[Amoeba] copy, day three, 7.01 am.
Fireworks and white fog outside the city.
It was crowded and numb.
Something happened in the city last night. A large number of soldiers surrounded the entire inner city and prohibited anyone from entering or exiting.
Some people speculate.
Maybe something unexpected happened in the inner city, or maybe the nobles started another feast.
But these have nothing to do with them.
Finding food, eating enough, and surviving are what the survivors in the outer city have to consider.
Next to the garbage mountain.
A skinny man was lying on the ground, blowing on the flames carefully.
A rusty half-iron pot was placed on the ignited feed bags and dry firewood, with turbid water and a piece of moldy pork floating in the pot.
"Abba..."
"When can we eat?"
The little boy with a round belly and limbs like flax stalks twirled his fingers and looked timidly at his rickety father.
He was too hungry. Grandma also died yesterday.
Do not eat too much of the topaz soil buried deep in the ground.
The adults said that it was Guanyin soil, and if you eat it, you will not be able to get rid of it.
Grandma was suffocated to death, although he didn't know what it was.
He stared and gnawed his nails clean.
The aroma of meat spreads.
"Abba! The meat tastes so delicious!"
The boy wanted to get closer, but was coughed by the smelly plastic bag.
He hesitated for a moment.
"Abba, why didn't you cook meat for grandma to eat yesterday?"
The lit plastic bag gave off a pungent smell, and the firewood contained some moisture, making it difficult to ignite.
"Cough-cough"
The man hunched over and couldn't help coughing.
He held the boy numbly, waiting patiently for the meat to boil.
The hungry people around them poked their heads into the pot, and the bubbling water was covered with milky white oil stains.
His throat was throbbing, but no one said anything.
If it were normal, a piece of fat meat would be enough to make the hungry crowd scramble for it like crazy.
but now.
They just watched silently and kept quiet.
Among the crowd gathered around, many people looked at the father and son with pity in their eyes.
...
At the corner of the city, the gang members who occupied the best positions gathered together and collected the protection fees one by one.
"Glasses...my glasses..."
"Please help me find it..."
On the muddy ground, a middle-aged man wearing a shabby white coat lay on the ground, groping for his glasses in the muddy water with his hands.
His eyes were dull, and he was touching inch by inch like a blind man.
He is highly myopic and cannot see clearly without glasses.
The wife and daughter knelt aside, begging the man wearing a nose ring not to take away the last food.
"Sir! Please leave some for us!"
"We haven't eaten for two days... We just handed over the food last week!"
The woman's voice was hoarse. She wiped away her tears and hugged the little girl who was half a person's height in her arms.
Her complexion was sallow, and her whole body was trembling with hunger and grief.
The leading man wearing a nose ring sneered, and then kicked the man into the puddle:
"Old blind man, are we looking for you?"
"We agreed to repair something and divide it half and half among the brothers. Where's the food?"
"We've done the math. You repaired 4 electrical appliances this week, so how come you still have 8 pancakes?"
Before the disaster, the man was a researcher at a science and technology institute with an engineering background. After the disaster, he made a living by helping people repair home appliances.
People like him who have skills and can put them to use are already considered "middle class" in the Polaka Slave Cave.
Water choked his nose, and the man struggled and waved his arms. He was about to drown in the puddle.
The wife, who was holding the child in her arms, saw this and rushed forward:
"Sir! Let us go! Two families didn't give us the reward for repairing things last time! We really didn't hide anything!"
As she spoke, the woman anxiously wanted to push away the man with the nose ring's feet.
If you step on it again, the man will die and everything will be over.
Repair an electrical appliance and two straw cakes, hand over half, and the rest can barely make a living.
If the man died, she couldn't imagine how she would survive with her children.
The crowd of people watching around dared not speak out in anger.
They are also skilled labor slaves, and today is the time to hand over food.
The man was a very kind man, and would even give out a little food to the slaves who couldn't get any work.
But to resist is to die.
They could only watch silently, with many people's eyes filled with unwillingness and anger.
"Are you looking at me? If you look at me again, I'll dig out your eyeballs!"
The gang member slapped the young man on the side of the team, clenching his fists in the face, knocking half of his glasses off his nose to the ground.
“Do you know who the food you handed in is for!?”
"What the hell, a bunch of useless trash!"
"If I hadn't helped you put in a good word with Lord Homan, the deputy commander of the city defense army, would you losers still want to have business?"
Shout loudly.
Gang members slapped each other in the face and used Homan's name to intimidate the group of slave workers.
As soon as Homan's name came out, many people trembled.
As the commander of the city defense army, these people outside the city can be said to be his "slaves".
None of the slaves he took away every month came back alive.
I just don’t know why Mr. Homan didn’t come today. It stands to reason that he would come over today to take a look and take away 70% of the supplies handed over.
The man with the nose ring wore shiny high boots and glanced around at the crowd of people who lowered their heads and did not dare to look again.
Out of the corner of his eye, he actually saw the woman soiling her shoes with her hands.
Suddenly furious.
"Fuck you! Damn pariah! How dare you dirty my boots!?"
In anger, he simply kicked the woman in the stomach.
To be continued...