"Step." A leather-gray outdoor boot stomped on the ground.

Yanagihara grabbed his hair and led Al to stand in front of a private clinic in the greenhouse.

There was some impatience on her face, maybe because of what she had to do next, or maybe because she hadn't washed her hair for too long, and her hair was a little itchy in the morning.

Maybe I should cut a board head, or maybe a bald head.

Thinking so seriously, Yanagihara walked into the greenhouse clinic with Al.

Admittedly, it does take some supplies to cross an ice field. There are some supplies that Yanagihara doesn't need, but El does, such as oxygen and food.

And Yanagihara naturally didn't have anything to exchange for these materials, so after thinking about it, she finally thought of a way, which should be able to get some necessary resources.

Normally, she doesn't like to use this method, but who made her have another mouth by her side now.

This private clinic is not big, one might even say a little small, and is located on the corner of a somewhat deserted street.

Push open the door and you'll see a variety of instruments inside, which might have given you some sense of identity if they were cleaner, but they're rarely wiped down.

The walls are mottled, rust and cracks on almost every plane visible to the naked eye.

Compared to a clinic, this is more like a black workshop, the kind that resells human organs.

Thankfully, Yanagihara was looking for exactly this kind of place.

"Yanagihara, what are we doing here?" Al looked around, grabbing the corner of Yanagihara's coat with some uneasiness.

"Don't worry, I'm here to exchange something." Yanagihara seemed very calm, found a chair and sat down, and then called into the inside of the clinic.

"Hey, anyone?"

"Yes!" An older voice agreed, babbling at the same time.

"If I were you, I would probably prefer to be quiet, lest old Pete forget the scissors in your stomach during the operation."

As the words fell, a somewhat gauntlet figure opened a curtain and walked out of it, wiping his hands.

"I don't have surgery or see a doctor." Yanagihara shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

"And what are you going to do?"

The doctor, who called himself Old Pete, wore an indescribable yellow or white coat, a pair of round half-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, and his old face and thin body made him look at least sixty years old, but his voice was still bitter and mean, without the kindness of the old man.

Yanagihara didn't answer Old Pete's question for the first time, but first looked sideways at Al beside him, bowed his chin outside the door, and spoke.

"You go to the door and wait for a while."

Al glanced at Yanagihara and Old Pete uneasily, as if he wanted to say something, but finally obediently walked out the door and closed the door of the clinic.

Watching Al walk out, Yanagihara turned his head to look at old Pete again and said.

"I'm here to sell something."

"Oh?" Old Pete's eyes lit up, and he lifted his thin palm to support his glasses.

"What do you want to sell?"

Yanagihara turned his face sideways and said nonchalantly: "Blood, organs, what else can you sell here?" ”

"Yes." Old Pete also seemed to feel that he had asked a question that was not very clever, and nodded and turned to speak.

"How much exactly?"

"1000cc of O-type blood, and a kidney." Yanagihara replied with a raised brow.

"That's a lot ······" Old Pete lowered his voice, with the same sparkle in his eyes, and continued to ask with a glance outside the door.

"Is it yours, or is it the girl's?"

"Mine." Yanagihara noticed Pete Sr.'s gaze and moved his body to block Pete's gaze.

"If you don't want to be banished to the ice field by the guards, I advise you to fight that kid less."

Because of the massive reduction in the number of humans, in the ice field, all crimes related to children are felonies, which may be the reason why Al has been able to live here alone for so long as a child, at least the garrison is still maintaining the last order of the human race, otherwise she would have been robbed of everything and starved to death on the streets.

Al has no parents, and her sister is her last relative, which is what Yanagihara learned from her mouth.

"Oh, of course, of course." Old Pete looked at Yanagihara's somewhat chilled eyes, smiled, raised his hands and said.

"You're a guest, so naturally everyone listens to you. So what do you want, as long as the price is right, old Pete will try his best to prepare it for you. ”

"Two bottles of compressed oxygen and liquid fuel for the kidneys, blood for food, and if you can, I'd like you to fill up my snowmobile with gas, and by the way, add another dress to the girl outside the door."

"Well, that doesn't make sense." Old Pete shook his head: "Oxygen, fuel, oil, these things are not cheap. ”

"The price of human life is not cheap." Yanagihara leaned sideways, revealing the revolver in his arms.

"Ma'am." Old Pete looked at the pistol and narrowed his eyes.

"If you want to sell your own organs, I don't think you should talk to your doctor about the price."

"Who said you were my attending doctor?" Yanagihara drooped his eyes and said, "I'll take the kidney for you myself." ”

"Huh." Old Pete said as if he had heard some big joke, and raised one of his fingers.

"Okay, I'll get those things ready for you. Come back here tomorrow at this time, and if you can really get your own kidneys out of yourself, I'll give you another tank of oxygen. ”

"It's decided?" Yanagihara was stunned for a moment, then blinked his eyes, and seemed to be in a good mood.

"It's settled." Old Pete swore an oath, apparently not believing that Yanagihara would be able to do such a thing.

······

So the next day, Yanagihara fetched his own snowmobile.

Under the incredulous gaze of old Pete, she dug out one of her own kidneys with her own hands, then pretended to stitch up the wound in her lower back, and took all the supplies with her.

For her, who has lost her pain, she doesn't even need anesthetics to do such a thing. Even by the time she reached the door, her wounds had healed, and even the kidney she had dug out had regrown.

Of course, these old Pete didn't know, he just stood there, stunned and stared at the bloody kidney, letting Yanagihara take everything.

Well, that's a reasonable reaction for someone watching someone dissect themselves for the first time.

Yanagihara's mood was very good, and the passage of blood made her feel a little alive.

······

"Click." Sticking the last tank of oxygen to the side of the snowmobile, Yanagihara let Al sit in the back seat while he straddled the front and grabbed the handle.

This is the gate of the greenhouse.

At noon, the door of the greenhouse under the barrier slowly opened, revealing the world outside the door.

It was snow-white, monotonous without the slightest variety, with a cold and cold silence.

A cold wind mixed with flying snow poured in through the door, sweeping across the street, rolling the clothes of the people in front of the door.

It's not every day that someone wants to go outside the greenhouse, or that no one wants to go there if it's not necessary.

Today, too, there are only a few scattered groups of people leaving the greenhouse.

In front of the door, Yanagihara sat on a snowmobile and covered her hair, which was curled by the wind, which gave her the urge to cut her head again.

There is also some snow in the tracks of the motorcycle, and the back of the seat is tied with ropes to carry the necessary equipment for travel.

Al sat behind Yanagihara, and she changed into a new outfit, the heavy padded jacket that made her more likely to survive in the ice field.

The girl wrapped her arms around Yanagihara's waist, perhaps out of curiosity or for some other reason, she poked her head out of Yanagihara's back and looked out of the greenhouse door.

She had never been outside of the greenhouse, it was a world she was completely unfamiliar with, and people were always a little afraid of the unfamiliar, let alone the area that was called desperate.

The ice fields outside the greenhouse stretch as far as the eye can see, and mutated beasts haunt them, leaving almost no one to survive there. So people generally go out with a convoy, even if it's a hired person.

"Yanagihara." Al's voice came from behind Yanagihara, as if with some trembling, "Can we get to Greenhouse Four?" ”

Yanagihara's eyes turned to the side, and he removed one of the helmets from the car, turned around and put it on the girl's head.

And she herself simply wrapped a scarf, she is alone all the year round, so there is only one helmet in the car.

"Yes."

Her tone was as calm as ever, but her assurances had an inexplicable sense of trust.

"Hmm." Al was wearing a helmet, and his hand around Yanagihara's waist was tighter.

With the muffled sound of the engine, the snowmobile started to drive out of the greenhouse under the watchful eyes of the guards in front of the door.

A janitor with a mask looked at the distant motorcycle, stunned, and asked his companion beside him.

"Did we just see two people driving their own motorcycles into the icefield?"

His companion pulled the valve in his hand and replied without looking back.

"If you're blind, please don't take me with you, how can two people leave the greenhouse, they won't even live for three days."

"But I think I did."

"Maybe you just saw a motorcycle."

"Hey, isn't that even more terrifying?"

······

Outside the greenhouse, snowmobiles head east.

The temperature on the ice sheet is very low, and the night gets dark quickly.

The nights are much colder than the day, and at the coldest time, normal people's skin will be frozen to death once it is exposed. Of course, this is for normal people, and Yanagihara's situation is different.

Just as it is impossible for a normal person to survive on the ice field alone, she can cross the entire ice field alone.

On the almost pitch-black snowfield, a white light passed through the flying snow on the field, and the biting cold wind blew through the corners of Yanagihara's eyes, and the scarf around her neck rolled with the wind.

Al clung to Yanagihara's back, his rather large helmet wrapping around her hair and cheeks, keeping the cold wind out.

Although she couldn't see her expression, she could tell from her trembling body that even so, the temperature on the ice field was still not something that this girl could bear.

Yanagihara felt Al trembling behind him.

She lowered her eyes, glanced at the time next to the dashboard, raised her eyes again to look at the road ahead, half-rang, and pressed the brakes.

"Z!" With the sound of the tracks breaking through the snow, the motorcycle stopped.

Al in the back of the car raised her head, she was so cold that she barely had the strength to speak, but she still asked Yanagihara weakly.

"Have you arrived?"

Unfortunately, there was still nothing but empty snow in front of the headlights.

"Not yet, but I'm going to rest here tonight."

Yanagihara said as he got out of the car.

She untied some of the salute she was carrying from the back seat of the car.

It was a tent, a backpack, and a stove that could be carried by one hand.

Al sat in the car for a moment before stepping out of the car.

She watched Yanagihara pitch her tent in the snow and seemed to want to help, but her hands and feet were numb from the cold, and she couldn't do anything at all.

Yanagihara stuck a stand in the snow and pressed it, and when he turned his head, he saw Al standing motionless.

Looking at the girl's appearance, she was silent for a while, and then took off her coat and threw it to the other party.

"Put this on too." Yanagihara's tone seemed to be a little more helpless.

Now she began to think that it might be a mistake to bring this girl, because it might hurt the other party.

Al grabbed Yanagihara's coat and looked at Yanagihara, who continued to set up the tent, and when she took off her coat, she was left with only a long-sleeved shirt, which undoubtedly looked extremely thin in the cold.

"Aren't you cold?" Al asked.

Yanagihara was setting up the tent when she heard Al's words, and her movements stopped.

"I can't feel it." She shrugged her shoulders as if self-deprecatingly, and said no more.

Al didn't understand what Yanagihara meant, but Yanagihara had already set up the tent, and she set the portable stove aside and inserted a liquid fuel into it.

The fire was lit, and the temperature around the tent seemed to rise a bit.

Al sat down next to the fire in his coat, and Yanagihara flipped through his backpack again, and finally took out two pieces of jerky from it.

"Goo." Looking at the jerky, Al's stomach growled, she hadn't eaten all day.

Yanagihara heard the voice cross his eyes, and his gaze collided with Al's, which made Al's face blush, and he shrunk his helmet-wearing face into his coat.

"I'll have to wait a while before I can eat it."

Yanagihara retracted her gaze and said, pulling out the tattered knife from her waist.

The jerky was finely chopped with a knife and placed in a jar, which was then filled with some clean snow.

With that done, she put the jar on the stove, presumably to make a jar of broth.

The night on the ice field was silent, except for the sound of wind and snow that never seemed to stop.

On one side of the snowmobile.

"Hereby······ ······"

The radio installed in the car seemed to have picked up some signal and emitted a burst of electricity.

After the sound of electricity, a barely audible female voice appeared on the radio.

"Recently, a large number of beasts have been infested in the ice field, and the person in charge of the greenhouse hereby reminds travelers to carefully choose the date of travel and consider changing their travel plan. The following are the areas where the herds are infested: Lake Mountains······"

"Z, here······"

The rest of the content is replaced by the sound of electricity, which is always the case with this radio, sometimes good and sometimes bad.

Yanagihara walked over to the motorcycle, raised a hand, and slammed it on the radio.

"Bang."

No matter what the machine is broken, as long as she smashes it, she can continue to use it, which is a recent experience she has learned after many years of life.

"Ziz." The sound on the radio gradually recovered, and the names of the regions continued to be reported.

“······ The west side of the ice sheet, the south side of Greenhouse 1, and the west side of Greenhouse 4. Please also pay more attention to outsiders to avoid attacks by wild beasts. ”

"That's it for today's evening newsletter, thank you for listening."

Outside the West 4 greenhouse.

Yanagihara and Al had both heard the name, and if the information was correct, there should be a large herd of beasts there, and the place they were going to be there right now.

One of the reasons why people can't survive on the ice fields is because of the extremely low temperatures, and the other is because of the herds that have mutated after the disaster.

In the aftermath of the disaster, almost all of the animals that survived changed in order to adapt to their environment.

Most carnivores have become more ferocious and bloodthirsty, and because of the lack of food on the ice sheets, even humans are the target of their prey.

In addition to being able to adapt to the cold, the mutated beast also has a greater size and predatory ability. This is undoubtedly counterintuitive, because the thinning of oxygen will theoretically only make the animal thinner, but the mutation does happen.

Even heavily armed teams can hardly withstand an attack from a herd.

If the average team hears that there is a herd of animals at their destination, they will definitely decide to return first.

But Yanagihara just listened to the news with a blank face, and then sat back by the fireside.

Al asked, looking at Yanagihara with some concern.

"There's a herd, is it okay?"

She had never been out of the greenhouse, so she didn't have a clear idea of the herd, only a vague sense of danger.

Yanagihara shook his head quietly.

"It's okay, I'll get there with you."

As she spoke, she picked up the already heated can of broth, wrapped it in a rag and handed it to Al.

"Eat."

"Hmm." Al took the broth, and the warm touch made her face a little bloody.

She stole a glance at Yanagihara and took a sip of the melted snow water from the can.

Suddenly, the girl thought of something, pursed her lips and smiled lightly.

When I get there, I'll be able to see my sister.

She thought so in the cold and snowy night, and it didn't seem so cold anymore this night.

Al was distracted, while Yanagihara sat on the side and touched his waist.

She seemed to have really forgotten the scissors when she retrieved her kidney in the morning.

How do I take it out?