narrowed slightly, surprised.

Inside the backpack were brand-new weapons and ammunition!

To be precise, most of it was stacks of bullets, all the same caliber. Touching them, they were icy cold, gleaming a yellowish luster in the firelight.

They filled most of the backpack; a rough estimate put them at several thousand rounds at least.

Besides that, there were also a few gun parts disassembled into components, dozens of grenades, scopes, and other items.

All brand-new, with unvaporized grease still on the gun barrels—seemed like new guns.

This little girl was actually carrying a whole arsenal on her back!

Lin Tuo gave her a strange look and said, "Those soldiers chasing you—was it for this stuff? Did you steal their armory?"

"I did not! This was ownerless to begin with! And I found it first!"

Hearing this, the fierce little girl seemed angry and retorted.

"Not stolen? I'm not so sure..." Lin Tuo tossed the bullet back in and pointed at the food under the bed that Hua Xi had dug up. "Isn't that you sneaking in to steal someone else's food?"

Hua Xi was choked, left speechless.

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

As she spoke, the gnawing hunger in her stomach made her frown, and she shut her mouth.

Lin Tuo didn't press further, just curiously examined the food.

Most of it was salted jerky, along with some strange-looking vegetables and plant roots he'd never seen before.

Presumably, these were plants that had mutated and survived in the wasteland.

In contrast, a few items clearly bearing the mark of the "Old Era" drew more attention.

Like honey sealed in glass jars, and liquor whose labels had long since faded... and...

"Canned food?"

Lin Tuo picked up a well-sealed tin can curiously, wiped its surface, and the label was still faintly legible.

He looked for the production date, comparing it to the "Destruction" time marked in the Operation Log. This can was clearly manufactured before the "Destruction."

In other words, this was indeed food preserved from long ago.

He just didn't know how much time had passed since the Mad Emperor triggered the Destruction.

"Grumble~ Grumble~"

Just as Lin Tuo's thoughts were drifting, the sound beside him pulled his attention back.

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

"I'm not hungry!" Hua Xi turned her head away with pride, but her stomach kept betraying her with its uncooperative growling.

The serious atmosphere in the room suddenly turned awkward.

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

Seeing Hua Xi didn't reply, he didn't touch the can—after all, who knew how long it had been sitting there, or if it was still edible.

Instead, he opened the honey jar, grabbed an iron basin from the table, and set it on the stove to melt the honey.

He deliberately took a taste, smacking his lips in praise, then used the iron poker by the stove to skewer some jerky and plant roots that looked a lot like potatoes, shoving them all into the fire to roast.

Soon, a faint aroma of food began to waft through the air.

Frankly speaking, Lin Tuo had zero appetite for this food.

Especially not right after having just eaten hotpot not long ago, but clearly, in this wasteland, these items already counted as precious delicacies.

That much was obvious just from the gaunt, clearly underfed refugees gathered in the town square.

Under this silent standoff, after quite a while, Hua Xi finally couldn't hold back and gritted her teeth: "I agree!"

"What?"

"I said ask whatever you want, just give me the food!" The young girl bit her lip, unwilling.

Lin Tuo smiled.

"Alright then. I'm a very fair person—you answer one of my questions, and I let you take one bite. Pretty fair, isn't it?"

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

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

??

On the floor, Hua Xi's expression grew even stranger.

To her, this question was far too bizarre, but at the same time, it wasn't something just anyone could answer.

For instance, the mutated humans and refugees at the very bottom of the wasteland might not know.

"It's the 31st year of the Cataclysm now—at least, that's what everyone generally says. So it should be about 31 years since the Old Era," Hua Xi said.

"You're not sure?" Lin Tuo pressed.

Hua Xi endured the twisting pain in her stomach, feeling like she was starving to death, and could only answer honestly:

"I never lived through the Old Era, so how could I say for sure?"

Mm, fair enough—judging by her appearance, she was only about ten years old. If thirty years had really passed, she'd be a native of the Wasteland Era.

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

Lin Tuo nodded to himself. Thirty years... not too surprising. From the moment he'd seen the dilapidation of the buildings in the town, he'd already suspected as much.

"I answered, so you should give me food now." Seeing him lost in thought, Hua Xi couldn't help reminding him.

Lin Tuo snapped back to reality and handed her the iron skewer.

Hua Xi didn't care that it was hot. Her body's healing ability had already digested the last scraps of food in her stomach, and she really couldn't hold on any longer.

Opening her mouth, she took a huge bite and forced down an entire half-cooked mutant potato.

She chewed hastily a few times, tried to swallow, and ended up choking so hard her eyes rolled back.

"Is it really that bad... how long has it been since you last ate..."

Lin Tuo's eyelids twitched at the sight. After a moment's hesitation, he poured her a glass of water and made her drink it.

The water had been boiled, but it was still murky and looked none too clean.

"Cough... cough..." Seeing that Hua Xi was fine, Lin Tuo continued asking:

"Second question: what's human society like on this continent now? I mean, how many people are there, who rules them, how many industrial facilities are still running? Or are there none at all?..."

This question was much more complicated, and Hua Xi couldn't grasp it all at once.

After Lin Tuo explained it several times, she finally managed to piece together what she knew.

With Lin Tuo filling in the gaps and reconstructing it, he roughly understood the situation.

In short, the wasteland was a bit better than he'd imagined, but only barely.

According to Hua Xi:

After the "Great Cataclysm," the environment of the entire "world" deteriorated. Everything withered, countless people died, and the "cities" of the Old Era almost completely shut down.

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

Mass deaths, lost knowledge, intense energy interference that rendered electrical equipment useless, the collapse of the entire industrial foundation... Human civilization had regressed hundreds of years in an extremely short time.

To survive, people frantically hoarded preserved food, sparking riots and subsequent wars.

It was precisely by relying on those stockpiled provisions that humanity made it through the hardest period.

But that came at a cost.

The scramble for food caused humanity to miss the window for rebuilding industrial structures entirely.

Later, as global temperatures dropped and radiation clouds blanketed the entire continent, the remaining humans suffered yet another wave of disaster.

The energy currents from the "Annihilation Bomb" killed many normal lifeforms, but some survived through evolution and mutation.

Wild animals mutated first—becoming fiercer, more terrifying, more bloodthirsty... competing with humans for precious survival resources.

Then, mutations began appearing among humans themselves.

Most humans developed all kinds of strange illnesses—mental disorders, skin ulcers... and the children born to these people were often deformed, but at least they survived.

A small minority of humans experienced the opposite change.

Their physical abilities improved—endurance, agility, strength all increased—and they rarely fell ill.

Though their appearance still retained a human form, they were in fact evolving in the direction of "superhumans."

The offspring born of these few individuals not only inherited this "superior" mutation but also had a chance of being born with special, extraordinary abilities.

It was precisely because of these people that humanity finally managed to barely stand firm on this wasteland.

Some of the powerful ones, following the "company" model of the Old Era, began to recruit followers, occupy cities that were still relatively well-preserved, and drive the un-evolved refugees to scavenge the remnants of the Old Era from the ruins.

To plunder as much as possible.

Then attempt to use the machines that had survived for decades to restore production.

Yet this was ultimately too difficult.

The regression of civilization and the loss of knowledge meant people could no longer understand the "principles," relying only on the relics left behind by the Old Era to carry out simple production activities.

Under such a structure, the entire wasteland gradually formed a tripartite balance of power among three major factions:

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

And Hua Xi belonged to the latter.