Chapter 361: The Plight of the Underclass
Chapter 361: Chapter 361: The Plight of the Underclass
’Putting on an act for a short while is one thing, but keeping it up all the time means I’d have to stay on high alert constantly. I can’t even imagine how exhausting that would be.’
At this thought, he lowered his head. ’Looks like I’ll have to talk as little as possible from now on. The more you say, the more you screw up.’
’But when it’s just the two of us in the car, Stella Sterling and me, I won’t have to be so on edge.’
Thinking of this, he let out a long sigh of relief.
’Compared to my own life, being a little more careful is a small price to pay.’
Stella Sterling watched him but didn’t say anything more.
Having spent the last few days with him, she’d come to realize that Andrew Shaw was the kind of person who needed a sharp reminder every now and then.
If she let her guard down around him, he’d get cocky enough to think he could walk on air.
He also had a tendency to get careless.
’What I just said was partly to scare him, but it was also true.’
’If he isn’t careful, there’s no telling what he might do.’
’Putting him in his place every so often was still quite effective.’
’The man is clearly smart and skilled at deception. When I first met him, he acted just like a naive child.’
’If I hadn’t fed him an Honest Pill, I never would have discovered his secret.’
’But he had definitely let his guard down these past few days, which was why I took this chance to remind him of his place.’
She wasn’t afraid of trouble, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed it. Since he was one of her own now, she couldn’t just stand by and do nothing if something happened to him.
But if she could prevent trouble from starting by putting him in his place now, why wait until something actually happened to deal with it?
Stella Sterling fiddled with the items she’d laid out on the ground, her thoughts unreadable.
Andrew Shaw, for his part, was quite resilient.
After his initial bout of anxiety passed, he was much more relaxed and now had the spare energy to be nosy.
He watched Stella Sterling curiously, wondering what she planned to do with all those things she had taken out.
But having been put in his place several times in one day, he didn’t dare act too casually in front of Stella Sterling now, so he kept his curiosity to himself.
’Anyway, once that skinny, dark-skinned boy brings the others over, I’ll naturally find out what she’s planning.’
Staring at the food on the ground, he had a hunch about her plan, even though she hadn’t said a word. Still, it was hard to believe. He wasn’t sure if his guess was really right!
As the two of them sat in their own silence, the sound of footsteps echoed from the distance.
The steps were light and faint; you could barely hear them if you weren’t listening carefully.
Stella Sterling looked in the direction of the sound.
Andrew Shaw didn’t know what was happening, but seeing her movement, he followed her gaze.
Then he saw a dozen or so people walking toward them.
The group was made up of the old and the young—a vulnerable crowd with no ability to fight.
They all looked about the same, dressed in tattered rags so dirty you couldn’t even tell their original shape.
Exposed to the harsh sun, every one of them was dark and gaunt.
Their eyes were sunken, and they were all as thin as skeletons, looking as though a gust of wind could knock them over.
Sarah Sterling found several of them to be quite familiar; she had seen them while she was out gathering supplies earlier.
Back then, however, they had all run away in a panic the moment they saw Stella Sterling, as if terrified of what she might do to them.
Perhaps before, Stella Sterling would have found this strange. After all, this was the apocalypse. Anyone who managed to survive had to be tough.
But the people of this city were all so timid.
She had just asked the dark-skinned, skinny boy, and he’d explained it was because these people had suffered constant oppression.
There was no base to govern them here, but not far from their city, a powerful faction had taken root.
The members of that faction were completely inhuman. They often came here to round people up and force them into labor.
And it was always the hardest, most grueling work, with no food provided.
Many had died in their city before, but some had survived.
Later, however, the faction’s people captured many of them for labor. A lot of them died, and after their deaths, the faction would just dump the bodies back.
The faction would do this periodically, until eventually, only this small group of people remained in the city.
Some had been taken by the faction for forced labor, while those with any capability had long since fled the area to seek survival elsewhere.
Those who remained couldn’t escape, both because they had no food and because they lacked the physical strength.
The only reason they were still alive wasn’t because they had survived the labor, but because they were the elderly and the children. They didn’t have the strength for hard labor, so the faction deemed them worthless and left them behind.
But as the city’s population dwindled, the faction grew less picky, and they began targeting children in their early teens.
Just a few days ago, five or six children, all around eleven or twelve, were taken.
None of the children had returned. Based on past experience, the survivors knew the children’s fate was likely grim, but there was nothing they could do. They were powerless to save them.
That was precisely why the people had panicked so much when they saw Stella Sterling and her companion.
Over time, they had developed a habit of running at the sight of any stranger. They were terrified—terrified that the faction had returned to seize more people, terrified of being taken for hard labor and worked to death.
Hearing this, Stella Sterling’s expression grew cold. No matter the era, the weak were always exploited.
’Hadn’t she experienced something similar in her past life?’
’But I survived. I slowly grew stronger, and only then did life start to get a little better.’
’But for these powerless people, encountering a group like that... their situation was far more miserable than my own had been.’
As Quinn was lost in these thoughts, the group of people slowly drew closer.
However, they stopped while still a good distance away, not daring to come any closer.
From afar, they watched Stella Sterling, their eyes filled with a mixture of fear, apprehension, and a sliver of hope.
When they saw the food laid out in front of Sarah Sterling, they swallowed hard, but no one dared to make a rash move. Not a single person even dared to take a step forward.
They all watched Stella Sterling guardedly, as if ready to flee at her slightest movement.