The Law of Survival X and X the So-Called "Meteor City"

The child in the protective suit clearly knew Qi Zhou could run faster than him and made no attempt to escape.

He led Qi Zhou toward the settlement, but changed direction just before they reached it, taking him behind a dirt mound southwest of the settlement.

The child took off his protective mask. His chestnut curls were soaked with sweat, clinging to his face in clumps.

The child looked at Qi Zhou expressionlessly and said, "There's no one around here. Whatever you want to know, ask."

Qi Zhou thought for a moment and asked, "Where is this?"

The child froze at the question and looked at him as if to say, "Are you an idiot?" Only when he saw that Qi Zhou wasn't joking did he reply coldly, "District Five of Meteor City."

Qi Zhou had asked one question and gotten two more in return. "Meteor City... District Five?"

He thought for a moment and tried a question that might be easier to answer. "Do you have a map?"

"No," the child said.

Qi Zhou said, "Oh."

The child stared at Qi Zhou and lowered his voice slightly. "But I'll draw one for you for a compressed biscuit."

Qi Zhou studied him and thought for a moment. "One is too much. Half at most."

"Deal." The child agreed without hesitation, then relaxed a little, his expression no longer quite so tense.

Watching him, Qi Zhou suddenly understood what he had been nervous about.

Food in Meteor City was worth far more than he had imagined. If he hadn't haggled, the child would have turned and run-because if the person he was trading with was dead, it made no difference whether he asked for one biscuit or half.

Only someone who had no intention of killing him would be willing to spend the time and breath haggling.

The child bent down, picked up a random stone and drew an irregular closed shape on the ground. He drew lines from the center outward to divide it into four large sections, then divided each section into three unequal parts and wrote in the numbers 1 through 12.

"Meteor City is generally divided into four major regions: east, south, west and north. The four elders each govern one region. There's another way to divide it, too: twelve districts."

The boy glanced at Qi Zhou and, seeing that his attention was on the map, silently breathed a sigh of relief.

He pointed at the center. "The four elders live in the center of Meteor City, and the Council of Elders is here too."

"Farther out, Districts One through Four are residential areas, but not just anyone can live there." The boy drew a symbol in the Second District and pointed to it.

"The exception is the church. If you're injured and have money, you can go to the church's medical ward for treatment. If you're under twelve, the church can also provide basic necessities-at least enough to keep you from starving."

When he said "keep you from starving," a faint, mocking smile seemed to cross the boy's face, but it vanished in an instant.

He pointed to the areas numbered five through eight. "Most people live in the outer districts. It's more convenient that way."

Qi Zhou thought that by "convenient," he meant scavenging.

"We're here right now."

Qi Zhou looked at where the boy was pointing. It was on the border between District Five and District Nine.

"The outermost districts are where outsiders dump their garbage." The boy casually swept a finger across the four areas numbered nine through twelve. "Districts Ten and Eleven are the best places to work. It's easy to find good stuff there-but there are a lot of people, too, and if you're unlucky, you'll still run into toxic garbage."

"Here," the boy said, circling District 12, "there's nothing usable here at all. Even if there is, ninety-nine percent of it is highly toxic and radioactive."

He stood up. "But like I said, if you're unlucky, it's the same wherever you go."

"Hmm..." Qi Zhou looked at the map on the ground. Though it was a simple sketch, it was a very detailed map-as long as the boy hadn't lied to him.

"Here."

After committing the map to memory, Qi Zhou tossed the boy a compressed biscuit, then warned him, "It's expired, and I dug it out of a medical waste bin. Do you dare eat it?"

The boy caught the biscuit and saw that it was a whole one. He gave Qi Zhou another look as if he were an idiot, then tore open the wrapper and swallowed the biscuit in big mouthfuls.

He didn't even chew-he bit off a piece and swallowed it straight down.

Qi Zhou watched him in stunned silence. He couldn't imagine how the boy managed to swallow something so dry and hard, mouthful after mouthful, without water or even chewing, all without a change in expression.

In less than a minute, the boy had finished the biscuit. He tore open the wrapper and poured the crumbs into his mouth too, not leaving a single speck.

Qi Zhou said, "..."

He took out the boy's knife. "Here, your knife." Then he gently tossed it onto the ground at the boy's feet.

The boy didn't pick it up. He looked at Qi Zhou instead.

Qi Zhou asked, "I have one more question. Can I leave this place called 'Meteor City'?"

"Yeah, you can. There's no gate. If you want to leave, just leave."

The boy's lips curled. "But you won't be able to do anything once you're out. You need an ID card to do anything outside Meteor City. Do you have one?"

Qi Zhou said, "..."

When he woke up, he had been in a box with nothing on him but his clothes.

"Or you could go here." The boy looked at Qi Zhou, thought for a moment, then tapped the Fourth District with his foot. "There's a T Arena here. As long as you're still alive after getting a hundred wins, there's a way out, but I don't know the details."

"Or go to the church. They'll feed you, but going there is the same as selling yourself to the elders. If you're lucky, you might end up as an underling of an underling of an underling under the Council of Elders. If you're unlucky... the whole eastern region is fighting among itself, so it's possible they'll send you straight out as cannon fodder."

Qi Zhou nodded, then thought for a moment and asked, "Do you know where there's a water source?"

"...Here?" The boy stared at him, then pointed irritably at Meteor City's inner districts. "At the elders' homes and in the shops in the residential districts, you can get as much water as you want."

Qi Zhou said, "..."

"This is Meteor City. Meteor City is in a desert. How could there possibly be water in the desert that nobody's claimed, just sitting there for you to use?"

The boy looked at Qi Zhou with contempt. "You're really strange. You're not from Meteor City, are you?"

Qi Zhou said, "...Who knows?"

Hearing Qi Zhou's answer, the boy assumed he didn't want to talk about it and asked no more.

"If you want drinking water, you can take something useful to Beierhan and trade for it, but it's expensive."

"If you're looking for a water source, though, here-in District Twelve, the one I just told you about. There's a river here. But the chemical plant upstream discharges its waste into the river, and chemical waste gets dumped in it too."

The boy drew a line on the map, then stood up. "If you're not afraid of dying, you can take a sip and see what it tastes like."

"I see." Qi Zhou nodded and looked at the boy. "Thank you. I've asked everything I wanted to ask. Goodbye."

When the boy heard the words "thank you," his face took on an expression that seemed to say, "What are you saying? I've never heard those words before." His expression grew strange as he watched Qi Zhou walk away, and his gaze sharpened slightly, as though he had made a decision.