Feng Xue, who had finally had a good night's sleep, stuck to the outer wall of the trash site as he arrived in the East District, only to find half an hour had passed, and the corpse he was supposed to deal with had long since vanished without a trace. This made him wonder if he needed to buy a bicycle.
Sure enough, although it was the poverty district, there were indeed bicycles for sale, just outdated models without gears or shock absorbers, the kind of postman bicycles popular in the fifties and sixties.
And the price of such a contraption was 2,000 Tower Coins.
That is, it felt like the lifespan of twenty days could be exchanged for one bicycle.
However, that said, Feng Xue also understood that this issue shouldn't be calculated like this. After all, in Infinite City, residents don't need to eat or drink, nor do they need to use the restroom or wash up. The daily mandatory expenses were only 100 Tower Coins (corresponding to the cost of utilities, food, clothing, and transportation on Earth), so the vast majority of things one would need to buy with Tower Coins could be classified as luxury goods, leading to a situation where the disparity between income and consumption levels is extremely unbalanced.
With no body to collect, Feng Xue didn't bother to linger any longer. Although having made a pointless trip annoyed him, the Joy Alley in the East District was clearly not a place he could afford to patronize.
Well, Joy Alley is naturally that kind of place, but judging from the price lists displayed at the storefronts, even the most basic services started at two to three thousand Tower Coins. For a young man like Feng Xue, who had just managed to solve his survival problems, it wasn't yet time to think about those things.
It was just, while he was thinking about finding a grain store to convert his 900 Tower Coin salary into vital "Identity," he heard a series of urgent ringing bells coming from a distance—it was the kind of bell you find on the handlebars of old-fashioned bicycles.
There was still a while before dusk, and the daylight was still very bright. From time to time, pedestrians could be seen on the streets. However, as the ringing grew closer, Feng Xue noticed that many of the pedestrians had spontaneously moved to the side of the road.
Watching those who hadn't initially reacted start to follow suit, Feng Xue immediately moved to the side of the road as well and directed his gaze towards the source of the bell.
Soon enough, dozens of men in organizational uniforms rode past the intersection on their bicycles, rushing past in a blur before disappearing around the southern corner.
It wasn't until the bell sounds faded away that the people at the roadside began to move again, as if nothing had happened, with only the occasional complaint being heard.
"What's going on here? A bike gang?" Feng Xue uttered sarcastically, but he didn't actually think so because he recognized the uniforms—they represented the uniforms of the Landfill Manager's force.
For an organization that managed the trash site and the roads to the so-called residential areas, a group of people racing bicycles seemed too abstract. Intuitively, Feng Xue felt there must be a significant event behind it.
After pondering for a few minutes, Feng Xue immediately changed direction, heading south.
Though he certainly couldn't catch up to those bicycles now, his straightforward logic told him that if there was a big commotion, there might be corpses, and if there were corpses, his work badge would alert him.
After walking for five or six minutes, Feng Xue's work badge indeed vibrated with a message, still concise—
"A corpse has appeared at the Southern Kangxin Clinic; please proceed there immediately."
"Kangxin Clinic?" Feng Xue looked at the red dot on the map and quickened his pace. Although it might have been a medical accident or someone unsuccessfully treated for serious injuries, with his current capabilities, he was really just going there to watch the excitement. Focusing on the corpse, at the very least, he could earn some money from corpse collection.
With this thought, Feng Xue, who was already close to the south of the city, quickly arrived at the location of the body. However, unlike what he had imagined, the entire clinic was encircled by gang members in uniforms, and a person dressed as a doctor lay on the ground. Feng Xue could see at a glance that the person was already dead.
It wasn't that he had already mastered the knowledge associated with the two Corpse Collector tags, but rather his Golden Finger allowed him to see the information of the corpse—
Name: Corpse (Male)
Elements: ["Human"], ["Male"], ["Deceased"], ["Doctor"], ["Treatment"], ["Suture"], ["Rescue"], ["Cutting"], ["Puncture"], ["Blood Loss"]...
"More than I anticipated... is it because he was employed already?" Feng Xue thought to himself as he looked at the doctor's corpse, which had more elements than the previous corpses he had encountered. However, he had no intention of getting closer, as those gang members around him looked on guard. It was clear that getting close was not an option. Luckily, there seemed to be no shortage of onlookers, and from the fragmented conversations, Feng Xue heard words such as "door" and "outsider."
Yet the speakers seemed to have many taboos, often uttering only a sentence or two, leaving Feng Xue struggling to obtain concrete information.
He followed the crowd, looking towards the clinic not far away. Before long, a woman in her thirties with golden curly hair was dragged out by several gang members.
"Who are you people? What is this place? Don't hurt me! I can give you whatever amount of money you want! I have quite a lot of money at home!"
The woman they dragged out kept shouting in panic, but Feng Xue noticed a problem—that woman was too normal.
She wore a complete set of office clothing, light makeup, and clutched a brandless handbag; in all respects, she appeared to be a typical office female. Moreover, from her words, it was evident that she didn't seem to be a resident here, but rather seemed like she had just crossed over.
However, according to what Old Li had said, the residents of this world were the "trash" that other worlds didn't need, thus appearing in the trash site on Garbage Day. But with six days left until Garbage Day, Feng Xue began to doubt the general knowledge Old Li had imparted.
"No, maybe I'm thinking in the wrong direction... Besides garbage, perhaps this world also has 'humans who aren't trash.'"
Thinking about the previous mentions of "outsiders," Feng Xue immediately used his tag ability, looking towards the woman, but as expected, he couldn't discern anything; as for his Golden Finger... it couldn't be used on living beings.
"No tags..." Feng Xue squinted his eyes. While he hadn't seen anything, this was arguably the most significant clue.
Since his arrival, his impression of the gang members was that of "decisive killers," if they said they would kill your family, then your family was as good as dead, whether it was the desperate poor storming the warehouse or formally employed doctors, they were killed without hesitation. Only those who violated the rules within the trash site would be hung on execution frames as a display to teach others a lesson.
But now, a woman without tags was being treated so "kindly" by them, which was clearly unreasonable.
Either the woman had hidden some rare tag, or she was one of those entities who wouldn't generate tags at all.
Of course, it couldn't be ruled out that the woman had violated some taboo and was going to be hanged on the execution frame.