Flowers Blooming in the Wasteland

"Yes," said Thurlist, "but there are always people in the lab who are good at mechanical repair."

Fu Yunlan always felt that Celeste hadn't told the whole truth, but he didn't have the energy to care about it so much. While Celeste was cooking, his wound started to hurt again, and his mind became a little blurred .

After an unknown amount of time, Celeste came over with breakfast and wiped the cold sweat off his head with a towel: "How do you feel, can you sit up?"

"Hmm..." Fu Yunlan felt better after a while of pain, and could sit up and eat with Celeste's support.

He drowsily scooped up the food in the bowl and took a bite, then suddenly frowned and spat it back into the spoon. He looked at the dark red cooked meat, and then at Celeste: "This meat...is Where did it come from."

The beef sent by Cedric had already been eaten up early tomorrow, and the meat didn't taste like beef at all.

"I ran into a wild dog when I went to the farm yesterday to help them repair the flour machine." Thelister said flatly, "The dog was very thin and had no meat, but it was enough to stew several pots of soup."

"You weren't bitten, were you?" Fu Yunlan asked a little nervously. Generally speaking, the wild dogs that have survived until now and have not been eaten or starved to death are the offspring of some ferocious and aggressive attacking dogs. Even a seasoned mercenary like Fu Yunlan was a little apprehensive.

"No." Thelister said, "I shot it to death when it jumped."

"...You are amazing." Fu Yunlan praised sincerely, being able to keep calm and not panic in such a situation, and hit a high-speed moving target with one shot is by no means something ordinary people can do.

"It's just luck, the first shot hit."

Celeste spoke plainly, but Fu Yunlan could imagine how dangerous the situation was at that time. Fortunately, Celeste was safe and sound: "It's rare that other people don't rob you."

"They originally wanted to say that those who saw it had a share." Celeste said, "If I don't give it, they can't help it."

Of course, things are not as simple as Celeste said.

At that time, the workers on the farm saw Celeste shooting calmly in a very short period of time, and hit the mad dog that was pounced on him with one blow. There was no fear on their faces, and they all looked at this young man who was as calm as a killing machine. Feel a little scared.

But there are also bolder and shameless ones, perhaps because they eat compressed biscuits for a long time and can only eat half full, making the desire for meat overwhelm fear and shame. To this, Celeste's response was to point the gun at the man's head, his hand as steady as if he had installed a gyroscope, and calmly inform the man to take another step forward and kill him.

The two sides stalemate for a while, and it was the old farmer Cedric who persuaded the worker to give up the meat in front of him and did not let the situation turn into a bloody incident.

To survive on the wasteland where resources are increasingly scarce, such battles should happen frequently in the future, isn't Lan already used to this kind of tense life?

Celeste looked up at Fu Yunlan who was still poking the meat with a spoon: "What's the matter, is there something wrong with the meat?"

"No." Since it was dog meat, Fu Yunlan scooped it up and ate it with confidence, and then said to Celeste, "Remember, don't buy meat from Jeter Farm, the meat sold by his family is always better than slaughtered meat. Lots of livestock, and we've always suspected some of the meat was of unknown origin, we just haven't found evidence yet."

"I don't understand." Thelister said, "It's okay if it was in the era when food was abundant, but now that food is so scarce, why do you still insist on not eating people?"

Fu Yunlan looked up at him: "Why do you ask that?"

"I remember that cannibalism has always existed in human history. Whether it's because of famine, religious rituals, or just personal eccentricities, it has never stopped." Celeste took a small piece with a fork Putting dog meat into his mouth, "They are both protein, so what's the difference between human meat and dog meat?"

"Why do you have such an idea?" Fu Yunlan frowned, breathing heavily, "We are human, so of course we can't eat our own kind."

"Don't get excited, I don't mean to eat people." Celeste raised his gaze, his beautiful blue eyes looked at Fu Yunlan calmly, "I'm just curious why you insist on doing this."

Fu Yunlan thought about how to express it: "This is...the bottom line, once you cross this bottom line, once you start to regard other people as a piece of edible meat, the last respect for life will be gone .”

"You probably killed more people than Cedric killed chickens," said Thelister.

"...Yes." Fu Yunlan couldn't refute this point, "But you still can't treat people as food... In short, you just can't."

"I understand." Celeste's tone was as flat as ever, which made Fu Yunlan a little uncertain about his thoughts: "Will you listen to me?"

"Of course it will," said Thurlist.

"Okay." Fu Yunlan said to him with a somewhat complicated mood, "You are forced to be alone before you are ready. Outside, you will encounter many things you have never touched before. It's okay to be curious, but don't take it lightly. Try, such as human flesh, drugs, and Black Bottle Alley... You know, many things can never go back once they are contaminated."

"Yes." Celeste responded obediently as before.

---

It was late in winter, until the two had finished their breakfast, and the visibility outside was not very high. Celeste was washing dishes in rubber gloves when he suddenly heard a shrill siren.

Celeste dropped the cutlery and walked out of the kitchen in confusion. This was the first time he heard such a siren. The long and urgent whistle echoed throughout the town through the loudspeaker in the town center.

"...What's wrong?" Celeste asked Fu Yunlan.

"...I'm in big trouble." Fu Yunlan said with a pale face. When he heard the alarm just now, he reflexively wanted to get up, but the sharp pain in the wound almost made him breathless.

"Don't move." Celeste hurried over to help him lie down, "No matter what happened, you can't do anything now."

"Hmm..." Fu Yunlan could only lie down helplessly. He looked out of the window anxiously, but he couldn't see anything except the snow on the neighbor's eaves.

Soon, Li Kailin's anxious voice came from the loudspeaker in the square: "A group of gangsters are climbing the city wall. All adult men must immediately gather at the square in front of the bar. Immediately! Those who have weapons, bring your own weapons! If you don't Stand up and defend your homeland, and no one will be able to protect you!"

"...you can go too." Fu Yunlan took a breath and said to Celeste after the worst pain, "If the city wall can't be defended, you won't be safe staying at home .”

"Yeah." Celeste didn't say much, took his weapon and went out, and before leaving, he didn't forget to grab the MP3 on the table.

---

When the cement fence in Hummingbird Town was built, it was designed to prevent people inside from running out. The top of the fence was a walkway more than one meter wide without any shelter. There was a square tower every 20 meters for sentinels to stand guard. .

In the past, the city walls of Hummingbird Town were always heavily guarded, and the on-duty gunmen from the mercenary group and the garrison would shoot and kill all human and non-human beings who approached without permission, but now, the mercenary group has existed in name only, and how many people there are after Fu Yunlan was injured? A mercenary left, and the garrison team also slipped away a few soldiers. It was impossible for the remaining manpower in the town to defend such a long city wall. Being able to detect anomalies in time and issue an alarm was considered very responsible.

The only guard on the city wall fled in a panic because he was shot and wounded by the bandits, so the bandits climbed up the city wall with claw hooks recklessly. There were not many of them, but the atmosphere of panic quickly spread.

When Celeste arrived, the square was already in chaos, mixed with some bewildered cries.The men with weapons ran in a hurry, but it seemed that many of them didn't know what they were fussing about.

The mayor and a few people were firing guns at the men who came to the square. He was holding a loudspeaker and commanded hoarsely: "To the east, there are bandits on the east wall! Quick, go over to a few people! There are also in the southeast, you you And you, the three of you go and deal with them!"

When he saw Celeste, he was stunned for a moment. The staff who fired the gun next to him had already handed over the shotgun and a bullet in the box to Celeste. Celeste looked at the weapon in his hand speechlessly, This gun is an antique from many years ago. The barrel of the gun is already stained with rust, so he wouldn't be surprised if it exploded when he fired it.

A gangster had just climbed up the city wall, but was shot dead by a cowboy, and his body fell out of the city wall. However, the town is so big that the few remaining mercenaries cannot take care of all the corners. More gangsters came from Climbing up all over the walls, they dropped earthen dynamite, shot anyone they could see, and slid down ropes off the walls once no one was around, looting and killing people.

Celeste was trotting in the streets and lanes with an old shotgun. He heard gunshots everywhere, but he didn't know where to go to resist the intruders. Small sharks and he knew they were nearby, churning up the pools, but he couldn't find them.

At this time, his artificial intelligence system should be used. Celeste doesn't know how Masi did it, but it is like having a surveillance camera with all directions and covering the entire hummingbird with bugs. Like a town, it knows everything about it.

Celeste stopped in her tracks, put on her earphones and asked, "Mass, where should I go now?"