Magical Girl's Knight Brother

Chapter 528 Entering the City

The leaden dawn struggled to climb the horizon, but could not dispel the gloom of the wasteland's eternal night, only staining the world with a layer of cold, lifeless bluish-gray.

The wind, carrying fine sand and the acrid smell of burning garbage in the distance, swept across this forgotten wasteland on the edge of the lower town.

Tang Zijun's figure silently emerged from the ruins, like condensing morning mist.

He wore a heavy, faded, and stained hooded robe, the wide hood covering his almost transparent, data-driven face, revealing only the outline of his taut jawline.

His movements were completely silent, each step as light as a feather, leaving no dust. Beside him followed an even smaller figure—Yedi, who was holding Suolin.

She was also wrapped in a dark, old robe that was too big for her, the hem of which dragged on the ground and was covered in dust. The hood almost completely covered her small face, with only a few strands of dry, yellow hair and a pair of eyes that looked particularly large and wary in the dim light occasionally peeking out as she moved.

Her small hands gripped the corner of Tang Zijun's robe tightly, her knuckles turning white from the force. The cold and tension made her tremble slightly, but she bit her lower lip, trying her best not to make a sound.

Like two ghosts blending into the shadows, they bypassed mountains of scrap metal and collapsed concrete blocks, arriving behind a massive, weathered concrete pier bearing some kind of long-dead mark.

There, a taller, more imposing figure was already waiting impatiently.

Leisen was also wrapped in a dirty robe, but the fierce aura of a top predator in the wasteland could not be completely concealed.

He crossed his thick arms, leaned against a broken steel beam, and irritably ground one foot against the gravel.

"You're too late."

When Tang Zijun and Yedi appeared, Leisen's single eye, visible only in the shadow of his hood, swept over them sharply, as sharp as a hawk's, carrying scrutiny and a hint of barely perceptible anger.

He sized up the unassuming, almost humble couple, letting out a short, suppressed snort as a greeting. "Sorry, we were a little late making breakfast this morning," Tang Zijun said with a smile and a shrug, then pulled a bag of steamed buns from under her robe. "Want some? Meat filling."

"Do you know how important time is to us..." He swallowed hard halfway through his sentence. Silently, he took the bag of buns. The lingering warmth and aroma calmed him. Under normal circumstances, he would absolutely never eat unfamiliar food, especially something he'd never seen before. But for some reason, he instinctively reached for a bun.

By the time he realized what was happening, he had already eaten half a steamed bun.

The aroma of meat bursting in his mouth made Leisen shudder involuntarily, and he devoured the remaining half of the bun in one bite. "There's more if you're still hungry. I have some water too, so you don't choke..." Seeing him wolfing down his food, Tang Zijun handed him a bottle of water. This time, Leisen didn't speak, or perhaps his mouth was full of food and he couldn't say anything. He simply took the water and drank while eating. Seeing this, Tang Zijun smiled.

This morning, Yedi ate steamed buns the same way. The little girl was like a squirrel, stuffing her mouth full and trying to stuff more in. If Tang Zijun hadn't stopped her in time, the little girl probably would have burst her stomach.

However, looking at Leisen's face beneath his hood, Tang Zijun frowned slightly. "Are you injured?"

A very obvious bruise could be seen around his eye, and half of his face was swollen.

"It's nothing," Leisen mumbled, finishing all the buns and drinking every last drop of water from the bottle before letting out a long sigh of relief.

"I drank too much yesterday and ran into some troublemakers, so I played along with them for a while."

Tang Zijun raised an eyebrow but didn't say much. He knew the other party wasn't telling the truth; greedy people are very sensitive to lies. However, Tang Zijun didn't delve into it. He and Lei Sen were partners, so it was normal for the other party to want to hide some things.

"Want some more? I have some dumplings left."

Leisen's eyes lit up, but he quickly suppressed it, shaking his head slightly. "Business is more important; let's eat on the way."

After saying that, he pointed towards the distance.

In the distance ahead of them, the inner city walls of the wasteland shelter, like a wall of despair, revealed their menacing outline in the fading light of dawn. On the towering walls, massive searchlights continued their tireless sweeping, their cold light like the gaze of death, slicing through the gloomy earth.

At the foot of the ramparts lies the only entrance—the inner city passage.

At this moment, a thick, slow-moving queue had already formed there.

Various oddly modified vehicles belching black smoke, scavengers with their families and heavy luggage, and a few well-dressed, arrogant merchants, all crawled slowly under the huge gate like humble ants.

The air was thick with the pungent smell of substandard fuel, the stench of sweat, and the odor of rotting food, mixed with the overly strong chemical fumes emanating from the disinfectant spray on the warning signs, creating a nauseating fog.

The clamor at the checkpoint sounded particularly jarring in the pre-dawn silence. The guards' gruff shouts, the roar of engines, the beeping of the identity scanners as people passed through, and the occasional cries and curses of those being dragged away for excessive radiation or carrying contraband... all blended into a symphony of despair unique to the wasteland.

"Let's go."

Leisen's voice came from under his hood. He took the first step, his tall figure deliberately hunched over, and his steps became heavy and dragging, like a tired and numb porter.

Tang Zijun slightly tightened the hem of her robe that Ye Di was holding, signaling her to follow.

The three merged into the end of the slowly moving group. They were like a drop of water blending into a murky river, inconspicuous.

The light inside the passage was even dimmer, and the suffocating air was almost unbearable.

On both sides are high metal walls covered with barbed wire and firing ports, with scarlet holographic warning signs and the cold "eyes" of surveillance cameras hanging on the walls.

The guards, clad in post-apocalyptic semi-mechanical armor, their prosthetic eyes flashing ominously red, patrolled the ranks. Their cold gun barrels swept across the crowd intentionally or unintentionally. They roughly shoved those who moved slowly, their prosthetic limbs slamming against the vehicle with dull, menacing sounds. It was Tang Zijun and her two companions' turn.

The guard was a tall, cyborg with half his face covered by a metal mask. One scarlet electronic eye scanned them like a searchlight. His gaze paused when it swept over Rayson's imposing figure, a barely perceptible hint of suspicion flashing in his single eye.

"Pass, package open." A harsh electronic voice came from the speaker under the visor.

Leisen lowered his head, mumbled something indistinctly, and then awkwardly pulled out three worn-out, oil-stained cards from under his robe and handed them over.

The guard used his gloved fingers to pick up the card and inserted it into the scanner at his waist. With a "beep," the green light came on.

He glanced suspiciously at the bulging hem of Leisen's robe, but made no further move, perhaps because he didn't really care. Instead, he rudely waved for Leisen to stand under the energy scanning door next to him.

When it was Tang Zijun and Yedi's turn, the guard looked at the silent pair, one big and one small, their hoods pulled down low, making them appear even more suspicious. He stretched out his mechanical arm, seemingly wanting to directly lift Tang Zijun's hood to check her.

Just then, Tang Zijun slightly raised her head.

Although the hood still cast a deep shadow, his gaze seemed to pierce through the darkness, meeting the guard's scarlet electronic eye for a fleeting moment with extreme speed and stealth.

There were no words, no movements, but in that instant, the guard paused very subtly, as if receiving some ineffable, cold, and warning instruction.

His robotic arm, which was about to be raised, ultimately just pointed to the scanning door beside him, uttering an impatient urging. "Hurry up, don't dawdle." Tang Zijun pulled Ye Di along, calmly standing under the scanning door, whereupon a blue light screen instantly enveloped them.

The light screen simply swept across calmly, emitting two crisp "beep" sounds as the light turned on.

The instrument screen only displays extremely weak fluctuations that are consistent with normal biological signs.

The guard glanced at the green light, then at the strange-looking mechanical head in Yedi's hand, and finally waved his hand, indicating that they could enter.

Yedi held her breath as Tang Zijun led her stiffly through the gap in the huge gate that exuded a cold, metallic aura, with Leisen following closely behind.

The next moment, the scene in the inner city unfolded before my eyes, but it was only a relatively "decent" chaos and oppression.

The three of them, shrouded in filthy robes, were like three inconspicuous fallen leaves, quickly merging into the shadows of the inner city's more complex, crowded, and austere streets.

In the dim light of dawn, the massive shadow of the inner city walls, like a heavy coffin lid, slowly closed behind them, isolating them from the despair and clamor of the outside world.