The construction site was bustling with activity. People from the slums unloaded materials from the trucks and transported them to the construction site. Although they were numerous, their strength was limited. The sand here could not be moved with a wheelbarrow. Ye Zhou did not buy a tower crane, so all construction materials had to be transported by manpower.
Although there was no sun at night, Ye Zhou was worried that it would be too dangerous at night. After all, even with a lamp, it would be impossible to illuminate every corner.
Moreover, after dark, some upper-class people come to the slums to have fun. If a conflict arises, it will be troublesome. Ye Zhou is fine, but these people in the slums will definitely not end up well.
In this case, Ye Zhou stipulated that work should be done during the day.
He also set up some tents next to the construction site, and homeless workers could rest in the tents after submitting their applications.
The tent has no electricity, but it can keep out the sand.
It is not a good thing to have wind at night. The wind here is not cool, and it will bring up yellow sand. If there is no shelter, sand will not only get into your body, but also into your nose and ears.
So even if it is windy at night, no one will sleep on the streets just to enjoy the wind.
Those who sleep on the streets are homeless and cannot find a place to stay.
"Stop!" Wu Yan was holding a loudspeaker. In order to avoid getting sunburned, he had to apply a thick layer of sunscreen on himself. His clothes were soaked with sweat, and his loose sports short-sleeved shirt was now sticking to his body, making him look a little funny.
But no one cared about his image, and the workers immediately stopped what they were doing after hearing Wu Yan's voice.
After staying in the slums for a long time, I didn’t learn anything else, but I learned to be “obedient”.
"Come and have some herbal tea." Wu Yan said, "After drinking, take a rest for half an hour!"
Wu Yan put down the loudspeaker and kept pulling at his collar. Before, he had been tanned just by occasionally leaving the supermarket. Now he stayed outdoors for almost ten hours a day. Not to mention getting tanned, he was almost melted by the sun.
The workers immediately flocked to Wuyan. What they looked forward to most every day was not eating, but drinking herbal tea.
Herbal tea not only quenches thirst, but also has a sweet taste amidst the bitterness. After drinking it, the sweet taste will make you feel refreshed.
Being able to drink herbal tea twice a day is a treatment that even a thug under Zhao Qing could not get, it can be said to be a luxury.
The cup is an enamel cup and will not break even if it falls on a hard object. This is considered a welfare for the workers and is given for free, but will not be replaced if lost.
If they unfortunately lose it, they have to bring their own cup or borrow one from someone else.
Sun Shi was standing in the middle of the line. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, but he didn't feel tired. Instead, he kept standing on tiptoe to look forward. With every step forward, his eyes brightened.
"Have you applied for a tent?" The person standing behind Sun Shi poked Sun Shi on the back.
Sun Shi turned his head and smiled, revealing two rows of white teeth. It wasn't that his teeth were really white, but his skin was too dark. "I have applied. I have family members, so I should be at the front of the line."
The person behind him said enviously, "I'm the only one here, and I'm probably going to be the last one in line, so I probably won't get any."
Sun Shi could only suppress his joy and pretended to comfort him, "Maybe there will be another chance in the future."
But the man was not too sad. As he moved forward, he said, "I heard that herbal tea is made from medicinal herbs and sugar is added."
At first, people actually didn’t really accept the taste of herbal tea, but because it was just water, they were reluctant to waste it and had to drink it no matter how unpalatable it was.
After drinking it a few times, something strange happened. People who originally thought it tasted bad quickly became addicted to the taste. They had no way to cool down, so although it was a warm herbal tea, after drinking it they felt refreshed all over.
Sun Shi quickly got a cup of herbal tea. Since he could rest for half an hour, he was not in a hurry to drink it. Instead, he took the herbal tea and walked to the shade.
In addition to the tents, there was also a sunshade next to the construction site. When he went over, the area under the sunshade was already crowded with people. Sun Shi could only squeeze left and right to force himself a seat.
Although it was hot sitting among the crowd, it was better than being exposed to the sun directly. Sun Shi held the enamel cup and took a big sip of herbal tea with a look of enjoyment.
The people around him were the same as him. Only after they finished their herbal tea did the workers start chatting.
Half an hour was not enough time for them to get some sleep, but just chatting with each other was also enough to relax them.
"I heard there will be meat for lunch today." Sun Shi heard someone swallowing behind him.
Sun Shi turned around in surprise: "Really?"
Sitting behind him was a teenage boy who was obviously still in the growth stage, with a slightly childish face.
"They said someone in the kitchen said so." The boy swallowed again.
They have been eating vegetarian food all year round and are in poor health. In the past few days, they have been eating thick porridge with vegetables, salty taste, and some other flavors in it.
But these porridges are also good things for them, because the rice is good, so there is rice oil on the surface of the cooked porridge.
The oil was too attractive to them, not to mention that there was no limit on the porridge on the construction site, so they could eat as much as they could as long as they could eat it.
The workers didn't think about anything while they were eating, and only felt ashamed after they had finished eating - they ate too much and were afraid that they would bankrupt the supermarket. But even if they were determined to eat less the next day, this determination would be quickly shattered when it was time to eat.
Sun Shi also swallowed his saliva: "I wonder if there is any fat..."
They can't even afford vegetable oil and are extremely obsessed with oil. No one likes lean meat because it's cooked without oil and even with salt, it just tastes like salty tree bark.
"Of course there is!" the workers said in unison, "They said they cooked it this morning and kept it on low heat, for fear that it would go bad if the fire went out."
"I heard from them that it was all covered with grease."
"Why did I hear it was bone soup? There's not much meat, but it has oil."
Before they finished chatting, they heard Wu Yan shout again: "Half an hour is up, time to work!"
The workers immediately got up and continued to work with great energy.
No one wants to lose this job, so they have to fight hard even if it's just for the sake of herbal tea.
When it was time for lunch, Sun Shi took his enamel cup to get his meal. The enamel cup was so big that it could be used as a bowl.
"It's risotto!" someone in the front exclaimed, "It has vegetables! It has meat! And it has soup!"
Sun Shi wished he could push away all the people in front of him.
They soon smelled the aroma, a mixture of meat and rice, and their stomachs, which were not very hungry to begin to growl.
The people at the back were eager to squeeze forward, while the people at the front complained: "Why are you squeezing?"
"Stop squeezing! My internal organs are going to be squeezed out!"
"It's pork! The soup is made from pork bones! Potatoes? No potatoes, there are sweet potatoes and rice."
The people at the back went crazy after hearing this and pushed even more crazily. It was only until Wu Yan came over and yelled at them that they lined up again obediently.
Wu Yan was so busy that he had no time to rest. He could only take a break after lunch time when the workers went to rest.
Cao'er and Zhou Wen were not much better than him, and the three of them immediately went back to the supermarket to enjoy the air conditioning.
"This place is simply not a place for human beings to live." Cao'er used a fan to fan herself while using the air conditioner.
Wu Yan originally wanted to change his clothes, but after thinking it over, he decided not to do so as he would definitely get his clothes wet again in the afternoon anyway.
"This is more uncomfortable than when we were fleeing from famine." Zhou Wen unzipped his collar and said helplessly.
Cao'er went to get three ice creams, handed one to Zhou Wen and Wu Yan respectively, then she opened the package and started eating.
After resting for more than ten minutes, the three of them finally stopped sweating.
"It seems like there are no four seasons here." Cao'er sat on the floor and didn't want to sit on the sofa. She was dirty and would have to clean up after sitting on the sofa. "I heard them say they have never seen spring, autumn or winter, let alone snow, they have hardly seen rain."
Wu Yan was not satisfied with the ice cream, so he went to get some ice water, gulped down a bottle and asked, "Where do they get their water?"
Cao'er: "It's groundwater. If it doesn't rain here, there will always be somewhere else for it to fall."
"By the way, didn't He Yu come this morning?" Zhou Wen asked.
Cao'er nodded: "I guess there's something wrong. She asked me to tell Zou a message before. Zou has been going to see her every morning these days."
Zhou Wen: "It always makes me feel weird that you still call me Brother Zou. He is too young!"
Cao Er waved her hands: "I'm used to calling you that. Now I don't know what to call you. Don't let it slip. Brother Zou doesn't have a name yet. The immortal said we should find a suitable time."
Cao'er looked out the glass door.
The workers who had accommodation returned there, while those who didn't still gathered under the awning and lay in a crooked position.
This is where Zou Ming survived and grew up.
The boy turned his head.
The woman standing next to the boy looked in the direction the boy turned his head alertly. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found nothing unusual and asked carefully: "What's wrong? Is there something wrong?"
The boy looked at the woman. He didn't recognize her, but that didn't stop them from standing together.
"It's okay." The boy said, "It's probably an illusion."
The woman was still a little worried, and only after confirming again and again did she take the boy into her tin house.
The woman was very beautiful - at least more beautiful than most people here. She did not look like a skeleton, so her skin was relatively tight. She had freckles on her face and her lips were a little thick. In other dimensions, she would be considered ordinary, but here, she was a rare beauty.
"Zhao Lei sent someone over." The woman trembled as she poured the boy a glass of water. Being able to use water to entertain guests meant that her life was better than many others. When she put down the glass, her hands still trembled uncontrollably. "Let me not receive any guests tonight. Just wait for him."
The woman looked at the boy. She knew clearly that the person in front of her was still a child. Let alone killing someone, he probably couldn't even lift a heavy knife. But at this moment she could only count on him.
No one would be willing to help her, everyone valued their lives.
The boy did not touch the glass of water. He just said, "Will he check the house?"
The woman nodded. “Before he came here, he would always have people search the women’s houses first.”
The boy laughed sarcastically.
Zhao Lei gained his current position through force, but he is afraid of dying at the hands of a woman. He is essentially a coward.
"I need to find a place to hide," the boy said. "The roof is not good. I can't stay there. And making a hole would be too obvious."
The woman looked around in the room. There was not much furniture in this tin house, let alone a place to hide people. It would not be difficult to make one temporarily, but if she put a big thing there, Zhao Lei's men would see it immediately when they came in, which would be more dangerous.
"Are you alone?" The woman was surprised. "I thought you, you had some plans."
The boy didn't care much about the woman's suspicion. He said calmly, "It's just killing a person."
The woman shuddered, her hair standing on end. This was just killing one person?
That's no ordinary person!
But the child in front of her is the last life-saving straw she can hold on to.
So the woman could only force herself to calm down. She sat on the chair, thought hard for a long time and then said, "Dig a hole in the ground?"
This seemed to be the only way to hide someone in the house.
"No, it's all sand. Even if I leave ventilation holes, I will be buried alive." The boy rejected this idea.
The woman looked at him, her face expressionless, and the boy could only figure out what to do on his own.
It's not that he has no plan at all. He has already determined his escape route, and he can only take action after all Zhao Lei's men have gone out to have fun. He must kill them with one blow and not give Zhao Lei a chance to escape or resist.
This plan is simple, but also difficult to implement. If he stays in the house, with the noisy life outside, it would be difficult for him to know whether Zhao Lei's men have left.
Whether the escape route is safe and whether he can reach the supermarket as soon as possible is also a question.
The bigger problem is that he has never used a gun, and Ye Zhou usually trains him just to strengthen his body and do more exercise.
He had a gun but never used it.
Fighting Zhao Lei alone, he would have no chance of winning. Even if he learned some skills, with his current height and weight, Zhao Lei could kick him away with one kick, or even break his internal organs.
But the boy never thought of giving up. He looked at the woman, and her anxious face was reflected in his dark eyes.
“I’ll find a way,” the boy said.
Inexplicably, the woman suddenly calmed down.
A voice deep inside her told her that if the boy said he could do it, he could definitely do it.
The woman nodded: "Okay, I believe you."
There was no one she could trust except him.
·
At night, the workers left the construction site one after another, and some returned to the slums to continue working - what they did or did not do sometimes did not depend on whether they wanted to or not.
The slums were ablaze with fire and bustling with noise, and neatly dressed upper-class people flocked here.
They would occasionally say hello before heading off to look for their desired prey.
"Brother Lei." Someone walked over with a respectful look on his face and greeted the tall man.
The man who was nearly two meters tall was particularly conspicuous here, but he was surrounded by a group of subordinates who were shorter than him.
Zhao Lei glanced at the person who greeted him, but he really couldn't remember the other person's name, so he just nodded without much response.
The man was not angry. After saying hello, he left immediately when he found that Zhao Lei was not prepared to greet him.
No one wants to offend Zhao Lei.
It doesn’t matter if you offend Zhao Qing. As long as you can provide benefits to Zhao Qing, Zhao Qing will always let you go.
But Zhao Lei is different. Even if Zhao Lei can get more benefits, it is more important for Zhao Lei to vent his anger.
"Brother Lei, that house." Sharp-nosed Monkey's men pointed to the tin house not far away.
The doors of the surrounding tin houses were all open, except for that house, which was closed to welcome guests.
Because they had informed in advance, the "guests" also walked around the room. No one wanted to compete with Zhao Lei for people. It's not like anyone was tired of living.
Zhao Lei rolled up his sleeves. His arms were covered with scars and sunburned skin. Every time he came back from outside, he would go to the slums to vent his anger, not only to vent his energy, but also to vent his pent-up dissatisfaction.
Zhao Qing enjoys himself in the base, and all the good things are enjoyed by Zhao Qing.
But he, the man who truly crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, had to be inferior to Zhao Qing.
Every time Zhao Lei saw people who were his equals bowing down to Zhao Qing, he felt greatly insulted.
"You go in and take a look first." Zhao Qing said to the people around him.
Several people immediately kicked open the door of the tin house.
The woman sitting in the room huddled on the bed in fear.
Several people walked around the room twice and left only after making sure that nothing was wrong.
"Brother Lei, there's only that woman inside."
Zhao Lei nodded: "Stay outside."
The subordinates nodded one after another, and after Zhao Lei went in, they looked at each other. After leaving one person to guard, the others quickly got into the crowd - they knew that Zhao Lei would spend two or three hours dealing with women every time, and this time was enough for them to have some fun.
The gatekeeper was the youngest. He squatted on the ground with his gun in his arms. He yawned and then fell asleep.
Zhao Lei treated them like beasts of burden and never gave them time to rest. If they wanted to rest, they could only find time to rest themselves.
Zhao Lei walked into the house without closing the door, but left it ajar.
As soon as he entered the room, he took off his shirt and walked towards the woman.
The woman was so frightened that she didn't even think Zhao Lei's face was a human's. But she still pulled herself together, suppressed her fear, and smiled at Zhao Lei, "Lei, Brother Lei."
However, Zhao Lei had no intention of greeting her or developing any feelings for her.
He leaned over and grabbed the woman's neck as she was extremely frightened.
The already fragile skirt was torn into pieces under Zhao Lei's palm, and the woman finally couldn't help but let out a heart-wrenching scream.
But no one walking outside stopped, and her screams were destined to go unheard.
In Zhao Lei's eyes, weak people are not considered human beings, but just objects for him to plunder.
He survived by plundering and gained his status by plundering. Plunder and oppression had become his instinct.
The woman's struggle seemed futile to him, but the more she struggled, the more excited he became.
Zhao Lei’s eyes flashed with the people who died at his hands.
With a "slap", Zhao Lei slapped the woman in the face.
The terrified woman was slapped unconscious.
But Zhao Lei still didn't stop, he still pinched the woman's neck.
Just as he let out a sigh of relief and was about to wake the woman up, he suddenly stopped.
The intuition that came from years of walking on the edge of life and death came into play at this moment. Zhao Lei immediately stood up and reached out to grab his pants. His gun was covered by his pants.
When he stretched out his hand, Zhao Lei also subconsciously looked behind him.
The moment he saw the person, Zhao Lei felt relieved.
Standing behind him was a child who was not even as tall as his waist. Judging from his clothes, he should be from a family in the inner city. He was probably visiting the slums and accidentally walked into this house.
Zhao Lei breathed a sigh of relief, but he soon frowned. How did the men guarding the door let the child in?
"Whose child are you from?" Zhao Lei didn't care that he was naked at the moment, and walked towards the boy openly. He frowned and asked, "Is that the child that the boss took away from the slums?"
Considering their age, this seems to be the only possibility.
Zhao Lei was taking the goods from Ye Zhou now, and he didn't want to offend Ye Zhou. Although he was furious at this moment, he still said patiently: "Go back quickly."
He was wary of everyone except a well-dressed child like this.
Such children want to maintain a life of being well fed and warmed more than anyone else, and they do not have the courage to attack adults.
The boy said nothing, just looked at him.
Zhao Lei finally couldn't control his temper anymore and reached out to slap the boy.
The moment he raised his hand, the boy also moved.
Zhao Lei's pupils shrank slightly.
The boy's movements were like slow motion, and he saw the boy pull out a pistol from behind.
The gun was pointed at his heart.
Before his brain could react, Zhao Lei's body moved first. The moment the boy pulled the trigger, Zhao Lei dove to the side.
The bullet that was supposed to hit Zhao Lei's chest just barely grazed his arm.
Zhao Lei rolled on the ground, without even wearing his clothes, picked up a chair next to him and threw it at the boy.
His eyes were fixed on the boy. It was too late to go back and get his gun as the target was too obvious. He had to rush out when the boy was hit.
The boy had a gun in his hand, but he would never look down on the other party because of it.
However, the boy was not hit by the chair. He seemed to have already thought of what Zhao Lei would do if he missed. When Zhao Lei picked up the chair, the boy had already taken two steps forward and fired another bullet.
The shot hit Zhao Lei's shoulder.
Zhao Lei cried out in pain.
The boy fired another shot, aiming at Zhao Lei's head.
Zhao Lei hugged his head with both hands, and the moment he raised his arms, the boy hit his heart.
Zhao Lei let go of his hand in disbelief and looked at the boy with confusion in his eyes.
He didn't understand why this child, whom he had never seen before, wanted to kill him.
Zhao Lei fell to the ground, his blood swallowed by the yellow sand, but he did not die immediately. Instead, he held on to his last breath and shouted to the outside of the door: "Someone come...someone come..."
The boy walked up to Zhao Lei and looked at his outstretched arms and open hands.
Just like "Mom" before her death, she seemed to be begging someone to help her and save her.
The boy didn't know if Zhao Lei could hear him, so he said calmly, "I originally wanted to find a place to hide, but then I realized I didn't need to hide, I could just come in from outside."
"Only one of your men is guarding the door." The boy looked at Zhao Lei's eyes which were gradually losing focus, and knew that Zhao Lei could no longer hear what he said.
So the boy stopped talking and watched him die quietly.
From beginning to end, the boy's eyes could not waver.
After making sure that Zhao Lei was dead, the boy walked out of the door and glanced at Zhao Lei's men who were still "dozing" against the wall.
He passed by "the other person".
Behind him, Zhao Lei's men slowly fell down. Under the flickering firelight, the bullet hole on his forehead was not conspicuous.
The boy walked to a corner where the crowd couldn't see him and removed the silencer from the gun.
He casually buried the silencer in the yellow sand.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
