Chapter 5

By the next morning, hunger had nearly driven me out of my mind.

But the moment I pictured that man’s face, acid rose in my stomach.

No!

If I really went with him, I would become someone else.

The person I was now would disappear from this world.

Just then, I saw a small child by the roadside.

He was munching happily on a protein wafer roll, crunch, crunch, crunch.

My body moved before reason could stop it.

By the time I realized what I’d done, half the wafer roll was already crammed into my mouth.

The little boy burst into tears.

“Mom! A beggar lady stole my snack!”

I stopped chewing and cursed myself in silence.

Well done, Chen Xiaoba. Now you’re stealing snacks from children.

The boy’s mother was exquisitely dressed, clearly the wife of a middle-class man.

She gave me a disgusted glance and began soothing her son.

“Sweetheart, that isn’t a beggar. That’s someone who didn’t study hard when she was little.”

“Remember, you have to work hard and learn skills, or you’ll end up like her—”

The boy stopped crying at once.

He peered at me timidly as if I were a monster.

I wanted to tell him, I’m not a beggar, kid. Really, I’m not.

I simply wasn’t as lucky as you.

But I said nothing. I just carefully ate every bit of that protein wafer roll, down to the last crumb.

That kept me going until evening.

The public lounge grew more and more crowded. A fight broke out over one of the charging ports.

The man returned and asked whether I’d made up my mind.

I delivered the line I’d been rehearsing for hours.

“If that job of yours needs someone, send your mother.”

His face contorted.

He sneered.

“Fine. You don’t want the job, is that it?”

“I’ll get some friends together tonight and show you a good time.”

I understood what he meant.

The public lounge wasn’t a safe place for a girl alone at night.

If anything happened to me, it would be considered my own responsibility.

If I became pregnant and had neither a job nor a spouse, I would be sent to a maternal facility.

There, the child would be born and raised under the centralized system.

I would have to bear the cost of that new life—its water, oxygen, and education allowances.

That meant being sent to do maintenance in the irradiated surface zone until I grew old.

The man hurled a nutrition bar at me.

It struck my shoulder and rolled onto the floor.

He bared his teeth in a grin.

“Here. Wouldn’t want you to go hungry tonight. Better build up your strength.”

I picked up the nutrition bar.

It was strawberry flavored.