West Street ran inward, and there was a narrow alley.
The alley was deep. When you passed its entrance, you could smell waves of strange odors drifting out from within—spoiled food, human waste, the emaciated corpses of stray dogs and cats...
Or human corpses.
No one cared if someone died here. They might not be found for a week or two.
Only when the body had rotted into a pool of pus, every inch devoured by maggots and flies, leaving nothing but a skeleton, would a beggar who happened to come looking for a place to sleep spot it and remark, "What an awful sight."
That's right. This place was a beggar's den.
The homeless and the disabled, after enduring the cold stares and abuse of others, would eventually choose to flee to the alley, accept their fate, and become one of the many filthy beggars whose faces could barely be made out.
The people who oppressed them wouldn't enter this alley, because they couldn't stand the stench and filth.
Now and then, people of unknown identity showed up in the alley. But just as the beggars didn't care why those people had come, they didn't care who had appeared or disappeared. When they looked at someone, they only cared about three things—
Did they have food?
Did they have valuables?
Could they be robbed?
Anyone who tried to enter this alley had to be careful at all times, unless they were already as miserable as its regulars. They had to judge from the gloomy looks the beggars kept casting their way when the others might pounce.
The waiter at the eatery had warmly seen Yu Xing and the siren off. Afterward, he kept glancing toward West Street.
He was waiting.
Waiting for the two obvious outsiders to head for