The old-fashioned chandelier on the top of the air-raid shelter made a buzzing sound for the third time as if it were overloaded with electricity. Mou Xuan raised his hand and inserted the dagger into the crack of the conference table. The metallic vibration gave goose bumps on the back of everyone's neck.
Chen Yao silently added half a piece of pine wood to the brazier. The flickering flames illuminated the stack of documents in the hands of legal scholar Meng, making them flicker. The ink on the top document, the "Emergency Marriage Law", had not yet dried, and was stained with oil from the canned luncheon meat.
"According to the apocalyptic adaptation model that integrates the Roman legal system and the common legal system..." Scholar Meng pushed his glasses that were cracked into spider webs, and his sleeves rubbed against the documents, bringing up a few salt crystals - those were the blood plasma that was stained when the thugs in District 7 were besieged three days ago and then evaporated.
Liang Pugong suddenly kicked over the ammunition box that served as a chair, tugged at the collar of his faded camouflage uniform and shouted, "I think we should follow the rules of scavengers!"
Last week, Lao Chen dug out half a box of antibiotics from the ruins, and your alliance took 70% of it as 'public medical tax'. His daughter is still lying in the morgue waiting for the ice-type mutant to free up her hands! "
"But the special wartime law No. ..." Scholar Meng's rebuttal was interrupted by the sound of cans rolling.
Chen Yao bent down to pick up the can of sardines that had rolled to her feet. When her fingertips brushed across the can, she suddenly stopped - on the back of the severely corroded label, someone had carved the triangular code that Tao Sheng usually used with his fingernails.
The opinion leader of the Fan Alliance crushed the salt on the ground with his military boots, and pressed his scarred right hand on the "Detailed Rules for the Distribution of War Reserve Materials": "To ensure combat effectiveness, the spouse rights of people with special abilities should be written into the Basic Law." As he spoke, the metal throat mask at his Adam's apple vibrated. It was the prosthesis that was installed after half of his neck was cut off by the time turbulence two months ago.
"Bullshit!" A glass bottle exploded in the corner. Liang pointed a half-broken beer bottle at Leader Fan, "Last month, your commando team used my wife as a human radar. Now she spits bile when she sees the glare of metal!"
Mou Xuan suddenly grabbed the can that Chen Yao was examining, and the rhythm of his knuckles tapping against the metal surface brought the quarrel to an abrupt halt.
When the third round of knocking was synchronized with the flickering of the chandelier, the roar of Assistant Feng who was imprisoned by iron chains came from deep in the air-raid shelter. Ever since he was exposed to the time turbulence in the underground factory in District 7, the once gentle medical student could only use canned luncheon meat to arrange time tattoo codes.
"Old Meng, read again Article 7 of Chapter 14 of your draft." Mou Xuan used the tip of a dagger to pick up the charred fragments of a photo in the brazier. In the picture, the supply box behind Tao Sheng happened to be printed with the eagle emblem of Leader Fan's family.
The sound of Scholar Meng swallowing his saliva was particularly clear in the suddenly quiet cave: "Superpowers...widows must complete genetic sampling within 72 hours after the death of their spouse..." His voice became smaller and smaller, because Chen Yao was peeling an apple with a hunting knife, and the rhythm of the peel breaking was completely synchronized with the sound of Assistant Feng's chain hitting.
Leader Fan suddenly opened his collar to reveal the time tattoo on his carotid artery: "Back then, when you led us into the time rift to look for supplies, you didn't say that you would share the spoils with those losers who only knew how to grow potatoes!" The shadow behind him was stretched by the chandelier and projected onto the "Population Census Registration Form", distorted into the shape of three hundred corpses clenching their fists.
Mou Xuan turned the time pattern engraved on the handle of the dagger, and suddenly inserted the blade into the wooden texture of the conference table. Those patterns soaked with resin were exactly the same as the code array that Assistant Feng had arranged with cans.
When the sixth crack ran through the title of "Wartime Marriage Law", the sound of metal tearing came from deep in the air-raid shelter as Assistant Feng tore open a can with his teeth.
"How about planting potatoes in the underground factory in District 7?" Mou Xuan suddenly said.
Chen Yao paused while peeling the apple. The juice on the blade was dripping onto the gear logo in Tao Sheng's photo - where the diesel generators privately stored by Leader Fan's family were now piled.
Scholar Meng suddenly started coughing violently. The documents in his hands were dyed light red by the salt crystals that fell off. The "souvenirs" he brought back from District 7 were reviving in the heat from the brazier.
When the chandelier began a new round of flickering, everyone saw that the double imprint on Mou Xuan's collarbone was emitting silver light, just like the seal of the "Time Ethics Convention" in his father's laboratory when it was activated.
(End)
A few sparks suddenly flew out of the brazier, burning the "Temporary Household Registration Management Measures" into a charred outline.
Mou Xuan lowered his eyes and stared at the direction where the ashes of the document fell - there lay the code array that Assistant Feng had carved out of canned tin this morning. The incomplete patterns formed a mirror image of the mark on his chest.
The exhaust fan on the top of the air-raid shelter suddenly reversed, blowing the salt crystals on Scholar Meng's documents into the shape of ashes from the fire in his father's laboratory three hundred years ago.
Mou Xuan's fingertips brushed across the edge of the dagger, and the silver light folded into the arc of a prism between the double engravings.
He bent down and picked up the salt crystals that were crushed by Leader Fan. The salt grains condensed into a life-size miniature model of the underground factory in District 7 in his palm. The steel bars corroded by the turbulence of time happened to pass through Leader Fan's private diesel storage point.
"The commandos reserve the right of priority over spouses," the chandelier just happened to cast a shadow on the metal throat mask of Leader Fan as Mou Xuan crushed the salt crystal model, "but genetic sampling has been changed to a voluntary principle." The flames that suddenly rose from the brazier roasted the half-peeled apple of Chen Yao with a caramel aroma, and the texture of the flesh was surprisingly similar to the legal clauses in Scholar Meng's document.
Just as Liang was about to speak, Mou Xuan suddenly threw an apple core precisely into his open mouth.
"The public medical tax has been reduced to 50%." He turned the gear part he had fished out of the brazier. It was the lock of the supply box in Tao Sheng's photo. "The condition is that all medicines must be stored in the planting base in District 7."
Scholar Meng trembled as he wrote the word "voluntary" on the margin of the "Wartime Marriage Law", and the tip of his pen pierced the eagle emblem of Leader Fan's family.
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