Chapter 20 Chapter Nineteen

"Did you stress to Akarat that this proposal was time-sensitive?" Anderson asked. "What do you have to complain about?" Carlisle raised a glass full of warm rice wine and motioned to Anderson, "At least he didn't send you to the giant elephant to be dismembered." "I can give him resources. And we don't need a lot in return, especially compared to the past." "Things are moving in his favor and he probably thinks he doesn't need you anymore. If the white shirt grovels at him, of course he doesn't need you anymore. Even before the failure on December 12, he There's never been such a big impact."

Anderson had an angry look on his face.He reached for his glass, but put it down immediately.He didn't want to drink these hot wines again.Under the attack of hot weather and warm rice wine, his thinking began to become dull and confused.He began to suspect that Sir Francis was going to drive away all the Farang by serving them with empty promises and mulled whiskey—no ice today, sorry.The rest of the customers around the bar looked just as hot and dazed as he was. "You should have joined us when I first proposed to you," said Carlisle. "That way, you have nothing to worry about now."

"When you first suggested it, you were a blowhard who just lost an entire airship." Carlisle laughed. "You see, you're blinded by this, aren't you?" Anderson didn't respond to the apparent taunt because he could barely concentrate.Emiko occupied his thoughts, and his time.Every night he would go to Phnom Chit to find her, wrap her up, and spend a lot of money on her.Even someone as greedy as Raleigh didn't charge much for the Clockwork Man.In just a few more hours, as the sun goes down, she'll be hobbling onto the stage once more.The first time he went to see her perform, she spotted him immediately, and she kept her eyes on him, begging him to save her from what was about to happen.

"My body is not my own." When he asked about the performance later, she replied in a flat voice, "The people who designed me, they made me unable to control what my body did. .It's as if their hands are inside my body, manipulating me. Like a puppet, right?" Her hands clenched and opened subconsciously, but her voice remained calm, "They designed me to be Baiyi Baishun, no matter in which aspect." Then, with a graceful smile, she threw herself into his arms as if she had never complained. She is an animal, as slavish as a dog.But as long as he is careful not to issue orders and make the atmosphere more equal between the two, another version of the clockwork girl will appear, like a precious lime tree.From the depths of her designed DNA, from within the noose that strangled her nature, her soul will emerge.

What Anderson didn't know was, if she was truly human, wouldn't seeing her humiliated make him even more angry?It was a strange thing, a man-made creature, designed and trained to serve others.She herself admits that her soul is at war with itself, and she herself doesn't really know which parts are her own and which parts are embedded in her genetic structure by her designers.Did her desire to please come from some kind of canine gene that made her think she was less than a real human?Or maybe that's just from what she's talked about, her training? The sound of neat military boots interrupted Anderson's thoughts.Carlisle, who was sitting lazily, straightened his body and stretched his neck to take a good look at the commotion outside.Anderson turned around, almost knocking over his glass at what he saw.

The streets are full of white shirts.Pedestrians, cyclists and food carts scrambled to the side of the street, congregating beside the rubble-built façade of the factory to make way for police forces from the Environment Ministry.Anderson craned his neck. From this distance, all he could see were clockwork rifles, black nightsticks, and shiny white uniforms.A giant dragon breathing fire and smoke is marching resolutely forward.That was the gritty side of a country that had never been conquered. "Oh my God." Carlisle exclaimed in a low voice. Anderson observed carefully, "There are quite a lot of white shirts."

Not knowing what signal they received, the two white shirts left the brigade and entered Sir Francis' bar.They looked at Fran, who was lying on his back in the heat, with barely concealed disgust on their faces. Sir Francis, who usually looked like a worldly expert, also ran out at this time and bowed to the two white shirts. Anderson raised his head towards the door, "I think we should go, what do you think?" Carlisle nodded sullenly, "But we can't draw too much attention." "I'm afraid it's a little late to say that now. Do you think they're looking for you?"

Carlisle's face was tense. "I hope they're here to get you." The conversation between Sir Francis and White Shirt was over.He turned and shouted at the customers: "I'm very sorry, we are closing now. All public places are closed. You must leave immediately." Both Anderson and Carlisle rose to their feet. "I shouldn't be drinking so much," Carlisle whispered. The two mingled among other drinkers and stumbled out the door.Everyone stood under the blazing sun, blinking dully, watching more and more white shirts passing by on the street.Footsteps thundered through the hot air, echoing from wall to wall.The fierce power contained in it beats everyone's heart.

Anderson leaned closer to Carlisle's ear, "Could this be another trick by Akarat? It's not the same as when you lost the airship?" Carlisle didn't answer, but his dour look told all Anderson needed to know.Hundreds of white shirts passed by, and more white shirts were coming.As far as the eye can see, the flow of people in white uniforms is almost endless. "They must have brought people from the suburbs. There are definitely not so many white shirts in the city." "They are the vanguard of the Ministry of the Environment responsible for incineration." Carlisle said, "They will only be dispatched when the second-generation tuberculosis or bird flu virus is out of control." Note for shirts.He just nodded slightly, "See their badges? Tigers and torches. To put it bluntly, they are the Death Squad. The Bangkok Tigers developed from this unit."

Anderson nodded grimly.It's one thing to complain about the white shirts and mock their stupidity and greed; it's quite another to watch them parade in their dazzling uniforms.The ground trembled with the heaving and falling of military boots.As their number increased, the entire street shook.Anderson could hardly restrain the urge to run away.They are the hunter and he is the prey. "Do you have a gun?" he asked Carlisle. Carlisle shook his head, "The usefulness of that thing is far less than the trouble it brings." Anderson searched for Gu on the street, "The rickshaw driver I hired is gone."

"Damn yellow card people," Carlisle said with a silent laugh, "always feel the limelight beforehand. I bet the whole city's yellow card people are hiding now." Anderson grabbed Carlisle's elbow. "Come on, try not to draw their attention." "Where are we going?" "Get out of the limelight and see what's going on." Anderson walked ahead, and the two turned into a side road, the goal of which was a freight channel leading to the sea.Almost immediately, they collided with a line of white shirts.The guards raised their clockwork rifles impatiently and waved them away. "I think they've put the area under martial law," Anderson said. "Sluice, factory." "Quarantine?" "If they were going to burn the area, they'd be wearing masks." "So, is this a coup? Another December 12?" Anderson glanced at Carlisle, "It seems to be ahead of your schedule, right?" Carlisle stared at the white shirts. "Perhaps General Prazar wants to surprise us." Anderson pulled him in the opposite direction, "Come here, let's go to my factory. Maybe Fusheng knows something." All across the street, white shirts were driving people out of their shops, ordering them to close immediately.The last shopkeepers are battening down the front doors of their shops.Another batch of white shirts passed down the street. Anderson and Carlisle arrived at the strong spring factory just as they saw a herd of screaming giant elephants swarming through the gate.Anderson grabs a mahout.The mahout ordered his beast to stop and saluted Anderson, while the mammoth snorted impatiently, and the gigantic elephant shifted restlessly.The workers on the production line bypassed this huge obstacle one after another. "Where is Fusheng?" Anderson asked, "The yellow card manager, where is he?" The man shook his head.More workers rushed out in a hurry. "Is the white shirt here?" he asked. The man said something quickly, and Anderson didn't understand.Carlisle translated: "He said the white shirts were out for revenge, to get their face back." The man gestured exaggeratedly, and Anderson moved out of the way for him. The Teochew factory across the street is also evacuating workers.Now there is not a single shop that is still open on the entire street.Food carts were either pulled inside or fled in fear.Every shop on the street had its doors closed.Some Thais peeped out from high windows, but there was nothing on the street but fleeing workers and marching white shirts.The last batch of workers from the strong spring factory ran out quickly. None of these people looked at Carlisle or Lake as they fled. "It's getting worse by the minute," Carlisle murmured.His face had grown visibly pale, although the skin on his face was somewhat tanned by the tropical sun. Another batch of white shirts turned around the corner and lined up in six columns, like giant snakes entrenched in the street. Anderson's skin tingled at the sight of the closed shops.It looks like everyone is getting ready for the typhoon. "We have to hide inside like the locals." He grabbed the heavy iron door and pulled it hard, "Help." It was with great difficulty that they closed the gate and bolted it.Anderson adjusted the position of the lock, then leaned against the hot iron door and panted heavily.Carlisle stared at the latch. "Does this mean we're safe? Or are we trapped?" "We're not in Compret yet. So, we can assume we're the winners for now." But in Anderson's mind, he wasn't sure.There were too many variables in this incident, which made him feel nervous.He remembered a time when vegetarian rioters broke out in Missouri.It started with a tense atmosphere, with some people giving short speeches, and then things took a turn for the worse, with huge amounts of farmland being burned.Until then, no one knew that violence was coming.Not a single intelligence official predicted that there was boiling under the surface of calm. Crouching on the roof of a barn, Anderson, coughing on the smoke from a burning Gaofa test field, fired a wind-up rifle he snatched from a slow-moving security guard into the field. rioters shooting.All the while, he wondered why no one saw the obvious signs.As if they were blind, they missed things that could not have been missed.And now, things are the same as that time.Things took a turn for the worse, and everyone was taken aback—the world seemed to suddenly become something he didn't know. Was this done by Pracha, who wanted to declare absolute force?Or was it a conspiracy by Akarat who wanted to cause even greater chaos?Or maybe it's just a new plague.Any one thing could be the cause.Anderson looked at the white shirts that were marching, and he could almost smell the smoke from the burning barn at the end of his nose. He waved to Carlisle and walked into the factory first. "We need to find Fusheng. If anyone knows anything, it must be him." The administrator's office upstairs was empty.Fusheng's censer was still burning, emitting curls of lingering cigarette smoke.Papers were scattered across his desk, rustling in the breeze from the ceiling fan. Carlisle laughed, low and bitter, "The assistant is gone?" "It seems so." The small safe for the money was open.Anderson glanced in.At least 30,000 baht in cash has been lost. "Damn it. That bastard robbed me." Carlisle pulled back a shutter to reveal a tiled pathway leading to the other end of the building. "Look at this." Anderson grimaced. "He keeps breaking the guy wires on that window. I think he's trying to keep other people out of that place." "He got out of here." Carlisle laughed. "You should have fired him long ago." The sound of army boots hitting the cobblestones grew louder and louder, the only sound now on the street. "Well, at least this guy has vision." "You know what the Thais say? 'When you see a yellow card man running, watch out for the giant elephant chasing after him.'" Anderson glanced at the office one last time, then leaned out the window, "Come on, let's go see where my assistant went." "Are you kidding me?" "If he doesn't want to see the white shirt, then neither do we. It's clear that he left a way for himself in advance." Anderson crawled into the sun, his hands hurting from the tiles.He stood up and shook his hands a few times - it felt like standing in a frying pan.He looked across the roof, breathing hard as the furnace-hot air made him gasp.The other end of the roof is a factory opened by Chaozhou people.Anderson took a few steps, then shouted back, "That's right. I think he's going that way!" Carlisle also climbed onto the roof.His face was shiny with oil, and his shirt was wet with sweat.They trudged between the red tiles, and the air around them seemed to boil.At the far end of the roof their path was cut off by an alley, the location not visible from Hosley Street due to the winding of the alley.And at the other end of the gap, there is a ladder leading to the ground. "It's incredible." The two of them looked at the alley below them at a vertical distance of eight or nine meters. "Did your old yellow monkey jump over here?" asked Carlisle. "It looks like this. Then climb down the ladder." Anderson looked down from the edge, "This place is really high." Fusheng's resourcefulness made him laugh, "This cunning bastard. " "He jumped pretty far." "It's not too bad. If Fusheng can do it..." Anderson didn't get a chance to finish his sentence.Carlisle leaped past him, jumping across the gap in one fell swoop.He landed heavily on the opposite roof, and the roof seemed to shake.A second later, he got up, smiled, and waved Anderson over. Anderson frowned and started running.His teeth chattered as he landed on the opposite roof.By the time he stood up straight, Carlisle was already descending the ladder.Anderson rubbed his bruised knee and climbed down.Carlisle was surveying the alley when Anderson jumped off the ladder. "That goes to Horsley Street, and our white shirt friends," said Carlisle. "We wouldn't want to go that way." "Fusheng is a paranoid," Anderson said. "There must be a way for him to go. And it will definitely not be Main Street." He walked in the other direction.After a few steps, a narrow gap between the walls of the two factories appeared. Carlisle nodded, "That's not bad." The two squeezed into the narrow path and walked close to the wall for more than a hundred meters before seeing a door made of rusty tinplate.They pushed open the simple door, and an old lady who was doing laundry picked up her head and looked at them.It seemed to be some sort of courtyard, with the laundry hanging here and there, the sun making a rainbow among the damp fibers.The old woman waved to them and signaled them to leave quickly. It was not long before they emerged from the yard and came to a narrow side road.There are also countless labyrinth-like alleys on this branch road, forming a large slum. Most of the residents here are coolies working in the ship locks, responsible for transporting the goods produced by the factory to the sea.Smaller alleys branched out of the alley, groups of coolies squatted on the ground eating noodles and fried fish.The hut was built of weatherproof timber, the layers of the roof made the road look very dark, and the whole space smelled of sweat.As they walked through the sweltering heat, a puff of oily smoke from fried chilies made them cough, and they involuntarily covered their mouths. "Where are we?" Carlisle whispered, "I'm completely dizzy." "Do you think that's important?" The slight booze in the afternoon is long gone.On both sides of the alley, some puppies, already dazed by the heat, lay on the ground, and some Cheshire cats stood on the messy tiles of the roof.The two walked more dark, narrow alleys, twisting left and right, tiptoeing past bicycles and scattered piles of scrap metal and coconut shells. Suddenly, an exit appeared ahead.The two came to the bright sunshine.Anderson gasped for fresh air, relieved to be out of those closed and suffocating alleyways.The street they were on wasn't very big either, but at least there were pedestrians."I think I recognize the place," Carlisle said. "There's a coffee guy around here, and one of my clerks recommended it." "At least there are no white shirts here." "I've got to get back to the Victory Hotel somehow," said Carlisle. "I've got money in their safe." "How much is your head worth?" Carlisle's face darkened, "Uh, maybe you're right. At least I have to get in touch with Akarat to find out what happened before deciding on our next move." "Fu Sheng and Lao Gu are gone," Anderson said. "At this point, we'd better hide like the Yellow Cards. We can hire a rickshaw to Sukhumvit Canal, and from there take a boat to Near where I live. That way we can stay away from all the factories and trade zones and those damn white shirts." He waved to a rickshaw driver and climbed into the car with Carlisle, before he had time to haggle. After staying away from the white shirt, Anderson gradually relaxed.He even began to think that the earlier fear was unwarranted.Because, judging from the previous situation, even if they walked along the main street, there might not be any trouble, and there was no need to take risks on the roof.Maybe... He shook his head in disappointment.Information is simply too scarce. Fusheng didn't wait, took the money and ran away.Anderson began to think about the carefully planned escape route again.That jump...he couldn't help laughing out loud. "what's so funny?" "I thought of Fusheng. This person is really thoughtful, and everything is prepared. As soon as you find out that there is trouble... Phew! Get out of the window and run." Carlisle grinned, "I really didn't know you've been raising a ninja with geriatric diseases." "I thought..." Anderson stopped suddenly.He caught a glimpse of white in the distance ahead, and quickly stood up to get a better look. "Damn it." The Department of the Environment's police force in starched white shirts was standing in the middle of the road, blocking traffic. Carlisle beside him couldn't sit still anymore, "Checkpoint?" "It seems that the martial law is not limited to the factory area." Anderson glanced back, trying to find a way to leave, but more pedestrians and cyclists were swarming, and the back road was blocked. "Should we run away?" Carlisle asked. Anderson scanned the crowd.Next to the car he was riding in, another rickshaw driver stepped on the pedal and stood up, looked around for a while, then sat back on his seat and rang the car bell.The coachman they had hired also started ringing the bell. "Nobody seems to be worried." On both sides of the road, Thais are haggling for the price of stinky durians, lemongrass in baskets and fish blowing bubbles in buckets.They look carefree. "You want to just hang around like this?" Carlisle asked. "I don't even know the fuck. Is this Pracha trying to show off his power?" "I've been telling you Pracha's teeth have been pulled out." "But it doesn't look like that now." Anderson craned his neck vigorously, trying to see what happened at the temporary barricade.Judging from the current situation, there is a person dancing and arguing with the white shirt.It was a Thai man, dark-skinned, with gold rings gleaming on the thumbs of both hands.Anderson tried to hear what the man was saying, but the sound was drowned out by the impatient ringing of more and more cyclists. The Thais seemed to think it was nothing more than an annoying traffic jam.No one is scared, they just get impatient.More cyclists started ringing their bells, and he seemed to be in the middle of a band performing. "Oh...what the hell," Carlisle whispered. The white shirt yanked the argumentative man off his bike.The man's arms waved, and the gold ring on his thumb glinted in the sun before disappearing, surrounded by a group of white uniforms.The dark black baton was raised and lowered, blood spattered everywhere. A cry of pain like a dog barking filled the street. The cyclists invariably stopped ringing the bell.Immediately all noise from the street died away, and everyone craned their necks to see what was going on.In a sudden silence, the man's intermittent begging sound reached everyone's ears.Around them, hundreds of people began to shift restlessly, exchange glances, and suddenly grow anxious, like a herd of artiodactyls suddenly discovering a carnivore among them. The dull bang of the baton continued. Finally, the sobbing stopped.The white shirts straightened up.One of them turned around and signaled the blocked people and cars to move on.There was an impatient, businesslike quality to the movement, as if people stopped to see beautiful flowers or a carnival.The cyclists moved forward hesitantly, and the traffic slowly began to move.Anderson sat down on the seat, "Oh my God." Their driver also kicked up the pedals and started to move forward.Carlisle's face was tense with anxiety, he kept looking left and right, "If you want to run, this is the last chance." Anderson couldn't turn his eyes away from the white shirt that was getting closer, "If we just ran like this, it would be too eye-catching." "We're fucking Farang. Do you think we could be more visible?" Inch by inch, the walkers and cyclists moved forward, converging at the choke point, slowly passing by the scene of the previous killing. Six white shirts stood beside the body.There was a pool of blood around the man's head.The bloody creek attracted a large number of flies, many of which even drowned in the bloody water.A Cheshire cat crouched looming on the outskirts of the pool of blood, held back by a group of legs in white uniform trousers.All the officers had red drops of blood spattered on their calves, and their trousers absorbed the spatter. Anderson stared blankly at the carnage.Carlisle cleared his throat nervously. Hearing this voice, a white shirt raised his head, and their eyes collided.Anderson wasn't sure how long the two had looked at each other, but the hatred in the officer's eyes was unmistakable.The white shirt raised one eyebrow, and there was a bit of provocation in his eyes.He slapped the baton in his hand on his leg, leaving a bloodstain. The officer slapped his baton again and tossed his head to the side, indicating that Anderson should not continue to look in this direction.