death of hope

Chapter 49 "Flying Windfall" (49) Heiyuan Town
Completely different from the romantic water towns in travel documentaries, there is no beauty and poetry in Heiyuan Town.

The narrow and dank street exudes a disturbing and strange atmosphere. People gathered in twos and threes are chatting furtively. The buildings built with rubbish on the side of the street are dimly lit with kerosene lights. Occasionally, curious eyes peep through the cracks in the doors. The window sills peered out.

These underground residents were secretly observing the people from the surface world, the familiar masked vigilantes, and two strangers, Roy and Anna.

"These people are scary... a lot of people are looking at me..."

Anna was terrified, huddled in Roy's arms, rubbed her hands, and walked tremblingly.

Although Roy himself felt scared, his dignity as a man made him pretend to be calm, and boldly said in a rough voice:

"It's nothing strange. Pretty girls don't like to look twice."

Contrary to what they thought, the eyes of these underground residents were not malicious, but more curious and envious. They were curious about the origin of this strange couple, envied the clothes and shoes they wore, and envied them for having a place where they could see the light.

"Something's wrong...very wrong. Is this really a human town? Look, the woman's eyes are glowing, like cats. Could it be an illegal immigration settlement of aliens?"

Anna shrank her neck in fright, and whispered to Roy: "The kid playing pinball over there has a pair of terrible dead fish eyes... The folds on his neck are like fish gills, and the angle of the joints is also very strange. .”

"It should be because of the lights, don't scare yourself."

Although Roy himself was vaguely aware that something was wrong with this town, he still maintained a brave attitude, until an oncoming old man bumped into him, and the mushrooms in the vegetable basket rolled to the ground.

"I'm sorry, old man, I'll pick it up for you."

Roy squatted down, trying to pick up the mushrooms rolling all over the floor back into the vegetable basket, but accidentally saw the deformed and swollen legs of the old man. They were not like human skin at all. They were pale, wrinkled, sticky and smelly, like Octopus skin.

"Ouch! Monster!"

Roy was so frightened that he sat down on the wet ground, grabbed Anna's calf and kept backing away; "What the hell...Damn it!"

"Who the hell are you calling a ghost, stupid foreigner! Cough cough cough..."

The hunchbacked old man coughed and cursed in a hoarse voice: "Go away! I'll pick it up myself!"

He stretched out his mutated and curled palm from his cuff, picked up the mushroom, cursed and left angrily.

Anna helped Roy up, and the two looked at each other in fear, as if saying:
(Is that... just now really human?)

Along the way, strange monsters emerge one after another, just like being in a horror film factory;
Those with three legs or two heads are nothing. Some figures are completely unrecognizable. Even the director of a horror movie would scream.

Susan told the truth, the residents of this black abyss town are a mixed bag, most of them are marginalized people who can't get along on the surface;
There are speculators in the black market, there are scavengers looking for gold in big waves, and there are fugitives who are wanted in the underground world. Most of them are poor laborers who cannot be exploited and persecuted.

And the most frightening among them are the mutants exiled from the surface civilization world,
The air pollution on Terra's home planet is serious, the nuclear radiation has exceeded the standard for a long time, and the food safety situation is worrying. Some born deformed children were abandoned as soon as the umbilical cord was cut, and were picked up to grow up in this dark underground world.
Of course, there are also some examples of acquired mutations, such as the old man Roy just met, who talked about his past with Susan;
His name is Wallin, and he worked in a metallurgical plant in the eastern suburbs of York City many years ago. The working environment there was notoriously harsh, and the silica powder was so overwhelming that he couldn't even see his own arms clearly.

After working for a long time, I started to cough, and the phlegm I coughed up was not much, but there was always blood.When you cough until you are hypoxic, you start to vomit. When you walk a little, climb a staircase, you have to squat down and cough for a while. After middle age, the skin of the whole body begins to fester, and the bones are distorted and deformed. It looks like a big slimy octopus , The Metallurgical Plant fired him without providing any reason, and did not give him a penny of subsidies.

From then on, poor Valin could only shut himself in the house. Fortunately, his family was warm and his wife and daughter never left him.

The priests of the local radical religion, Adam and Eve's Chosen Sect, said that he was the incarnation of the devil, and tried to purify him with boiling hot holy water, but after failing, beat him with sticks, saying that if he was killed, he would go to heaven.

One rainy night, Valin escaped from the prison-like community church. The priest led the believers with guns to chase after him in the rain. He fell asleep on a piece of driftwood, was rescued by a boatman in Heiyuan Town, and became one of the earliest residents here.

After hearing what Susan said, Anna was no longer afraid. She was kind and began to sympathize with the mutant townspeople on the side of the road.

"It's better for them to live here than to be persecuted on the ground."

"That's the case." Susan nodded: "The most fearful thing for the disadvantaged is not that no one will give alms and no one cares, but that they are afraid of being targeted and bullied to death."

(Compared with these freaks living in the sewers, who am I to complain.) Roy thought.

As soon as they spoke, time passed very quickly. Susan and the others seemed to come to this town often, whistling as they walked, and occasionally saying hello to acquaintances.

Everyone came to the center of Heiyuan Town, and the population gradually became denser. There are everything here, such as grocery stores, bars, bookstores, hospitals, blacksmith shops, tailor shops...

There are no big companies monopolizing the industry, only small individual stalls. The stall owners and customers are old acquaintances and trust each other.

No police officers or soldiers were seen, only a few uniformed sheriffs to maintain order, completely different from the violent neighborhoods on the ground, these underground townspeople get along harmoniously.

"Big entrepreneurs are pretentious, and in fact, everyone can live well without them." Miss Susan said.

The headquarters of the York City Avengers is located near the central market in the town of Black Abyss. It is a dilapidated house made of thin iron sheets and plastic waste.

This is worse than Roy imagined: "The headquarters of the masked vigilante is so shabby, I am afraid that children who worship superheroes will be disappointed."

"Don't ask too much, it's good to have a place to stay." Susan knocked on the door with a password,

They were greeted by a dwarf who was only half the height of an ordinary person. He spoke in a high-pitched whisper as if inhaling laughing gas (nitrous oxide), which was particularly funny:

"Welcome to the home of superheroes, friends."

(End of this chapter)