Xingfu City: Your Top Choice for a Wasteland Shelter!

July, the height of summer. The sun beat down relentlessly.

The asphalt road had curled into scales under the heat, with thick, sinister vines embedded in every crack.

The man gripped a short knife and struggled to hack through the vines blocking his way, following the roadside signs onward.

"Xingfu City, your top choice for a wasteland shelter!"

"Xingfu City, the hope of the next human era!"

"Xingfu City, we have food you'll never run out of and energy you'll never exhaust!"

"Xingfu City, everyone gets the respect they deserve!"

"Xing"

The farther he went, the more densely the slogans crowded the roadside signs. They were nailed to leaning utility poles, spray-painted on the crumbling walls of banks, and even carved into the weathered faces of shop signs.

Like some spell meant to bewitch the heart, they made the man feel a steady surge of strength despite his exhaustion. Even his trembling legs seemed to grow lighter.

After following the signs around several bends, the city's shadow receded like a tide. Blinding sunlight poured down, and the boundary between light and shadow left the ruins of buildings behind him.

The broadcasts had described Xingfu City in extravagant terms, but even so, when the man saw this sight with his own eyes, he couldn't help gaping in astonishment.

First to meet his eyes was the legendary Xingfu Great Wall!

According to the broadcasts, the wall stood about thirty meters tall and stretched for more than ten kilometers, enclosing a massive residential area spanning ten square kilometers.

But in reality, it had to be much larger than that, because the wall formed an irregular oval.

Judging by the population density of Wasteland refugee settlements, the area inside could house at least a million people!

In front of the wall lay the Quarantine Buffer Zone that every Sanctuary City established.

What set Xingfu City apart was the sheer size of its quarantine zone. Like the wall, it stretched for more than ten kilometers, and was about five kilometers wide—vast and meticulously laid out.

Most of it consisted of old buildings preserved from the Old Era. A few dilapidated Pedestrian Streets could still be seen running through them, but the Checkpoint at the front of the zone exuded a disquieting authority.

Built from orderly sections of iron fencing, the Checkpoint was divided into three areas: front, middle, and rear. They were used for initial screening, quarantine observation, and resident registration, respectively.

In the screening area, survivors passed through the metal gates at the front and entered Isolation Cages set on conveyor belts. The belts carried them to the inspectors at different windows, where they were examined for disease.

Survivors who cleared the screening and showed no signs of disease could head straight to the area behind it to register as residents.

Those whose status was uncertain had to proceed to the Observation Area and spend three days inside a Canvas Tent.

[You have entered Xingfu City's security zone]

[Please follow the yellow marked line forward for screening]

[Unauthorized entry will be met with lethal force]

As he neared the quarantine zone, the style of the roadside signs changed noticeably.

The man nervously swallowed, hefted his backpack, and continued forward. Before long, he had joined the waiting crowd.

"Please queue in an orderly manner. Do not crowd. Enter the Isolation Cages as a family to undergo inspection!"

A hoarse, synthesized voice echoed over the screening area. Eight bunker-like guard towers loomed like crouching beasts, their wall-mounted Loudspeakers repeating the instructions.

The survivors kept their heads bowed and shuffled forward in silence, moving in an orderly line under the watch of Heavy Machine Guns.

However, when they stepped onto the conveyor belts, they had a chance to choose which inspector would examine them.

Eight rust-streaked belts, numbered one through eight, ran side by side, each leading to an inspector of a different age and gender.

The man's eyes flickered as he pretended to casually survey the windows. Soon, he settled on Inspector No. 8, the corner of his mouth lifting almost imperceptibly.

All the inspectors wore masks, but it was easy to judge their ages by the skin on their necks. Inspector No. 8 looked the youngest, so naturally, the inspection should be easiest to pass.

"Name?"

"Edmund Lake."

"Where are you from?"

"Sack Federation City."

Inspector No. 8 unfolded a map in front of the man and studied it for a long while before asking, puzzled, "Oh? That's nearly three thousand kilometers from Xingfu City. How did you get here?"

"I took a freight train and a car, then traveled by boat for a short stretch. I walked the last three hundred kilometers to Xingfu City."

"Right. That must have been quite a journey. See the first thermometer on the table in front of you? Pick it up, press it to your forehead, and tell me the reading."

"Understood."

Each Isolation Cage had a small, fixed table holding three testing instruments.

Following the inspector's instructions, Edmund picked up the thermometer. The LCD screen soon displayed two digits.

47.02.

"Sir, I think this thermometer is broken. How could my temperature be forty-seven degrees?"

"Is that so?"

Inspector No. 8 leaned out, puzzled. After checking the reading, he gestured for Edmund to continue.

"Looks like the equipment really is faulty. No matter. We'll move straight to the questions. Once you pass, you can go to the area behind us and register as a resident."

"That's wonderful, sir. Go ahead."

"Between Sack Federation City and Xingfu City, which stretch did you travel by water?"

"Was it the Linjiang Tributary?" Edmund tried to remember. "A massive Infected Tide broke out in Yun City, so I had to take the water route to get around it."

"When exactly?"

"June 15."

"You remember that clearly?"

"Of course. That was Xingfu City's founding day. I stayed by the radio and listened to three whole hours of the celebration broadcast." At the memory of the solemn bells and cheering crowds crackling through the static, Edmund's face took on an expression of utter contentment.

Clearly, along that long journey, the broadcasts from Xingfu City had given him plenty of "happiness."

"Hmm. All right. Do you remember the Natural Disaster report that came after the founding day broadcast?"

"Was there one?"

Edmund's smile froze. His pupils contracted violently in the shadow. "I don't remember that. Maybe it aired too late?"

"Of course you wouldn't remember."

The metal counter screeched as Inspector No. 8 opened a drawer and pulled out several photographs.

In the photos, a river surged out of its banks like a murky python, flooding a vast stretch of wilderness.

"At dawn on June 14, a Mountain Flood suddenly struck the Linjiang Tributary. The water level rose seven meters. The bodies of all the people who tried to cross by boat got trapped beneath a broken bridge thirty kilometers outside Yun City."

"And you arrived by water a full twenty-four hours after the Grim Reaper."

"What?"

As if someone had pressed a hidden button, Edmund shot to his feet. The color drained from his face, and his features twisted in an instant into a mass of ashen folds, like wood ear mushrooms left to soak for days.

"Mountain Flood. Broken bridge. I..."

Edmund's pupils suddenly dilated, and his jaw dropped toward his chest as if it had come unhinged. Three gray-purple tentacles burst from his throat, their skin covered in suckers.

But before the tip of the first one could wriggle through the gap in the cage, a small red dot suddenly lit up on his forehead.

Boom!

The 7.62-millimeter full-power round had an excellent Exorcist effect. It tore through the tentacle and took half his head with it.

Edmund's upper body flew backward, revealing a writhing mass of tumor-like tissue at the back of his neck. Yet, strangely, the remaining half of his face still wore a hideous grin. His shattered throat let out a continuous hiss: "Fake. Xingfu is fake..."

"Codename: Death Whisper Tentacle. Infection progress: Stage Two. Eliminated by Trainee Inspector Cheng Ye with assistance from the watchtower's inspection team."

Seeing the watchtower window give him the OK sign, Cheng Ye sighed and pressed his communicator to report.

A reply came through almost immediately. "Received. The Cleanup Squad will arrive in three minutes. Inspector, maintain order at the scene!"

Maintain order?

After ending the call, Cheng Ye fought down the nausea rising in his throat and looked around.

The survivors on the other seven conveyor belts seemed to have seen this sort of thing plenty of times before. They had glanced over at the gunshot, but none of them seemed surprised by Edmund's gruesome death or the tentacles.

The other seven inspectors were even more unnervingly calm. Not one of them had turned around at the sound of the gunfire.

If the scene was stable at all, then the only one who needed stabilizing was him—the inspector who had crossed over into this world just two months ago.