Before Sun Hang even got close, a man carrying a steel pipe stepped out of a van. He wore a motorcycle helmet without goggles and sized Sun Hang up with hostile eyes.
What slightly surprised Sun Hang, however, was that the man merely watched him. He made no aggressive move and did not approach, simply watching as Sun Hang crossed the road, passed between the parked cars, and entered the construction site.
Luckily, Sun Hang had changed clothes on the way here. If he had shown up covered in blood, some unnecessary conflict probably would have broken out.
Sun Hang continued forward. According to the scavenger girl, the scavengers and homeless people living here were mostly gathered in Buildings Eleven and Thirteen, the only two buildings in the entire development with running water. Although the water reeked strongly of rust and was often cut off, it was still better than nothing.
Sun Hang reached the entrance to Building Eleven. None of these buildings had doors or windows installed yet. To ward off the cold wind outside, the scavengers had used simple materials such as foam boards and plastic sheets to make barriers and plug the gaps where wind leaked through. Looking up, any floor whose windows were tightly sealed was occupied; floors with open window frames served as communal kitchens for cooking over fires.
As for using the toilet, they had to go to unoccupied buildings or the sand pits behind the construction site.
The scavenger girl had told Sun Hang that a homeless man once broke the building's rules and defecated directly in the stairwell corridor. A group of scavengers beat him up, and before driving him out, forced him to eat what he had just excreted...
This place was chaotic, but within that chaos was a set of