Chapter 1474 - 481: A Man Cannot Live Solely for Money (Part 2)

Chapter 1474: Chapter 481: A Man Cannot Live Solely for Money (Part 2)

A tall, thin man with a crippled leg hobbled through the alley, struggling to move deeper into the shadows.

He reeked of stench, and what covered his body, supposed to be clothes, was actually filthy scraps of cloth wrapped around newspaper, while beneath the layer of ’oilcloth,’ on his chest skin, a cluster of white particles squirmed on the festering flesh.

They used their mouthparts to secrete digestive fluids onto surrounding flesh, breaking down the cells into a nutritious protein pus, and then eagerly gulped it in, indulging in the everlasting feast.

With each step the host took, the maggots on the wounds would tremble, as though they might fall off at any moment.

Yet the man appeared oblivious to his own condition, his head down as he continued to walk forward.

All he wanted was to return to his little hideout, using the hard-earned money to find a cybernetic doctor to change his face, preferably so that no one in the world could recognize him.

From the alley’s end, he slipped through a dog hole and into an abandoned factory site, crawling through a manhole cover into the sewer pipes, like a rat hiding away, finally reaching his musty, dark, damp rat hole and starting to rummage through with effort.

Finally locating a small box amid the clutter, stacked inside were wrinkled Orokin bills, which he tucked away like treasure in his bosom, ready to leave when suddenly footsteps echoed in the silent sewer.

Alarmed, he quickly reached for his gun placed aside, but the opponent was obviously faster than him.

"If I were you, I’d just stay still."

The clear sound of a bullet chambering resonated in the sewer, and he dared not make any small movements, instead raising his hands above his head, trembling as he turned around.

He couldn’t understand how someone would be following him down into the sewer at such a time?

And what he saw—a pair of eyes emitting a scarlet glow in the murky sewer, although prosthetic, he could still detect mockery and derision in them.

The eyes belonged to a woman... they seemed familiar, but he couldn’t immediately recall where he’d seen them before, feeling shriveled and shaking all over, he fell to his knees begging.

"What... what do you want? I’m just a homeless person living here with nothing."

But the person sneered at him without responding to the question.

"After all this effort, it turns out you live in a place like this? How amusing."

She shook the gun in her hand, revealing sharp teeth with a malicious grin.

"You know how our Chaotic Blade Association executes traitors? I will have him flayed alive and hung on a car to dry in the wind, dying only after screaming outside for a whole day."

Treachery...

The homeless man trembling all over, saw yet another person emerge from behind the woman, illuminated by dim light he finally got a clear look at the face.

"It’s you!"

Though the person’s appearance had changed quite a bit from a year ago, he was sure it was the same person.

David looked at the homeless man, with no mercy in his eyes.

"You sold out Jose to them, and they rewarded you with this place to live?"

Indeed, the person before him was Kevin, who once sold the guerrillas’ location!

But in this world, nobody respects traitors, not even drug dealers.

The value of a traitor for united front exists only while the guerrillas are still around, once the guerrillas are wiped out, the traitor’s value naturally drops to zero, considering various layers of interests, Kevin never received the reward that should have belonged to him.

The money had long been divided up, you, a former guerrilla, still want the money?

Not killing you is already being magnanimous.

Thus, after being beaten up, Kevin was directly thrown onto the street to fend for himself.

Dragging his crippled body to the sewer, he barely managed to survive with a strong will to live, though his right leg was permanently fractured, even with self-healing capabilities it remained a deformed limp, only managed by suppressing pain with drugs.

At this moment, facing David, he hazily saw behind him the figure he had fought alongside for two years, but now the distance between them was immeasurable.

"I..."

His lips quivered, bursting with endless grievance within, his nose turned sour as tears began streaming, crying while speaking.

"I didn’t want to... I didn’t want to betray them..."

Whether he tried explaining to David, or perhaps to himself.

"I didn’t know!"

His hands pointed towards his own growing voice, his frail body now at the limits of drug-crushing power hollered.

"I didn’t know we’d be liberated! If I’d known liberation would succeed, I wouldn’t have betrayed Jose and them!"

"I ran through the woods with him for so long, eating grass roots gnawing bark, when desperate we even resorted to cannibalism, I believed in those words he said, but I saw no hope!"

He roared at David, beast-like howling filled with grievance.

"Fellow soldiers dying one after another, the day before it was Hassan, yesterday Said, today Lawrence, dying from starvation, from illness, killed, who knows if tomorrow it might be me?"

"A hundred years! This war’s been fought a hundred years, you know? We tried so many ways, walked so many paths, lost so many lives, but it’s useless you know! Behind them stood the Europeans, they had money, guns, food, while we had nothing! Even ammunition needed to be shared among several people, what can I do!"