The slums were packed with people, and anyone who could move, who could move at all, crowded around a small table at the entrance of the supermarket, waiting to be interviewed and apply for jobs to build the staff dormitories for which the foundation had just been laid.

After Caoer registered a person's name, she looked up and said to him, "Go to the back. You have no experience so you can only start by moving materials. You can adjust your salary after you change your position. Now it's 1,000 yuan a month, with two meals a day, but no accommodation."

The successful applicant thanked him repeatedly, his face flushed: "Thank you, thank you, I will ..."

Cao'er had already shouted to the people behind him, "Next."

The person behind immediately pushed away the one who had already responded and squeezed in front of Cao'er.

Cao'er looked him up and down, shook his head and said, "You can't do it, next one."

"Why can't I?!" The person who was rejected was unwilling to leave. He held the table with one hand, and couldn't help coughing while questioning. He was obviously questioning, but the expression on his face looked like he was about to cry.

Cao'er felt soft-hearted for a moment, but then she immediately said with a straight face, "Don't bother others. You are too weak to do physical work."

After saying that, Cao'er winked at Zhou Wen who was standing next to him. Zhou Wen understood and pulled the man away from the team with one hand and took him to the other side.

They provide jobs to give these people who can't earn much potatoes in the slums a chance to survive.

If people with poor health were allowed to come here, it would accelerate their death. Moreover, Cao'er knew clearly that once they began to pity the weak and help unconditionally, their own situation would also get worse.

Even if Zhao Qing doesn't care, other forces in the base will not agree.

If a fight breaks out now, the only ones who will get hurt are these lower-class people who have no ability to protect themselves.

Those who were chosen were overjoyed, while those who were not chosen could only leave in despair. Cao'er felt bad seeing this, but she could only stop herself from watching.

"You will start working tomorrow." Cao'er registered another name. "If you are caught cheating, you will not be paid for that month, and you will not be given another chance in the future. Do you understand?"

The man kept nodding: "I know, I know!"

The physical fitness of those who were selected was already very poor, and those who were not selected were even worse. Almost all of those who were not selected were to the point where they would fall down if the wind blew. Not to mention doing heavy work, even walking a few more steps would seem to be fatal to them.

After a busy morning, less than a hundred people registered.

Cao'er had to go back to the supermarket to eat lunch so that people outside wouldn't see her.

"It shouldn't take too many people." Zhou Wen was holding a bowl of rice and eating while saying, "Thirty people are enough for one dormitory."

Cao'er also ate rice, but the taste was different from Zhou Wen's. Recently, the two of them had been running outside every day, and they had both become darker. If it weren't for their Asian features and figures, they wouldn't look out of place in Africa. After taking a sip of water, Cao'er said, "This is the kindness of the immortal."

"If the salary is set low, we can hire more people." Cao'er sighed, "Because the salary is low, we only provide them with two meals."

"If the salary is maintained at 3,000, Zhao Qing will definitely have something to say."

Zhou Wen looked outside the glass door. There were still so many people sitting in the open space under the scorching sun. Many of them didn't have lunch to eat. Those who had lunch looked much better physically than those who didn't. Zhou Wen sighed, "Isn't it that the good get better and the bad get worse?"

The weak have no chance of turning things around.

Cao'er put down the bowl in her hand. She knew that Zhou Wen was being stubborn, so she said sternly, "Brother Zhou, you can't think like that. The immortals want to save those who can be saved, just like us."

How many people suffered in the Daliang Dynasty at that time?

But they were the only ones who were saved; many more died on the way to escape.

Cao'er said, "Even if we register them all, how many of them will survive?"

Zhou Wen sighed. He didn't say anything else. Instead, he ate all the food in the bowl without enjoying it.

People who have suffered never waste food.

After dinner, the few of them did not rest but continued to go out to register.

No matter how healthy the people in the slums are, they all want to hold their heads high and their chests out during interviews, and some even end up with pigeon chests, which is heartbreaking to watch.

Ye Zhou was watching from a distance. He did not go over. Since he had decided to leave this matter to Cao'er, he would trust the other party.

Although among all people, he was the only one who was most suitable for this job. After all, he was the one who made the decisions and gave the orders in all the planes he had experienced before. His initial softness and sensibility had been replaced by an almost cruel rationality.

He realized long ago that he was not God and could not save everyone.

You must learn to make choices.

"Are you hot?" Ye Zhou took out a bottle of Huoxiang Zhengqi Liquid from his bag and handed it to the boy standing next to him, "Take a drink."

The boy took it and poured it directly into his mouth without asking any questions, and then his facial features were squeezed together.

"It's not very tasty, but it's useful." Ye Zhou took the bottle back with a smile.

Ye Zhou: "Starting tomorrow, I will make herbal tea for them in the morning and afternoon, and I won't work during the hottest two hours at noon."

The boy said in a low voice: "They will all thank you."

Ye Zhou smiled. He didn't care much whether others thanked him or not.

"I just do what I want to do." Ye Zhou held the boy's hand and walked back. "When you grow up, you will know that not everyone and everything will develop the way you want. Just care about your current feelings."

"Just do what you have done. Don't worry about whether you get what you want or not." Ye Zhou, "Just don't regret it now."

The boy nodded thoughtfully.

Ye Zhou led the boy through the crowd. Zhao Lei's men were selling mineral water on the street.

He estimated that he had sold a lot to the leaders of different forces, but the subordinates of those forces could not get any, so they could only buy them with their own money, and each person had a limited quantity. Zhao Lei's reputation suddenly grew, and his status also rose.

Ye Zhou looked at the tall building. Everything was going according to Zhao Qing's idea.

He wanted Zhao Lei to die, but he was unwilling to do it himself, so he gave Zhao Lei whatever he wanted.

Ye Zhou lowered his head and glanced at Zou Ming who was looking ahead.

He remembered Zou Ming said that in the end Zou Ming would be the ruler of this base.

What was this base like during Zou Ming’s rule?

Are people at the bottom still being exploited?

Do the various forces still exist?

But he couldn't get an answer now, and could only get the answer from Zou Ming after leaving this plane.

"People who are close to you can move into the dormitory later." Ye Zhou thought about it and treated the boy as an adult. He said to him seriously, "I won't stay here forever. After I leave, the dormitory and the supermarket branch will be handed over to you. You need your own people to be able to protect yourself."

The boy was startled. He stopped and held Ye Zhou's hand, which was trembling slightly. After several seconds, he asked with trembling lips: "Can you walk?"

Ye Zhou: "Yes, I won't stay in one place for long."

Although I don’t know why Zou Ming said they never contacted each other again since he left the branch.

But Ye Zhou will still give what should be given.

As for whether the branch was damaged or some accident happened, that was not something he could control.

After this period of time, the boy is almost out of the ranks of illiterate people. He now knows and can write more than 800 words. According to the standards of Ye Zhou's plane, as long as one can recognize and write 1,500 to 2,000 words, he is no longer illiterate.

And in addition to being able to read, the boy can now do simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

In this dimension where the illiteracy rate is ridiculously high and everyone has graduated from prenatal education, boys can already be considered top students.

Every three days, the boy would go out. Ye Zhou thought he was going to visit his friends in the slums.

Ye Zhou also knew that the boy would save the water and food, but Ye Zhou did not ask, nor did he stop him, because he was worried that the boy would starve, so he just silently provided the boy with more.

But this was also within Ye Zhou's expectations. After all, in his opinion, Zou Ming was a gentle person, but he just didn't have the opportunity to be gentle before.

He also didn't think the boy was just trying to gain favor by borrowing flowers from others. After all, it would be Zou Ming who would have to pay for it in the future.

When Zou Ming first came to his side, he asked Zou Ming to do almost everything. The salary was low, and Zou Ming even had to work part-time as his coach.

"You still have to come back before eight o'clock tonight." Ye Zhou took the boy to rest at home until ten o'clock in the morning.

The boy had already prepared his own small backpack, and every time Ye Zhou saw him like this he thought he was so cute.

The boy nodded and turned to look at Ye Zhou: "I will."

Ye Zhou waved at him: "Go ahead."

The door opened and closed, and the boy went out. Ye Zhou lay on the sofa watching TV. Because he only considered the children, he downloaded cartoons. Ye Zhou was not picky and watched while eating ice cream.

Sarah walked out of the room and sat next to Ye Zhou.

Noticing that Ye Zhou didn't pay much attention to her, Sarah couldn't help but said, "You're with him every day!"

Ye Zhou could hear Sarah's dissatisfaction, so he could only sit up and coax her: "Aren't we together every day? We live together and can see each other anytime."

Sarah was even more dissatisfied: "That's different!"

She danced with joy and said, "I didn't cling to you like this when we were over there before!"

She was independent then!

Sarah despised Zou Ming: "He was so hateful when he was a kid!"

Ye Zhou: “…”

He had no idea what to say. After all, if Zou Ming was miserable, Sarah was even more miserable in the past.

Sarah said angrily, "You are biased, biased!"

Ye Zhou knew he was in the wrong, so he could only coax her more seriously: "Look, I can take you away, but I can't take him away. He is still too young, not yet an adult, and has no guardian. If I leave, he will be left alone."

Sarah didn't listen at all. She turned her head away, her voice still crying: "You are biased!"

After saying that, he stood up, ran towards the room with his two short legs, closed the door, and burst into tears.

Ye Zhou was confused.

He also didn't know why Sarah exploded at this time.

What's more, he doesn't think he is biased.

Is he partial?

But no matter whether he was biased or not, I had something to do this morning, so I could only go and coax the child.

·

The man staggered back to his "home". As soon as he arrived, he couldn't wait to tell the people waiting for him in his "home": "I was chosen!"

He lived in a shed made of rags. Although it was a shed made of rags, not much rags were used, but mostly dry grass and branches. Fortunately, it didn't rain here, otherwise such a shed would not be able to withstand a heavier rain.

Because there are so many hay piles, it can provide shade.

The person lying in the shed was also happy, and he forced a smile despite the pain: "Good, good, very good."

The man went into the shed and carefully dug out a box of instant rice from the ground. After taking out the rice and the seasoning packet, he tore a small hole in the water bag, then dragged the man's head with one arm and slowly fed the water into his mouth.

The little bit that is left is what the man belongs to.

"They've got food!" the man whispered. "They said they'll definitely have water."

"I just don't know if there's any room for us in the dormitory."

The man didn't hold out much hope: "I don't think so, but I'll take this opportunity to save a little more money. Now the tin house can be bought with money. It costs five thousand!"

Man: “It’s too expensive.”

But when he said this, there was still a smile on his face.

In the past, the tin house only needed one bottle of water, but they had no way of saving up that bottle of water.

The amount of water I earn every day is not enough for me to drink, and I can’t save it at all. But although it is expensive now, at least I can see hope.

The man added: "I heard from them that maybe I can buy my own tin buckets and build my own house in the future."

Nowadays, tin houses are built by cutting tin barrels, flattening them with hammers, and then using them to build houses.

The old man lying in the man's arms coughed lightly, smiled and nodded, saying: "It would be nice to have a house."

With a house, they have a home. With a home, they can live a good life no matter how bad the days are, and they will have a goal to go towards.

The people in the slums went to bed early, which was rare, so as to prepare to report to the construction site before dawn.

Those who didn’t get the job still have to find ways to make money at night.

Even those who came to the slums for fun found that today was much quieter than usual.

The tall man kicked open the door of a tin house, and the woman inside immediately climbed out of the bed. Her panic lasted only two seconds, and then she walked over with a smile on her face.

"Why didn't you open the door?" the man asked in a questioning tone, frowning at the woman.

The woman quickly took the man's arm and said carefully, "I'm not feeling well. I want to take a day off."

The man had a relatively good temper and did not get angry about it, but he did not let the woman go either.

When everything was over, the man took out a piece of bread from the cloth bag he brought with him, threw it to the woman and said, "Be careful these few days, Zhao Lei is probably coming."

The woman was startled. She quickly concealed her expression, hugged the man's waist, and rested her head on his back: "He hasn't been here for a long time."

The man sneered: "He was busy before and didn't have time to come over. Now that everything is done, of course he wants to come over for fun."

"Anyway, be careful."

The man put on his pants and left the tin house. Only the woman returned to the bed and lay down. She bit her nails, which were so short that they almost sank into her flesh. After hesitating for a long time, she put on her clothes and left the house with a hunched back.

Why did her previous man tell her this news?

Zhao Lei killed this man's girlfriend.

His girlfriend no longer lived in the slums at that time and followed him to the inner city. The two young people probably thought that better days were coming and that even if they didn't have children, they would be able to have a small family in the future.

But Zhao Lei fell in love with his girlfriend.

There is no need to think about what happened afterwards. After his girlfriend got into trouble, the man looked no different from Zhao Lei's other men. He often came to the slums and always went out with Zhao Lei to rob supplies.

He no longer mentioned the past, as if his girlfriend had never appeared.

The woman thought he was cruel, but she couldn't say he was cowardly. Anyone who survived here would die if he wasn't a coward.

After walking a short distance, the woman knocked on the door of a tin house and called out softly, "It's me."

The door opened quickly, opening a crack, and the woman squeezed in through the crack.

As soon as the door was closed, the woman said, "Zhao Lei will probably come over in the next two days."

"Really?" The owner of the house was a little surprised after hearing the news. "Please sit down first. I'll go call someone over."

The slums have their own information network, especially among women. Any woman living in a tin house will be quickly pulled in even if she is not in this information network at the beginning. They huddle together for warmth, and even if they are weak, they want to protect themselves as much as possible.

Soon, all the women at the center of this network arrived.

"Don't tell anyone. After tonight, forget about this." The last woman who came in warned everyone, "No matter what happens from now on, you have to pretend you don't know. Do you hear me?"

The women nodded.

But someone still asked quietly: "Is someone going to deal with Zhao Lei?"

"Can you handle it?"

"Zhao Lei always brings a lot of people with him every time he comes, and he also carries a gun with him."

"What if it doesn't work? Will he be angry with us?"

"Who will he go to?"

The women looked at each other, their eyes widened in fear. They tightly grasped the hands of those around them in fear: "Zhao Lei will kill her."

Even though they don't know who this "she" is, precisely because they don't know, it could be anyone present.

"This matter has nothing to do with us." The woman scolded sternly, "Leave this room and forget about it! If you reveal it, you will not end up well."

The women tried to calm down.

After an unknown amount of time, someone asked the question that everyone wanted to know: "Will Zhao Lei...really die?"

Everyone looked at her.

The woman shrank her neck, but said firmly: "If he dies, we will be much safer."

"No one will give us justice. If he dies, he dies. As long as he doesn't die, one of us will die every time he comes."

No one answered.

The women didn't talk for long and they left the tin house quickly. Unlike the men, even if they had found a job, passed the interview and were able to work on the construction site, at night, if someone kicked open their door, they still had to pretend to be nice.

They had no place to hide, they didn't want to be beaten, and they couldn't die, so they could only swallow their blood and tears and face the enemy with smiles on their faces.

After everyone left, the woman quietly walked to the entrance of the supermarket.

She hesitated again and again, and finally mustered up the courage to go in.

This was a secret between her and the boy. The boy also repeatedly told her not to let people in the supermarket know about it, otherwise she would never be able to live in the staff dormitory in her life.

The woman saw the supermarket employees packing up their things, and after going over the nonsense in her mind, she pushed open the door and walked in.

Cao Er raised her head when she heard the noise. She put down the rag in her hand and walked towards the woman: "We are about to close. If you really need it urgently, take it back first and come back to pay tomorrow morning."

After all, he was a temporary worker in the supermarket, so Cao'er was not worried that the other party would default on his payment.

The woman quickly waved her hands and said, "No, no, I'm not here to buy anything."

"I have something to tell the kid."

The boy had no name. His mother died before she had the chance to give him a name. No one gave him a name, and he himself didn't choose one either. So those who knew him called him the same way they called other children, just "little bastard."

Cao'er didn't take it seriously: "You tell me, I'll go back and tell him."

The woman quickly told the lie she had prepared long ago: "He asked me to help find his mother's belongings before, but he said he wouldn't give them to me unless he saw them. Can you ask him to come find me tomorrow?"

"Okay." Cao'er didn't doubt him. "I'll go back and tell him. You go and have some rest."

The woman looked at Cao'er's expression and turned and left after making sure that Cao'er had no suspicion.

Cao'er picked up the rag again and cleaned up the counter while saying to Zhou Wen, "Actually, Brother Zou is a very good person. He got out of the quagmire by himself and still cares about his old friends and people who helped him."

Zhou Wen thought of Zou Ming, who was a devil during training, and shuddered. Then he whispered, "He was more popular when he was a kid."

Zou Ming calls him uncle whenever he sees him now!

It’s nothing like before, when I almost hung myself up and beat myself during training.

After cleaning up the supermarket and closing the door, Cao'er went back to their residence with Zhou Wen and the others.

She went to the bathroom to take a shower and changed into her pajamas before gently knocking on the boy's door.

The boy had fallen asleep a long time ago. Cao'er thought that if he fell asleep, she would get up tomorrow morning and talk to him.

But less than ten seconds after she knocked, the door was opened.

She didn't hear any footsteps.

"You scared me." Cao'er was startled by the suddenly opened door and looked down at the boy hiding in the darkness.

At a certain moment, her hair stood on end and she felt like she had discovered some secret.

But soon, the boy's voice brought her back to reality: "What's wrong?"

Cao Er patted her chest and said gently, "He Yu asked me to tell you that she has found your mother's relics, but the person who holds the relics will not give them to you until she sees you. You should go find her tomorrow."

The boy nodded: "Got it."

Cao'er: "Go to bed early. I'm going to rest too. Do you want me to accompany you tomorrow? You might be in danger if you go alone."

"No," the boy replied quickly, "this is my own business."

Cao'er felt a little sad. She wanted to do something for Brother Zou. After all, Brother Zou had helped her so much. She thought she could take this opportunity to repay him, but the boy didn't give her a chance at all.

Alas, it seems I’ll have to wait until later.

After closing the door, the boy couldn't sleep.

He sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at his hands.

His fingers were thin, his palms were not broad enough, and he was still weak.

But this couldn't stop him from doing what he had already decided.

He wanted Zhao Lei to die at the hands of these people.