Chapter 94
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Chapter 94: Green Pasture Manor
They walked around the perimeter of the Green Pasture Manor, where high walls surrounded them, and they could hardly see inside.
While they were observing, a drone equipped with a cannon emerged from behind the walls. The two immediately raised their guns, watching the drone with alert expressions.
“It’s not really an armed drone,” Xue Zheng said quietly to Wen Jing after taking a closer look. “That cannon underneath is just a modified decoration, something to scare people.”
Just then, the drone spoke in a deep, resonant voice: “This is private property. What are you two doing sneaking around outside? If you don’t leave now, I will fire!”
Wen Jing frowned after hearing that and glanced at Xue Zheng, realizing that the voice had been altered.
She thought for a moment and replied, “We encountered a group of people who had stolen some supplies. They mentioned taking them from outside this manor, so we came to ask if they belong to you. If they do, we’ll return them.”
The drone fell silent for a moment before its tone turned suspicious. “You stole things but didn’t keep them for yourselves? How kind of you to return them?”
“We looked at those items, and many of them are useless to us. We thought about trading them for something else, just as a reward.”
After listening, the drone paused for an even longer time. They could hear some noise that sounded like a microphone being touched, as if a few people on the other side were discussing something while covering the microphone.
At that moment, Wen Jing pulled out something from her belongings, something she had taken from the cargo ship, and opened her hand. “This is one of the items. You can take a look. We left the rest at the beach; if they are truly yours, we can lead you to fetch them.”
The drone moved closer to them and released a tray. Wen Jing placed the item inside, and the drone quickly turned and headed back into the manor.
After a while, the drone came back out and said, “You can enter, but you must surrender your weapons.”
Wen Jing and Xue Zheng exchanged glances, then removed the magazines from their submachine guns and placed them in the tray below the drone. The drone scanned them from top to bottom.
At this moment, Xue Zheng still had her laser gun on her because it had been specially modified to pass through weapon inspections. They also had some small tools in their gear pockets brought back from the Ponsuo Tribe. Due to the difference in material, they would not be seen as dangerous weapons by this world’s standards.
After the drone finished scanning them, a green light lit up on its underside, and a small door in the nearby wall slowly opened. They followed the drone into the Green Pasture Manor.
The name “Green Pasture” was somewhat misleading. As they walked further inside, they surveyed the area, only to find a vast expanse of barren land surrounding an ancient castle in the middle. The color of the surroundings was muddy, devoid of any greenery, making it appear quite desolate.
The drone led them to a small low building beside the castle and spoke again: “Enter and go to the end of the corridor, the room on your right.”
The two nodded, opened the door, and found the interior somewhat dim. Along either side of the wall, there were weak lighting fixtures every few steps. They walked through this eerie corridor and arrived at the end, where they found a large double door on their right.
Wen Jing grasped the door handle, gently pushed down, and opened the door. Inside was a formally decorated conference room with a large round table in the center, surrounded by a circle of young people. The oldest looked to be around seventeen or eighteen, while the youngest appeared to be only twelve or thirteen. Everyone’s expression was very serious.
Wen Jing and Xue Zheng were taken aback by the sight, standing at the doorway blinking. At that moment, one of the young people sitting at the round table raised his hand and pointed to the adjacent seats. “Please, have a seat.”
Wen Jing looked at the speaker. “Are you… Blanch?”
“Yes.”
After sitting down, Xue Zheng scratched her head. “Are there any adults here?”
Blanch looked at her. “We are the adults.”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“You’re the oldest?” Xue Zheng glanced at the others. “Is this… a junior scout camp?”
One of the boys sitting diagonally opposite her seriously tapped the table and corrected her, “It’s not a junior scout camp. Only those who have had their first period can sit at this decision-making table. We are not children!”
As he finished that sentence, the younger faces on either side nodded earnestly.
Xue Zheng chuckled and gave a slight bow, “So they’re all grown women. My apologies!”
Blanch then cleared his throat and placed the small bag that Wen Jing had handed over onto the table. It contained a packet of wheat seeds. He looked at the two of them and asked, “You said you have our stolen supplies. What exactly is going on?”
Wen Jing briefly recounted what she had heard from the group on the small island, then described the items on the cargo ship. “There are many crop seeds, freshwater fish fry, and poultry eggs. We can’t use them, and it would be a pity to throw them away, so we thought about returning them to you, hoping to exchange for something else.”
“What do you want?”
Wen Jing considered and replied, “We need a means of transportation, a car or a motorcycle would be fine. Do you have any here?”
“Just a means of transportation?”
Wen Jing glanced at Xue Zheng. Given the situation in the manor, they did not plan to rob it, but not asking for anything made her fear that the young people would not trust them. They still had to check out the base over a hundred kilometers away, so just getting a means of transportation would be enough; they could always find something else on the way if needed. So the two nodded in agreement.
“Alright, I can give you a vehicle,” Blanch readily agreed and asked who would accompany them to collect the supplies. Several young people stood up voluntarily.
Wen Jing worried that they might not feel secure, so she suggested that Xue Zheng go alone to lead them while she stayed behind. Blanch was quite pleased with her arrangement of volunteering as a hostage, personally pouring Wen Jing a cup of hot chocolate drink.
Wen Jing took a small sip of the chocolate milk while the teens in the conference room silently watched her. No one spoke, and sensing the awkward atmosphere, she set down her cup and tried to break the silence by bringing up the cargo ship’s supplies. “Are you planning to plant those seeds outside? The solar flares are coming, and the crops will be greatly affected.”
“Of course, we won’t plant them outside,” one boy replied. “We have underground farming facilities that can simulate sunlight…”
Before he could finish his sentence, another person nudged him with an elbow and whispered, “Don’t say too much in front of outsiders.”
The reminded boy looked at his companion, then turned back to Wen Jing, “Anyway, we have our ways.”
Wen Jing smiled and nodded without saying more. Blanch changed the subject, “You want the vehicle. Where are you planning to go? Our area is remote and relatively peaceful, but there has been some unrest at the port lately, and it’s even messier heading toward the mainland. Even hover vehicles find it hard to move in some places.”
“We’re going to the Agricultural Institute in the west, intending to bring some supplies to them along the way. We originally came by plane, but we were attacked at the port and have over a hundred miles to travel, so we need transportation.”
Once she said that, the teens in the conference room began murmuring among themselves, and Blanch appeared a little surprised. “Do you know Professor Euyun?”
Wen Jing looked at the group, realizing she had guessed right. The seed packs bore the logo of the Agricultural Institute, suggesting that this batch of supplies was sent to them by Professor Euyun, and the base they were heading to in the northern continent was established around the Agricultural Institute.
She then raised her hand and projected a video on the blank wall next to them. The video showed Professor Euyun introducing the current situation at the Agricultural Institute, stating that food was sufficient, but due to the chaotic situation outside, they needed some firearms for protection at their base.
As the video finished, before Blanch could speak, someone returned outside. It was Xue Zheng, bringing back the items hidden in the cargo ship by the beach. One of the boys in charge of leading the group walked into the conference room, beaming with joy, and announced, “It’s our stuff, none of it is missing! We brought it all back!”
The room erupted in cheers, and Xue Zheng also walked in, returning to her previous seat and giving a slight nod to Wen Jing.
Blanch relaxed her expression and smiled, pouring Xue Zheng a cup of hot drink as well. “Thank you for your hard work.” She then began to recount the story of the Green Pasture Manor.
This place was indeed originally the property of the Euyun family, established as a base for their involvement in the energy conflict on the northern continent. It appeared to be an ordinary manor castle on the surface but housed a vast private research area underground, including artificial lighting experiments for underground planting and breeding.
Blanch and her sister, two years younger than her, were the products of the family’s in vitro fertilization program. Being girls, they were seen as failures, so the Euyun family sent them abroad as a cover and claimed the manor was a gift for them.
Later, when the Euyun family fell, they managed to evacuate all staff before other relatives came to seize the manor. They armed themselves with the equipment from the armory and killed all the uncles and cousins who came seeking refuge. They then took in a group of orphans from the war.
Blanch and her sister established a principle that they would only accept girls younger than them, most around fifteen to sixteen years old, with some as young as seven or eight. To this day, there were over a hundred people here, and they had organized the underground testing facility efficiently.
“I and my sister are traitors of the Euyun family,” Blanch said with a smile, spreading her arms slightly. “But so what? Whoever occupies this estate takes it for themselves. This place is no longer the territory of the Euyun family; it belongs to all of us.”
Wen Jing looked at her and said, “Professor Euyun once mentioned having obtained some valuable renewable energy. I guess you exchanged those supplies with her for energy?”
“Yes,” Blanch replied, pulling a gun from under the table and placing it on the surface. “Many people around covet what we have here, and since you’re unknown to us, I hadn’t planned on letting you leave alive today. But now that I know you are friends of Professor Euyun, you are our friends as well.”
Xue Zheng chuckled and rubbed her head. “Well, we did a good deed returning the lost items and almost lost our lives in the process.”
The teens in the conference room laughed at her words, and when Blanch noticed it had gotten dark outside, she stood up and invited everyone to leave the conference room. In the adjacent banquet hall, she treated them to a sumptuous dinner and offered them shelter for the night in the castle.
The next morning, true to her word, Blanch provided them with a hover vehicle and gave them the latest route map to the Agricultural Institute and information about the distribution of nearby occupied forces.
This was not only to thank them for returning the supplies but also because Wen Jing had shared some information about radiation protection agents during the dinner the previous night. Although she didn’t go into too much detail, she informed them about the method for testing the effectiveness of the antibodies, assuring them not to worry too much about the risk of nuclear radiation leaks.
The two vials of agents that Wen Jing had brought back were released at Poli Port, and one was deployed at the Neutral Continent’s port a while back. Based on the timeline, most of the teenagers in the Green Pasture Manor had developed immunity by now.
They bid farewell to the young people, got into the hover vehicle that Blanch had gifted them, and left Green Pasture Manor, speeding westward.
After traveling about thirty kilometers, they encountered smoke ahead. They stopped to observe for a moment and saw two groups fighting over a weapons transport vehicle.
Exchanging glances, the two smiled at each other, thinking about where to scavenge for weapons for Professor Euyun. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.
