3, Level 3 Drinking Water

Dusk came soon, and the carrion wolves, who had slept for a day in hunger, let out long howls and began to wander around like ghosts, looking for opportunities to fill their stomachs.

Amidst the creaking sound, Old Hans pushed open the iron door of the shed and walked out, squinting his eyes at the setting sun that was about to sink.

After taking a nap, he felt much better.

The mine not far away was already empty, and the workers had already come out, finished receiving their rations, and went back to their habitat.

When the sun fell to the horizon, there would be more than one meter-long ferocious-gophers in the intricate tunnels. Their powerful upper and lower jaws and sharp and sturdy incisors could easily bite through two- centimeter-thick iron bars. Even a solid rock couldn't withstand their bite.

Fortunately, as soon as the sun rose, the ferocious-gophers would go deep underground and fall into a deep sleep, so the miners still had at least half a day to dig ore.

Almost at the same time as the sun was completely sinking, a thin figure appeared at the entrance of the mine pit. The boy staggered out carrying a basket of ore almost as tall as himself.

Old Hans' eyelids twitched a few times, and he kept his composure watching as the skinny child dragged the ore on his back over the scale, then dumped it on the hill-like pile of ore, and slowly took the note written by the foreman. The cloth strips wrapped around the boy's body had been stained with reddish yellow and variegated blue by the mineral powder.

Seeing the boy approaching, Old Hans walked around to the back of the house. There, a large shed was erected against the tin house, and the crippled Pete, who was missing half a leg, struggled to move his body weighing more than 100 kilograms, and shouted, "Boy, come here!"

The boy went over to the shed and handed the note. The crippled Pete glanced at him, whistled involuntarily, and said, "You're not bad, you can do more than many adults. Come on, here's the list, let's see what you want to exchange. Can you read? Oh, yes! It's amazing! I can only recognize half of the words on this list. Hey, don't look over there, you can't afford to exchange the things on it now! Look down from here."

Pete swept his thick finger across the long list, and the boy looked up the list. His eyes stayed on the "drinking water" column, and he looked up all the way until his sight was blocked by Pete's thick fingers.

"This is it." The boy pointed to the list with his cloth-striped fingers.

Pete immediately shouted: "Aha! Level 3 drinking water! Boy, you must be a nobleman. I heard that noblemen's bodies are so tender that they can only drink pure water, which is the kind that has no impurities at all. The water without any radiation."

"That's it." The boy pointed to the list. His voice was so flat that there was no fluctuation at all, making one wonder if it might be a synthetic voice.

Pete shrugged, dug out a can of drink that also couldn't tell the age from a pile of wooden boxes behind him, and threw it to the boy. "Here! Level 3 drinking water, luxury boy."

The boy carefully put the drink can into the blanket and turned to leave. The crippled Pete scratched his head, took the fist-sized moldy bread as hard as ore, and threw it to the boy: "Boy, mining is hard work, you must eat some stuff. Take this, and remember, you owe a nickel to Cripple Pete, and it'll be deducted from your pay tomorrow!"

The boy took the bread, put it carefully in the blanket, and bowed deeply to the crippled Pete before walking into the darkness.

In the dark wilderness, dozens of pairs of eyes, just like wolves, stared at the boy, whispering one after another.

"That kid seems to have done a lot today, why don't we go over and see what he got? Maybe it's half a loaf of bread."

"I bet he must have a large piece of roasted dire-rat meat in his arms!"

A lazy but ferocious voice next to him took up the conversation: "Hey! There are some new rookies over there, don't you know the rules of Old Hans? In his territory, no one can snatch things from others."

The previous voice was obviously not convinced: "Old Hans? What can he do? I can beat ten of this old man!"

The lazy man laughed and scolded: "You? You don't deserve to lick the ass of Old Hans!"

The person who was scolded as a rookie was still not convinced, and was about to argue, but the other party suddenly lost his patience, whistled, and shouted: "Boys, chop this troublemaker into pieces and feed them to the carrion wolves!"

More than ten black shadows rose up in response to the sound and surrounded the rookie.

After a brief scream, the wilderness returned to tranquility.

People had to hurry up and rest, so they could be able to carry an extra basket of ore tomorrow.

_____________________

In the barn, the crippled Pete could no longer see the boy. He scratched his head with few hairs left, and murmured, "Where is the kid going? If he is eaten by carrion wolves, the money I gave him would be wasted. Hey, Old Hans, do you think my money will be wasted?"

Old Hans, who had been leaning against the shed pillar, spread his hands and said, "God knows."

The crippled Pete stood up with difficulty, and began to pack up the food and record list on the operating table. His remaining leg was thick and powerful enough to support a body weighing more than 100 kilograms to jump around in the barn without using crutches. He picked up the last piece of paper the boy handed over, and was about to throw it away when he suddenly remembered something, looked at it again, and said to himself: "Level 3 drinking water, I really don't know what he wants this for. The radiation in the mine pits is much stronger than the sewage outside the town. It cannot be solved by drinking clean water."

Old Hans took the note from Pete, glanced at the numbers on it, crumpled the note into a ball, and threw it into the fire pit outside the barn.

Old Hans coughed a few times, spit out a gob of thick phlegm, and said, "Pete, tell Mad Dog Maid later that from tomorrow onwards, deduct ten kilograms less from each basket for that child. If he can work here for a full month, give him the full amount."

Pete said, "It seems a bit out of line."

"He's raising a child." Old Hans lit a half-remained cigarette, speaking in a dull voice.

Pete raised his head in surprise, "What? How old is he? Why would he want to raise a child?"

Old Hans spat out a smoke ring, "Children under the age of three, if they drink water without radiation and eat clean food…Yes, if they drink the fucking level 3 water, they won't mutate when they grow up."

Pete raised his eyebrows and exclaimed, "God! I thought everyone was going to mutate. But how do you know this?"

Old Hans said calmly: "Because I also raised children."

Pete was taken aback: "You never mentioned this. How old is he? He must be twenty years old…God bless, he must not be as ugly as you."

Old Hans smiled: "At that time I was very poor, and I couldn't find enough clean water and food. He had a mutation when he was five years old, and he didn't make it."

Pete didn't know what to say for a while, and after a moment of silence, he said, "I'm sorry, old man, I shouldn't have said this. You know, I've never met a woman who can bear children in my life. No chance of raising a child."

Old Hans took a deep breath of his cigarette, looked at the green night sky outside the barn, and said, "Dude, you never need to tell me this. If it wasn't for you, I would have become food for carrion wolves a long time ago and it would not be my turn to be the agent of the company."

Pete picked up a supply box weighing nearly 50 kilograms, supported it on one leg, and jumped more than one meter high. He gently placed the feeding box on the highest shelf, scratched his head again, and said, "I didn't intend to save You. You know that I am a master in the Grapple Domain. At that time, my ability of Defense Enhancement was already at the second level. That wolf king could not bite me to death no matter what it did. But you are different. A soft egg like you who plays in the Magic-Like Domain, it can tear off half of your ass in one bite!"

Old Hans handed the small half of the cigarette to Pete, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Buddie, go to bed earlier. It's so late, no women will come here."

Pete took a deep breath of the cigarette, held it in his lungs, and didn't let it out until he couldn't hold it anymore. Old Hans had already returned to the iron house, only to hear the sound of a heavy object falling to the ground, which meant that he had thrown himself on the bed. The crippled Pete dragged out a green-painted iron box from under the operating table, carefully took out a rotten magazine that might fall apart at any time, and flipped through it page by page under the light of the campfire, breathing heavily.

The cover of the magazine suddenly fell off and fell to the ground. The hot and coquettish woman on the cover had become somewhat blurred due to the age, but the eye-catching "PLAYBOY" on the cover could still be seen. Below the cover, a line of small print indicated the publication date of the magazine: February 1982.