The narrow path is flanked by high walls, with weeds growing in the corners and gusts of night wind.

The yellow street lights in the distance shone on Chen Chong's face, and the shadow behind him was pulled very long.

The clouds in the sky block the moonlight, and the cold air seems heavy, making it difficult to breathe.

The front of the Food City faces the road, and pedestrians can be seen everywhere in the huge square. But the back of the Food City is pitch black and has a gloomy feeling.

Taking the main body of the food city as the boundary, the front and back sides are like two worlds clearly separated.

Rush rust...

Chen Chong occasionally stepped on weeds and made subtle sounds, awakening the sleeping mosquitoes.

Walking out of the path, the back of the Food City is an old street that has not yet been planned. The ground is bumpy and connected to the nearby old residential buildings.

The residential building has several windows with lights on, and it is probably a night owl sitting in front of the computer to play all night.

In fact, if you look at it during the day, the back of the food street is quite spacious, and some old facades are facing the old street on the back of the food town.

However, it was late at night, and the closed doors were dead, but the ditch in front of the door emitted a faint sour smell. It must have been the sewage removed by the merchants every day.

Chen Chong stood at the entrance of the road and looked to the right. The figure just now happened to turn into the open space surrounded by iron fences on the back of the Food City.

Through the gaps in the iron fence, you can see more figures in the open space. They either sit, lie, or gather together, and are covered by the only yellow light on the open space.

“These people…”

Chen Chong looked carefully at the appearance of those people. Whether it was dressed or weak when walking, he was just like those homeless wanderers.

Dada...

While I was thinking, the sound of empty footsteps came from beside me. When I turned around, I saw that it was another wanderer.

The other party's eyes were dull and his head was so oily that it became a twist. Although it was already autumn, his clothes were very thin, and the open collar revealed thin skin and concave and concave ribs.

When he walked past Chen Chong, his eyes looked at the latter, and he seemed to not quite understand why the clean-clothed and energetic young man in front of him appeared here in the middle of the night.

"Please wait a moment."

Chen Chong quickly took out a cigarette from his pocket and handed it to the other party, and explained: "Don't get me wrong, I just happened to pass by here, and I was a little curious about why so many people gathered there."

A polite tone, a smiling expression and a seductive cigarette immediately made the wanderer relax his vigilance. After he took the cigarette, he fumbled his hands on his clothes without a pocket...

Chen Chong understood and took out the lighter to light it for the other party.

"Thank you... Thank you..." The wanderer thanked repeatedly, trying to reach out to catch the lighter and light it himself, but he was afraid that the lighter would be dirty, so he trembled with his hands to protect the flames.

"Huh, it's nothing. Boss Zhao Xiaokang from this food city is a good person. He will provide food to us wanderers at the back door on time every night. Although they are all left over from business during the day, they are very clean and taste great. So over time, more and more wanderers come."

Zhao Xiaokang?

Chen Chong raised his eyebrows slightly, as if he heard something big joke. Fortunately, he didn't show his inner emotions, and he looked very calm, "So that's it, how long has this matter lasted?"

"How long hasn't anyone known? I came here after hearing from others last month." The wanderer smoked a cigarette hard.

Chen Chong keenly captured the ambiguity in the former's words and asked in confusion: "What you said is that no one knows, not that you don't know?"

"Yes." The wanderer looked at him for no reason.

"No, so many of you gather here, how could you not even know one person?" Chen Chong was skeptical and dispersed a cigarette for the other party to extend the conversation.

"I really didn't lie to you. If anyone knows, it's also those people in the past. Among us, the longest-timer here is only four or five months." The wanderer smiled and took the cigarette and reopened it again.

"What about those people in the past?" Chen Chong asked.

"You ask me, whom I ask? Maybe I have wandered to other cities, maybe I have found a new begging place." The wanderer sighed. "We homeless people are a group of people who are forgotten by the city. They go wandering wherever they can get food, and they are helpless and homeless. To put it bluntly, even if they die outside, no one will ask about it, and no one knows their identity."

While the two were talking, the group of wanderers gathered together suddenly became turbulent. Several security guards from the food city walked out of the back door, carrying a few steaming large iron buckets.

The smell of meat is wafting away.

"Young man, I have to go through it. If it's too late, I'll be snatched up by those guys." After the wanderer finished speaking, he accelerated his pace and walked towards the open space without waiting for Chen Chong to answer. Soon, he squeezed into the crowd and disappeared.

This food sharing action is not just about gathering the remaining food. It involves the extra overtime salary of security guards, chefs, cleaning staff, etc., and it is definitely a considerable expense every month. And as the person just said, such action lasted at least four or five months.

Is Zhao Xiaokang really good at doing such a good thing?

Chen Chong was observing the wanderers pushing and grabbing food in front of him. Suddenly, Yu Guang was attracted by a sharp gaze and turned his head slightly. It turned out that the security guard who was putting food was staring at him.

The security guard's eyes were confused, puzzled, and a little bit of vigilance.

Originally, Chen Chong wanted to go over and chat with the security guard to see if he could go around the food city. But as soon as this look appeared, he knew there was no chance, so he turned around and left here.

What is certain now is that Du Wenlong has a problem, and Black Cat tracks the murderer to the Food City, and there are also problems with the Food City. So what are the positions of these security guards?

"No matter how you expose yourself, before you find out the truth, you will only add to danger."

Chen Chong licked his dry mouth and returned to the manhole cover in the middle of the trail again, he took out the hemp rope and the pebbles from his backpack.

This pebble is a medium for deformed species. Of course, this is not important. What is important is that the pebble itself is very hard, flat, and not big in size. It just happens to be combined with a rope to make a temporary barb.

Tie the pebbles in the middle with hemp rope, then hang and stuff it into the small hole on the manhole cover, then shake it gently. When lifting the hemp rope, the pebbles have stuck in the small hole and cannot be pulled out.

This is Chen Chong's purpose, in order to facilitate force during the lifting of the manhole cover.

He bent over slightly, wrapped the rope around his shoulders, and then said "upper body". His arm muscles were tight and his forehead was bulging. With the help of "deformality", he lifted up the manhole cover that needed two or three people to work together to pry.

The hemp rope made a sound of overwhelming force. When it was about to break, the manhole cover completely broke away from the grooves that had been silted by soil all year round.

The weight of the manhole cover itself is not as terrifying as imagined. Chen Chong could easily hold it with his feet, then grabbed the edge with both hands and moved it away carefully, leaving a space to enter and exit.

Putting away the rope and pebbles, he took out a flashlight to shine the black mud underground, and finally sucked a few mouthfuls of fresh air from the outside, followed the rusty ladder, and went down to the bottom of the well bit by bit.

The height difference is about five or six meters.

The sole of the shoe was about three centimeters in mud, almost missing the shoelaces.

Looking up, there was only a circular sky in the dark sight, which immediately reminded people of the four words "Frog in the Well".

"It's so smelly."

Chen Chong was surrounded by the stinky smell and tears were almost smoky. Fortunately, he had already made preparations before he came down, and he was not too resistant at this moment.

There are two pipe openings at the bottom of the well, one in front and one behind, with a diameter of about 80 cm. According to the position of the ladder, he quickly identified that the gate ahead leads to the Food City.

Tat... Tat...

Lift your foot forward, and when approaching the pipe mouth, you must bend your knees and bow to enter, otherwise you must crawl with your limbs.

Chen Chong thought about it and chose the latter because it saves more effort and is faster. The only disadvantage is that it is too dirty and requires strong psychological qualities to overcome prejudice.

Dadadada...

Suddenly, footsteps echoed in the narrow space. Chen Chong was startled and carefully identified that the footsteps came from the inspection well behind. In other words, someone was wandering near the wellhead, and more than one person was.

Pedestrian, wanderer, or someone else?

Before I could make a judgment, I heard the sound of dragging the pipe wall resonance, and then a "clang" sound of the manhole cover closing.

Dong!!

A few seconds after the manhole cover was closed, another dull collision sounded. If you guessed correctly, it should be that the person who covered the manhole cover added other heavy objects to the manhole cover.

"An unintentional act or intentional?"

Chen Chong felt a little uneasy. It would be fine if it was an unintentional act, but if it was an intentional act, he might have been in trouble.

The light of the flashlight shines on the front end, and the underside of the circular pipe is full of black and smelly sewage. Although there is no silt on the surrounding pipe walls, some creeping white spots the size of rice grains are even more disgusting. They are bacterial organisms that are very easy to breed in dark and humid environments.

Hu... Hu...

Paji...paji...

Low breathing, squeezed mud...

In this confined space where you don’t know the way forward, darkness is even more frightening.

Tick ​​to...

There was a sound of dripping water behind him, but Chen Chong could only barely turn his head and check the situation behind him from the corner of his eyes, but he could not see anything and didn't know how far he had crawled.

puff.

Suddenly, his right hand slipped and his body's center of gravity shifted forward. Chen Chong adjusted his balance in panic, but unexpectedly, the pipe in front was tilted forward and had a large amplitude.

"Damn!"

At the critical moment, he had only time to yell, and his whole body was uncontrollably sliding forward along the pipe, and the degree was getting faster and faster, and there was no way to stop.

Rush rust...

The palms and knees were covered with mud, but the result was that the faster and faster, the more slippery the faster and smoother the wind. Even the ears were reminded of the sound of "rustling" breaking wind.

"ah.."

I don’t know how long it took, but Chen Chong’s body suddenly flew into the air. His strong sense of weightlessness made him raise his heart to his throat, unable to tell the difference between the east, south, west, north, and up, down, left and right.

The sounds around him remained unchanged.

Plop.

It was only a moment before he recovered completely, he realized that he was sitting in an unknown place where mud and water met, his hands were trapped in the thick mud, and the waterline was overwhelmed.

He pulled out his hands vigorously, and the flashlight he grabbed with his right hand was specially designed for outdoor activities, and the waterproof function was just one of them.
To be continued...