Chapter 511: The Useless A’Ji
At this moment, the thief had already removed the tactical bag from Meng Chao’s body.
He weighed the heavy tactical bag in his hands, and his eyes lit up. He whistled.
Once he opened the tactical bag, he saw the high-purity crystals and nameless high limit credit cards inside and gasped, then giggled, unable to help himself.
Just as the boy licked his lips and wanted to steal b.l.o.o.d.y Soul and the other weapons, Meng Chao suddenly opened his eyes and sat up straight.
The thief yelped and shot away like he was electrocuted. He wanted to run away in a panic, but Meng Chao grabbed his wrist.
His fingers were as strong as metal pliers that could crush bones. His spirit energy then turned into electric currents that seeped into the thief’s bones.
The thief was terrified. He was in so much pain that he was about to cry.
But even if he was in such a situation, he was still thinking of ways to escape. His crystalline left eye looked about before a cunning light shone in it, and he pretended to look shocked and delighted as he said, “Y-You’re awake? I was thinking of how to save you—”
Meng Chao let out a cold snort. He said nothing and only increased the level of his spirit energy piercing into the boy’s bones. He also used his hand to slowly knead the boy’s knuckles and wrist bone, as if he wanted to crush the thief’s hand.
“It hurts! IT HURTS!” The thief screamed like a pig being killed, then started crying from the pain. “Please spare me! I won’t do it again! Forgive me!” he wailed.
But Meng Chao remained unmoved.
The building had collapsed, and there were countless people who were dead or injured, but the boy was not thinking about saving anyone. Instead, he came to steal from the dead. He did not deserve kindness.
Besides, based on how skilled he was at cutting things and searching his body, he was a repeated offender.
Most of the things such people said were fake.
If he did not crush the boy’s mental defenses right at the start and make him fear himself, it would be difficult to get the boy on his side and get any use from him.
Hence, Meng Chao not only retained the strength as he crushed the boy’s bones, he also circulated his spirit energy and activated his brain waves while he looked into the boy’s eyes. Then, he released a mind attack that could stir up the fear in the deepest parts of his mind.
In an instant, the thief looked as if he saw the most terrifying thing in his life and became so scared that his complexion and voice changed so much that he looked like a different person.
The moment Meng Chao let go, he fell head first into the viscous, swamp-like, polluted water.
Then, he struggled with everything he had to emerge from the polluted water.
The thief did not dare climb up the mountain of trash or flee through the water. The Fear Bomb had crushed his will to resist. He knew that he could not escape Meng Chao’s “claws” and could only let Meng Chao do whatever he wanted to him.
It was only then that Meng Chao nodded in satisfaction.
With two fingers, he brought out a nameless, high-limit credit card from the tactical bag.
It could allow a normal family to buy large amounts of weapons and daily necessities from the lair warehouses controlled by the gangs. With the amount in it, they could live comfortably for a few years.
Meng Chao tossed the credit card in front of the thief, and it landed diagonally in the trash.
The thief was holding his red and swollen palm while blowing on it. When he saw the credit card, greed shone in his eyes again. He gulped, but he did not dare to pick it up. He only stared at Meng Chao in puzzlement and fear.
“Answer a few questions for me and do some things as my lackey, and that card will be yours. Aside from that, all the crystals in the bag will be yours as well. Do you understand?”
The thief was flabbergasted. When he saw that Meng Chao did not seem to be lying, he was so happy that snot bubbles came out of his nose. He quickly nodded and went to grab the nameless, high-limit credit card.
But Meng Chao had attached a bit of spirit energy to the credit card. Right when the thief took hold of it, Meng Chao used his ability to control items remotely and sucked the credit card back.
The thief instantly felt disappointed.
If he had never held it in his hands, it would have been fine. But he had clearly held it and could even smell the stench of money before he lost it again. That feeling was even worse than cutting off his hand.
The thief was angry, but he did not dare to say anything. His emotions were controlled firmly by Meng Chao.
“Don’t be so impatient. As long as you do a good job, I won’t go back on my word. Perhaps after we’re done, I will give you even more benefits. You should be able to tell that I don’t care about one or two measly credit cards,” Meng Chao said coldly.
“But on the other hand, if you can’t do a satisfactory job or are up to mischief and harbor ulterior motives, then you won’t just be losing this credit card and the crystals, you’ll also be losing your life.
“This time, do you really understand?”
The thief shuddered and anguish appeared on his face. He knew that he was in real trouble.
But since he had offended a fiend like Meng Chao, things were no longer in his control.
He was a boy who had struggled to survive at the bottommost level of the lair and managed to go on like a weed. He knew how to adapt to a situation.
He immediately put on an obedient expression and nodded in an exaggerated manner.
“Come up here.” It was only then that Meng Chao called out to him. “What’s your name?”
“A’Ji.” The thief climbed up the mountain of trash but did not dare to get close to Meng Chao. He curled up to one side as he shuddered like a drenched rat.
“A’Ji, what’s your surname?”
“You can call me whatever you like,” A’Ji replied. “I don’t know, so any surname will do.”
Meng Chao narrowed his eyes in displeasure.
A’Ji shuddered and quickly waved his hands. “It’s true, I’m not lying. My parents left me in a trash dump. They might have already died a long time ago. I don’t even know who they are, so how am I supposed to know what my surname is? In any case, when the people are happy, they’ll call me ‘A’Ji’, and when they’re not, they call me ‘Useless A’Ji’. It doesn’t matter, any name is fine.”
Dragon City’s mortality rate was really high, and it was higher still in the lair. But the mortality rate in Leprosy Village was the highest.
It was not just due to a lack of food, medicine, the fights between the gangs, and the viruses wreaking havoc among its inhabitants.
The main reason was the innate deficiencies due to their genes being deformed. It resulted in many of the descendants of the infectees having genetic illnesses, so it was only natural that their lifespans were not like those of normal, healthy people.
It was common for the children who wandered the streets in Leprosy Village to grow up without ever seeing their parents.
Meng Chao thought for a while and nodded. “A’Ji, what were you doing here?”
“I... I was saving someone.” A’Ji hesitated for a while. “A major explosion happened in the building in front of us, and the fire burned for more than two hours. Later, the entire structure collapsed and plenty of people died. There are a lot of survivors stuck under the ruins.
“They’re my comrades, so I can’t just watch them die. So, we decided to work together and save them.
“I... I’m small and weak. I can’t move the debris nor put out the fire, so I thought that I could go to the sewers and take a look to see whether anyone had fled through the sewers. Then, I found you— AAAAAHHHH!!!”
Meng Chao grabbed more than ten steel b.a.l.l.s with two fingers and flicked them at A’Ji.
The steel b.a.l.l.s were as powerful as bullets. A’Ji screamed and covered his head with his arms.
“Looks like you’re really displeased with your life and want to be reborn.” Meng Chao sighed. “Fine. I don’t want to waste my time on idiots. There must be smarter children than you around here who value their lives in Leprosy Village.”
While saying that, Meng Chao positioned a steel ball at A’Ji’s forehead.
He did not hide his killing intent, and it looked like he was about to use the steel ball to pierce A’Ji’s head.
A’Ji’s face turned stark pale. He did not dare to move, so he screamed at the top of his lungs and spoke quickly. “D-Don’t kill me! I-I’ll tell you the truth! I-I came here to recover resources!”
“Recover... resources?” Meng Chao frowned a little.
“That’s right. There are plenty of dead people in the ruins and they have a lot of weapons, ammunition, synthetic food, and gene medicine. They’re all valuable survival resources, which the dead can’t use anymore!”
A’Ji spoke in a matter of fact tone. “But I’m alive. I have nothing, and I’m hungry. Even though I was not crushed by the building, I might starve to death in a few days.
“My life might be worse than a dog’s right now, but I’m not in a hurry to be reborn. It’s better to recover some resources and let myself live for a few more days. There’s nothing wrong with that!”
Dragon City was a place that lacked resources, so A’Ji’s words were not entirely wrong.
Meng Chao looked at his reed-like, thin limbs and his body that was so tiny it looked like a small gust of wind could blow him away. He found that he did not want to linger on this issue for too long.
But there was something that he had to understand clearly.
“If the people were dead, I wouldn’t mind that you stole their resources to survive,” Meng Chao said. “But what if they’re not dead and are still breathing? Do you kill them before stealing from them?”
A’Ji shuddered and got worried that Meng Chao would misunderstand him. He quickly waved his hands and said, “I don’t. I would never. I only take things from the dead. I never touched a single hair from those who are nearly dead. I absolutely didn’t, trust me!”
Naturally, Meng Chao would not believe him so easily.
It was one thing to steal from the dead, but another to kill the survivors trapped under the ruins to steal their belongings.
If the boy did the latter, Meng Chao would not use him.
“It’s true!” A’Ji said with a long face. “The explosion was terrible, and more than ten floors collapsed. The corpses are all squashed. You wouldn’t be able to find many who managed to survive.
“I’m small and weak, so I’m already exhausted from just taking things from the dead. Why should I go through the trouble of offending the people who are still breathing?
“Before the explosion, there were a lot of loud sounds in the building. It’s clear that it had plenty of people we cannot afford to offend inside. What if I was captured by them and dragged to death with them? Wouldn’t that be the absolute worst?”
When A’Ji said this, he seemed to have suddenly remembered that Meng Chao might be one of those people whom he could not afford to offend.
He immediately pulled an even longer face.
Meng Chao scanned the thief’s microexpressions and found no traces of lying.
When he thought about it carefully, he decided that what the boy said was true.
Meng Chao nodded and continued. “Since you don’t know who your parents are, where did you live and with whom? How did you survive?”