Chapter 270 - Broom blown away by the wind (1/2)
Since Shao Hua was still sad, Zhang Fan gave up on his original plan of studying medical textbooks and instead took her out for a walk. Shao Hua leaned against Zhang Fan as they slowly walked out on the street. Since the weather was getting warmer, there were now more people out on the streets simply taking a walk after a meal. There were a lot more children out on the street now that it wasn’t as cold as in wintertime. Young kids jumped and ran all over, while adult guardians trailed behind them.
China was getting richer and its borders were opening up. Both good things and bad things started coming in. This was even more so for Chasu City of the border province as Chasu City was very close to the border. It had a lot of contact with those from other countries. Many bad things from other countries also started spreading here.
At 4:00 a.m., a large group of youngsters was out on the road, riding their motorcycles with a raucous atmosphere. Lots of powerful motorcycles that usually wouldn’t be seen during the day had all gathered together, along with all sorts of young men and women. These people were all really young. The atmosphere was filled with excitement. Upon closer inspection, there was also the scent of marijuana in the air!
Marijuana wasn’t very common in inland China. However, since Chasu City was close to several -stan suffix countries, the bad habit of using marijuana had come over as well. It was common for these youngsters to bring out a marijuana joint and all share it when they gathered together. The youngsters believed that marijuana was harmless, non-addictive, and exciting. How pitiful their foolishness was!
The youngsters were excited, really excited. They were on a road that was far away from the main city. Since it was 4:00 a.m., there was almost nobody on the road other than themselves. They revved up their powerful motorcycles’ engines to the loudest, played extremely loud and wild music, and all shook their heads together, going down this rebellious path!
A dozen or so motorcycles all lined up together. Maybe the youngsters were trying to show off or something as a beautiful young woman was sitting behind each rider. However, even if they were trying to show off, nobody else was around at this time of night to see them! What a strange way of thinking.
These youngsters were betting. They were betting on who among the motorcycle riders would be the fastest. Everyone else kept cheering and wagering large amounts of money, throwing fistfuls of cash as if it was scrap paper onto the ground, where numerous shirts represented the riders.
“I bet on Tu Xun!”
“I bet on Wang Yue!”
“I bet on ———!”
The young men and women seemed like devils as they danced in the middle of the night on this road.
A young woman tossed out her red underwear. When it slowly landed on the ground, the motorcyclists started their race as that had been the signal to start! The youngsters shouted loudly as the motorcycles’ engines boomed. These powerful motorcycles, which had been smuggled into China, charged forward like rockets. Their bright headlights kept intersecting with each other as the motorcyclists raced.
This really was so foolishly suicidal. Even if these youngsters wanted to race and gamble on the results, they shouldn’t be using marijuana while doing so! These smuggled motorcycles were extremely powerful. Even some smaller cars wouldn’t be as powerful as these motorcycles. It was quite easy to reach 100 km/h.
This type of speed really was faster than the wind. It would be easy to cover more than 10 kilometers in just moments. They had secretly raced on this road many times already, so they were rather familiar with it. They would gather here at random rather than set times as what they were doing was illegal. The police weren’t just for show. These youngsters would have been arrested instantly if they raced here every day.
China was getting wealthier, so youngsters like these children of wealthy families started acting ridiculously. In contrast, there were also people who were leading lives of relative poverty. In any city for tourism or more civilized city, the most important would be that the city’s cleanliness reached a certain standard.
This standard was really strict, reaching the point where no visible trash was supposed to be seen in any major street or small alleyway. This created a great demand for street sweepers. Since this was a major undertaking, the government gave the job of keeping the streets clean to various contractors. Each contractor would be responsible for keeping a certain section of the city clean.
Being a city cleaning contractor wasn’t something that just anyone could do, as the government gave quite a decent amount of money for this. Only those with power and influence would be able to become contractors. The contractors would then hire street sweepers!
Old Yang was a widower. A contractor had hired him to be the street sweeper for Binhe Road, the name of the road that the young motorcyclists were on. Normally, most other street sweepers would start their road cleaning work at around 8:00 a.m.
However, he was older, and didn’t need much sleep. He usually went to sleep around 9:00 p.m. and would wake up at around 2:00 a.m. while sighing about how early he woke up. He would then get up as he wanted to finish sweeping Binhe Road as early as possible so that he could enjoy watching elderly women dancing in the park. He figured he might be able to even invite a nice old lady to dance with him if he was lucky sometimes. Old Yang was poor and old, and this was his only hobby left in life!
This morning, he picked up his bright orange street sweeper uniform, which also had white stripes, but then paused for a moment and put it back down. Whenever he wore his uniform and went to the park, people would always look down on him. Normally, he could at least get a friendly dance in, but whenever he was in his uniform, it would be considered quite nice already if the old women didn’t look down on him. It would be impossible for him to get a dance!