309: Chapter 309: It’s Not Our Fault (Long Chapter/Yet the Scholars Hasten) 309: Chapter 309: It’s Not Our Fault (Long Chapter/Yet the Scholars Hasten) The old elevator creaked and groaned, sounding like the harsh winds of sumr cutting through ruins and valleys, like a dying old tree desperately howling.
Penny stared blankly at the youth leading the way, adorned with large hoop earrings and thick gold rings, “Is this elevator safe?”
That morning He Ao had sent a ssage to Penny and had called two taxis for her, asking her to bring everyone to Hope Building, to et up with the other Wilderness Wanderers.
Their party, including the boy He Ao had saved, totaled ten people, all of whom ca together.
“There shouldn’t be any problem, this elevator was serviced just three years ago,”
the youth with the gold rings reassured Penny with a smile as he looked back at her.
Penny eyed the rusted iron of the elevator and the accordion-style security gate in front of her, engulfed in rust and stylistically mismatched with the elevator, nodding slowly and cautiously.
As she nodded, her wandering gaze even caught the rough welds where the iron gate t the edge of the elevator.
Clearly, this gate was not originally part of the elevator.
If she hadn’t yet left the city, she might have mistaken this place for a camp in the wilderness, one that had excavated architectural relics from the Era of the Great Cataclysm and used scraps of tal to rebuild a semblance of human society.
Penny hadn’t expected to find such a place within the city.
Compared to the hotel they had previously stayed in with He Ao, this place was practically a ruin.
Bang—
The old elevator jolted violently, and as everyone swayed and struggled to maintain balance, it ca to a stop.
The accordion gate slowly drew open, and before Penny’s eyes lay a dilapidated plaza.
Countless dirty curtains crisscrossed in every direction, hanging over the plaza, barely dividing it into ‘rooms’ that might qualify as ‘livable’ cubicles.
A foul stench mixed with urine and excrent assaulted her senses.
However, they had seen worse on the wilderness, and no one there was sheltered enough to be taken aback by such sights.
The crowd’s faces showed mild surprise, but not much else.
The youth with the gold rings glanced at his surprised companions, opened his hands with a smile,
“Welco to Hope Building, populated by those who have no hope.”
Then he turned and led the group onward, “This floor isn’t our destination.
We need to take another elevator to get where we’re going.”
Penny followed the youth in a daze, passing by each ‘room’ bordered with dirty, slightly slly curtains.
Most of the curtains were poorly sealed, fixed to the ground by bricks or ropes, with gaping holes where one sheet t another.
Through these gaps, Penny saw people, disheveled and grimy.
They sat in dirty groups on the ground, most with a yellowed mattress beside them, their only place to sleep.
As Penny and the others passed by one ‘room,’ a little girl stood up and peered out through a crack, watching them.
Her eyes shone like beautiful pearls.
She leaned against the curtain, her small body pressing forward, causing it to tilt.
Her ssy hair, like straw, spread across the tattered curtain, casting a shadow.
She gazed curiously at Penny, observing this group of people walking behind the curtain.
After a while, she withdrew her gaze and sat back down on her yellowed mat, reaching for a hard, black, starch stick and biting into it with effort.
Penny’s eyes moved away from the little girl.
The majority on this floor, unlike the girl, lacked curiosity; their eyes were dull and vacant, barely noticing as Penny and the others passed by, as if seeing nothing at all.
“They…”
Penny spoke softly.
“I know what you want to ask,” said the young man at the front, slowly starting to speak.
He lit a cigarette, held it between his fingers, and continued talking as he walked,
“You’re wondering why they are here.
Every ‘sir’ or ‘miss’ from the city who cos here has the sa question.
But I didn’t expect you Wilderness Wanderers to be puzzled by it too.”
Then, without giving Penny a chance to respond, he went on, “So were born here, others ended up here because they couldn’t survive outside.
So owe debts to the conglorates, and their wages are deducted by these conglorates, making it impossible to live outside.
So were born without any property, land, or housing.
They own absolutely nothing.
They can’t even afford tuition for school and rely on part-ti jobs outside to sustain themselves, so as waitstaff, others doing simple manual labor for factories.
Of course, these jobs don’t pay much, not even enough to afford the cheapest rent.
They either roam the streets or spend a little money to stay here.
This floor has the cheapest rooms, with weekly rent ranging from 5 to 18 federal coins.
If you can pay more, Hope Building also has single rooms or apartnts with kitchens, but the highest rent won’t exceed 100 federal coins per week.
The cheapest housing in Dawn City is all here.”
Of course, you can’t have high expectations for the environnt.
Living here at least offers a place that shelters from the wind and rain and is under so managent.
It’s only better than sleeping on the streets.”
“Who manages this place?”
Penny asked, puzzled.
“Gangs, all sorts of big and small gangs.
Blonde Gang, Black Hair Gang, Bald Gang, Noodle Gang, you na it.
Each one is responsible for their own area.
They maintain the basic order here,”
The young man placed the cigarette in his mouth, “However, there are conflicts among the gangs here.
If you encounter them, keep your distance.”
As he said this, the young man looked back at the ‘room’ where the little girl who had just been watching them resided,
“That little girl, there was a gang shootout downstairs last ti, and her father was the one who didn’t escape.
He was hit by a stray bullet and died.
Their family of three originally lived in a single room downstairs.
After her father died, they had to move up here.
Her mother works several jobs every day, hoping to move back or even send her to school.”
He turned back and sighed, “There are many like her on this floor.
So have succeeded, moved to other floors, or even left Hope Building.
But the vast majority are stuck here forever.”
He lifted his head and suddenly realized the girl in front of him had disappeared.
…
The little girl struggled to chew on the pitch-black starch stick when she suddenly heard hasty footsteps.
A dark-skinned girl appeared in front of the crack, glanced at the little girl, and handed over a packaged loaf of bread.
The little girl blinked, clutched the starch stick tightly, and looked at her, puzzled and wary.
Penny observed the little girl’s expression, reached out to tear open the bread wrapping, tore off a small piece for herself to eat, then offered the bread again.
The little girl blinked again, rummaged next to the mattress for a mont, and found a silver glass bead.
She cleaned it with her clothes and presented it to Penny.
Penny looked at the glass bead and nodded slightly.
The little girl smiled, stuffed the glass bead into Penny’s hand, and quickly took the bread from Penny’s hand.
She carefully tore off a small piece of bread and put it in her mouth.
Then she looked at the bread in her hand, paused for a mont, carefully resealed the bread bag, and hid it under the mattress.
When she looked up again, the girl who had been standing by the crack was gone.
…
Penny rejoined the group.
The young man didn’t ask where she had been, but just continued leading them to the next elevator.
Penny’s bread was what He Ao had bought for them previously, and last night they had eaten a large portion of it.
The remaining bread was divided among everyone when they arrived, serving as breakfast and lunch; she had given her portion away.
The elevator still creaked and groaned as they ascended; finally, they reached the top floor.
The youth led them out of the elevator, and what they saw was a vast expanse of space.
A group of weak Wilderness Wanderers were sitting on the ground, while so slightly stronger young Wanderers were orderly distributing food.
Since Ronald’s father’s ti, Ronald’s camp had always placed a strong emphasis on discipline and order, qualities that had beco ingrained in the young people who had grown up in the camp.
This ant that their food distribution was also very orderly, with no scenes of scrambling or hoarding.
Of course, not every Wilderness Wanderer was suited to such order, but out of respect for He Ao, who had saved them, and for the loaded guns in the hands of those maintaining order, they showed no signs of non-cooperation.
“This area was previously the territory of a major gang in Hope Building, but Boss Viktor just cleared them out a couple of days ago, so the area was vacated,”
the youth said with a smile, glancing at the orderly Wilderness Wanderers, “Truth be told, you don’t really seem like Wilderness Wanderers to .”
Then, with a wave of his hand, he headed toward the elevator, “We’ll bring the food on ti for the next few days, hoping you’ll recover soon.”
Penny’s gaze once again swept over the surrounding Wilderness Wanderers, when suddenly a voice full of surprise ca from within the crowd, “Penny?
Linda?”
“Dak?”
Penny was startled.
Dak was the young man who had wielded a shovel in the factory, leading the Wilderness Wanderers to resist the foreman during a power outage; he approached Penny excitedly upon seeing her.
Dak and Penny were originally part of a hunter squad and were close; he had a liking for Penny’s older cousin, Linda.
The three of them reunited and chatted joyfully as they walked along.
Penny also shared the events on the wilderness with Dak and Linda.
When they heard that He Ao had slain the Bitter Monkey, brought its corpse back to the makeshift camp, and extracted the Bitter Monkey’s heart, both were incredibly excited.
Toward the end of the discussion, seeing the dense crowd of Wanderers, Penny softly asked, “Has the Leader said how he’s going to arrange things for everyone?”
“No,” Dak shook his head, “he just said to settle here for now.”
“We could return to the wilderness,” Penny said softly, looking at the throng, “with so many of us, maybe we could rebuild an even more glorious camp.”
On hearing this, Dak fell silent.
After a long while, Dak, gazing at the Wanderers in the square, slowly said, “Actually, nobody really wants to go back to the wilderness.”
He had spent ti in the factory and knew the mindset of the people there.
“Why?”
Linda beside them asked softly.
“Because there are no exotic beasts here.”
Penny answered for Dak, looking at him, “But the city doesn’t welco us.”
Dak lowered his head, sinking into silence again.
Apart from Penny, all the Wilderness Wanderers here had long since had their visas expire; once caught, they would be expelled from the city.
To live in the city, they had to evade the Federal Bureau of Investigation, avoid Dawn City police, and neither gangs nor thugs would be friendly to them; unable to find formal work, they could only try to get jobs that didn’t require social security numbers.
Dak had already asked people from the Money Rat Gang if there was such work.
There was, but it was low-paid; the money earned could only allow them to live within Hope Building.
They could only live in the city like rats.
Or, perhaps one day, they would again be snatched away by a factory like Kyle Manufacturing Company, to be used as disposable labor.
But even so, they did not want to return to the wilderness, to that place where dawn and death were equally uncertain to co first.
Even a camp as forrly prosperous as Ronald’s could be destroyed in a single exotic beast attack.
In the wilderness, each assault on a camp or family took many lives; countless individuals beca als for the beasts, or flesh and blood for nesting their offspring.
In the city, they could survive.
Even if they lived humbly and fearfully like rats, their lifespans diminishing.
All three fell silent at the sa ti.
The quiet clouds of shadow enveloped the sky.
—
By the ti He Ao arrived at Hope Building, it was near evening.
The sky was enveloped in dark clouds as if nightfall had co; He Ao passed by each of the Wilderness Wanderers until he saw a lonely figure in a corner.
Penny stood alone in front of a huge floor-to-ceiling window, under the black clouds and the pitch-black sky, staring out at the city filled with dazzling lights.
She stood there quietly.
She didn’t even notice her arm had been cut by a sharp piece of scrap tal, as the lightly glowing, faint green blood spilled from the long wound.
She seed to hear footsteps behind her and turned around.
Looking at He Ao in confusion.
He Ao stood beside her, joining her in watching the city under the dark clouds.
“Leader,”
Penny started softly, a tear sliding down her cheek, “Why do we have to either face the dangers of the wilderness or live humbly and fearfully in the city?”
She looked up at He Ao,
“Did we do sothing wrong?
Just because we were born on the wilderness, do we have to bear this fate?”
She gazed at He Ao, tears pouring down like a fountain, her body seemingly drained of strength as she staggered backward and fell to the ground, “Is our very existence a mistake?”
He Ao crouched down, gently embraced her, and patted her back.
Penny resembled a younger Ronald.
Looking into the void, as if addressing the girl and himself, He Ao said,
“The mistake is not ours.”
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