If I don't have money to go to college, I can only go to slay the dragon

Chapter 774 Cats

The Lake Shore Limited Express train (Lake Shore Limited) slowly stopped at the platform. This train leaves Chicago every afternoon and arrives in New York the next morning, so the platform is full of shadows, and the train lights illuminate the dark road ahead. The railroad tracks also shone on the sleepy cheeks of those dark shadows, and everyone's faces were hazy with the vain beauty of New York in the early morning.

The train door slid open, and the voice broadcast of a sweet girl's voice sounded on the platform. Amidst a series of footsteps, Lu Mingfei, carrying a backpack, walked onto the train platform, and then stood still. He looked up and looked at Exit A to the left. Take a look at the lights at Exit B to the right, and the expression is between "Grandma Liu enters the Grand View Garden" or "Lu Mingfei enters Kassel".

The flow of people passed by on both sides of him. He stood there for a long time. Among the crowd, he looked down at a photo in his hand blankly. After that, he didn't know who pushed Lu Mingfei's shoulder, and he staggered forward. He turned his head subconsciously, but only saw the purple sky with few moon stars on the top of the rail train.

The skyscrapers in the city outside the train station have already been lit up, and there are figures looming behind the glowing glass curtain walls, but the distance is too far to hear any more voices. It seems that these lights have no warmth for no reason, but they are more deserted The feeling of - or the feeling of strangeness.

Lu Mingfei once heard someone say that when a stranger comes to a strange city, every skyscraper he looks up at will look down on him with a strange face, and the whole city seems to be condescending. Examine this stranger, and consider coldly whether to swallow him up and eat him up, or spit him out in disgust.

I am really lucky that I am just a temporary passer-by, not a regular visitor, Lu Mingfei thought.

But after a while, he had to stop his divergent thinking, because the flow of people had reversed and rushed onto the train. If he didn’t decide whether to leave from Exit A or B, these crowds would force him to do the third one. chosen.

Amidst the crowds, Lu Mingfei struggled forward, like rushing forward in a black river, holding the right hand holding the photo up high, like a person who has not given up hope before drowning.

—

Walking from New York Central Station to downtown Brooklyn is by no means a simple matter. Manhattan and Brooklyn are divided into two urban districts, as if they are two different worlds. After all, just "from Manhattan to Brooklyn" is enough to shoot An 87-minute crime movie, life in New York never lacks such passionate material.

Lu Mingfei didn’t want to be one of the materials, so he chose the safest way to travel, which is to take the subway from Uptown to Chinatown, then transfer to Times Square, and cross the Manhattan Bridge to Downtown. For this reason, he is caring Under the guidance of the New York travel guide, I bought a New York seven-day subway pass, which can save a lot of money for him who is not rich.

The waiting hall of New York Central Station is as bustling as the Opera House in Paris, France (in fact, their staircases are indeed designed in this way). Countless brightly dressed people walk through the huge space, making the whole space noisy without communicating with each other. like a boiling kettle,

Lu Mingfei, carrying a backpack, walked in the crowd with his head bowed, and looked back at the crowd behind him from time to time. Those unfamiliar languages ​​mixed together always made him feel that someone was calling his name, but every time he looked back, he saw a strange face. Holding the mobile phone and lowering his head, he hurriedly passed in front of him, and the wind he brought was a bit icy cold.

After he came out of the waiting hall of the Central Station, the sky had already dawned, and outside the train station was the bustling 42nd Street in Manhattan. It was already busy at seven or eight in the morning, and the street lights had been turned off. There were clouds and clouds on the glass curtain wall of the building. Birds fly by.

The richest man in the United States at the end of the 19th century once said: When you arrive in New York, you have to feel like entering a palace.

But Lu Mingfei, who was standing outside the magnificent Central Railway Station, only felt that he was just a thief who entered the palace by groping, the kind whose mind was only thinking about how to get some unexpired cheese and gold coins.He was standing under the Greek-style Mercury statue at the railway station entrance on the street at this time, with Hercules on the left and Minerva on the right. The discounted hamburger I bought at the train station in my hand.

It is said that every person who comes to New York City through Grand Central Station will smell the air of freedom under the outlook of two American eagle statues, and find their own brand new future that can hold a hamburger. Mingfei only smelled the chilly morning air, and saw strange cities and streets. Strange and indifferent crowds passed in front of him one after another, ignoring the street corner beggars with American characteristics as usual.

Walked two steps along the street to the intersection, looking at the paper shell with 'I tried' written in front of the homeless man, Lu Mingfei could only hand him the hamburger in his hand, and got a sentence of 'thank you sir, have a nice day.'.

He couldn't help asking in his broken English why the other party didn't find a job?The homeless man looked at the young boy and said nothing, just shook his head, gnawed on the hamburger and looked at those still unfamiliar buildings. point.

Lu Mingfei stood there for a while, then scratched his head, and could only leave, after all, he still had other things to do.

—

"Would you mind to show me the way to subway?"

"Would you mind"

Lu Mingfei was holding a map on the street and asking the passers-by over and over again. What he said before had other things to do, of course he didn’t mean getting lost on the streets of New York, but for a person who just decided to go to New York yesterday morning , All the plans and strategies are made temporarily on the train. It is a miracle that you can persist until the first subway and get lost.

Asking for directions is a technical job, and asking for directions in a place where the language is difficult is even more technical. You have to be reminded that others will treat you as a thief who throws stones and asks for directions with ulterior motives. Ming Fei gave a warning, and two police uncles who seemed to have eaten too much high-calorie food came over with malicious intentions, and there seemed to be a faint movement of a gun in their right hand
—

With the enthusiastic help of the police uncle, Lu Mingfei walked out of the police station and successfully found the subway station he wanted. Even though he had stated several times that he was not an illegal immigrant, the other party still called in people from the Immigration Bureau to investigate thoroughly. I mentioned Lu Mingfei again, just because the boy's appearance of asking questions on the road was too much to make people worry that he would turn around and run away with the LV of a well-meaning white rich lady in the next moment.

After Lu Mingfei showed his student ID card from Kassel College, the group of policemen dispelled the suspicion that he was plotting something wrong, and their attitude became much friendlier. While patting the table and staring, Lu Mingfei was still saying "Im clean", which made Lu Mingfei miserable and couldn't explain it. It can't explain that the popular language in American schools is Chinese, right?

With the help of the police, Lu Mingfei was sent to the subway station in a police car for the first time, and was reminded that the next time he asked for directions, he could only ask up to three people. If he asked too many people, he would be reported to the local police. It was only then that Lu Mingfei realized that when he entered the sentence, New York was safe and secure. This was simply because of the "simple folk customs"!

"Who made you write out of place from beginning to end, as if you don't belong to this city at all?" Some fat police officers looked Lu Mingfei up and down and said, "People like you have had enough in Manhattan. , and going to Brooklyn?"

"There is a reason why I have to go." Lu Mingfei stammered, hoping with his eyes that the police officer's New York accent would slow down a bit. He even struggled to listen to the IELTS, let alone listen to the chatter of the locals.

"Is there a friend over there? And the address you gave me, it seems to be an orphanage? Is your friend an orphan?"

Lu Mingfei thought that you were the one who asked such a question?It would be more tactful to ask your friend if he is Batman, but he can only nod sharply when he is in uniform, "Does the officer know how to get there?"

"After getting off the subway, take the nearest bus stop to the terminal, which is in the east of the city. If you meet black people who like to make trouble on the road, don't worry about them. Threat them to call the police if something happens. Usually, they will leave with a sense of humor."

Lu Mingfei thanked him for a while, and the police uncle left him outside the subway station, turned off the siren and left, leaving many passers-by to point and point at Lu Mingfei who got off the police car, which made the boy lose face As soon as he turned his head, he went into the subway station.

—

Lu Mingfei fell asleep on the subway.

—

Lu Mingfei woke up, but he also sat and stood, so he was going to sit back again.

—

Finally crossed the upper and lower urban areas, the subway arrived at the station, got off, and passed the gate in one go. Except for a few black guys who sang poorly on the subway and harassed his ears all the way, Lu Mingfei didn’t encounter anything that might threaten his life. things.

He followed the direction of the police officer Fafu, got on the bus after exiting the subway station, found a seat by the window in the back row after he put in a coin, and looked at a crying little girl drawn by someone with a black marker on the glass window. People were in a daze, and the buildings full of history in the Brooklyn neighborhood passed by row by row outside the window. I don’t know why Lu Mingfei found a sense of familiarity in this crowded street scene that lacked the sense of a big city.

The bus staggered to the terminal, the eastern suburbs of Brooklyn, the most remote part of downtown, buildings with more than ten floors are almost invisible, adjacent to Queens, it can be regarded as a poor area in downtown Brooklyn, here There are some old and dilapidated buildings everywhere, and the walls are full of colorful graffiti and obscene language. From time to time, you can see a few black boys wearing red masks with pockets in their hands, haunting the alley. Busy with tens of thousands of big business.

Lu Mingfei didn't dare to dig into the alley, tried his best to take the main road, and walked all the way to a border area near the sea, which is probably a suburb of a slum.He kept walking according to the address on the map, and finally stopped in front of a construction site. After putting down the map, he looked at the excavators and forklifts in a daze.

"Hey! Hey! That kid!"

Lu Mingfei had only stood there for a while, when someone yelled at him, and a red-neck man wearing a construction hat ran towards him yelling and waving, and pulled his arm and pulled him away without any explanation.

Before Lu Mingfei could react, the other party pointed to where he was standing just now, a heavy steel bar was being hoisted by a crane.Once an engineering accident occurs, the consequences will be disastrous.

"It's okay, don't hang around here, what are you doing here as a student?" The red-necked uncle looked Lu Mingfei up and down and recognized that he was a student.

"What happened here?" Lu Mingfei looked towards the construction site, where an old church-like building was being demolished, and industrial materials and sand were piled everywhere.

"Demolition. Are you looking for a place?" The red-necked uncle saw Lu Mingfei's look of seeking something and asked patiently, "No matter what you are looking for, there is no place here, and some have closed down. , we received the news that the demolition will begin immediately.”

"This is supposed to be an orphanage, can charity organizations go bankrupt?" Lu Mingfei was a little confused.

"Why can't charities go bankrupt? Official institutions can close their doors because of funding problems. How do you think my wife lost her job?" The red-necked man took a look at Lu Mingfei angrily, "Not to mention the orphanage here. It is said that it is not an official facility, but a private establishment. There are always rich people who earn money with ignorance, hoping to accumulate virtue for themselves. While creating orphans, they are charitable and orphans think that they will go to heaven after death! Probably now The money chain of the group of rich people was broken, and they simply ran away when they burned their buttocks, and the orphanage couldn't continue to operate for a month or two, so it naturally closed down. Are you here to find someone in it?"

"It's okay, don't use it now." Lu Mingfei took out the photo in his trouser pocket, glanced at it and said, one of the few clues was broken now, "Uncle, do you know this address?"

The red-necked uncle took the photo handed over by Lu Mingfei and glanced at the address left behind, "Isn't this near the elevated light rail? It's not far from here. It's only a few hundred meters away, and even a fool can find it."

"Thank you." Lu Mingfei thanked him, and when he was about to leave, he suddenly paused and put the photo and a $10 back into the hands of the red-necked uncle, "If there is a chance, please give this photo to the orphanage Thank you." After finishing speaking, he lifted the backpack behind his back and left.

Lu Mingfei left on his front foot, and an old man dressed as a nun walked up to the red-necked uncle holding a cross in his hand on his back foot, "I seem to hear some movement here? Are you in any trouble?"

"No, nanny, I just met a guy who asked for directions, and it's been resolved now." The red-necked uncle pointed in the direction of Lu Mingfei, "It should be an outsider, and you can tell the feeling of being out of place in him at a glance. "

"Everyone is out of place when they first come to this world." Mammy said with a smile, "Everyone has been lost before, but they will all find their own destination in the end."

"But now your final destination is almost gone." The red-necked uncle glanced at the orphanage that was about to be demolished and said, "What about the children inside? Are they assigned to other official orphanages?"

"Don't you know? We're not closing down, we're just relocating. The God-blessed kind-hearted person who funded us donated a million dollars to the orphanage to repair the new residence two months ago. Those children will have A new home, and like I said everyone finds a home in the end."

"It's true that the sun is coming out from the west. Just donate millions of dollars like this? Can't figure out the new destination of the rich people's thinking? Then I hope that the new destination will not have high milk powder money and domestic violence wives like me. " The red-necked uncle muttered, and handed the photo to the nanny, "Principal, the thing that kid asked me to carry just now is for the people in the orphanage."

Mammy took a look at the photo and was stunned. In the photo, a man with drooping eyebrows was playing cards with a group of people at a table. There was a cafe in the background. Sunlight came in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. A touch of light, with a signature in broken English in marker on the corner of the photo: Ronald Tang, an anonymous generous benefactor who is not wealthy :).

Mammy stood there for a while, and suddenly looked at the direction where Lu Mingfei left, but only saw the back of a boy who was incompatible with this city and this street scene, and she was stunned for a while when she saw that back. There was a sense of familiarity, but in the end she just shook her head slightly and turned her back and left.

—

Lu Mingfei was lost, wandering in the neighborhoods of Brooklyn at a loss, his thoughts drifted to the white doves flying in the sky as the graffiti gradually changed colors.

—

"Lu Mingfei, I want to ask you something."

"What? Headmaster?"

"I heard Ronald Tang adopted a kitten two months ago when he left that apartment in Brooklyn, New York."

"Does the Dragon King also keep pets?" Lu Mingfei raised his head and asked, the sun shone brightly on the face of the old man holding a bone china cup at the opposite table.

"I don't know, maybe you can help me verify this problem, I will leave the address of that apartment behind the photo, maybe you can use it to write a catch-up paper for the internship class."

"What topic should you choose?" Lu Mingfei was dumbfounded, "On the Possibility of the Dragon King being a Cat Slave"?"

"I don't know either." The principal said, "Maybe "An Analysis of the Human Emotions of the Four Great Monarchs of the Dragon Clan" is more appropriate?"

"." Lu Mingfei was silent for a while, and then said, "It's been two months. If no one feeds the cat, it should have starved to death, right?"

"Nobody knows, but wouldn't it be a little pitiful to have a cat starve to death in an apartment and no one to collect it?" the headmaster asked.

"Maybe. Right." Lu Mingfei said, "But maybe Old Tang let the cat go when he left?"

"Do you think a furious dragon king will patiently find a new home for the pet cat or simply release it when he leaves his former residence?" The principal's tone is somewhat intriguing.

"I don't know either." Lu Mingfei fell silent after finishing speaking.

"Lin Nian told me that you had some concerns when facing the Dragon King underwater. You should go there, so that you don't have too many regrets." The principal put down the bone china cup and pushed a piece of paper to Lu Mingfei.

Lu Mingfei picked it up and took a look. It was a direct train ticket from Chicago to New York.

"Go to the cat?" he asked subconsciously.

"Of course, you can also try to find other things, as long as it can make you feel at ease." The old man said softly.

—

With the help of an enthusiastic black brother in Brooklyn, Lu Mingfei found the address.

—

"Are you sure you know the residents here?" the landlord asked.

"I'm sure it's Ronald Tang, right? I'm his friend. Is there any problem with me being Chinese?" Lu Mingfei replied.

"Why does he have a Chinese friend?" The landlord looked at the thin yellow-skinned boy in front of him with contempt.

"Because he is also Chinese! Chinese-American." Lu Mingfei's eyes widened.

"You seem to have a point. He hasn't paid rent for two months. If it wasn't for his good reputation with me, I would have kicked him out long ago, and the tenant next door to him has been protesting that his room has a strange smell. Son, you are his friend, tell him to pay more attention to personal hygiene and ventilation, and don’t always order takeout and dump garbage at home”

The landlady, a [-]-year-old fat woman, stood in front of Lu Mingfei and began to babble. Lu Mingfei felt as if he had re-entered the teacher's office, only bowing his head and being scolded all the time. Eight lifetimes of bad luck, until the end of the training, the fat landlady seemed to feel that her mouth was dry, so she let it go. Lu Mingfei gave him a spare key and let him go upstairs.

After thanking Lu Mingfei, he went upstairs, followed the door plate and found the address on the photo that the principal gave him, he raised his hand to knock on the door, but he stopped halfway through raising his hand, and laughed dryly and self-deprecatingly , Then took out the spare key and opened the door.

"excuse me."

—

The door of the apartment was opened. Accompanied by Lu Mingfei's voice, the bottles and cans were pushed open and the door collided and collapsed. Then there was the sound of Lu Mingfei rushing around, and the noise of the high-speed rail and light rail suddenly sounded outside the window. Covers up everything.

Just like the landlord complained, this is not a hygienic apartment. There are stacks of beverage cans everywhere, the takeaway pockets are placed in the corner, and the simple furniture is full of jeans and coats. Scruffy to say the least, it's full of life--a man's life, in a polite way.

One can imagine how casual the owner of this apartment is. The first thing he does when he gets home every day is to take off his coat and jeans and throw them on the sofa chair. He then lays down on the computer chair with a takeaway calling card and turns around. When I came to the computer, I happily dialed the takeaway number while logging in to my friends on the "StarCraft" call to cut a plate.

There was a bad smell in the air, but Lu Mingfei had never felt so relaxed. The burden he had been carrying all along seemed to be suddenly lifted after he entered this room. Is the property of squatting at home?No wonder they became friends online without knowing each other.

At some point, Lu Mingfei also sat in front of that computer chair. On the left was the window overlooking the Queens District across the sea. Perhaps many times, Old Tang looked at this world that was incompatible with him like he is now.

That decadent man may have once got off the train station in Manhattan like himself today, wandering the streets of New York at a loss, and finally tossed and turned and hid in the corner of the city to build a lonely but warm lair, which contains many stories , but those stories were all buried together under the river in Kuimen.

Lu Mingfei thought he knew Old Tang, but all he knew was Old Tang on the Internet, the heartless good buddy who claimed to be the number one master of the server and would give charcoal when his brother confessed to distress, but in private this person was called Old Tang. What about Tang's people?
If it weren't for today, Lu Mingfei would probably never have known that this man was born in an orphanage. He once wandered all over the world as a hunter. He obviously earned a lot of commissions but invested all of them in the construction and maintenance of the orphanage. Well, that was the old Tang before he found Norton's identity. The principal said that when the Dragon King recalled his memory, he would only be a cold-blooded and ruthless Dragon King.

But is this really the case?
Lu Mingfei didn't know, but he didn't forget his purpose of coming here today.

He got up from the computer chair and walked to the depths of the living room of the apartment, where he smelled a foul smell, maybe that was the source of the smell that the landlady said?

He already had the answer in his heart at this moment, but he still walked to the source of the stench, the cat cage hidden in the corner.

—

Lu Mingfei stood in front of the cat cage.

But he was stunned because the cat cage was open.

—

But the kitten in the cat cage died.

(End of this chapter)