Chapter 2: Red Iron Wasteland

The Red Iron Wasteland was exactly what its name suggested. Across its thirty-six thousand square kilometers of plain lay heaps of discarded metal, packed tight and piled on top of one another. No one knew what the place had once been, or why so much scrap had ended up here. Look closely, and you could find abandoned cars, tanks, safes, scaffolding—and, if you were lucky, an unwanted rocket. Of course, it would only be the empty shell.

Over the years, all that forgotten metal had joined together to form an endless wasteland. Iron blocks rose in mounds, sheets of metal had been pieced into houses, and the shells of cars and other large metal objects had become playgrounds for children. The place seemed to have everything, except soil and plants. There was nothing but scrap iron, rusting or nearly rusted through. Most of it had lost its paint, exposing reddish, oxidized flesh. If the iron heaps were alive like people, this place would be no different from a mass grave: rotting flesh everywhere, with wretched little creatures living off it.

“I never imagined so many people lived out here.”

The speaker was a man who stood about six foot three, with a powerful build. His voice was low and resonant, suggesting he wasn’t young. All in all, he sounded like a weathered old hand.

Unfortunately, a thick scarf hid his face, so there was no way to tell whether time had truly left its mark.

“I come from a place like this. There’s nothing strange about it.”

The person behind him answered without a flicker of emotion. She was much shorter than the man, and wore similar clothes: a three-color desert suit and a scarf that hid her face. But her voice was clearly young and female.

“From here on out, I’ll be counting on you, Wuxue.”

The man stopped and took a canteen from his waist, drinking deeply. Water ran down his chin, mixing with the sweat at his neck.

Wuxue paid him no mind. She found a spot nearby out of the sun and sat down. Her makeshift shade looked like the bucket of an excavator, with several enormous tires scattered around it.

She unscrewed her own canteen and drank carefully beneath her scarf, wary of spilling even a drop. Then she pulled a pocket-sized instrument from her waist pouch. It looked like a watch and displayed coordinates. A red dot blinked to their northwest.

The man came over and sat beside her. He glanced at the instrument, then asked cautiously, “How far are we from it?”

“At the pace we’ve been keeping, about two hours. Let’s rest a little and set off again in half an hour.”

Wuxue tucked the instrument back into her clothes.

When she fell silent, the man did too. The quiet didn’t last long. He edged closer, still speaking in that same tentative voice. “This job doesn’t involve stealing or killing. So why’s the client paying us so much? Do you think it’s a trap?”

“Torre, if you’re scared, you can go back.”

Wuxue glanced sideways at him, her voice tinged with scorn.

Torre couldn’t see her face either, but there was something alluring in the set of her eyes. He imagined she didn’t have a face as rugged as his build.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant.”

Torre waved his hands. “I only got into this line of work because of you. Not everyone can become a bounty hunter. You were willing to bring me along, and I owe you more than I can repay. I won’t ask again. I’ll do whatever you say. Is that better?”

Wuxue sighed to herself. If Torre weren’t Qiongna’s husband, she wouldn’t have taken an inexperienced beginner along, especially when she was in such a tight spot.

She wouldn’t normally have taken such a poorly paid job either. There’d been a time when a single kill earned two pounds of gold. Now this job to find something paid about three and a half ounces of gold plus three packets of antibiotics. She was almost too embarrassed to split it with Torre.

“Enough.” Wuxue’s voice softened. “Save your gratitude for Qiongna. I’m only repaying a debt. Get some rest. We’ve still got a ways to go.”

“All right.”

Torre nodded. He knew Wuxue didn’t like him, so he stopped talking and sat quietly, watching the wind blow across the Red Iron Wasteland and die away.

Before coming here with Wuxue, Torre had never imagined anyone could live in a place like this. There was no electricity, no water, no soil. Most people in the cities believed this was a true wasteland, devoid of life and spirit. But on the way here, Torre had seen plenty of people, most of them old, sick, or young. The children were painfully thin, yet they didn’t seem to realize how unfortunate they were. They happily played with discarded scrap, holding up car doors as shields or rolling bicycle wheels to see whose could go farthest. Maybe they had never known better toys, but their faces were bright with joy. Only the adults wore expressions of despair. They sifted through the junk for copper and cables, anything useful that could earn them a little money and buy them a little more time.

Torre had thought his own family was badly off, but at least they had a roof, a few plots of land, and clothes on their backs. The people here seemed to have nothing at all.

“Different people find different ways to live.”

Wuxue had seen right through him. “I’m offering you a new way to live. If you want to make something of it, stop pitying other people.”

Torre understood her meaning and quickly looked away, nodding over and over. “Yes, I understand.”

“Quit dawdling. Let’s go. We’ll spend the night here after we find it, then try to reach Ke Town tomorrow and report the job.”

Wuxue patted Torre’s shoulder and stood. The sunlight struck her once more, along with the furnace heat. She checked the buckles on her clothes and pack, then steeled herself and continued toward their destination.

The two headed west, but chasing the sun didn’t mean they could catch it. As it sank in the west, the scorching fireball softened. Its blinding glare grew rounder and warmer, like a large, deep-red egg yolk. It bathed the whole wasteland in red, leaving you to wonder: had the Red Iron Wasteland been named for its oxidized rust, or for this desolate landscape?

The setting sun signaled the end of the day. Across the land of steel, people began lighting cooking fires. Smoke drifted through the air, and the desolation before them looked like an old oil painting, its warm colors underscoring a ruin beyond words.

“I never expected to find beauty in a place like this.”

Torre started talking to himself again. “If somebody sang a folk song about some faraway place, this would feel even more moving and tragic.”

This time, Wuxue answered. A woman who spent her life walking the edge of a knife rarely had time to stop and take in the scenery. “True. But there won’t be any folk songs out here…”

“The king sent me to patrol the hills, ah~ Hey-yo, hey-yo, hey-yo! I patrolled the southern hills, now I’m off to the north, hey-yo, hey-yo, hey-yo! Watch out for that Monkey King, ah~ Hey-yo, hey-yo, hey-yo! He’s got dozens of ways to change his shape, hey-yo, hey-yo, hey-yo! He’s especially good at turning into a little fly, ah~ Hey-yo, hey-yo, hey-yo…”

A bizarre song drifted toward them on the wind. Wuxue didn’t want to admit it was a folk song, but she couldn’t deny that the voice had just landed like a slap in the face.

“Maybe we should just get going,” Torre said sheepishly.

“Mm.”

Wuxue nodded and took out her detector to check their direction. She tugged the shoulder straps of her pack to make them sit more snugly, then continued on.

“The king sent me to patrol the hills, ah~ I patrolled the southern hills, now I’m off to the north…”

The closer Wuxue got to the destination, the nearer that ridiculous singing grew. She wasn’t a curious person, but the grating tune made it impossible to keep her attention elsewhere. She looked instinctively toward the sound. Far away, she could just make out someone pulling a large handcart piled with things, probably scrap metal. She couldn’t see the singer’s face, but the voice sounded so cheerful and carefree that it was hard not to imagine the person behind it was happy. Earlier, Wuxue had been ready to tell Torre that no one in a place like this could have enough peace in their heart to sing. It seemed she’d been wrong.

“Wuxue, I think that person is coming this way,” Torre said, his gaze fixed on the approaching figure. Sure enough, the person with the handcart was humming that strange song as they came toward them.