Radiation dust settled slowly in the leaden sky, like crushed ashes. Lin Rongguang squatted under the watchtower of the iron fence settlement and carefully polished the utility knife he had picked up with a broken lens. The sound of the blade slicing through metal was mixed with the sound of coughing from afar - that was Lao Zhou coughing again. Ever since he was swept by radiation at the edge of the restricted area last month, his lungs had become a leaky bellows.
"Brother Rongguang, it's your turn to distribute food."
Thirteen-year-old Zhao Lei ran over with a tin box in his arms, his canvas sneakers kicking up fine dust on the gravel ground. There were neatly packed compressed biscuits in the box. Each piece was cut into equal triangular wedges according to the scale, and the edges were gnawed into pits. That was when someone tried to bite off more with their teeth when the grain was distributed last month.
