Flowers Blooming in the Wasteland

The next morning, Fu Yunlan called Celeste.

"Are you going to practice guns?" Celeste asked as Fu Yunlan took out the pistol he used yesterday.

"You go by yourself today." Fu Yunlan said while dismantling the gun into its parts, "This gun will be yours from now on. You must be familiar with its structure and pay attention to cleaning and maintenance at all times so that it can be used at critical moments. Play its due role. Come on, try to put it back together first."

Celeste was fiddling with those parts, his fingers were still a little inflexible, sometimes the parts were installed several times before they were installed, but the steps were exactly the same.

Fu Yunlan looked at the pistol that he successfully restored in one go, and asked in surprise, "Have you ever learned how to take apart a gun?"

"...I watched you dismantle it." Celeste said, looking down at the pistol.

"Good job." Fu Yunlan praised, maybe Celeste's intelligence is higher than he imagined, if this child inherits not only his looks from his mother, but also a mind of a schoolmaster, he will be completely There is no need to worry about Celeste's future livelihood.

Fu Yunlan stroked Celeste's golden-brown hair: "I'm going out for a few days, after gun practice, you can go to the hydropower station to find Old Hunter, and he will arrange things for you."

"Will you come back?" Celeste looked up at Fu Yunlan. He had already heard about the mercenary group's mission.

"...I will definitely come back." Fu Yunlan said.

---

Hummingbird Town’s hydropower station and adjacent waterworks still deliver cheap electricity and tap water to the town today. Old Hunter, as always, is tearing down the east to make up for the west, working hard to maintain those old machinery and equipment.

After Fu Yunlan left, Celeste stayed in the hydropower station after breakfast every day, and didn't go home until dinner time. The hydropower station would provide a not-so-rich lunch at noon-for some apprentices, this It might be their only decent meal of the day, but it wasn't for Celeste. Fu Yunlan left enough food and money for him before he left.

From the first day he came to the hydropower station, Celeste felt that the other apprentices had a faint hostility towards him. They would secretly hide his tools, and when he made some insignificant mistakes because of shaking hands Laughing loudly at him, or whispering about his right and wrong behind his back.

Celeste observed and thought silently, but still couldn't figure out why these people were so unfriendly.

If it is because he is young and new here, so he has become the target of group bullying, but he is neither the youngest nor the thinnest, and there is another one that at least most people in Hummingbird Town dare not mess with. backing.

If he was isolated because he was taciturn and reticent, he tried to greet those people at first, but only got their cynicism.

Celeste even felt that if Fu Yunlan hadn't sent him over in person, these people would have wanted to find a corner where no one was around, put him in a sack and beat him up.

"Give me the pliers." Old Hunter climbed on the ladder, his entire upper body seemed to be swallowed by the black "big mouth" of the steel machine, and he only stretched out a hand to shake it.

"Pliers or pliers?" asked Thurlist.

"Won't you just give me one?" Old Hunter's voice came out of the machine in a low voice.

"The functions of the two are different."

"Okay...give me the pickaxe pliers." Old Hunter said helplessly, Celeste is much more careful than other apprentices, and he is meticulous in everything big and small, so he prefers to bring Celeste with him As an assistant, but this young man is sometimes so rigid that it is a headache.

After working for a long time, the machine still couldn’t work normally, but old Hunter’s old arms and legs couldn’t stand up any longer, so he had to climb down muttering, wiped the oil on his hands on his dirty racer pants, Taking the water bottle that Celeste handed him, he raised his head and took a big sip.

"Hey... I really want to have a bottle of cold beer." Old Hunter muttered, and he could only mutter that there was not enough food to eat. Even if someone really used the precious wheat to make wine, it was not something ordinary people could afford. .

The good old days are gone forever, I think back when he was the age of Celeste...

Old Hunter stopped himself from thinking about those old things, he turned to look at the silent Celeste: "Boy, what are you thinking about?"

Sitting next to him, Thelister looked at her toes and said, "I think they hate me."

Old Hunter knew who he was talking about without asking: "Don't think so much, just do your own thing."

"If it's done well, won't you be hated?" Celeste looked up at him.

"Obviously not." Old Hunter took off his glasses and shook his head while wiping, "What a naive child."

Celeste looked down at his toes again, and stopped talking. Old Hunter smiled: "What's the matter, do you really want to be friends with them?"

"No," said Thelister. "They're not nice to me at all, and they're stupid. I hate them."

"That's fine, since you know they're stupid and annoying, why do you care what they think." Old Hunter raised his head and took another big sip of water as he said.

"I just don't understand why," Thurlist said. "I've never offended them, why would they do that."

Old Hunter felt that the child was so innocent that he didn't seem like a person of this age. No, it should be said that he was so innocent that he didn't look like a person. He sighed and said, "The hydropower station doesn't need so many workers, and it can't afford to support them." So many people, if you come, it means that some of them, or some of them who are not doing well enough, have to leave."

"So, it's because my presence took their jobs?" Celeste understood a little bit.

"And jealousy." The young man's unabashed innocence made Old Hunter unconsciously want to teach him more, "I know you may know more words than those people combined, and you will definitely know more than them. It is more useful, but to them, you are just a person who comes in to grab their jobs by relying on your connections. If they lose this job, they may face famine or even starve to death, but you, even if you know nothing, can still work in the blue Under the protection of your family, you live a life without worrying about food and clothing. What's more, your parents are so excellent, and they grew up in the laboratory since they were young. Some of them didn't even have the opportunity to learn how to read and write."

"It makes them feel unfair." Thelister understood.

"Yes, this is jealousy, one of the original sins of human beings."

Celeste tilted his head and continued to think: "They squeezed me out like this, do they hope that I can't stand it and go away by myself, so that they can leave the job opportunity to them?"

"Maybe." Old Hunter had almost rested, humming and picked up the wrench to climb the stairs again.

"But it's useless at all." Celeste commented pertinently, "It can only vent their emotions at most."

"It would be great if they would think about the effect or consequences of these actions like you, but they are just a group of simple-minded children who have not gone to school seriously, and their parents are exhausted in order to survive and have no time to care about them." Old Hunter stood On the ladder, he continued to try to fix the old machine, and while grunting hard, he took the time to say, "You don't have to feel sorry for them and let them go. In the wasteland, resources are very limited. If they can't make themselves If you become more useful than others, you can only go home and wait to die, otherwise everyone will not be able to survive, there is no other way."

Celeste bowed his head in silence, thinking.

"Unless..." Old Hunter wiped the sweat from his forehead, more like he was talking to himself, "Time can be turned back, and we can go back to that heavenly era."

Celeste silently looked up at the various machines and equipment around him.

He knows the detailed structure and working principle of each piece of equipment, and even what raw materials each component is made of. He also knows where the broken machine is broken and how to fix it.

It's like an adult knows how to write a word when he picks up a pen, but he can't remember when and where he learned the word.

Celeste knew that he was different from others. Even if his fingers were not very flexible, he would definitely not be the kind of useless person who could only wait to die, but this special ability did not bring him excitement. , more panic, although he didn't know why, but he knew instinctively that he had to hide his specialness.

You cannot expose your own exceptions.

Can't trust anyone.

Otherwise it will be very dangerous.

These thoughts are still very strong and vivid no matter the past few days.

But Old Hunter's words also reminded him that mercenary is a job with greater rewards and greater risks. Fu Yunlan may not be able to come back this time, and even if he does come back this time, he may not be able to come back next time.If he really acted like he didn't know anything, he wouldn't be able to survive in this wasteland. After all, except for Fu Yunlan, no one would be willing to raise a useless waste.

After weighing it over and over again, he cautiously made a not-so-technical suggestion to Old Hunter: "Maybe you can try to block the triangular valve, disconnect the redundant lines, and turn the three waterways into two. enough."

Old Hunter turned his head back from the ladder and looked at him like a monster, Celeste lowered his head with a guilty conscience: "I just...just say it."

Old Hunter exclaimed excitedly: "This method is completely feasible, why didn't I think of it!"