Chapter 27: Compensation
By the time they finished eating, it was already three in the afternoon. After tidying up, they returned to the bedroom, where Tang Heng produced a palm-sized square box from his pack and handed it to Zhao Man. “These are the energy stones I’ve saved up since my days in the reserves. They’re yours.”
Surprised, Zhao Man cast him a questioning glance, reached out to take the box, and opened it. It was full to the brim. Just as he was wondering what to say, Tang Heng spoke up again:
“Now that we’re married, I’m staying in your house without paying rent. It’s safe to say I’m getting the better end of the deal. Plus, I won’t have to pay fines or the bachelor tax anymore, which means I can raise the repayment ratio on my loans and clear them off as early as possible. Consider these energy stones your compensation. They aren’t registered, but I did a rough calculation—they’re worth about five hundred points.”
Five hundred. Back to financial security in one swoop. Zhao Man’s feelings were momentarily complicated. “What loans?”
Tang Heng looked at him in surprise, puzzled by the question. “Educational and development loans, obviously. Don’t you have them? Everything from childhood Alpha psychic training, base patrol team training, high-radiation zone hunt conditioning, equipment maintenance… and since I’m a captain, I had to study management. To hit my performance targets, I even took the Comprehensive Compendium of Wild Flora, not to mention a bunch of other minor courses.”
Zhao Man stared at him blankly: You certainly spared no expense investing in yourself!
With a full stomach and a warm hearth, Tang Heng’s missing wits finally returned. He abruptly recalled that Zhao Man was an illegitimate son bought off and cast aside with a mere five hundred points—how on earth would his parents have ever taken out loans for him!
“Uh, that is, I didn’t mean it like that! What I meant was, uh—”
“How much of your loans do you have left?”
Seeing Zhao Man’s expression shift, Tang Heng breathed an inward sigh of relief. “Not much. Just thirty thousand.”
Your monthly base pay is thirty points, and you call thirty thousand ‘just’?!
Yes, a patrol brigade captain in the West Sixth Ring earned a monthly salary of thirty points. Tang Heng had just spent five days on rescue deployment, which the base compensated at triple pay; those fifteen points had already landed in their joint marital account.
Thirty points seemed like a fair sum, but Tang Heng was stationed at the garrison. Eating one meal a day at the mess hall cost five points a month. Alpha-grade nutrient solutions ran two points a vial; Tang Heng took one every two days, and while the garrison covered ten vials, he had to pay out-of-pocket for the other ten, racking up another ten points. Add about three points for combat training wear-and-tear, minus the four points he’d save on base housing after getting married, and he could squirrel away about thirteen points a month.
“Don’t worry, base regulations allow thirty years to pay it off. I already cleared five thousand over the past four years.”
Tang Heng sounded completely self-assured, not the least bit stressed.
“Then why didn’t you use these energy stones to pay it down?”
Tang Heng draped an arm around Zhao Man and pulled him down to lie beside him. “Paying it off too early isn’t a good thing. I’ve already cleared this year’s quota. Thanks to you, my performance metrics doubled, and I’ve got nearly eight hundred points logged on my terminal. I plan to convert all of this year’s surplus performance into medical checkup vouchers, which will slash next year’s healthcare expenses significantly. The loan repayments aren’t a heavy burden. Besides, my registered asset declaration already lists energy stones; if I suddenly pulled out another five hundred points, it would draw too much attention. I’d be reassigned to the Fifth or even the Fourth Ring, and my current earnings can’t shoulder the cost of living there.”
“The base even dictates which district you’re allowed to live in?” Surprised, Zhao Man tilted his head up to look at him.
“Of course. Tax rates and living costs differ from zone to zone. If you sit on a mountain of points but live in a low-tax district, the base will never allow it.”
Hearing Tang Heng lay it out so plainly set Zhao Man’s mind at ease. Although base law stated that individual debts remained personal liabilities even after marriage, now that they were tied together, future installments would inevitably be drawn from their joint assets. Seeing that Tang Heng had plenty of ways to earn and could easily cover his debts, Zhao Man stopped fretting.
Wait… when did I end up curled against his chest?
Sleeping together was bound to happen sooner or later, but when Tang Heng left last time, he had left his sleeping bag behind; Zhao Man had assumed he would keep sleeping on the floor tonight.
Zhao Man was about to say something, but glancing up, he saw that Tang Heng had already drifted off. Looking at the dark circles beneath the man’s eyes, Zhao Man let out a quiet sigh and closed his own eyes as well.
Sigh. He exhaled softly. He couldn’t sleep. Not in the slightest. Zhao Man had done practically nothing over the past few days except sleep, and having only dragged himself out of bed at nine this morning, he wasn’t tired at all.
Pulling out his terminal, he resumed browsing the forums. The feeds over the past few days were dominated by rescue reports and shelter life updates.
Aside from the West Sixth Ring, the hardest-hit area during the beast attacks was the Outer Ring. Zhao Man’s home had perimeter walls, automated defenses, and garrison patrols, but out in the Outer Ring, survival came down entirely to the sheer durability of the structures.
Zhao Man had only caught distant glimpses of the Outer Ring dwellings from West Gate 3. In shape, they resembled his own place, only with taller walls and a much darker color. Zhao Man’s home was built from gray composite, while the exterior retained the standard green finish shared throughout the Sixth Ring. The Outer Ring, by contrast, was pitch black. This stemmed from a difference in materials: the Outer Ring used the hardest grade available, but it wasn’t breathable, nor could it be left open to the sky like an inner-ring courtyard. They could only mount low pillars along the perimeter and slap a fixed roof over the top. Word was that during the blizzard season, whatever the temperature was outside, that was the temperature inside. Its sole virtues were that it was free and indestructible.
Yet no matter how tough the walls were, they couldn’t stop flying beasts or agile climbers from squeezing in through the ventilation slats. Some mutated predators had even learned to hunt in packs.
Zhao Man scrolled past a photograph showing a house breached by beasts. Inside was a three-tiered wooden loft packed with an unknown number of occupants.
Vulture-like birds wheeled through the rafters while badger-like beasts swarmed the floor, tearing into the people below. Everyone held weapons of all shapes and sizes, fighting desperately for their lives, but there were always elderly, children, or fighters who slipped up—becoming fodder for the predators. Before Zhao Man could examine it closely, the post was flagged and removed.
With the picture wiped, Zhao Man couldn’t tell whether he should count his lucky stars that he had transmigrated with five hundred points in his pocket, or mourn the fact that he was stuck in this hellish world in the first place.
After taking a moment to steady his breathing, he continued scrolling. The latest updates were mostly relief shelter threads. Evacuees complained that their hosts were stingy and refused to provide the mandated rations, while homeowners grumbled that the refugees were sticky-fingered and foul-mouthed.
“What are you looking at?” a gravelly, sleep-thickened voice rumbled from behind him. Zhao Man turned to find Tang Heng squinting at him.
“Did I wake you?”
“No. Shouldn’t sleep any longer anyway, or I won’t sleep tonight. What were you reading just now?”
Zhao Man checked the time; the man had only napped for an hour. “Just scrolled past a picture. A house out in the Outer Ring was breached by mutated beasts.”
Tang Heng shifted closer, drawing Zhao Man into his embrace. “The casualties in the Outer Ring were considered light this year. Less than a third died.”
“A third is considered light?”
“A third is light. A-Man, where do you think most of the people in the entire base live?”
Zhao Man thought for a moment. “The Sixth Ring.”
“Right. The Sixth Ring has the highest population. The Outer Ring is just a transitional zone: young adults who just struck out on their own, newlyweds with babies and no savings, people who lost their working capacity, the sick… anyone whose annual point income drops below a hundred ends up living in the Outer Ring. But give them a year or two, as long as they don’t catch an illness that requires hospitalization, they can claw their way back to the Sixth Ring. It’s just that a new batch gets pushed out every year, so the Outer Ring is never empty.”
Don’t catch an illness that requires hospitalization? What a luxury. In under three months, he had visited the clinic twice and burned through fifty points.
“Did you live in the Outer Ring before, too?”
“Most people in the Sixth and Fifth Rings have lived out there at some point. Don’t overthink it. The base doesn’t charge a single point to stay in the Outer Ring, and there’s basic relief aid.”
“Mm.”
The two lay quietly in bed, talking for a while, until Tang Heng spoke up: “Let’s get up. Your house needs the snow cleared. Have you ever done that before?”
Uh, Zhao Man had no clue clearing snow was even a thing. In his previous life in the south, it snowed, but never heavily enough to accumulate before melting away.
Tang Heng led Zhao Man to the master control panel mounted by the perimeter wall in the recreation room, walking him step-by-step through the functions of each switch. As he explained, Zhao Man listened intently while recording the process on his terminal.
Seeing him record, Tang Heng brought him to the rear courtyard’s defense console as well. Zhao Man listened through the run-down once; his brain seemed to grasp it, but his fingers still didn’t dare press anything at random.
Before clearing the snow, Tang Heng engaged the defense system, swept the area with a pulse of his mental strength, and led Zhao Man out to heave all the beast carcasses from the sulfur rocks into the buffer trench.
Next, he tapped the snow-clearing cycle. Zhao Man watched his terminal screen as a row of mechanical clearing blades slowly rose from the lower third of the domed roof. Once extended through the snowpack, the blades shoved downward. A series of heavy thuds echoed through the structure as massive slabs of packed snow crashed to the ground.
Once the roof was swept clean, the bamboo grove was completely hidden from view through the rear window by the fallen drifts. Tang Heng geared back up in his snowsuit, seized a shovel, and headed outside to clear the snow.
Zhao Man layered on his windproof overcoat and winter boots. With only one snow shovel in the house, he grabbed a hoe—better than nothing.
Zhao Man chopped into the hard-packed drifts while Tang Heng shoveled the loose snow aside, clearing a neat walkway through the front courtyard and leveling the massive drifts piled before the rear window.
