Section 93: Brewing

The afternoon sun shines on the ground, reflecting a strong dazzling light. The dead tree drops the shadow of a spider-web on the surface of the rock, depicting an inexplicable pattern. The plant that has just spawned tender green buds from the ground shrinks into the cracks, and it has completely abandoned the leaves that have been roasted and almost rolled up. The scorching sun like fire has dried every trace of moisture in the air. Apart from the heat, there seems to be nothing left in the world.

Dozens of simple tents made of wooden poles and steel bars as support frames, and tops of which are covered with patched felt and cloth, stand on the flat wilderness. Their arrangement is very chaotic and there is no rule between them, just like weeds in the wild.

A large group of refugees were crowded under the curtain. They were ragged and tattered cloth randomly surrounded the private parts of their bodies that were not exposed, and the exposed skin surface was covered with dirt and oil. Most of these people were relatively thin, and their eyes were dull under the shadows made of the curtain, as if they were a group of soulless bodies, like walking corpses.

Five or six strong men wearing tattered straw hats wandered around a scattered area about a hundred meters away from the tent. They were holding old-fashioned single-shot rifles in their hands, and their naked upper body showed their full and bulging muscles. The pants they wore were long or short, and the fabric and colors were varied. Despite this, compared with those guys who only had a piece of ragged cloth, they were already considered the king of beggars.

Not far from the camp, a thin old man stood on the rock, raised his right hand and placed it on his forehead, squinted his eyes with the help of the obstruction formed by his fingers and palms, and looked at the direction of Yinyue Town in the distance for a long time. Behind him, two bald and strong men holding double-barreled shotguns and sturdy figures like iron towers stood on the left and right. Any outsider who had ulterior motives and wanted to get close to this place would be knocked out of recognition on the spot.

Mart Liangna bent her waist and stood three meters away from the front of the old man's right. Her upper body was exposed as usual. This kind of dressing that was absolutely not sexy could at least make her feel a little cool in the hot summer.

"I heard from Bazarov that you have had contact with those people?" the old man asked lightly, his eyes never leaving the warning tower that was vaguely visible from afar.

"Yes. A man in that town snatched away the prey that should belong to me." Mart Liangna replied respectfully, and a trace of deep viciousness appeared in her muddy eyes.

The old man obviously didn't have much interest in this. He repeatedly observed all the tiny details in his sight. After a long time, a trace of light came out of the corner of his eyes and fell on Mart Liangna: "Are you sure that this is very close to the water source?"

Mart Liangna nodded vigorously, shook a handful of wet soil from the rag strip wrapped around her waist, grinning her teeth, her puffing mouth, and said in a leaking voice: "The nearby wet soil layer is only about one meter away from the ground, and the water source will definitely not be very far away. The water quality is also very good. I have tasted it, it is clear and sweet."

The old man turned around and looked over Mart Liangna's thin body, staring at the wet mud in her palm, and smiled slightly with emotion: "As long as there is water, everything is easy to do. You... are doing well. As a reward, you can eat enough this month."

His voice was very soft, but when Mart Liangna heard it, her body felt a little excited trembling.

The thing people wandering in the wilderness most look forward to is a settlement with sweet water flowing.

This idea that was enough to be used as a joke in the old era was almost impossible to achieve in a world full of radiation. The big family that first walked out of the refuge easily occupied all the water sources in the exploration area with the various reserve resources that had been prepared before the end of the world. They sent powerful armed forces to expand like locusts. All places where clean water would trigger wars, and large institutions and family forces fought desperately for them. Even where humans already live, two or more forces would often appear to compete at the same time. Vagrants, aborigines, mobs, and even mutated creatures in the wilderness and ruins would join the life-and-death war due to hunger and thirst.

On the surface, they are fighting for just a mouthful of water that only nourishes the throat. In fact, they are the power to survive in this cruel world.

Mart Liangna, who was blinded by the fanatical revenge, followed the direction of the off-road vehicle disappearing for a long time and finally discovered as many as 1,000 acres of cornfield.

Her revenge plan is very simple - using water as an excuse to induce the Arteski tribe to camp near Yinyue Town and then establish permanent residential areas. As long as this is achieved, a series of unmediated conflicts will surely arise between the indigenous people and refugees in Yinyue Town due to problems such as water sources and arable land. As long as simple provocation and intensification are added, it will easily turn into an endless war.

Once the plan is successful... neither Yinyue Town nor the Arteski tribe will suffer heavy casualties. This happy land with abundant water and soil will also become a mass grave with corpses.

From the rational point of view of normal people, it is probably difficult to understand Mart Liangna's chaotic thinking. In fact, what hovers in her mind is not just revenge on Lin Xiang, but the terrible hatred that includes everyone in this area... The man who deceived and ravaged her in the Arteski tribe, the young boy who stole the ewes in Yinyue Town, and even every woman and child in the refugee group is regarded by her as an opponent who is not killed or not.

Lin Xiang and Ewe were just angry guides and the inducement of hatred. Mart Liangna suffered too much suffering and humiliation, from the woman's eyes, curses, contempt, brutally ravaged, beaten, raped, and rarely food. Her body was tortured by illness and pain... The endless suffering and sadness were suppressed by habits and numbness for a long time in her heart. No one realized that all the old woman who lived like a dog needed was a fuse that detonated her subconscious darkness and madness.

Looking at the aspiring old man, Mart Liangna's eyes, covered by redness and dirt, showed a ribbon of pleasure with strong impulse. She grinned and tried hard to tighten the wet mud in her hand. The turbid mud water squeezed out slowly condensed along the gap between her fingers at the top of the back joints of the back of the hand, slowly fell to the ground, and was instantly sucked dry by the hot sand.

Since the decision was made, it was only a process to transform from imagination to reality. Like all refugees, the Altesky group also carried the basic equipment and equipment for building camps. Two days later, a simple camp supported by wooden boards and old steel bars and reinforced with stones had begun to appear in scale. Unlike the tents made of curtains before, the refugees collected a large amount of rocks from the wilderness and piled up a low wall of about meter around the camp. As time went by and various building materials accumulate, its height would slowly rise.

Some men left the camp and collected stones nearby. In addition to the elderly and children staying in the camp to cook and boil water, there are also the essential warning people on the outside. All the laborers of the entire ethnic group are busy in the surrounding areas suitable for cultivation. They have already dug a well inside and outside the camp, and the rest is to plant the sprouted potatoes as soon as possible before the rainy season comes.

The straight-line distance between the Liumin camp and Yinyue Town is about two kilometers. The cornfields that spread from the west are separated in the middle like lush dense forests. Through the green branches and leaves on the tops, you can vaguely see the warning tower spire made of cement and bricks on the outside of the town.

The fiery red sun disk is at the highest point in the sky, releasing an extremely strong high temperature. The heat waves roll and pour from the end of the horizon, twisting the scenery in the distance into indistinguishable blurry pictures. The ground is so dry that there is no trace of dampness. When stepping on the hard sand and stones barefoot, you can clearly hear the "chi chi" sound from the contact surface, and you can also smell the stinking smell of raw meat being instantly burned.

More than a dozen women with torn clothes, tired expressions, and rough skin like sand were busy in front of a few large iron pots hanging from the ground with steel frames. They used wooden barrels to drill well water and washed some of the plant roots dug from the wilderness. Two older women carried bags of thick noodles and poured the same portions in sequence in several pots. The dough residue, which was yellowed like sawdust, quickly boiled into a paste that spits foam. Several island-like bones stood alone in the center of the batter, and their surfaces were very clean, and clear tooth marks could even be seen in some places. Obviously, they had been cooked many times in the soup pot and were very likely to be boiled.

Under the cool shade supported by the cloth curtain, three old men in muslin robes sat. They sat barefoot on a soft, soft, thick felt. A beautiful tea table made of mahogany was placed among them, with a beautiful set of fine porcelain tea sets on it, and the black tea soup in the cup was pure in color and rich in fragrance. Six thick men holding guns guarded around the tent, their muscular faces were full of arrogance and coldness.

They are all refugees, because of their different status and status. Some have to work hard, while others can drink tea and cool off easily. This kind of thing will not change in any era.

Looking at the women sweating profusely more than ten meters away, the old man sitting on the left picked up the teacup, took a sip, and sighed with indescribable comfort: "The water is sweet and delicious... It's been six years, and this is the best tea I've ever drunk."

The old man in the middle looked like he was about fifty years old last year. He was in good spirits and nodded in agreement: "The groundwater in this area is very abundant, and it is not too late to start farming now. The potato harvest will be very good this year. Schev, Pantelai, after wandering for so many years, we can finally have a stable home. Although Mart Liangna is an absolute slut and a slut, this time, she did at least a good thing."

Pan Telai, on the right, had a completely white hair, but he had a very rare strong body at his age. He rolled his cuffs high above his elbows, and his solid arms were pressed against his knees that were crossed on the felt cloth. He raised his head and looked deeply at the direction of Yinyue Town. He said in a muffled voice: "Kornilov, I think you are a little overly optimistic. There is a proverb in the old era: "One mountain cannot accommodate two tigers." Do you think those people agree that we will camp here?"

Kornilov raised his eyebrows and put the teacup he had just picked up back on the plate: "Conflict is certainly inevitable. They cannot give in, nor will we."

"I have observed the town carefully." Schev, who sat on the left, expressed his concerns: "They have a complete defense system and a high level of armedness. We can't compare to it."

"That's not necessarily-"

Pan Telai smiled and waved his fist: "You probably forgot that we have a lot of treasures. That thing is much more useful than any weapon."

"Don't use that thing easily unless you have to."

Kornilov stood up and looked at the lush cornfield in the distance, and said lightly: "What we need is just a piece of land with sweet water. It is very large and very vast, and no one can monopolize it. It is not good for anyone to fight to the death. Maybe... we can become good neighbors and live here together."

The armed team that patrolled the arable land on time reported the coordinates of the refugee camp stationed in the southeast of the town to the managers in the town. Lin Xiang seemed very calm in this regard.

This wilderness is too big.

The amount of water in the underground river is enough to supply the consumption of millions of people. If the land is not taken into account and the land must be replaced within a certain period of time by rotating the area, the grain output in the entire irrigation area will be an extremely terrifying astronomical figure.

The population of Yinyue Town is very small. With the six old mercenaries who just retired from Emma City a few days ago, the total number of residents in the town is only over 200. It is undoubtedly a dream to use this number to control the nearby wilderness.

Lin Xiang did not refuse foreign joiners. As long as it was not a plundering, vicious and cruel mob, any group of refugees could take root and settle nearby. The wanderers in the wilderness were very hardworking and they cherished settlements with clean water sources. Under normal circumstances, crops produced on a piece of land could feed many people. If enough refugees formed vassals nearby and formed a stable grain production base, Yinyue Town could free up the heavy farming labor and transfer limited manpower to other aspects. The mountains behind the town had sufficient stones, and a transportation team formed by a large number of trucks could exchange resources between several surrounding cities and settlements. In time, domesticated animal herds could also produce a wide variety of trade goods, and developed farm planting could also give birth to other affiliated industries. Yinyue Town, as the core of the region, benefited endlessly.

Lin Xiang even considered forming an alliance with this foreign refugee group - when the next sowing season comes, Yinyue Town will dispatch machinery to excavate, and the other party will conduct cooperation in the process of in-depth management and harvesting, and jointly develop the wilderness. In this way, the amount of grain obtained is much more than that of the town on its own farming. Invisibly, the refugee group will be closely tied to the town due to interests.

Apart from simply using human labor, refugees have no exchange advantage. Yinyue Town is different. The convenient mode of transportation and the intensive degree of armed people allow them to trade freely between towns. Salt, cloth, weapons, grease... Refugees need these things. When arable land and water sources are guaranteed, they will exchange demand at a higher price than usual.

As long as you firmly stand in this watery wilderness, you can control a huge commercial circulation network in the future. You can even develop into a large institution like Sosbia and Ferdinand, with the power to issue currencies freely and occupy an unbreakable and stable position in the desolate radiation world.

Few of the refugees have such strategic vision. Although the new generation of human beings inherited the wisdom of the old man, they have almost no chance to practice them one by one. Hunger, thirst, safety... They are like nomadic peoples in ancient times, running back and forth in the wilderness according to the alternation of rain and warm and cold seasons. Perhaps some people will see through the huge benefits of goods exchange, but without a stable source of output and mode of transportation, everything is empty fantasy. They can only think according to their old experience and in the pattern of dealing with those fixed settlements.

In the eyes of the three elders of the Mat Liangna and the Altesky tribe who were planning to revenge, water sources and cultivated land are the most precious things in the world. No one can give it up. They even followed the defense mode and pointed the strongest side of the defense firepower towards Yinyue Town in accordance with the defense mode. But they never thought that things would develop in unexpected ways.

The earth is rotating every day, and everything will be produced and evolved into countless results due to a slight change. The wind direction caused by Mart Liangna is indeed expanding in the direction she expected. However, no matter the kind-hearted Lin Xiang or the three elders of the Altesky clan who kept their guard, they did not expect that the encounter between Yinyue Town and the refugees in the wilderness would bring to the future of this world.

The vast night casts a veil of darkness on the desolate wilderness.

A group of black shadows waving their swords were busy in panic in the cornfield. They cut down the corn stems that had grown ears and tied them together quickly with ropes. Like poachers who sneaked into the mountains and forests in the old era, they were extremely excited and dragged their harvests and quietly returned to the refugee camp.
Chapter completed!