Chapter 41: The Price of Endurance
"Liora," Zhou Yinuo’s gentle voice broke through her thoughts. "Don’t."
Liora turned her head, and Zhou Yinuo shook her head slightly. "It won’t do us any good," she said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. "They have power in the base. If you offend them, our lives will only get worse."
Zhou Yinuo could guess that Liora’s temper was already very short, and she was not used to doing any labor. Even she could feel that the base officers were deliberately creating trouble for them. She was starting to feel a little bit of anger herself, and so was Liora. But she couldn’t allow her to be reckless.
Liora exhaled slowly, forcing herself to calm down. Fine. Fine. She could endure this. But only for now.
She shoved her anger down and turned to look at Chen Wei and Liang Zihan, who were just as exhausted. Their clothes were drenched in sweat, their hands covered in dust from handling the boxes, yet they had not uttered a single complaint. They had just silently done the work, as if this was their fate.
It made Liora sick. Sick to the core.
But it was finally over. The supplies were packed. They were done.
She turned away from the scene of the two freeloaders and stepped forward, ready to climb onto the truck bed for the ride back.
But just as she reached out to grab onto the truck—
"You all can walk," Commander Xu’s voice rang out, casual, like he was tossing away a piece of trash.
Liora froze mid-step.