Chapter 322 - 206: News from the Undead
You must listen to the words of the dead with discernment, but sometimes they can offer prophecies.
The Jester's Skull flew up and down, seeming to urge Li Wei to set off.
Time waits for no one. They only exist in the deepest darkness of night... especially in this bullshit End of the Dharma Era. Even the dead are gradually fading away.
Seeing that there were no clues from the sleepwalking Don Quixote Knight, Li Wei could only set that aside for now. After saying a quick word to Lily, who was still up late playing on her phone, he went out alone.
Instead of taking the Rolls-Royce or the 911, Li Wei chose a Cadillac Escalade and drove out of the gates of Battery City Park.
In the depths of a New York night in early November, the temperature outside was growing colder and colder.
Even without opening the window, Li Wei could hear the biting chill in the whistling wind outside.
The Jester's Skull guided Li Wei, making his "chariot" drive along the road outside the city. Its upper and lower jawbones clacked open and shut.
Behold this scene of decay... Even the Skeleton Soldiers look listless.
Li Wei glanced at the dialogue box that had popped up and saw the Cadillac Escalade pass a few skeletons.
'Yeah,' Li Wei nodded subconsciously, 'they do look listless—'
'What?'
'This is fucking New York. Where the hell would Skeleton Soldiers come from?'
Li Wei took another hard look and jumped, thinking for a second he'd actually been transported to another world.
It wasn't until he saw it was a family dressed in black clothes with colorful, skeleton-shaped sequins sewn on that he realized he had somehow completely missed Halloween at the end of October.
Then again, neither Anya nor Elizabeth had asked him to celebrate with them this year. This week, they were facing midterms at Yale University, and the merciless exam papers would deliver an indiscriminate elbow jab to everyone.
As a result, Anya had no time to go out at all, and even the number of times she dragged Li Wei out shopping had decreased significantly.
'I, on the other hand, have already finished all my group discussions and assignments,' Li Wei thought as he drove, bored. 'I've even memorized the textbooks. I'm not too worried about it.'
He was even starting to think about how he could help Anya or Elizabeth cheat if they didn't pass their exams.
Li Wei kept driving, gradually leaving Manhattan behind. He finally arrived at a derelict industrial district on the edge of the Bronx, stopping under a gloomy overpass.
Most of the streetlights here were broken. The air reeked of damp mold and the ammonia smell of sewers.
Behold this black forest!
The Jester's Skull passed right through the car window and looked around.
This is the place! Light a bonfire to guide the souls of the dead. It will attract the nearby dead.
Li Wei glanced at the shattered glass and graffiti-covered walls all around. Though he didn't quite understand what kind of world the Jester's Skull saw, he still ended up digging out the leftover fuel and a blowtorch from his trip to Utah from the trunk.
He then dragged over a rusty, discarded oil drum from nearby, used the blowtorch to light a fire, and the orange flames instantly illuminated the space under the bridge.
The Jester's Skull flew over to the oil drum and carefully examined the flames before it.
Alright, just like that.
Now we wait for a time, and hope for a response from the dead.
Li Wei stared at the concrete ground beneath his feet.
'He didn't believe in this crap.'
Even if there really were dead people buried here, he didn't believe they could actually break through the reinforced concrete to appear before him.
'Is this a joke? Who's the Transcendent here, anyway?'
The firelight shone quietly. Li Wei leaned against his car and pulled out his phone to scroll through TikTok.
About ten minutes later, he heard a sound.
They're here!
The Jester's Skull flew excitedly out of the car.
Year after year, fewer and fewer of the dead awaken from the cold winter.
Perhaps in a few more centuries, all the dead will fall into a deep slumber, and none will be left to answer the call of the living.
Before Li Wei's eyes, less than ten meters from the oil drum, a heavy cast-iron manhole cover was slowly pushed open.
A few figures in ragged clothes climbed out from the sewer pipe below.
"Mole people?" Li Wei muttered to himself. "To think I'd run into them again."
He had dealt with this kind of group a few times before (Chapters 108, 109). They were a fringe community living in New York's vast and complex network of underground pipes and abandoned subway lines—commonly known as the mole people.
New York's underground system has over 1,000 kilometers of active tracks, as well as a massive number of abandoned platforms and steam pipes.
In these sunless spaces live over ten thousand marginalized homeless people. Most of them are bankrupt, mentally ill, insane, or junkies, surviving by stealing electricity and water from the surface and doing odd jobs.
These people were not the "residents" or "humans" included in the New York City Government's statistics, which happened to correspond to the "dead" in the Jester's Skull's eyes.
"Interesting," Li Wei murmured. "In Uncle's eyes, these people are goblins. In the skull's eyes, they're the dead."
The threads of fate have begun to intertwine! Wayward Knight, ask these wandering shadows for the Alchemist's whereabouts!
The skull chattered ceaselessly in Li Wei's ear. They travel in the space between life and death; they must know of those secret rumors.
Li Wei ignored the skull's dramatic tone.
He studied the mole people for a moment. They were shivering from the cold, yet hesitated to approach the fire. After some thought, he stomped on the gas and left.
Seeing the behemoth-like Cadillac Escalade drive away, the subterranean homeless people immediately breathed a sigh of relief and crowded around the fire to warm themselves.
Less than five minutes later, the roar of an engine sounded again.
Like startled birds, the homeless people immediately scurried back into the sewer, leaving only the upper halves of their bodies exposed to observe the situation.
"Come on out," Li Wei said, stopping the car and opening the trunk. "I want to ask you something."
By the light of the fire, they could see that the trunk was packed full of fast food and whole cartons of cigarettes.
The ironic part was that Li Wei wasn't yet 21, so he couldn't buy hard liquor.
Seeing that they were still timid and afraid to come closer, Li Wei shook his head, grabbed a few McDonald's bags, and tossed them over from a distance.
The homeless men tentatively took them. After they tore open the stickers, the aroma of fried food and grilled meat patties wafted out. Li Wei could clearly hear them gulping.
They immediately began to wolf down the food.
The one who appeared to be the leader was slightly older than the others. He gave Li Wei a look filled with gratitude.
"Thank you," he said indistinctly, using his half-missing teeth to tear open a bag. "Kind sir... you're a really good person."
Li Wei took a few more steps forward. By the firelight, he carefully sized up the men.
From living without sunlight for years, their skin had a sickly pallor. Judging by their withered bodies and deeply sunken eye sockets, they didn't look much different from zombies in a movie.
Some of them also had old ulcers on their exposed skin from intravenous injections.
Several dirty garments from different seasons and in different sizes were draped crookedly on their bodies, giving off a mixed stench of motor oil, excrement, and mold.
Li Wei scanned the group. "Has anything unusual, or, let's say, interesting, happened around this area recently?"
The homeless men looked at each other. The leader swallowed his food, shook his head, and said, "The most unusual thing that's happened recently is a young guy in a luxury car showing up in the middle of the night to give us food and cigarettes, sir. Doesn't that sound pretty incredible?"
"It is," Li Wei nodded.
"Nothing, sir, nothing," another homeless man said, emboldened. "For us, finding a dry piece of cardboard to sleep on and not freezing to death is the biggest thing. If I had to say something... it seems like there are more rats in the sewers lately, and a few old steam pipe valves broke and scalded a couple of people."
This answer was within Li Wei's expectations. Ordinary homeless people were unlikely to have contact with any important events.
'It wasn't like a game of Civilization 6, where a villager would suddenly share the secret to nuclear fusion with him.'
"Well, have you heard of, or seen, a man named Elias Thorne?" Li Wei tried to be more specific. "He's a highly educated man, used to work at the Johnson Group."
'He didn't expect these people to know Elias Thorne's whereabouts, but what if?'
"Johnson?" The homeless men blinked blankly. The name of such a multinational healthcare giant was clearly beyond the scope of their daily lives.
"Never heard the name, sir." The leader rubbed his hands together awkwardly, as if feeling bad for taking such a lavish meal for free. "The underground world is huge, and people move around a lot. But if you need, we can help you ask around in the tunnels in other areas."
Li Wei nodded slightly, not pressing the issue.
He looked at them and suddenly remembered the homeless man he'd met elsewhere who called himself Arthur—an elite who used to make millions of USD a year.
"Do you know a man who calls himself Arthur?" he asked. "He's very clean, looks quite respectable, and hangs around the sewers over by Riverfront Park." (Chapter 109)
"Arthur?"
Several of the homeless men exchanged glances. It seemed they had indeed heard the name, but no one spoke up.
Li Wei tossed them a few packs of cigarettes, then took about ten more McDonald's bags and stuffed them into their arms. After that, one of them finally spoke up:
"Arthur, I know him," he said with a sly grin, pulling out one of the bags. "He's still hanging around over there. He looks like a respectable guy. I really don't get why he's slumming it with us."
Li Wei nodded. Now that he had confirmed Arthur was still in that area, he could go check on him when he had time.
After meeting him a few times, Li Wei had delivered supplies to him on occasion, but after seeing that he seemed to be doing alright over there, Li Wei hadn't had the time to get more involved.
'Now that I remember, I could go see him again.'
Just as Li Wei was about to get in his car and leave, the leader glanced at the dozen or so remaining McDonald's bags and the cartons of cigarettes in the trunk. He suddenly shouted:
"Wait! Sir!" The homeless man took a step forward, stopping Li Wei.
Li Wei stopped and looked back at him.