The next evening, Residential Area No. 49, District 12, Outer City.
"Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!!"
A gunshot was heard from the hut on the hillside, followed by continuous screams.
"My legs! My legs! Ahhhhhh!!!"
Donald, the leader of the "Clown Group", had an evil smile on his face. He squatted in front of the painter who was writhing in pain, combing his ice cream hairstyle with the M1911 pistol that had just been fired.
"Paint quickly! Paint quickly, Van Gogh! If you don't finish the creation quickly, we won't have time to trade with the "collector"! "
Donald moved the black muzzle toward the painter's right leg.
"First left, then right... With both legs broken, you should be able to accumulate enough pain to put the finishing touches on this stunning work, right? After all, the collector is interested in your painting. Because of the pain, I will buy your work at any cost."
"Gah ha ha! Gah!" Donald's eyes are crazy. People who are not familiar with him may think this is a side effect of "happy pills", but Donald never eats those things.
The painter finally stopped rolling, and a large amount of blood flowed from his left knee, forming a pool of blood. The bloody man raised his head.
This painter's appearance seems to be a living example of a "down-and-out artist". He does look a bit like a long-haired version of Van Gogh.
"You, when will you give me freedom? I have been forced to draw 12 paintings like this...I have painted enough! And my name is not Van Gogh..."
Donald shot the painter again in the right leg without mercy.
"Ah! Ahhhhhhhh!!!"
The painter was once again captured by severe pain, and Donald blew out the gun smoke.
"Ungrateful guy. If there is no clown group and only your own financial resources, how can you afford the "blackest pigment" based on carbon nanotube technology? This paint was just beginning to become popular even among aristocratic painters. "
The "blackest pigment" absorbs light very thoroughly, and is generally considered by the art circles around Stone City to be the most suitable for depicting despair in the dark night.
"Before, you could only do odd jobs and draw advertising flyers for others. Without me naming you "Van Gogh" and helping you promote it, how could your work be favored by the upper class, or even appear in large art exhibitions? "
"So, shouldn't you work hard to repay me and paint an unprecedented masterpiece so that even "collectors" can't help but take a look at you out of curiosity? "
"Gahahahaha! Once we successfully kidnap the Collector, I will let you go free! As long as you can survive the melee! Gaha!"
Donald, who had been talking to himself for a long time, found that "Van Gogh" had lost too much blood and was unconscious. Donald stabbed the painter in the face several times with his gun.
"It doesn't seem like he's just pretending. You, and you, drag him to the village entrance road and use the regeneration cabin over there to revive him!"
Two clowns, whose faces were also painted white, took the painter's hands from both sides. One of the clowns asked:
"Team leader, what if Van Gogh turns into a Furui after entering the regeneration cabin? Can he still paint?"
Donald sneered sharply: "You just came to change your shift today, right? Every time I urge him to paint, I have to seriously injure Van Gogh, send him to the regeneration chamber and then rescue him. Isn't he doing nothing? It's just that I was a little more hasty today. Usually, his limbs are shot but he doesn't fall into coma. He has to finish painting before entering the regeneration chamber!"
The clown under his command swallowed his saliva. He had already heard about the tyranny of the team leader, but today, with all members of the clown team dispatched, he had the opportunity to see the team leader for the first time.
He created a painting with the theme of "pain and despair", but the artist himself was given pain and despair at the point of a gun. He could not enter the regeneration chamber to be rescued until he finished the painting. It is really a human tragedy. Donald's clown secretly vowed that if he wanted to be a painter in the future, the only type of painting he would do would be erotic pictures.
Van Gogh was dragged away with shocking blood stains. Donald stood up and admired the unfinished oil painting on the blood-stained easel.
"This despair and pain are not enough... When you come back, I will break all the fingers on your left hand, and then..."
At this time, another clown entered the studio. He cautiously reported to the leader:
"Team leader, our people who were ambushing near the village discovered that the former deputy police chief Han Tiancheng arrived at the No. 49 residential area with his housekeeper! It seems...they are having a picnic!"
"Picnic? In this crappy place?" Donald frowned, massaging his temples with the pistol to help him think.
"Although Han Tiancheng is the eldest son of the Han clan leader, he has been away from power for a long time... In short, continue to monitor and don't alert the enemy!"
After his men exited the studio, Donald was still a little confused: "What does that drunkard want to do?"
※※※
Some people say that Han Tiancheng always wears a white shirt and police pants because he still can't let go of his identity as deputy police chief. People who know him well know that Han Tiancheng just thinks that police pants are wear-resistant and stain-resistant, so he doesn't need to take them off and wash them all the time.
Now the corners of his police pants were stained with dirt and wine. Han Tiancheng sat on the wasteland at the entrance of the village, raised his head and took a sip of wine.
"Nestor, do you think there really is a "Bullfighting Warrior Grand Prix" in a village like this? "
"Master, that's what it says on the advertisement you picked up. Let's finish this light meal first."
The man called "Nestor" was Han Tiancheng's old butler. He had a Western face, a gentleman's beard, and a slender build. The butler's black suit fit him very well. He is of British descent from the Earth Age.
It is popular among major families to use English butlers, and it is believed that the bald the heads of these butlers, the purer their English blood. Competing with each other to see whose butler has the baldest head has become one of the ways to show off wealth.
Nestor won the championship in the "17th British Butler Competition", which shows how bald he is.
But Nestor's merits go beyond his baldness. He served the Han family for many years and devoted himself to his responsibilities. Han Tiancheng and Han Tiancheng's deceased wife regarded Nestor as family. Mu Yue grew up under Nestor's watch.
Although Nestor is old, he is versatile and can arrange everything in an orderly manner. Han Tiancheng heard that there was also a "Bullfighting Warrior Grand Prix" in the outer city, and suddenly wanted to visit. Not only did Nestor drive the car smoothly to the residential area No. 49, he also spread out a picnic cloth at the entrance of the village and took out the food he had ordered the chef to prepare in advance. fresh hamburgers for dinner.
Han Tiancheng took a bite of the hamburger. If it were his daughter, she would definitely appreciate the fresh ingredients and refreshing sauce of the hamburger, but Han Tiancheng could no longer taste the taste of anything else except alcohol.
The former deputy police chief's eyes were directed at a regeneration cabin and two automatic vending terminals beside the road at the entrance of the village.
The universal cell solution in the regeneration chamber and the phlogiston batteries in the sales terminal are all regularly delivered and replenished by the company's affiliated units. The highway and these few things are the last evidence of the connection between settlement 49 and the civilized world.
"Nestor, this place is so desolate!"
The inner city has a particularly prosperous central area, and the outer city also has extremely remote edge areas, the so-called "suburbs."
The suburbs of Earth's cities are often surrounded by green fields and fragrant rice fields, but the suburbs surrounding Stone City are completely a training ground for chaos and death.
Take the two gunshots just now, for example. The wandering villagers doing nothing in the sunset did not make a fuss at all. Instead of caring about the life and death of others, they might as well think about where their next meal will come from.
All the houses in Settlement No. 49 - or "Desolate Village" as they are called - are crudely made of glue and plastic boards, and their foundations are broken cement roads. If their houses are flooded by acid rain, villagers will use the wisdom of the poor and hide directly in the potholes on the road.
In the center of the deserted village, a larger arena-like building attracted Han Tiancheng's attention. Although there is a huge difference in quality and size, it is somewhat similar to the "Bullfighting Warrior Grand Prix" venue in the inner city.
"Mu Yue is such a miser!" Han Tiancheng took a bite of the burger and just held it in his hand, "I went to see her yesterday, and she only gave me 3,000 yuan for living expenses! How can this little money be enough for me to live for a week? I can’t even go to the Warrior Grand Prix a few times!”
Nestor, who sat down to eat a burger with his host, was neatly groomed and alert.
"Sir, Miss Mu Yue has arranged this to restrict your gambling and drinking. Daily meals, transportation expenses, these are all planned separately by the lady, and they will not be used from this 3,000 yuan."
Nestor finished the burger first and carefully cleaned the gentleman's beard around his lips with a napkin. In order to better perform his role as a housekeeper, he always deliberately shortens his eating time.
Han Tiancheng suddenly thought of something, and he discussed with the old housekeeper flatteringly:
"Nestor, can you... lend me some money? That way I don't have to go to the outer city to watch some fake bullfighting competition. I can go back to the inner city to watch the real one... Just lend me 5,000 yuan first!"
Nestor shook his head decisively: "Miss Mu Yue told us that if anyone dares to lend money to you, he will be fired immediately."
Han Tiancheng: "Mu Yue has a sharp tongue and a soft heart. She is trying to scare you!"
Nestor continued to shake his head: "No, I'm also afraid of the lady's knife mouth."
Seeing that the housekeeper refused to compromise, Han Tiancheng started drinking again in frustration. At this time, he found a dirty child walking from the village.
The other party was very young and could not tell the difference between men and women. His clothes were in tatters, he had no shoes, and his hands and feet were covered in mud. The child stopped walking when he reached the picnic cloth, staring at the burger in Han Tiancheng's hand.
Han Tiancheng didn't like this dirty little kid very much. No one would like to be watched and eaten by strangers at such a close distance.
The former deputy police chief looked to the old housekeeper for help, but Nestor seemed to have decided that the child was not a threat, so he turned a deaf ear.
hateful! Isn't it your steward's duty to do embarrassing things on behalf of the master? Or do you actually want to say that if Mu Yue were here, she would definitely give the food to the children?
Han Tiancheng sighed and put down the burger in his right hand, but did not let go of the wine bottle in his left hand.
"Nestor, go back to the car and get him another burger...Ehehehe!!??"
Almost at the moment Han Tiancheng put down the burger, the little dirty boy quickly picked up the burger and ran back to the village without looking back, eating as he ran as if he was afraid of being snatched away.
"Hey! That's the one I bit! I'll give you a new one! Hey!"
No matter how much Han Tiancheng called, the child refused to come back. In the end, Han Tiancheng had no choice but to take the new burger from the butler's hand and eat it himself.
"It's so poor here," Han Tiancheng said. "If there really is a copycat bullfighting competition, I will support it. It can also be considered as a contribution to the village's economy."
Nestor, who returned from the nearby road, took two gas masks from the car in addition to the new burger.
"Master, this is already the edge of the "Clear Sky". The content of phlogiston ash in the air is not low. It is safer to wear a mask, right? "
Han Tiancheng looked at the northernmost end of Residential Area No. 49. The terrain of the village gradually rose from south to north. This was indeed the edge of the large crater where Huanshi City was located. Going further out, you could see the mysterious and mysterious planet. original ecological landforms.
"No, I won't wear it anymore." Han Tiancheng did not accept the gas mask that Nestor handed over, "I don't plan to live that long."
From Nestor's perspective, the deep sadness of losing his lover rose again in Han Tiancheng's eyes. After hesitating, the old housekeeper put on a gas mask.
"In order to protect the master and the young lady in the longer term, this old guy like me must live longer."
