Chapter 81: The Wisdom of Ordinary People

“I understand.” Liu Chang nodded. “Then I’ll be on my way. The longer this drags on, the more trouble it’ll cause.”

“Alright, you go ahead.” Li Qingshui nodded, and with that, Liu Chang took the little girl and left the laboratory.

Back at the dormitory, he equipped himself with his bow and crossbow, checked his bolts and the military knife he had procured from the army over the last couple of days. Then he told the girl, “You stay here and wait for me. I’ll be back tonight. I’m just going to look around Zhengzhou city; you don’t need to come. If I keep bringing you along outside, people will get suspicious. It wasn’t an issue before, but now the lab is crawling with eyes and ears, and there are people like Zhao Zhuo with freakish analytical skills. If he gets wind of anything, he’ll definitely figure something out. He’s just like Teacher Li—give him even the tiniest hint and he can piece together almost the whole truth.”

“But there’s still danger out there. Even inside Zhengzhou, there’s no guarantee you’ll be completely safe…” The concern in the girl’s eyes was plain.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back before nightfall, I promise.” Liu Chang patted her head gently. “Be good. If your presence here gets exposed, we’ll be in a hundred times more danger than if I went out scouting for plants. So, for your brother’s safety, you have to stay put, alright?”

“Alright.” The girl nodded, but her eyes still showed her worry. “Promise me you’ll be back before dark.”

“I will.” Liu Chang extended his right pinky. “Let’s pinky swear.”

“Mm!” The girl immediately nodded and hooked her slender finger tightly around his.

With her reassured, Liu Chang shouldered his crossbow, tucked his knife away, and left the room.

Stepping outside, he slipped into the thick fog and walked out of the science park’s compound. The soldiers at the gate didn’t give him any trouble—most of them recognized the research staff, so he passed through unimpeded and soon found himself on the streets of Zhengzhou.

He had entered the world of ordinary people.

Inside the institute was the upper echelon of humanity: top genetic scientists, soldiers, weapons, and leaders. But outside, there was nothing—just regular people, and the struggle to survive between life and death.

This was a world Liu Chang was intimately familiar with.

Though he’d been living within the research institute these past few days, as an ordinary man, he felt out of place there. He couldn’t follow the open and covert power plays between Li Qingshui and the leadership, nor could he participate in any of the experiments. Politics and science aside, he was just a common man—he belonged out here. So despite the dangers, this world felt almost comforting.

Walking down the street, Liu Chang saw countless small, self-organized groups of civilians—each group a testament to the resourcefulness of ordinary people. These were little clusters centered on families, with friends as their outer circles. After the apocalypse, everyone had learned that, compared to surviving alone, the strength of community was always greater.

Such groups, all shapes and sizes, moved along the streets, and Liu Chang wandered among them without any real purpose.

Though he’d confidently told Li Qingshui he was going out to look for edible plants, the truth was he had no clue where to start. His scant knowledge of biology wasn’t even enough to identify plant species, let alone determine if they were edible.

So, after a whole morning of wandering, he’d found nothing. All he gained was a deeper understanding of the chaos and struggle among the lower classes—and not even a morsel of food to show for it.

Until he encountered a man—a man carrying an iron cage.

The man looked to be in his fifties, accompanied by his wife and two children, wielding a kitchen knife and an iron rod as they foraged the streets, just like all the other small groups, searching for anything edible.

Liu Chang spotted this family from a distance and at first paid them no heed—such groups were everywhere in Zhengzhou. What caught his attention was the peculiar sight of the man feeding something in the cage. Every so often, he would gather a bit of plant from the ground and feed it to a little bug in the cage, his expression focused. His family didn’t try to stop him from this odd behavior.

This triggered something in Liu Chang’s memory: “an insect that can find its own food…” The phrase flashed through his mind, jolting him awake, and he immediately began to follow the family at a distance.

He trailed them for over a kilometer, considering various ways to strike up a conversation, but dismissed them all, finally settling on the simplest and most direct approach.

Once he was within three meters of the family, his presence drew their attention.

“Who’s there?” The man and his son raised their weapons in unison. When they saw it was no familiar face, the man shouted, “Listen, friend, I suggest you keep your distance. Since the apocalypse, everyone knows the rules: don’t come within three meters of a stranger. And we’re out of food—if you’re thinking of robbing us, forget it.”

“No need to be nervous.” Seeing the family armed and on edge, Liu Chang raised his hands slightly to show he meant no harm. He understood their caution—he’d already witnessed the brutality of clashes between groups that morning. With no law or police, the military could only “maintain stability,” but hardly enforce order. They kept society’s basic structure intact, but the struggles of the lowest tiers were beyond their reach.

Seeing the family still wary, Liu Chang raised both hands high, adopting a completely non-threatening posture.

“I really mean no harm. I just want to ask you something.”

“Then ask from there, don’t come any closer,” the man replied, not pressing the issue but not lowering his guard either.

“I want to ask about the insect you’re holding.”

“No idea what it is. Never seen one before—probably just a mutated bug, I guess.”

“Then why do you keep feeding it?” Liu Chang’s second question made the family visibly tense.

“Have you been following us?” Suspicion flared in their eyes.

“No, I just happened to notice. Look, I won’t ask for free.” Liu Chang drew the military knife from his belt—the one he’d brought from the institute. “Your weapons are all homemade or repurposed tools, which can’t be very practical.”

“This knife is the real deal, factory-made alloy steel, sharp as can be—far better than what you’re using.” He gestured toward the man’s cage. “If you tell me what the bug is for, I’ll give you the knife. What do you say?”

“Deal!” The man’s eyes lit up at the sight of the knife. He agreed without hesitation. “Hell, you can have the bug if you want—just toss the knife over first.”

“Alright.” Liu Chang didn’t hesitate—when you control absolute force, you always have the upper hand. If he wanted to, he could have simply taken what he wanted. So, he tossed the sheathed knife over without a second thought, unconcerned the man might renege.

“Now that’s a straightforward man.” The man relaxed, seeing the knife land at his feet. “There’s nothing special about the bug, really. My family just stumbled on it. It’s primarily herbivorous—though it’ll eat meat too. Its sense of smell is incredible; it can tell whether a plant is edible. So we caught one and have been using it to test for toxins. It won’t touch anything poisonous, and it avoids anything that tastes bad or is only mildly toxic. But plants that humans can eat, it gobbles right up.”

“When I realized this, I didn’t think too much about it—just caught one and brought it along. After all, all the plants out here have changed. Stuff that used to be safe might not be anymore, and some things that used to be inedible might be fine now. Never mind all the new species popping up everywhere. Food isn’t really scarce; it’s just that most people are too scared to try it. So I caught this bug.”

As he spoke, the man tossed the iron cage toward Liu Chang along the ground.

“If you want it, take it. There are plenty more by my house near the water pipe—they’re easy to catch.”

“Thank you, really.” Liu Chang picked up the cage and examined the strange creature inside.

It looked like an ordinary beetle, a bit like a longhorn, nothing remarkable except for its two unusually long antennae—clearly built for heightened senses.

With the bug in hand and the family now armed with a new knife, both sides were satisfied yet still wary. Just as they were about to part ways, a squad of soldiers appeared in Liu Chang’s line of sight.

It was a small patrol, about a platoon in size, all heavily armed. One man at the front carried a megaphone, shouting out announcements.

“Attention, citizens! Attention! The government has good news—the research institute has developed a new food source. In three days, seeds will be distributed to the public. This new crop will solve all our food problems, so please remain calm and wait patiently.”

The squad leader repeated his message through the loudspeaker, handing out flyers to everyone he passed.

The soldiers happened to walk right by Liu Chang and the family, so both groups received one of the cheap leaflets.

Glancing at it, Liu Chang quickly realized most of it was propaganda for the new “Liangbean” synthesized by Zhao Zhuo. The flyer heaped endless praise on the crop, the tone as harmonious as news broadcasts from the 1970s, promising a future so bright one could almost feel a surge in happiness just by reading it.

“If this crop really works, our good days are here. No more food worries, so much less trouble,” the wife said excitedly, reading the flyer.

“Bah, what do you know? This stuff isn’t edible. I won’t eat it, and neither will you or the kids.” The man snatched the flyer from her hands and tore it to shreds. “Damn it, who are they trying to fool with this stuff—worse than GMOs! This stuff can’t be eaten!”

“But it says right here it’s safe. I honestly don’t know what you’re so afraid of!” his wife protested loudly.

“Afraid? Back in the day, we survived poisoned milk powder, gutter oil, melamine, Sudan Red eggs, recycled wax rice, toxic capsules, dead baby pills, leather protein, fake bottled water from Hainan—you name it. After all that, what’s a little genetically modified food? At worst, our boy will end up like a Northeast rat and never have kids. What is there to be afraid of?” (To be continued)