"Damn—this thing is basically a diwōzi, isn't it?"
Gazing at the sprawling underground complex before him, where more than a thousand newly joined scavengers were living, Mi Gao could not help but mutter the complaint under his breath.
Battling the biting wind and swirling snow, Mi Gao had already spent over an hour wandering the area with a retinue of subordinates. During that time, he personally distributed helmets, heavy coats, fur-lined rain boots, rain cloaks, and even high-proof bulk liquor, handing them out one by one to those on duty.
Watching the natives—now clad in fresh cold-weather gear—revive as if filled with new life, Mi Gao knew at once that their loyalty toward him had surged dramatically.
No wonder the great generals and marshals of the modern world's history were forever putting on a show of loving their soldiers like sons. So this was the payoff.
It seemed that these "warmth-delivery" gestures were something he ought to conduct more often.
The only pity was that tonight's recipients of this benevolence would likely be disappointed by tomorrow morning.
By then, those helmets, fur boots, and coats would all be collected again, converted into shared equipment for night patrol rotations.
There was no helping it. Five hundred full sets of cold-weather gear were all he had—barely enough for rotational use by those who needed them most.
Providing one set per person was simply beyond him for now; the staggering procurement costs and transportation demands made it impossible in the short term.
After completing his round of goodwill, Mi Gao finally remembered the newly joined scavengers. He decided it was time for them, too, to feel the warmth bestowed by Lord Harry Potter.
Yet the moment he approached their settlement outside the city, the earlier exclamation sprang unbidden to his mind.
Damn it. Dig a pit into the ground, then cover it with timber, scrap metal sheets, and plastic tarps—wasn't this exactly the diwōzi that had been so common in China's frontier provinces decades ago?
It was said that builders sent from the interior had survived the harshest years precisely by relying on such crude yet practical shelters.
Countless hapless web-novel protagonists, after transmigrating, had used the same solution to address the natives' housing problems.
Who would have thought that, under the crushing pressure of survival, the wasteland's indigenous people needed no protagonist's guidance at all—they had independently reinvented the idea.
That said, ugly as these structures were, their insulation was surprisingly effective.
The premise, of course, was proper waterproofing and drainage. Otherwise, once snow drifted in—or meltwater seeped inside—the consequences would be disastrous.
As Mi Gao's thoughts wandered along these tangents, a booming voice rang out from the nearest diwōzi.
"Wake up—wake up, all of you! The benevolent Lord Harry Potter has come to see you!"
It was John the Minotaur, who had entered ahead of Mi Gao to give advance notice. He feared that his fastidious lord might stumble upon something unsightly.
More importantly, barging in unannounced might provoke some excessive reaction from scavengers hardened by years of vigilance.
A few minutes later, John emerged from the ground, his head wrapped in a rain-cloak hood.
"My lord, you may enter now…"
Indeed, with a shallow pit dug at the center and coal burning within it, the diwōzi was warm enough to feel like an entirely different world from the frozen wasteland outside.
Lifting the tattered cloth that served as a door, Mi Gao stepped inside and was immediately enveloped by an indescribable warmth and comfort.
Unfortunately, that pleasant sensation lasted less than a minute before he nearly fled back outside.
It reeked.
The cramped space was saturated with a nauseating blend of sweat, foot odor, and acrid urine—a dense, composite stench that assaulted the senses.
The overwhelming odor almost drove Lord Harry Potter, who had entered wearing a genial smile, straight back out.
The primary reason was simple: in a diwōzi of barely thirty square meters, ten people had been crammed together.
Aside from the central fire pit and the narrow passages that had to be kept clear, each person's private space amounted to little more than the size of a slim field cot.
And yet, despite this, these people seemed genuinely content with their current lives.
Perhaps even—happy.
That much was evident the instant Mi Gao entered. With a unified swish, they dropped to their knees; one small, middle-aged man of just over thirty was so overcome that he kissed the soil by Mi Gao's feet.
All of this spoke volumes about how dearly they cherished what they had.
"Get up, all of you," Mi Gao said, even as he helped the man still kissing the dirt back to his feet.
In that brief contact, Mi Gao noticed that the man's unwashed scalp was crawling with plump, glossy lice, darting in and out of sight.
The sight sent a fresh wave of goosebumps across Mi Gao's skin.
Suppressing his revulsion, he offered earnest encouragement to the newly joined scavengers. He told them that living in diwōzi was only temporary; those who performed well would be given priority housing in the residential buildings to be constructed outside the city come spring.
And if anyone distinguished themselves through merit, they might even earn the right to move into the city itself—enjoying electric lights, telephones, and the comforts of life upstairs and down.
After this rousing speech, Mi Gao stepped out of the diwōzi amid a forest of fervent, hopeful gazes fixed upon his back.
All in all, his "delivery of warmth" amounted to little more than painting them a grand pie in the sky. In terms of tangible benefits, he had not even handed out something as trivial as a packet of spicy snacks.
The moment he exited, the kindly smile on Mi Gao's face vanished, replaced by a stern expression.
Turning to the Minotaur beside him, he launched into a sharp rebuke.
"Are the brains of you higher-ups filled with holes? What have you all been doing? Why hasn't the sanitation work we've been carrying out inside the city been extended to these new arrivals?
"Do you have any idea how many viruses and bacteria they're carrying? With living conditions this dense, if you don't tighten sanitation control, are you hoping for a plague to break out?"
Under the barrage of scolding, the Minotaur—who had been warm and content moments ago in his thick coat and fur boots, with two taels of strong liquor in his belly—began to sweat despite the cold.
But at the word plague, his face drained of color.
He stammered for a long while, unable to form a complete sentence.
Seeing such an abject display from one of his more capable subordinates, Mi Gao sighed inwardly.
He knew, in truth, that this was not entirely John's fault.
Send the Minotaur into battle, and with his level-three battle qi—well-fed and well-supplied—he was unquestionably reliable.
But management was another matter entirely. His limited horizons left him ill-suited to such work.
Faced with the current situation, John had probably never even seen a crowd of over a thousand people at once, let alone managed one effectively.
And among the sixteen to seventeen hundred people under Mi Gao's command, most were much the same.
With no better managerial talent to hand, Mi Gao could only resolve to train them slowly. At the very least, their loyalty was beyond question.
He refused to believe that even a pig, placed in the right position long enough, wouldn't eventually grow clever.
Thus, on the road back to the city, Mi Gao issued a stream of orders.
"Tomorrow during the day, shave all of their heads completely. Then boil enough hot water and make them scrub themselves clean with detergent—no stopping until they're spotless.
"As for their clothes and bedding—who knows how filthy they are, how many lice and bacteria are hiding inside? Burn them all. You will personally supervise this. Anyone who refuses gets expelled."
"Mission guaranteed," the Minotaur replied promptly.
Then, more cautiously, he added, "But… if everything is burned, what will they wear?"
Mi Gao paused. He truly couldn't provide enough replacement clothing.
"Then have them wash everything thoroughly with detergent instead. I've brought another two thousand packets—more than enough."
When issuing this order, Mi Gao knew full well that bathing with laundry detergent was far from pleasant.
Especially for natives riddled with scabies and sores—the detergent stinging those wounds would be excruciating.
Even so, he had no intention of procuring cheap industrial soap for the wasteland.
From an academic standpoint, Mi Gao believed that only detergent—with its superior cleaning power—could tackle the deep-seated grime embedded in scavengers' bodies.
More importantly, this detergent was promotional material from the Reno Agricultural Supply Company.
To be precise, it cost nothing at all—one merely needed to submit an internal application on the company platform.
In past years, with Mi Gao's chronically bottom-ranked performance, applying for so much might have been difficult.
But this year, his results had surged into the department's top three. Requesting a few thousand packets of something worth only a few cents apiece was effortless.
And so, as he made this decision, the young Mi Gao could already foresee what was to come:
Tomorrow, across the vast wilderness beyond the city, clouds of synthetic fragrance from laundry detergent would drift on the wind.
Or, to put it in more refined, poetic terms—
Hidden fragrance drifts at moonlit dusk;
Before the hall, a single tree in spring.