bookcurios Chapter 437 The Predator Trapping Plan (36)
Chapter 437 The Predator Trapping Plan (36)
With Haier as a backup, the three of them and the entire tour group successfully entered the gravitational layer.
An hour later, the spaceship landed in Istven, the largest city on A001, and the three split up as planned.
Yan Zhen went to find Xu Xingzhan, Qin Shao went home, and Haier stayed with the tour group, wandering around like an ordinary tourist. The three of them kept in touch at all times.
After leaving the tour group, Yan Zhen had a clear goal: to find Xu Xingzhan's location through Haier's investigation.
Eastfin is a vast city, the largest on the planet, bustling with activity and filled with cutting-edge high-tech products.
Having experienced the days when even basic necessities were scarce on N613, Yan Zhen was filled with awe at the richness and power of this planet as he journeyed along.
But after walking a little further and crossing a street, the scene suddenly changed.
The towering buildings are no longer glamorous, the buildings on both sides of the road have become densely packed and dilapidated, and large piles of garbage have been left unattended along the roadside.
In the dark and narrow alleys, one can see homeless people everywhere, dressed in rags and with haggard faces, lying on the ground, living a life of debauchery.
The further you go, the more serious the situation becomes.
The city seems to be divided into two completely different worlds by a street.
Stopping at the address, Yan Zhen looked up at the gray building in front of him and squinted.
Two homeless men were lying down below the building. On the rusty iron gate, "drug rehabilitation" posters were covered with dense and cryptic information about how to buy drugs.
Through the narrow stairwell door, one can vaguely see the filthy stairs and the broken windows.
Seeing this scene, Yan Zhen suddenly felt like laughing.
Xu Xingzhan went through all sorts of hardships to get to A001, but it seems he didn't have a very good life there.
Thinking of this, she couldn't help but laugh out loud.
The laughter attracted the attention of the homeless people below the building. One of them looked up and Yan Zhen noticed that it was a woman with a dirty face.
The two exchanged a glance, and the woman staggered to her feet and walked towards her.
Her movement to get up bumped into a homeless man sitting next to her with his head drooping. The man's body swayed to the side and he fell to the ground, revealing a pale face.
The homeless woman was completely unaware that her companion had died. She stumbled to Yan Zhen, grabbed her collar, and uttered a series of sharp and angry curses.
Without a real-time translator, Yan Zhen couldn't understand what she was saying.
But from the other person's angry gaze, Yan Zhen vaguely knew why she was so angry—she thought he had just been laughing at her.
Yan Zhen pried open the homeless woman's hands and pointed to her companion.
The woman turned around and realized her companion was dead. She frowned, spat on the ground, and then walked up to the corpse with a gloomy expression, kicking it twice.
Once she was sure the man was dead, the woman began to strip him of his coat, leaving him only in his underwear. She then dragged his body to the side of the road, laboriously threw it onto a pile of trash, and pressed a button on a nearby lamppost.
After doing all this, the woman put on the man's clothes, went back to the spot, lay down, and continued to sleep.
A few minutes later, a small, unmanned spaceship rumbled over and hovered above the pile of garbage.
The lower deck opened, and two mechanical arms extended, precisely grabbing the man's corpse and collecting it into the ship's hold like garbage. The spaceship then roared away.
Is disposing of a corpse that simple?
Yan Zhen started to have his own plans.
She glanced again at the emaciated woman lying on the ground, then turned and left.
Yan Zhen went to a nearby store, bought two meals, and returned downstairs.
She placed one of the meals in front of the woman, then sat down next to her and began to eat the other meal.
The woman got up, looked at her in surprise, then at the meal, hesitated for a moment, then picked it up and stuffed it into her mouth.
After finishing her meal, the woman's attitude improved considerably, and her gaze towards Yan Zhen was no longer irritable and hostile.
Yan Zhen took out his personal computer, turned on real-time translation, and started talking to her.
From the woman, Yan Zhen learned that she was an indigenous person of Eastfin. Because of her drug addiction, her middle-class family had been ruined, and she had become a homeless person, wandering on the edge of the city for more than three years.
Yan Zhen asked, "Was the man who died earlier your husband?"
The woman shook her head: "I don't even know the name of the drug addict I'm temporarily teaming up with."
No wonder no woman was saddened or grieved when he died.
Yan Zhen then asked, "With A001's advanced technology, haven't you developed any drugs or methods to help you completely overcome your drug addiction?"
The woman said with a wry smile, "Physical addictions can be overcome, but psychological addictions are much harder to break."
Yan Zhen frowned.
It seems that the problem of human nature has not been solved even in this technologically advanced world.
I spent half an hour with the woman, and it was getting dark.
The woman stood up unsteadily and said she was going to "get the goods".
Yan Zhen vaguely knew what she meant by "getting the goods" and had no intention of following her: "Then I'll wait for you to come back here."
The woman asked in surprise, "Aren't you going home? This place is dangerous at night, especially for a pretty girl like you. Someone could target you and take you away."
"I got separated from my companion. We agreed that I would wait for him to come find me nearby," Yan Zhen said, making up an excuse. "If you're worried about me, could you lend me your clothes? I only need to stay here for one night."
The woman hesitated and did not agree immediately.
Although her clothes were tattered, they were one of the few things she owned.
Yan Zhen noticed her concerns and took out two 100-yuan star coins that could be used throughout the interstellar space: "This is collateral. If you come back tomorrow and find that I'm not here, this money is yours."
The woman's eyes lit up, and she immediately and readily took off her coat, also giving Yan Zhen the coat she had taken from the man, instructing her to cover her head with the coat so that no one wandering around at night could see her face.
"Okay, I'll be careful."
After the woman left, Yan Zhen put on the smelly coat, messed up his hair, and lay down on the ground, pretending to be a homeless person sleeping, but in reality, his eyes were secretly watching the movements outside.
Haier has provided the location as this building, but Yan Zhen doesn't know which floor or room Xu Xingzhan lives in. All she can do now is wait for him to appear.
However, Yan Zhen guessed that Xu Xingzhan immigrated here from the "Garbage Star" and chose the most prosperous city in A001. If he didn't work, he would probably have difficulty making a living.
He's most likely not home during the day.
As night fell, the street became more crowded. Groups of men and women dressed in strange ways passed by, laughing and talking loudly. One group even tried to lift the coat covering Yan Zhen's face.
Yan Zhen was prepared for this. He kicked them and yelled at them to get lost.
Seeing that she was not someone to be trifled with, those people had no choice but to leave.
They waited until midnight, and when that familiar figure finally appeared in the distance, Yan Zhen recognized it at a glance.