Chapter 790: Players and Garbage Disposal
Xu Huo tore off his sleeve and found that the veins on his entire left side had bulged into blackish-blue cords, and his skin had become as dry and cracked as old tree bark. Fortunately, although the left half of his body was stiff, his left leg was only somewhat numb and he could still walk.
The gallery was about to disappear, and the surrounding sounds were growing closer. He opened the "Fifty-Fifty Vent" and jumped in.
Like Jiang Jiang before, the gallery dissolved into a mist-like haze of color and vanished. After discovering the bodies of her bodyguards, the players swarmed over and surrounded the man standing in the ruins of the haunted house. "What happened? Where's the enemy?"
Some searched for any possible players, while others arranged for Jiang Jiang to leave. As she got into the car, Jiang Jiang leaned against the window and looked at the ruins on the ground, letting out a light sigh. "He actually refused to leave..."
Xu Huo didn't know how long his condition would last. Returning to District 011 was one option, and staying in District 009 was also possible—both sides carried risks—but he had no intention of leaving.
Jiang Jiang clearly knew some inside information. Even if the person who trained her wasn't the doctor from the Seventeenth Hospital but the real Shang Shuming, there was still a connection between them and that doctor. He couldn't afford to miss this lead.
"Bang!" The vent popped open in an old residential area, once again throwing him from a great height. Xu Huo grabbed the strings to slow his descent, but when he landed, his left foot hit the ground awkwardly. Losing his balance, he crashed into a nearby dumpster, startling a little girl who was rummaging through the trash. She cowered and screamed, "Don't hit me, don't hit me! I won't do it again!"
Xu Huo glanced around. Several homeless men were watching him, apparently also eyeing the pile of garbage, but they kept their distance because of his presence.
This was a small garbage mountain. Mixed in with the trash were boxes of premium snacks—clearly not something the residents of this slum could afford. So it had been hauled in from somewhere else.
Xu Huo took out his phone to check his location. Good. The vent hadn't sent him out of the country—it had just dumped him in a small border town.
He adjusted to his numb half-body, using his right hand to grip the strings as he stood up. Not being able to walk on one leg wasn't the real problem; the issue was that half his body couldn't coordinate its movements, making it hard to stay balanced. After struggling a few steps, he placed a skateboard on the ground.
Now able to move, he proceeded along the uneven road.
Seeing him leave, the homeless men immediately swarmed the trash pile. The little girl only managed to grab two plastic bags with a few crumbs of leftover snacks before she got punched. But even as she was hit, she fought to snatch some random items from one of the men and ran off.
The stench of unwashed bodies and rotting food rushed past him. Xu Huo watched the little girl disappear into the distance, then turned to look at the two homeless men who had followed him.
They shrank back in fear, spat on the ground, and turned around to continue digging through the trash.
Xu Huo walked on slowly, soon realizing that this place was more than just poor and backward. Besides the dumped garbage mountains, there was an obvious overabundance of shady characters. Anyone walking down the street was under surveillance by at least a dozen pairs of eyes. Even in broad daylight, people hugged the walls as they moved, except for the wandering children.
He found a spot to rest and looked up information about this city.
It had originally been a tourist destination—small but scenic. However, after the game event broke out, a massacre occurred here. Almost all the original residents had died, and the city had been abandoned for several years. It wasn't until the year before last that a nearby large city established a safe zone.
District 009 had quite a few safe zones, mostly concentrated in more populous and prosperous areas. It was already considered good if one or two remote cities were designated as safe zones. Those who couldn't be accommodated in the safe zones were forcibly expelled.
"Expelled" didn't mean they were forcibly confined to a specific area and forbidden from approaching. The nearby cities hadn't been abandoned, but they lacked the resources to protect them, leaving them to fend for themselves. If they were lucky enough to avoid player attacks or instance outbreaks, things remained stable. If not, they could only blame their bad luck.
But every city strictly enforced identity verification. This meant that people without papers or those who were ostracized were pushed from mid-tier cities to smaller ones, layer by layer. This border town was essentially at the bottom of the heap—the last resort for those with nowhere else to go.
The environment was exactly as one might imagine.
"After the game started, did these people not even have time to deal with the garbage?" Xu Huo looked up at the gray sky. It was about to rain.
"Are you a player?" The little girl who had run off came back, standing a few meters away, holding a broken umbrella. "It's going to rain. Aren't you afraid of getting wet? Do you want an umbrella?"
"I have one," Xu Huo said.
She stared at his left leg, her voice trembling slightly. "You don't have anywhere to go either? Do you want to come to my place? I can carry you, I can cook for you... Do you have any money?"
"Can your place fit an adult?" Xu Huo smiled faintly. "You'd better go now."
With that, he continued down the street to find somewhere to stay. But the little girl didn't give up, trailing far behind him.
Since he didn't chase her away, a few more children joined in after a while. One bold kid even approached and said, "Uncle, are you looking for a place to stay? I know where to go! Give me ten bucks and I'll take you!"
The little girl squeezed in too. "Uncle, I can dress you, put shoes on you, give you a bath! I don't want money, just give me some food!"
The children squabbled, but Xu Huo had already stopped in front of a rundown motel. The owner enthusiastically carried out a battered old wheelchair and invited him in, shooing all the children away.
There were dried bloodstains on the wheelchair. Xu Huo sat down before asking, "Do players often come here?"
"You bet. The seriously injured, the dying, those with nowhere to go—they all end up here. A couple of guys even fell from the sky like you, but they weren't so lucky—they landed and broke themselves." The owner sized him up with a smile. "You look okay!"
"A hundred white notes a night—that's a fair price. How many days will you be staying?"
Xu Huo placed a hundred white notes on the table. "One day at a time. I might end up in the game any day now."
"Right, right." The owner added, "But we don't include meals here. You'll have to eat out. Better not order delivery, you know how it is these days—nobody dares eat unless they see the food being cooked."
"And definitely don't let those little brats outside run errands for you. They'll steal your food, and they might even pee in it."
"Since your leg's not good, how about a room on the first floor?"
"I'll take the second floor." Xu Huo stood up. "Please bring the wheelchair up."