Lin City Base, in the slums, a woman with ssy hair and a filthy body squats in a low shack, ticulously cleaning a Mutated Rat’s corpse. The Mutated Rat is over 30 centiters long. Although it has quite a bit of at, the woman is reluctant to peel off the skin or even discard the innards. She carefully cleans each piece, even the slender intestines.
The clean water used in the Base is all provided by Water Elent Superpower Users, and it’s expensive. People in the slums cannot afford it and can only buy water that’s been filtered after others have used it. This water has disinfectant added to it, so it always carries a disinfectant sll. However, those living in the slums don’t dare complain, and even such water is not sothing they can buy daily.
To save resources, everyone recycles used water. Initially, they disliked it and found it uncomfortable, but over ti, they gradually grew accustod to it. These people toil from dawn to dusk every day, yet earn very few credit points. To survive, they must desperately economize!
A small basin holds half a basin of filthy water. After washing the cleaned Mutated Rat and its innards in it, the woman skewers the rat with a thin iron rod, singes the fur off over a fire, and then places it in a pot to cook with the innards. Gradually, a nauseating stench begins to waft from the pot.
Such a sll would have been distasteful to anyone except the street beggars before the apocalypse. However, the slum dwellers have long since gotten used to it. As soon as the sll erges, so can’t help but wrinkle their noses, take a deep breath, and then greedily gaze at the small shack, continuously swallowing their saliva.
Scenes like this play out almost every day in the slums. Here, the tiny shacks are cramped together with a pathetic narrow pathway between them. The once-clean pathway has long beco greasy and black, and various foul odors perate the air, gradually rging into an indescribably strange sll that could knock out a normal person! Such a filthy place; outsiders are reluctant to co in, and only the residents, who have long been exposed to these odors, have grown accustod and are unfazed.
The woman seems to hear the sound of saliva being swallowed outside and, with alert eyes, peers through the shack’s many gaps. As she looks, she greedily sniffs the pot’s aroma, stirs the pot with a ladle, realizes the at has turned pale and is ready, and quickly turns off the fire.
Without taking a bowl, she lifts a spoonful to her mouth, not minding the heat, and swallows it directly. At that mont, a feeble and urgent voice suddenly sounds behind her, "Hurry... give it to !" Seeing that the woman doesn’t listen, he shouts louder, "I caught this! Give it to ! Give it to !"
The woman pretends not to hear, picking up the at from the pot with chopsticks and stuffing it into her mouth. Watching this scene, his urgency grows and he curses, "You... damn woman! I got injured catching this Mutated Rat, how can you eat it all yourself?"
Upon hearing this, the woman impatiently turns to glare at him. It’s a frail old man lying in the corner of the shack under a filthy quilt. The quilt is covered in various stains, and his limbs protruding from it are riddled with wounds. Seeing the woman turn around, a glimr of hope erges in his murky eyes, and he stretches out his arms, pleading, "Please give so; I’m starving."
The woman hesitates, unsure what to do, when suddenly the door is slamd open and a figure rushes in. This person is naturally large, but at this mont is slightly hunched, with a sallow complexion and a vicious scar on his face. After bursting in, his eyes light up at the sight of the at in the pot, and he rushes forward, shoving the woman aside, grabbing her chopsticks to madly stuff at into his mouth with the urgency of a starving ghost!
The woman tries to rush over and grab it back, but he kicks her in the stomach, causing her to stumble back and fall onto the old man, who lets out a piercing scream, cursing incessantly, "You unfilial child, you’ll die a miserable death!"
As the man devours the at, he disdainfully glances at the woman and the old man, retorting, "Unfilial child? If it wasn’t for going out every day to work and feed you two old things, you’d be dead outside already! If you two old fools hadn’t let the eldest sister run away, how could I have ended up like this? Bah! Two worthless old things!" After saying that, he continues eating until only a small pile of bones remains in the pot.
The woman, hurt from his kick, doesn’t dare to fight him and can only watch as he finishes all the at, sitting on the floor and crying in grief. The old man lying there is furious, but his health was poor to begin with and he was injured badly catching the Mutated Rat before. He had neither the strength nor energy to teach his "ungrateful son" a lesson. Listening to his son’s words, regret overwhelms him. If only he’d kept a closer eye on Li Qingyun to stop her from leaving, how could their family have fallen to such a state?
He regrets the past while thinking about the supplies Li Qingyun had once bought. So many supplies—how could he have been so blind to overlook his daughter’s warnings and let those "poor relatives" in? Those ingrates; not only did they consu their supplies, but also took them to broker deals for better jobs for themselves. After Li Qingyun left, they even occupied their goods and house, driving them out!
Reflecting on this, he lants that had Li Qingyun not run off, how dare those heartless people expel them? Sadly, since Li Qingyun left, there’s been no word from her, and no amount of resentnt can change that. Thinking of Li Qingyun, he also ponders over the ungrateful son before him, regretfully wondering how he failed to see that this was a beast in human skin? If only he’d treated Li Qingyun better back then, perhaps she wouldn’t have abandoned them.
The son, unconcerned about his father’s thoughts, finishes drinking the soup from the pot, sighs contentedly, and, gesturing to the small pile of bones he spits out, says, "What are you crying for? Isn’t there still so left? Smash them up and cook another pot of soup to make do." With that, he ignores the man and woman in the corner, wipes his mouth, and walks out.
After he leaves, the woman cries harder, sobbing, "Qingyun, where are you? How can you be so heartless, ignoring your parents? Co back, please co back."
Alas, with mountains and rivers far between Hope Base and Lin City Base, Li Qingyun will never hear these words. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, please visit Qidian (qidian) to vote for recomndations and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read on m.qidian.)
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