After quickly returning to the safe house where I woke up, I found the corner of an envelope right next to my bed. I walked to the bedside and lifted the pillow. It was a dark blue envelope with two pure white words written on it: Future.
I opened the envelope, and inside it was written:
Hello, we regret that you were unable to sign a cooperation agreement with our company. We will provide you with food and water every week, and this resettlement house will be where you live from now on.
Our company will always keep its doors open for you. If you wish to sign a cooperation agreement with our company again, you can apply to sign the agreement by finding a partner to join the company within one month. If you fail to find a partner to join the company within one month, it will be considered as an automatic waiver of entry. You will live here until you die.
Tomorrow's Future Company
After reading the letter, I finally understood why the two people I visited were unwilling to talk to me. If I didn't want to continue living here, I needed to find someone willing to join the company so that I could have the opportunity to apply to sign a contract of servitude with the future company. Those two people who were unwilling to talk to me must have had many people approach them before me, so they mistakenly thought I wanted to recruit them, which is why they were unwilling to talk to me.
That girl probably wanted to recruit me, which is why she was willing to talk to me and answer so many of my questions. Although I don't remember anything about the past, something just doesn't feel right.
Ji Lin'an might have come out too. According to that girl, there is more than one resettlement base like this. Perhaps Ji Lin'an has gone to another resettlement base. In any case, I should find Ji Lin'an first. I just don't know how to get to other resettlement bases. Thinking of this, I decided to go and ask that girl.
I hurried to the woman's temporary shelter. She was sitting at the door and waved to me when she saw me from afar. I walked up to her and said, "I've read the letter."
The woman smiled slightly: "So, would you like to come back to the Future Company with me?"
I neither nodded nor shook my head: "Do you know how to get to other resettlement bases?"
The woman looked at me without saying anything, so I forced a smile and said, "I have a friend, and I want to find him so we can go back together."
The woman then stood up: "Let's go inside and talk."
I followed the woman into the house and learned from her that if I wanted to go to other resettlement bases, I could only wait until each time supplies were distributed. At that time, the entrances from one base to another would open, and during that time, I could go to other resettlement bases by following the direction of the drones.
I asked, "Do you know when the next distribution of supplies will be?"
The woman nodded and turned to look at the two tally marks on the wall: "The last time supplies were distributed was this day last week, but it's almost dark now. Usually, they're distributed in the morning, but today they're delayed. I don't know what happened."
I looked outside and it was indeed getting dark. I hadn't seen any streetlights along the way, and even if the drone came, I wouldn't be able to see the road or its direction.
My stomach was growling with hunger, and I kept swallowing. Seeing my predicament, the woman took half a loaf of bread from under her pillow and handed it to me: "Here, eat this to tide you over. They'll definitely give out supplies after we play."
I didn't care about appearances and reached for the bread, quickly munching it down. The woman turned and glanced at me before lying down on the bed, lost in thought: "Did you give up signing the agreement to come to the resettlement base to find your friend?"
I sat on the floor and shook my head: "No, we signed the agreement separately, and I'm not sure if he also gave up signing the agreement."
The woman laughed and said, "Then maybe he has already signed the agreement."
I shook my head: "He wants to escape, just like me."
The woman asked suspiciously, "Escape? Why would you want to escape?"
I didn't dare say much, afraid of revealing that Ji Lin'an and I had escaped from the space capsule. After thinking for a moment, I said, "Look at all the people at the resettlement base, not everyone wants to join Future Company, right?"
The woman scoffed, "Some of these people can't go back, and some don't want to go back. Most of those who don't want to go back are because their relatives can't get into the company."
I asked, "Why can't we get in?"
The woman said, "Those with illnesses or disabilities, most of the older people have been affected by pollution and have become ill. Some children would like to stay and take care of their elderly parents, but such children are very rare. Most of the people with disabilities are children, and the mothers of these children choose to stay in order to take care of their children."
I thought for a moment and said, "But why do some people who are neither caregivers for the elderly nor for children refuse to join the company?"
The woman smiled bitterly: "People like me, kicked out of the company. The only chance to go back is to bring someone with me. If I can't bring someone back within a month, I can never go back. Even if someone is willing to bring us back in the future, we can't go back."
I pursed my lips and nodded. The two men I visited in the afternoon probably looked like the ones the woman had mentioned who had been thrown out. Since they couldn't go back on their own, they didn't want to bother with anyone trying to persuade them to go back.
It was completely dark, but the supplies were still not being distributed. I could vaguely hear complaints outside. The longer we waited, the more complaints there were, and it gradually turned into a commotion. I went to the door and looked out. Many people were standing in the middle of the road, looking up at the sky from time to time, but the sky was pitch black.
I was a little tired, so I went back to the woman's house and sat down on the floor. I fell asleep without realizing it. When I woke up, it was the next morning. The woman was no longer in the house. There was some noise outside. I got up and went outside. The house was full of people, all looking up at the sky. It seemed that the supplies had not yet been distributed.
An old man leaned against the door of his resettlement house and muttered, "They're not going to survive, they don't want to care about us anymore." A woman holding a child with disabilities not far away turned around and glared at the old man.
I walked along the road, where most people were standing. As I walked, I looked for the woman I had chatted with yesterday, but she had disappeared. I had walked almost half of the resettlement village but had not found her.
I followed the road to the last resettlement house I had visited yesterday. It was located on the edge of the street, and most people had gathered on the street closer to the center, so there were only a few scattered people on this side of the road.
Suddenly, a male voice came from beside her: "Su Su, Su Su."
I immediately turned to look around. It was Ji Lin'an's voice. I turned around and searched for the source of the sound, but I couldn't find any trace of Ji Lin'an...
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