"Liangzi, are you okay? It's me."
A slightly weak man's voice came through the crack in the door.
The original owner of this body, Mu Liang, did have a friend... even if it was just one.
Wang Jixuan's remaining soul had regained some awareness after entering meditation earlier. He could clearly sense that there was only one person standing outside the door.
Once he reached a higher level of cultivation and entered the Gathering Spirit stage, he would be able to refine his spiritual awareness again. With that, he could vaguely see things through walls.
After waiting for a moment, Wang Jixuan put away the simple wolf fang club he had made and unlocked the door, opening it a crack.
A thin young man appeared before him.
This guy was named Lou Zhuang, often called "Malo." Like Mu Liang, he was also a pitiful soul, needing to give up two portions of food each day to buy a single emergency food supply to hand over to the local thugs.
These thugs would take the emergency food to the lower city and sell it as a commodity to obtain various rare items.
By the way, even these thugs had to do their own work in the middle city.
So, many times, people like Mu Liang and Lou Zhuang, who were bullied, had to contribute their food portions and also engage in extra labor that wasn’t part of their original jobs.
"All these are unfortunate people. I’ll have to find a way to help Mu Liang get back at them later," Wang Jixuan thought to himself with a sigh, then smiled a bit and opened the door wider.
"Come in."
"Liangzi... are you okay?"
Lou Zhuang stared closely at Wang Jixuan’s neck, where there were still some bruises.
"I heard them say you went to the infirmary, and that you were carried there by the emergency team."
Wang Jixuan quickly recalled the details of Mu Liang’s interactions with Lou Zhuang. He shrugged and spoke in a tone that mixed helplessness and despair, "I tried, but I couldn't do it... In the end, I burned the bedsheet."
"That's really tough. As long as you're okay... um... do you want to eat something? It's almost breakfast time. If you're fine, how about we go eat together?"
Lou Zhuang's smile seemed a bit forced.
He had his hands stuffed in the faded pockets of his jeans, his gaze a bit evasive as he continued, "I’m not good at comforting people. How about I treat you to a starch bar?"
Wang Jixuan thought to himself that this was a hassle but smiled warmly, "Then I’ll take half of your food portion."
"Not a big deal; I eat little anyway."
As Lou Zhuang turned around, he noticed a cardboard box in the corner of the single bed, filled with clothes, and a silver circular holographic music player.
"Liangzi, what are you packing for?"
Wang Jixuan simply explained, "I want to move the bed."
"I thought you were moving away. Changing districts is a good way to hide... How about we go eat in another district..."
Lou Zhuang seemed a bit hesitant.
Wang Jixuan watched him with a smile, and Lou Zhuang swallowed hard, his smile looking a bit weak.
"Hmm?"
"I mean... your music player is really cool. Can I borrow it for a day?"
"Sure, but that’ll cost you three starch bars."
"You really have the potential to be a bloodsucking capitalist!"
Lou Zhuang complained jokingly as he hurriedly left through the metal door.
Wang Jixuan’s gaze flickered slightly. Before stepping out, he casually grabbed two room cards, old and new, and slipped a finely polished metal tube into his coat sleeve.
Malo was acting unusually today.
...
In the area divisions of Fortress 76, each floor housed between six thousand to twenty thousand people, depending on the scale of industrial and agricultural land.
The thirteenth floor had thirteen thousand residents, with relatively more living space.
Even though the fortress had been running beyond capacity for over a hundred and twenty years, with facilities aging, only a few, like the "microscopic" street's standard-equipped infirmaries and emergency food vending machines, still operated at a decent rate. Most equipment was barely functional and in need of repairs.
For instance, the surveillance cameras that were supposed to be everywhere in the middle city now only a third were operational.
Areas with dense surveillance cameras were naturally peaceful; the darkness and misery of the middle city were scattered between these peaceful zones.
Wang Jixuan compared the route from his memory and confirmed they were indeed heading toward the district cafeteria.
Lou Zhuang made small talk, "Liangzi, I remember you’ll be able to get a genetic match next year, right?"
Genetic matching was a process for level three, four, and five citizens in the fortress. On their twenty-fifth birthday, they would receive a genetic pairing suggestion from the fortress's smart control center. A fertility officer would then come to deliver a confidential letter containing the recommended opposite sex likely to produce high-quality offspring.
The fertility officer would provide emotional counseling, conduct lectures on reproductive positions, discuss hygiene knowledge, and share dating tips.
Young couples who successfully married through genetic matching could enjoy some benefits, like an extra quota for each person and some citizen upgrade points.
This was an important measure to avoid consanguineous marriages and was recognized by over seventy percent of citizens in the fortress.
—Although a survey showed that among young unmarried citizens in the fortress, fifty-five percent identified as sexually open.
"Yeah," Wang Jixuan nodded, "What about you?"
"I still have two more years," Lou Zhuang pouted. "I really hope to get through it soon. After getting married, I can apply for a sixteen-square-meter double room, and most double rooms are in safer areas."
Wang Jixuan nodded and suddenly asked, "Have the rotten fish gang been looking for you?"
Lou Zhuang immediately glanced aside, "No, they haven’t looked for me."
"You really don’t need to be too afraid," Wang Jixuan reassured him. "You’re almost bleeding out, and as they say, evil can’t suppress justice. As long as we find more people who’ve been bullied and join forces, we can settle old scores with them."
Lou Zhuang looked at Wang Jixuan with confusion.
He quietly asked, "Didn’t you say before that according to the psychology book you read, if someone is bullied and chooses to step back once, they’ll never have the chance to resist again..."
"People’s views can change."
Wang Jixuan smiled with narrowed eyes, his gaze sweeping over the entrance to the "microscopic" street they had just passed.
Two young men appeared behind them, dressed in tight leather pants and jackets, covered in studs, with increasingly outrageous hairstyles.
Wang Jixuan suddenly stopped.
The two young men approached directly, one of them raising a hand to press against the back of Wang Jixuan's head.
"Get the hell out of here! There are cameras!"
Wang Jixuan simply tilted his head and sidestepped, his movements casual and fluid, while the other person missed completely.
Bang!
The dull sound of an elbow strike echoed in Lou Zhuang's ears.
The young thug's face turned red, his eyes bulging as he struggled to catch his breath, pain radiating from his ribs made the veins on his forehead throb.
Lou Zhuang and the other thug were clearly stunned.
What... was happening...
Wang Jixuan's elbow also hurt at that moment.
But Wang Jixuan didn’t give the other party a chance to retaliate. He turned and struck with his palm, hitting the thug beside him squarely in the face. The thug, looking dazed, stumbled back two steps and only after two seconds did he start to scream while holding his nose.
"Damn! Ah! My nose! My nose! I’ll kill you!"
Wang Jixuan glanced at Lou Zhuang with a smile and kicked out.
Lou Zhuang didn’t have time to dodge, his small body leaned back and hit the rusty pipes lining the hallway hard. His face twisted in pain, showing a stark contrast of light and shadow under the dim lights.
"Liangzi, don’t hit me! They forced me! They said they wanted to talk to you..."
"You and I are even now."
Wang Jixuan said coldly, feeling a wave of relief inside.
The so-called bonds of humanity were indeed fragile.
He turned to leave, but then he heard the screeching noise of metal pipes dragging across the cement floor.
Figures began to appear in the corridor ahead, at least sixteen or seventeen of them.
There were many old water pipe lines in the fortress, and the alloy metal pipes that were dismantled before being officially collected became the most common weapons.
Wang Jixuan thought to himself that this was bad.
His current strength was only slightly higher than an ordinary person. Even if he quickly knocked down a few with his strength spell, he would faint from exhausting too much of his soul power.
However, he wasn’t the type to surrender just because he faced a strong opponent.
In cultivation, it was all about having a sound heart and clear thoughts. If he knelt down and begged for mercy in such a situation, it would leave a psychological scar that would hinder his future cultivation.
That would be worse than being killed!
He quickly considered his options, several spells ready on his lips.
The two thugs he had just hit were now emboldened, cursing as they clenched their fists, eager to fight.
The leading young man had a baseball bat slung over his shoulder, his hands casually draped around it, looking relaxed as he called out, "Mu Liang? What the hell did you do? You made the boss of the Black Fire Gang personally send a message for me to cripple you and take you down.
"You’ve got some guts, huh? Why didn’t I notice it before?
"Tell me, you loser, how did you get into their hands?"
Wang Jixuan suddenly smiled a bit more.
It wasn’t that he remembered what the leading man was called, "Rotten Fish," but rather, the way he was standing made it... too easy for him to capture.
"I didn’t do anything."
Wang Jixuan shook his leg, instinctively wanting to step back.
This group of thugs was relying on their numbers, and with Mu Liang’s previous timid impression on them, they didn’t care at all about the two guys who had just been beaten.
They slowly closed in.
Wang Jixuan suddenly said, "Maybe it's because I know a security team captain. I think his name is Zhou Zhengde."
The leading thug paused, frowning and asking, "What? Who?"
"I mean, Zhou..."
Whoosh!
"Five Mountains and Eight Seas, in the depths of the Taixuan! Let me roam freely in my path!"
Wang Jixuan turned and dashed out like a leopard, quickly whispering a spell!
In an instant, he used his soul power to enhance himself, and in the blink of an eye, he shot out seven or eight meters, sprinting back the way he came!
At that moment, he even broke the explosive speed limit of human athletes before the disaster!
The thugs were left dumbfounded.
Wasn’t this guy just in front of them...
The leader, "Rotten Fish," trembled his lips and shouted, "Chase him! What are you standing there for! Go and kill him!"
(End of Chapter)