...
"Mr. Ren, then, shall we meet again in an hour and a half?"
At the gate of Starfire Town, Zheng Tian and the others bid a reluctant farewell to Ren Zhong, feeling deeply fortunate about their good luck today.
Just a casual hunting trip, and they managed to forge a good relationship with an undercover inspector. Such good fortune!
Ren Zhong, who "left but returned," walked with his hands in his pockets along the main road leading directly to the town center.
This time, he had fully entrusted Zheng Tian's team with the task of selling the Crystal Winged Dragonfly.
As for that 10% tax, it didn't matter anymore.
He planned to negotiate a small business deal worth at least 100 Contribution Points with Sun Miao, allowing ample time for discussion.
The measly 0.08 leftovers should be abandoned when necessary. This is the way of trade-offs.
Incidentally, Ren Zhong also intended to take this opportunity to closely observe the situation in the slums; observing from the car was ultimately different from close-up observation.
When he first entered the town, he wandered around, but it was too late at night; there were few new people on the streets, and almost everyone was rushing towards the hibernation space, leaving not much to see.
This time, it was over twenty minutes earlier, although most people had already come out of their shanties, a few were still held up by other matters.
Ren Zhong walked along while carefully observing.
He noticed many details he had previously overlooked.
From a distance, Ren Zhong only felt that people's faces were dull and lifeless.
But as he got closer, he realized that, despite the seemingly dull eyes of these bottom-tier wastelanders, there was still a spark of light from time to time.
Some were asking around to see if there was a need for night shifts tonight.
Others slid down a ladder from one shanty and received payment for repairing another person's home on their temporary wrist watch.
Yet others held onto a crumpled book, standing under the eaves of a shanty, reading intently with their heads down.
The way this person flipped the pages was very careful, as if it was an antique, fearing to ruin the pages with careless movements.
A slightly curious Ren Zhong approached this rare reader stealthily, catching a glimpse of the cover, which read "Gunsmith's Survival Guide in Starfire Town."
This person was very diligent, never relaxing from learning knowledge, even during the day outside the hibernation space.
They wanted to change their destiny.
But, as Ren Zhong knew, employment prospects in Starfire Town, with almost no industries, were very bleak.
Regardless of suitability, the wastelanders' only choice was to go out and struggle with the Ruined Beasts.
"You stupid boy, what are you doing standing here? Hurry home for dinner; we need to get to the sleep pod early!"
A loud scolding from an old lady sounded behind Ren Zhong.
The young man reading ahead, upon hearing this, looked up anxiously and said, "Mom, you go first, I'll come once I finish this page."
Then the young man called back into the shanty behind him, "Brother Ding, can I borrow this book to read at home? I'll return it tomorrow."
A rough voice came from inside, "You're dreaming, that's book renting; you have to pay for that!"
The young man, hearing this, could only look helplessly at his waist-crossed mother, who was ready to tug his ear, and begged with a wry smile, "Five minutes, just give me five more minutes!"
"Five minutes my foot!"
The mother and son started to pull each other, finally quieted by the middle-aged man inside who threatened charging half a Contribution Point if the book was damaged.
At the moment the young man looked up, Ren Zhong actually recognized him.
He was the teenager Ren Zhong had met twice before, who agreed verbally to accept his mother's offer but secretly decided to leave town.
Though the two had no encounter planned this time, Ren Zhong decided to inquire about the young man's name.
The old lady, with her hands on her hips, scolded the young man, "Don't know what's the point of you reading all day; with that skinny frame of yours, you still want to venture out? Isn't that courting death? You should learn some basic sewing skills from me, safe and at least allows you to save a bit."
Ren Zhong, however, knowing the young man's plan, stepped in to persuade, "Auntie, I think your child is really driven; let him have a read."
The old lady turned to look at Ren Zhong, a stranger, then rolled her eyes and replied impatiently, "The idea of becoming a gunsmith is not that simple! Dreaming! Just say where the money for guns and ammunition comes from? He's not even at the beginner's stage; no Scavenger Team would want him, he's just as good as dead alone outside. Stop meddling, go away."
The young man, afraid his mother would offend someone, explained awkwardly to Ren Zhong, "Sorry, sir, my mother didn't mean it that way..."
Ren Zhong was not angry. Looking at the old lady whose age appeared to be around seventy, he suddenly felt curious and asked subconsciously, "By the way, Auntie, how old are you this year?"
The old lady: "How old I am is none of your bus..."
The young man quickly covered the old lady's mouth, "My mom is thirty-eight this year, sir. Do you have any business with us?"
Ren Zhong was stunned, "Thirty-eight years old?! How... how is that possible!"
The old lady with a head full of silver hair, a deeply wrinkled face, and noticeable age spots, looked at least seventy.
How could she be this old?!
Could it be progeria?
Sun Miao had easily cured his late-stage cancer; the medical technology should be extremely advanced.
Or perhaps, progeria has peculiarities that are untreatable?
Seeing his shock beyond words, he actually scared the young man and the old lady, thinking they'd inadvertently exposed some secret.
After ten seconds, recovering from shock, Ren Zhong abruptly asked, "Speaking of which, do you know how old Mayor Ma Dafu is?"
The young man's mother replied instinctively, "Mayor Ma should be around forty-two or three, why?"
Ren Zhong fell silent.
The short, fat Ma Dafu also had a face full of wrinkles, better preserved than the old lady, but looked at least sixty-five or older.
As the chief officer of the town, Mayor Ma's material living conditions should be superior, yet his age and appearance were still disproportionate.
In 2019, China's National Health Commission released data stating the average life expectancy of Chinese people was 77.3 years, more than double that of 35 years in 1949.
Yet even during the war-torn times, people only died early due to famine, pandemics, and war—never did everyone appear aged beyond recognition in their forties.
This is unreasonable!
Human genes shouldn't be like this.
This is not the unreasonableness of the social system, but a fundamental issue with human physiology.
Had it not been for recently avoiding being cleared by the Hunter team at the sleep pod, Ren Zhong, who had resolved to disguise himself, might have once again revealed his "outsider" identity from shock.
Eventually, he smiled awkwardly, waved goodbye to the still-baffled mother and son, and headed straight for the Miracle Clinic.
...
"Dr. Sun, please help me, I am in the late stage of lymphoma, no, the final stage. I don't have many days left. I'm begging you."
At the Miracle Clinic, Ren Zhong put on an extremely pitiful appearance, sincerely pleading.
Sun Miao, who had just opened a projection to watch TV, had his pupils shrink sharply, freezing on the spot.
These days, basic bodily cell anomaly diseases barely sustain in the body for long.
Usually, a small problem can be solved easily or dealt with using ultra-micro antibiotic doses present in regular food.
Cancer cells in the human body don't even have the chance to develop like a stocked granary and solidly built fortresses.
To develop a late-stage cancer patient in a natural human environment would require large medical institutions to finely adjust the "guinea pig's" food distribution from the start, strictly controlling regular medication intake, taking a lot of time, and consuming significant resources.
A sudden claim of being in the terminal stage of lymphoma filled Sun Miao's mind with a sense of unreality.
"Terminal? Are you kidding? How terminal?"
"The kind that dies tonight."