"Squeak, squeak......"

The screeching noise of the wind-blown door panels disturbed dreams, and when Bruce opened his eyes, the morning light shone through the window pane with a corner missing.

As soon as he tried to get up from the ground, he felt a sharp pain at the junction of his neck and shoulders, and Bruce clutched his neck and let out a short, low cry of pain.

Clark, who was sleeping next to him, woke up when he heard the movement, looked at Bruce with sleepy eyes, and the next second he woke up, looked at Bruce with some concern and asked, "What's wrong, has your wound broken again?" ”

Bruce shook his head slightly, lay back and said, "I feel like I'm falling into a stiff neck." ”

Clark sat up and sighed, he stood up and walked to the door, making room for Bruce before reaching out and pulling Bruce up.

The room they were in was an old inn room, but there was no bed, only a row of wooden shelves about fist high, the kind that sat under the cargo box, with a worn-out mattress on top of it, and a spring piercing out from the side, scraping Clark's clothes.

Diana lived next door, and she had a bed in that room, but it wasn't the two men who gave her that room in a gentlemanly spirit, it was the opposite that Diana gave up the mattress room to the common man Bruce.

And Diana's own room only has a bed frame and no mattress, and Diana has to come up with the skills of living in the Amazon and make herself a hammock out of plastic sheeting, so that she can make do with sleeping all night.

Latin America is not as backward as many people think, and there are still many decent big cities.

But the most terrifying thing is that there is almost no infrastructure outside the city, let alone water and electricity, and many places are not even connected, as is the case in the place where the Bruce trio are located.

Yes, this is not an abandoned inn, it is still open, there are even many customers, and more importantly, it is the only place within a radius of dozens of kilometers where there is a telephone line.

Hal told the three of them to stay here and wait for him, and he had to rely on his Green Lantern abilities to search for where Oliver was now, and then let the three of them go after finding them.

Because the infrastructure is so backward, it is not a joke that communication mainly relies on roaring, and when they learned that Oliver's Guadalajara New Democratic Army has relied on manpower and radio communication for a long time, the three Bruce felt that there was nothing to complain about such accommodation.

Bruce, Clarke, and Diana gathered in Diana's room, where the bed frame could be used as a table, Clark roasted a few corns with heat rays for breakfast, Diana asked the innkeeper for some water, and the three of them washed up and began to nibble corn around the table.

"To be honest, the conditions here are a bit beyond my imagination." Clark shook his head and said, "The only difference between here and the primeval forest is that the resources are not as abundant as the primeval forest. ”

Diana pursed her lips and said, "You may have a little misunderstanding of the virgin forest, the Amazon has electricity and water pipes, and we maintain the primitive way of life just because we are used to it, and it brings us tourism revenue." ”

"It's not that the Amazon is incapable of modernizing, it's just that it's useless to modernize, we're not a resource-based country, we can't do industry, and most of the economy depends on tourism."

"If it's like most cities in the world, no one will come to visit, and tourists like to experience primitive life, so we keep it that way, but that's obviously not the case here."

"Mexico's more prosperous cities have a lot of slums without water and electricity, let alone rural areas deep in the mountains and forests. Not to mention whether they have the money to build, a few months ago there were gangs and drug lords everywhere, and in the absence of actual control, construction was just empty talk. ”

Bruce said as he nibbled on the corn, he chewed the corn kernels in his mouth, and looked down at the corn cob in his hand with some surprise, the corn tasted beyond his imagination, it was still quite delicious.

Clark shook the corn in his hand and said: "This variety of corn has also been planted in our family, which is especially suitable for cooking and nibbling directly, or brushing with some sauce to make roasted corn, but the corn grown here is better than mine, and Mexico is really worthy of being the country of corn." ”

Diana nodded, obviously agreeing with what Clark said, but soon, a trace of sorrow appeared on her face, and she said:

"If you don't clean up the gangs, you won't be able to actually control these areas, and you won't be able to build, but the more you can't build, the more backward it will be, and you won't be able to provide an economy, and if you don't have an economy, you won't have money, and the more you don't have money, the more you can't expel the gangs, and the more you have to rely on the drug economy, it's a dead cycle."

"Oliver has opened up some of the situation, but how many are there in a region like Latin America? There is really a long way to go. ”

The three of them were munching on corn while chatting about the current situation in Latin America, and soon a green portal appeared in the room, and Hal walked out of the portal with Oliver, who was now a little unrecognizable.

Oliver did look very embarrassed and haggard when he was on a desert island, and the years of survival on the desert island had washed away his pampering of a rich child, and the experience in Mexico during this time seemed to reshape his personality.

Oliver wore a dark brown short-sleeved shirt that Mexicans loved, a waistcoat over his shoulders, and a bootleg Yankees baseball cap that had faded a little.

He lost a lot of weight, the whole person seemed to be only a skeleton left, and his eyes were deeply sunken in the sockets, a little tanned, and he looked like he was ten years older, but at the same time, his eyes exuded a surprising brilliance.

When Oliver and Bruce saw each other, they both froze.

Bruce's appearance has also changed a bit, he went to the slums of Gotham to lose a lot of weight, and although he later strengthened his muscles through supplementation and fitness, it was not the same as when they first met.

Oliver became more energetic, but Bruce was a little more relaxed and lazy, and the changes in the two seemed to be opposites, but more like they were on the same path.

These two American playboys and famous young masters, after going through a hundred turns and thousands of tribulations, when they saw each other again, they actually read a trace of the vicissitudes of life from the sympathy in each other's eyes.

Oliver and Bruce didn't say anything, but as if they had said anything, they walked up and hugged each other, and Oliver glanced at Clark and Diana, who had apparently explained to him that Hal had already explained to him.

The group walked into the portal together, and when they reappeared, Bruce found himself in a village, small enough to see north from south at a glance, but quite neat and orderly.

Most of the villagers were dark-skinned, wearing dark short-sleeved or plaid shirts, and sunhats on their heads, their clothes were not new, and they were a little gray, and their eyes looked a little unfriendly to outsiders, but everyone had something to do, and they just glanced at Bruce and left.

"Over there is a tributary of the Ameka River," said Oliver, pointing to the south of the village, and this is a camp that we have recently carved out, borrowing from the corner of the edge of a small village that used to be here, and where one of our members is home. ”

After speaking, he looked left and right, shouted a few words of local words to the entrance of the village, and a lean young man hurriedly ran over.

He was a brown-skinned Latino with thin skin and bones, so he had a large head, but it could be seen from the tight muscle lines of his arms that he should have been engaged in manual labor for a long time, and there were many traces of wind and sun on his face, but it was still clear from his facial features that he was not very old.

The magic of Latina is that when he doesn't laugh, he feels very fierce, but when he does, he has a passion and unrestrainedness that is unique to Latin America.

Oliver patted the young man on the back and said, "This is Gonzalez, well, there are about six Gonzalez in the whole village, this surname is too common here, you can just call him Xiaopu." ”

The young Mexican boy gave a shy smile and shook Bruce's hand. Say in less proficient English: "Welcome to Vicara, here is our new base." ”

Oliver continued his words: "Vikala is one of the 26 villages that we currently actually control on this land, and although it is not the largest, it has the best location and the most farmland around. ”

"I have chosen a large area to the west of the village, near the Ameca River, where more than half of the area was previously controlled by the Guadalajara gang, who used to grow opium poppies, and I now plan to change to food."

Oliver said as he led a few people around the village, lowered the brim of his hat and said, "We don't really lack food now, but we have to plant this land well, because we have to show everyone that you can not only earn money to feed yourself by listening to the gangs planting poppies, but also grow food." ”

Oliver paused, looked back at a few people and said: "Actually, many people who follow me don't believe in this so much, for a long time, the Mexican government no longer supports agriculture, and their tug-of-war with the gangs has hurt the interests of many farmers, so that they have lost all their land. ”

"Now that I'm proposing to plant food again, they wonder if I'm going to follow the path of the Mexican government, and we have to come up with a plan that works, not just to grow, but to grow well, not just to produce, but to sell."

Oliver spread his hands and said, "It's useless to just kill the drug lords or occupy their land, it's not difficult to get rid of the drug industry, it's difficult to find a new industry to replace it." ”

"Only a brand-new industry, better than drug production and drug trafficking, can gain a foothold in this land and solve the problem of the breeding of evil at the root."

"I have uprooted the poppy from this land and restored it to its ancient appearance, but if new seeds are not planted as soon as possible, so that the people here can fill their bellies with more sustainable labor, the flower of sin will never really disappear."

With Oliver's words, Bruce looked into the distance.

The blue and purple of the blue sky are intertwined, clear and translucent like jewels, and the golden morning light reflects the giant trees and cacti into silhouettes through the clouds, and the original style of this ancient land does not need any modification, and the beauty is shocking.

The farmers carrying farm tools set off one after another, taking advantage of the morning light, stepping across the ridges, rough hands through the wind in the field, grasping a thread, holding their simple desire to create a better life with labor, like holding a cloud.

There is no land in this world that is sinful, Bruce thought, the land unconditionally nourishes every seed and the person who planted the seed, and what seed is sown, it will reap the fruit, which is a rare fair thing in the world.

The so-called cursed land is just the unwilling slander of those sins that have been cleared out, and the land does not hate anyone, and will always welcome the next spring with hope.

Bruce, who was standing on the ridge and looking at the field, felt the glimmer of hope in his heart, and he understood that spring was really coming.

(End of chapter)