I work as a sorcerer in the US, and my side hustle is building Gundams.

Jack, somewhat neurotic, led the way.

Along the way, they passed many tents and "huts" made of cardboard, with strange graffiti often appearing on the walls, and occasionally a few dirty old mattresses.

Most of the people living here looked haggard and were mentally weak. They didn't react at all when Lynn came over, either busy with their work or lying down to sleep.

A few people who had kept their tents clean watched the two men who seemed to be coming from the depths of the underground with wary eyes, fearing that they would steal their meager wealth.

In the middle of the pipes, sewage from all over the city flows through the canal. The water is about one meter deep, and you can often see pieces of broken furniture, cardboard, packaging bags, and even animal carcasses floating by before flowing into the depths of the sewers.

Lynn followed Jack forward, his gaze sweeping over the deep waters.

All sorts of human-made waste are piled up here. I wonder what will happen when the sewers get clogged due to the excessive accumulation of these things.

"Huh? What's that?"

Suddenly Lynn's gaze was drawn to a plastic basin floating on the waterway.

The lighting was poor, but he could still vaguely make out what was in the basin.

And that thing seems to be moving!

"Is it a kitten? Or a puppy?"

Lynn shone his flashlight in that direction, trying to get a better look, but was suddenly stunned by what was in the basin!

"Holy crap, there's a baby in there!"

Lynn's shouts echoed through the sewers several times before slowly fading away.

Jack turned around with a strange expression on his face—an expression that was somewhere between confusion and impatience, as if Lynn's reaction was a bit of an overreaction.

"A baby? What's there to be curious about? The thing I'm going to show you is truly amazing!"

"No, you didn't understand—"

Lynn didn't have time to explain further and rushed towards the ditch.

The beam of the flashlight swayed violently in the darkness, striking the dirty water like a panicked eye.

The water made a dull rumbling sound in the pipe, and the plastic basin was slowly drifting away with the water, moving towards the main pipe deeper inside.

Inside the basin, the tiny thing moved slightly again.

The water from Green Lake flows through underground pipes and into Seattle’s complex underground drainage system.

Lynn didn't know how far the water had traveled to get here, but he knew that if he didn't act soon, the little life would be swept into deeper waters and fall into places he didn't want to imagine.

He gritted his teeth and jumped into the cold, foul-smelling underground sewer with a "plop"!

The sewage was shallow in this section, but it still reached above his knees, then his waist. The icy touch made him gasp.

Lynn thought he was mentally prepared, but when the stench really hit him, he almost gagged.

It was a complex stench, a mixture of countless putrid substances—the sour smell of feces, the ammonia smell of urine, and the sweet, rotten smell of rotten vegetables and leftovers after microbial decomposition, all intertwined to create a nauseating, almost tangible, sticky odor.

There was far more filth in the ditch than I had imagined.

Lynn's feet sank into the mud at the bottom of the ditch. The sticky substance was more than ten centimeters thick, and each step made a "crunching" sound, as if he had stepped into the internal organs of some huge creature.

As the flashlight shone down, he saw plastic fragments of various colors gleaming with an eerie luster, and bone fragments the size of fingernails appearing and disappearing among the waves—there were chicken bones, duck bones, and even a few vertebrae of animals whose origins he couldn't identify.

A fat rat scurried past him, squeaking as it disappeared into a crack in the pipe.

He kicked a cardboard box, and the liquid inside had overflowed, soaking his trouser leg.

Several used syringes and countless needles floated past him like a sea of ​​garbage, gleaming dangerously. He had to be extra careful with every step, lest he prick his skin and contract a disease.

There were other things he didn't want to see clearly at all—hygiene products floating at his feet, emitting a pungent chemical smell.

Rotting animal carcasses piled up in the bends of the pipes, some reduced to skin and skeletons, others still retaining their original shape, emitting a suffocating stench.

Lynn felt as if he were traversing an underground tomb, each step stirring up countless dead things.

He bit his lip and trudged through the disgusting mud with almost all his might, chasing after the plastic basin.

The cold, foul-smelling sewage seeped into his waistband, soaking through his last dry garment.

He was completely soaked and reeked of a nauseating stench, but he didn't stop.

He finally caught up with the plastic basin.

Lynn reached in and gently picked up the tiny, frail creature.

The baby was lighter than he had imagined.

The child's skin was so pale it was almost transparent, and his face was wrinkled, as if something had drained all the moisture from his body.

Her belly was as thin as a sheet of paper, and the shape of her ribs was clearly visible under her skin. Dried bloodstains remained on the umbilical cord, indicating that the child was only a few days old.

Lynn gently touched the child's face with her fingertips and found that the mouth instinctively opened and closed slightly, like a dehydrated little fish searching for water.

But the child didn't make a sound—she no longer had the strength to cry.

"It's a girl."

Jack had somehow walked to the edge of the ditch, holding a flashlight in his hand, and said in a slightly hoarse voice.

Lynn did not answer.

He turned around with the child in his arms and walked back through waist-deep sewage, carefully avoiding the floating garbage and needles with each step.

His trouser legs were covered in brown mud stains all the way, but Lynn didn't stop for a single minute.

The baby was as quiet as a doll in his arms, only her slightly parted lips proved that she was still alive.

By the time Lynn climbed onto the embankment of the canal, he was dripping wet. His windbreaker and jeans, which had been relatively clean during the day, had turned into an indescribable gray.

He shivered twice, unsure whether it was from the cold or from lingering fear.

"Lynn, I think you've really gone mad!"

Jack kept rambling on, completely unable to understand his crazy behavior!

"This water is full of all sorts of bacteria and viruses. It's no wonder you get sick when you get back! And who knows what you might have on you—"

"How did she get here?"

Lynn interrupted Jack's complaints, squatted down, and wrapped the baby in her arms tighter.

He discovered that the baby's swaddling clothes were a faded old cotton cloth, covered with dozens of stitches and patches, making it impossible to discern the original color.

On the outermost corner of the cotton cloth, someone had written a line of small English words in crooked ballpoint pen: "Her name is Jasmine."