Chapter 8: Shi Yuebai's weight finally dropped to 740 pounds.
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In this wasteland, no one could afford to let an enemy go.
If someone could be crushed outright, then they had to be crushed without leaving any trouble behind. Otherwise, if you allowed another person to preserve their strength, you might be the one they killed in the future.
Second Sister-in-law Shi did not dare waste a moment. She searched Chen the Second and his companions, gathering up all the food and point cards they carried.
Then she dragged the lifeless bodies of the men she had beaten to death far away from the Shi family’s tarpaulin shelter.
Fortunately, it was broad daylight, and most of the people in the group had gone out scavenging. The few orphans and widows who remained in the camp lived a considerable distance from the Shi family’s shelter.
Everyone knew that Second Sister-in-law Shi and the other lone survivors of the Shi family were about to suffer terribly. Not one of them dared to interfere in the Shi family’s affairs.
Even if they heard some disturbance coming from the Shi family’s direction, no one would make a special trip to investigate.
Second Sister-in-law Shi dumped Chen the Second and the others’ corpses far away, then hurried back to the Shi family’s shelter. Feeling about with both hands, she asked,
“Yuebai, do you think the Chen family will discover that both of their brothers died at our hands?”
If the Shi family was the most complete family in the wasteland, then the Chen family was the healthiest.
Among all the families in this wasteland, whose household did not have a few disabled or mentally impaired members?
Only the Chen family looked completely healthy.
The Chen family had not merely Chen’s two brothers, but also several uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters-in-law. Every one of them had all four limbs intact, a sound mind, and complete freedom of movement.
They were, in fact, one of the most powerful families in the group.
Shi Yuebai was examining the point cards taken from Chen the Second and the other men.
“Second Sister-in-law, what nonsense are you talking about?”
“How could a few of us widows and orphans from the wasteland possibly kill those grown men?”
“They did intend to bully you today, that much is true. But we live so close to the edge of the group’s territory, and mutated animals came to attack us.”
“So Chen the Second took those men with him to fight the beasts.”
Second Sister-in-law Shi froze for a moment, then immediately nodded and declared with absolute certainty,
“That’s right. That is exactly what happened.”
Shi Yuebai sat in a hollow among the rubble, examining the point cards in her hands again and again.
A fragment of common knowledge belonging to the original owner surfaced in her mind.
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Everyone in the wasteland could take the supplies they acquired through scavenging into the city and exchange them for points.
Points were equivalent to the currency of the pre-apocalypse world, and came in two forms: registered and anonymous.
Registered points could be traced through the city’s trading system. They followed a legitimate process, and after the owner died, the points could be inherited by their immediate family.
However, registered points could only be stored in a personal wristwatch. They were much like electronic currency from before the wasteland.
Anonymous points, on the other hand, circulated in all kinds of legitimate and illegitimate transactions in the form of point cards.
The point cards found on Chen the Second and the other men were anonymous points.
Most of them held a value of one point. There were also a few worth five or ten points, but not many.
“These men were really poor.”
Shi Yuebai’s face was full of disdain. Without the slightest psychological burden, she handed Second Sister-in-law Shi the stack of points obtained through murder and robbery.
As a member of the Witch Clan, Shi Yuebai had adapted quite well to everything except being filthy, foul-smelling, and burdened with thick layers of fat.
In fact, she adapted to the wasteland better than most natives who had lived there for years.
It was nothing more than survival of the fittest, killing for plunder, and bullying the weak with superior strength.
“Second Sister-in-law, keep these points safe. When you get the chance, use them to buy some proper food.”
At present, the tarpaulin shelter still contained a pile of sprouting potatoes. But there was no need to test them. Every one of them had been exposed to a moderate-to-high level of radiation.
Worry that would not fade showed on Second Sister-in-law Shi’s face.
Although she had disposed of Chen the Second and the others, the point cards could not be used openly. Besides, while they looked like a thick stack, their values amounted to little when added together.
In this wasteland of soaring prices, these points could at most be exchanged for a few portions of moderately irradiated food.
And with so many men from the Chen family missing, it would be highly suspicious if the few widows and orphans of the Shi family suddenly went to the great city and returned with several portions of moderately irradiated food purchased with point cards.
Still, having points was better than having none.
After all, because Shi Yuebai was an endless bottomless pit who consumed food and drink in vast quantities, the Shi family could not even afford wristwatches.
As for having a few point cards in hand, that was even more impossible.
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Most of the points earned by the Shi family were spent on food for Shi Yuebai.
And even while life was already so difficult, all the men of the Shi family had died.
Second Sister-in-law Shi pulled out a filthy handkerchief. With tears streaming down her face, she wrapped the stack of points inside it.
“Rest for a while, then we’ll continue arranging the stones.”
At that moment, however, Shi Yuebai appeared exceptionally spirited.
The daze formation she had just ordered Shi Yaoyao and Second Sister-in-law Shi to set up was only a very small one.
As the saying went, how could anyone allow another person to sleep soundly beside their own bed?
If Shi Yuebai wanted to sleep peacefully, she had to prevent anyone from ambushing her while she slept.
She did not yet have the ability to draw more intricate and complicated talismans. All she could do was make the daze formation larger.
Later, she would slowly add more lethal elements to it.
Second Sister-in-law Shi’s lips moved. She was constantly overwhelmed by the threat of hunger and consumed by anxiety.
She still had some strength left, and thought she should hurry out scavenging while she could, searching for something to eat.
If hunger struck later, she would suffer from hypoglycemia. By then, she might not even be able to walk.
For a blind woman like her, going out in that condition would make it even less likely that she could bring back any food.
But after receiving an injection of enhancement serum, Shi Yuebai had become even more domineering than before.
She seemed to possess a mysterious power that made people instinctively obey and trust her.
Second Sister-in-law Shi did not dare voice her opinion. All she could do was obediently crouch beside Shi Yuebai and force herself to rest.
There was even less to say about Shi Yaoyao. She had always been Shi Yuebai’s devoted little admirer.
Since Shi Yuebai had not ordered her to do anything, she sat motionless beside her.
Looking at the two weaklings seated on either side of her, Shi Yuebai placed her two thick, enormous trotters, each as broad as a cattail fan, on the backs of their hands.
Her voice carried a strange, almost bewitching allure.
“From this moment on, rest.”
Shi Yuebai drew upon the fat energy within her body and injected two pounds of it into each of their bodies.
After working for most of the day, night finally fell, and the members of the group who had gone scavenging returned.
Shi Yuebai’s weight had finally dropped to seven hundred and forty pounds.
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