pjbooks Chapter 156 Ellie the Thief and Her Grumpy Older Brother
Chapter 156 Ellie the Thief and Her Grumpy Older Brother
Chapter 156 Ellie the Thief and Her Grumpy Older Brother
After descending a rather steep rocky slope, walk about ten meters to the right and you'll arrive outside the bridge arch.
In the field of vision, several tents were set up in a staggered manner under the bridge, forming a small gathering place.
"Ellie is back."
Someone shouted, and a bunch of little brats suddenly popped out of the tent, eagerly crowding around her.
It really was her! That violent little girl who bit me last time, she's actually quite capable. With so many burdens, she managed to make it to downtown Los Angeles and find such a perfect hiding place.
Judging from the map, this place doesn't seem to be hidden at all. Cars often pass by on the bridge, but there's a hidden world underneath. Both sides are lined with small groves of trees used for urban landscaping, and almost no one visits it.
"Sister Ellie, I'm so hungry. Did you bring any food this time?"
A little girl who looked no more than five or six years old stared longingly at the red backpack on her back.
"Sister Ellie, I don't want to sleep here anymore. There are so many mosquitoes, and I'm covered in bites."
"Waaah, let's go back to school. I'd rather get beaten by the teacher than die here."
"What are you crying for? You're so pathetic!" Ellie immediately put her backpack on the ground when faced with her younger siblings.
I unzipped the package and took out five fast food meals. They looked like the traditional boxed meals served in Chinese restaurants, only a modified version.
The main dish was a soy sauce fried rice, with side dishes including General Tso's chicken, Mapo tofu, and shredded pork with garlic sauce, plus a seaweed and egg drop soup.
"Wow, this looks delicious! Give me one, give me one!"
Upon seeing the food, the group of homeless children drooled, perhaps because they had been starving for too long, and made a move to snatch it.
"Don't move, you unruly bastards! Go back and get your cutlery!" Ellie yelled, stopping their rude behavior. She then looked at the boy with vitiligo from before: "Evans, there are ten of us. You divide this food into ten equal portions. No one is allowed to take it, or you'll be kicked out of this camp."
Under her intimidation, the children dared not make any rash moves, took their own plates from the tent, and waited for Evans to distribute the food.
After distributing the food, the latter suddenly realized, "Wait a minute, Ellie, there are 11 people including you. Aren't you going to eat?"
"Me?" Ellie smiled at him dismissively. "I'm already full. Who do you think I am? How could I possibly starve myself?"
"Okay... alright." After saying that, the boy with vitiligo picked up the still-warm fried rice and shoveled it into his mouth with a spoon.
The other children were much the same; they had absolutely no manners when eating, sitting on the ground and devouring the food on their plates in a flash.
However, each person only ate half a portion, and they clearly didn't get full. After finishing the fried rice and stir-fried vegetables, they stuck out their little tongues and licked the rice grains and soup off the plate.
Seeing how much they were enjoying their food, Ellie couldn't help but swallow hard and subconsciously touched her empty stomach.
There's no way around it; when you go out hunting alone, the supplies you can bring back are always limited.
But very young children can't show themselves, otherwise they'll easily be targeted by human traffickers. Being targeted by the police is also not an option; exposing one child means exposing the whole group.
"Ellie, where did you get all this food?" the boy with vitiligo asked curiously after finishing his meal.
"It's the free food truck on the poor street," Ellie told him absentmindedly. "Anyway, you can just line up and get it. You don't need to show any ID, but you can only get one per person. I grabbed several when the silly girl handing out the food wasn't looking, and ran away before she could react."
Hearing her casual description, Evans looked very worried: "Won't we get caught like this?" "It's hard to say for others, but if those adults want to catch me, they'll need to train for several more years."
"Ellie, I'll go with you next time. I'm not slow either."
"Okay, I'll take you next time, the two of us can take more." Ellie looked at the children still licking their plates and sighed helplessly, "Sigh, actually, we can't last long living like this on the streets. I heard the average lifespan of a homeless person is only 3 to 5 years, so does that mean I'm only 18 and there's a chance I'll kick the bucket?"
"But if you go back to school, there's a good chance you'll get killed. Have you forgotten what happened to Alan and Allen?"
The boy with vitiligo's eyes reddened slightly as he spoke: "I still have nightmares every night, dreaming that they crawl out from under the playground and tell me they don't want to die and want to see their mother one last time."
"Stop talking, Evans. I warned you to keep this to yourself, as if it never happened!"
Ellie seemed quite upset when he brought up this past event.
"But I just can't stop myself from overthinking. We've lived in the same dormitory for so long."
"Ellie, let's call the police, okay? If we don't catch that devil, we'll never have a peaceful day. He'll keep sending people to harass us endlessly."
"Call the police?" Ellie's tone sounded extremely disdainful: "Do you want to listen to what you're saying? Haven't the police ever investigated student disappearances at schools before? Or have the Ministry of Education officials never inspected our situation at schools? But that scum always makes arrangements in advance, locking up the unruly ones like me in the house, while making the obedient ones wear new clothes and shoes to deal with the inspections."
"So what should we do? Just keep hiding like this?"
"That's all we can do for now." Ellie said, her face almost expressionless. "The adult world is far dirtier than you imagine, so put away your unrealistic ideas. No one will help us willingly. Nine times out of ten, those who are willing to help us are bad guys who have set traps for us to fall into."
After being lectured, Evans had no choice but to accept: "Okay, Ellie, whatever you say, I'll do whatever you say."
"But right now there are more important things than defeating the demons." He said, calling over the child next to him, rolling up his trouser leg, and pointing to the blood blisters from mosquito bites: "Look, the mosquitoes here are very fierce. We need a lot of mosquito repellent spray and anti-inflammatory and anti-itch ointment, otherwise the younger children simply can't handle it and will just scratch and scratch, which can easily cause bacterial infections and skin ulcers."
"In addition, if possible, Band-Aids and ibuprofen are also essential... If you can't get them, that's fine too. I found a folk remedy online: drinking boiled water can also effectively prevent diseases. It seems that's what Chinese people do."
Upon hearing Evans's request, Ellie confidently replied, "Don't worry, buddy, I've already scouted the place. There's a general store on the street, run by a silly black woman who supplies new homeless people. The shelves have all sorts of mosquito repellent products. I'll go and grab some when the store gets busy at night. If I'm lucky, I might even get some chocolate candies and fast food burgers."
"As for the medicine you mentioned, you need to go to a specialized pharmacy, but I'll figure something out. Stay tuned for my good news."
Good heavens! After overhearing this, Ma Jie exclaimed, "Good heavens! You're a master thief, Ellie! You dare to patronize a grocery store, and you dare to steal from a pharmacy?"
If I'm not mistaken, the silly female shopkeeper she was talking about should be Jessica, and it was also the place where I first bought survival supplies.
Okay, since you want to play like this, then I'm sorry, I have to make things clear for you and lay a trap for you to fall into.
From Ma Bangzhu's perspective, any attempt to disrupt the survival order of the poor neighborhood should be severely punished.
Knowing the girl's next crime location and approximate time, and being able to track her exact coordinates anytime, anywhere with [Quantum Tracking], Ma Jie was no longer in a hurry. He went back to take care of his business first and would come back to carry out justice later that night.
Carefully climbing the slope, I rode my motorcycle back to the relief meal distribution point.
Today's distribution work looks to be nearing its end, as the fast food in the cardboard boxes is visibly almost empty.
But the number of homeless people queuing up to receive the aid didn't seem to decrease. Those at the back who couldn't get any became impatient and tried to cut in line. Naturally, the people being cut off were unhappy, and the two started arguing in the street.
There's no way around it; there are still just as many people eating, but the frequency of serving meals has been reduced by half. So, to satisfy everyone, we have to prepare twice the amount of food.
This would make the staff unhappy, as they would have to do twice the workload for no reason. Even the benefactors who provide the relief meals might not be so generous.
After handing out the last fast food to a woman holding a child, Valentina glanced at the empty bin and said helplessly to a homeless black man, "Sir, I'm so sorry, all the food for today has been given out, but there are some bottled water left. You can take a bottle if you need it."
"Mineral water? You want me to drink water to fill my stomach?"
Seeing that he couldn't get his fast food, the young man in black instantly turned into a raging old man, gritting his teeth and yelling, "I've been queuing here for an hour and a half, you understand? An hour and a half, and you're telling me there's no food left and I have to drink water to survive? Do you think I'm a camel? I don't care about anything else, you have to give me something to eat! I saw it, there are several more over there, give it to me, hurry up!"
Having worked here frequently, Valentina was used to people like him. She patiently explained, "I'm sorry, sir, that was a reserved staff meal. I'm just as hungry as you are; I haven't eaten either. I hope we can be understanding?"
"Fine, then give me your share. You were going to be understanding, and in my opinion, this is the best understanding you can do. We're all human. Why should you have food to eat while I have to go hungry, just because I'm dark-skinned?"
Ma Jieke was dumbfounded. What kind of brain circuit is this? What does it have to do with your dark skin?
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