Two hundred years ago.
To be precise, in 2125, a war broke out on this prosperous planet.
Both sides in the war were determined to completely destroy each other, and almost used all available means.
The war lasted only three years.
But it only took three years to destroy everything on the surface.
The long nuclear winter almost extinguished the fire of civilization. Both sides successfully sent each other to hell, and also successfully buried themselves.
Since then, the Wasteland Era, which is even more depressed than the Great Depression, has begun.
Although two centuries have passed since the doomsday war, and the nuclear winter has basically ended more than a century ago, human beings have not returned to the top of the food chain.
The proliferation of nuclear weapons, biological weapons, and even genetic weapons has caused the entire planet's ecosystem to evolve in an extreme direction.
And those mutants called "heterogeneous species" are also the main threat faced by the survivors struggling in the ruins.
For example, when Chu Guang first came to this world, the two-headed wolfhound he encountered was one of them.
But even if they are different species, there are strengths and weaknesses.
The "deformed babies" caused by gamma rays like the two-headed hyena usually have low combat effectiveness. Except for a few lucky exceptions, the combat effectiveness is not even as good as before the mutation.
In contrast, gnawers, crawlers, and other alien species caused by biological weapons and mutated to the point where their ancestors could no longer be traced are the real monsters born to kill.
Their nervous systems are eroded by mutated fungi, and they usually hide in ruins, sewers, or subways during the day, and only go out to the streets to look for food when night falls.
The situation in the suburbs will be much better than in the city.
Especially in the outer suburbs.
In the past five months, the most dangerous alien that Chu Guang encountered was nothing but a mutant brown bear. Although that guy is powerful, his reaction is relatively slow.
Before being discovered by it, Chu Guang carefully avoided it.
The twilight of the morning sun passed through the damaged concrete wall, and together with the shadow of the scrap steel reinforcement, it fell on the street full of car wreckage and gravel.
The current time is eight o'clock in the morning.
There is a time difference of about 12 hours between the time here and the East Eight time zone in the present world.
Looking at the two mutated hyenas wandering the street, Chu Guang tightly grasped the pointed water pipe in his hand, and carefully walked around behind the ruins.
Although he has the confidence to kill the two of them, there is no need to create extra complications.
Besides, these beasts are very smart, and even know how to use their own kind as bait. No one knows how many are hiding in the shadow of the nearby ruins.
Follow the path through the dilapidated neighborhood.
When he saw the sign of Beit Street Children's Paradise, Chu Guang finally breathed a sigh of relief.
In front is "Better Street" - a relatively large survivor settlement in the vicinity, with more than 100 survivors living in it.
Before the outbreak of the war, this place used to be a children's paradise, with a large number of amusement facilities and a wide lawn.
After the war, it was designated as a temporary refuge by the army, and accommodated a large number of citizens who fled from the urban area of Qingquan City.
It is unknown what happened to those refugees, but today, more than two hundred years later, this place has developed into a "small town".
People used discarded plastic boards, canopies, and wood and metal brackets to mix and build simple shacks on the bare muddy ground.
It's very much like the one in "The Era of Troublesome People".
The fence of the amusement park is a natural barrier. After rough repairs, iron wires and wooden boards with nails are attached.
In the center of the amusement park is a five-story classical castle, which looks like a fairy tale. It's just that the paint on the surface has long since fallen off, and more than half of the wall facing the city center has collapsed, leaving only the northern half and a crumbling lonely tower.
Even if it is a fairy tale, it is definitely a dark fairy tale.
But even if the building is broken down like this, it is still the "most luxurious" building on Beit Street.
At the same time, it is also the home of the mayor.
Although he has lived here for five months, Chu Guang has never met the mayor. That adult is very mysterious and rarely shows his face in public.
"Yo, I'm back so early."
Seeing Chu Guang coming from the corner of the street, Old Walter, who was hanging a pipe, squinted his eyes, and a cloud of turbid white smoke came out of his nostrils.
He held a double-barreled shotgun in his hand.
Although it looks old, no one will doubt its power.
Chu Guang once saw with his own eyes that the old man only fired two shots before knocking down a mutated brown bear that was madly rushing towards the gate of Beit Street.
Since then, he has been longing to own one.
"I stayed outside all night."
"Outside?"
The old man glanced at the pointed water pipe on Chu Guang's back, and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
No one knows better than him how dangerous the night is.
Every time he was on night shift, he didn't dare to remove his index finger from the trigger. Any slightest movement would make his whole body tense up.
Although the alien species in the outer suburbs are not as dangerous as in the urban area, there are too many predators eyeing this place.
Falling into their hands, the fate will not be much better than dying in the hands of a foreign species.
Old Walter didn't quite believe that this guy actually spent the night safely on the wasteland with only a steel pipe.
"There was an accident."
Chu Guang didn't explain. He just gave old Walter a tired look for him to experience, and then went straight through the gate of the settlement.
There is only one waste recycling station on Beit Street, and the location is easy to find, next to the main entrance of the settlement.
An old-fashioned electronic scale that is never accurate is placed under the rolling shutter door, and beside it stands a memorial archway that says "fair prices, no deception".
This store is the property of the mayor, and it is also the only place on Beit Street to buy used parts and mutated moleskins.
In order to monopolize the business of picking up garbage, the dictator even promulgated a law arbitrarily.
In other words, everyone is not allowed to sell the prey they catch and the rubbish they pick up to the caravan passing through here without permission.
The reason is to ensure that the goods on Beit Street can be sold at a reasonable price, instead of being shamelessly squeezed by "cunning merchants" in terms of price.
The reason why this outrageous and unreasonable rule can be passed is also related to the ignorance of the survivors here to a certain extent.
Ordinary caravans would not take the risk of offending the dictator by going to scavengers to buy those few pitiful supplies.
They only do big business.
And only do business with trustworthy people.
"Sell? Or buy?"
The owner of the inn is a fifty-year-old man named Charlie. It is said that he used to be a resident of a refuge in the provinces. He was given the job of dealing with the scavengers.
Most of the residents here are native "wastelanders", without any education, and their mathematics is very bad, and it is so bad that addition and subtraction within one hundred may be wrong.
But Charlie is different.
He came out of the shelter.
Although none of the shelters in this wasteland are exactly the same, there is one thing that is similar.
The people who could live there were all the elites of the pre-war society. Their children not only inherited their bright minds from their parents, but also received a good education from the Enlightenment Age.
If it wasn't for the terrible world, he would probably become an engineer, doctor or scholar just like his parents.
Instead of keeping accounts here.
"Sell."
No nonsense, Chu Guang took out 6 used batteries and 5 tubes of adhesive from his backpack and threw them on the tray of the electronic scale.
This is what he found in the wreckage of nearby buildings before he discovered shelter No. 404.
Old Charlie picked up the waste battery on the table, casually checked the model and whether it was flattened or damaged, and then threw it on the scale beside him.
Don't even think about this thing being scrapped, but it's still possible to recycle the materials inside.
"The quality is not bad. The rubbish in this area should have been cleaned up. Where did you get the good stuff?"
Can this be called a good thing?
"lucky."
"Hehe, I'm just asking casually. Well, the battery is good, but the quality of the adhesive is mediocre. The seal has been removed, and the situation inside is probably a mess. I can only give you a 50% discount...all add up to a total of 3 points chips."
Chu Guang did not counter-offer with him, and took 3 white chips from him.
This metal-like plastic coin is the "currency" issued by Jushi City, the largest survivor settlement in Qingquan City, and can be exchanged for food and supplies in most survivor settlements in Qingquan City.
The face value is printed on the front of the chips, and there are special anti-counterfeiting codes and prints on the back, which will show a special luster under sunlight.
This kind of chip has many advantages such as heat resistance, easy storage, and high recognition. Especially the most critical point is that it is basically impossible to imitate with post-war technology.
Small and medium-sized survivor settlements like Beit Street with a small population and no industrial capabilities mainly do business with the caravans in Boulder City, exchanging agricultural products, prey, and picked up garbage for necessary living supplies and even weapons.
Naturally, this currency also circulated on Beit Street.
Of course, it doesn't work all the time. If a monthly caravan doesn't come, the price of the entire settlement will be messed up.
It's not that the mayor hasn't tried to promote Beit Street's own currency - a kind of bookkeeping ticket, but no one admits it at all.
Even the survivors of Beit Street know that that kind of paper is just in the way of wiping buttocks, it's no different from waste paper.
"Do you want to buy something? A batch of new products from Boulder City just arrived in the store."
Chu Guang, who was about to leave, stopped and asked back.
"Do you have a gun?"
"That's not true. You can't afford it."
Old Charlie grinned, looked at Chu Guang who was about to leave, and continued.