They walked through the most densely populated neighborhood of the city, and then quickened their pace to a street that was even dirtier, more dilapidated, and narrower than the place they had passed, and they stopped and stopped in search of the house where the target of their trip lived.

The houses on both sides of the street are tall and large, but very old, and the inhabitants are the poorest, and you can see the wretched faces of the few men and women you occasionally meet, just by looking at the dilapidated appearance of the houses.

Pedestrians walked with their arms folded, hunched over, and dodged. Most of the houses have paved surfaces, but they are tightly closed, and they look dilapidated and dilapidated, and only the upper floors are used for people. Some houses were in disrepair and were about to collapse in the street, so they used several large logs to support the wall at one end and firmly stuck to the road at the other end.

Even these houses, which resemble pig pens and kennels, seem to have been chosen by some homeless hapless as nests for nighttime shelter, as many of the thick planks nailed to the doors and windows have been pried open, leaving gaps large enough for one to enter and exit.

The ditches are blocked, the stench is terrible, and the rotting rats are one after the other, and even they are horribly hungry.

The one Yongchang and his boss were looking for arrived, and the door was open, with neither a knocker nor a doorbell handle on it.

The boss told Yongchang to follow, not to be afraid of anything, and carefully groped through the dark corridor and climbed to the second floor. He staggered against a door at the top of the staircase and knocked on it with his fingers.

The door was opened by a girl of thirteen or fourteen. As soon as Lao Shi looked at the furnishings in the room, he knew that this was exactly what he was looking for, so he walked in, and Yongchang followed him.

There was no fire in the room, but a man was curled up motionless by the empty stove, and an old woman sat beside him with a low stool in front of the cold heart.

In the other corner of the room were a couple of ragged children. There was something covered with a blanket and placed in a small alcove directly opposite the doorway. Yongchang's gaze fell on it, and he couldn't help but shiver, and his body involuntarily pressed closer to the boss, and despite the blanket on it, the child still realized that it was a corpse.

The man had a thin and pale face, his hair and beard were gray, and his eyes were bloodshot. The old woman's face was wrinkled, her only two teeth protruding from her lower lip, and her eyes were blazing.

Yongchang was so frightened that he didn't even dare to raise his head, these two people looked too similar to the rats he had seen outside the house.

"No one is allowed to approach her," said the old man, who was about to walk towards the alcove, when the man jumped to his feet. "Don't go over. Fuck - if you want to stay alive, don't go over. ”

"Don't say stupid things!" Old Shi has long been accustomed to all kinds of miserable and desolate things, "Don't say stupid things. ”

"I tell you," said the man, clenching his fists and stomping his foot on the floor furiously, "I tell you, I can't let her go into the ground, she won't have peace there, and maggots will disturb her—not eat her—she's hollow." ”

The boss didn't answer the roar, took a tape measure from his pocket, knelt down, and measured it next to the corpse for a moment.

"Ahh The man knelt at the feet of the deceased, tears streaming down his face. "Kneel, kneel—all of you come and kneel beside her. Listen up. I said she was starving. I had no idea how bad her health was, until she got a fever this time, and then her skin couldn't even cover her bones. There was no fire in the house, no candles were lit, and she died in the dark. Even though we could hear her panting and calling the children's names, she couldn't even see the children's faces. For her sake, I went to the street to ask for food, but they threw me in jail. When I came back, she was dead, and all the blood in my heart had dried up, and they had starved her to death, they had starved her to death. He reached out his hands and grabbed his hair, and with a wild scream, rolled on the floor, his eyes straight and his lips covered with spit.

The children were so frightened that they cried loudly. Only the old woman, as if deaf to all this, did not speak, and threatened them to calm down, untied the tie of the man who had fallen straight to the ground, and staggered towards the funeral parlor owner.

"She's my daughter," said the old woman, gesturing her head at the corpse, squinting like an idiot, an action that was even more terrible than death itself on that occasion.

"Oh my God, oh my God. Yo, it's really strange, I gave birth to her, I wasn't young at the time, and now I'm still alive and well, happy, but she's lying there, cold and hard. Oh my God, oh my—think about it. It's like a play – it's like a play. ”

The poor old man grunted, and laughed with her creepy humor, and the coffin shop owner turned and walked away.

"Wait, wait." The old woman said in a loud voice, a bit like talking to herself, "Will she be buried tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or tonight?" I've packed it all for her, you know, I've got to go too. Send me a big cloak, it's going to be very warm, it's cold. Before we go, we have to eat and drink. Don't be stingy, send some food - just a steamed bun and a glass of water is enough, we'll have steamed buns, won't we? ”

She said eagerly, and the funeral home owner wanted to go out again, but she grabbed her coat.

"Yes, yes," said Lao Shi, "of course there will be, you have everything." He broke free from the old woman's pull, led Yongchang, and hurried away.

The next day, the family had already received relief from fourteen steamed buns, which had been delivered by Mr. Bull himself. Yongchang and his master came to this house again.

Bull had already arrived first, and had brought four men with him, ready to carry the coffin. The old woman and the man wore an old black cloak over their tattered clothes, the sleek black wooden coffin was tightened, and the four porters shouldered their shoulders and went out into the street.

"Hey, old lady, you've got to go." Old Shi leaned close to the old woman's ear and whispered, "We're a little late, let's go, guys—go as fast as you can." ”

The porter had no weight on his shoulders, and as soon as he heard this, he trotted briskly, and the two funeral relatives tried not to be left behind.

Mr. Bull and Old Shi strode forward, and Yongchang's two legs were far worse than the boss's, so he had to run beside them.