The Way of the World, Human Hearts, and Ruthless Struggles!

Boom!

Electric snakes slithered through the sky, and the rain fell like pearls.

The longer the warm, moist airflow brewed, the more ferocious the resulting rainstorm would be.

In the middle of the night, Cheng Ye suddenly jolted awake. He leaped up and used his thoughts to retract the pendant that was currently charging.

Is the power out?

The collector's sudden alarm had initially made Cheng Ye think a thief had snuck in.

Fortunately, after checking the panel, it was just a notification that the energy input had paused.

Click!

He reached up and tugged the bedside lamp cord, but there was no response. It seemed all the lines had been cut.

Cheng Ye picked up the defense communicator by his pillow and glanced at it; it was four minutes until six o'clock.

He decided not to bother going back to sleep, put on his clothes, and slid out of bed.

"Damn, that's a heavy rain!"

He walked to the window and took a look, instantly stunned.

The sky-obscuring curtain of rain connected into a white line, far more exaggerated than any rainstorm he had ever seen.

It had only been raining for six or seven hours, yet water had already pooled in the courtyard of the electronics factory residential area, deep enough to submerge his calves.

In the darkness, he could see a dozen people holding flashlights, trying to clear the drainage outlet in the courtyard.

Unfortunately, it was to little effect, as the streets outside the residential area were also flooded to an absurd degree.

Whoosh.

It looked like a small river flowing wantonly down the street, churning with fallen leaves and debris.

Under the scouring of the rainstorm, the peace that the buffer zone usually painted over was stripped away, revealing its old, mottled state.

When it came down to it, this place was ultimately just the ruins of a civilization left behind by the old era a hundred years ago.

When it was planned and built back then, no matter how hard the designers racked their brains, they never could have predicted that a hundred years later, this land would be flooded with several times the population originally expected to settle here.

If I ever have the ability to build a settlement in the future, I must ensure the drainage is done right from the start.

Cheng Ye thought dreamily, his mind drifting far away.

If he hadn't caught a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg of supernatural power and discovered the wonders hidden beneath the ruins of the wasteland, he would have definitely stayed in his position as an inspector for his entire life, clutching that iron rice bowl in Xingfu City for dear life!

But now that he knew all this, how could he be content to remain trapped here?

At the very least, if he were to die, he would die on the path of pursuing supernatural power and freedom.

Rubbing the edge of the pendant, Cheng Ye summoned his panel. The charge value in the top right corner had just broken through 50% before the power went out.

This meant that if he found his target after reaching the fast track, he would have the opportunity to increase his strength at any moment.

Seven o'clock.

The rainstorm eased slightly, but the flooding became even more severe.

Cheng Ye put on his raincoat and wrapped a layer of tape around the edges of his high-waisted rain boots to prevent the floodwater from rushing in.

However, no one expected that with his very first step downstairs, he would land directly into a puddle deep enough to submerge his knees.

"Damn it!"

Influenced by older architectural styles, the old apartment blocks were built with high thresholds at the entrances.

This meant that once water poured in, it couldn't get out; it would only accumulate, eventually submerging the first-floor steps until it was like a fish pond.

"Haha, brother, I was just about to warn you."

A man rushed out from the security door by the stairs, holding a blue plastic bucket in his hand.

Cheng Ye poked his head out to look. Good grief, the man's apartment had practically turned into a fish pond, yet he could still laugh.

"It's flooded, so we don't have to go to work today, and our salary will still be paid!"

The man seemed to notice Cheng Ye's confusion and immediately explained, "Besides, I heard that the inner city engineering team is discussing renovating apartment blocks like ours once the rainstorm passes."

"Renovate?"

Unless they tore them down and rebuilt them, Cheng Ye didn't think these apartment blocks would be much better after a renovation.

But if they could fix the sewage pipes, overhaul the power supply facilities, and ideally upgrade the wiring for every resident to six square millimeters, that would be fantastic!

"You're heading to work, right? Come on, I'll carry you out!"

Seeing Cheng Ye standing at the stairwell looking troubled, the man set down his bucket and walked over.

"Don't stand on ceremony with me, Old Sun. We all live in the same building. Besides, you going to work is a contribution to our buffer zone; it's much better than someone like me who is on the payroll but not working."

When mentioning being on the payroll but not working, Cheng Ye felt that Old Sun seemed quite proud of it.

"Then, thanks!"

"Why are you being so wishy-washy? Get on."

Carrying Cheng Ye on his back, the man trudged out of the staff residential area, his steps uneven.

By the time he reached the entrance, the floodwater was deep enough to reach the thighs in the lowest spots, and his legs below the knees were coated in thick, yellow mud.

"I'm heading off. If you're still coming back tonight, I'll carry you again."

Old Sun tossed those words over his shoulder and waded back the way he came.

Watching that hurried, bustling figure, Cheng Ye suddenly felt that the hearts of people in this wasteland weren't as bad as he had imagined.

The bad people might be worse, but the good people hadn't completely vanished.

On the other side.

"Oh, for heaven's sake! Watch your hands and feet, don't knock over my shelves!"

Uncle Dong's shouting pierced through the curtain of rain.

Cheng Ye stood on his tiptoes to take a look. The water inside the convenience store had already risen to the calves, and four or five workers were hunched over, scooping water out with basins.

Someone's elbow knocked against a shelf against the wall, sending plastic bottles and cans clattering to the floor. Uncle Dong slapped his thighs and stomped his feet in distress, looking ready to charge in to save his stock.

"Uncle Dong, I'm telling you, with your old arms and legs, don't join in the chaos."

Cheng Ye walked over and grabbed the old man.

"Otherwise, if you trip or fall, the money you spend at the infirmary will cost more than everything you sell here."

"Little Cheng."

Uncle Dong turned his head. His graying hair was plastered to his forehead, making him look just like an old hen soaked in the rain.

"If I hadn't been sharp last night during this freak rain, I'd have drowned in this shop."

"It was that serious?"

"You bet it was! I was organizing stock in the basement and took a nap because I was so tired. I never expected the water to come pouring in like a waterfall. It was almost up to my neck in less than half a minute!"

The row of shops at the entrance of the staff residential area followed the old style, each equipped with a basement for storage.

Cheng Ye's eyelid twitched. "You should stop using the basement from now on. By the way, if you don't have a place to stay today, why not come to my place?"

"How could I? If I don't keep an eye on this shop, how could I sleep?"

Uncle Dong shook his head and pulled half a box of nutrient paste from the goods he had managed to salvage.

"Thirty packs. Fresh stock that just came in yesterday. I saved them for you. If this freak rain keeps up, I bet people will be fighting like crazy for this stuff."

"Thanks."

Cheng Ye tore open the box, packed the nutrient paste into his backpack, and pulled out a handful of coins with a face value of 10, handing them over.

A bag of nutrient paste now cost 2 happiness coins, and the handful he held contained at least twelve or thirteen.

For once, Uncle Dong did not bother with any politeness.

With the rainstorm natural disaster, the price of nutrient paste would only rise. Hoarding a batch and reselling them for five coins a bag wouldn't be difficult.

More importantly, sometimes even if you had the money, you might not be able to buy any after being looted!

The reality proved to be exactly that. On Cheng Ye's way to the North Station checkpoint, long queues had formed in front of almost every shop selling nutrient paste.

It was a pity he didn't see Chu Yunfeng and his family; he didn't know if they had found a place to stay or managed to hoard nutrient paste in advance.

Sigh, why did I think of Chu Yunfeng the moment I saved up a search opportunity?

Cheng Ye felt a bit tempted.

Compared to going to the checkpoint to open a blind box, it was clearly more rewarding to fleece a golden legend like Chu Yunfeng!

With 13 lv.1 skills, even excluding the non-combat skills he couldn't use for now, the remaining basic perception and quick draw were clearly very practical just by looking at their names.

However, he was also well aware that with the level of vigilance that family possessed, he wouldn't necessarily reach a 50% cooperation degree without a legitimate reason to approach them.

The best way was to wait for their next encounter at the checkpoint.

Cheng Ye had a faint feeling that with Chu Yunfeng's abilities, he would never be content with doing manual labor in the buffer zone forever. Not to mention whether he could support his family, looking at how the current situation was developing—

"Price hike! Price hike! Nutrient paste is now 5 coins a bag!"

Shouts came from the roadside. A scalper who had sensed the business opportunity of the rainstorm early on was squatting at the street corner, already selling nutrient paste at a high price.

Some people squeezed out of the queue, cursing, only to eventually grit their teeth and take the crumpled packaging bag from the scalper at more than double the price.

There was no helping it. The demand for nutrient paste was too high, and the unit price was too low, making it difficult to add additives and chemicals.

Once it got hot, the shelf life was at most five days, and it took another day for it to be delivered from the factory to the various distributors in the buffer zone.

On top of that, most people had neither the energy nor the savings to hoard goods in advance after finishing a day of hard labor.

Precisely because of this, whenever there was any natural disaster in the buffer zone, the prices would fluctuate immediately.

"Don't the Xingfu City officials intervene to regulate this? Catch all these damn scalpers and execute them!"

"Exactly! Black-hearted ghosts who profit from natural disasters—don't let me run into you in the ruins!"

"Don't be so naive. Where do you think these scalpers get their goods from?"

"Where else could they come from? Don't tell me the lords at the logistics department handed them out personally to sell?"

"You can tell you're new just by hearing that. Remember this: in the buffer zone, you can eat whatever you want, but you can't just say whatever you want. If the on-duty guard had heard you just now, you would've been dragged into the public security office and beaten half to death."

"."

Cheng Ye walked quickly through the crowd, the sounds of curses and discussions rising and falling all around him.

He didn't know why, but while he had been full of anxiety last night at the thought of going to the quick checkpoint, he now felt an irrepressible excitement.

Especially when he heard and saw the refugees—their distress, frustration, cursing, and dejection!

He felt more and more that the easygoing, non-competitive nature of the civilization era within him was rapidly fading from his genes with every step he took toward the north checkpoint.

Replacing it was the savage brutality of the wasteland, the love for a good fight gradually awakening in his blood.

This place was certainly not a new era where everyone had hope and civilization was moving toward recovery.

It was a life-or-death supernatural wasteland era where the strong attempted to dominate everything!

The collector opened the path upward for me, giving me the possibility to keep growing stronger.

Brother B protected me during my most vulnerable time, giving me the ability to gain a foothold.

Now!

It is finally the world's turn to welcome my arrival!

PS: Thanks to peidajia for the monthly ticket, thanks to reader 20250429 for the monthly ticket, thanks to reader 202103 for the monthly ticket. Thank you, reader lords, for your support~

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