Chapter 138: Entering the City

There are a total of two checkpoints on the road leading into the safety zone: the guard post and the registration desk. Registration is easy enough, but the guard post...

As they neared the Sports City, Dong Cheng hesitated before speaking to the group trailing behind him.

"Don't worry, I understand. You just mean the entry fee, right? We'll take care of it ourselves!"

Just as Dong Cheng was struggling to find the right words, Kong Zhe patted him on the shoulder, letting him off the hook.

"Th-thank you!"

Dong Cheng blushed deeply. He had promised to guide them inside, yet now they had to pay their own entry fees, filling him with a heavy sense of guilt. But his hands were tied; the entry fees were exorbitant. Worse still, everything depended on the guards' whims. If a guard happened to be in a bad mood, they might even confiscate the two meager pieces of meat he had just risked his life to obtain.

His mother was still at home waiting for food. Shameless as it felt, he had no other choice.

"Humph!"

Hong Ling let out a cold snort, clearly displeased with the man, but Kong Zhe stopped her before she could say anything.

Kong Zhe sighed. He could more or less guess what Dong Cheng was thinking. After all, in his past life, he had been much the same—toiling the entire day away for just a scrap of food, only to have the greater part of it extorted from him upon entering the city. He had lived in a state of perpetual hunger until he gradually grew stronger later on.

In silence, the group soon drew close to the Stadium Safety Zone.

Everyone stood frozen, lifting their heads to gaze at the colossal structure before them.

This massive circular building covered an area of more than two hundred thousand square meters. Above it, a shimmering membrane enshrouded the entire complex.

The energy shield of a medium-sized safety zone was almost as vast as dozens of Jinling University shields combined. Standing directly beneath it and looking up, they couldn't even see the top. The transparent film refracted the light, casting iridescent halos that repelled the gathering fierce beasts in the vicinity.

The safety zone's protective barrier did not enclose merely the stadium itself; taking the stadium as the center, it also encompassed a vast surrounding area, including several nearby residential compounds. However, because these areas were close to the perimeter of the safety zone, very few people chose to live there. Most people concentrated inside the stadium itself, where the presence of numerous Awakeners provided a much higher level of safety than the outside world.

"Halt! Inspection!"

A loud shout broke Kong Zhe and the others out of their daze. A heavily armed squad of soldiers had closed in, their dark, hollow gun barrels aimed directly at the group.

Kong Zhe noticed that makeshift fortifications made of sandbags and barbed wire had been constructed at the entrance of the Sports City. Several heavy machine guns were mounted inside each barricade, manned by five or six vigilant guards.

They had managed to acquire this many firearms already?

Kong Zhe thought for a moment before letting out a mental sigh of relief. NPCs selling such items must have appeared; otherwise, with no military bases or police stations nearby, where else could they have scavenged so many heavy weapons?

"Patdown!"

The leader, a man clad in military uniform, waved a hand behind him, and several soldiers immediately lowered their weapons and rushed forward.

"Smack!"

Hong Ling stepped forward, bringing her whip down heavily against the ground, shattering the concrete surface into a web of fissures.

"Let's see who dares!"

A fierce aura erupted from her body, instantly freezing the soldiers in their tracks. The leading middle-aged man furrowed his brow deeply.

An Awakener!

The woman before them made no attempt to conceal her aura, laying bare her status as an Awakener.

Although she was the only Awakener in the group, while the rest were mostly ordinary women and children, that single Awakener was enough to make the middle-aged man think twice about acting rashly.

After all, Awakeners held a superior status within the entire safety zone. If he were to conflict with one, he would undoubtedly be the one to suffer. He was certain that even with guns in their hands, they were no match for an Awakener.

"M-Military brother! It's me! Little Dong."

Noticing the hair-trigger tension, Dong Cheng grew extremely anxious. He hurried forward to murmur a few words to the frowning military squad leader.

Fortunately, he and the man had some lingering acquaintance, and the soldier had been thoroughly unnerved by Hong Ling's aggressive stance. While he held a leadership role here, he was ultimately just an ordinary person; facing an Awakener like Hong Ling, he naturally dared not push his luck.

Thus, he seized the opportunity to back down gracefully.

After listening, the middle-aged man cast a frowning glance at the group and said coldly, "You can enter, but the entry fee cannot be waived. If you want to enjoy the protection of the safety zone, you must pay the corresponding price! Also, aside from Awakeners, nobody else is allowed to carry weapons!"

With that, the middle-aged man suddenly pointed in Xiao Lei's direction. "You! Why are you wearing a hood? Are you hiding something? Take that hat off!"

At these words, Xiao Lei shuddered, hastily clutching Kong Zhe's shoulder and shrinking behind his back.

"You brave military brothers must have a really tough time freezing out here. Please accept these as a small token of our appreciation!"

Kong Zhe chuckled, stopping Hong Ling just as she was about to flare up. He stepped forward, took off the backpack on his back, pulled out a bulging plastic bag from within, and shoved it directly into the middle-aged man's hands.

He had prepared this beforehand; he had no desire to expose the fact that he possessed a spatial ring.

By this point, Kong Zhe had removed all visible identification tags and equipment from his person, making him look no different from any ordinary civilian. Furthermore, since Xiao Lei possessed a hidden class, he had dressed her up to look like an ordinary person as well, while Tuan Tuan was held tightly in Xue Feifei's embrace, completely concealing any signs of Awakener status from the outside.

Thus, to all appearances, their group had only a single Awakener in Hong Ling. Doing this served a dual purpose: it laid the groundwork for their subsequent plans, and it prevented those two Esper individuals from detecting them.

In case those two Espers had also arrived here, they might trace their information through the departure and arrival logs at the gate. Maintaining a low profile was therefore the wisest course of action.

The middle-aged man cracked open a small corner of the plastic bag, and the sight of its contents caused him to draw a sharp intake of breath.

Inside this small bag were several packs of unopened cigarettes—and high-end ones at that!

During this era, because NPCs existed within the safety zone, weapons were relatively easy to come by and food could be traded for using gold coins, but items like cigarettes and alcohol had become completely extinct. Their market value inside the safety zone was skyrocketing by the day.

Even though ordinary people struggled to put food on the table, the safety zone was brimming with wealthy individuals who continued to lead lives of luxury, surpassing even their pre-apocalypse standards.

Such bigwigs did not lack food; whenever they needed it, they could simply exchange for it at the NPC locations, acquiring whatever delicacies they desired. The middle-aged man had witnessed more than once how these prominent figures hosted banquets complete with shark fin, bird's nest, and every mountain and sea delicacy imaginable.

Nor did they lack women—they merely had to toss aside some leftover scraps of food, and droves of women would fight and scramble for the privilege of warming their beds.

What they lacked precisely were luxuries of the sort currently resting in his hands. Because these items could no longer be manufactured, every single one consumed meant one less left in existence.

The joy on the middle-aged man's face was completely uncontrollable. He certainly couldn't afford to consume these items himself, but with them in his possession, not only could he trade them for vast quantities of food, but he could also secure a higher rank and official authority, allowing him to escape the miserable duty of freezing at the gate.

At this thought, he glanced at the harmless-looking Kong Zhe before him, offering an appreciative smile and silently praising the kid for knowing how things worked.

He had already glanced inside Kong Zhe's backpack when it was opened—though, truth be told, Kong Zhe had deliberately let him see—and noticed only scattered fragments of food left inside, leaving him entirely without suspicion. These cigarettes were likely stumbled upon by sheer good fortune along the road.

Under normal circumstances, they would never have let such food pass without shaking the travelers down for a thorough confiscation. But since he had already secured the biggest prize, he naturally felt too embarrassed to reach for mere food scraps as well.

"That's my younger sister. She's a bit shy, and she caught a cold yesterday, which is why she's covering her face," Kong Zhe explained with a smile.

"Right! Very well, go on in!"

The middle-aged man nodded casually. Ecstatic over the large bag of cigarettes, he had long since thrown caution to the wind, letting the mandatory search regulation for entry slip entirely from his mind.

"Many thanks!"

Kong Zhe muttered a word of gratitude and gestured to the people behind him.

The group immediately stepped through the gates, clearing the first major checkpoint.

"Brother Kong, why bother being so polite to them? If you ask me, we should have just forced our way through! Besides, we gave them such valuable items!"

Once they were inside the gates, Hong Ling leaned in close and whispered into Kong Zhe's ear.

"Don't talk like that. Everything is for the sake of tonight's plan..."

Kong Zhe offered a helpless, bitter smile before shaking his head. "Besides, what's so valuable about those things? It's just that this safety zone lacks an NPC for trading daily necessities, which is why he finds them precious. In other bases, cigarettes and alcohol are actually worth far less than food..."

"Oh!"

Hong Ling flashed an alluring smile. In truth, she hadn't genuinely doubted Kong Zhe's decision; she had simply wanted an excuse to draw close and chat with him.

As they walked, Kong Zhe suddenly felt his right arm being grabbed. Turning his head, he saw that it was none other than Xiao Lei, who had silently clamped both hands around his arm and held on tight without a word.

Though her expression remained hidden beneath the hood, Kong Zhe could clearly sense an aura of resentment rolling off her.

"Could this girl be jealous again?"

Feeling Hong Ling pressing close against his other side, Kong Zhe thought with an amused chuckle.

Trailing far behind the group, Dong Cheng listened with a heart full of terror to the hushed exchange between Hong Ling and Kong Zhe.

They were actually thinking about forcibly storming their way in?!