The team that Guhan met belonged to a small survival team called the Zongzi Tribe. According to the team leader, the ancestor of the Zongzi Tribe was a zongzi dealer. Before the apocalypse, it just happened to be a few days before the Dragon Boat Festival. This dealer had hoarded hundreds of tons of frozen zongzi in his warehouse, intending to make a fortune.
After the apocalypse, this dealer, who liked to read web novels, decisively used the welding equipment in his warehouse to weld the entire warehouse shut, leaving only a small, concealed entrance … After a few days, this dealer seemed to have wandered around the area, and found four or five starving girls between the ages of ten and fourteen. He then brought these thirteen-fourteen-year-old girls into the warehouse, and lived a happy harem life with them.
From a certain point of view, this zongzi dealer was a character with a harem template. Until he died of cancer five years later, his warehouse had never been visited by Yuan Kou. Even after he died, he still hadn't finished eating his zongzi … He spent a few months digging a cellar under the ground of his warehouse, and then moved all the ice and zongzi from the freezer into the cellar. This way, his zongzi could be kept frozen for a few years.
This dealer died, but his harem survived, and even gave birth to a few children for him. This was the embryonic form of the Zongzi Tribe.
After a series of events, the Zongzi Tribe finally developed into a small tribe with hundreds of people and blood relations. In the entire Suzhou desert, it could be considered a tribe with a small reputation.
The team that Guhan met was the team in charge of collecting water from the Zongzi Tribe. The Zongzi Tribe had recently lost a battle with another tribe, and the oasis that they relied on for survival had also been taken away by that tribe.
The most important thing in the desert was water. Without the help of the oasis, the Zongzi Tribe had to send out a team of adventurers, and take great risks to obtain water from other areas in Suzhou that hadn't been desertified.
Guhan's quest target, Yi Qing, was in this Zongzi Tribe. However, he wasn't in this team of adventurers, so Guhan could only follow this team to the temporary stronghold of the Zongzi Tribe.
On the way to the base, the leader of the adventurer team, the middle-aged man known as Brother Long, had been trying his best to please Guhan and Yi Tian. He even wanted to give Guhan a very precious Alpine Candy wrapped in a golden package.
In this era, any candy was incomparably delicious, even if it had been around for more than 200 years.
Of course, Guhan wasn't interested in a candy like that. Brother Long was a little embarrassed that he didn't give the candy away. However, he kept trying to talk to Guhan and tell him about the tragedy of his tribe.
This also made Guhan understand why Brother Long was trying his best to please Guhan. It was because Brother Long hoped that Guhan could help the Zongzi Tribe reclaim their oasis. Without the oasis, not only did it mean that they would lose their water source, it also meant that they would lose their source of food. This meant that the Zongzi Tribe, who had been relying on their food reserves to survive, would soon run out of food and ammunition.
However, apart from this Brother Long who was trying to curry favor with Guhan and the others after discovering their identity as sword bearers, the rest of the youths were glaring at Guhan with anger. They didn't have a single shred of respect for Guhan. On the contrary, their eyes were filled with rage, as though Guhan was their father's murderer.
However, this was the first time that Guhan had met them, and there wasn't any past grudges between them. It seemed like the hatred in their eyes had something to do with Guhan's identity as a sword bearer!
For these survivors to actually hate a sword bearer who could protect their lives, this was an extremely interesting matter.
After following the adventurer team for 10 minutes, Guhan finally arrived at a few buildings that were completely covered in sand.
These buildings should have been built by the residents of the nearby villages before the Great Calamity. Because these buildings were built by the residents themselves, they were relatively sturdy. Even after being exposed to the elements for over two hundred years and being buried by the desert, they still stood firm on the ground.
These few buildings became the temporary stronghold of the Zongzi Tribe, and could barely provide shelter for the Zongzi Tribe in the desert.
Outside these buildings, there was a simple wall made of sand. At the few exits of the wall, there were a few middle-aged men wielding guns standing guard … these guns weren't used to deal with Yuan Kou, because ordinary guns were completely useless against Yuan Kou. These guns were used to deal with humans. The human survivors in the desert weren't friendly towards each other, and fighting for survival resources was a common occurrence.
In the desert, humans were the most dangerous creatures.
Just like the tribe that had previously robbed the Zongzi Tribe of their oasis. It was probably because of the deterrence of these guns that the other tribe didn't dare to completely annihilate the Zongzi Tribe. Otherwise, robbing the Zongzi Tribe of all their food would be in line with their fundamental interests.
After entering the Zongzi Tribe's temporary encampment, he discovered that most of the people were lazily lying on the ground, without any desire to move.
Their faces didn't have the slightest bit of liveliness that a living person should have, as if they were waiting for death.
"Hey, Guhan, why are they all like this?" Seeing this scene, Yi Tian asked in confusion.
"They've probably lost all hope of surviving. In this desert, an oasis is a necessary territory for every tribe to survive.
Once they lose their oasis, they'll lose their arable land, and without land, they won't have any food. This kind of tribe will either be swallowed up by other tribes, or wait for death. "
Guhan explained. Actually, Guhan didn't know much about this dungeon, unlike the "King Arthur's Betrayal" dungeon where he had collected a few days' worth of information beforehand. Guhan had only read a few posts about this dungeon, and had a general understanding of the main storyline of the dungeon.
The words that he had said to Yi Tian just now were mostly what Guhan had analyzed based on the information he had obtained from Brother Long's conversation.
After the adventurer team entered the outpost, they split up. Brother Long arranged for Guhan to wait in the ruins of a dilapidated building for a while, before bringing Guhan to the second floor of a building. There, there was a white-haired old man waiting … In the entire tribe, this old man had the most clothes on him, and there were all sorts of strange items from before the apocalypse hanging on his clothes. From this, it could be determined that this old man was the Zongzi Tribe's Elder or Chief.
"This little old man is Yi Yun, I wonder how I should address the two esteemed Lords?" The old man called Yi Yun spoke with a trembling voice, as if he was cowering.
Furthermore, after saying those words, he planned on kneeling down to greet Guhan … This was not the bearing that a Chief of a tribe should have. It was unknown if he was scared out of his wits, or if he was pretending to be pitiful.
"Old Chief, there's no need to be so courteous.
My name is Military Governor, and I'm a sword wielder.
She is my Sword Maiden, Yi Tian. "
The moment Guhan released his sword Qi, Yi Yun, who was about to kneel down, realized that his knees seemed to be held up by a powerful force, preventing him from kneeling down.
"My apologies, my apologies!"
Old man Yi Yun no longer attempted to kneel down. Instead, he turned around and pushed aside a pile of sand behind him. He took out a large plastic bucket from within, and laboriously brought it in front of Guhan.
Yi Yun opened the plastic bucket, and inside it was a bucket of flour. It was not even half the bucket's capacity. Yi Yun looked pitiful as he said with a face full of worry, "Lord, our tribe has nothing else to show our filial respect to you. This is our last bit of rations, please accept it."
"This is your last bit of rations?
With so many of you, this amount of flour probably won't even last two days. "Yi Tian could not help but say after seeing such a small amount of flour.
"More than that, more than that. If we eat sparingly, we can eat for a week."
Yi Yun smiled dryly. To feed 100 people for a week with such a small amount of flour, each person probably wouldn't even have enough for five pitiful bottle caps.
"Then, since you only have such a small amount of flour, why do you still want to give it to us?" Yi Tian asked curiously.
"Hehe, this old man's tribe is doomed. Instead of wasting such precious rations on this old man's tribe, why don't we hand it over to the few sword wielders?
Why don't we hand it over to the sword-bearers? Once the sword-bearers have their fill, they will have the strength to kill a few more Yuanyin. That way, my Zongzi tribe can die without regrets. "When Yi Yun said that, his expression was one of self-sacrifice and righteousness.
At this moment, Yi Tian was moved. She closed the bucket and returned it to Yi Yun's hands. Then, she took out a large pile of bread, beer, beef jerky, rice pancakes, puffed foods and various other food from her scabbard.
Yi Tian had probably taken out all the food from her scabbard, forming a small mountain. It was probably enough to feed the Zongzi tribe for a few weeks … Guhan was also extremely surprised at this. He knew that Yi Tian's scabbard contained a lot of food, but he never expected that the scabbard contained so much food … This was actually the collection of the previous Yi Tian's consciousness fragment. If not, Yi Tian would not have had the time to gather so much food.
"Thank you, Your Excellency!
Thank you, Your Excellency! "
When the old man saw so much food, he immediately knelt down in front of Yi Tian. He hugged Yi Tian's calf and cried out his thanks. This made Yi Tian feel a deep sense of pride.
When Guhan and Yi Tian came out of Yi Yun's room, Yi Tian was still feeling good, thinking that she had done a great deed.
However, when Yi Tian occasionally glanced at Guhan, she realized that Guhan's face was filled with a mocking smile.
"Hey, ugly freak, are you mocking me!?" Yi Tian's senses were extremely sensitive, so she immediately questioned Guhan.
"No!" Guhan shook his head very straightforwardly, "I don't dare mock you."
"Hmph!" Yi Tian was not stupid. She raised her eyebrows and was about to flare up at Guhan.
But at this moment, a little kid suddenly flashed past Yi Tian and Guhan. Before he left, he even said a very disdainful sentence, "Idiot Sword Lady."
As such, Yi Tian stayed in her original spot, motionless.
"What's the matter?
You are even angry at a child? "Guhan asked curiously.
"No, I just feel like I met someone familiar!" Yi Tian's words were somewhat baffling.