Chapter 784: Deadly Joke (XI)

Bruce was determined to leave, but the old man still stuffed a cigarette into his mouth and said, "I will provide a free cigarette to every newcomer who comes here. This may save his life at a critical moment and will also increase my customer. If you really can't stand the pain, then come to me. The doctor welcomes every patient."

Bruce took the cigarette and returned to the car with stiff steps. He put the cigarette in his pocket and sat in the seat blankly until it rained again in Gotham.

Bruce, who had nowhere to go, could only stay in the truck. This was his only shelter. Although it was not very warm, it could at least keep out the wind and rain.

Stayed in the driver's seat, Bruce's mind kept echoing the words of the old man, which were so absurd and unreasonable, and it was almost like a joke.

But the old man was not joking. He really regarded himself as a doctor and then looked for solutions for those patients. He believed that he could cure them. In his opinion, no pain was considered a cure.

Is this absurd? Maybe, but it is not unreasonable.

In these few days, Bruce deeply realized the importance of labor ability, which is the only hope for everyone here.

They must be able to work to survive here. If they can't move, they can only wait for death.

In order to obtain the ability to work, they will try all possible methods, including using drugs to relieve pain.

There are two ways to treat diseases, one is to treat the symptoms and the other is to treat the root cause. Bruce completely disagrees with using this chronic suicide method to treat the symptoms, but he also has no way to question why these people don't treat the root cause.

Because, the two wrinkled dollars in his hand can't even pay the registration fee of the hospital.

If you can only rely on yourself to obtain basic survival materials, then the saying that there are unexpected changes in the sky is no longer a simple sigh, but a bolt from the blue.

On the day when the thunder fell, many people had already died. The death penalty was sentenced on the first day of the first lunar month, but it was not until the fifteenth day that they died.

Bruce, lying on the seat, gradually felt drowsy, but this time, his dream was falling down, wandering in repeated falling and waking up.

His hand holding the long gun gradually loosened. The double torture of body and mind made him sink into a deep dream, so he did not hear some strange noises.

When he got up the next day, Bruce stretched in the seat. He felt a little better. The symptoms of stomachache had disappeared, and his physical strength had recovered a lot. Moreover, the temperature did not drop today. After the temperature rose, the cold feeling also faded.

Bruce felt that everything was turning around, but this feeling did not last too long. Ten minutes later, he found that the car could not start.

When he got off the car to check, Bruce found that the lock of the fuel tank had been pried open.

The full tank of fuel he had filled before was all stolen, and he slept too deeply last night and did not hear any movement.

The problem now is that if he wants to eat, he will not have enough money to refuel, and if he wants to refuel, he will not have enough money to eat.

If he didn't refuel, he wouldn't be able to do today's work. After eating today's meal, he would still have no money to eat tomorrow. But if he didn't eat, his gastroenteritis might become more serious and his body would be weaker.

After weighing the pros and cons, Bruce decided to refuel. He had to ensure sustainable development, not to eat one meal and not the next.

Finally, he came to the gas station and filled up the tank with the remaining money. He also saved a little money to change the lock of the tank. So far, he was penniless again.

After refueling, he could go to work. As long as he worked, he could get money and eat the next day. In this way, everything would be fine.

With this mood, Bruce set off on his journey again.

Like the previous few days, he came to the gangster's warehouse and started loading goods. Today's business was particularly good. He loaded a full truck of goods and received a two-dollar tip. As long as he pulled the truck to the distribution point, he could earn another ten dollars, which would cover his food for three days.

Bruce felt that he had made the right choice and did not shortsightedly spend the money on food, otherwise, he would still be worrying about tomorrow's meal.

He drove on the road, got on the viaduct as usual, and then began a long process of traffic jam.

However, even in the past, even if there was a traffic jam, at least it could move once every five minutes, and it would take several hours to run a 20-kilometer journey. Although it was a bit slow, it could still be completed.

However, today the traffic queue seemed to be welded together, and it did not move. Seeing that the sun was already overhead, and half of the viaduct had not been completed, Bruce could not help but get off the car like other drivers to check the situation.

You don't know until you see it, and you will be more desperate when you see it. A transport truck carrying the raw materials of cold storage dense ice has a leak. The leaked materials have frozen the back half of the viaduct into ice. Now it is waiting for professionals to come and solve it. If the professionals can't come, don't think about delivering the goods today.

Bruce was on the bridge until two o'clock in the afternoon before he was notified that the professionals had come, but they were not professional enough. He had to find more professionals, and the more professional ones would not arrive until tomorrow. The entrance to the viaduct had been closed, and the cars that were now blocked on the road were unlucky and could only leave tomorrow.

Standing on the viaduct, Bruce could clearly feel that the sunshine here was better than on the ground. Although it was still not as sunny as on the ground, the view was wider, but his mood was not wide enough.

He felt angry, aggrieved, and regretful, but he didn't know who to blame.

After asking about the situation, Bruce knew that the driver of the raw material truck stayed up all night to drive and didn't sleep all night. When he got up today to check the valve, he didn't pay attention. When he was halfway there, the raw materials leaked out completely.

The professionals who came for the first time said that these raw materials could not be recycled, which means that the driver's small negligence made him bear a debt of at least 300,000 US dollars. Now Bruce has realized that 300,000 US dollars is not just a few meals for him.

Most of the drivers dared not leave their trucks. They had all experienced what Bruce had experienced before. They might just go to the toilet or have a meal, but the oil was stolen. The road was blocked, so they could only stay here.

Some children ran to the viaduct to sell food, and many truck drivers bought it, but Bruce did not buy it because he had no money.

After another day and night of hunger, Bruce felt that the fat in his body was rapidly consumed, but his spirit was better than before, and he was no longer tortured by the ubiquitous hunger.

The next day, after the road was cleared, Bruce drove to the distribution point, but when he went back to check out, half of the money was deducted.

The reason was that the goods were delayed for a day and failed to catch up with the previous batch of cargo ships, and the next batch of cargo ships had increased in price, so the gangsters could only recover the cost from them.

Bruce no longer had the energy to argue with the gangsters at this time. He just wanted to take the money to buy food, because his body told him that if he didn't eat again, he would face the risk of hypoglycemia.

He took the dozens of dollars and found a roadside bakery. He bought two bags of cheap ready-made white bread, two baguettes, and some easy-to-store biscuits and put them on the truck. He also asked the newsboy to buy a few bottles of purified water at a high price and put them on the truck.

There was no good source of meat, so he could only buy ready-made sausages. However, most of the ready-made sausages were internal organs and the hygiene conditions were not up to standard. However, Bruce could only make do with it. Without fat supplementation, his body temperature would drop faster.

The only difficulty now was vitamins. Vegetables were not easy to preserve, and he had no place to cook. Bruce had to find a more stable place to live as soon as possible.

After replenishing the food, Bruce felt a lot more at ease. As long as he could save some money, he could rent a better house. With a stable place to live, his trip to the slums would officially begin, and the next step was to walk out of the East District with his own strength.

But Gotham was like this. Whenever a person was ambitious and wanted to do something, an accident would definitely come.

After dark, Bruce planned to find a place to park, but when he started the car, he found that the operation felt a bit wrong, as if the steering system was not working well.

Bruce tested for a long time and found that the car really had a problem. He had to get under the car to repair it, but after a check, he found that the car was not completely new.

Although its appearance looked very bright, when he saw the internal structure, Bruce knew that it was a second-hand new car assembled with various old parts.

At the beginning, he thought that the gangsters would not be so kind to give him such a good car for free, but the aging of the parts inside was worse than he thought.

The next day, Bruce went to find the previous gangsters. Their attitude was good and they were willing to repair Bruce's car, but after the repair, the tire had problems again before it was driven for a day.

Bruce found that the gangsters' way of repairing cars was to replace the parts that were not working well on one car with another car, and then the rest depended on luck.

In other words, they were lucky to be able to replace the parts successfully. Before the first batch of students from the vocational and technical college graduated, most people relied on intuition to repair trucks.

Bruce knew that it would not work if he continued to repair the trucks like this. He had to replace the parts with good parts to make the truck run smoothly instead of breaking down halfway, but he had no money to buy good parts.

Bruce found that all the problems he encountered in the slums would eventually be attributed to two words, that is, no money.

No money means no money. If you want to buy something, you still have no money if you are one cent short. It is not an exaggeration to say that a penny can make a hero fall. What's more, Bruce did not lack one penny. He only had one penny.

At this time, a group of people came to him and claimed that they were here to solve Bruce's problem of having no money.

Looking at the strong man in the lead, Bruce asked, "You said you can lend me money. What's the interest?"

The sturdy man waved his hand and said, "We don't talk about this here. We only tell you how much you have to pay back each period. The minimum loan amount here is $300. You have to pay us $50 every week for the next year."

Bruce didn't even have to think about the number. He knew that this was so-called usury. Seeing that he had no interest, the sturdy man put his arm around his shoulders and said:

"Our terms are already very favorable. Believe me, those who ask you to pay back thousands of dollars at a time are completely extorting."

"Look, when you are in urgent need of money, you take $300 from us, and then you only need to pay us $50 a week. $50 is not difficult for drivers like you. Maybe you can still save dozens of dollars a week to subsidize your family."

Seeing that Bruce still didn't accept it, he said again: "Okay, if you like the traditional method, we will lend you $300, and you will pay us $800 next month."

Bruce knew that $800 was a huge sum of money for the slums. Not to mention $800, $80 is a huge sum for him now.

Bruce looked at the sturdy man and asked him, "What if I can't pay it back?"

The sturdy man smiled and said, "Don't worry, the gang is short of people now, you will have a good place to go, especially, you are a beauty."

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