4, Time to Leave

No matter how many new refugees arrived in the wilderness, and no matter how many original refugees disappeared inexplicably, the sun always rose as usual.

The boy was the same as yesterday, just when everyone got down the mine, he appeared, and came out at the moment when the sun completely sank. The ore dug out was as much as yesterday, and the things exchanged were also the same.

The only difference was that the money he owed crippled Pete changed from five cents to ten cents.

A month later, perhaps because there was enough food to eat, or because the boy's strength had improved, he earned more money every day than before, so the debt he owed to the crippled Pete decreased day by day.

Life in the wilderness was monotonous and repetitive, and a year passed like this.

In this era, being able to live monotonously and repeatedly was already a rare happiness. To not have to compete with carrion wolves for food, and to drink water with less radiation, what more could one wish for?

As for boredom, that was a topic too extravagant, only a lunatic would think about it occasionally.

In the beginning, there were new rookies among the refugees who wanted to hit the boy, but the cloth strips wrapped around his body frightened them.

In this era, there were at least dozens of diseases that were highly contagious and had no cure. These diseases all had a common feature: rotting and stinking. Many people were secretly guessing what had rotted under those strips and betting on how many days he had left to live.

However, when the time limit set by the most daring gambler passed, four rookies who were brave enough and ignorant enough followed the boy away in the night.

Three of them were never seen again, and the one who came back lost track of the boy.

Early the next morning, the refugees discovered that the man who had tracked the boy but failed was hanging high on the wooden pole outside Old Hans' house. The bodyguard in a black suit fired ten rounds at him with the double-shot shotgun, and he was still alive, not dead.

The "Black Suit" clearly had a talent for how to torture people.

From then on, all veterans among the refugees knew not to have any ideas about that boy.

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Three years had passed.

The ore dug out by the boy had quadrupled, but the food that needed to be exchanged was also increasing, so he had never saved.

The wrinkles on Old Hans's face deepened, and the number of pages in the 1982 edition of Playboy that Cripple Pete treasured had also changed from fifteen pages to eleven pages.

In the fifth year, the ore that could be dug out of the mine was less and less, and the simple happiness in the wilderness would come to an end.

One evening, when he received food and water from the lame Pete again, Old Hans stopped him. The former boy, now the teenager followed Old Hans into the iron house.

The room was full of clutter, but there was a bed, a real bed with a duvet and pillows.

Such a bed was enough to distinguish Old Hans from everyone else.

The boy didn't take another look at the bed, but kept looking at a hand-drawn map hanging on the wall. The map was drawn very roughly, and there were still large blank spaces on it, and some places were marked with red bold words of "DANGER".

"We are here." Old Hans pointed to the map, and then pointed all the way west, until he stopped at the circle marked with scarlet DANGER, and then said: "This place is a nest of fire-breathing ants. These one-meter-long bastards are very difficult to deal with. They can't really breathe fire, but you have to be extra careful with the acid they spray. Being stained is worse than fire. The most annoying thing is that these mother-fuckers always come out in groups.

"But they also have good things on them.

"Their front claws are harder than steel, but their weight is only half the weight, so they can be sold in many places, and the price is not bad, since few people dare to hunt fire-breathing ants. In the middle of their hind legs, there is a small piece of meat that has no radiation and no toxins, only the meat is too small."

The young man looked at the map quietly, as if he wanted to engrave all the strokes on it in his heart. The only eye that was exposed to the outside was dark green in color, and there were some faint gray lines around the pupil, crystal clear, like a piece of the finest emerald.

After so many years, Old Hans found that it was the first time he saw the boy's eye clearly.

Old Hans cleared his throat, and pointed to the south end of the fire-breathing ants' nest. There was only a "W" there, and he didn't know what it meant.

"There's a cave here, and there's a sewage pool in the cave, and there's a big mutated leech in the pool. If you feed it your own blood, it will expel excess water from its body. The water contains only slight radiation, not much, barely enough for a five-year-old child.

"The nest of fire-breathing ants is about a hundred kilometers away from here. You may have to walk for a few days. The mine is going to be closed tomorrow, so you don't need to come here." Old Hans waved his hand, and the boy left quietly.

Before going out, the boy looked at Old Hans and thanked him softly.

The boy's voice was as soft as the wind, but also had a mysterious magnetism. If it was placed in the previous era, it may have the potential to become a superstar.

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PS: If you like my story, you can put it in your Library:)