629 A New Face
Yarin’s POV:
Perhaps this was the truth behind why the police couldn’t find any more criminals even after digging three feet into the Silver Moon Pack. Perhaps they had looked in the right place, but the real criminals had already escaped in the garbage truck.
I couldn’t help but think back to the garbage trucks I took this morning. Could the criminal have already run away in the garbage?
I decided to go to the nearby garbage station to take a look.
There was only a small garbage transfer station nearby. The garbage from several communities had been transported here for a short while, waiting to be transported by larger garbage trucks to the treatment plant outside the city.
This place only occupied a little space, mainly because the garbage pit was relatively deep. The garbage was soaked in some treatment liquid I couldn’t recognize, making them smell less pungent. I supposed it also had the effect of preliminary disinfection.
Guarding the garbage station was definitely not a nice job. There were only two older men with white hair in the duty room.
They were drowsy and indifferent to the garbage trucks coming in and out and everyone else. I just swaggered in. They didn’t care who I was or what I was here for. They probably weren’t afraid of the worthless trash being stolen.
This made it easier for me to sneak in but also made my bad premonition grow heavier. The near-zero guards allowed the criminals to come and go without a trace.
I wasn’t the only one in the trash station.
The Silver Moon Pack strictly separated the garbage. Some residents nearby would drop off their garbage, and some people – mostly poorly dressed elderly – would come to the garbage station to collect discarded plastic bottles. They were garbage in the garbage station, but in the hands of these elderly people, they were shiny coins.
There weren’t many people here, but there were also quite a few. Including me, there were a total of five people present. I couldn’t easily determine which one was the real criminal.
Two old people seemed to be living their lives too comfortably, a cleaner who was resting and a woman who looked ordinary.
The first three people were all waiting for a reason here. Now, it seemed that only that lady was abrupt.
“Hey, kid, what are you doing there?” The cleaner noticed me and waved me over.
I pretended to be a primary school student and ran over in small steps. I whispered, “I want to collect some waste paper boxes. I need them for my handiwork.”
“If you need cardboard boxes, I think you should go to your neighbor’s house or the store to get some,” the cleaner said. “The cardboard boxes here might not be clean. As you can see, this is a garbage station.”
“I already did, but I didn’t collect enough. Everyone was using them as props during the Moonlight Festival. I don’t have enough cardboard boxes to complete my homework⦔
I looked to the side and pretended to peek at the recycling waste storage area. In fact, I was secretly observing the other three.
The two old scavengers looked at me with a smile. They looked no different from ordinary old people.
The other lady was not paying much attention to them. She was here to take out the trash and was having a good time with a bag of unsorted recycled trash.
“Come here, boy. I know a place to get you what you need,” said an old scavenger kindly. “See that candy shop on the corner? At the end of this street, I saw a new batch of candy in the shop in the morning. I think they hadn’t had time to dispose of the cardboard boxes. The lady boss likes children very much. She won’t refuse your request.”
He was telling the truth, and no one else had any reaction to it. There was a high chance that he was not lying.
Knowing what had happened in the morning and knowing the temper of the local shop owner so well, this old man was probably a real native. Otherwise, he would not know all this clearly. πππ ππ€π«ππ.ππ§π
He had a good relationship with his companion. He was not a temporary partner, meaning the other old man was also a local.
Could it really be that lady?
At this moment, she finally raised her head from the two large trash bags and complained dejectedly, “Can someone help me? I really can’t understand the difference between the inside pages of a notebook and the cover of a notebook.”
“If you don’t mind, I’m more than willing to help, young lady,” the old man said enthusiastically. “I’ve been working at this garbage dump for over twenty years. I dare say that no one in the Silver Moon Pack knows garbage sorting better than me.”
The two old men went to help the lady. The cleaner was humming a song with headphones on. This seemed very normal.
Perhaps the person I was looking for wasn’t here? Maybe the criminal had already followed other garbage trucks to other garbage stations.
I pretended to run over to observe how the old man sorted the paper. At this moment, a garbage truck slowly drove in. It was empty. It was carrying garbage out of the city.
A few cleaners got out of the truck. They were very agile. With semi-automatic mechanical tools, they quickly filled the garbage truck and left.
I noticed that the original cleaner at the garbage station had also disappeared.
“Oh, my waist.” The old people just finished sorting the garbage and stood up with their hands on their waists.”It’s not as useful as it was when I was younger. I think I have to sit for a while.”
The lady quickly brought him a stool and muttered, “The cleaner is missing. He looks a little unfamiliar. Is he a newcomer?”
He was unfamiliar!
I jerked my head and realized I had just missed the right person.
