Joseph slowly walked out of his home.
As he stepped through the open doorway, a sudden shiver ran through him.
He had no idea where the feeling came from. In truth, he did not even bother trying to grasp that fleeting question. When the acid rain fell from the sky onto his skin, the burning pain it caused made him forget all about it.
He walked through the Shantytown. Half-dead corpses stared up at the night sky by the roadside, while coughing rang out without end. Every time Joseph passed through this stretch of road, he felt stifled.
Lie had said that this feeling was normal, because no one wanted to hear other people coughing—especially those with black lung disease. Once you had seen them cough up black dust and blood, you would never forget it.
Being able to remember was a good thing, but Joseph did not want to remember these things.
He raised his head so that he would not have to look at them.
With his neck held stiffly, he passed through the dark, foul-smelling streets and reached the other end of the Shantytown, where Lie's home stood. Just as he had expected, many people had arrived before him.
Lie's home had no door. In fact, he lived beneath a wall with an overhanging ledge. That wall was his home.
Now, it was covered in dense black characters. Skeletal ghostly figures stood vaguely in the darkness, staring at them.
The moment Joseph saw this, he knew he did not need to squeeze his way inside to find Lie.
At a time like this, Lie was most likely not there. The worker turned around and headed into a narrow alley so tight that he had to walk sideways.
The rough barbs on the metal sheets scraped against his