Chapter 98: The Meat Sandwich
After more than half an hour, the car finally reached the provincial capital toll station.
Li Yunlong kept looking around in amazement at the development here.
“No city walls?” Li Yunlong saw the tall buildings in the distance.
“No longer needed,” Wang Lang smiled. “In this era, a single missile strike basically decides the outcome of a war. What’s left is just cleanup.”
“But cleanup is the hard part,” he added after a brief pause. “There are still ancient city walls preserved inside the city. If you want to see them, Brother Li, I can take you there.”
“No need,” Li Yunlong waved his hand dismissively. “What’s so interesting about that?”
“These buildings were all constructed using that thing just now…” Wang Lang pointed at the distant skyscrapers.
“Tower cranes,” Wang Lang reminded him.
“Right, built with tower cranes?” Li Yunlong asked.
The city’s development amazed him greatly.
Cars racing along the road left him somewhat bewildered.
Will our future world really become like this?
Ordinary people driving cars?
“Tower cranes transport building materials,” Wang Lang explained. “To build a building, workers first tie the rebar, then set up the molds and pour concrete…”
Li Yunlong nodded repeatedly.
Soon the car exited the highway and entered the city.
Li Yunlong grabbed the car door. “Is it far from here to that Yunding Hotel you mentioned?”
“Not far,” Wang Lang said.
“Then let’s walk,” Li Yunlong said.
“Alright.” Wang Lang told the driver, Xiao Liu, to stop.
Standing on the asphalt road, Li Yunlong looked somewhat dazed.
A woman rode past on an electric bike from a side street.
Li Yunlong’s eyes followed her figure.
“I had a younger sister. If she hadn’t starved to death, she’d be about her age now,” Li Yunlong suddenly muttered softly.
Wang Lang swallowed the words he was about to say.
By the roadside,
A boy of seven or eight, holding a meat sandwich, took advantage of his distracted mother to toss half of it onto the ground.
“Mom, the meat sandwich fell on the ground,” the boy tugged at his mother’s arm as she scrolled through TikTok.
The young woman glanced down at the sandwich, then glared at her son: “You can’t even eat something without paying attention? Throw it in the trash!”
“Oh,” the boy scratched his head, bent down, and said, “I’m still hungry. I want a burger! And chicken nuggets!”
Before his hand could touch the sandwich, a large hand beat him to it and picked it up.
The boy stared blankly at Li Yunlong in front of him.
The woman looked up from her phone, wary.
“What a waste to throw away such a delicious bun!” Li Yunlong said, removing the plastic bag around the sandwich and taking a big bite. “Kid, don’t waste food from now on!”
The boy blinked, confused.
The woman quickly grabbed her son’s arm and whispered, “Let’s go.”
This guy looked rough and wore such an old-fashioned military uniform—he might be some lunatic!
Wang Lang hesitated to speak.
He saw Li Yunlong secretly wiping away tears.
The older generation truly valued thrift!
Wang Lang was quietly moved, but then Li Yunlong said, “This is what living the right way looks like!”
Wang Lang didn’t know how to respond.
He had expected him to say something about waste being shameful.
Li Yunlong finished the rest of the meat sandwich in a few bites, then patted the nearby trash can loudly.
A sanitation worker sweeping nearby was startled: how could someone openly damage public property?
But seeing the tear stains on Li Yunlong’s dark face, he moved his lips but didn’t say a word.
“If people could eat this every day, who the hell would rebel or fight to the death against those bastards!” Li Yunlong suddenly turned to Wang Lang and said, “You guys are doing a great job!”
Wang Lang felt honored.
“This kind of good stuff being casually thrown away means the people really have it good and don’t lack food,” Li Yunlong said, pointing at a passing fat man nearby. “Look at him—back in our day, he’d definitely be a landlord or wealthy peasant.”
The fat man felt insulted and glared fiercely at Li Yunlong.
Wang Lang laughed awkwardly: “With predecessors like Brother Li paving the way for us, if we still can’t live well, then we’d have no face to meet our ancestors when we grow old.”
Li Yunlong shook his head, gazing at the towering buildings, the endless streams of traffic, and the passersby carrying various bags or playing with their phones, and sighed, “I never even dreamed of such things.”
“Before, people said Old Li was a country bumpkin with little knowledge. I cursed them, saying they came out of a damn hole, eating a few green onions and still dared to look down on me!”
“But now I admit it—I really am a bumpkin. This… this is a real city!”
Several passersby looked at Li Yunlong in confusion.
Wang Lang was about to say something when Li Yunlong adjusted his collar and said, “Let’s go. Since we came all this way, I want to have a good look around.”
“Hey, wait.” Wang Lang hurriedly called out.
A car screeched to a halt, honking wildly, and the driver shouted at Li Yunlong, “Crossing the street like that—are you blind?”
“Who the hell are you cursing?” Li Yunlong snapped back angrily.
Seeing him roll up his sleeves as if ready to fight, the driver cursed, “Damn, crazy bastard,” and sped away.
Li Yunlong stepped back and quietly asked, “You can’t just cross the road anywhere?”
Wang Lang patiently explained the traffic rules.
Li Yunlong nodded repeatedly. “Yeah, that’s right. You have to follow the damn rules, or everything turns into chaos.”
He stood with his hands behind his back, looking like an old official.
Wang Lang wanted to laugh but seeing how outwardly casual yet inwardly cautious Li Yunlong was, he felt a lump in his throat.
When he saw the plastic bag that had held the meat sandwich hanging on the trash can’s edge, he clenched his fists in silent fury.
He vowed to give the brat at home a good scolding!
That little bastard always left leftovers!
Even the yogurt had a thick layer left on the lid every time!
Such a wasteful punk!
Forgetting his roots!
Li Yunlong kept observing along the way, occasionally asking questions.
Wang Lang patiently answered them all.
Soon, the two arrived in front of a high-end office building.
“The Yunding Hotel is right on the top floor,” Wang Lang pointed upwards.
Looking at the dazzling glass facade and the towering building higher than mountains, Li Yunlong was deeply moved.
“How the hell do you get up there?” Li Yunlong wondered.
He silently followed Wang Lang’s side.
When they reached a metal box and Wang Lang motioned for him to enter, Li Yunlong hesitated.
“This is an elevator. It’ll take us up,” Wang Lang explained.
Li Yunlong finally stepped inside.
He nervously looked around.
Wang Lang pressed a button, the elevator doors closed, and it suddenly shot upwards. The momentary weightlessness startled Li Yunlong.
“Damn, this thing is uncomfortable. If an enemy threw a grenade in here, it’d kill a bunch,” he thought.
Before long, the elevator reached the top floor.