Chapter 107: 107, Middle-aged and Youth
The wilderness night at the camp always brought a sense of novelty when a stranger arrived.
Nearly everyone by the bonfire was sizing up the middle-aged man and the young man, more or less subtly.
The young man threw his heavy backpack onto the ground with a thud, and everyone could tell from the sound just how heavy it was.
The middle-aged man made no attempt to help; instead, he simply found a rock to sit on and waited for the young man to start a fire and cook.
The girl always felt that this young man was not the kind of rich son described by her brother, but more like a servant to the middle-aged man.
Old man Qin Cheng saw this and said, “That young man is probably not so rich son. I can tell from the sound that the backpack must weigh at least 50 pounds. The nearest city is more than a hundred kiloters away, and the nearest Federation forward base is over forty kiloters away. Carrying 50 pounds for more than forty kiloters, which rich son from District 3 could endure such hardship?”
By then, the young man had skilfully taken out a folding stool from his bag.
The middle-aged man settled securely on the stool while the young man handed him an e-reader.
By the bonfire, young Qin Tong suddenly hesitated, “He really doesn’t seem like a rich son.”
During their conversation, the young man took a silver thermos out of his backpack, expertly brewed a cup of tea with its lid, and handed it to the middle-aged man.
The middle-aged man nodded in satisfaction and continued to focus on the e-reader, as if oblivious to the world outside and intent solely on refreshing the news.
It was only at this point that the young man seed to finally catch his breath…
He sat on a large rock and rested for just a few seconds, then took a hatchet from his backpack, chopped down the thinnest tree trunk nearby, and collected so dry branches to pile up.
He even deftly constructed a tripod from the branches over the pile of kindling and hung a small pot ready to cook.
“His camping skills are quite adept,” Qin Tong spoke up from the bonfire, “But it’s strange, the boy’s skin is so fair, he must seldom venture into the wilderness.”
In contrast to the paleness of the middle-aged man and the young man, Qin Tong and Qin Cheng had dark complexions, a clear sign of living under the harsh sun and wind year-round.
The intense ultraviolet rays had peeled layer after layer of their skin, leaving behind tough but rough skin.
That’s why, the mont the young man appeared, he exuded a distinctly different aura.
He had a fairness and delicacy rarely seen in the wilderness.
The girl sat by the fire, silently watching, as if her gaze were transfixed.
The young man took a black box out of his backpack and then pinched six black needles from it.
As they spoke, the young man stood a piece of firewood upright and used the back of the hatchet to hamr the six black needles into the top of the firewood until they were fully embedded.
Soon, the needles began to heat up, and thin wisps of white smoke drifted from the wood.
Qin Tong looked at the old man, “Dad, it’s Qing’s Family’s nanotechnology.”
Qin Cheng nodded, “I’ve seen that thing.”
Anyone with wilderness survival experience knew that firewood was hard to ignite.
Sotis you could work for an hour and only just manage to create a spark in the wood. And when the spark did co, the one who started the fire had to keep blowing on it, ending up with smoke-blinded eyes and a blackened face.
But these six black needles, having absorbed the force of the young man hamring them into the wood, generated continuous heat at the core, igniting the firewood in just ten minutes.
Qin Tong said, “Last ti I went to check out outdoor gear in City 18, I saw this nano product from Qing’s Family, I think it was called Thor. I asked about it, and it’s really expensive, six inconspicuous needles could trade for an entire set of my chanical limbs.”
But it was at this mont that Qin Tong truly understood that what he considered very expensive was actually nothing in the eyes of others.
The old man, Qin Cheng, opened the cigarettes that the young man had just given him, took one out to sll beneath his nose, and then stuffed the cigarette back into the pack.
In the wilderness, this pack of cigarettes could sotis be bartered for quite a few good things, such as rough maps, beast pelts, life-saving herbs.
It could even be traded for the characteristics of certain strange animals in the Taboo Land.
The wilderness is nothing like the city; there are many unknown dangers here.
Money is hard to spend out here, you have to trade with hard commodities.
At the campfire, the young girl silently watched the busy boy; the middle-aged man did not offer to help at all, acting like a pampered big boss.
The boy poured clean water and white rice into a small pot to cook porridge.
Not only that, he even added raisins and red dates to the porridge, making it look especially delicate.
But the boy himself did not drink the porridge, instead, he sat off to the side silently gnawing on a tasteless synthetic protein bar.
These protein bars are generally eaten only by those scratching out a living in the wilderness, one bar can replace a day’s worth of nutritional intake, and the boy ate four of them in a row.
When the porridge was ready, the boy carefully brought it over to the middle-aged man…
The girl felt sowhat indignant, “Doesn’t that middle-aged man have hands or feet? Why does he make others wait on him like that?”
At that mont, the girl by the campfire suddenly realized that the boy, who had sat down on the ground, had taken off his mountain boots, and the white socks inside were already dyed red with blood.
The boy slowly peeled off his socks, revealing feet covered in blood clots that seed to be full of wounds and blisters.
With alcohol and cotton swabs, the boy cleaned his wounds, then applied ointnt to himself.
Throughout this process, he remained silent despite the clear pain he was in, rely frowning tightly.
Moreover, just before, his complexion was normal and there was not the slightest abnormality in his walking posture, as if the wounds on his feet did not exist.
Thinking of how he endured the pain to serve that middle-aged man made the girl feel a bit heartbroken.
Suddenly, the girl said, “Should I go help him, Dad? Look, his feet are broken from walking and he still has to do heavy work.”
Qin Cheng frowned and said in a grave tone, “He’s a Servant, that’s what he’s supposed to do. You stay put right where you are. If you really start to fancy a Servant, there’s no saving you. They are people without freedom, understand?”
The girl felt a little wronged but said no more.
She just watched from a distance.
At this ti, the boy was sitting on the ground, continuing to tend to the wounds on his feet.
Although the collar of his windbreaker covered most of his face, the girl sohow felt that the boy’s profile was very handso.
“Dad, you said he’s a Servant?” the girl asked.
“Mmhmm,” nodded the old man, Qin Cheng, “You’ve seen these people in the city too. They’ve sold their lives to the powerful, and they can’t escape the fate of being bound for a lifeti.”
The term Servant is not unfamiliar in the Inner World, and is almost synonymous with Slave.
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