Lunch followed the usual routine: two packets of Nutrient Paste for protein and carbs, then a Malt Bar Candy for quick sugar.
Cheng Ye couldn't bring himself to eat the Synthetic Dried Meat Liu Bi had given him. He planned to save it as a strategic reserve, to replenish his energy in an emergency while out on a mission.
After lunch,
he stayed by the window until the rain eased a little, then put on his raincoat and headed for the Quarantine Zone.
Perhaps the rain over in neighboring Cloud City was simply too frightening. Workers were rushing to build Flood Control Works everywhere along the way, making the already narrow alleys feel even more chaotic and hurried.
Under a temporary rain shelter by the road, several people who looked like recent arrivals in Xingfu City huddled together, watching the churning black clouds on the horizon with worried faces.
Damp Resident Permits wouldn't get them a place to stay. They had to find work as quickly as possible if they wanted a roof over their heads before the torrential rain arrived.
"Inspector Cheng, you're still assigned to Window 8 today."
"There were already a lot of people this morning, but the afternoon crowd is even bigger. If you run into an emergency you can't handle, call the station for backup at any time."
"Understood!"
Cheng Ye nodded, put on the mask he used to conceal his identity, and strode forward.
Just standing in the passage leading to the front area, he could see a sea of people packed in front of the conveyor belts.
At least seven or eight hundred people?
The torrential rain was part of the reason. The Infected Tide in Cloud City was another.
Some survivors had no choice but to leave, and nearby Xingfu City was naturally the best place to flee to.
"Window Eight is now open. Survivors, please line up and enter the Isolation Cage in an orderly fashion."
Cheng Ye had just taken his seat at the Quarantine Station when the Loudspeaker in the watchtower blared out the announcement.
It really was a steady job. He'd taken the morning off, and even with so many survivors queuing outside, Window Eight had stayed closed the whole time.
The crowds on the other seven conveyor belts stirred slightly. Soon, one of the Isolation Cages was carried over to Cheng Ye.
Three figures crouched inside: two women and one man, a typical Wasteland "family."
"Names?"
"Zhou Tian, Yun Zi, Yun Duo."
They sounded like made-up names. Cheng Ye pretended to lower his head and write them down, but in fact, he brought up his panel to take a look.
The blue panel flickered, and the Search Skill immediately brought up information on all three.
[Zhou Tian, 42%, searchable categories: intelligence, items]
[Yun Zi, 55%, searchable categories: intelligence, items, skills]
[Yun Duo, 18%, searchable categories: intelligence]
"Just asking for their names brought her Cooperation Degree to 55%?"
Cheng Ye was surprised.
He'd thought the Cooperation Degree only counted when people told the truth, but its criteria seemed far more ambiguous than he'd imagined.
Should he search them?
Cheng Ye hesitated for a moment, then decided not to waste a precious opportunity on these three.
Based on what he'd observed over the past few days, he'd concluded that Wasteland families generally fell into the following tiers of strength:
one man and two women < one man and several women < one woman and several men < lone wolf < one man and one woman < one man and one woman with a child
The three in front of him were at the bottom of the list. They'd struggle to scrape by doing manual labor in the Buffer Zone, so there was no point wasting an opportunity on them.
Still, Yun Duo's Cooperation Degree was so low. Cheng Ye raised his head and tapped his fingers against the desk.
"Yun Duo, right? See the first thermometer on the table in front of you? Pick it up, press it against your forehead, and tell me the reading."
Yun Duo looked surprised when Cheng Ye called on her, but she obediently picked up the thermometer.
"Sir, it reads 36.9."
"Good. Now pick up the second thermometer, press it against your chest, and tell me the reading."
"It reads 117."
"The third one."
"16."
As Yun Duo reported each reading, the Cooperation Degree on the panel steadily increased.
By the time they'd finished with all three devices, it had risen from 18% to 44%.
That change gave Cheng Ye a rough initial understanding of how Cooperation Degree was measured.
"Fine. The three of you can leave and go to the back to apply for Resident Permits."
"Huh?" Zhou Tian couldn't help looking startled.
"Is something wrong?"
"S-Sir, you're not going to ask where we came from, whether we're dangerous, or whether we're infected?"
"I already know. You came from Cloud City, encountered danger on the way, and never had direct contact with the Infected."
"?"
Zhou Tian swallowed, his expression changing.
Yun Duo and Yun Zi also drew in sharp breaths, looking at Cheng Ye differently.
"Rule one in the Xingfu City Resident Handbook: never question the professionalism of official personnel."
A Trainee Inspector didn't secure his own checkpoint in just over a month thanks to favors left behind by Cheng Long or Liu Bi's influence.
Cheng Ye tapped the desk with his fingertips, his gaze sweeping over the muddy footprints the three had left on the Isolation Cage. "After days of torrential rain, the provincial and county roads from Cloud City have been blocked by landslides since half a month ago. Only one route is still passable: an abandoned country road that isn't on the map but is known to Cloud City's survivors. The black sand on your soles comes from rock layers unique to that road."
"Look down. The mud on the insides of the two women's jackets is splattered randomly. Those aren't drag marks. It fits with panicked flight from danger, but not with signs of a fight."
"Also, your knees are trembling too quickly. That's not what you'd expect after a long journey. It's exactly like the refugees who fled Cloud City—a lingering effect of running in extreme fear. So stop asking why I didn't examine you. Your vital signs are normal, so go get your Resident Permits. Stop standing here wasting my time."
Cheng Ye said impatiently. The three immediately shrank back and left, not daring to ask another question.
Were all the inspectors in Xingfu City this professional?
He hadn't asked them anything, yet he knew everything. They felt as if they'd been stripped naked, with not a single secret left to hide!
"Next."
The conveyor belt started up, carrying another family of one man and two women over in an Isolation Cage.
This time Cheng Ye worked even faster. He checked their Cooperation Degree and cleared them to leave in just over ten seconds.
In truth, very few Infected dared to openly enter the Checkpoint in Xingfu City.
This wasn't some small shelter city's checkpoint. Those places had neither enough intelligence to rely on nor instruments to help assess people, so they had to make their judgments by hand.
Thermometers, pulse monitors, breathing-rate monitors.
As long as someone's movements were accounted for and all three vital signs were normal, the odds of them being Infected were so low they could be disregarded.
Of course, there were deeply concealed Special Infected, but even the higher-ups in Xingfu City didn't expect the inspectors in the Quarantine Zone to detect those.
The vast Buffer Zone and the sturdy High Wall would keep every threat outside the Inner City.
An hour passed in the blink of an eye.
The crowd at the entrance hadn't dwindled with the opening of Window Eight. The line only grew longer as time went by.
Cheng Ye had already let seventy-one people through, but still hadn't found anyone worth using Search on.
That was only to be expected.
As the number of survivors increased, the weak and the strong alike became more numerous.
And with eight conveyor belts, the odds of drawing someone powerful dropped even further.
"From the way the survivors have acted so far, most of them are probably like me—Three Nos at the bottom of the food chain."
"There are a lot of people today. I'll need to be patient."
Cheng Ye didn't want to use his precious Search Skill only to find that the other person, like him, had three empty Skill Slots.
Even if he wasted both chances on powerful people, that would still be better than gambling on these minnows.
Before long, another hour had passed.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three shots rang out in quick succession, and Cheng Ye instinctively turned his head.
Inside the Isolation Cage on Conveyor Belt 4, a man and woman undergoing inspection had been shot in the head by a Sentinel.
Then the tentacles Cheng Ye had seen only yesterday stretched out from their throats. They were another kind of deeply concealed Death Whisper Tentacle.
If a Special Infection Source like this, one that nested in human obsessions, made its way into a small shelter city or settlement, it would take just over a month to hatch hundreds of tentacles and cause a large-scale disaster.
Fortunately, in all the Wasteland, hardly anyone was obsessed with small shelter cities.
"In a way, the frequent appearances of Death Whisper Tentacles are also a testament to a shelter city's strength and influence."
Cheng Ye sighed and quickly pushed the faint fear out of his mind.
After the tragedy at Quarantine Lane 4, any survivors who were willing to enter an Isolation Cage after witnessing someone get shot in the head had to have something going for them.
As the quality of the survivors rose rapidly, a man and a woman appeared at the end of Conveyor Belt 8, standing inside a cage as they were transported over. Cheng Ye quickly focused his attention.
But just then, a sudden argument broke out beside him and drew his attention away.
He turned to look.
"Holy crap! A man and a woman with a child—the Wasteland's ultimate power couple have finally arrived?"
Thanks to Reader 202210 and Ginyah for the monthly votes, and thanks to Loves Domino's, Cool Cola, Missed Golden Rain, and An Ordinary Storyteller for the tips!
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