"Who is Jia Bo?"
"The boss of that area. You don't seem new here. How did you end up here?"
"I'm a journalist," Clark said truthfully.
"I didn't ask about your profession. I asked how you got here."
"I'm an investigative journalist. I ended up here while looking for illegal immigrants."
"But there are no illegal immigrants here," the old man said, "we're all Americans. You must have come to the wrong place."
Clark felt a bit strange. The old man spoke very coherently. There was no foul language, and his wording and tone were quite pleasant, not at all like a homeless person.
The old man seemed to understand his expression and said, "Alright then, give me some money. I can tell you things. Although you probably won't be able to publish it, at least it satisfies your conscience."
"But..." the old man looked at the infant corpse in the pit and said, "don't bury it here. It won't be long before it's dug up. If you really care, take it away, bury it on a remote mountain or something."
"Are there any coyotes around here?" Clark asked.
"This is the city, no wild beasts. Otherwise, so many people wouldn't be pitching tents here." The old man gestured for him to follow. Clark picked up the corpse again and followed the old man to the yellow tent.
There was a light on in the tent, offering a bit of warmth in the dark night. The old man laid a blanket at the entrance of the tent and pulled out a bottle of wine from his bag. Clark sat down but kept hold of the bag containing the corpse.
"Let's start with what you're most interested in. You must want to know who would dig up the corpse. I can only tell you, if you hadn't run into me today, but anyone else here, the moment you left, they'd dig it up."
"Why would they..."
"Because it can be sold. Corpses of infants of all ages can be sold. Five to six months old fetch the highest price. A bit older works too. Full-term ones aren't as valuable."
"What do they do with the corpses they buy?"
"Usually, pharmaceutical companies buy them for pathological sections. Most babies born around here have congenital diseases, which makes them great material for them."
"This should be Daisy's third one," the old man reminisced, "She was pregnant when she arrived. That child seemed to be full-term, which made Jia Bo very angry. The next one was born a bit early and sold for the highest price. This should be the third. By the looks of it, it won't fetch much. Jia Bo's judgment is still as poor as ever."
Clark couldn't quite understand and said, "What do you mean? His judgment is poor?"
"The women he picks don't give birth well," the old man shook his head, "they're not as good as that old cripple on the west side. His two women gave birth at five to six months, sold at a high price."
Clark's expression froze. The old man saw his look and, understanding something, sighed, "It's the way it is. Women here are the weak, they must find a protector. But people here aren't picky, they don't necessarily need a woman; men are fine too. So, women provide extra value, like having babies. It takes a while, but the returns aren't bad."
Clark was stunned. The old man took a sip of wine and continued, "Pharmaceutical companies generally only want sick ones, so the owners of these women will find some sick men to impregnate them, then feed them drugs to develop addictions. When the time is about right, they perform inductions..."
"How do they induce?" Clark couldn't understand, recalling that even in hospitals, inducing labor for late-stage pregnant women was quite difficult and risky.
"They don't need them alive, just need to get the baby out. If it doesn't work, they'll use some drugs. If they're young, they can endure two or three times, at least they can live well for a few years."
"Live well?"
"You don't get it. Because the babies can be sold, women live relatively well here. At least for a few years, they can have some stability. For men, every Christmas is a hurdle."
Clark recalled the conversations he had overheard and said, "Every Christmas, someone comes to clean out the homeless? Where do they take them?"
"What to bring where? It's obviously to kill them and sell the bodies," the old man said. "It's not that cold here; winter doesn't freeze people to death. If no one cleans up, in a few years, the streets will be too crowded to live."
"Take our neighborhood as an example; there are roughly fifty households here. They go out begging during the day and come back here to sleep at night. Three new ones came last week—young and strong, and they do good work. But the west side is already almost full, so Pat and his people cleared out four or five overnight to make space for the newcomers."
Just as Clark was about to ask, the old man interrupted him and continued, "By cleaning, I mean killing them and then having the bodies taken away and sold."
Fueled by alcohol, he spoke quickly. "Don't think that just because we live in tents, there aren't rules. When newcomers arrive, old ones have to leave. But there's no upward mobility here; as young and strong ones come in, the weak and old must go. If it's all elderly and infirm here, the police will wipe us out, and no one can survive. Conversely, if it's all strong folks, the police won't be keen to fight with us. That's the only way we can barely get by."
"And you..."
"You wouldn't understand. I often tell young people that reading a few more books doesn't hurt. Among the entire tent community, I'm the only one who can make sense of the accounts. So even if I'm old, I can still survive. Oh, and the most important thing is to avoid drugs. I'm not interested in them, which is why I've lived here for sixteen years."
"Then you guys..."
"You must be wondering why someone like me, who seems educated, would end up here. Ever heard of the economic crisis?"
Clark opened his mouth; of course he had heard about it, so he asked, "Did you lose money?"
"More than that, lost my pants. But I was lucky; I had friends on the streets and found a place to stay. Many of my colleagues jumped off buildings."
"Why didn't they come here then?"
"I told you, I have connections. When I was young, I did a lot of good deeds saving people. That's why they say good deeds are rewarded. Those people have no pathways; they'd rather die than come here."
Clark found it hard to understand; seeing the old man in good spirits, with enough money to buy alcohol, one could survive even if life was tough, so why not come?
The old man seemed to see what Clark was thinking. He wiped his mouth and said, "This is not what you think. I can stay off drugs because they need me to have a clear mind to do accounting for them. Others come here and have to buy their drugs; otherwise, there's no staying here."
"Drugs are just the first step, to destroy the brain that once excelled in normal society. Next, they let you get sick—AIDS, syphilis, you name it. Once you get sick and can't go to the hospital, you have to buy more drugs to ease the pain. When the money runs out, you sell your body and catch more diseases. This cycle continues until some Christmas when the Cleaner decides it's your time to be eliminated, and everything ends. This process can last several years. People know how painful it is, so they'd rather jump."
"Nobody cares?" Clark asked.
"What I'm saying is this is the situation when there's management. If there's no management, then you might have to look at a few streets in Gotham."
Sensing Clark's confusion, he explained more thoroughly, "To sell more drugs, they bring in newcomers. And to house newcomers, they clear out some of the old ones. This ensures most people in the community are in their prime age, which has advantages I've already mentioned. Moreover, they clean up bodies promptly, usually overnight, preventing large-scale contagions. To entice newcomers, they also keep it relatively clean here. Although it's chaotic, at least it's not filthy. It's forbidden to relieve oneself here."
"Earlier you..."
"I sneak away, you know? And I go to more remote spots, so it doesn't affect them. Some poorly managed communities are nearly buried under feces. We're comparatively well off."
Clark thought about it and realized he was right. When he came to the tent area, although it seemed chaotic, there was no strange smell. Logically, people drinking and taking drugs would vomit, and those out of their minds wouldn't seem like they'd find a toilet, so this place should be piled with vomit and excrement.
But in fact, aside from the mess, there's nothing really dirty. This proves someone is managing the place, and the management isn't bad.
"You shouldn't be surprised; there are quite a few people living like this in the world. We're just one community. If you walk down the street and turn left, there's another one, but they're not as good as us. Their Boss is a muddlehead, and they've had lots of trouble."
The old man took another swig of alcohol and said, "You might also ask why we don't try to save money to escape here, especially someone like me. Since I can live stably, why not find a way out?"
"You'll understand once you reach my age. Your upward crawl is never faster than their kick downward. You use every trick in the book to climb up but can fall back to the bottom in one night. Since that's the case, why bother climbing? It's steadier to stay at the bottom."
"Many people here think like that; they're not without skills, and it's not that they're completely unable to turn things around. But when they're kicked down, they realize today's situation isn't due to a brief mishap but that society functions this way. Climbing up holds no meaning; it's just swapping for another kind of painful and anxiety-ridden life, merely delaying today's conditions. In the end, it's all the same path, isn't it?"