Chapter 584: Life Keeps Getting Better
Chapter 584: Life Keeps Getting Better
The groups that came to seize people—those with slightly gentler methods—were simply ignored by An Ran. After all, the weather was freezing now, and everyone stayed holed up inside their houses. As for the so-called planting rooms, they only contained growing trees. Not a shadow of a person could be seen.
Most of the troublemakers, after waiting for half a day in the open square, would end up running straight into the planting rooms on their own. Everyone assumed the wood-type ability users were inside, urging the trees to grow, so they just barged in to snatch them.
But no matter when they went—day or night—the planting rooms were always empty. Aside from the trees, there was never a trace of anyone.
Some decided to keep watch by the planting rooms, thinking, If no one shows up in the daytime, they’ll have to come at night. Yet even at night, no one came—only strength-type ability users who chopped wood. They cut what they needed and left. Urging plants to grow? They didn’t have that ability at all.
This strange situation puzzled everyone.
On the Hexi side, Fatty had no fewer than six hundred people under him. Even with twenty people in one villa, that meant at least thirty villas needed firewood for heating. And besides supplying his own people, Fatty still had to sell firewood outside in a steady stream.
To churn out such huge amounts of firewood, unless Fatty had twenty or thirty wood-type ability users working in shifts around the clock, there was no way he could pull it off.
And yet—what was the result?
There wasn’t a single soul in the planting rooms. The trees didn’t look any different, but no matter when people entered or how many came to chop, the number of trees never diminished. It was like the osmanthus tree on the moon, with Wu Gang chopping endlessly while it grew endlessly—he could never finish cutting it down in a lifetime.
(Translator’s Notes: The idiom comes from a well-known Chinese myth called the “Chinese Sisyphus.” where Wu Gang was a mortal who angered the gods and was banished to the moon. His eternal punishment was to chop down a giant osmanthus tree. However, the tree had magical regenerative powers—each stroke of the axe would heal instantly, leaving Wu Gang trapped in endless, futile labor.)
Those who wanted to capture wood-type ability users never managed to catch sight of one. Guarding the planting rooms day and night in the bitter cold wasn’t sustainable. Many couldn’t endure the vigil and eventually left on their own.
But plenty of others, with all kinds of motives, moved into Hexi to live there—right into Fatty’s compound.
Originally, this neighborhood had been part of the Yaoyang Base, a place to dump marginalized people. It was the section abandoned by the base.
Now, however, this area seemed far safer and warmer than any part of Hedong.
The snow kept falling. The villas in Hexi were already half-buried. The weather was so cold the snow was being compressed into ice. To leave the house, people practically had to dig themselves an ice tunnel.
Before long, Zhan Lian had built a firewood-powered boiler. At first it was a small one—enough to charge mobile phones, and of course, lighting was no problem at all.
He’d modified it so it could be used inside a sealed house. Load the boiler with firewood, run a vent pipe outside to discharge the smoke, and the entire room would heat up comfortably—just like switching on an air conditioner.
But since Doll was now crawling everywhere, she nearly reached the boiler several times. Zhan Lian installed an iron railing around it to keep her away.
Later, Fatty saw this contraption and was utterly astonished, then copied it himself. Soon, every villa in Fatty’s team had one. So as long as firewood remained plentiful, Hexi had no problem at all with light and heat.
This, in turn, drove the residents of Hedong into deep frustration. Over there, power and heating had been completely cut off. More and more people were freezing to death, and life was growing harsher by the day. Snow and ice kept falling endlessly from the sky.
But on the Hexi side?
Life just kept getting better!