The value of minerals depended on whether they served the logic of survival.
As society regressed into a pure struggle for survival, lithium ore had long since surpassed a whole range of traditional precious metals in strategic importance to Xingfu City.
Gold, for example!
For the settlements, small tribes, and wandering organizations scattered around the Sanctuary Cities, finding a gold bar in the City Ruins couldn't change their desperate circumstances.
But a 10 kWh battery made in Xingfu City could free a settlement of a hundred people from a whole month of darkness.
And lithium ore happened to be one of the core raw materials used to make high-performance batteries.
"How many people were on the other side, and how did you beat them?"
Cheng Ye didn't dwell on whether the Ore Deposit was real or valuable, nor did he plan to keep the news to himself.
The High Level in Xingfu City had already considered this when the Checkpoint was first established.
If inspectors could casually swallow up Scavengers' discoveries and claim them as their own, no one would dare venture outside the city.
When someone reported a mineral deposit, the Inner City had a comprehensive system for questioning and on-site investigations.
Without being the one who discovered it, it was basically impossible to get through that system.
And if someone was found to have falsely claimed another's discovery, there was only one outcome.
Execution in the public square!
"There were twenty-seven Scavengers in total. They were Big Head Ghost's men from the Hundred Ghosts Gang in the Ruins."
Ke Er grinned, showing his back teeth. "Those guys took us for Two-Legged Sheep and wanted to squeeze some profit out of us. Too bad for them, the four of us grew up roughing it in the Ruins. We'd seen this kind of thing plenty of times. We weren't afraid of them, and we'd prepared in advance."
He spoke as if it were nothing, but every word was steeped in murderous intent.
Cheng Ye had never heard of the Hundred Ghosts Gang and didn't know who Big Head Ghost was. But if they'd broken through a trap set by twenty-seven people, defeated them head-on, dug up a sample, and made it back—
Assuming they weren't lying,
their Combat Power was definitely far greater than that of a half-baked inspector like him, who'd only been training for two months.
"Hmm. Then were their injuries gunshot wounds?"
"Uh..."
The smile on Ke Er's face froze. He hurriedly shook his head. "N-no. Sir, they had claw marks on them."
"Claw marks?"
"Mutated Beasts did it!"
"When we fought the Hundred Ghosts Gang, Mutated Beasts suddenly joined in. That's how we all got out alive."
If their injuries had been gunshot wounds, the lithium deposit would have been enough to protect them from being detained by Cheng Ye.
But claw marks were an entirely different matter. If Cheng Ye insisted there was a risk of infection and locked them in an Isolation Pod, even the High Level of Xingfu City would have nothing to say.
It was an ironclad rule of the Checkpoint, and a principle that could not be compromised.
"Sir, on top of the Six Hundred Coins, we're willing to offer you a meteorite we got from Qingshi Gathering Place."
"Shut up!"
Cheng Ye barked, cutting off the bribe Ke Er hadn't even finished offering.
Even the finest things were useless if you weren't alive to enjoy them.
The West Faction members inside the Checkpoint might all look greedy, as if they'd let anyone through for money, but none of them dared be careless when it came to screening for Infected.
Even the blockhead in neighboring Zone B would rather kill the innocent than let the guilty go.
That was precisely why inspectors in the Buffer Zone had managed to maintain their reputation without ever losing the public's trust.
Anyone who dared break this rule would become the enemy of every inspector and the public enemy of all the Buffer Zone's residents!
"Go outside. Have the one with the injured arm come in."
"Yes!"
Ke Er gritted his teeth. Now all he could do was hope the Dongren inspector in front of him would judge the case fairly.
Soon, the two men switched places.
The new arrival, an Xiren, took off his clothes, and Cheng Ye saw a horrifying claw wound.
The claw marks ran from his shoulder to his forearm, at least thirty centimeters long. His flesh had been torn open, and the wound was deep enough to expose bone!
"Name?"
"La Mu Waters."
"Are you brothers?"
"Yes, sir. The four of us are biological brothers."
"Tell me how you got hurt. Be specific. Don't give me some bedtime story you'd tell a child. I'll only give you one chance."
"I understan'."
La Mu's gaze was firm. He immediately realized that his life was now in his own hands.
"It was Ant Wolves. More than forty of them, all adults."
Ant Wolves were one of the most common Mutated Beasts in the City Ruins, famous for their reproductive abilities.
A flood of information flashed through Cheng Ye's mind, from the standard descriptions in the inspector's handbook to scattered accounts in books from the Survival Library.
Their life cycle resembled that of gray wolves. Adults stood about 1.2 meters tall at the shoulder, with sharp fangs and tremendous speed. Their fur was covered in a layer of carbonized keratin that effectively resisted physical attacks.
The "ant" in their name came from their mutated reproductive system.
Female Ant Wolves went into heat every six months. Their abdomens had evolved a massive brood pouch, much like a queen ant's, and each could lay fifteen to twenty eggs at a time.
The wolf pups hatched from the eggs needed only three months to begin growing and could reach maturity in a year.
As long as food was plentiful and they had no natural predators, a few Ant Wolves could reproduce into a huge pack within four or five years.
Although Ant Wolf meat tasted awful, it was edible and nontoxic. That meant they could hardly run rampant in the Wasteland, especially within the borders of the Eastern Great Nation.
After all, every holiday feast for Scavengers and wanderers had to include Ant Wolf meat as the main course.
"Sir, you know the value of lithium ore. We couldn't believe there was a wild lithium deposit discovered by Scavengers, and that we'd just happened to hear about it. But don't Scavengers risk their lives for the chance to get rich and make something of themselves? After much hesitation, we decided to check it out. Before we went, though, we deliberately led a pack of Ant Wolves behind our vehicle. We figured that even if there was an ambush, the Ant Wolves could throw them into disarray."
"And we were right to take the gamble!"
A vicious glint flashed in his eyes. "Under the exposed stripping layer on the little hill the Scavenger had told us about, there really was a spodumene-type lithium deposit on the sunny side. And there was an ambush, just as we'd expected. But those bastards from the Hundred Ghosts Gang never imagined we'd bring the Ant Wolves right to their doorstep. While they were crouched on the shady side, the pack charged in all at once. We took the chance to attack from the sunny side and took them all down without much trouble..."
"But..."
La Mu paused, a bitter smile crossing his face.
"We also underestimated the pups' appetite. Twenty-seven people weren't enough to fill them up, so they turned on us. These injuries are from fighting the pack."
La Mu's account was not only clear but extremely smooth. It was obvious he'd repeatedly rehearsed it on the way here.
Cheng Ye gave a slight nod. Unlike other inspectors, he wasn't put off by that.
Nor did he automatically assume "smooth" meant "a lie," as they did in movies and TV dramas.
Before his graduate-school defense, he'd spent two days rehearsing in his dorm. Now that their lives were at stake, it made sense for the four brothers to get their story straight in advance and make sure nobody misspoke. If anything, failing to do so would have made them seem more suspicious.
"Four Brothers. You've got courage, skill, and brains."
"Only people like that could discover a lithium deposit worth a fortune."
Cheng Ye marveled inwardly.
The world was full of heroes as numerous as carp crossing a river. As he traveled the Wasteland in the future, he truly couldn't afford to underestimate anyone.
After all, what kind of person could survive in the City Ruins without being tough enough to walk on the edge of a blade?
"Give me your readings."
"37.7/133/22."
La Mu answered in a low voice, but his heart sank. The numbers were already close to the abnormal range.
If his temperature went over 38 degrees, the inspector in front of him could throw them straight into an Isolation Pod without needing any further justification.
"Have the one with the injured leg come in. The two of you, support him..."
Cheng Ye spoke calmly, pointing expressionlessly at the corner of the Quarantine Zone. "You, stand in the corner. Don't move around."
"Yes, sir."
The isolation door slid open. Two men quickly helped the injured man inside, and Ke Er helped him take off his clothes.
Good grief.
Compared with the wound on La Mu's arm, the one on the man's right leg was truly horrifying.
Torn flesh and bite marks stretched from his calf to his upper thigh. Even if he were rushed into surgery right now, there was no guarantee they could save the leg from amputation.
"Sir."
"Name?"
"He Er Waters, Xi Mo Waters."
"Give me your readings."
There was no time for further explanation. Ke Er gritted his teeth and helped take the measurements.
"36.9/102/18."
"38.7/162/26."
He Er's readings were still normal, but even a dog would shake its head at Xi Mo's three dangerously abnormal readings.
"Sir..." Ke Er opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say.
Asking Cheng Ye to make an exception now would be asking him to violate the principles of an inspector.
Everyone understood that the abnormal readings might have been caused by the body's immune response to severe injuries.
"Sir, lock me up. I'm too badly hurt. There's no saving me..."
Xi Mo clenched his teeth. Blood-flecked foam seeped from the corners of his mouth. "Please, for the sake of the lithium deposit—for the sake of us risking our lives for Xingfu City—let the other three go!"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Ke Er's expression changed. He grabbed Xi Mo by the shoulder. "The four of us agreed we'd live and die together! We finally had a chance to turn our lives around. We're not leaving anyone behind!"
"Xi Mo, shut up. If anyone's getting locked up, it should be me."
All right.
It seemed Cheng Ye would have to take back his assessment that the Four Brothers had brains.
He sighed to himself, reflecting that art did imitate life. He might not be as stupid as the interrogators in TV dramas, but stupid people being interrogated certainly existed in real life.
The decision to isolate them was indeed up to the inspector. Even with Xi Mo's three abnormal readings, he still had the authority not to isolate him.
But if he only locked one of them up and let the other three go, that would be an obvious violation.
Unless the four were Inner City property owners with backing from someone with higher-level clearance, if Cheng Ye dared do that, he'd be suspended and investigated the next second.
Bang.
After firing a shot into the air, the world finally quieted down.
The annoying melodrama was cut short, and the Four Brothers froze in place, their minds filled with the ringing echo of the gunshot.
Cheng Ye holstered his standard-issue inspector's pistol, stood up, and nodded toward the corner.
"Leave him here. The rest of you, get over there and squat in the corner."
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