Chapter 17: Carnival City
  Lin Xi was pushed in front of the guard.
  There are very few people in this city with such a well-proportioned and perfect physique. The two guards are looking at him up and down almost at the same time.
  The big man obviously refused to let Lin Xi simply stand. He wrapped his arms around Lin Xi’s waist and twisted his leg with his mechanical arm.
  Lin Xi let out a groan and immediately struggled to break free.
  The big man grabbed the belt on his hand again and pulled the weak man back into his muscular chest.
  This time, the guard at the left door paused as he picked up a cigarette, the guard at the right door also straightened his eyes.
  The testing equipment also announced the test results.
  The man with the robotic arm is a Generation III mutant.
  The white-haired young man in front of him was a normal human who was not infected with archaea.
  According to the rules, normal humans can be used as slaves to serve mutants in cities.
  The guard at the left door did not let anyone in directly.
  “Are you really Qiao Dayi’s nephew?” he asked again.
  “Absolutely.”
  “The appearance is not bad.” The left door guard grumbled, “How much does this slave sell for?”
  “Hey, I haven’t played with this human.” The man with the robotic arm suddenly understood and teased proudly the white-haired youth next to him.
  The guard at the left gate finally couldn’t stand it any longer. He took a cigarette and blew out a light smoke ring: ” When are you going to sell this slave?” The big man was stunned.
  “It doesn’t matter if you live or die, as long as that human is unscathed.” The guard at the left gate looked sullenly at Lin Xi, “I will pay a high price for fun things.”
  Lin Xi’s body suddenly became stiff, his skin was pale. With a sense of dizziness, the whole person was scared and bloodless.
  The two guards burst into laughter.
  The big man with the robotic arm also laughed. He felt even more impatient when the two guards made such a move.
  There are many human beings in this world but there are only few people as beautiful as the one in front of him. For him, it is like picking up a treasure to bring to his door.
  After passing the test, the city gate guards will issue identification card chains to mutants and slaves who are allowed to enter the city. He grabbed the identity cards of the two people and dragged Lin Xi into the city.
  The tag jingled in his hand.
  Lin Xi glanced at it and started to slow down.
  The big man pushed Lin Xi again.
  This time, Lin Xi was bound by his hands, staggered forward and limped even more slowly.
  This was seen into the man’s eyes and only twisted the other party’s waist.
  With a dry mouth, he hugged Lin Xi, breathing heavily and bite Lin Xi’s neck.
  “Little baby, as you said, this time we are in the city.”
  Lin Xi immediately struggled hard.
  How could the mutant let him escape? He covered Lin Xi’s mouth and nose and roughly ripped off the other party’s belt, dragging Lin Xi into the alley next to him.
  “It’s too late. Don’t blame me.”
  Lin Xi opened his eyes wide and let out a whimper, as if asking for help from the person next to him.
  But no one paid him any attention.
  He was quickly dragged into a nearby laneway.
  The alley was dark. There was a sound of torn clothes, the whimpering of men, and the sound of struggling.
  Someone next to them heard it. They were wearing tag chains on their bodies and carrying iron buckets in their hands. They stopped and stared numbly at the alley for a while and then dispersed.
  In this city, anything can happen. What’s more, it’s just a mutant doing some common thing to his slave.
  The struggle and whimpering in the alley faded away.
  After a few waves of people outside, finally a man walked out of the shadow of the alley.
  But this time the person who came out was not a big man with strong muscles.
  At this time, Lin Xi changed into black clothes with a blood was splattered on it but it was not obvious.
  He was wearing a wind hood on his head and a strand of white hair was faintly visible by the hood. He held two tags in his hands that colliding with each other, making a soft sound.
  Everyone in this city has their own identity. Mutants have mutant numbers, and slaves have slave-specific shapes.
  Lin Xi put away the bone sign and hung the mutant sign belonging to the big man with the robotic arm around his neck.
  Afterwards, he went to the mud house in front of the city.
  The earthen houses here are built on the hillside, like a wall built on the mountain. There are no windows in the wall, only some small holes the size of fists and the small sunlight can be seen through.
  Outside the earthen house, many people were also carrying iron buckets. Their buckets were filled with white-colored meat foam that was floating on the water and oil, exuding a stench.
  These people stared blankly at the earthen house, their eyes showing inferiority complex, hope, and longing.
  Lin Xi silently passed through the crowd and came to line up in the mud house.
  The house has a hall. In the hall, a receptionist with a dwarf like appearance was sitting in front of the hall, counting the things in the iron bucket.
  When it was Lin Xi’s turn, he turned around slowly.
  “New?” He saw the empty hands in front of him.
  Lin Xi responded and said concisely, “I need to get the tool.”
  The dwarf boy nodded and took a rusty bucket from the counter.
  But he didn’t give it to him right away.
  Seemingly aware of something, the dwarf boy suddenly fell down and leaned against the counter to look at Lin Xi’s lowered face.
  After two or three seconds.
  “It’s you?” he said suddenly.
  “…” Lin Xi didn’t answer.
  The dwarf boy grinned: “Why are you here again? Where is your little mutant master?”
  Lin Xi came to the city alone this time.
  “You’ve got the wrong person.” He didn’t admit it, coldly placing the tag on the counter.
  The dwarf boy was stunned, seeing that the shape of the sign was no longer a bone.
  He paused for a while, then handed the bucket in his hand suspiciously.
  “Now that the price of gold coins has risen, 1 kilogram can only be exchanged for 1 silver coin. If you want to live in a house, you have to pay extra to grab a place.”
  Lin Xi took the tools in the other’s hand and did not reply.
  The dwarf boy laughed again: “But it shouldn’t be difficult for you. It’s just that this batch of human flesh is not very fragrant recently and they haven’t caught much prey.”
  Lin Xi nodded and turned to the price list, his eyes stopped at a group of supplies next to him indicating that he knew it.
  Soon, like the people nearby, he walked out of the room with an empty iron bucket.
  At this time, it was getting late.
  There is a temperature difference between day and night and there are few people on the road. The mutants who didn’t live in a house huddled together in the corner and communicated with each other.
  Most of these people are old, weak, sick or disabled who have experienced atavism.
  Lin Xi did not join and just chose a place to settle down.
  But as soon as he sat down by the tree, someone next to him looked at his position.
  Several men looked at him with surprise, pity and sympathy on their faces.
  “Someone just died in that position.”
  A voice came from behind him, his voice has a hint of slight physiological tremor.
  Lin Xi glanced back.
  The source of the sound was from a thick quilt. In the middle of the quilt, a pair of eyes were staring at him.
  “Hmm.” Lin Xi responded, indicating that he knew.
  However, instead of moving his position, he put the iron bucket down.
  The voice was stunned for a moment, whispered something and slowly moved a position.
  This position is just right for Lin Xi to help block the outside world.
  Lin Xi didn’t care, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
  His hand rested lightly on his belly. His thoughts wandered through the vast sand, polar sky until the blue sky. A wooden house was sitting in front of him like a fairy tale.
  He watched silently, wanting to reach out and touch.
  But the picture quickly shattered and at the same time, Lin Xi felt that the surrounding sounds became very quiet.
  He found that the hum of the mutants around him had stopped, some only had repressed breath and excessively quiet air.
  Immediately after, a few “goo, goo” bursts entered his ears from the city wall.
  Lin Xi opened his eyes.
  He saw a crescent moon hanging in the dusky sky.
  A huge alien beside the city wall in front.
  This is an alienated toad with a body length of about 50 meters. It is leaning on the city wall with two huge flippers, looking down at the humans who are spending the night outside.
  It seems to be searching for food.
  The amphibian’s eyeballs reflect the light, like two huge glass balls, spinning in the air.
  Suddenly, a thick and long tongue sticks out and rolls back from its mouth.
  Inside the city wall, there was suddenly no one.
  The air froze for a moment.
  The mutants in the open air froze their movements for a few seconds, then suddenly collapsed and screamed in panic.
  “Ah ah – here…”
  “The aliens are here, everyone run away!”
  “Hide!”
  Mutants frantically searched for cover.
  However, the city was bare and the remaining earthen houses had already been occupied by other mutants. The fleeing humans and mutants intensified the alien’s desire to eat. It spit out its tongue several times, each time it was able to accurately eat a person.
  “Croak—Croak—” Every time it eats one, its peritoneum makes a thumping sound.
  The cry of people grew louder.
  Lin Xi didn’t move. He was still sitting under the tree but his hand was already holding down the knife hidden in his boots.
  The bedding behind him didn’t move either.
  “Don’t eat me, don’t eat me, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die yet.” The quilt trembled and there were repeated murmurs from inside with a shrill tone like a woman’s.
  Lin Xi turned his head to look back.
  At this moment, his feet suddenly began to vibrate and the entire city shook.
  Some people on the city wall were too late to grab the cover and were thrown out of the city wall screaming in agony.
  “Boom.”
  A monster’s thick forefoot ran over the mutant shells and slowly propped up the city.
  Almost in an instant, an unprecedentedly huge head suddenly protruded from the soil and bit the giant toad that was crawling on the edge of the city.
  “Croak—!” The giant toad let out a shrill cry.
  It began to struggle desperately, using its front limbs to smash the attacker’s head and using its hind limbs to kick the city wall and the ground.
  But the city wall was so solid, as if those cracks were just decorations and didn’t move at all under the bombardment of the alien species.
  The monster that bitten the toad, tightly held its prey. Its body was covered with folds of skin, an amphibian’s skin showed segments of neck lines.
  It has an excellent hunting skills of predators. It smashes its huge head and smashes the food in front of it on the ground three times.
  The ground was swept up with mad sand and the battle between the giant beasts roared loudly.
  In the end, the giant toad burst out the serum in its body and was bitten off.
  The roar of the victor was raised up to the sky and every fold of skin on its body was shaking.
  It proudly began to bury its head, eating its own spoils.
  The sound of flesh tearing, the sound of monsters chewing, and the sound of monsters swallowing haunted the people for almost a night.
  In the next second, it picked out the tastiest parts, curled up, and sank again into the nearby sandy bottom.
  The sun on the horizon shone into the city again.
  The mutants began to move. Some of them survived last night and some of them walked out of their earthen houses carrying iron buckets one after another and began to line up at the city gate.
  The crowd was bustling.
  “This time I dug 30 pounds and I can buy slaves.”
  “Follow the division of labor I just said. The first and the second are responsible for digging, the third is responsible for guarding, and the fourth is for transporting. Do you understand?”
  “Dad, I don’t want to live outside anymore, can we dig up fresh oil?”
  The line was noisily and crowded, as if they were dividing a huge cake.
  Until the gates open.
  Countless people rushed down the city like a fly, rushing towards the corpse of the alien species.
  The crowd at the gate of the city suddenly dwindled.
  Lin Xi also got up, picked up the iron bucket beside him and walked towards the city gate.
  But just as he took a step, he suddenly felt his clothes being pulled by someone.
  Lin Xi turned back.
  He saw a mutant with a stained face holding him back.
  This person is still covered with a quilt. Her face is dirty and only have one pair of eyes staring at his tag.
  Lin Xi frowned slightly.
  Seemingly feeling the dissatisfaction of the person in front of her, the mutant chuckled.
  “Brother, are you alone?” She wiped her nose with his dark, dirty hands.
  “Why don’t we dig for oil together and accompany each other?”
~~~~~~~~
Edited: 7/20/22
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