Chapter 694 - First Meeting (II)

The little thief was thin and small but he was quite fast. However, Lu Jin was healthier than him and in a few minutes, he managed to grab the dirty rags on the child's body and dragged him down.

The child's footing stumbled and he fell to the ground. The bottled water rolled onto the wet floor and the pack of cookies' contents scrambled to the muddy ground. 

"I caught you!" 

The child was so thin that Lu Jin could raise him with one hand. When he was about to pull the thief up, the thin arms of the child quickly grabbed the cookies on the ground and shoved them into his mouth with his dirty hands. 

"...!" 

Lu Jin was so stunned that he froze. 

The cookies were already dirty because they fell on the muddy ground but the thief still ate them?!

It was the first time that Lu Jin saw such a shocking act.

The little thief kept on eating and putting all the crushed and muddied cookies in his mouth. 

It was such a desperate act that Lu Jin could only watch on dumbfoundedly.

"Cough! Cough!" 

Lu Jin woke up from his daze and let the boy go. He took the bottled water on the ground, twisted the lid open, and numbly handed it to the child who was pounding on his c.h.e.s.t. 

The little thief grabbed the bottled water from him without any scrupulousness and drank it. He finished half of the bottled water in one go.

"Slow down..."

When the little thief finally calmed down after eating, he looked at Lu Jin with cautious eyes. 

His hair was muddy and dirty, so it was hard to see what his original hair color looked like. His eyes were covered by the long and matted strips of hair.

However, Lu Jin could see the bright color of gold in his eyes.

Lu Jin initially wanted to scold this little thief and hand him over to the police, like what people usually do when they find thieves. But the boy was even smaller than his little brother Yin. And the way he ate earlier made Lu Jin feel pity for the boy.

This child was just hungry so he had no choice, was that not right?

The two were at a standstill.

"Uhmmm… Stealing is bad," Lu Jin spoke.

The little thief just looked at him vigilantly.

Lu Jin scratched his head. 

The little thief might not understand him. He seemed like a person from the east like him, but his eyes gave away that he was a foreigner. Lu Jin spoke again, this time in English.

"Stealing is very bad. You can go to jail."

The little thief trembled and clenched his hands. He became more cautious of Lu Jin.

Lu Jin felt that it was very hard to communicate with the boy. 

An idea entered his mind. 

Since the little thief seemed hungry, then he could offer him some candies!

Lu Jin bowed his head, looked around, and dug in his pockets to look for some candies. He usually had them in his pockets whenever he was on a trip. 

!!!

"Hey!"

Lu Jin ran after the scrawny little thief once more.

Since the child had eaten his fill, he was faster than before. 

The two little boys passed through many dilapidated huts, sewages and finally came to an abandoned field filled with mountains of trash.

As Lu Jin ran after the child, he passed by some children with the same dirty clothing as the little thief. 

They hid in the trash and dilapidated huts when they saw him. Their arms were very thin and some were even smaller than the thief. 

The filthy smell became stronger and the surroundings became even dirtier.

Lu Jin finally realized that he had run far away from the car envoy. When he looked at the front, the little thief was no longer in sight. 

Lu Jin slowed down and stopped running. He looked around with large open eyes.

The children who were eyeing him warily were now starting to come out one by one. 

The children were of different ages. There were some who were as tall as him, and some who looked almost like a toddler. They all looked scrawny like a skeleton though, just like the little thief.

Their vigilant eyes turned red with apprehension. They eyed his complete set of clothes. Some even were looking at his shoes.

Lu Jin felt something which he did not realize at that time was malicious intent coming from their stares. He just felt like he would be torn apart if they got close to him.

The little boy got scared, turned around, and started running in the direction he had last seen the thief go to. It seemed like the other children sensed his fear and began running after him.

!!!

Oh no!

Lu Jin felt even more scared.

Lu Jin was terribly scared. His two little legs ran fast.  However, he did not know the terrain and ended up going to the dirty sewage. 

In front of him was the sewage where the strongest filthy smell came from. It was extremely pungent that it could make one's stomach turn. There were countless unknown sacks lying around the sewage.

Behind Lu Jin were the terrifying and ragged group of children.

The little boy's large eyes began to fill with unshed tears.

Lu Jin did not know what to choose. 

Should he jump into this unknown sewage or just let himself be torn apart by those scary children?

As the children got closer, a hand from below suddenly gripped his ankle and pulled him down.

"Ahh!"

...

The children saw him 'jump' onto the 'burial sewage'. Some even wanted to risk their life to at least take the child's clothes and shoes, but alas, the terrible sewage where all dead people from the slums were thrown in scared them off, so after hesitating, they left.

The people who swam in the 'burial sewage' before all came up with various diseases and died after a couple of nights of fever. 

The children were afraid of this risk, because they did not have medicine or even proper food with them to get by if they got sick.

But thinking that perhaps the well-groomed child would survive and come up, they stayed not far away from the sewage, silently observing.

...

Lu Jin's heart thumped fast.

He was pulled down into the gap between the sewage and the upper surface. However, the mud from the sewage still reached his ankle.

He looked at the owner of the hand that pulled him. 

It was the little thief.

"Thief--"

The little thief covered his mouth with his dirty hands.

The combination of filthy smell coming from the sewage and his hands assaulted Lu Jin's nose. Lu Jin felt the urge to retch.

"Shhh! If you don't want to live n.a.k.e.d and get sold, you should shut up." The little thief said in a muffled voice.