Settlement

Puff!

The spear-shaped sharp weapon was half-pierced into the soil, its end still trembling slightly.

Lu Bai examined the thing that attacked him; it appeared to be made from steel bars salvaged from a building and then polished.

He casually pulled out the steel spike and looked in the direction the attack had come from.

The person who attacked them was easily spotted.

Because the other party did not hide, after missing their first attack, they instead bared their teeth and brandished their claws while cursing at him.

His furious expression suggested that if the other person hadn't been standing on the rooftop of a Department Store, they probably would have pounced on him.

Seeing this, Lu Bai was somewhat stunned.

This was the first human he had encountered since arriving on Earth, but judging from his behavior...

The relationships between humans living on the ground don't seem very friendly?

The other person quickly ran out of the Department Store.

This is a male, who looks to be about seventeen or eighteen years old, and he is holding a well-maintained, gleaming steel knife.

He put on what he thought was a menacing and fierce expression, pointed the blade at Lu Bai, and said menacingly, "Never seen you before. Where did you come from? Get out of here! You're not welcome here!"

His tone was a bit strange, but thankfully it was still somewhat understandable.

This put Lu Bai at ease.

It seems that although there was a gap in technological development among humans on Earth, civilization has still been preserved.

Lu Bai thought this to himself, but didn't show it on his face at all. "I didn't come from outside."

"You despicable outsider! Don't try to fool me, I've never seen you before."

The young man extended the steel knife in his hand further towards Lu Bai: "I'll say it again, no matter where you're from, get out of here right now, or I won't be polite."

"I have no reason to lie to you."

Lu Bai felt somewhat helpless.

In this situation, he suddenly missed the Soul Searching techniques from the world of cultivation.

If we could get information directly from the other person's mind, why go through all this trouble?

He pointed downwards. "I just came up from underground."

Unexpectedly, upon hearing this, the young man's face revealed undisguised disgust. "So you're the offspring of selfish cowards. Since you chose betrayal, what are you doing here?"

Lu Bai thought for a moment and said, "I was born in the shelter, which is not something I can control, right?"

His smile grew even more amiable, making him appear very approachable. "Now I realize that we should live uprightly on this earth, and I've made efforts to achieve this, successfully coming to the surface. Are you really going to push away someone like me who has taken the initiative to approach you?"

Hearing these words, the young man visibly hesitated.

After much hesitation, the young man finally gritted his teeth and said, "Then come with me."

On the one hand, teenagers are easier to fool; on the other hand, it's probably because Lu Bai is the first person he's ever met who came out of the shelter, making it harder for him to make up his mind to kill him.

In the years since the mass disappearance of humans, nature's ability to recover has been astonishingly terrifying, overwhelming every corner of the city.

Along the way, there was lush greenery. Lu Bai saw that what should have been a park had now turned into a near-primeval forest.

Fungi crawled all over the tree trunks that had been broken in half along the riverbank, emitting a faint, pleasant fragrance.

Lu Bai obediently followed behind the young man, taking shortcuts known only to the locals, like a rotting fly scavenging for food in the corpse of a dead city.

During this time, Lu Bai would occasionally strike up a conversation with the young man.

Unfortunately, the boy was quite wary and wouldn't answer any questions. If asked too many times, he would even raise his steel knife in a threatening gesture.

"Haven't we arrived yet? You've gone to such a far place from the settlement, are you on guard or hunting?"

The boy impatiently raised his steel knife and tapped a section of rebar protruding from the concrete. "Don't ask anymore, we're here."

They are currently in a collapsed residential building. The precast concrete structure overhead looks precarious, but it is actually more sturdy than they imagined.

Hearing the boy's words, Lu Bai stopped and used the half-open window to broaden his view.

The sky was azure, but there were no origami cranes outside the window. Instead, there was an endless expanse of green, like a tsunami sweeping across the sky.

The semi-circular building in front of us looks like a small boat in a green ocean, as if it might be swallowed up by the endless greenery at any moment.

"This was supposed to be a sports center, wasn't it?"

Lu Bai stared at the stadium, which resembled the Bird's Nest, his expression enigmatic.

"Don't worry about it."

The boy didn't give Lu Bai time to reflect; he immediately jumped out of the half-open window of the apartment building. "Come quick!"

Passing through the last patch of greenery, Lu Bai followed the boy to the entrance of the stadium.

Inside the locked iron gate sat an elderly man who, judging by his appearance, looked as old as someone in their eighties.

The old man saw the boy, opened the door, and greeted him with a smile, "Little Huo Yao, you're back so early today?"

However, upon seeing Lu Bai behind the boy, the old man subtly slowed down the speed at which he opened the door. "And who is this little boy...?"

"I ran into him near Nanshang Plaza. He said he had just come out of the shelter."

The boy called Huo Yao slung the steel knife he was holding to his waist and continued, "I plan to take him to see Brother Biao and see how to deal with this guy."

The old man's cloudy eyes scrutinized Lu Bai, and he slowly said, "It's up to Da Biao to make the decision."

The iron gate opened, Huo Yao walked in, grabbing a handful of unidentified beans and stuffing them into his mouth, chewing them with a crunching sound.

Seeing this, the old man slapped his arm in annoyance. "You ate it all, what am I supposed to eat?"

Huo Yao stretched his arms with Smiling Face: "Uncle Xia, you just turned forty last month, why are you pretending to be an old man?"

"Alright, hurry up and take this child there."

Huo Yao knew that business was important, so he waved to Lu Bai, signaling him to follow.

The site of this settlement was originally a sports stadium, which covered a considerable area.

However, sports stadiums are designed to ensure that visitors don't get lost from the very beginning of their construction.

Despite the passage of hundreds of years, the basic structure of the stadium has not changed much; you can simply walk along the main passageway.

As Lu Bai walked, he observed the situation inside the arena.

The original audience seating inside the venue has been transformed into shacks of various sizes.

As for the building materials, they were clearly not uniformly manufactured, but rather some scrap steel and roof tiles.

Based on these shacks, Lu Bai roughly estimated that the entire settlement had gathered several thousand people.

The problem is, where will the food come from to feed such a large population?