The two then got into the car and sped away. Shang Ji was left standing there for a long time, gazing at the intersection where the car had long since disappeared.
After a long while, he carefully folded the paper, put it in his shirt pocket, and left with great care and joy.
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In fact, even the most prosperous cities have dilapidated corners.
In the suburbs outside the 18th ring road of Kyoto, there is a famous shantytown. There is a house there for 300 yuan a month, with only four walls and a straw mat inside.
The ground was littered with trash, plastic bags, and dog poop; you could easily step in it if you weren't careful.
Jiang Cheng and his group arrived at the entrance of a dilapidated alley where most of the plaster on the walls had peeled off. They got out of the car and found that the cement ground was full of potholes, with some places even exposing the soil.
Weeds stubbornly grew out of it, thriving vigorously.
Liu Kang stared in shock at the world that looked just like it had thirty years ago. Economic development seemed to have stagnated in this area. He saw very few pedestrians along the way from the car. If it weren't for the thin, bony old woman sitting by the alley, he would have suspected that this was an abandoned, no-man's-land.
Jiang Cheng said he would treat him to dinner, but he ended up in this shabby place.
"Let's go." He said to Liu Kang, who looked puzzled, and took the lead in walking inside. There were only a few houses in the alley, and the two of them went into the most dilapidated one.
In this impoverished place where even the door is only half intact, stray dogs can freely sneak into and out of this house.
Jiang Cheng pushed open the useless door and stepped inside. "Grandpa, we're here to eat."
"Okay, it'll be ready in a minute."
An old man emerged from the kitchen, his wrinkles deep enough to trap mosquitoes. His skin was a dark bronze color, the kind of person who truly toiled in the fields from dawn till dusk. He wore a faded denim jacket, the kind women wear, with riding breeches that exposed half of his calves, and sandals on his feet, his big toes covered in grime.
But his aged hands were washed clean, and he was chopping up the bright green cabbage and putting it into the iron pot.
The courtyard was overgrown with weeds and was not as clean as the cement ground in the alley. There was junk everywhere, and even the bicycle wheels were bent.
On the stone platform by the small door, there was a black garbage bag containing something unknown. It had accumulated some water from the rain a few days ago, and it was dripping out, emitting a fishy stench.
Liu Kang couldn't help but feel a wave of disgust, and frowned.
In a corner of the courtyard, there was a pile of rusty sheet metal.
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