The layout of Nanqing was similar to the majority of large shelters. There was a core area, a commercial area, and a ‘mercenary street’ that developed around the mercenary regiment and gradually formed an industrial chain.
The core area belongs to the inner city, inhabited mostly by top-level, big forces chiefs and their relatives. Ordinary people can’t set up industries in the core area. They either live in the commercial area or in the mercenary street.
However, large shelters such as those in Nanqing have areas that are often overlooked but were equally large in size.
The slum area.
The official name was the relief area.
The slum area occupies about one-fifth of the shelter, but it was home to more than 80% of the survivors.
There were almost no gaps, there was no sunshine, the roads were as cramped as the rooms, and the unpleasant smell permeated in the air. Sometimes you can see a few people in ragged clothes lying in the corners, and from time to time, there are reports of people hanging themselves. Or the death news of people jumping off the building.
This was the slum area.
An area that the hunters rarely mention and were more reluctant to enter.
The Intelligence Department has a stronghold in the slums.
Lan Qingya changed into rough and shabby clothes and put on makeup, followed Uncle Hai into the slum area, and came to a stronghold in a shabby building. What she saw on the way made her frown.
Hai Honghui smiled, “Compared to two months ago when I first came here, the situation you see now has improved a lot. Tree Shade sold our food to Nanqing shelter these days so the survivors in the slum area could eat slightly more. Of course, they can barely survive on relief food. Even if they work, Nanqing’s treatment was far below our shelter.”
Lan Qingya shook her head and sighed, “I know, it’s just…”
As an intelligence officer, she was able to restrain her sympathy, only to become more determined to take the survivors of Nanqing away.
……
Under the operation of intelligence officers, the secret news had reached the ears of some survivors in the slum area.
Tang Wenliang walked out of the labor market. His eyes lifeless, his feet weak, staggering by instinct toward the housing he was assigned to.
Just like the walking dead.
District B, building 13, 5th floor, room 517.
It was a small room of less than thirty square meters, piled up with more than twenty survivors living in it.
Tang Wenliang could not remember how long it had been since he had eaten enough.
Initially, when the walls of the Nanqing Shelter were under construction, he was able to grab a job of moving bricks and sandbags from the labor market. At that time, the wages, combined with the relief food received, could barely fill his stomach.
Now, however…
Nanqing’s walls have been completed, and the construction work of the shelter has also become very scarce. When he went to the labor market that opened very early in the morning, fewer and fewer jobs were available.
For almost a month, he was unable to grab a job. He did not have enough to eat at all and got up extremely early every day in order to squat in the labor market, plus climbing up and down to get to the fifth floor many times, Tang Wenliang’s body was getting weaker and weaker. And there were fewer and fewer jobs in the labor market that he could meet the requirements.
The survivors in the same room were all advising him not to waste his energy.
Most of the poor people, muddled through their days, only come downstairs at the first hour of the day, and stand in a long line to receive relief food, and mechanically walk back to their rooms, leaning against the wall…
Every day repeats the same life.
However, Tang Wenliang was not willing to do that.
Once, he was also a well-fed person. He could have saved two or three pounds of food hidden in his pocket.
But now…
Tang Wenliang’s eyes lost his trace of clarity. He felt his body empty, his power almost slipped away, he gradually fell into despair.
Perhaps they were right. There was no hope in the first place.
He looked up and counted the building numbers, looking for the one he lived in. Suddenly out of the corner of his eye, he found a small advertisement was posted on the telephone pole next to him.
It’s a new one.
Tang Wenliang remembered clearly that when he came out in the morning, the putrid-smelling telephone pole had no ads on it. His memory was good. There was no advertisement in the slum area.
With the little strength he had, Tang Wenliang dragged his heavy body to the pole and looked at the advertisement.
It was a job advertisement.
The strange thing was that there was nothing about the job on it, only a mention that survivors who participated in the recruitment, whether they were selected or not, would receive one pound of grain.
“It’s quite formal.”
He didn’t believe it, but the piercing font of one pound of grain was imprinted in his mind and lingered. He laughed at himself.
‘Tang Wenliang, oh Tang Wenliang. How have you not yet recognized the reality? There can be no money falling from the sky, and even if there is, it won’t be in the slums.’
He wanted to take a step forward, but it was very heavy.
Two voices in his head, angel and devil, kept hitting him.
“Fake, it’s all fake!”
“But it’s one pound of grain.”
“Even the job content is not written, they must be joking! They didn’t reveal anything so it must be fake!”
“One pound of grain.”
“I heard that there are cannibals in the slums, luring survivors to their doors, this must be a trap laid by those cannibal guys…”
“One pound of grain.”
……
Just like in the movies, two voices buzzed and exploded in his head.
After a while. Tang Wenliang sighed, his pale face finally revealed a ruthless color, “Fuck it all! Either eat a full meal, or being sent to the hell’s gate and become human food, I’m in!”
Staring at the small ads for a few moments, he took off his hobbling steps and walked towards the address above.
At the back.
Some ragged survivors, wondering at Tang Wenliang’s actions, walked to the pole and looked back and forth for a few minutes but still couldn’t see the difference in the pole.
They could only mutter a “psycho” and leave with a shake of the head.
……
The address was right in the middle of the slum area.
The distance was not far, only a few hundred meters, but Tang Wenliang had walked for nearly twenty minutes.
Standing in front of a narrow alley that only allows two people to pass through side by side, he hesitated for a moment and then ripped off his stride and walked in.
The alleyway seems to be extremely long and extremely long. Tang Wenliang walked for several minutes but did not reach the end.
There are towering buildings on both sides, without a few rays of sunlight coming through, looking dim and deep without streetlights.
Like an intimidating beast.
Tang Wenliang nearly lost consciousness. But there seems to be a voice in his head; there was a will that was still driving the body instinctively forward, towards the end of the unseen.
……
The roof of the towering building.
Hai Honghui was a little surprised, “So basically only talented people came here? That little advertisement doesn’t seem to have anything special, right?”
Lan Qingya smiled at the words, “We are hunters, and we are awakened with strong spiritual power so we can easily see that small advertisement. But the survivors here are just ordinary people who can pass the first screening. Coming here means that their natural spiritual power and runes perception are no longer weak.”
