Love and passion, cutting up the wasteland

The sticky bubbles rolled slowly, and Sergeant Wu Laowu looked at the rice porridge in his hand in a trance. It was not until the quartermaster's scolding sounded that he woke up from his dream and stood aside to make way.

Behind him were colleagues waiting for food, some of whom were already impatient.

Although the soldiers of Kaidun City also had the stubborn disease of the noble private army, under the command of General Tianxin, their discipline was rare and strict, and the logistics were unimpeded during the march.

Due to the limited conditions, they did not dare to guarantee how well every soldier could eat, and the officers and noble hooded guards would definitely be able to get more quotas... but at least all the front-line combat personnel could still eat enough.

This was better than many bandits.

Wu Laowu's stomach was empty, and his gastric juice was rolling. He was obviously quite hungry, but what surprised and frightened him was that he looked at the food he was given, but he had no appetite at all.

Before he was called up, he and his wife and children could not have so much refined rice and flour for two meals a day in his hometown.

Sensing the curious eyes of the soldiers around him, Wu Laowu quickly gulped down the rice porridge in the bowl, wiped his mouth, and left the station with nausea in his stomach.

When he left, he subconsciously lowered his head.

This was to avoid other people's sight, and also to unconsciously cover up the green light and desire in his eyes.

After the supply was completed, Wu Laowu should have returned to his post, but he went around a long circle without anyone noticing. When he looked up, he saw a wounded camp of the Kaidun Army in front of him.

The number of citizens in Aikuang Town was more than they imagined, even more than the wild people on the periphery. Moreover, as the United City army continued to advance, the threat of the citizens became greater.

At the beginning, their bodies were still very thin, but they were flexible. But a few days ago, the enemies encountered by Kaiton City were almost the same as ordinary soldiers, and the enemy also began to use weapons.

If it weren't for those deformed claws and beast-like eyes, I'm afraid the samurai leaders would think they were attacked and fighting with another army.

Some extremely tall giants appeared among the citizens. When they appeared, even other citizens began to flee in all directions, as if they saw hunters. These giants held strange machetes and bone crushers, and the samurai masters couldn't stop them with one blow.

This was not a battle on the field. The army of Kaiton City was like being stuck in a quagmire, and they would hit a nail on their heads from time to time-of course, with General Tianxin sitting and taking action, their advancement speed has not encountered too many obstacles, but the formation has completely changed.

The entire joint army was squeezed together, like a long shuttle, and the extra tentacles were cut off, leaving only the strongest apex to carry everyone forward.

The central army has turned into the front army, and the vanguard with heavy losses has retreated.

Now they are resting in the rear.

The armies of other southern states, which had some grudges against Kaidun City, realized the benefits and disadvantages this time, and basically obeyed the orders of General Tianxin and no longer acted alone.

The so-called wounded camp should have been the most taboo place in the entire army. Once the number of military doctors and medicines was in urgent need, even if they were able to rescue them at the beginning, in most cases they would just send them here to die.

It is also a good place to isolate diseases and epidemics.

The air was filled with the stench of rotting wounds, mixed with strange medicinal fragrance, which smelled disgusting - but when they floated to Wu Laowu's nose, he somehow swallowed his saliva.

At the same time, his stomach was churning again.

It hurt like being pulled.

It was ready to move again.

With a mouthful of "wow", Wu Laowu vomited out all the rice porridge he had just drunk. Every grain was full of soup and food, with almost no signs of digestion.

But after vomiting, the old sergeant did not feel uncomfortable, but felt refreshed, as if he had discharged some dirt from his body.

However, the hunger in his stomach became more intense.

At this moment, he saw from a distance that the curtain of the wounded camp was lifted, and a thin figure walked out.

The man had a white cloth on his face, and was holding a cloth bundle in his arms. He looked like a military doctor.

But seeing his sneaky posture of looking around, he didn't think so.

Wu Laowu frowned.

He remembered a rumor in the army: most of the other states in the United City recorded military merits by the number of heads, but only Kaiton City counted people's left ears, so some shrewd people would cut off the enemy's head first and then the left ear, while selling the head to the soldiers in the end of the drifting place and sending the ear to Kaiton City.

And if Colons is counted, sometimes the whole body can be used.

This is of course against military orders, but human nature is like this, and sometimes the superior officers will only turn a blind eye when they know about it.

However, the other party came out of the wounded camp... If he used the bodies of his comrades or even killed the wounded to claim credit, it would be a bit too much.

Once discovered, it would be a capital crime.

Wu Laowu held down his saber, hesitating whether to turn a blind eye or go back to stop the report, but before he could make a decision, the figure in the distance froze, turned his head suddenly, and his eyes were as fierce as a hawk.

He actually found the sergeant hiding in the shadows.

Wu Laowu was shocked, but after the man noticed him, his eyes softened strangely, and he walked towards this side carelessly.

Wu Laowu took two steps back cautiously, until the other party came close to him without any care and pulled off the white cloth on his face, he said in surprise: "Li Xiaosan?"

The man was his good fellow villager.

Most of Wu Laowu's doubts were gone. Li Xiaosan was indeed a member of the vanguard army. Because he often fell and injured himself when he went up the mountain to mine when he was a child, he became a doctor with his bandage skills and really became a military doctor.

Li Xiaosan treated him very well. When he retired from the front line, he specially asked someone to send Wu Laowu a bag of meat jerky, saying that it was the spoils of the vanguard army.

Other troops wanted it but couldn't get it.

The supply of Kaidun City was guaranteed, but the grassroots soldiers could only eat meat every six or seven days. It was still very enviable to have several kilograms of animal meat.

Wu Laowu was naturally grateful.

And he knew that Li Xiaosan was actually a timid and sensitive person in his heart. Sometimes he would even make people laugh at him. He needed someone to take care of him so that he would not be bullied. It was most appropriate for him to stay in the rear to heal his wounds.

He would not do anything to kill innocent people and take credit for himself.

Relaxed, Wu Laowu even ignored the fact that his fellow villager had sunken eye sockets and even his skull seemed to be bigger. He looked like a patient who was in a state of fatigue, but his expression was extremely excited.

"How is it, how is the war on the front line?" Wu Laowu held back the strange hunger in his stomach, pressed his fellow villager's shoulder and said with concern, "You are not injured, right? When your sister-in-law sent me out, she didn't even bother to ask me a few questions. She was worried that you would die outside, so she asked me to take care of you, haha..."

In the end, Wu Laowu was rated as a first-class soldier, and Li Xiaosan became a military doctor. The results were pretty good, but they had different divisions of labor, so they couldn't stay together on weekdays.

But after listening to Wu Laowu's reminiscence, Li Xiaosan seemed to have no reaction at all. He just looked him up and down, and then spoke with difficulty: "Wu, Brother Wu, you too..."

In Wu Laowu's impression, Li Xiaosan was not a stutterer, but at this moment he had difficulty organizing his words, and the following words were vague, as if his vocal cords were stuck together.

It made people feel uncomfortable.

Wu Laowu frowned and was about to interrupt the other party, but suddenly he understood a sentence from it:

"Are you hungry?"

If it were any other question, Wu Laowu would definitely ignore it, but first find out the situation of his fellow villager, but when he heard this sentence, his bones all over his body felt itchy as if a caterpillar was crawling over them, and his will that had been strong before finally collapsed.

Wu Laowu nodded subconsciously.

When he came to his senses, there was already a cloth wrap in his hand. On the other side, Li Xiaosan had already walked away. I don’t know where he went. Only a few intermittent words echoed in my ears:

"Food... wounded soldiers..."

Wu Laowu held the cloth package that Li Xiaosan had just held. His palm was heavy and a little wet, but he could smell a rich fragrance that was hard to extricate himself from.

Is it the supplies for the wounded?

Wu Laowu thought in a daze, and walked back like a lost soul.

He didn't notice.

In general wounded camps, there are always curses, cries or groans of suffering soldiers around, which makes people unbearable to listen.

I just want to escape and hide far away.

But today, it is particularly quiet here.

It makes the ruins of the dilapidated buildings in the distance seem even colder.

Then, there was a sticky chewing sound.

Meat...Meat...Meat...

———

———

[Standing at the end of the world, looking at the barren plain in the distance, I can always feel the shock of the civilization fault. The latest survey data from the Northern Hunters show that the history of the Painted Tribe can be traced back thousands of years. But this discovery did not bring joy, but more confusion: Did they exist before the destruction of the suspected laboratory, or did they appear after that? 】

【In a land full of advanced technological relics, the existence of such a primitive tribe seems out of place. Every time I read the survey report of the Cannibal Plain, I think about the same question: Why did the residents here degenerate? 】

【Through the analysis of unearthed artifacts, we put forward several possibilities. One hypothesis is that the Painted Tribe is likely to be the direct descendants of the ancients. Their initial degeneration may be due to multiple factors: inability to adapt to toxic environmental changes; harmful substances leaked from the laboratory; mental abnormalities caused by earth-shaking changes; or the simplest reason - extreme famine forced them to embark on the path of cannibalism, passed down from generation to generation...]

[But no matter which reason it is, it has been passed down to today. This mutation is no longer from any culture or infection, but a toxin rooted in the blood of all humans (note: including those with horns). They will be enriched from generation to generation, and every attempt will make people slide into the abyss faster, even the Sons of the Scorched Earth are not immune - the Hive People may not be affected, but obviously, the threat that troubles them is even more serious...]

【We have long warned through books and bards, trying to spread knowledge about the cannibal curse to the world, but the same tragedy always happens again and again. It is obvious that the power of education is not as effective as my teachers and colleagues preach. Compared with the problems in front of everyone, our worries are more like the nonsense of a group of absurd scholars. There are some truths that even illiterate peasants can understand, but reality always forces people to trample on them... If you don't understand this, then don't expect the world to run perfectly as we imagine. 】

【In the ruins of the laboratory, we found weapon debris and traces of internal damage. These damages may come from civil war, but they may also be wanton damage when the cannibal tribe occupied the laboratory-without long-term observation, we can all understand that these tribes have a strong tendency to violence, and when rational individuals avoid these areas, they can only prey on their own kind, which further causes the enrichment of mutation factors. ]

[Atticus is a great researcher. In addition to his excessive attention to legendary monsters, his theories are usually bold and innovative: many years later, we did find some traces of human experiments deep in the abandoned laboratory in the north. These discoveries suggest that ancient civilizations may be conducting some extreme survival experiments, which makes his original question valuable again-could the cannibal tribe be an accidental product of these experiments? Or, is their behavior pattern the result of deliberate design? ]

[I think: they are not simply degenerate products, but an adaptive mutation produced under specific environmental pressure... If the world ends again one day, the first wave of survivors may be them. ]

[In the next research plan, I will focus on two directions: first, to conduct an in-depth investigation of the laboratory's human experiment records, trying to find the root cause of the cannibal tribe's abnormal behavior, or even a solution, which requires applying for the support of the intelligent core... The second is to expand the scope of archaeology and look for other possible tribal groups, even if I hope that the search in this direction will not produce any results. ]

[I hope our new discovery can serve as a memorial. ]

[To Atticus. ]

——Finch.

The army of Kaiton City was slowly changing, and facing the brave soldiers, even the citizens driven by appetite seemed to feel a little fear. They realized that these cans were not so easy to open, and were not as delicious as each other - or perhaps, they were waiting for something, just like all predators hibernating before launching an attack. But in any case, the offensive was indeed slowed down, and the march of the crowd seemed to be much smoother.

"It's the people from the United City again..."

But deep in the Ai Mining Town, unlike the crazy citizens, there seemed to be other rational people.

They wore pointed hats and white robes, and the chainmail strips were rusty. The old figure held a crescent-shaped scimitar and examined the two captives in front of him, one man and one bee.