"Freedom" is a poison that once you taste it, you can no longer extricate yourself from it, which makes everyone flock to it. Nothing in the world is as delicious as one ten thousandth of it. After tasting it, trying other things is like chewing wax. Difficult to accept.
"Freedom" is such a terrible poison
After Lin Fan got tired from playing on the ground, a realistic hunger pulled him back from his thoughts.
Lin Fan was walking on the street and felt the discomfort coming from his stomach. This feeling was very novel. Lin Fan had never experienced it since he was a child. This feeling of longing for something made Lin Fan a little excited.
Fortunately, it didn't feel strong at first, but as time went by, Lin Fan started to feel uncomfortable.
Lin Fan smelled the aroma coming from the restaurant and without thinking about anything, he walked in and sat down at a table with the guests.
The guests were chatting very animatedly and would occasionally put pieces of meat in their mouths and have a drink, but Lin Fan's intrusion made the situation very awkward.
The guests looked at me and I looked at you, wondering if this was the person they brought?
Lin Fan didn't think much, he grabbed the dried meat and started eating it. While eating, he curiously smelled the liquid in the cup. One bite made Lin Fan's stomach hurt.
Looking at Lin Fan's appearance, the guest finally understood that he was a freeloader.
He directly pushed Lin Fan to the ground and handed it over to the restaurant manager.
The shopkeeper kicked Lin Fan out without any courtesy.
Lin Fan, who was sitting on the ground, was very puzzled. Why did they do this? But what's even more puzzling is why are they staring at me like this?
Lin Fan looked at the people watching around him.
At that time, Lin Fan had no concept of money at all. He only knew that he had to eat when he was hungry. In this way, Lin Fan was beaten, poured cold water on, or worked hard by the store more than once. Sometimes Lin Fan even took the waiter's food in the stall. When I ate in front of me, I didn’t even think about running. I couldn’t say I was stupid.
Fortunately, some stores didn't hold Lin Fan accountable even though he was still a child, and gave him more food.
However, this also made Lin Fan become more serious. From unfamiliar to accustomed, from accustomed to natural, Lin Fan would take the store's food as long as he was hungry, without thinking about anything else, but now he has learned to run.
Lin Fan was walking on a street in the southwest of the city, holding some bitter wheat bread in his arms. Lin Fan himself did not expect that he would come here to "settle down".
Southwest of the city seems to have some kind of magic that brings some special people together.
As usual, Lin Fan was ready to find a place to stay for the night. Today, Lin Fan found a shabby compound. There were already many people inside.
Lin Fan put away the bread first before going in. "Hide the food well so it won't be robbed." This is what Lin Fan learned during this period.
Lin Fan hid in a small corner and when he took out the bread and was about to eat it secretly, a head popped out from the corner and scared Lin Fan so much that the bread flew away.
Think about it, you were already in the corner, and suddenly a head came out from behind. It's a good thing you didn't get scared to death.
She looked at the bread and then at Lin Fan. When she saw that Lin Fan didn't move, she slowly came out of the hole, picked up the bread and started eating.
Lin Fan was still frightened and was about to eat somewhere else. When Lin Fan was about to change places to continue eating, she hid aside and looked at her. Lin Fan endured the discomfort and started eating. She had no other intention and just looked at Lin Fan quietly.
Lin Fan took a bite of bread and chewed it slowly, then took another bite and chewed it slowly, and then took another bite and chewed it slowly.
Lin Fan felt more and more uncomfortable with her staring at him like this. When he was about to take a bite, Lin Fan lost interest at all.
Lin Fan turned to look at her. She didn't hide either. The two looked at each other.
Lin Fan sighed and took out the unfinished bread and handed it to her, but she ran away.
What a strange man. Lin Fan thought to himself
Originally, Lin Fan thought he would never see her again, but the next night, he met her again at the same time and place.
Lin Fan was not prepared to pay attention to her and just ate his own food. She was not prepared to approach Lin Fan, so she just hid in the cave and watched.
"!"
Lin Fan heard some commotion nearby and saw that they were dismantling the bodies of people who had just starved to death.
According to data released every year, about a hundred people die from freezing or starvation in the city every year.
But in fact, this is only a fraction of the death toll. People freeze to death and starve to death every day in the southwest of the city. As for why their bodies are not found, it is because their bodies have been recycled, and the published data can only be found and Just people with names.
The people here are like this. They may be alive today, but they may be a frozen corpse on the roadside tomorrow. No one knows when the other person will die, which is both sad and exciting.
Dismantling the corpses of "companions" is so common here. It's as common as human breathing. No one will care about it. Instead of taking care of it, it's better to join in and have a full stomach before talking about it.
The bloody smell of dismantling made people lose their appetite. Lin Fan moved towards her, and she was so frightened that she immediately disappeared.
Lin Fan glanced over there from time to time while eating dry food, but he didn't notice her. This made Lin Fan feel a little lonely. Lin Fan tentatively threw some food towards the entrance of the cave.
After the dry food stayed at the entrance of the cave for a few minutes, a hand stretched out from inside and quickly took it away.
After taking it away, I didn't forget to come out and have a look. When I saw Lin Fan, I immediately shrank back.
Seeing that she was still there, Lin Fan didn't know why he felt very comfortable and at ease, and sometimes wanted to laugh.
"If I had treated her as a stranger and stopped contacting her, the situation might have been different."
"Hiss! Here we go again." Lin Fan felt a swelling pain in his back. Although it wasn't uncomfortable, it wasn't easy either.
This pain had only occurred recently. It came and went, but it would get better after a while. Lin Fan didn't take it to heart and continued to eat.
"Bang!"
——————
Lin Fan slowly opened his eyes
Strange walls?
and people?
Lin Fan just stood up, "It hurts!" Severe pain came from his head.
"Why don't you hurry up and get something to eat while you wait around!" The rough voice echoed in the cave, and the reverberating sound made Lin Fan's headache a lot worse.
Lin Fan was forced to go inside with the crowd. There were many people of the same age and adults among the crowd. The tattered clothes on their bodies proved that they were from the same place in the southwest of the city.
"promise"
People lined up to receive pickaxes in their hands and headed toward any of the several tunnels behind them.
After receiving the pickaxe, Lin Fan awkwardly followed the people in front of him into one of the tunnels.
Lin Fan weighed the somewhat heavy iron manuscript in his hand and couldn't help but wonder what happened next.
Lin Fan imitated the person in front of him and touched the wall, and then began to wave the pickaxe in his hand.
The stuffiness and heat in the mine made Lin Fan very uncomfortable. After waving a few times, he felt exhausted and was ready to go back.
Lin Fan put down his pickaxe and prepared to return the same way, when a man stood in front of him.
"What?"
He was a bit tall. Although he didn't know how tall he was, he was at least taller than Lin Fan. He had a smile on his thin face, showing his neat big yellow teeth. He didn't mind at all and looked very kind.
Lin Fan didn't understand that such an obvious thing still needed to be asked, so he said, "Of course I'm going back."
"Pah!" A slap hit Lin Fan's face.
Then he added another kick to Lin Fan's stomach. Lin Fan was kicked a few meters away. Lin Fan was a little dazed by the sudden incident.
The supervisor in charge of the mine grabbed Lin Fan's hair and said to Lin Fan, "Go back? Go back to where? Go home or just leave here?"
Lin Fan didn't know what to say, but his body's instinct made Lin Fan say, "Go...go home."
"Go home? Which home? This is your home, where else do you want to go back? Don't you think you still have a home? If you did, you wouldn't be thrown into the slums."
The words of supervision made Lin Fan feel a little lonely.
"Here you are just a piece of trash who can only mine, you hear me?"
Lin Fan nodded stiffly
"Do you still want me to tell you what to do now?"
Lin Fan got up from the ground and walked towards the pickaxe he had left behind. When he got up, the supervisor kicked Lin Fan again and fell to the ground. Lin Fan had no choice but to get up again.
The miners looked at Lin Fan from time to time. The smiles on their lips made Lin Fan feel ashamed and wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl in, so it took him very little time to get up to the mining site.
Lin Fan kept digging to cover up what happened just now, observing everywhere while digging.
The supervisor kicked Lin Fan again and said, "What are you looking at? Work!"
Lin Fan nodded and said "Oh oh oh"
After the supervisor had gone away, a boy about the same age as himself next to Lin Fan said while digging, "What's your name?"
No one responded to him
The boy said to Lin Fan, "Isn't it rude if you don't answer me when I ask you a question?"
Lin Fan looked around first and then asked him: "Are you talking to me?"
The boy waved hard, "What if? Look around and see how many people can talk to me."
Lin Fan saw that everyone was staying three or four meters away to avoid him.
"My name is Lin Fan"
"Lin Fan." The boy said with a smile, "My name is Cang, and you will be my friend from now on."
Under the dim light, Cang's smile was very confident and cheerful, as if there was a mysterious charm that fascinated people.
"Friend? What is that?" Lin Fan asked
"Ding!" Cang's iron pickaxe made a harsh sound on the rock wall.
"Ha! You don't know what a friend is? Then you must have been very pitiful before and must have had no friends at all."
Lin Fan couldn't refute Cang's words, "So what exactly are friends?"
Cang Gang was about to speak but found that he had nothing to say. No, it was not that he had nothing to say but that he was unable to express it. In order to find an accurate and objective answer, Cang stopped what he was doing and started thinking.
Lin Fan continued to dig on the rock wall, once, twice, three times... fifteen times, sixteen times...
"Never mind!" Cang picked up the pickaxe and waved it wildly, "Friends are friends, it's that simple, that's right, that's it."
Cang turned around and said, "You know, this is what friends are like."
Saying it means not saying it. Lin Fan thought to himself
Cang saw Lin Fan's look and said directly: "Ah, are you saying in your heart, "If you say it, it means you don't mean it?""
Lin Fan turned his head and looked away.
Cang kicked Lin Fan, and Lin Fan was kicked to the ground.
"what?"
"you shut up!"
Lin Fan got up and started fucking Cang directly. The fight between the two attracted people from all around to watch.
It wasn't until supervision came that they were pulled apart. The punishment instead was to cancel tomorrow's meal and not be allowed to rest tonight to continue mining.
At night, Cang and Lin Fan mined alone.
Cang showed his mouth with a few missing teeth and made a face, while Lin Fan responded to Cang with a face that was bruised and swollen.
