The old man's expression barely changed. "Fewer and fewer children have been born over the years. Starting from the first few years after we hid here, no children have been born in CK11. Back then, not only CK11 but the other Safe Zones as well would take every newborn away for all kinds of examinations."
"These children... aren't exactly normal. It was sheer luck that they were born at all, and they don't live long. Why make them shoulder the burden of continuing the human race? That's why I added two years to his age."
He had not been lying. Xu Huo paused before saying, "There's no need to hide it anymore?"
The old man was surprised by his perceptiveness. He nodded. "The CK12 Safe Zone disappeared two years ago as well. It was the last Safe Zone in this area to vanish. I heard Ying Hai and Ying Yu say that most of the well-known Safe Zones established before or around the great disaster are gone. The main Safe Zones are now controlled by a group of Outer District Players. They're very far from here, and they don't care whether the people of District 010 live or die."
"Why did CK12 disappear?" Xu Huo asked with a slight frown.
"It was about the same as the other Safe Zones. They encountered ground subsidence and Alien hordes," the old man said. "At the time, we ran into some Survivors near Jade Bird City and learned that even more people from the CK12 Safe Zone had migrated to the Sand Sea Center."
He pulled a map of the entire district from beneath the table. He first pointed to the center of the map, then moved his finger left to Jade Bird City at the edge.
"The Sand Sea Center wasn't originally