Chapter 44: The Unexpected
Zhou Yu put his hand on the shoulder of the dog baby and gently pinched it, and thought slightly: "Since you want to have the surname Zhou, and you want to suppress all of them, then just call Zhou Zhen, if you have an English name...... How about Lucian? ”
"Zhou Zhen...... Suppress everyone around me? That's a good name! I'll be called Zhou Zhen from today onwards! And Lucian! They call Mr. Zhou, your name is Bruce Zhou, so I'm not Lucian Zhou? Haha~ I have a name~~ I will never call a dog baby again, I have my own name~~~! ”
Zhou Zhen danced happily and loudly to the others around him, but suddenly felt a pain behind him.
"Damn, who allowed you to be loud while eating? Did I tell everyone in advance to eat quietly! Take him away and confine, and don't even think about eating dinner today, until you realize your mistake! ”
One of the overseers waved the rattan in his hand, slapped Zhou Zhen twice on the back, and ordered the two men to lift him from his seat, one left and one right.
"What are you going to do? It's just a word, you don't need to hit someone! ”
Zhou Yu stood up and pressed the overseer who was wielding rattan, and suddenly there was a hula, and the brothers who belonged to C13 in other positions all stood up.
"Sit down! Sit down, y'all! What do you want to do? Tell you, when you come here, you have to follow the rules here, and if you don't, you will be thrown into jail! Until you are deported back to your country, which one do you want to choose? ”
A man in a copper-colored top hat with a tousled beard slammed the rattan in his hand against the table, shouting and swearing.
Seeing the situation here, George hurriedly ran over, kept glancing at Zhou Yu, and motioned for them to sit down, after all, he was not alone here.
Zhou Yu knew that they couldn't go against the overseers here, and once they annoyed the other party, they would have no way to confront the entire power structure.
Today is only the first day they have come to London, and they have already clashed with the local residents and the local snakes, and if they clash with the overseers in the Chinese labor camp, it is very likely that they will be packed and transported to the ship tomorrow, and the opportunity to go to the New World will be lost.
Zhou Yu took a deep breath, looked in other directions, and motioned for everyone to sit back in their seats with both hands.
There are more than 50,000 laborers in this Chinese labor camp, and just the 100 of them really can't make any waves, but will make the local forces label them as uncontrollable, which will only bring them unnecessary trouble in the future.
Seeing that the C13 people were back in their seats, George ran to the rattan-wielding man and whispered a few words, and then led Zhou Zhen to the small black room where he was confined.
"Humph!"
The obscene overseer snorted heavily, signaling everyone to continue eating, and when they were done, they would return to work, and no loud noises or free movement would be allowed.
Zhou Yu can see it, to put it mildly, their Chinese industrial battalion is under all-military management, and to put it mildly, this is a concentration camp, which is the treatment of prisoners of war, but they are obviously allies.
After eating, the Chinese laborers went back to work, and they worked about 12 hours a day, but this was reduced after the armistice, and during the war they even had to work more than 18 hours a day, and many of them became ill and suffered from lung disease.
Back at the factory again, Zhou Yu led Ma Daochang to find the Chinese worker who was called Lao Wang in the morning.
"Lao Wang, this is Ma Daochang, he knows some medical skills, where is the sick friend you said now? We'll show him when we get off work. ”
Lao Wang looked at Zhou Yu and Ma Daochang with cloudy eyes, and only after a while did he react, the person in front of him seemed to be the new one who stood with Wu Man in the morning.
"Okay, good, thank you~ thank you! I didn't expect you guys to come, I'm ...... I thought you were just lying to me. ”
Lao Wang's excited voice trembled a little, he rubbed his oily hands on his clothes, glanced at the clock hanging above his head, and said to another worker next to him: "Lao Yan, help me keep an eye on it, I asked a doctor to treat Ah Qiang." ”
The old Yan raised his dark face, said "go", and lowered his head again to get busy with the work in hand.
However, at this moment, George walked quickly to Zhou Yu with the hat on his head, and said in a low voice, "What are you going to do?" Haven't you caused me enough trouble today? ”
Zhou Yu explained: "We just went to help a worker see a sick person, and it will not delay work, Mr. George, don't worry, after all, he will get better as soon as possible, and there will be one more person working in the factory, which will only be good for you." ”
George glanced at Lao Wang and said in extremely broken and jerky Chinese: "Is it Ah Qiang? Then you guys, don't let that guy die in the factory, useless thing......"
George muttered under his breath, turning his attention to the other laborers.
Zhou Yu and Ma Daochang glanced at each other, and soon walked out of the factory under the leadership of Lao Wang, turning in the opposite direction to where C13 lived.
In London's East End, the entire Chinese camp covers a very large area.
Although it is called the Chinese Workers' Camp, it contains at least 300 small barracks, about 50,000 people, forming this huge Chinese workers' settlement, which is the predecessor of Chinatown.
After going deep into the dormitory where the other Chinese workers lived, Zhou Yu and Ma Daochang glanced at each other, and they were both slightly surprised by the surrounding environment.
Because of the bad smell, garbage and excrement can be seen everywhere, and even at night, before the end of work, some laborers have secretly run out of the factory and gathered in those dark corners without knowing what they are doing.
Lao Wang saw Zhou Yu and Ma Daochang casting puzzled glances over there, so he explained with a smile: "They are gambling there, locked up in this place where birds don't all day long, and if they don't have some fun, they will be sick." ”
"Gambling money?" Zhou Yu frowned slightly and said: "Their monthly salary is only one pound, and there is not much left after removing the daily expenses, and if they don't save some and wait until they go home, how can they still gamble here?" ”
Lao Wang waved his hand as if he didn't care at all and said: "It's all over today and tomorrow, who would have thought that when it was so far away, I don't know if I can go back to that home, Second Master Qiao once said that all of us can't go back, we all have to die in this foreign country, it's useless to save money, it's better to live happily one day at a time." ”
After Lao Wang finished speaking, he glanced at Zhou Yu, and seemed to think that this newcomer was making a fuss.
"When I arrive, Cuong will live here."
Finally, Lao Wang stopped and pointed to a small alley full of domestic garbage on the side of his hand.
This alley is located in the middle of the two labor dormitories, and at some point it was also built as a living quarter.
Zhou Yu and Ma Daochang raised their legs to avoid stepping on the laborers lying on the ground, most of whom were scrawny and haggard, with deeply sunken cheeks like old men who were about to die.
Suddenly, Zhou Yu seemed to have discovered something, and saw the laborers huddled in the corner of a pile of garbage hiding their heads in a cardboard box, and smoke continued to come out of the cracks of the cardboard box.
"What is he doing?" Zhou Yu asked.
Lao Wang said in a somewhat impatient tone: "Smoking, what else can you do?" There's nothing else to do in this place except to play cards or smoke. ”
"What?"
This next Zhou Yu's face sank completely, his five senses were keen, of course, including his sense of smell, but the smoke floating from a distance told him that this was not smoking in the usual sense, let alone ordinary cigarettes, but opium, the culprit that had tormented him for dozens of years in that country for dozens --- hundreds of years.
Zhou Yu did not expect that the Chinese workers here were not only discriminated against and bullied, but also addicted to gambling and opium.
This will only make things worse, make the natives who hate them even more annoying, and form a vicious circle, is that the one called Ah Keung......
Zhou Yuzheng thought of this, and Lao Wang's voice came.
"Ah Qiang, Ah Qiang, how are you? I helped you find a doctor to take a look~~~"
What appeared in front of the three of them was a shack built along the corner, and the shack was covered by a cotton curtain.
"Ah~~~ Ah Qiang...... He...... He's dead! ”