“因此，鲍德里亚认为‘物’和‘需要’都是虚幻的符号，”吴吉仁总结道，点击最后一张幻灯片。“他批评马克思的使用价值概念落入了资本主义政治经济学的陷阱，并提出了自己的符号政治经济学。”
吴小晖向教授和同学们鞠躬致意，然后在导师的示意下退了下去，等待下一位演讲者。
“泰尔斯！”
昔日的研究生吴吉仁猛然惊醒。
他蜷缩在腐朽墙壁的冰冷缝隙中，寒风从裂缝中吹进来。他穿越五年了，但前世的记忆仍然萦绕在他的梦中。现在，那种平凡的生活似乎比他悲惨的现实要好。
“泰尔斯！喂，泰尔斯！”
一只长满老茧的手揪着他的耳朵把他拽了出来。
七岁的孩子膝盖碰到瓦砾时不禁皱了皱眉。透过倒塌的屋顶，可以看到陌生的星座在闪烁——五年过去了，这个世界的夜空依然陌生。
抵抗是徒劳的。一个孩子能怎样对抗奎德的愤怒呢？
“里克说你这周少了五个铜币！”狮鬃执法者咆哮道，他的球状鼻子张开。“藏硬币？”
泰尔斯——吴吉仁现在的身份——被重重地摔在地上，灰色的眼眸望向墙角里瑟瑟发抖的五个四到十岁的孩子，最深处的缝隙里，四岁的科莉亚咬着通红的拳头，六岁的尼德在旁边呜咽着。
事实并非如此：本周的 37 名警察（比上周多 18 名）大多是从 Grove Apothecary 为 Coria 购买伤寒药的。在她这个年纪，这种病如果不治疗，就等于死亡。
重生到这个残酷世界五年后，泰勒斯重温了童年的碎片记忆，同时拼凑起前世的意识。虽然记忆支离破碎，但每一次目睹的死亡——因疾病、坠落、溺水、绞刑，甚至一个乞丐孩子被精神力量窒息后被殴打致死——都深深地刻在他的脑海里。黑街兄弟会靠贩卖人口牟利，不讲道德。
即使是帮派也需要时间来制定暗号。然而，兄弟会却只用了不到十年的时间就从黑街的贫民窟中崛起，掌握了权力。他们的对手，九十岁的“黑社会贵族”血瓶帮，在血腥屠杀中也并不干净。
很多时候，泰尔斯只能眼睁睁地看着这一切，他依靠着前世零散的记忆活了下来，多次躲过了死亡。
就像现在，Quade 以虐待狂的快感敲打着指关节。
“我没隐瞒什么！冬天经过下区的人比较少——”泰尔斯一边编造借口，一边开口道。
裂缝！
一记反手将他打翻在地。“先交出硬币，然后我就打败你。或者反过来。选择吧！”
解释毫无意义。兄弟会的副官可能想要酒钱——或者只是一个出气筒。
“或者保持固执。我喜欢固执的人。”奎德咧嘴笑着，拳头像沙袋一样向后举起。
Thales knew silence wouldn’t save him. Last month, Quade had tortured a Fifth House beggar to death.
Clutching his swollen cheek, Thales analyzed: Quade never handled accounts, too busy haunting Sunset Tavern to track exchange rates between Mindith silvers and Middel coppers. That was his deputy Rick’s duty. Even meticulous Rick considered weekly fluctuations of seven-eight coppers per child normal.
There’s an informant.
Thales’ gaze swept the cowering children. They must have seen him return with coin from the noblewoman. In such hellish conditions, children’s hearts hardened beyond adult comprehension.
Quade kicked again. Thales subtly shielded his abdomen with an elbow, feigning agony without crying out—Quade thrived on screams.
“I’ll talk!” Thales trembled theatrically. “Don’t hit me!”
“Depends on my mood!” Quade gloated at the children’s terror—his authority affirmed.
“A noblewoman gave me ten coppers Wednesday morning!” Thales cowered in the corner.
“Stole it, more like! Hand it over!” Quade spat, readying another strike.
Before the blow landed, Thales added: “But it was in Red Lane District!”
Quade’s fist froze. “Blood Bottle Gang territory?”
“Yes. No one lingers near Black Street except Brotherhood thugs or fools.” Even sword-and-shield city guards avoided these crime-ridden ruins.
“First time, I got lucky—no Blood Bottle enforcers. Thought I’d try again.”
“Idiot!” Quade’s kick sent Thales skidding. Coria flinched in her niche.
“Red Lane’s no charity!” Quade bellowed. “How’d you escape?”
“Idiot!”
Another brutal kick sent Thales sprawling. He noticed Coria flinching in the distance.
Quade roared, “Red Lane? Blood Bottle Gang territory? You think it’s that easy to get away with?”
Thales shrank back, trembling. “Y-yes. That afternoon, the Blood Bottle Gang caught me. They strung me up. I told them I was lost, but they didn’t believe me. I handed over all the money, but they still wouldn’t let me go.”
“Worthless! How did you escape then?” Quade spat viciously.
“Then… I told them I was from the abandoned house, that I belonged to Quade Roda, Boss Quade. They… they just laughed.”
“What?” Quade’s fists clenched. He grabbed Thales by the collar of his tattered burlap shirt and yanked him up from the corner. “Those damn red-scarves! What were they laughing about?”
Thales shook his head in confusion. “I… I didn’t really understand what they were saying…”
Quade’s face twisted into a snarl. “Spit it out!”
Thales pretended to tremble in fear, his voice quivering. “There was a bald man among them…”
“Bald?” Quade’s eyes narrowed as he seemed to recall something. “Spen? Bald Spen from West Ring? The Blood Bottle Gang’s debt collector?”
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
“I don’t know,” Thales shook his head fearfully. “But the bald man said… since I’m one of Quade’s kids, they’d spare my life… because Quade needs children so badly…”
Before Thales could finish, Quade slammed him against the wall!
BANG!
The beggar boy did his best to protect his head and chest, using his back to absorb the impact. He then turned his back to Quade, bracing for the enraged man’s relentless blows.
“Son of a b****… you… bald… Spen… how does he know… I’ll kill you… kill you… worthless… idiot…”
Quade roared in fury, kicking Thales repeatedly, his words barely coherent.
Thales clenched his teeth, adjusting the angle of his back to cushion the blows as much as possible.
“F*** you, f*** you, idiot, bastard, f*** you…”
From their holes in the wall, the other children watched in terror, hands clamped over their mouths to stifle any sound.
Though the beating looked brutal, Thales secretly felt a wave of relief. A furious, out-of-control Quade was far less dangerous than a calm, sadistic one. More importantly, Quade wouldn’t be asking about the money anymore.
Thales’ story was a mix of truth and lies. He had indeed gone to Red Lane, but he’d stayed hidden in the shadows, carefully observing his surroundings to avoid the Blood Bottle Gang’s enforcers. He had also encountered a noblewoman in a luxurious velvet gown, but she was accompanied by at least twenty elite swordsmen. That was why the Blood Bottle Gang hadn’t intervened when he’d run out to beg. From the noblewoman, Thales had indeed received a generous amount of coin—though he wasn’t foolish enough to try stealing in front of twenty swordsmen. He’d disappeared into the crowd before the noblewoman’s entourage could react and hadn’t returned.
As for Bald Spen, Thales had never met him. He only knew Spen was the Blood Bottle Gang’s chief debt collector. Quade, too, had once been a debt collector for the Brotherhood—until he’d crossed the wrong person and been left permanently injured. Thales had overheard this secret while eavesdropping on two Brotherhood assassins, Layok and Belicia, who’d mocked Quade during one of their private conversations.
By the time Quade’s rage had subsided, he was cursing Bald Spen and the Blood Bottle Gang, pulling a flask from his coat and stumbling away, still muttering obscenities. Thales’ back was a mess of bruises and cuts, his shirt torn to shreds. Some wounds had started bleeding, the pain flaring with every movement.
The blood pooling on the ground made the burning sensation even more intense. It had been a long time since Thales had been beaten so badly. Since transmigrating to this world, beatings, hunger, illness, and cold had become routine. But after gradually regaining the memories of his past life as graduate student Wu Jiren, Thales had learned to navigate this harsh world with caution and experience. He hadn’t been beaten so viciously in a long time.
Only after Quade’s voice faded did the other five children crawl out of their holes. They carefully carried the barely conscious Thales to the courtyard. Ten-year-old “Big Guy” Xinti grabbed a curved shard of a broken bowl to fetch water from the barrel. Lame Lain and dark-skinned Kalit, both eight, struggled to gather dry branches and grass, trying to start a fire with flint. Six-year-old blond Ned and the youngest, Coria, picked some oddly shaped wild leaves, chewed them into a paste, and gently applied it to Thales’ battered back.
Thales gritted his teeth against the pain, trying to distract himself. He looked at Coria, who was on the verge of tears, and then at the dejected Ned, forcing his voice to remain calm.
“It’s okay, Ned. I don’t blame you.”
Ned’s head snapped up, his face filled with guilt and fear. The other four children also turned to look at him.
“How did you know?” The six-year-old couldn’t hide his emotions; his guilt and terror were written all over his face.
While Thales was being beaten, the older three children had watched in fear, their eyes fixed on the scene. Only Coria and Ned had avoided looking—Coria hiding her face in her hands, Ned occasionally glancing over in terror.
Coria’s typhoid medicine had been the reason for the missing coins, so she wouldn’t have betrayed him. But Thales hadn’t been sure it was Ned—until now.
He forced a smile. “It’s fine. Quade won’t bring it up again.”
“I… I…” Ned’s face flushed crimson. He looked at Thales’ back, tears streaming down his face. “I didn’t get any money this week… and I was too scared to steal…”
He sobbed, “Rick didn’t say anything, but Quade was furious. He said if I didn’t do better, he’d sell me to the desert, to the Bone-Eaters… I was so scared, so I told him… I told him you’d brought back a lot of coins one day… I thought they’d leave me alone if I told them… Quade just sent me back and said he’d come tonight…”
Coria’s face also reddened. Her hands trembled as she applied the poultice, causing a few drops of blood to drip from Thales’ back onto the ground.
Thales stifled a groan. The burning pain had just started to subside, but Coria’s trembling hands reignited it.
Lain glared at Ned, making the boy hang his head even lower. Kalit looked between Ned and Thales in surprise, while Xinti silently brought over the water.
Thales’ expression darkened as he looked at Ned.
The boy was only six.
Thales reminded himself.
He barely understood anything. Faced with Quade’s threats, he’d panicked and blurted out whatever he could to save himself.
He shouldn’t have to endure such a fate in a place like this.
“It’s okay, Ned. Coria,” Thales exhaled, feeling the pain in his back ease slightly. He gently took Ned’s hand. “But you’ve seen what Quade can do…”
Ned whimpered in fear.
Thales looked at him seriously.
“Next time, if any of you can’t get enough money, tell me. I’ll figure something out.”
“Compared to Quade, we’re on the same side.”
奈德哭得更厉害了，他抽泣着，几乎听不清楚他说了什么。
“泰，泰尔斯……我……我很抱歉……”
泰尔斯默默地看着哭泣的男孩。
最后，他转过身，深吸了一口气。
“现在没事了，尼德。”泰尔斯轻轻叹了口气，接过辛蒂手中的破碗，喝了口水，“别怕，我总会找到办法的。”
除了哭泣的尼德，其他孩子都胆怯地看着，什么也没说。
泰尔斯凝视着脚下的地面，表情变得严肃起来。
相比于之前无数的穿越者来说，他的运气无疑是比较差的。
但即便如此……
泰尔斯环顾着五个孩子，尤其是刚刚从伤寒中痊愈的科莉亚，她那双晶莹的眼眸中，仍旧带着一丝惊恐。
至少，他想，明天我也需要多弄点钱。
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
永星城落日神殿中，一名见习侍僧停下了手中的清洁祭坛。
她震惊地看着石坛下面的一盏油灯——一盏装满永恒之油的灯。
这盏自她开始照看祭坛以来从未点燃或使用过的灯突然燃起了明亮的黄色火焰。
火焰闪烁，从黄色变为红色，然后变为深红色。
如同鲜血的颜色，变得更加凶猛。
一位年长的女祭司注意到了这位新手的心不在焉并责骂了她。
“尼亚！”
新手很快将注意力转回到祭坛上。
但当那位年长的女祭司看到这盏不寻常的灯时，她倒吸了一口凉气。
“尼亚！快去通知女祭司！”
老祭司难掩惊讶，冲到灯前，举起右手，左手掌心向上翻起，做出祈祷的手势，热切地念叨着。
“在日落时分……”
发生什么事了？
新手尼亚呆呆地站着。
她从来没有看到受人尊敬的女祭司如此慌乱，这让她很不安。
我做错什么了吗？
但我没有碰灯……
“但是……但是我该怎么跟女祭司说呢？”
尼亚焦急地问道：
“有人偷偷在祭坛附近点了一盏灯？”
年长的女祭司停止了祈祷。
“不。”
她低下双手，全神贯注地盯着灯。
“这盏灯……跨越两大洲，无数个埃罗尔岛屿，只有一个人能点燃它。”
“那个人……掌握着这个王国的未来。”