Chapter 376: 366 New Screening Method

Chapter 376: Chapter 366 New Screening Method

Nanqing’s layout was similar to that of most large Sanctuaries.

There was a Core Area and a commercial district, surrounded by Mercenary Street, which gradually developed into an industrial chain revolving around the Mercenary Union.

The Core belonged to the Inner City area, inhabited mostly by high-ranking leaders and their relatives. Ordinary Awakeners could not set up businesses in the Core; they either lived in the commercial district or on Mercenary Street.

But like other large Sanctuaries, Nanqing also had an often overlooked area of comparable size.

The poverty area.

Officially called the relief area.

The poverty area occupied about one-fifth of the Sanctuary’s space but housed over eighty percent of the survivors.

Rows of closely packed tube buildings, almost without gaps, sunlight, narrow roads, and rooms filled with foul odors. Occasionally, one could spot a few ragged individuals lying in the corners, and from time to time, there were reports of people hanging themselves or jumping off buildings.

This was the poverty area.

It was a place seldom mentioned by Awakeners and even less willingly entered.

The Intelligence Department had a base in the poverty area.

Lan Qingya changed into rough, worn clothes and put on makeup. She followed Uncle Hai into the poverty area and arrived at a tube building base. Everything she saw along the way made her frown deeply.

Hai Honghui smiled, “The situation you see now has improved a lot compared to when I first came here two months ago. Thanks to the food we Green Shadow sell to Sanctuaries like Nanqing, the survivors in the poverty area can eat a bit more with two meals a day. Of course, the relief food is never enough to satisfy hunger, and even with work, Nanqing’s treatment can’t compare to our Sanctuary.”

Lan Qingya shook her head and sighed, “I know, but…”

As an intelligence officer, she could restrain her sympathy, but it only strengthened her resolve to take the survivors from Nanqing away.

…

Through the operations of the intelligence personnel, certain messages were quietly reaching the ears of some survivors in the poverty area.

Tang Wenliang staggered out of the labor market, his eyes void of life, and weakly walked towards the room assigned to him, as if he were a walking corpse.

Block B, Building 13, 5th floor, Room 517.

A small room of less than thirty square meters, cramped with over twenty survivors.

Especially on the fifth floor, climbing up there drained most of his strength.

Tang Wenliang could not remember how long it had been since he last had a full meal.

Initially, when the walls of the Nanqing Sanctuary were under construction, he could still find a job moving bricks and carrying sandbags in the labor market. Back then, the wages, along with the relief food he received, were barely enough to keep his belly full.

However, now,

Nanqing’s walls were completed, and the Sanctuary’s construction work had dwindled to a minimum. Every morning when the labor market opened, the jobs posted there became fewer and fewer.

For nearly a month, he had failed to grab a job.

Eating scarcely, getting up extremely early each day to go to the labor market, and repeatedly climbing up and down the five floors, Tang Wenliang’s body became increasingly weak, and there were fewer and fewer jobs in the labor market that he could meet the requirements for.

The other survivors in the same room urged him not to waste his energy.

Most of the poor drifted through their days aimlessly. Everyday, at the appointed time, they would descend the building, line up to collect their relief food, then mechanically walk back to their rooms and lean against the wall…

Repeating the same life every day.

But Tang Wenliang was not willing to give up.

Once, he had also been among those who had enough to eat. At his best, he had even saved two to three kilograms of food, hiding it in his pocket.

But now…

A glimmer of clarity returned to Tang Wenliang’s eyes, feeling the emptiness inside his body, his strength almost entirely drained, slowly sinking into despair.

Perhaps, they were right. There really wasn’t much hope.

He looked up, counting the building numbers, searching for the one he lived in.

Suddenly, an unconscious glance out of the corner of his eye caught sight of a small advertisement attached to the nearby utility pole.

A new one.

Tang Wenliang remembered clearly that when he had come out in the morning, there wasn’t a single advertisement on this stench-of-urine-smelling utility pole—his memory was very good.

In the poor district, one seldom saw any advertisements at all.

Somehow, despite not having much strength, Tang Wenliang still dragged his heavy body over to the utility pole to look at the advertisement.

It was a recruitment ad.

Strangely, it didn’t mention anything about the job’s content, just one point—that survivors who participated in the recruitment process would receive a kilogram of grain regardless of whether they were selected or not.

“It’s quite formal.”

He didn’t believe it, but the glaring words “one kilogram of grain” were imprinted in his mind, haunting him.

He mocked himself internally, “Tang Wenliang, oh Tang Wenliang, why haven’t you grasped the reality yet? Pies don’t just fall from the sky, and certainly not in the poor district.”

He tried to move on but was rooted in place.

Two voices waged war in his mind, left and right.

“It’s fake, all fake!”

“One kilogram of grain.”

“They didn’t even write what the job entails; this is surely a shoddy scam!”

“One kilogram of grain.”

“There are tales of man-eating ghouls in the poor district, luring survivors just to devour them… This must be one of their traps…”

“One kilogram of grain.”

…

It was like a demonic barrier, the two voices bombarding his mind with buzzing noise.

After a moment,

Tang Wenliang gasped for breath, his face fierce with resolve, “Screw it! Either I get a full meal, or I become human cattle, either way, I accept my fate!”

After staring at the little advertisement a few more times, he staggered forward towards the address given.

Behind him,

a bedraggled survivor, puzzled by Tang Wenliang’s actions, checked the utility pole back and forth for a few minutes, yet still couldn’t discern what was different about this utility pole.

He could only mutter “Crazy,” then shook his head and walked away.

…

The address was in the middle of the poor district.

Not far away, just a few hundred meters, yet it took Tang Wenliang nearly twenty minutes to get there.

Standing in front of a narrow alley that only allowed two people to pass side by side, he hesitated for a moment, then plunged in.

The alley seemed endlessly long, and Tang Wenliang walked for several minutes without reaching its end.

Both sides were lined with towering apartment blocks, with hardly any sunlight filtering through and no streetlights, making it dark and deep.

Like a menacing beast.

Tang Wenliang almost lost all sensation, his mind seemingly commanded by a voice, a will, propelling his body instinctively forward, towards the unseen endpoint.

…

On the rooftop of the apartment block.

Hai Honghui was somewhat surprised, “That’s it? A high-talent individual attracted just by that simple advertisement? There doesn’t seem to be anything special about it.”

Upon hearing this, Lan Qingya showed a slight smile, “We are Awakeners, and ones with powerful spiritual power at that, which makes it easy for us to notice that advertisement. However, the survivors here are ordinary people. Passing the first filter to reach this place, their innate spiritual power and sensory alignment with runes are already not weak.”