Chapter 407: Division and Opposition
Chapter 407: Chapter 407: Division and Opposition
"Those Superpower Users have been looking down on us regular people from the very start."
"Yeah, right. As if they’d be kind enough to help us."
"We can only rely on ourselves."
"That’s right! A few Water Ability Users come by occasionally, saying they’re giving us water, but don’t they all have arrogant, scowling faces? It’s like they want us to get on our knees and worship them!"
Ms. Fatty tried to smooth things over from the side. "Now, you can’t say that. The Water Ability Users are still good people. Otherwise, they wouldn’t come and give you free water, would they?"
"Besides, dear, please get up. Like I told you before, the Healing System isn’t a cure-all. I told you to go ask the leaders of the civilian squads for help, not to make enemies with a whole crowd of them, right?"
"And besides, didn’t they already tell you? The Healing System is incredibly rare. They really don’t have anyone like that on their teams."
"What do you mean, ’don’t have any’? Ms. Fatty, you’re just a pushover, believing every little thing you hear," a gaunt woman with sharp, pinched features shrieked. "We don’t buy it. There are so many of them. You’re telling me not a single team has someone from the Healing System?"
"Yeah! So how do they get treated when they’re injured in a fight?"
"They have doctors!" Ms. Fatty couldn’t get through to them. She looked at the woman holding the child. "How about this, dear? Once I finish up here, how about I take you to the infirmary?"
"And listen, don’t be too anxious. This is just how things are now. Your child is probably coughing so much because he’s been cold."
"Look at the child from Old Wang’s family next door. Didn’t he cough for a few days and then was right as rain?"
"There’s nothing we can do. The environment is what it is, and the climate is what it is. All we can do is keep adapting."
"Listening to Ms. Fatty, you’d think it’s just ’survive if you can, die if you can’t,’ huh?" a young man nearby said with a sneer.
Ms. Fatty turned and patted the young man. "Shoo, shoo. Stop crowding around here chattering. Go to bed. Get plenty of rest and build up your strength. You’ll need the energy to fight the cold and hunger tomorrow."
She left them with these words and bustled off to get back to work, only telling the woman with the child to wait for her.
Afterward, the crowd dispersed, but many returned to their small cots with strange expressions on their faces.
The lights in Zone A-1 were bright. Over a thousand people were crammed into one place, with basically no privacy to speak of.
The lucky ones were assigned a small cot about a meter wide, but most just slept on the floor, their mats little more than a thin layer.
"They say the people who got the thicker mats were just the ones who were quick enough to grab them," a woman with glasses whispered to her husband from the neighboring mat.
"People who arrived late got basically no supplies at all. Some have to just scrape together old newspapers to get by for the night."
"If things go on like this, when will it ever end?"
"A simple meal costs twenty Contribution Points now. Most people can’t afford it."
"It’s a classic case of the haves and have-nots. The rich are still living the good life."
"That’s right." The woman holding the child overheard, and her face filled with indignation. "My child has been sick for three days and nobody cares. I ask them to get a Healer to take a look, and every single one of them makes excuses and refuses."
"Nowadays, the poor are just left to die while the rich keep on living their comfortable lives!"
"I heard the Superpower Users’ resting area is way better than ours! Apparently they have their own private cubicles," an old man on a mat opposite them couldn’t resist jumping into the group complaint session.
"Exactly! If this keeps up, we’ll just be left here to die. All the good stuff is being prioritized for those Superpower Users."
"I bet they don’t have to pay twenty Contribution Points for a simple meal."
"They’re probably feasting on the best food and wine in their private cubicles!"
An old woman on a nearby bedmat angrily slammed down her hard-as-a-rock bundle. "So there’s no other way to deal with them?"
"We should band together and protest."
"Right! Protest! Why do those Superpower Users get to live in private cubicles, eating and drinking their fill, while we’re stuck suffering in this concentration camp?"
"No kidding! We’re all human, aren’t we? So what, now there are different classes of people?"
"If you ask me, this damn apocalypse was caused by those people with superpowers."
"I mean, our lives were fine before. When did we ever have to go hungry and suffer like this?"
"Yeah! My salary was only three thousand a month, but at least I could eat my fill."
"What? You were in the Capital and your monthly salary was only three thousand? You must have lived in a basement, right?"
"Oho," the old woman said with a thick Capital accent, clucking her tongue in mock pity. "TSK, TSK. Can’t be living in a basement. I saw on the news that some young fellow renting a basement got scalded to death when a pipe burst."
"We had a house on the Second Ring! An heirloom from our ancestors, gone just like that."
"Right? We even had a 400,000-yuan car! The loan was almost paid off, then bam, the apocalypse! Talk about a raw deal! Why couldn’t it have come sooner? If it had, I wouldn’t have had to finish paying off the loan."
Everyone: ...
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, where are you guys going with this? Stay on topic! We’re talking about how the Superpower Users get treated better than us regular folks!"
"Right, right. We need to protest."
"Let’s unite and protest!"
"So who’s going to start it?" The old woman from the Capital squinted at a few of the young people who had been chatting. "You, young man," she said, pointing. "You look like you’ve got some spirit. How about you take the lead?"
"That’s right, young man. You organize us. We’ll go over there together and talk to the person in charge of Zone A."
"If the sandstorms outside don’t stop, they can’t expect us to live in these conditions forever, can they?"
"Yeah, and they’re not even providing food. Do they want us to starve to death here?"
The young man had a square face, with thick eyebrows and large eyes. Egged on by the clamoring group of women, the blood rushed to his head. He stood up and said, "Since everyone thinks so highly of me, then I, Fang Gang, will put a team together for you all. We’ll find a few representatives, and we’ll go talk to them."
"Yeah!"
"Yeah!!"
Song Kexin held her little sister’s hand and hurried out of the noisy Zone A-1, her brow slightly furrowed.
"From the looks of it, this is going to turn into trouble," Zheng Heng said nonchalantly.
They were all sharp enough to read between the lines.
Xu Bailiang nodded. "Yeah, what those ordinary people were saying back there felt off. It’s very likely they’re going to stir up trouble."
"What do you think, Miss Song?"
’Song Kexin just wanted to live her own quiet life. She had no desire to get involved in some class war.’
Hearing this, she just gave them a polite smile and continued forward, pulling her sister along.
Just then, a small, frail figure rushed over from across the way, calling out in an excited, happy voice, "Su Xiyue!"
Song Kexin frowned and looked over.