The Versatile Master Artist

Chapter 66: Chapter 50: Emotion Pointer

(Thanks for everyone’s suggestions, I’ll keep working hard to write.)

(Starting today, the plot enters the climax Chapter.)

”Fuck...”

A white GAC van weaves through the traffic on the streets of Yangon.

Brother Mumbai sticks his head out of the window.

He watches a green Suzuki motorcycle racing past, less than fifteen centimeters from his side mirror, spewing a stream of profanities mixed with English, Burmese, and Hindi.

Unlike the age of sixteen in the United States, Myanmar allows you to take a driving test at eighteen, but the traffic cops on the roads basically don’t care.

The motorcycle ownership here is very high, with various teenagers weaving through the streets and alleys, either running errands for their families or just commuting on bikes wearing flip-flops.

Yangon is considered a very well-managed international metropolitan area in Myanmar, with many foreign tourists from Dongxia, Japan, Singapore, and Europe and America.

If you go north a few hundred kilometers, near the lawless zones of the Golden Triangle, it’s hard to find a vehicle with legal plates.

Gu Weijing has already gotten used to the traffic environment here.

He is indifferent to the chaotic streets before him, pulling a small note from his pocket to check against the goods in the van’s backend.

He couldn’t figure out why Miss Mona suddenly became cold towards him.

She handed his small box to the shop staff and politely asked him to leave.

Fortunately, this kind of legitimate gold is never short of buyers.

The Mumbai brother in the shop was busy reading a novel, casually weighing the gold coins on the scale, making a few calls to Shantunu, and at noon handed him a bundle of around 5 million Kyat.

It seems the novel ”White Tiger,” about a worker’s upheaval, activated the entrepreneurial spirit of this Mumbai guy.

The gold shop staff needs to switch shifts in the afternoon.

After receiving 200,000 Kyat from Gu Weijing as a service fee, he voluntarily offered to help purchase what Gu Weijing needed.

”Rest assured, everything is in the van.”

Brother Mumbai honks at a taxi cutting in for a lane, then turns to Gu Weijing with a yellow-toothed smile, snapping his fingers.

”No problem at all.”

Children’s crayons, cheap sketchbooks, stationery, building blocks, comics, black-and-white consoles capable of playing Tetris and pixel tank battles...

The purchasing power of several million Kyat for cheap goods is quite good,

Myanmar’s per capita GDP is very low, the currency is not valuable, but on the other hand, the cost of living here is also low.

As long as you don’t mind the seemingly suspicious sanitation conditions.

A large and filling portion of fish soup on a street stall, with cilantro, rice noodles, and leftover breakfast fritters soaking within is called mohinga by the locals.

A bowl costs only 600 Kyat, roughly equivalent to 1.80 RMB.

A packet of Xi’e Brand Cigarettes from Kokang Cigarette Factory costs about 800 Kyat, and taking a big plastic bag of tropical fruits from a kid helping sell fruit and fresh juice only requires placing two 1,000 Kyat coins into their small hands.

The small toys Gu Weijing wanted filled an entire van.

”Where are we going? This van is borrowed and needs to be returned tonight; we can’t go too far.”

Miss Mona’s family has a Volvo XC60 city SUV, and she usually uses it for school, but Brother Mumbai can’t use the owner’s car for side jobs.

”Just in Yangon, Leyada District.”

Gu Weijing takes out a note with an address written on it.

This is a note he got from the VIP special forces officer on guard.

According to protocol, the officer couldn’t disclose his identity, but since Myanmar’s special forces largely originate from drug enforcement, they’re certainly not unfamiliar with groups like drug orphans.

Drug orphans,

In the vicinity of the Golden Triangle, in the Middle East Silver Crescent, in Latin America... drug-affected areas see them quite commonly.

The term refers to orphans whose parents died due to illegal drug use or drug wars.

After parents or relatives die or go missing, unaccompanied children become orphans, often dying from cold, starvation, accidents, or human trafficking.

Myanmar is a warm-climate country.

Contrary to popular belief, death from hypothermia doesn’t necessarily happen during snowy seasons.

Temperatures around ten degrees are already high-risk for hypothermia.

Due to high humidity, in extreme conditions, even temperatures in the teens can lead to freezing death.

In Yangon, news frequently reports underage orphans found frozen dead or injured after rain or sudden temperature drops under bridge piers and similar places.

The tragic tale of the Little Match Girl from nineteenth-century Andersen’s fairy tales keeps repeating in modern times.

Gu Weijing hopes to help these children as much as he can.

But after being scammed by the Water Foundation last time, he knows orphanages might have deep waters too, hence his desire to seek suggestions from professionals.

The special forces officer was moved by Gu Weijing’s young age and kind heart after hearing his request.

Thinking for a moment, he wrote a note for him.

Gu Weijing takes out a note from his pocket, reading: ”Good Fortune Orphanage.”

...

Layda District,

It is the slum of Yangon and Myanmar’s industrial hub.

Yangon’s main industries used to revolve around tourism generated by the Great Golden Pagoda, Lake Rhine, and the old British-style buildings in the city.

However, in recent years, with the political environment improving, many foreign-invested factories have emerged upstream of the Yangon River, bringing in large populations of migrant workers.

In Layda District, you can see rows of houses everywhere, alongside makeshift shacks put together with scaffolding and iron sheets.

Most inhabitants of these slums are young factory workers and their families.

They found jobs but couldn’t find housing, leading to makeshift homes along the roads spreading like moss after rain.

Layda’s slum area came up not long ago, within roughly five years, which isn’t that long a time.

The district houses less than five hundred thousand residents, with a population density far less than the vast slums in Tianzhu or Malaysia, each housing millions.

The van follows the navigational map, winding through the shantytown roads for a few blocks, taking ten minutes to find its destination.

The Good Fortune Orphanage used to be a colonial-period church welfare home.

The missionaries left with the British a hundred years ago, but this orphanage largely stayed intact, having its ownership change hands many times yet managed to operate till today.

”Sir, hello, are you Mr. Gu? Welcome here.”

Before coming, Gu Weijing had called the orphanage, and its head was already waiting outside.

She is a woman in her forties, dressed in a somewhat old green coat, with traditional ethnic headgear on her forehead.

Gu Weijing stands at the orphanage entrance after getting off the van.

He says nothing.

People say a city has its glorious face and its dark shadows.

The Yangon River bank where Gu Weijing lives is the most radiant side of this ancient Eastern City.

The lake shines like a mirror, the scenic tourist capital, the dazzling Great Golden Pagoda printed on travel brochures sent by tourists worldwide.

Yet just a few streets away in the same city is the coin’s reverse side, the shadow beneath the light, chaos, narrow passages, and iron shacks breeding like self-replicating organisms form messy alleys.

Gu Weijing, living in Yangon for over a decade, had never set foot on this land, not once.

The slums are always the city’s dark side,

Tens of thousands of people crowded within small homes, surrounded by an atmosphere of pressure that cannot be dissolved, with crimes such as theft, robbery, and prostitution existing as everyday occurrences.

Even within Leyada District, the orphanage’s location can be considered rundown.

Ahead lies desolate architecture, nearing dusk with the last daylight shining from the West onto this dim land.

There are no lights, no running water, only distant sounds of baby cries and an old woman carrying a candle.

Gu Weijing does not notice,

The needle on his emotional gauge suddenly tremors sharply.