11: Chapter 11 Safety and Convenience Cannot Coexist 11: Chapter 11 Safety and Convenience Cannot Coexist Creating an account is just the foundation of self-media.
Cheng Daqi hadn’t prepared the specific video materials yet.
He glanced at the time, it was 8:30 am.
It was still too early.
The majority of American vagrants would sleep until noon, and shelters or aid stations wouldn’t open this early either.
He unzipped the tent and stepped out, Cheng Daqi decided to take a stroll around the neighborhood first.
After all, since the tent was set as his respawn point, it was necessary to familiarize himself with the surroundings no matter what.
The early morning sunlight filtered through the branches and leaves of the trees, streaking across the clearing in the forest.
The fine dust floating in the air, together with the sunlight, formed a beautiful Tyndall effect.
The air in October already carried a hint of chill.
Cheng Daqi took a deep breath and stretched his body.
There was no movement from Little Black’s tent; she was probably still asleep.
Cheng Daqi glanced at the trash around his tent and simply gathered it into a bag.
After picking up a pack of biscuits of some unknown brand, he picked up the bag and walked out of the woods.
He recorded this whole process on his phone, which might become material for content.
It wouldn’t be convenient to borrow Little Black’s power bank today, so he planned to explore the vicinity of the respawn point before finding a place to fully charge his phone.
In America, there are quite a few places for vagrants to charge their phones.
On the streets of Los Angeles, there are many outlets; as long as you have a charger, you can replenish your phone’s battery.
If you’re really at a loss and can’t find a street charging outlet, you could opt for a shelter.
Every shelter, besides offering free food on weekdays, has charging stations, available to vagrants at no cost.
If you were vagrant in China, charging would be even easier to sort out.
You would just take your phone, find a small supermarket or store by the roadside, and sweet-talk the owner.
You’d say, “May the owner make a fortune, may the owner be in good health,” and then kindly ask the owner for help.
Generally, the owners of such small stores won’t refuse.
Remember, don’t pick large stores, as they’re staffed by employees who don’t have the authority to make the decision to help you.
They are just poor workers, after all.
Also, if you are vagrant in China, don’t go to stores owned by women.
If you scare the owner, that would be inappropriate.
In America, the situation is different.
The vast majority of store owners greatly dislike vagrants; to be precise, American store owners detest vagrants.
For instance, every year from November onward, street vagrants unable to bear the cold start looking for a place to overwinter.
They would randomly select a ‘lucky store’ to engage in a spree of zero-dollar shopping, or some other illegal activity.
Then they would just wait for the police to come and arrest them.
“Here I am, if you don’t arrest me, then you’re my grandson,” that kind of thing.
Even when the police arrive, they can’t help the store owner recover the loss.
Vagrants who can’t survive the winter are either old or disabled, and even those who are healthy are desperately poor.
You would probably have to auction off the vagrants’ kidneys to afford it, but America is not Northern Myanmar, where you can’t just take someone’s kidneys at will.
Because of these actions by vagrants, it’s odd for the store owners in America to have a good impression of them.
The moment these people became vagrants, they had a hard time returning to a normal life.
The harm a large disordered group can cause is immense, especially in America, where guns are not banned.
This is also why many powerful people are willing to continually provide the bare minimum to vagrants.
Of course, the ‘minimun’ here refers to what the vagrants receive.
What is spent, however, is far from minimal.
America’s welfare spending on vagrants has always been substantial.
They also like to tout this when they promote their country internationally.
If the water of the Yellow River is muddy, does it make the water of the Mississippi River clear?
(Note: This statement uses a line from the Jiajing Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, which represents an outdated and flawed view from feudal times, and is not meant to be taken seriously.
No offense intended, so please don’t nitpick!)
Therein lies the problem, whenever a vagrant takes a bite of a sandwich, the powerful figures behind the budget committees are likely enjoying their fill of salmon.
Cheng Daqi had never felt ashamed for taking advantage of America’s welfare.
In history, the old Empress waged wars against many nations and, having messed up, paid a war indemnity of 800 million taels of silver.
To repay the debt and interest, China had to cede sovereignty, lease territory, and hand over customs control to foreigners.
Imperialist America certainly made a lot of money from these arrangements.
Tens of billions of shiny silver haels—all the hard-earned sweat and blood of the common people!
Not a penny was spent on production and construction, all of it went to the old Empress to give to the imperialists!
Cheng Daqi’s living expenses—Her Highness had paid those a hundred years ago.
Not to mention eating two meals.
Even if he ate for a hundred and eighty years, it wouldn’t equal the daily interest generated from the Empress’ food allowance.
It didn’t take long for Cheng Daqi to get a clear picture of his surroundings at the respawn point.
The location of the park was quite interesting; behind it was a chemical plant, with perhaps a one-kilometer-long perimeter wall.
To the left was an urban expressway, so there wouldn’t be much foot traffic.
On the right was a residential apartment area, whose residents were the primary users of the park.
The front was a boarding church school.
Under these circumstances, the risk of him or Sani’s tents being stolen was extremely low.
The only drawback was that the park was a full three kilometers away from the vagrant CBD, Saint Rodu’s Red Street.
“Safety and convenience cannot be had both,” he thought to himself.
Being a vagrant on the streets of America, losing personal belongings every so often was inevitable.
The thieves who stole your things were basically your neighbors or other nearby vagrants.
Everyone was struggling, but they didn’t hold back when preying on each other at the bottom of the social ladder.
That was also the reason why Sani lived so remotely.
A young black girl under twenty had to stay vigilant, or else she would have been sold long ago.
Not ‘sold out’ by friends.
But literally sold, maybe even for parts.
As everyone knows, America is a free country.
And in a free country, some ‘free’ organizations inevitably arise.
Gangs are nothing compared to these groups.
For example, where did Fort Detrick’s test subjects come from?
Another example, America’s biotechnology is number one in the world.
There are many reasons behind it, one being the low human rights advantage.
Among so many countries globally, why is America’s biocellular hybridization (synthetics, which involves creating synthetic humans) technology the most advanced?
It’s terrifying to ponder.
From these perspectives, the system’s task of surviving ten days is indeed quite challenging.