There’s really no need for it; there’s absolutely no need. With his current height of less than 1.4 meters and barely any body hair, how could he possibly approach women? Of course, these fiery women would have no interest in a little kid like him. From Shen Shanwu’s observation, men like Jiang Huan, who are tall, mature, and clearly leaders, are the ones who attract women’s attention.
The place where they rested at night was made up of parking spots, all of them with a concrete floor. Two people would share a spot, lay down a cloth, and each set up a sleeping bag, making do for the entire night. The Shanhai Unit had ample funds and high status, so naturally, their resting spots were arranged in the best locations—clean and quiet—places that would be worthy of parking a Rolls Royce Phantom in peacetime.
When Yao Wuque came back from the restroom, he smacked his lips and said, “It’s terrifying! There was a woman whose chest was this big—” He held his hands up to indicate the size of a watermelon. “And she kept rubbing against that guy next to her, calling him ‘good brother, good brother,’ asking if he needed any services, saying she was very cheap. Luckily, I was wearing the team uniform, which has quite an intimidating presence; otherwise, I would have definitely been swarmed by a bunch of women calling me ‘soldier brother’ and wouldn’t have been able to walk at all.”
Zhong Yin looked utterly disdainful. After all, Yao Wuque had suggested she was as big as a watermelon when he glanced at her. Feeling quite uncomfortable, she straightened her almost concave chest, munching on a compressed food bar while sarcastically saying, “If you’re so interested, why don’t you go for it? This compressed food bar alone could keep you satisfied until dawn.”
“Don’t say that. I’m a serious mercenary from a regular combat team…”
“Isn’t Wuque still a little virgin?” the lieutenant suddenly teased. “I think this is a perfect opportunity to indulge and taste what a woman is like.”
“Lieutenant??”
Xiaowen handed a compressed food bar to Jiang Tong. Originally, she was thinking about how to coax the child into eating it, but by the time she turned around to pour some functional water, the little one had already finished it, with a bit of white powder still lingering at the corner of his mouth—details on point, acting convincing.
Xiaowen was very moved, thinking it must have been the captain opening a can during the day that made Jiang Tong feel a strong sense of affection, which is why he became so well-behaved and sensible at night. She tenderly handed him a cup of functional water and said, “Did you choke on it?”
“Not at all… I need to go to the bathroom!” Shen Shanwu quickly got up from the ground. To cover his movement, he swiftly slipped the compressed food bar hidden in his sleeve into his pocket and patted off the powder on his hands, erasing all traces of his crime.
“Wait a minute, it’s dangerous for a little kid to go out alone,” Xiaowen hurriedly grabbed Shen Shanwu’s hand. She scanned the remaining team members and picked one lucky soldier. “…Wuque, go escort Jiang Tong down.”
“Ah? I just got back…” Yao Wuque chewed on half a compressed food bar, his face full of bitterness. Zhong Yin patted his shoulder, saying, “She knows that you came back and knew the way to the toilet. Hurry and go keep the young master company!”
“I don’t want to…” Yao Wuque sulked, looking around for someone to take his place. However, as soon as he turned around, he met Jiang Huan’s gloomy eyes. He jumped up and quickly grabbed Shen Shanwu, rushing ahead, “To the bathroom, right? Come with me, come with me, ah, I really am asking for trouble…”
The internal conditions of the rest stops were mostly the same. Yao Wuque had been on many missions and stayed at numerous rest stops, so he was used to everything and found nothing surprising. However, it had been a long time since Shen Shanwu had come to a place like this, and since it should have been Jiang Tong’s first time, he let his curiosity take over and quietly observed his surroundings along the way.
What Yao Wuque had mentioned earlier was no exaggeration. The women among the civilians here were all quite proactive, each one more enthusiastic than the last. They shamelessly exposed their key areas, doing their utmost to seduce passing travelers. From a distance, their gazes towards Yao Wuque were almost predatory, but due to his identity as a combat team soldier, they didn’t dare to approach recklessly.
The better equipped a combat team was, the stricter the rules tended to be. In a situation like this, where they could even find time to raise a child, the internal regulations must be extensive, likely filling three volumes.
But the greater the risk, the greater the profit. The armbands of the Shanhai Unit were practically a stamp indicating they were fat sheep, proof of their wealth and extravagance. If they managed to catch someone who could provide for them for a week, the more unattainable the prize, the more it was coveted. Along the way, Yao Wuque and Shen Shanwu were nearly pierced by the eager and explicit gazes surrounding them.
After finally squeezing to the front of the men’s restroom, Shen Shanwu let out a long sigh of relief. “That was terrifying, even more so than zombies…”
“Right? I told you I wasn’t wrong!” Yao Wuque gestured again, indicating the size of a watermelon. “It was that big.”
“…” Shen Shanwu recalled it and felt goosebumps rising on his skin.
He shook off the dust and pushed open the restroom door, only to bump into a little boy about the same size as him. The boy was covered in dirt, looking as if he could scrape off a pound of mud. His suspenders were so worn that they looked like two ragged pieces of cloth hanging from his chest, and the sneakers he wore had been worn down to the point of becoming open-toed slippers.
Shen Shanwu could have dodged this collision, but since he had noticed something beforehand, he let the boy collide with him and coldly watched as the boy repeatedly bowed and apologized, looking pitiful.
Shen Shanwu quietly stared at him, saying nothing and making no move. The boy, receiving no response, curiously raised his head to look up, only to meet a pair of gloomy black eyes that seemed to pierce right through him, as if he could see through everything.
In that brief moment of eye contact, the boy suddenly felt a tremor of fear. He quickly turned to the side, trying to slip away, but was caught by the hair by an adult man next to this same-aged boy. Yao Wuque laughed and said, “Hey, hey, hey, little brat, planning to run after stealing something? You’ve got some guts, stealing from the Shanhai Unit! What’s the deal? Do you think the most dangerous place is the safest place, sneaking around right in front of the police station?”
“I… I didn’t…”
“No ‘I didn’t’! Your hands are clenched into little claws! Hurry up and hand over what you took, or do you not want your claws anymore?”
The boy knew he couldn’t get away with it. Angrily, he threw the stolen item at Yao Wuque and attempted to escape using a slippery, rolling escape tactic. Yao Wuque found him too dirty and simply let go, allowing him to flee.
The item that landed in his arms was a small plastic bottle without a label. As Yao Wuque handed it back to Shen Shanwu, he grumbled unhappily, “What the heck is in this?”
It’s the sleeping pill I fed you before… Can Shen Shanwu tell the truth? Also, because I didn’t have the heart to increase the dosage, you only drank a small half of the melted piece, causing you to wake up in the middle of the night, almost ruining my good deeds.
“…Thank you, Brother Wuque,” Shen Shanwu said seriously to Yao Wuque. He had thought that given Yao Wuque’s poor opinion of him, he would probably keep quiet about the stolen item and secretly relish the situation in his heart. He didn’t expect this straightforward and fierce young man to actually be kind and protective.
Yao Wuque was the type who responded better to gentleness than toughness. After being made to do two hundred push-ups and a hundred frog jumps by Shen Shanwu, he actually felt a bit embarrassed by the gratitude. “What’s there to thank me for? I… I just can’t stand seeing the Shan Hai team’s kids getting bullied by outsiders. It has nothing to do with you, you little brat… Now hurry and go pee; why aren’t you dead yet from holding it in?”
Thank you for telling me to die?
The inside of the restroom was both dirty and foul-smelling, with the floor covered in dark, yellowish substances. If you weren’t about to vomit, it was best not to look too closely. To save space, there were no dividers between the urinals, and beneath the long row of urinals was a huge cesspool, reminiscent of a rural dry toilet.
The moment he stepped inside, Shen Shanwu felt an urge to leave the Shan Hai team. What was so wrong or boring about the carefree life of a mutant that he had to come here to suffer?
Damn, his eyes were burning from the stench.
Yao Wuque handed him a piece of toilet paper that was as rough as sandpaper and shouted while pinching his nose at the restroom door, “You can go in by yourself. If anything happens, just shout. I’m not going in.”
“…” Shen Shanwu held his breath and walked inside with great difficulty. He didn’t have any real physiological problems; going to the bathroom was just an excuse. Who would have thought that Xiaowen would pull Yao Wuque along to accompany him? Shen Shanwu had no choice but to actually go.
Determined to be quick about it, he casually found a gap and stood in front of the urinal, planning to just go through the motions. But before he could steady himself, he felt as if someone had brushed against him.
Shen Shanwu turned his head and saw a short, stocky man with a buzz cut quickly averting his gaze. Realizing what was happening, he pressed his lips together, lowered his head again, and lifted the hem of his shirt with both hands.
Just as his fingers touched the waistband of his pants, Shen Shanwu suddenly looked up again, only to find himself staring directly into the man’s intense gaze. The other man’s eyes were brazenly focused on his waist, filled with lewdness and lust, almost urging him with his eyes to hurry up and take off his pants.
Caught in the act, the stocky man felt extremely embarrassed, yet his gaze—sticky and lingering—remained fixed on Shen Shanwu, unwilling to withdraw, continuing to linger over him as he stepped forward.
…Xiaowen was right; it was indeed very dangerous for a pretty young boy to go to the restroom alone.
In an instant, Shen Shanwu lost all need to pee, feeling as if his little brother was retreating back into his bladder. He lowered his shirt, neatly folded the sandpaper-like toilet paper, and stuffed it into his pocket, exiting the restroom in exasperation to regroup with Yao Wuque.
“Back so soon?” Yao Wuque was surprised. Shen Shanwu shrugged and replied, “I’m young, so fiery.”
“…What does that have to do with anything?”
On the way back, as usual, there were some persistent women surrounding Yao Wuque, trying to flirt with him. Unable to resist, he stole a couple of glances, his face turning as red as the evening sky. Shen Shanwu, who had originally been walking straight ahead without looking around, suddenly found his attention drawn to a group of four or five little girls.
Shen Shanwu was only about 1.3 meters tall at the moment. He had developed later than others, sitting in the front row of the classroom throughout elementary and middle school, and only shot up to 1.88 meters in high school after taking some growth supplements.
The little girls in front of him were about the same height, all very thin, which made their eyes appear particularly large. Standing together, they shyly stared at him, looking quite adorable. One could imagine that if they had a bit of meat on their cheeks, they would surely be little beauties.
In contrast to their slender arms and legs, a few of the girls had notably large bellies, obviously protruding, looking both ugly and strange. Shen Shanwu was initially puzzled, wondering what kind of bizarre illness could cause such a condition or if it was a new symptom of radiation sickness.
Suddenly, he realized that these girls had large bellies because they were pregnant.
Girls just over ten years old, carrying children. Whether they were willing or not, it was a stark irony. They were born at the onset of the apocalypse, brought into the worst of times, suffering through countless hardships.
There were no means of contraception available here. Engaging in flesh trade for food inevitably carried the risk of pregnancy. Abortion methods like D&C1Dilation and evacuation (D&E) is a type of in-clinic abortion that can be done in the second trimester of pregnancy. It is usually done with vacuum aspiration. or medical abortions were impractical; the only options were to either induce a miscarriage or to give birth.
The children born were all affected by radiation, resulting in either congenital disabilities or severe deformities. It was common to see babies with three eyes or without ears. The women, who could hardly support themselves, had no chance of raising a disabled child, so these new lives were cruelly terminated soon after birth.
Perhaps death was cruel and merciless, or perhaps it was a release for anyone involved. Unfortunately, newborns had no say in the matter.
“…” Shen Shanwu quietly withdrew his gaze, along with the curiosity that had quickly faded about the restroom.
Support me on ko-fi~
