Yangcheng was the terminus of the Beijing-Guangzhou line, Shenzhou's great railway artery, so there were many units clustered around the railway—machine repair plants, supporting factories, railcar factories, and the like.
These units were all massive, with residential compounds stretching block after block, filled with employees, their children, and their families connected to the railway system.
These people saw each other all day long. They might not know the full story of each other's three generations of ancestors and descendants, but if any bit of news or gossip surfaced, it was guaranteed to spread through several compounds within days.
Over the past few days, several country folk had come down from the North and started selling malt candy and collecting junk in these residential compounds.
Though they did not sell much candy or collect much junk each day, they persisted, occasionally asking whether there were any fellow Northerners in the compounds.
These country folk were, of course, Hao Jian and the others, carrying pig heads as they searched for temple gates.
Hao Jian had sent Li Ye a telegram asking for help, but Li Ye was no immortal who could wave a hand and solve all their hardships. He could only point them toward a workable path.
Li Ye told them to find locals to help, but they could not just pick anyone. Even in these times, drifters had already spotted "business opportunities"; getting scammed would take no time at all.
The people in work-unit residential compounds, on the other hand, did not have such complicated backgrounds. Everyone belonged to a unit. Scam someone today, and by tomorrow the story would be everywhere. That was more than simple embarrassment—they would be dragged off by some XX department and worked over to death.
Of course, people with work units would definitely not