HPDBC Chapter 4 Eight-Pack Abs
Chapter 4 Eight-Pack Abs
The two came out of the back door of the Fire Bar, and Riley led Simon Lin north along the street.
Riley, carrying a bulging recycling bag, walked ahead and said, "Simon, you've just become homeless, do you want me to share some survival tips for the homeless?"
Simon Lin nodded, signaling Riley to continue—
Compared to himself, a greenhorn, Riley was a highly experienced mentor, and Simon Lin was very willing to learn some street survival skills.
"Although we are all homeless, it doesn't mean we don't have food. As long as we are mobile and visit a few welfare meal stations, homeless people usually won't starve to death."
Riley continued, "However, the quality of meals varies greatly. Some are delicious, like seafood, while others are as hard as rocks. You can follow a rule: long lines don't necessarily mean good food, but short lines definitely mean bad food."
"If you find out about restaurants that offer subsidized meals, the food is usually pretty good. Remember to go early to queue up, or they'll be sold out."
After hearing this, Lin Ximeng frowned subconsciously, remembering the two shiny donuts from before.
That was the most cloying dessert he had ever eaten, but recalling the number of people in line at the time, there must have been at least a hundred, which was not a small number.
So, this kind of food is probably average among the homeless in Los Angeles.
"To be honest, it's not as good as Shaxian chicken leg rice."
Lin Ximeng shook his head inwardly, feeling that the quality of food for the homeless was indeed very poor.
But he's a homeless person after all; he's lucky if he can have food and survive.
As they chatted, they unknowingly walked uphill.
Suddenly, a clattering sound of bottles and jars colliding came from ahead. Lin Simon looked up and saw a woman wearing denim shorts, revealing two slender, wheat-colored legs, pushing a supermarket shopping cart with gritted teeth.
The shopping cart was piled with several bulging black garbage bags, all shaped like recycled bottles and cans, and a tattered cloth bag was hanging on the handlebars.
"Hey, Gloria."
Riley seemed to recognize the woman, waving and calling out.
The woman turned around, revealing dark brown curly hair and slightly sunburned cheeks. Lin Simon sized her up; she looked like a Mexican.
Gloria was about to respond when she suddenly stumbled—the shopping cart wheel had run over a pebble on the side of the road, and an aluminum can had rolled out of the bag because it wasn't tied tightly.
Her left shoe scraped against the jar as she took her first step, causing her to slide forward half a step. The shopping cart in her hand instantly went out of control and slid down the slope!
"Oh no!"
Gloria screamed and reached for the handlebars, but the bike was going faster and faster and was about to crash into the lamppost at the bottom of the slope.
This is a jar she's been saving up for half a day; if it spills, all her hard work will be for nothing.
Just as Gloria was feeling worried, she felt a figure flash past her.
Lin Simon reacted quickly, rushing past Gloria and grabbing the railing on the side of the shopping cart. His forearm muscles tensed, and the cart slid forward a few meters due to inertia before he was able to steady it.
"Oh my god, thank you so much."
Gloria ran over, panting and patting her chest. Her gaze fell on Simon's taut arms, and her eyes lit up. "Your muscles are so muscular!"
"This is my friend, Simon. We just picked up these bottles together, pretty impressive, right?" Riley leaned in to show off, then pointed to Gloria.
"This is Gloria, she lives in the same bridge camp as me, she's from Mexico."
"Do the people at your camp usually bring their own carts when they go out to collect cans?"
Simon pushed the shopping cart to Gloria, also feeling a bit curious. He thought that if he could get her a supermarket shopping cart like this when she went out to collect cans, it would be much more convenient than the usual way homeless people carry bags.
"Isn't it pretty? I snagged this for free at the last street discount group buy," Gloria said proudly, showing off her stroller.
"The main group of people who participated in the event went to the supermarket, and I took advantage of the chaos to grab something nobody wanted. Unfortunately, my skin isn't dark enough to just grab a bag or something from the store..."
Street discount group buying? Not dark enough skin?
"..."
Lin Ximeng listened for a while before realizing that this was a zero-yuan purchase.
But you Mexicans are so lame, you can only pick up supermarket shopping carts. If it were a black guy, he'd at least have a mountain bike.
"You still want bags? Let's sell today's jars first."
Riley shattered Gloria's dream and pulled the two of them toward the junkyard.
Just as they turned the corner, Gloria suddenly pointed ahead and shouted, "Oh no! Someone locked the recycle bin door!"
Lin Ximeng looked up and saw that the roller shutter door of the Baolai waste recycling station not far away was slowly falling down.
A woman wearing a red shirt and with long, wavy black hair was standing by the door tidying up her things.
"Don't turn it off!"
Gloria quickened her pace, pushing her shopping cart towards the other side: "Wait, I haven't sold any of these cans yet!"
The woman with long, wavy hair turned around when she heard the sound and saw Gloria pushing a cart full of cans. She immediately sped up, wanting to close the roller shutter door as soon as possible.
"Max, it's not time yet! What's wrong with you? Why are you closing so early?"
Seeing that there wasn't enough time, Gloria immediately put down the supermarket shopping cart, ran a few steps, and grabbed the long-haired woman named Max from behind.
It was obvious that she had gone to great lengths to push this cart full of bottles and jars over, hoping to exchange them for some money to take back home, and she didn't want to make a wasted trip.
Although Max was shorter than Gloria, his size in front was quite exaggerated. Gloria wanted to hug him from behind, but she ended up being a little too high and almost couldn't wrap her arms around him.
When Max was hugged like that, her extravagant white skin swelled even more, squeezing and deforming her shirt to its limit, and the buttons on her chest almost popped off.
"Let go! Are you made of glue?" Max instantly bristled, frantically trying to break free.
"I'd rather go on a date with a lesbian at a late-night bar; I'm not interested in Mexican girls who smell like cans!"
She tried to pull away a couple of times, but Gloria held her even tighter.
As the two were wrestling, Max caught a glimpse of Simon Lin and Riley approaching out of the corner of his eye and immediately said, "Hey handsome guys, could you do me a favor and pull your crazy friend away? If she keeps hugging like this, she's going to tear my shirt to shreds."
Lin Simon walked to the gate and finally saw Max's appearance clearly.
Her porcelain-white skin glowed, and her small, delicate face contrasted sharply with her exaggeratedly curvaceous body.
She was a beautiful white woman, as beautiful as a flame.
Lin Simon looked at Gloria clinging to Max and raised an eyebrow, asking the two of them, "Are you friends?"
"no!"
The two shouted in unison, then glared at each other.
Lin Ximeng observed their reactions and confirmed that they were close friends who could be each other's mothers.
Riley then came over and explained the relationship between the two to Simon Lin.
It turns out that Max and Gloria were both originally employees of Red Basket supermarket.
However, Gloria's illegal immigrant status was recently exposed, and the supermarket owner, Ah Han, had no choice but to fire her.
Lin Ximeng, having understood the relationship between the two, glanced over the recycling bin and saw the crookedly pasted notice on the door: "From 9 am to 6 pm, it's only 5 pm now, there's still an hour before closing time, why are you in such a hurry to lock up?"
Max said arrogantly, "Handsome, didn't you know there will be a male model fashion show at the bar tonight? I've been looking at trash at the recycling center all day, I just want to get my eyes a rest."
Gloria objected: "You're just an employee. You have to follow the boss's opening hours. It's not like you're leaving early to go see male models."
Max clearly didn't take his boss's demands seriously at all. "You're a jobless homeless man, you have no right to tell me what to do."
"I'll have a job soon," Gloria said, her face flushed. "Ah Han said that once things calm down, he'll let me go back to the supermarket."
"Hey, you mean our boss who's been arguing with suppliers at the supermarket every day lately? He can't even keep up with stocking his own shelves, how could he possibly have time to help you with your work?"
She paused, then asked the crowd, "Do you know what this means?"
Before the three could answer, Max shook his head smugly: "That means I'm the only employee at the recycling center now—if I say close, it has to close."
"You're talking nonsense!" Gloria angrily reached out to grab Max's arm, trying to pull her off the door frame. Max pulled back, and the two of them wrestled together again, this time grabbing the pull cord of the roller shutter door.
With a "crash," the already loose roller shutter door suddenly shook, the screws on top snapped off with a "click," and the heavy iron door slammed down with a screeching sound!
"Be careful!"
Riley exclaimed in surprise. Gloria and Max froze on the spot. The situation was too sudden. The two had just been arguing and had no time to react.
Lin Ximeng was the only one who reacted instantly. He rushed over almost immediately, grabbed the edge of the roller shutter with his left hand, and braced himself against the bottom of the door with his right hand. His forearm muscles tensed up instantly, and he managed to hold the metal door back from falling.
Then he took half a step back, exerted force again, and pushed the roller shutter door back up.
[Activate Skill: Instantaneous Burst Power lv.0 (Beginner) - In emergencies, your adrenaline will surge faster than the average person, allowing you to react to crises more quickly than others.]
Once the roller shutter was completely closed, Lin Ximeng released his grip and asked the two, "Are you alright?"
Wow~
Max looked at Simon Lin, his eyes shining slightly.
Just now, when Lin Ximeng rolled up the shutter door, the hem of his clothes lifted up, revealing his clearly visible eight-pack abs.
She couldn't help but compare them to the male models she had seen in bars before: If you could see abs like that every day, who would want to go to bars to look at male models?