This actor is full of tricks.

"Have these things always been here?" Lin Jue's nose moved. The ashes didn't have any strange smell.

It was indeed very strange. Even Lin Jue couldn't tell what it was.

"It didn't exist before. It only appeared little by little after the Chinese New Year last year. A few uncles came to check it out before and took some ashes back." The little girl reached out and pinched the ashes falling from the sky. Children growing up in the inland have never seen snow, so these ashes can be considered another kind of snow.

Children are always innocent. Although something looked very strange in Lin Jue's eyes, the little girl was having a lot of fun playing with it.

The houses in Quming County are very low, and most of them are old-style staircase houses. There are almost no pedestrians on the streets, and even few cars. The whole city is shrouded in ash falling from the sky.

Lin Jue noticed that when the ashes fell to the ground, they actually melted like snow and disappeared without a trace.

It's really weird.

This small county town may be hiding some unknown secrets.

He held the little girl in his arms and walked into a mutton soup restaurant on the side of the road that was still open and ordered a set meal for two.

The boss was a middle-aged man wearing a dirty apron. He was preparing food while smiling and talking to Lin Jue: "Young man, you are not from here?"

"I came from Sanjiang and happened to see this county town, so I came to take a look." Lin Jue took out two pairs of chopsticks from the tube and handed one pair to the little girl. The other party shrank in her seat with a tense face. It seemed that she rarely ate out.

"This county town is dying. There's nothing to see anymore." The boss threw the chopped mutton into the boiling pot and wiped his hands with a rag. "It was okay a few years ago. There were still a lot of people, but then the economy declined and the county couldn't hold on anymore. Many young people went to work in big cities, leaving only a few children and the elderly living here."

"It's really because I can't sell this shop, otherwise I would leave too."

It was indeed as the taxi driver said, this county town was old and dying.

Lin Jue looked at the dust still falling in front of the store and asked, "Brother, what's going on with that dust?"

The boss took a look outside and said, "You mean that thing..."

"That thing just appears suddenly. Sometimes it falls, sometimes it doesn't. It's as unpredictable as rain. It looks scary, but it's not harmful. We've been getting wet for almost a year now, and there's no problem. The county even sent someone to inspect it, but there was no result."

During the conversation, the boss took out the boiled mutton, poured a full bowl of soup on it, and sprinkled a layer of chopped green onions on it, and the aroma was immediately brought out.

"Mutton soup is here."

The boss brought over two bowls of soup, and the aroma made Lin Jue's mouth water.

When he was about to pick up his chopsticks to eat, he noticed that the little girl sitting opposite him was just staring at the soup, her saliva was about to drip out, but she didn't make any move to eat.

"Why don't you eat it?" Lin Jue broke off his chopsticks and poured half of the meat in the bowl into the little girl's bowl: "Must-on soup should be drunk while it's hot. It won't taste good if it's cold."

The girl swallowed and stared at the delicious meat eagerly: "Uncle, I'm not hungry. Can I take this back to my dad to eat?"

Although he said he was not hungry, Lin Jue clearly heard the rumbling of his stomach. Such a small child had been picking up bottles for most of the day and even drank water so happily, so how could he not be hungry?

The father the girl was talking about must have some kind of health problem that makes him unable to move around easily, otherwise he wouldn't let his children come out to pick up trash, and even bring food back.

"Your father?" Lin Jue asked softly. The girl's expression darkened. "He can't move anymore. He can only lie in bed."

This child's father must be paralyzed.

"Is there no one else at home?" Lin Jue simply put down his chopsticks.

"My mother died of complications during childbirth. I had a brother who was fifteen years older than me. He worked as a handyman on a construction site with my father. Two years ago, he fell from the building while he and my father were putting up scaffolding."

"My father grabbed his hand and tried to save him, but we both ran out of strength and fell down together."

"My brother fell down, and my father fell on him. He died before we even got to the hospital. Although my father survived, the doctor said he couldn't move from the neck down."

"The contractor ran away again, and now my family hasn't received a penny of compensation. Dad's subsistence allowance and subsidies all have to go to pay off the hospital's debts. I'm the only one who has to rely on picking up bottles to eat. Dad hasn't had these delicious foods for a long time."

At the end of the conversation, the little girl's tears began to fall. Lin Jue took out some tissue and helped her wipe her tears.

There were no adults at home, and the burden of life fell entirely on a six-year-old child. The girl was so sensible that it made Lin Jue think of Liao Fan. That child was the same, only eight years old but spoke like a little adult.

"Boss, make another bowl for takeaway and add some noodles." Lin Jue wiped the girl's tears and helped her to open her chopsticks: "Eat it, this bowl was originally yours."

"Uncle, I'm afraid I don't have enough money. Even if I sell all the bottles at home, I still can't eat so much."

The girl's cautious words immediately made Lin Jue laugh: "Uncle is different from those scrap collectors. The unit price of scrap here is very high. Forget about eating two bowls. Ten bowls are enough for you."

Seeing that the girl was about to say something, Lin Jue directly stuffed the chopsticks into her hand and said, "Eat quickly, it will be really cold later."

After saying that, he picked up his bowl, covered his face and ate with big mouthfuls.

The girl looked at her with tears in her eyes, but finally couldn't resist the temptation of the food and ate it bite by bite. The girl was really starving, and she drank up the whole bowl of mutton soup.

"Would you like another bowl?" Lin Jue looked at the other person.

The girl hurriedly shook her head, patted her stomach and burped: "Thank you, uncle, I'm full."

"Okay, let's go." Lin Jue paid the money, tied the sack on his back, picked up the packaged mutton soup, picked up the little girl, and then walked out of the store.

The dust outside was getting heavier and heavier, like a torrential downpour, but the few pedestrians on the road did not try to avoid it. They had gotten used to it. They thought that these things were harmless anyway and would disappear without a trace after falling on them.

Is it really harmless?
Lin Jue stared at the overwhelming ashes. In this era, unknown things often represent danger. This thing seems harmless now, maybe it just hasn't manifested itself yet.

It's like a fog. When you first enter the fog, nothing unusual will happen. But if you stay there for too long, negative emotions will grow and you will eventually become a madman. The living students in that school are a good example.

Thinking of this, Lin Jue carried the girl and walked under the eaves, trying his best to avoid the ashes.

(End of this chapter)