Thwarted

The Safe Zone was vast-so vast that even the geography teachers at Ju'an School did not have a detailed map.

Naturally, Qin Siyang had no idea where the Safe Zone exits were located.

He only knew the approximate location of the Exit of Safe Zone 114514 because it was relatively close to him.

Of the hundred thousand or so numbered Safe Zone exits, that was the only one he knew.

Unless an ordinary person hoped to attach themselves to a powerful Sequence Ability User, why would they care where the Safe Zone exits were?

Not knowing where the Safe Zone exits were was not much of a problem, though. He remembered a route map at the bus stop near the main road. It would probably show their locations.

On past weekends, Qin Siyang had simply lain around at home to conserve energy and eat less. This weekend was bound to be different.

Now, he was brimming with determination.

Only one conviction filled his mind.

Get stronger.

As long as I get stronger, I can leave this hellhole!

Qin Siyang shouldered his schoolbag full of food and walked for a little over ten minutes to the bus stop.

This was his first time visiting a bus stop. He could barely afford food, let alone a bus ride.

In Qin Siyang's memories, within the Safe Zone after the apocalypse, the poor traveled on foot while the rich took buses.

As for people who drove private cars? Gasoline was even scarcer than electricity. Nobody that loaded lived on the outskirts of the Safe Zone.

He stood studying the route map at the bus stop for a long time.

He discovered that quite a few stops along the route were named after Safe Zone exits. The only bus route on the outskirts passed several exits, all with numbers lower than 114514.

Qin Siyang had no clear idea which Safe Zone exit to visit.

I'll take it as it comes.

He had never ridden a bus in this life, so he did not know how far apart the stops were.

"Ah, if only orphans could ride buses for free too."

Looking at the fare of five copper coins, Qin Siyang shook his head helplessly. He had spent his last ten copper coins at the internet café yesterday.

"Five copper coins each way means ten for a round trip. I'd be better off going to the internet café again to look things up."

Qin Siyang began measuring the distance between bus stops with his own feet. He needed a rough idea of how far apart they were to judge which Safe Zone exits he could reach on foot.

He walked along the bus route for twenty minutes and reached the next stop.

"The bus stops here seem much farther apart than in my previous life."

After eating the god remains yesterday, his strength had increased, and he walked far faster than ordinary pedestrians. Whenever the road was empty, he picked up the pace even more, moving as fast as he could.

Even so, he could only cover three stops in an hour.

Now that he knew the distance between stops, he had a rough idea of his range.

"The seventh stop is Safe Zone Exit No. 54320, the seventeenth is Safe Zone Exit No. 89757, and the twentieth is Safe Zone Exit No. 38324. From the looks of it, those are the only three where I have a chance to look for god remains."

"From the farthest one, Safe Zone Exit No. 38324, I can get home before tomorrow. Any farther, and I probably won't make it home before Monday, which means I won't get to school on time."

On Monday, Qin Siyang had to get to school early and tell the librarian that he planned to continue his work-study job.

Otherwise, someone else would take the library assistant position for the following week, and he would have no money for the internet café.

After some thought, Qin Siyang decided to walk to Safe Zone Exit No. 54320 first and see what things were like.

The hour-and-forty-minute journey did not leave Qin Siyang tired in the slightest. In fact, his steps grew lighter the farther he walked.

Material wealth and spiritual wealth often had to be considered separately. Once people had something to look forward to, they found energy for anything they did.

Even with the dim streetlights around him lending the air an oppressive feel.

By the clock, it was daytime, but the sun had disappeared ten years ago. Although it was early morning, the sky remained forever frozen at midnight.

Infrastructure on the outskirts of the Safe Zone was rudimentary. Even the main road he was on only had a dim streetlight every few dozen meters, each barely illuminating a few steps.

The alleys beside it were pitch-black. Anyone walking through them had to feel their way along.

Looking up, he could faintly make out pinpricks of starlight through the Safe Zone's overhead defensive glass, along with the silhouettes of gods passing by now and then.

A cold wind blew through Qin Siyang's layers of poorly insulated outerwear and made intimate contact with his skin, sending goosebumps racing over his body.

Qin Siyang turned up his collar and wrapped it around his face to keep the cold wind from blowing directly against it, then continued at a brisk pace.

After walking seven stops, he reached Safe Zone Exit No. 54320.

Its number was more than fifty thousand lower than 114514, so in theory, more Sequence Ability Users would be hunting gods here.

Upon arriving, Qin Siyang found a relatively tall, dilapidated building from which to survey the area.

Sure enough, he saw nearly a hundred Sequence Ability Users in Cold-Proof Suits gathered at the exit, far more than at Exit 114514.

Ordinary people dressed much like him packed the area around the Safe Zone exit so tightly that there was barely any room to move. There were probably close to ten thousand of them.

He studied the crowd and the Sequence Ability Users talking in its midst. Nobody had noticed him.

Qin Siyang pretended to wander aimlessly around the area, searching for the dumpsters containing god remains.

Finally, a block away from the Safe Zone exit, he spotted the dumpsters containing the God Remains.

The dumpsters at this exit were on a far larger scale than those at Exit 114514.

If the dumpsters at the Exit of Safe Zone 114514 were a lavish dinner, then the dumpster area at Safe Zone Exit No. 54320 was a full imperial banquet.

Seven or eight dumpsters stood in a row, every one of them filled with god remains! The dazzling assortment of bizarrely shaped remains whetted Qin Siyang's appetite.

If I can empty all seven or eight dumpsters, won't my strength shoot through the roof?!

Qin Siyang's heart pounded as he considered the fastest way to sweep up all the god remains here.

But suddenly, he noticed two sanitation workers beside the dumpsters, their clothes covered in blood.

Qin Siyang had intended to wait at a distance until the two sanitation workers left before approaching.

But as soon as he entered their field of vision, both of them looked up at him together.

After briefly meeting his gaze, they went back to cleaning the dumpsters.

Qin Siyang's heart tightened, and he changed his plan.

Instead of stopping, he kept walking toward the dumpsters and the two sanitation workers.

Posing as a student passing by, Qin Siyang walked casually past them without looking back.

The two sanitation workers glanced at Qin Siyang. Seeing his plain clothes and young face, they paid him little mind.

Only after he had walked far away and left the block entirely did Qin Siyang let out a breath of relief.

"What's going on?! Why is someone guarding the dumpsters?! And in plain clothes, too! Did that uniformed recorder report me yesterday? Are people really watching the dumpsters?"

When Qin Siyang had met their eyes, his nerves had drawn taut. Though his face remained expressionless, he had observed them closely, his mind racing.

He realized that those two people definitely were not ordinary sanitation workers.

The stains on their clothes were too deliberate.

The god remains in the dumpsters had long since been separated from the gods' bodies. Their blood had already drained away when they were killed.

The sanitation workers he had seen yesterday at the Exit of Safe Zone 114514 had only had a little dust on their clothes.

Even with all the god remains at Safe Zone Exit No. 54320, there was hardly any blood on the dumpsters.

Yet those two were covered in blood, splattered all over as if they had just killed someone. How was that what sanitation workers should look like?

It had obviously been smeared on deliberately!

They had overdone it.

Moreover, when Qin Siyang was still far from the dumpsters, both of them had looked up at him in unison.

The moment their eyes met, Qin Siyang had sensed how alert they were.

Sanitation workers only needed to do their jobs. Why would they vigilantly scan their surroundings?! And both of them, at that!

"Maybe the god remains disappearing from the dumpster last night caught someone's attention! Perhaps those remains have other uses after they're collected?"

His concerns before coming had not been unfounded.

In just one night, the United Government had launched an investigation into the matter.

It went without saying that even more plainclothes agents would be waiting for him at the dumpsters at the Exit of Safe Zone 114514.

Qin Siyang sighed. "Would this have been less trouble if I'd only taken one piece of god remains yesterday?"

But although taking just one piece of God Remains a day seemed safe, he would have needed to visit the dumpsters more than thirty times to gain the strength he had now.

Going that often would increase the chance of exposing himself. He could easily have been caught in the act.

It was better to make one big haul.

That was precisely why he had decided to sweep up all the god remains in the dumpster yesterday.

Qin Siyang knew his plan to obtain god remains from dumpsters might be finished. But he had not given up completely.

Although he had a favorable impression of the United Government, he still doubted the efficiency of its lower-level personnel.

Otherwise, why had Ju'an School still not introduced any courses related to Sequence Ability Users?

Perhaps the situation had not yet escalated enough to cut off all his opportunities.

"Forget it. There's no chance with the dumpsters here. I'll keep going and try my luck! Even if I don't get another chance, yesterday's haul already made me much stronger. I still came out ahead!"

Qin Siyang left Safe Zone Exit No. 54320 and continued into the distance along the bus route.

The next Safe Zone exit was Safe Zone Exit No. 89757, ten stops farther on.

"Ten stops. Ugh, that's more than another three hours of walking. I wonder if I can still get home today. I might have to sleep outside."