My brother entrusted his child to me, and I livestreamed raising the baby, making the Empress cry wi

The leaden-gray clouds hung low, almost touching the roof tiles on both sides, and darker clouds churned between the layers of clouds.

It was as if something was slowly stirring deep within the clouds, disturbing the peace of the entire sky.

The rain showed no sign of letting up, and the raindrops pattered against the few tattered clothes draped over their heads.

The clothes were already soaked with water, and the overflow dripped from the corners, splashing into the puddles in the alley along with the rainwater, the surface of the water never calming down.

The wind carried a cold, damp smell, mixed with the stench of decay emanating from the nearby garbage heap. It was wet and sticky, like a cold, damp tongue licking the skin, making one extremely uncomfortable.

Shu Jingwei couldn't help but shiver and wrapped her tattered coat even tighter around herself.

But the coat was already soaked through. When I gripped the collar with my fingers, I could feel the fabric was saturated with water and hanging down heavily, making me feel even colder against my skin.

The chill seeped into my bones from my back, from my shoulder blades, and from every inch of skin covered with a damp cloth.

She could even feel the chill creeping up her spine, vertebra by vertebra, until it reached the back of her head, making her scalp tingle.

"This can't go on forever." Shu Jingwei's lips moved, but her voice was hoarse and unpleasant.

"The water is so deep, there's not even a place to sit at night."

The sky was also showing signs of darkening, and there was simply no time to find a place to stay again, mainly because none of them had expected the rain to last so long.

At first, everyone was hoping that things would stop soon and they didn't want to leave the place they had stayed for so long.

But now that the water is so deep, we really can't stay here any longer. Let's find a new place to stay first thing tomorrow morning. Let's go outside the city and see if there are any abandoned temples or houses.

I'll make do for one more night. At least there are walls on three sides and a roof overhead, which can at least shield me from the wind and rain. It's much better than getting soaked on the street.

However, we still need to find something to elevate it; we can't really leave it soaking in water all night.

While it's still dark, let's go look around and see if we can find any wooden planks or something to stack together.

Shu Jingwei told Shu Rou her idea and asked Shu Rou to go with her so that it would be faster.

Shu Rou pouted, somewhat unwilling, but she looked down at her legs and feet soaking in the water.

She was small, and almost her entire body below the knees was submerged in the muddy water. She couldn't see below, but could feel the water flowing between her toes, cool and slippery, as if something was gently rubbing against the back of her feet at the bottom.

She shuddered, realizing she really didn't want to stay in the water any longer, so she shrank her neck, muttered "Let's go," and followed along.

The two first went to search through the pile of garbage in the middle of the alley.

That pile of garbage is a shared dumping ground for all the residents in the neighborhood. I don't know when it started, but it's been there in the middle of the alley.

No one knows who threw the first piece of trash. Later people would add a layer on top as they passed by, tattered clothes, broken bowls and jars, stove ash and coal ash... Over time, it piled up into a small mountain that was taller than a person.

Rainwater poured down on it, creating streams of yellowish-brown liquid that flowed down the folds of the garbage mountain, like pus-filled sores.

It's like an ugly barrier, perfectly blocking outsiders from peeping into the depths of the alley.

Looking into the alley from the entrance, all you can see is a stinking mountain of garbage; no one would suspect there's any space beyond that.

Many people thought that this garbage dump was the end of the alley. Shu Jingwei thought so too at first. Later, she rummaged through the garbage and went around to find that there was another dead end in the alley. Although it was narrow and dark, it was at least hidden.

This is also the main reason why the two chose this place as their resting place.

But it is also because of this garbage dump that the alley is constantly filled with a suffocating stench.

The smell was hard to describe precisely; it was like a mixture of sour, foul, fishy, ​​and rancid flavors that made your stomach churn when it entered your nose.

However, the better spots in Ancheng had long been taken over by other beggars. For outsiders like them, it was already a blessing to find a place where no one would covet them. As for the stench, they would get used to it after a while.

Shu Jingwei walked to the garbage heap, found a place to sit down, and then skillfully began rummaging through it.

They used to rummage through this garbage dump almost every day, looking for any food or clothes they could eat. It had only stopped raining for a few days, and she remembered there were wooden planks and bricks, but she didn't know if they would be enough.

She had lost all feeling from her left shoulder down, except for occasional sharp pains in her shoulder. Her entire arm, like rotten flesh, swayed back and forth in her sleeve with every movement.

He rummaged through the trash with his right hand, his fingers first touching a wet, tattered cloth. He tore it open, revealing a clump of mud underneath.

The lump had turned white and swollen from being soaked in rainwater, and it was impossible to tell what it originally was. When you poked your finger in, it made a "plop" sound, and a sour, foul-smelling gas came out of it.

Shu Jingwei glanced at it and continued flipping through the pages. Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in her finger, not knowing whether it was from a shard of porcelain or something else.

She jerked her hand back and gasped for breath, the air carrying the mixed smell of rain and garbage, chilling her lungs.

Looking down, I saw a small cut on my fingertip, not deep, with blood mixed with rainwater trickling down from it, and a faint smell of rust wafting through the air.

She didn't care about the pain. What was this? There were plenty of old, festering wounds that were worse. This little cut would scab over by tomorrow. She had to hurry.

Shu Jingwei rubbed her right hand haphazardly on her clothes to wipe away the blood and mud, then continued searching.

Shu Rou bent over and rummaged through the garbage, her movements much faster than Shu Jingwei, who only had one hand.

She used both hands together, digging like a dog digging in the dirt, and the garbage slid apart with a whoosh, with broken tiles, rags and other debris flying everywhere as she shoveled them away.

The things fell into the puddles, splashing water everywhere. Some splashed onto her face, but she just wiped them off haphazardly, brushed off the rotten leaves stuck to her mouth, and continued digging.

She's not very strong; if she encounters a large object, she can't move it by herself, so she goes around to the other side to flip it over.

Two hands, resembling chicken claws, were whitened from being soaked in the rain.

From the day it started raining until now, Shu Rou's hands have hardly left the water; the skin on all ten fingers is wrinkled, with deep and dense folds.

Her fingernails were full of dirt and grime, black and embedded between her nails and flesh, but she didn't care, because it was like this every day anyway.

Finally, they successfully found a few broken planks and some broken bricks.

Shu Jingwei moved these things to that recessed corner, roughly stacked them up and measured them; they were still far from being too deep to cover the water.

"This isn't enough; it won't raise it that high."

She looked around and saw nothing on either side of the alley except for the damp walls and a few rotten blades of grass growing out of the cracks in the walls.

Biting her lip, Shu Jingwei spoke again: "We need to keep looking. Let's look elsewhere."