Chapter 85

"You prop this end with this beam, and that one two meters away... two meters is about the span of your outstretched arms. The water tank is small, but you need to build the frame big enough to hold it!"

"This tatsoi—eating it prevents scurvy, keeps you from getting constipated, and stops mouth ulcers. Don't underestimate it. Wild greens are hard to find out there, and they might not be as good as this... How do you grow it?"

"Easy! Just take a small pot and mix in some fertilizer. Soak the seeds first, then scatter them in the pot. Before they sprout, keep an eye on them—put them in a warm spot with daily sunlight. Once they sprout, you can toss them outside and they'll still survive. Then just wait to eat."

"I'm the best rat raiser in this area. You need a bigger cage—they breed fast. What to feed them? Anything we'd find disgusting but would eat if we were desperate enough—that's perfect for rats. Like cockroach carcasses, or leaves with lots of sap..."

The bustling move downstairs only wrapped up as the sun was about to set, and this familiar neighborhood had been transformed. Broken spots had been patched up, and people were voluntarily picking up trash on the streets. Even Abel, who had lived here for over a decade, felt a surreal sense of change.

The wounds the war had inflicted on this street were being carefully mended by a group of people.

To celebrate, Abel made a pot of tatsoi and smoked minced horse meat porridge that evening. After finishing her meal, Lin Tu took a spare bowl upstairs.

Everyone knew she kept someone locked in that room. But she never brought the person out, and never mentioned who it was—only that the person was an official of the Rebel Army and could be dangerous at times. When Lin Tu wasn't there, the sounds from the room were indeed chilling. Out of trust, no one probed further.

After entering the room, Lin Tu placed the porridge by the cage.

Once the prison was emptied, its defenses were practically nonexistent, so Lin Tu found a chance to move the cage back and placed it in her room. She had wanted to let Yuan Que keep the chains off, but after one of his fits, he woke up to find he'd smashed a hole in the water pipe, and from then on he insisted on being chained up.

These past few days, Yuan Que's condition had fluctuated in severity. Today, he seemed to be doing well.

"It's lively downstairs today," Yuan Que said as he sipped the porridge. "Sister, do you like this kind of liveliness?"

"Honestly, no," Lin Tu said, leaning against the cage. She took out the [Human Evolution Liquid] and examined it. "My dream is to retire quietly somewhere with no people. Crowded places make me uneasy—it's like living behind a mask. But surprisingly, even with so many people today, I felt a rare sense of peace and calm."

As she spoke, she suddenly felt breathing behind her grow rapid. Sensing trouble, she turned and saw Yuan Que's hands trembling, almost unable to hold the bowl. His head shook slightly—a precursor to an episode.

She hadn't said anything provocative!

Lin Tu scrambled to remedy the situation: "We can retire together. Do you like dogs? I have a dog named Xiao Huang. In the future, it can look after us both..."

But Yuan Que's condition didn't improve. He kept staring at her—more precisely... Lin Tu waved her hand, and sure enough, Yuan Que's head followed up and down... He was looking at what she held!

—[Human Evolution Liquid]!

The moment she realized it, Yuan Que had already lunged at her with lightning speed. The chains clattered loudly, and Yuan Que completely ignored his neck turning red and bruised from the strain. His hand reached for Lin Tu.

Lin Tu pulled her hand back, making him grab air. Unexpectedly, he didn't give up and instead grabbed for her arm. Thinking he wouldn't hurt her, she hadn't been cautious, and he caught her squarely.

"Drink... drink it!" Yuan Que shouted hoarsely, his other hand gripping the bars.

Strangely, his voice had become shrill and excited, as if someone else was screaming from his throat.

"No way!" Lin Tu said firmly.

She tried to break free, but she saw Yuan Que's hand on the bars spread outward. The bars were spiral-shaped, and his palm scraped against them, blood bubbling from his palm, yet he kept increasing his force until the bars bent enough to stick half his body out, and he still showed no reaction.

Thinking of the side effects of the [Human Evolution Liquid], Lin Tu suddenly realized—Yuan Que was being controlled!

Realizing things had escalated, Lin Tu quickly tried to throw the liquid out the window, but Yuan Que's hand was already there.

He snatched the liquid, smashed the bottle's mouth, and the liquid, shimmering like a river of stars, swayed as he tilted it toward Lin Tu's lips.

Lin Tu frowned, leaning her head back as far as she could, but the bottle kept coming closer until she could almost smell its bizarre, foul stench.

Just as the liquid was about to reach her mouth, a look of struggle crossed Yuan Que's face.

"No! Sister..." His hand trembled, and up close, Lin Tu saw tears quickly soak the cloth covering his eyes.

"No!" Then she heard a inhuman shout from Yuan Que's mouth as he released her and staggered back, then dumped the entire bottle into his own mouth.

With a gulp, the liquid went down.

"Damn it!" This time, the voice from his throat had completely turned into another person's—a woman's, somewhat hoarse, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time. 'Yuan Que' looked around but only saw darkness. "Fine, letting this trash card waste a dose of my evolution liquid."

'She' idly waved an invisible object and looked at it. "Two doses of evolution liquid and still an R rank. What a waste."

Lin Tu watched 'her' carefully, holding her breath and staying silent.

"If only I could get that woman," 'Yuan Que' yawned and muttered. "She could definitely evolve me to SSR. Ah, I really want her. I'll find a way to get her."

With that, she tossed away the thing in her hand, and Yuan Que collapsed limply to the floor.

Lin Tu watched quietly for a few minutes, and when nothing unusual happened, she hurried over, lifted Yuan Que, and laid him flat on the bed.

"Hey?" Lin Tu called softly, but Yuan Que had fallen into a deep coma. His hands were covered in blood, his neck was bruised, and he looked in terrible shape.

She put away her gun, quickly checked his condition, and stopped the bleeding before turning her mind to what had just happened.

Everything that had occurred exceeded Lin Tu's expectations, but at least she was certain of one thing: the disaster in [Place of Exile] was human-manipulated. This person was more formidable than she had imagined. Still, at least 'she' had slipped up.

.

Time passed bitterly yet swiftly amid the war.

In the blink of an eye, it was the fifty-second day of the disaster.

During this period, Lin Tu kept taking in civilians, and at one point resources nearly ran short. Fortunately, she had extra intel from the Black Factory: [A batch of supplies buried in an underground warehouse has been dug up and is scheduled to be transported to the Government Army base on the 42nd disaster day]. Lin Tu led her people to ambush in advance, seized the resources, and solved the shortage.

Her [Side Mission Progress]—the shelter's completion had reached 57%, with occupants increasing to 1,567, and the average health of residents rising to 43%. The last item wasn't because Lin Tu didn't want to improve it, but because within such a short time, she couldn't instantly make these war-weary civilians healthy; it would take time. Now these civilians were dividing labor and cooperating, fully self-sufficient. If not for the war's disruptions, that number might have been higher after a month.

Lin Tu had officially become a landlady with over two hundred property deeds. Walking down the street, every building she saw was hers.

Thinking back over a month ago, she had been content with owning a single house. In less than a month, she had achieved a class leap. If this were peacetime, Lin Tu mused, she could lie on her property deeds and wait to retire.

Unfortunately, the reality was that those two hundred-plus houses didn't let Lin Tu relax—they only made her more anxious.

From the moment the Government Army and the Rebel Army realized no one was buying their expensive relief grain or taking their special wartime grain loans, they began to notice: clothes weren't being mended, shoes were often worn through; no one did the power generation work, and their stations kept losing power; in short, the most overlooked people were gone—the ones who fixed leaks and furniture, the cooks, the cleaners.

At first, they didn't care much. Weren't they just commoners leaving? Weren't the core military members still around? But then they realized that without commoners, there was no one to fuel vehicles or carry guns and ammunition. They couldn't even fight a battle. What use were those core military members?

Worse, there seemed to be an invisible hand quietly making off with their resources.

The Rebel Army was relatively better off—they just occasionally found things missing from their warehouses. The Government Army was worse: they claimed a warehouse fire to the public, but in truth, some unknown person had slipped in and emptied the entire warehouse. When they finally found another batch of buried resources, it was stolen again, leaving them at a loss.

Both armies, pondering this, turned their gaze toward the civilian organization that had risen recently. Its leader hadn't been announced publicly, but everyone knew who owned the properties—Lin Tu.

It was at this moment that Lin Tu truly witnessed the strength of the Rebel Army and the Government Army.

From a player's perspective, those who had drunk the [Human Evolution Liquid] were the mutated monsters of this disaster. Now, their target had shifted entirely to Lin Tu—or rather, to these civilians.