Bai Chen immediately slowed down the heavy motorcycle and looked up ahead.
A hundred meters away, there was a reddish-brown wall, stretching as far as possible to both sides, turning back at the end of Bai Chen's line of sight, seemingly to form an enclosure.
Most of the bricks in this wall were mottled and old, but a few looked new, as if they had been fired within the past year.
Barbed wire, rusty and worn, was strung along the top of the wall and outside it, with only one road passable.
Between the barbed wire and the wall, and on several wooden scaffolds erected behind the wall, guards with dirty and mismatched clothing patrolled, holding guns.
The one who warned Bai Chen was a guard standing on the highest wooden scaffold, wearing a yellowed and stiff shirt underneath a navy blue, seemingly cotton-padded, and very puffy and bulky garment.
This guard had an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder and was holding a pen-like black object in his hand.
This object emitted a red light, shining on Bai Chen, forming a small dot in front of her.
Bai Chen stopped the motorcycle, took off her helmet, and tried to smooth back her just-past-ear-length short hair.
She was intentionally displaying her female identity.
This was not to charm or seduce anyone, but to make the other party relax and be less nervous.
She was well aware that, in the Grey Earth, in places with little order, even if guns could bring the danger of men and women to the same level, they could not truly bridge the gap between the two.
Whether in terms of physique or aggression, men were more dangerous than women.
A male stranger was much more likely to cause panic than a female one.
During those years when Bai Chen wandered the wilderness, she always presented two different states: when she needed to explore ruins, hunt in the wild, pass through dangerous areas, or trade with some bandit groups, she would hide her long hair, darken her face, and change her attire to make herself look like a man; when she approached settlements with a certain degree of order, or dealt with relic hunters from larger forces who cared more about information and old-world data, she would reveal her female identity.
Once she was absorbed by "Pangu Biology" and gained confidence, she could finally cut her hair to a medium-length, neither long nor short, according to her own preferences.
After placing the helmet in front of her, Bai Chen slowly continued forward on the heavy motorcycle.
During this process, the red dot always flickered in front of her, occasionally landing on her motorcycle. This indicated that the other party had aimed and was not being careless.
When the distance between the two sides narrowed to thirty meters, Bai Chen tilted the motorcycle, propped herself up with one foot, and shouted loudly:
"I'm here to see Town Chief Tian Erhe!"
She repeated it twice, then remained silent, waiting patiently.
One of the guards on the wooden scaffold separated himself and hurried down the sloped wooden planks.
Five or six minutes later, an old man appeared on the wall.
He wore a furry, dark blue hat, as if he had placed a begging bowl upside down on his head.
He had very obvious white hair at his temples, sunken eyes, and a thin face. Wrinkles grew wherever they could, making him look very old.
However, his dark brown eyes were still bright, and his spirit could be described as vigorous. He was indeed Tian Erhe, the town chief of this settlement.
He wore a white, yellowing t-shirt, a crumpled, patched-up suit, and a military-green overcoat that was too large and long and obviously did not fit his figure.
His lower body was covered in deep yellow woolen trousers, with who knew how many other pairs of trousers stuffed inside, making him look very bulky.
Tian Erhe looked towards Bai Chen and carefully distinguished her for a few seconds.
"Ah..." He seemed to recognize her, but when he wanted to greet her, he found that Bai Chen was too far away, and he could no longer shout casually as he used to.
He quickly turned his head and angrily said to the guard next to him:
"Give me my loudspeaker!
"Really, not smart at all!"
The guard responded aggrievedly:
"Your loudspeaker has long been out of power, and we haven't been able to find a replacement battery of the same type recently.
"I, I can shout for you..."
Tian Erhe thought for a moment and said:
"Help me shout: 'Bai girl, where have you been all year? I thought you'd been eaten by wild animals!'"
"Bai girl..." The guard suddenly realized, "Is it Bai Chen, the one who used to come often?"
"If it's not her, who else could it be? I'm already in my seventies, and my eyesight is getting worse, but I can still recognize her. How can you young people in your early twenties be so blind?" Tian Erhe glanced at the guard and scolded him a couple of times.
Everyone in this settlement was used to Tian Erhe's temper. The guard did not mind the scolding just now, but muttered a few words:
"She's much prettier than before... If you don't look carefully, you wouldn't recognize her..."
Before Tian Erhe could glare at him, the guard cleared his throat and shouted loudly:
"Bai girl, where have you been all year? I thought you'd been eaten by wild animals!"
Bai Chen's expression softened unconsciously, and she responded loudly:
"I went to another place.
"Town Chief, I'm here to exchange some things!"
This place was called "Shuiwei Town." Bai Chen had heard Tian Erhe say that the town's name came from the fact that it was surrounded by four rivers before the Old World was destroyed.
After the destruction of the Old World, long-term wars, and multiple geological disasters, the nearby water currents had become part of the vast swamp, which provided Shuiwei Town with a natural defensive wall and brought sufficient concealment.
Only the residents of Shuiwei Town and the guests they had invited could find those seemingly silt-covered roads in the Great Swamp and reach here in the maze-like environment.
Compared to those settlements that had to migrate frequently, Shuiwei Town, with its clean water sources and plenty of arable land, had been here since the Old World was destroyed.
Tian Erhe originally wanted to chat loudly for a few words, but before he could really open his mouth, his throat was already itchy, and he couldn't help but cough a couple of times.
"Come in, come in." He waved his hand helplessly.
The guard next to him immediately shouted:
"Come in! Come in!
"Hand over your gun to the person at the entrance!"
Snap! Tian Erhe slapped him:
"Who told you to add that last sentence?
"Bai girl is someone we can trust!"
"But she hasn't been here for a year." The guard retorted with his neck craned.
Tian Erhe was silent for two seconds, then said nothing more and turned to walk down the wooden scaffold.
Bai Chen did not resist, handing over the rifle on her back, the pistol on her weapon belt, and the heavy motorcycle to the guards at the gate.
The double-leafed, iron-black gate then opened.
Tian Erhe was already waiting there, looking Bai Chen up and down a few times, and chuckled:
"It seems you've been doing well recently. You used to be just a mud girl."
Bai Chen closed her eyes instinctively:
"A team took me in."
Tian Erhe nodded thoughtfully:
"Not bad, not bad."
He didn't continue this topic, asking casually:
"What about your robot? What was it called, 35 something."
Bai Chen lowered her eyelids slightly, paused for a second, and said:
"It broke."
Tian Erhe was immediately silent.
After a few seconds, he took a breath, as if they hadn't exchanged anything just now, and asked:
"What do you want to exchange?"
"Some parts from cars..." Bai Chen replied with a normal expression.
"Stop! Don't tell me the specifics, I don't understand either. I'll just take you to take a look and pick some out." Tian Erhe interrupted Bai Chen with a smile.
He turned around, led Bai Chen, and walked towards the depths of the town.
This town was not large, completely different from the concept of a town in the Old World.
Bai Chen's first sight was of three three-story buildings in the distance. The buildings were not tall, but they were very long, with many rooms separated on each floor.
These three buildings were not parallel, but arranged in an inverted, slanted "item" shape.
As far as Bai Chen knew, those who lived inside, with private or floor toilets, were the members of the Town Guard and their families. At the same time, people with important skills could also be assigned rooms, for example, those who knew how to repair guns, or those who mastered old-world agricultural techniques.
On both sides of the "item" shape, there were one vertical and one horizontal large public toilets; in front of the "item" shape was a small square made of cement, and beyond the small square were three side-by-side, tamped-earth-based, not-so-large squares.
On the left and right of the squares were rows of bungalows, which were not far from the walls and belonged to the original residents of Shuiwei Town - given the population base of Shuiwei Town, most townspeople had members of the Town Guard in their families, otherwise it would not be enough to maintain the Town Guard.
Above the four squares, there were countless, chaotically constructed houses standing there, including mud houses, brick houses, and tents.
These buildings came from the wilderness wanderers absorbed by Shuiwei Town over the years, or from members who had violated the rules.
At this time, the sun was still in the sky, and the evening was far from arriving. Some of the residents of Shuiwei Town were still working in the fields behind the town, while others had gone out hunting in small teams, with only a few people staying in the town.
They walked out from the densely packed houses, casting their gazes from behind the glass windows. The common point was that their faces were not very clean, their hair was dry, yellow, and greasy, their clothes were mismatched, and they may not have fit their body shape, but their eyes were more energetic than the wilderness wanderers Bai Chen had encountered in other places.
"Town Chief, how, how has your health been recently?" Bai Chen didn't pay attention to the gazes of others, opened her mouth, and asked not too skillfully.
Tian Erhe smiled self-deprecatingly:
"It's okay, I'm just getting more and more afraid of the cold. Look, winter hasn't even arrived yet, and I have to wear so much. Heh, I don't know if I can get through this winter."
"You definitely can." Bai Chen followed Tian Erhe, walking along the road between the cluttered houses towards the three "item"-shaped buildings.
Her answer was very affirmative, but her tone was a little erratic.
"You don't need to comfort me." Tian Erhe stroked the white stubble left on his chin. "I'm already seventy-seven! How many people who experienced the destruction of the Old World can live to this age? Besides, my children are all gone. Even if I wait a few more years and really find the New World, it won't mean anything to me. Alas, if Nannan were still alive, she would be about your age..."
"...At least you have to take a look at the New World." Bai Chen said after a moment of silence.
The corner of her eye swept over the chaotically constructed houses around her, seeing plastic bottles, glass bottles, old cardboard, buttons, rags, parts from who knows where, long or short cables, metal bottle caps, incomplete button handles, cracked mirror cases, bullet shells, scopes, rusted eyeglass frames, and other things piled up at their doors and windows, like garbage dumps and recycling stations.
Tian Erhe sighed with a "heh":
"The New World... who knows where it is...
"Young people can believe it, at least they have hope. We old folks, forget about it."
ps: Asking for recommendation tickets~