The outer city of Tokyo, where the Cursed Child now lives.
A broken bridge cuts off the direct connection between the outer city and the inner city.
"I came here secretly on a garbage transport ship."
The girl pointed to the ruins-like city opposite and said to Wu Ke.
Although the outer city is now considered to be under the feet, the real outer city where a large number of Cursed Sons are active is actually in the ruins opposite.
"My name is Naoko. I am a child from the 39th District of the outer city. I was named by the old director of the orphanage who adopted us. However, my grandfather died two years ago and the inner city did not send anyone to take over. In our orphanage, we have become the cursed children with no one to care about..."
Naoko said this, her belly was held by Wu Ke, like a bag of flour, and she was flying across the river.
Behind Wu Ke, there were food, biscuits, bread, and milk purchased with the money of the two security guards. They were packed in several large cardboard boxes and tied tightly and dragged by black chains of evil thoughts.
"How do you live?"
Wu Ke asked.
“Before grandpa died, we collected garbage and transported it outside to the big metal plate outside, earning a living from those who transported garbage.
After grandpa died, no one cared about us anymore, and those who transported garbage stopped giving us food rations. We lived on the garbage thrown from the inner city to the outer city, expired food, and leftover drinks. Clothes that others don’t want are good things.
Hey, there is another boat unloading garbage! "
Naoko pointed to the coastline composed of garbage dumps below, and the transport ship docked next to it to dump garbage, and said with excitement.
Wu Ke's eyesight was better, and he could see a group of children the same age as the girl in his hand, standing not far from the garbage boat. After the garbage boat was dumped and drove away, he ran out to surround the fallen adult. Pick things up from the trash.
. . . .
"Another person who took care of those Cursed Children has died. Should we find another place to dump the garbage? Otherwise, sooner or later, the place will be filled with the garbage we transported."
On the transport ship, the boatman who had finished unloading the garbage said to the bow of the ship next to him.
"Or, give the children of the curse some supplies and let them help transport the garbage there?"
Another boatman also came over to ask. They are professionals responsible for cleaning up garbage in the inner city. Generally, the garbage will be sorted after it is in their hands. In the outer city area where the Broken Bridge has a direct ground connection with the inner city, it is also cursed. The child's cheap child labor picked out the recyclable parts, and then transported the remaining garbage that had no reuse value to the ruins of the river and unloaded it.
Originally, the government stipulated that they need to transport their garbage outside the city outside the giant metal wall. However, there are often protozoa there. The garbage collectors who did not want to take risks transferred the danger to the outer city to seek a living. After the cataclysm, those who chose to stay and take care of some abandoned children of the curse did so with the adopted children of the curse.
What they need to pay is only a small part of the salary given to them by the government. However, as time goes by, some of the elderly people who originally chose to stay and take care of the abandoned children of the curse have died.
Now, the garbage man who has lost his cooperation partner no longer wants to pay even the small amount of compensation for transporting garbage.
"Why should we give them supplies, and leave the money to buy those supplies to drink one more drink and smoke one more cigarette? Isn't that nice?"
The bow of the garbage ship asked rhetorically. After many years of cooperation, most of the Cursed Children in the outer city have become accustomed to living on the garbage ship.
After realizing this, the professional garbage men who dispose of garbage are also the heads of capitalist garbage ships, and they no longer want to pay even the cheap remuneration.
"It's a blessing for them that we can take out the garbage here. It's already settled without collecting money from them. We pay them and pay them materials. Isn't it a joke?"
"But the mountains of garbage are getting bigger and bigger..."
"Who cares? Anyway, the river will not be blocked in a few decades. And in this era, let alone the next few decades, I am afraid that even tomorrow, I will be eaten by gastrula that suddenly broke in. It's also possible.
I recently heard from my uncle's nephew's friend that a gastrea seems to have broken into the inner city. I don't know if it was transformed by the Cursed Child to break in, so I don't know when it will die. For those of us who have lost money, let’s keep our money and enjoy it in time! "
. . . .
The garbage ship drove away, and Wu Ke also looked away. He had a new understanding of the situation of the cursed children in this world.
It fell from the sky and frightened the children of the curse who were picking up garbage nearby. They ran away in panic and hid in the corner of the garbage pile.
Under the dim moonlight, a pair of eyes as red as blood were secretly looking at the uninvited guests falling from the sky.
"Everyone, it's me, I'm Naoko, I'm back!"
Naoko shouted happily.
This is the garbage area near District 39, and most of the people picking up garbage here are children of the curse who know each other.
"It's Naoko. She sneaked onto the garbage ship three days ago and said she was going to the inner city to find supplies."
Someone poked his head out of the garbage and said, it was a girl with some disheveled hair. She was holding half a piece of bread and chewing on it. She looked dirty, like a mud monkey.
"Did you find something?"
People who knew her ran over, but some of them rejected Wu Ke, who she didn't know. They all ran to the girl's side, asking questions all over the place.
Naoko turned her head and glanced at him. Wu Ke didn't say anything. The black chains of evil thoughts put several large cardboard boxes next to her.
"Brother SD is a good man. I was caught and shot by two bad guys. He saved me and bought us a lot of food."
Naoko pointed at him and said, opened the cardboard box and took out the biscuits inside. When the Cursed Sons around saw it, their eyes suddenly lit up and they cheered.
"Where's my sister?"
Naoko asked as she distributed the things to her companions.
"Ai Xiang was a bit unwell. One day after you left, another garbage boat came over. We picked up some food and gave her some to eat, but she seemed to have a bad stomach."
In District 39, there were not many children of the curse, only about forty children. After hearing that something happened to her sister, Naoko rushed back in a hurry, and together with the supplies in the cartons, they were also taken away by District 39. The companions moved back together.
Wu Ke followed them and came to a large, dilapidated courtyard. The rusty iron gate fell to one side, and there was a sign on the other side, but half of it was gone, but a few vague words behind it could still be seen - -kindergarten.
Obviously, this place used to be a kindergarten, but now it has become a base for the lives of these cursed children in District 39. They huddle together for warmth and help each other, but in this harsh environment, each other's help is limited. , so it is normal for companions to die from time to time.
Among the dead companions, there were no old ones, but most of them were young and sick. Naoko's sister was very young and suffered from diseases.
"Ayaka."
It was a little girl, wrapped in a dirty quilt, covering her belly. After seeing her sister come back, a smile appeared on her pale face.
It's just that maybe because of the pain, the smile seemed very forced, and even the voice he made was weak: "Welcome back, sister."
"Caixiang, I brought back bread, biscuits, and milk. They are all good. They are not expired, spoiled, or moldy. You should get up and eat them quickly."
Naoko helped her sister up and wanted to feed her the bread in her hand, but the little girl just shook her head weakly: "Sister, I can't eat. My stomach hurts so much, as if it's on fire. I might die, just like Sister Ling Yin, so I’d better leave the food to you.”
"What nonsense are you talking about? Sister Ling Yin was stabbed in the stomach and died because she couldn't eat. You were not stabbed in the stomach. How could you die? As long as you eat the food, you will recover quickly. .”
Naoko tried to break the bread in her hand and force it into her sister's mouth.
"If I were you, I wouldn't force her to eat."
Wu Ke came over. From what he could see, there was a big problem with the little girl's body.
"Brother SD, do you know what happened to my sister?"
"The gastric ulcer was perforated, and her stomach had a hole. The food residue she had eaten flowed into the abdominal cavity, causing inflammation in many places."
Wu Ke looked carefully before confirming.
"Can you save her?"
Naoko requested that she didn't know what a perforated gastric ulcer was, but she knew that the person in front of her was very powerful and could heal herself, even her own sister.
"It's easy to treat the direct trauma, but I can't solve the problem of inflammation and bacterial infection that has spread."
Wu Ke told the truth that his black mud treatment method for evil thoughts could not cure everything.
"how come?"
Naoko was a little desperate. She took a risk and sneaked into the inner city to pick up trash just for her sister. But when she got something back, her sister was about to die.
"We need some anti-inflammatory medication that can be taken internally."
Wu Ke said that this is what the girl needs to treat.
"Hey, can you cure my sister?"
"I didn't say it can't be cured, it just needs some medication."
When the specific composition of human souls in this world is uncertain, saving people by materializing souls may lead to a situation where people are killed instead of saving people. Therefore, if there is a problem, treat it. is the safest approach.
"Please, please save my sister. Even if I am just a cow and a horse, I will repay you in the future."
The girl leaned down and begged. The hat on her head fell off, and the face she lifted up revealed that if she had washed it properly, she would be a pretty cute girl.
"If you don't ask me, I will do the same."
Wu Ke took the little girl from her hand and complained in passing.
"Then again, you didn't react so much when I saved you."
"My sister is the most important person to me, more important than my own life."
Naoko told the truth. She saw her sister being hugged. Because her abdomen was touched by someone she didn't know, she instinctively resisted and wanted to struggle. She quickly held her sister's hand and comforted the girl and said: "Brother SD , he saved my life today, but he is a completely good man, and he will save yours too."
Hearing this, the little girl stopped struggling, and was surrounded by a group of Cursed Children who were nibbling on bread or biscuits. However, they opened their eyes wide and looked at Wu Ke, whom they didn't know but who they heard was giving them. Their men, who brought food, behaved arbitrarily towards their sick companions.
"What is he doing?"
Someone asked without knowing why.
"I don't know, but it looks like he put his hand on Ayaka's belly."
The girl in the inner circle of the station replied.
"Will this cure my stomachache?"
A girl in the outer circle expressed doubts. She was the older one among the cursed children. She was thirteen years old this year, but she often had stomachaches. Every time she had stomachaches, she would bleed from the place where she peeed. Lots of blood to come.
"Hey, look, Ayaka's complexion seems to have improved, and she doesn't seem to be in pain anymore."
Wu Ke made an opening in the girl's stomach and guided the food residue and fluid out of the abdominal cavity. Without these burdens, the girl's face looked much better.
"My sister, is she ready?"
"I only temporarily blocked the perforation of her stomach and cleaned up the food residue in her stomach, but the inflammation has not gone away. The mucosal wall of the stomach is also very fragile, but it will take some time to heal."
Wu Ke said this, but he was a little amazed at the body of the girl who had been operated on by him. The other party's body recovered very quickly at the microscopic level, at least forty or fifty times that of ordinary people.
Although I don’t know how a body with such a speed of recovery can cause gastric perforation, but even if it is left without taking medicine, I am afraid that in another four or five days, the other party will be able to rely on its strong self-healing ability. To recover.
"Thank you, Brother SD."
Naoko kowtowed directly to express his gratitude. The eyes of the Cursed Children around him also changed. They were still a little wary before, but after his companions seemed to be cured, those wary eyes did not completely disappear, but they were much less. .
"She's still a little weak, you can give her some milk."
Wu Ke said.
"good."
Naoko responded, then helped her sister up, took the milk in the carton from the companion behind her, and poured it into the girl's mouth.
When the fluid milk enters the stomach, the gastric glands quickly secrete gastric juice. Others cannot hear the sizzling sound, but Wu Ke can hear it clearly.
He looked over and saw that in the girl's stomach, the gastric juice was like aqua regia, digesting frantically, and the milk flowing into the stomach was broken down into the energy needed by the body...
The other party's pale face quickly turned rosy at a speed visible to the naked eye.
