Embers Ad Infinitum

Posen opened a crumpled paper bag and found a small piece of oatmeal bread and a thumb-sized bacon caked with dust.

He was overjoyed and looked up at Jiang Baimian and Shang Jianyao. Seeing that they were not paying attention to him, he hurriedly wiped the bacon and stuffed it into his mouth.

Then, ignoring the complex and unpleasant smell around him, he bit into the small piece of oatmeal bread.

Perhaps because he was afraid that the food would be taken away, he ate so voraciously that he soon choked himself.

However, he was an experienced scavenger and skillfully took down the tin-white kettle he had picked up before, and Gulu took a few sips.

At this moment, Jiang Baimian and Shang Jianyao were rummaging through piles of garbage for possible clues.

The garbage that is put into bags and sorted is relatively pleasing to the eye, allowing them to inspect it efficiently, but the garbage that is poured directly into the bucket and the various types of garbage are mixed together, creating a wet and sticky environment for fermentation, and some of them have already Rotten and the taste is very touching.

Hearing the sound of Posen drinking water, Jiang Baimian, who was wearing a gas mask, turned around and looked at the scavenger.

He is in his forties, his eyes are blue, his face is covered with traces of wind and frost, and the yellowish beard around his mouth is messy and messy, stained with a lot of debris and water drops.

After swallowing the food that he choked on completely, the scavenger raised his left hand and wiped his beard.

Jiang Baimian noticed that his hand was trembling slightly and unconsciously.

After thinking about it, Jiang Baimian took off the rubber glove on one hand and took out a photo from his pocket:

"Do you recognize this cigarette?"

That was a photo of flag cigarettes taken by Gnawa.

Posen screwed the lid of the kettle and pointed at himself with his left hand:

"Are you asking me?"

"Yes." Jiang Baimian replied affirmatively.

She was about to say that she could pay a little, but Posen looked at the photo carefully and said:

"This is a Flag cigarette. Its filter is short and useless, and it has almost no taste when smoked."

Compared with other cigarettes on the market at the beginning, Flag cigarettes not only tasted strong, close to country cigarettes, but they were also famous for a short filter that had no effect.

"Have you ever smoked?" Shang Jianyao asked curiously.

Perhaps the two of them did not grab the food they found, and they were the types who could live together peacefully. Posen was no longer as wary as before, and said with a smile:

"I occasionally find some cigarette butts from the garbage room, of all brands. As long as they are not wet, I will pick them back, light them with a fire, and take two long puffs to feel the taste.

"It would be even better if we could still find some food that day and fill our stomachs."

Posen has discovered that the goals of the two people in front of him are different from his own, and there seems to be no competition between the two parties.

When Jiang Baimian heard about picking up cigarette butts and smoking them, his eyes lit up and he asked patiently:

"Do you know all the cigarette brands?"

"I have smoked some before, and there are often discarded old newspapers in the garbage room with advertisements for various cigarettes." Posen said with a little pride, "I know the words!"

Jiang Baimian immediately asked:

"Then where did you pick up the flag cigarette butt?"

Posen thought about it:

"That time I went to the green olive area to sell various things I picked up. I picked them up on the road when passing by the port. I was quite looking forward to it, but..."

As a result, customers of Banner cigarettes would take a few puffs on the cigarette butt before throwing it away. Coupled with the short filter tip design that has no filtering effect and cannot block certain ingredients, the residual taste is almost zero.

Jiang Baimian was a little disappointed and asked as if to confirm:

"You didn't pick up cigarette butts like this in these neighborhoods?"

"No." Posen shook his head firmly.

Jiang Baimian then thought:

"So which buildings have you been to in the past week?"

She was going to use the process of elimination.

Posen thought carefully:

"Gade Tower, Hearst Apartments..."

As he spoke, he pointed with his right hand.

Jiang Baimian found that there was something wrong with his right hand, which was not very flexible.

After writing down the name of the building in the Posen newspaper, Jiang Baimian stood up, walked out of the garbage room, and took out the walkie-talkie in a quiet place nearby.

"Put the Gade Building and Hearst Apartments in second place, and prioritize other buildings on the list." She gave the order to Bai Chen, Long Yuehong, and Gnawa.

After getting a positive reply, she put away the walkie-talkie and returned to the garbage room.

At this time, Shang Jianyao was already having a good chat with Bosen.

"Are you looking for something? Don't worry, the garbage truck will come in a few hours." Posen comforted his new friend.

"Yeah." Jiang Baimian nodded, squatted down again, and put on the rubber glove.

Posen rummaged through various garbage, looking for food and valuable items, while laughing and saying:

“You can often find something interesting here.

"During the winter before, I found a bag of clothes in an opaque bag. What do you think they are?"

Shang Jianyao replied cooperatively:

"Coat, cotton-padded jacket?"

"No, no, no." Posen shook his head.

He smiled and said:

"There is a pair of dark blue socks, a pair of black leather boots, a pair of silk underwear, a pair of black trousers, a white shirt, a black vest, and a black formal suit, the kind that noble men like to wear most, and They are all still new and there are no signs of sewing.”

"This sounds a bit weird." Jiang Baimian's thoughts changed and he probably understood what was going on.

A certain nobleman followed the style of Weller, the forensic playboy of Hongshiji, and comforted other people's wives. As a result, others came home early and blocked him in the room.

He didn't bother to put on his clothes, climbed out of the window, and fled in a hurry in the "Emperor's New Clothes" state.

Later, he either met the entourage who was standing nearby, or went to the sheriff on the pretext of being robbed, or took in other people's laundry.

The wife was afraid that her husband would discover the clothes and shoes he left behind, so she hurriedly put them into a bag, took them out in the name of taking out the trash, and threw them into the garbage room.

Posen was about to respond when he found a half-rotten apple.

His eyes lit up and he put it into the linen bag he had brought.

After doing this, Posen smiled and said:

“Yeah, I can imagine a love story.

"It's a pity that I didn't dare to sell that set of clothes in the Golden Apple District and the Red Giant Wolf District, so I could only send it to the Green Olive District, but it cost me a full 5 ores.

"It was such a wonderful month..."

Shang Jianyao listened with great interest and expressed his opinion:

"That suit is worth at least 50 ores."

"50? At least 200!" Posen retorted.

Jiang Baimian glanced at him, nodded slightly and said:

"You seem to have some education?"

"I am a citizen," Posen emphasized, "and I once joined the army."

"Then how did you become a scavenger?" Jiang Baimian asked curiously.

Posen was silent for a moment and said:

"I used to be the most accurate marksman in our battalion and made many contributions. Later, during a war, my right forearm was injured and my movements were no longer flexible, so I left the army.

"I was allocated a lot of farmland at that time, just in the southern suburbs, and lived a good life for several years. Until that year, the weather changed drastically, food production dropped sharply, and the Senate refused to help us...

"Later, I couldn't bear the debt, so I had no choice but to sell the land to a nobleman and go to the city myself..."

Jiang Baimian deliberately asked:

"Then why don't you become a relic hunter and make a living in the wasteland of the North Shore?

"At your age, you should still have some gas in the tank."

Posen showed a bitter smile:

“The day I found out that the debt interest rate was unbearable, my left hand began to tremble from time to time.

"I can no longer use the gun with both hands..."

After a brief silence in the garbage room, Shang Jianyao asked seriously:

“Then you hate the Senate for not helping you?

"Do you hate those nobles who took the opportunity to provide usurious loans and annex your land?"

Posen's expression changed a few times, he lowered his head slightly, looked at the ground and said:

"Hate, how could you not hate?

"Hum, Jasper, Paris... died one after another in exchange for the land, but in the end it ended up in the hands of the nobles who took no risks in the war."

Suddenly, he raised his head and growled slightly painfully:

“We citizens died one after another to build the current ‘Primary City’, but they just want to deprive us of our land and send us to those factories!

"Most of the slaves in those factories don't even survive three years!"

Jiang Baimian listened quietly and looked at each other with Shang Jianyao.

For the first time, she felt the internal contradictions of "Primary City" so clearly.

…………

Alpha Building, inside the attached garbage room.

Bai Chen and Long Yuehong also wore gas masks and rummaged through various garbage with Gennava.

There are a large number of companies and chambers of commerce stationed here, and there are also apartments provided for employees. Originally, they were not on their check list today, but the situation reported by Jiang Baimian made them abandon the Gade Building and Hearst Apartments.

"It's really a test of patience." Long Yuehong almost used the metaphor of finding a needle in a haystack.

Bai Chen glanced sideways at him and said:

"It is in this kind of place where it is almost impossible to find clues that a real 'priest' can be careless.

"Hurry up and find this place before the garbage truck comes."

While she was speaking, the movements of her hands did not stop at all.

——As unofficial personnel, they must avoid crowded times when rummaging through garbage to avoid alerting others. At the same time, they must get there before the garbage trucks transport the garbage. Otherwise, after the garbage is mixed together, who knows where it came from.

"Okay." Long Yuehong endured a little nausea and continued her work.

In this regard, Gnawa has no discomfort at all.

As time passed quickly, Long Yuehong picked up a thin plastic bag and dumped the garbage inside on the ground.

As soon as he glanced at it, his eyes suddenly solidified.

There were several cigarette butts with short filter tips in the pile of garbage.

This is the butt of a flag cigarette!

Long Yuehong subconsciously raised her head and looked outside the garbage room, looking at the 27-story Alpha Building.

PS: Please give me a guaranteed monthly ticket at the beginning of the month~ I probably haven’t had the energy to write a monthly summary in the past few months, everyone is considerate and considerate, laugh.