I did a livestream today, and what I really wanted to talk about were these real portraits of American lives that actually exist on the internet. I’ve seen far too many desperate men and women on TikTok and Instagram who directly post videos asking for help. The one that left the deepest impression on me was an older guy who stood in front of the camera and showed a corpse lying before him—of course it was censored, but not completely; you could still make out the outline of a human body.
He said straight into the video: “My son was killed in a hit-and-run. I don’t have money for a funeral. Are there any kind people who can help me out?” A lot of people in the comments questioned whether he was just chasing clout, but I think clout-chasing may have been part of it—more than that, though, was genuine desperation. Why wasn’t I afraid it was fake? Because the guy pulled out his driver’s license on camera, revealed his real name and address, and said: “Anyone is welcome to come to the funeral. You don’t need to worry that I’m a scammer. Everyone can come, if I can raise enough donations to bury my son.”
He said he didn’t even have money to buy a coffin. Relatives and friends were all avoiding him, afraid he would borrow money, some even unwilling to attend the funeral. People say they’re afraid big companies collecting personal data because they might lose money; people casually leaking personal information do it to make money—in the end, it’s all about money.
Did the perpetrator run away? No surveillance cameras. In the U.S., even the most basic funeral costs two to three thousand dollars; a slightly better one runs four to five thousand. If you’re a locally prominent figure, spending tens of thousands is completely normal. What hurts the most is that this story is still ongoing. There really are people online donating money, and some even went to attend the funeral.
But what if the donations don’t come through? In an environment where men in America are under such enormous pressure, unable even to bury their own sons—I honestly don’t dare imagine what might happen. It’s terrifying. It’s not just one person walking toward destruction; society might be dragged along with him.
Later on, someone really did go to the funeral. Is this the kind of thing that makes the news? Usually not. A shooting that kills too few people won’t make the papers either; at most it flashes briefly across the bottom ticker during a news broadcast, and that’s it.
In the United States, when the vast majority of families can’t even scrape together $400 for an emergency, funeral costs of several thousand dollars are astronomical. Americans can’t afford to live, and they can’t afford to die either. The few thousand or even tens of thousands of dollars I mentioned earlier only cover half a funeral—they don’t include the cost of buying a burial plot at all.
If you can’t afford a burial plot, after the funeral the body still has to be cremated. Burned to ashes, then you take the urn home—that’s the reality. There’s nowhere to bury them; it’s just a formality, a process. Want a private grave where someone can be remembered? That’s not something an ordinary family can even consider. In Seattle, a burial plot costs roughly $10,000 to $50,000, and you still have to pay several thousand dollars a year in maintenance fees.
What if you don’t pay the maintenance fee? You can shamelessly refuse to pay and it’s still “fine”—as long as you’re not afraid your son’s ashes will be stolen. Even the dead have to pay property management fees. The dead are done once they die; the living have to pay the money. Church cemeteries? They’ve long been running deficits. In a country where 560,000 people legally go missing every year, church burial land is nowhere near enough.
In American TV shows, it’s very common to see people keep their loved ones’ ashes at home, because cemetery plots are incredibly expensive. Any grave runs fifty or sixty thousand dollars, plus several thousand a year in upkeep. And you’re not allowed to buy two or three spots in one plot—this is the literal meaning of “the poor have no place to be buried.”
All of this will go into the “Real America” series, paired with those shocking images, to show a side of America that isn’t so beautiful. Trust our prince—everything will get better, as long as you can afford all the funeral expenses.
A lot of people ask whether ashes can be kept at home. Yes—this is actually the choice most Americans make, and it’s the most common way of handling it. American cemeteries also care about feng shui, but their logic is different from ours—they think land near a church is best, closer to God. Many people think only Chinese people care about feng shui. That’s really not true.
Some people ask whether you can bury someone in your backyard. In theory, yes—but imagine burying all your deceased relatives in your backyard. At that point, you wouldn’t be able to live there anymore.
What shocked me even more were pet cemeteries. They’re no cheaper than human cemeteries—often even more expensive. My ex-girlfriend was someone who absolutely loved animals. She kept four or five cats and dogs, plus a parrot. Most pets only live twelve or thirteen years. The graves she bought for her pets were more expensive and more elaborate than those of ordinary Americans.
High-end pet cemeteries take up more land than a typical American’s grave plot, and they cost more too. You say poor people can’t afford burial plots, but rich people’s cats and dogs all have places to be buried—and they’re built more grandly than human graves, with even better scenery.
The most outrageous thing is that some wealthy people I know bought entire tracts of land in scenic wilderness areas—not for development or housing, but specifically as pet cemeteries. One friend studied equestrianism from a young age. When his old horse died, the grave he built for it was large enough to equal more than a dozen human graves, with a bronze statue of the horse erected on top.
You have to understand, in a city like Seattle—one of the most expensive real estate markets in the U.S.—suburban land is worth a fortune. Yet they’re willing to buy entire parcels just to bury animals. That consumption mindset really stunned me.
Not Taking Away Custody—Putting Your Child Up for Auction Online
I was eating, watching Breaking Bad while I ate, and in Season 5, Episode 5, when “Little O” is talking to Walt by the meat grinder, he mentions that American foster homes are terrifying and that he can’t let his kids end up in that system: “I’m telling you, these foster homes are nightmares. I can’t let my kids end up in that system.”
You can think of foster care as a kind of blood tax—it feeds on children. Let me first explain how the rules work. If you can’t demonstrate a certain level of financial ability—if you can’t show that you can properly care for your child, provide food, housing, education, and so on—then the state has the right to take away your custody.
After your custody is taken, your child will be put up for auction online. Listen carefully: your child will be put up for auction online. Your child becomes a commodity, and different families apply to foster the child. Each family demonstrates its capacity, and they bid. After this bidding process, the child is assigned to one family.
Once your child is placed with that family, the state pays the foster family a sum of money to ensure your child has food to eat. But here’s the key point: does the foster family spend all that money on your child? No.
For example, if the U.S. government subsidizes a foster family $400 a month, as long as they spend $100 on your child, the remaining $300 is pure profit. And how long can they profit like this? All the way until your child turns 18—then they kick your child out with one swift boot.
I also have to tell you something even worse: they may even engage in deliberate maiming—that is, shooting your child, breaking their leg, crippling them for life. That way, they get more money, and they get it for longer. The child has absolutely nowhere to seek justice.
Do you know why redneck guys would rather send their kids to me? Why they want to send my godchild to my home? It’s very simple: I am the godfather in both legal and religious terms. I have obligations and responsibilities to care for my godchild. Now guess what would happen if a redneck family were reported for being unable to support their children? My godchild would be sold. Someone who lost their job because of COVID would almost immediately lose custody of their children.
Do you know how many disabled children in America are not born that way, but become disabled after being sent into foster care? Some families can’t even wait a second month; on the second day, the child suddenly suffers an “accidental injury.” A child sent to foster care “accidentally falling and being injured” on the second day? I’ve seen this routine far too many times.
This is why redneck families would rather recognize me, an outsider, as a godfather. In custody disputes, my eligibility is higher than many people’s. At the very least, I can ensure my godchild is actually cared for. That’s how cruel reality is—once you really understand this system, you realize how many childhoods are openly priced behind those glossy welfare systems.
I had a classmate who did his undergraduate degree in the UK. He went abroad to study in the UK right after junior high. Because he wasn’t of independent age, he was forcibly placed with an Indian foster family. That family charged his parents £2,000 a month—£30,000 a year—and the British government also provided an extra £500 subsidy. At the time, the pound-to-yuan exchange rate peaked at 1:15, even 1:25. And what happened? That Indian family fed him one packet of cheap supermarket instant noodles a day—he nearly starved to death. Eventually, he ran to the consulate for help. The consulate pressured the school to intervene, and after more than a month, he was transferred to an elderly white couple. Only then did his life return to normal.
This is not an isolated case. Anyone who knows even a little about the Western foster care system knows that crippling children or starving them—feeding them one day and not the next—is standard practice. At this point, some people in the comments ask how a Christian country could become like this. Even the most devout believers can rage all they want—it won’t help. Even if Jesus saw today’s America, he’d have no choice but to close his eyes—though maybe he couldn’t even close them.
You think foster care is already fucked up enough? Let me tell you: foster care isn’t even the darkest part of the American system. Want to take a look at orphanages? Foster care is basically the seventeenth layer of hell—and below it lies the eighteenth. Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, America will tell you: the bottom is far lower than you imagined.
New York Rats Bigger Than Cats
At this point someone in the comments said northern rats are about the size of rabbits—then I really need to show you southern rats that are 80 centimeters long. Imagine these rats gnawing on nameless corpses in New York basements—corpses that died from overdoses of enhancers. Yes, that’s the true face of New York rats.
Don’t let the fact that New York is a northern city fool you—its rats are shockingly large. How big? Put four standard bricks together side by side and look at the area—that’s about it. How is that any different from a cat? They’re even faster than cats. Domesticated city cats can’t catch these rats at all—these things eat well, live well, and ordinary house cats can’t even keep up. Some of them grew up eating human flesh. You think your kibble-fed cat can take them on? Dream on.
Someone said to look at the ruler markings, but the video was too blurry to see clearly. Anyway, they’re huge. Tabby cats? No chance.
The Real World of American Construction Workers
I don’t know if you’ve ever followed a content creator called “Yike Impression.” He did a “Real India” series, using a sarcastic tone to talk about the most hellish, absurd, and brutal aspects of Indian society. I realized I could do the same. I’ve already been doxxed before, cursed at daily by “runaways,” so I don’t have much to worry about anymore. I might as well take some things I originally didn’t want to mention, change the names and settings, and tell them as stories.
Today I want to talk about American workers, especially construction workers. I feel a strong connection to this group because of my own family background. My father was a contractor—roughly the same generation as Ma Dutong, who started out in civil engineering. He began working in the late 1990s, right in the golden age of China’s infrastructure boom, and kept at it until a couple of years ago, when he finally sent me abroad to study.
He was a contractor in the smallest sense of the word—a tiny subcontractor. Those who know the trade understand that projects are layered: general contractor, transferred contractor, mid-level subcontractor, small subcontractor. The small ones have it the hardest. They deal directly with frontline workers and sometimes have to jump in themselves. That was my dad—living on construction sites year-round, seeing all kinds of human drama: fronting wages, setting up gambling games, prostitution, fights—every kind of melodrama imaginable.
Someone asked, “Wasn’t your dad in oil engineering? Does that count as civil engineering?” Of course it does! Oil engineering is just civil engineering with some specialized content added. Gas stations, oil wells, mining infrastructure—he did all of it. By the time work reached his level, it was already at the very bottom, the most down-to-earth end of the chain.
I thought what I’d seen in China was already “exciting” enough. Gas stations, oil wells, layer upon layer of subcontracting—it was already black as hell by the time it reached my dad’s hands. Fronting wages, gambling rings, prostitution, brawls—every conflict you can imagine. Extremely colorful. Then I came to the U.S. and discovered that the stories of workers here are even more absurd, more surreal. I was just observing out of habit at first, and suddenly a whole new world opened up. It was fucking unbelievable.
When I was about to graduate from college, I met a girl who came from Canada to attend high school in the U.S. She lived with a host family, ate canned food and dry bread every day, barely any vegetables, and no one paid attention to her—as long as she didn’t die in the house, it was fine. I genuinely felt sorry for her at first, so I often took her out to eat and look around. Less than a month later, we were “three-way connected.” I didn’t initiate it, but I didn’t hold back either. Good thing she met me, I guess.
Speaking of “three-way connected,” how are there still little virgins in my livestream who don’t know this term? It means the usable holes on a woman’s body—usually three. In some cases you might be able to develop one more, but not every hole is usable, and not every “animal” can use them properly, right?
Today I want to talk about someone I met while doing charity work in the U.S. I’ll call him John—let’s just use John as the default name for these kinds of protagonists.
In my first year in the U.S., I loved doing this kind of “charity work,” carrying that naive international-student sense of goodwill, wanting to show off “the superiority of socialism.” I felt pretty smug at first, but the more I did, the more uncomfortable I became, even developing guilt—because I heard far too many horrifying stories.
Someone asked how I heard all this. It’s actually simple: people applying for aid have to describe their family situations. Whoever sounds more miserable gets more subsidies, faster. Charitable organizations also verify the claims—their money doesn’t fall from the sky. They send people to check homes, verify information, see if applicants are lying. Want to guess how many people lie? From what I’ve personally seen—many. Absurdly many.
Too Many to Record
Let me put it this way: almost everyone lies. But the truth is, the misery they describe doesn’t even come close to one ten-thousandth of what they actually endure. Yes, they lie—but that’s because reality is far more tragic than anything they can describe. These applicants, limited by grammar and language skills, simply can’t articulate their suffering. If you’ve lived in the U.S., especially if you’ve interacted with the underclass, you’ll know their ability to describe things verbally is shockingly weak—so weak it’s almost barren, with a severe lack of adjectives.
Anyone who’s studied abroad, especially in Europe or the U.S., knows that the sorrow of America’s underclass is beyond words. Their education level means they can’t even cry out properly. “Happy education” leaves them unable to organize language to express pain and misery.
That’s why so many people on TikTok directly film tragic scenes to raise money. Some say this is “feeding on human blood,” but the reality is that they simply don’t have the ability to describe their son’s death in logically structured language. As a father, I believe that man was grieving—but his only option was the most direct approach: filming the death scene and telling everyone, “My son really died. Can you help me?” You can call it selling misery, but he had no choice.
It’s like that familiar kind of speech we hear: “We regular folks don’t understand that stuff. I’m just a common person—how would I know how to file a lawsuit? Going to the labor bureau is too much trouble. We migrant workers don’t have time for that. You tell me this stuff, I don’t understand.” Lower that language ability and intelligence by two more levels, and you basically have the real situation of America’s underclass workers.
They’re not unwilling to explain their situation properly—they genuinely don’t have the ability. When someone can’t even clearly express a simple request like “My son died, I hope everyone can help me,” what option do they have other than presenting the truth in the most raw, direct way possible?
As for Americans lying, I have to say: many Americans really do treat lies as normal conversation. More importantly, many of them can’t distinguish truth from falsehood themselves. They often recount imagined scenarios as if they were facts. For example, if they see a Black person loitering on the street, they immediately imagine that person stole money or robbed someone, and without hesitation call 911. They tell police what they imagined as if it were reality. The psychology behind this is interesting—it’s not some complex motive, just stereotypes combined with accumulated experience. And honestly, in many cases, their guesses do turn out to be accurate—not because of delusion, but because of street wisdom, or a survival instinct.
This reminds me of when we conduct social research. We often have to verify applicants’ actual living conditions, visiting their homes to see if their claims are exaggerated. Like today’s main character, John—he’s a very typical representative of American workers.
If you’ve watched immigration agents or “runaway” influencers, they always paint American construction sites as paradise—high wages, lots of money, never delayed pay. Are they right? Yes—and no. They only show you income, not tax bills. Many people learn from Latino workers and evade taxes after making money, but that actually hurts your chances of getting legal status. If you ask my opinion, all I can say is I wish every runaway makes big money on American construction sites.
American Animation
Speaking of changes in American culture, the evolution of SpongeBob SquarePants really says a lot. Early SpongeBob still had a warm, positive feeling. The interactions between SpongeBob and Patrick felt comforting. Mr. Krabs, though a greasy middle-aged man obsessed with money, still showed some care and guidance toward younger characters. Look at today’s SpongeBob—it’s become pure grotesque content. The characters all act like animals; there isn’t a single normal person in the entire show. Even though they often force happy endings through deus ex machina, I feel like the current plots are a reflection of American reality. Watching it leaves you with nothing but endless sorrow and despair—and that’s normal. American animation today is just beasts, worse beasts, and the worst beasts of all.
So what about Family Guy? From a certain angle, Family Guy is actually realistic—maybe even beautified.
If these animations depict an absurd world of beasts, then South Park is in a league of its own. Family Guy is somewhat realistic, even softened. But the rural people in South Park are beyond absurd. Compared to them, even “Beast Pete” seems normal.
Honestly, South Park—both the animation and the games—is incredibly entertaining. I strongly recommend everyone watch or play it. Player reviews and Ubisoft ratings are very high. Sometimes The Simpsons is still barely watchable, but South Park is on another level.
Home Visit: John
Back to business. Our process after receiving reports works like this: whoever describes the most tragic situation gets checked first. Just like applying for subsidies—if you say you have many children, can’t afford food, and your partner is unemployed, we have to personally verify whether it’s really that bad.
When we arrived at that household, we found that reality was far worse than described. He said the children were hungry and didn’t get enough to eat. What we saw went far beyond hunger—the children were severely malnourished.
How severe? Their teeth weren’t even growing properly. Due to a lack of various nutrients, even their dental development was incomplete. Their hair color and texture were terrifyingly dull. Have you ever seen blonde hair that looks like it’s coated in lead-gray? Dark, split ends everywhere, overall a withered yellow look.
The youngest child was only two years old; the oldest was already in their teens. Frankly, they were worse off than the junkie couple’s kids in Breaking Bad. I asked the father if he had any bad habits. He directly admitted to using drugs.
This man, John, claimed to be 35 years old, but looked more like 65. A lead-gray face, bulging eyes like a dead fish, blood at the corners, eyes filled with red veins—half shadowed, half bloodshot, half yellowed. His eyeballs protruded like fish eyes. Half his teeth were rotten. His joints were covered in gout nodules.
He was about 1.92 meters tall, gaunt and elongated like a ghost. His neck was unusually long, his chest sunken inward. All the joints in his hands were visibly swollen—clearly severe gout. His throat sounded as if it had been doused with concentrated sulfuric acid; his speech was slurred, always sounding like he had phlegm in his mouth, hoarse yet strangely resolute.
His whole body showed a kind of sickly edema—the kind you see in long-term malnutrition combined with swelling, like a corpse. Except for his neck—that was the classic “redneck” sign from years of outdoor labor. Honestly, my first truly visceral understanding of what a “redneck” looks like came from him: his entire body was pale, except for the area from the back of his neck to his shoulders, which was bright red.
I asked why he used drugs. He said, “I want to support my children.” I asked if he didn’t know drugs couldn’t support children. His answer stunned me for a long time: “I have to take drugs to work. Without them, I can’t do this job.”
He said he worked 14 hours a day, cleaning swimming pools. “If I don’t use enhancers, I can’t do the job. I can’t handle 14-hour days.” When I questioned how using drugs could be considered doing it for his kids, his logic left me speechless: “It’s precisely because I’m thinking of my kids that I have to use enhancers. Without them, I can’t last working over ten hours a day.”
I asked how long he worked each day. He said on a good day, 11 hours. I asked about bad days. He said 14 hours. I mentioned that safety regulations don’t allow work that long. He replied, “I ask for overtime. Most people aren’t allowed overtime, but I volunteer for extra.”
“Anyone who won’t let me work overtime, I’ll die with them. I’m a mad dog, right? I just want to make more money. If you don’t let me make money, I’ll kill you.” He gestured like a gun to his temple: “If killing myself right now would let my kids live, I’d rather kill myself right now.”
I asked why he needed assistance, wanting to understand his situation. I asked whether the children could eat every day. He said yes. I asked about his wife. He said she was also working. I said it was already past five in the afternoon—still working? He said yes, working on the street. I don’t need to explain what “working on the street” means, do I?
I asked why his wife was still working today instead of taking care of the kids. He said the generator was out of fuel and they didn’t have money to buy gas. She had no choice but to go out. Do you know current gas prices in the U.S.? Today in Seattle it’s $4.6 per gallon. Some say prices have dropped—that’s only compared to the peak. They’re still higher than before. This happened a few years ago, when prices weren’t as high as now, but still not low—because the Russia–Ukraine war had already started. I remember it being a bit over $3 per gallon back then. A gallon is about 3.8 liters.
Construction Workers and Gambling Debts
I kept asking where the money went. Living in an RV is already cheap—why couldn’t he pay his bills? Construction workers make decent money. You’re not a “runaway”; you’re a legitimate American. John, where did your money go? He said he had debts to pay. I asked what debts. Towing fees aren’t that expensive. He said gambling debts. I immediately understood—construction workers and gambling debts. I’ve seen that countless times back home.
Every Lunar New Year, migrant workers from our hometown—my dad would warn them again and again not to gamble. Yet before New Year’s Eve even arrived, someone would already be kneeling down: “Brother Kong, I lost all my wages for the year. I can’t face my family. Can you lend me a bit more?”
Anyone here have parents who were contractors? Sound familiar? Completely normal. Everyone in my livestream knows my family ran factories here—I’m intimately familiar with the New Year routine.
Every year before the holidays, my dad would gather the workers and repeatedly warn them: “Making money this year wasn’t easy. When you go home, don’t play cards, don’t play mahjong, don’t touch shady stuff, don’t gamble on billiards, don’t play pai gow.” In short: don’t gamble.
Yet before New Year’s Eve—around the 27th or 28th of the lunar month—the calls would come. They timed it perfectly, because by then we’d already returned home, right before the holiday. They had no one else to ask, so they’d call: “Brother, things are tight. Can you help me get through?”
Nine out of ten of those calls were from people who’d lost gambling. They’d say they’d just settled accounts and wanted a good New Year, or that their wife and kids needed something—whatever excuse. They’d promise to have it deducted from next year’s wages.
Someone asked: can’t you just refuse? Let me put it this way: small contractors rely on kinship and hometown ties. Everyone’s from the same village or town, often related somehow. If you short even one person, you’ll get slander you can’t imagine for the rest of your life.
They’ll never admit they lost money gambling. They’ll always shift the blame onto you. When people dump responsibility, who cares about facts? That’s the difficulty of being a small contractor—they deal directly with frontline workers.
Now you understand why small contractors would rather take their workers to foot massages than let them gamble, right? Why did my family only start doing better when I was ten? Because in the early years, this kind of bullshit happened nonstop.
My dad started contracting in the late ’90s and only truly improved around 2008–2009. Why were the first ten years like that? Because of endless crap like this.
I know this all too well. My dad once gambled away all his money too, ending up with just 100 yuan. He kept 50 and gave my mom 50. At the time, my mom had just given birth to me. In 1999, my mom and I almost didn’t make it.
On nights around the 27th or 28th, people would come pounding on our door, then drop to their knees. Not alone either—bringing their wives and kids. Once even my dad’s driver did this. Asked what happened—no money for the New Year. My dad said if he didn’t tell the truth, he wouldn’t get a cent. Eventually he confessed: gambling losses.
That driver was also a distant relative. Before she died, his mother had clutched my dad’s hand and begged him to look after her son. She was already on her deathbed. Out of respect for that, my dad kept employing him.
My dad was furious. In the end, he forced the driver to get a bank card and had his wages paid directly to his wife. That’s why I say you can’t let these people hold too much cash. Once they have money, they lose control. Even if they themselves can resist, others around them will see they made money and urge them to “play a few rounds.” That’s how they get trapped.
You say that’s small contractors; in Shanxi we have truck drivers—it’s the same. After coming to the U.S., I met people like this too. I asked: where did your money go? Not a runaway, not low income due to short hours. Turns out—it was all gambled away.
Workers owed wages by project teams, people who got into fights and killed someone, poker and mahjong rings set up to fleece fellow townsmen, scams involving partners, borrowing money from hometown folks, wives running away—every kind of headache imaginable. I asked where the money went. He said gambling. I asked when he last gambled. He said he’d just come back from a game. Turns out, right before we visited his home, he’d been at the table. If we hadn’t shown up, he’d still be gambling.
And these are still the milder cases. When talking about money, I encountered someone even more outrageous. Not only did he gamble and play cards, he had a terrible temper. He suspected someone in his circle was cheating, flipped the table, and started fighting on the spot. Making trouble in someone else’s den—there are a thousand ways they can destroy you.
Continuing John’s Story
I asked him: can’t you stop gambling? He said it was impossible. I asked what he meant by impossible. He said our contractors, our bosses—they’re basically mob bosses. How could any worker not gamble? I asked how long he’d been in the trade. He said twenty years—started working construction at fifteen. I asked if he ever thought about running away. He shot back: “Run? Who says you can run? Who dares? Do I not want to live?”
I asked when he first encountered gambling. He said at fifteen—his first day on a construction site, that very night he was dragged into learning poker. I asked if he could win. He said yes, but if he won $100, he could only keep $5—the boss was the banker.
The West is really fucking dark. Someone asked: why not run? He said unless you’re willing to let your entire family die, you can’t escape. Someone commented this sounded no different from northern India. In fact, this series was inspired by a redneck guy’s “Real India” series.
He even proudly told me, “I’m white.” I thought, now you remember you’re white? He said you have no idea about those Mexicans—losing everything, even giving their wives to the boss as prostitutes. I asked about his wife. He said, “My wife is willing.” He patted his chest proudly, saying those street Latina prostitutes only earn $20 a time—his wife can earn $100.
He said it with pride, like it was an honor that his wife could sell for $100. I asked where she worked. Wasn’t it over on Aurora Avenue in North Seattle? The classic Seattle tune—heard of it?
Finally, I asked how long he’d been using drugs. He said almost ten years—this year was the eighth. He was thirty-five; he started using at twenty-six or twenty-seven. I asked where the drugs came from. He said the boss provided them.
So I asked him: your kids’ health isn’t great, right? I asked how many years he’d used drugs because his kids were already fairly old, yet all looked pale and scrawny. Remember the “drug-addicted babies” in the U.S. I talked about half a month ago? His kids were textbook cases—the heavier the addiction, the more work you do, the more pain you’re in, the more you rely on enhancers.
I asked directly: “So your kids all use drugs? Enhancers?” He said except for the eldest daughter, all of them do. The most terrifying part is that these kids have no choice—they’re born addicted. They carry addiction from birth. The eldest daughter escaped only because when she was born, her mother hadn’t started using enhancers yet.
Of course his wife uses too. It reminded me of the prostitutes I’d seen in Black neighborhoods—many were underage, very young. But honestly, white underclass communities aren’t any better. They often hold so-called “complaint meetings” so large there aren’t enough streetlights in all of Seattle. Sometimes I feel like America is running a disguised form of capitalist slavery—just more hidden.
I asked how many people on construction sites gamble. He said about 80%. These people live on welfare while seeking brief escape in casinos. Are they miserable? Yes. But when I asked if he’d ever thought about leaving this life, he asked me instead: “Where would I go?” He said he had no skills, little education. At least his current boss still provided enhancers cheaply and occasionally let him win some money at the casino.
They have nowhere to go. Someone asked if American police deal with this. It’s very hard—extremely hard—unless there’s a specific report. These workers live hand-to-mouth, with no savings at all.
As for the contractors, they’re usually just unscrupulous small-time bosses. Small contractors in the U.S. aren’t much different from gangs—managing dozens of people, maybe a hundred at most. American construction projects are also subcontracted layer upon layer; bottom-tier workers have no connection to the general contractor. These small bosses often don’t make much themselves—they survive purely by exploiting workers.
Some people say: if workers can’t take it, why not just leave? But reality is, they have no choice. These small bosses look civilized on the surface—they won’t openly screw you over. Instead, they’ll marginalize you: assigning you the hardest, dirtiest, most dangerous work, paying you the least. They may not even be able to afford insurance.
Remember last winter’s news about a family freezing to death under a car? Many people look down on old John’s family—but do you really think the family that froze to death in their car was better off than John’s? Not necessarily. At least John eventually got some food assistance and other aid—not much, but enough to let his kids—born addicted or not—survive to 21.
What saddened me most was that John desperately sought these subsidies not because he was greedy for the money, but because he feared losing custody. In his eyes, no matter how broken or difficult his family was, staying with him was better than being sent to unknown foster families or church institutions.
At this point, some people might think John’s situation is already miserable enough. But I want to say that John was actually relatively lucky—at least he was white, and at least his family structure was intact. I was surprised his wife hadn’t run away and his children were still with him, but at least the family was holding together.
“Very Un-Black”
The second construction worker I encountered had a story that was truly heartbreaking—because by the time I met him, he was already a cold “Gundam.”
I won’t read the autopsy report line by line, but the scene is still etched into my memory. This guy was treated like a skewer—yes, exactly like you’re imagining. Have you ever eaten Guangdong-style fruitwood roast chicken or lychee-wood roast chicken? Smoked with fruitwood—that’s what his fate resembled.
He was tied to a wooden stake—not just with ropes. His hands were bound first, then the killer used a nail gun—a powerful industrial nail gun. The killer pressed iron chains against his skin, then used the nail gun to drive large nails straight into his flesh, fixing the chains firmly to his body. Even his neck was nailed in the same way. He was tied to the stake, doused with gasoline, and burned alive. Sometimes reality is just that brutal.
I say he suffered immensely before death because this man had no eyelids. Understand? That means while he was tied to the stake, he couldn’t close his eyes—his eyelids had been cut off.
I have to say this: one major problem with American movies is how easily criminals imitate them. The methods shown in American horror films really are copied. Some lunatics and psychopaths are willing to try—or even recreate—those cinematic methods.
Later, police told us the cause of death was actually very simple: a racially motivated killing. He was burned alive. The victim was Black, but according to friends, he was “very un-Black.” As a construction worker who lived by physical labor, he didn’t smoke much, didn’t drink, didn’t use marijuana or enhancers, didn’t even gamble. The only thing he did—something many Chinese people know well—was saving money for a house down payment.
He just wanted to become a mortgage slave. He had a fiancée, who was already pregnant. He wanted a home before the baby was born, a stable life for his wife and child. What did he do wrong? Nothing. He just wanted to live properly, to move upward. But the problem was—he saved “too much” money. In some people’s eyes, he didn’t deserve to have it.
Other Black people felt he didn’t fit in, and sold him out to the KKK. That’s it.
He just wanted to be a normal person, following the most conventional path in Chinese society: a man works hard, saves money, buys a house, gets married, supports his family. What’s wrong with that?
Yet people in the comments were spamming “didn’t fit in.” Not joining illegal gambling rings is “not fitting in”? If everyone uses drugs and you don’t, does that mean you don’t fit in? What kind of logic is that? Is “not fitting in” used like this? Even the whitewashing is incompetent! By that logic, in Japanese circles, wouldn’t not doing bad things make you an outcast? Absurd.
Some asked whether his wife was white. How would I know? That’s not written in an autopsy report. What’s even more ridiculous is that no one mentions “freedom” at moments like this. Where is America’s freedom? Some comments really make my blood boil—I want to crawl through the screen and punch them. We learn from America, from Japan—but we don’t learn the good things; we learn this bastard logic lightning-fast.
Not fitting in? Fit into what—fit into the grave? The kind of people who accuse others of not fitting in are often the worst bullies. What kind of bullshit logic is this—falling downward equals fitting in, while wanting to improve yourself equals not fitting in?
Some say law enforcement is fair. But many people at the bottom in the U.S., especially in Black communities, have one very obvious habit: they don’t trust banks. They prefer to stash cash at home. You know those basketball stars and famous Black athletes—many do the same. This murdered construction worker did too: he hid cash at home. That’s a classic pattern.
Which leads to the key question: why was he targeted? Simple—too much cash at home caught someone’s attention. Some people hated that he had money and may have even reported him directly to the KKK. In the eyes of extremists, Black people making money is itself a crime.
Some think robbery is just robbery—but it’s not that simple. You don’t seriously think the KKK operates solo, do you? Someone said there are no rednecks in deep-blue states—that’s a misconception. Even in deep-blue states, outside big cities, vast rural areas are still red. Don’t forget that in the last election, support for Trump and Harris was nearly 1:1. The number of rednecks and lower-class whites is enormous—they just struggle to get their representatives elected because of districting.
Even blue states have plenty of rural areas with this mindset. This “downward conformity” mentality—I’ve even seen it during my upbringing in Taiwan. That’s how separatist consciousness was nurtured: everyone decays together and calls it “unity,” while anyone who disagrees gets excluded.
So I say this: downward freedom is not freedom, and freedom to decay is even less so. This Black man’s death was essentially a sacrifice to this twisted environment.
Jose’s Story
Let’s move on to the third case. Was this guy miserable? Yes—but not the worst. At least he died. And the two men we talked about earlier were legal U.S. citizens. I’ve told many stories about undocumented immigrants—you know how miserable their lives are. Everything we’ve discussed so far has only been about native Americans.
What comes next is true cruelty—the story of undocumented immigrants. Let’s call this man Jose.
I didn’t first meet Jose—I met his daughter. How? Sometimes we go out on the streets on behalf of welfare organizations to give injections, treating HIV, STDs, and the like. That’s when I met his daughter.
She was only fifteen years old, already a “quadruple champion.” What does that mean? Pregnant, using enhancers, infected with STDs, and in gambling debt. This is real-life Fast & Furious—underground racing, underground fighting. Reality is 114,514 times more vicious, cruel, and incomprehensible than movies.
You don’t really think you can win an underground racing bet, do you? If you actually win, they’ll kill your whole family. That’s why her younger sister went out to sell herself and got hooked on enhancers. Fourteen or fifteen years old—an age meant to be full of hope and striving—already a “quadruple champion,” a walking corpse.
After blood tests, I looked at the results and had to ask: “Do you know you’re pregnant?” She looked confused and said she didn’t know. I told her she was not only pregnant but had multiple STDs. I asked how she got infected—didn’t she even know who the father was? She said directly: “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
I rephrased: “Then do you know who the father is?” She said she really didn’t—so many clients every day, many without condoms, how could she know? I asked why she allowed clients not to use condoms. Her answer chilled me: “They pay more.”
I said her health should come first—was that little extra money worth it? She said no choice. The gang boss’s cut was due; if they delayed a few days, her scalp and head would part ways. She said she could only rest half a day during her period—and even then, only her lower body rested; her mouth couldn’t. Classic Mexican gang practice.
I asked if her family could help. She said her mother, because she was pretty, was kept by smugglers when entering the U.S. “The gang gave $50 and forcibly bought my mom.” She said American feminist organizations talk big at the Mexican border but don’t dare intervene.
When asked about her father, she said he was a construction worker who broke his leg and now depended on her. I suggested she bring him in—we provide free medication and antibiotics like penicillin. That’s when she told me his leg was broken because he lost gambling money and couldn’t pay; he was kicked off a scaffold. The next day, she really brought him in. When I saw the wound, I was stunned—the fracture site was severely infected, nearly maggot-infested. That was their “medical treatment.” To them, life was worth less than $50.
He kept thanking me. I said don’t thank me—the meds weren’t paid by me; thank America’s rich. I just provided labor. I couldn’t help asking how they’d survived these days. He said by his daughter selling herself, buying him painkillers. He said they’d endured like that for nearly half a month. I paused and asked: do you know your daughter is pregnant? He said no. I said your daughter takes clients without condoms, she has STDs, and now she’s pregnant.
His reply stunned me. He said: “My daughter doesn’t want an abortion.” I asked if he wouldn’t persuade her. He looked at me strangely and said: “Having this child is a good thing.” I couldn’t believe it. I asked: your daughter has STDs, drug addiction, relies on painkillers—you want her to give birth?
He said yes. With a child, she could get legal status; the whole family could adjust status, and the U.S. government would provide subsidies. Only by giving birth could their lives improve even a little.
At that moment, I didn’t know who to pity—the man, his daughter, or the unborn child. I didn’t even know whether I had the right to condemn their desire “just to survive.”
Later, he asked me how long it would take after his leg was treated before he could go back to work. I said, “Injuries to muscles and bones take a hundred days to heal. Just lie still and don’t move.” But he said anxiously, “No, I can’t let my daughter suffer too much.”
What hurt me the most was the kind of “hope” I saw in their eyes. The daughter didn’t think there was anything wrong with selling her body on West Street, and the father didn’t think that desperately relying on painkillers and dragging an injured leg back to work was some kind of unforgivable sin—even though it was clearly burning through his own life. Every time I think about this, my emotions become extremely heavy. Yet in the eyes of that father and daughter, what I saw was not despair, but a kind of twisted hope.
At the time, I didn’t say anything. I truly didn’t know what to say. Then that red-necked older guy asked me if I could give him some enhancers. He said he’d used enhancers before—his leg was broken, but as long as he could hold on, he could go back to the construction site. Even if he had to sit, he could still hammer rivets and read blueprints. At first I didn’t understand. I said I couldn’t give them to him; enhancers couldn’t be handed out casually. He left, deeply disappointed.
Honestly, I was a bit stunned too. I said, “Can’t you go to the hospital?” He shot me a look and said, “I know the rules. If I use enhancers and then go to the hospital, and use a white card, I can forget about citizenship or a green card.” He understood things very clearly—much clearer than some people.
What is a “white card”? Simply put, it’s like a medical credit card. You can go to the hospital with it, but the debt compounds with interest. I know a guy called “Donut”—a bill of over five thousand dollars was put on his white card. That basically meant he was tied to U.S. status for life—he had to keep his status just to repay the debt.
Later I told that older guy: after you go back to work, don’t let your daughter go out to sell herself anymore. Her body isn’t holding up, and she’s pregnant. I said either you get an abortion, or even if the child is born, it will still be a problem.
About a month later, I saw that father and daughter again. At first the girl came alone. She was bleeding continuously below. I asked what was going on. She said it was her first time trying to induce an abortion herself, she wasn’t skilled, and she used a clothes hanger. She didn’t hook it right—it seemed like something snapped. It wasn’t caused by a client; it was her own mistake.
I told her this was beyond what our aid station could handle and that we had to call an ambulance. She shook her head desperately and said not to call one—she couldn’t afford it. I said, “You’re bleeding like this and you’re still holding out?” She said her dad would come pick her up and take her to the hospital. I said her dad’s leg wasn’t healed yet. She said quietly, “It’s fine. My dad took enhancers and is holding on. The boss is kind—his leg is broken, but he can still work on the site.”
Later her dad really did rush over from the construction site, covered in dust, his leg still swollen, leaning on crutches, and took his daughter back to the hospital.
Some people ask, why try to abort again? The reason is simple. She went for a medical consultation, and the results showed that this pregnancy was very likely a malformed fetus or a stillbirth. She had overdosed somewhat on drugs, and the child would most likely not survive if born. Once she thought about how the child wouldn’t live anyway and would also interfere with her work, she decided not to keep it. But she didn’t know how to get a proper abortion—she had only heard of some traditional hanger-based abortion methods in the U.S., so she decided to try it herself first.
Guess why I livestream.
Wouldn’t anyone go insane after staying in this kind of environment for too long? Guess why I livestream. That’s the reason I livestream.
So now, do you all feel that the first two cases weren’t that bad? At least the first one had both sons and daughters, and a wife, even if she lived in a trailer. The second one—someone died, but only he himself died. I always tell things logically, step by step. The first one I tell is always the lightest. Sometimes people don’t hear the first two and jump straight into this one. I feel this episode probably won’t get published—if that happens, I’ll just post the recording in the group chat.
Right now we’re still at the beginner stage. The first case is beginner, the second is intermediate, and the third is already advanced. If this kind of thing were placed in ancient China, it would definitely count as rebellion.
The most hellish part of the third story is that our charity organization was acting out of kindness, the team leader was acting out of kindness, even the girl’s boss was acting out of kindness. In the first two cases, there were bad people in the environment and among the masses, and they were already living miserably. But in the third case, even with everyone helping them, they might not live much longer. Don’t forget—even her construction foreman and boss were helping her. Broken leg but still need to survive? Fine—if you can sit and tamp the ground, that’ll do. Even with everyone reaching out a hand, their lives just kept getting worse.
Sometimes it’s not that I don’t want to do good deeds—it’s that the more you do, the more painful it becomes.
For example, ceiling fans. For example, the old society. Don’t slander the old society—I beg you, don’t slander it. Ancient Chinese society wasn’t like this either. Anyone who ended up like this in ancient times would have been recorded in the history books and condemned by thousands, cursed by tens of thousands. You may think you don’t care, but in the end, everyone does. Ancient China emphasized moral ethics; clan and ritual law wouldn’t allow this. I beg everyone, stop defaming clan society.
Really—this isn’t even feudalism. Brother, feudal society wasn’t like this either. You’re insulting feudalism too much. Also, my family used to be landlords. We were hit by land reform, the Three-Anti and Five-Anti campaigns, and ten years of revolutionary upheaval—textbook-level destruction. And yet I still love our motherland. I love the sun over Jinshan.
Everyone thinks this Mexican older brother is miserable. They’re actually not that miserable—at least he and his daughter are both still alive.
Some things, once you hear them, you can never go back.
Are there even worse cases? Yes. Of course there are.
During Christmas, churches are especially busy—masses, events, and also hospice care for migrants, especially Mexicans. To appear as if I had a “heart of gold,” I went everywhere: mosques, churches, Catholic, Protestant—just treating it like an experience. Once, a church said they didn’t have enough pastors. Too many people were dying around Christmas. They asked who would help with end-of-life care. I thought, I’m such a kind boy—sure, why not.
I met a dying man lying in a church bed. Did he speak English? Only a little. He mainly spoke Spanish—heavy dialect and slang mixed with Mexican local speech. I couldn’t understand him at all. Luckily, there was someone next to me who spoke Spanish—someone I’d met in a mutual-aid group.
Later we agreed to go to that church together for activities, and that’s when I met this man. He kept holding my hand. His mental state fluctuated—clear one moment, listless the next—very neurotic. I turned to the Spanish-speaking woman next to me and asked, “Is he high on something?” She said definitely—otherwise he wouldn’t be like this. Without drugs, he probably wouldn’t even be able to speak.
He cried and shouted nonstop, saying a lot of things. At first I didn’t understand at all, so I didn’t feel too bad—after all, he really couldn’t speak English well. He and his daughter had fled from an “eighteen-layer hell” in Central and South America to this “seventeen-layer hell” called America—and yet they could still feel hope and a future here. That’s truly hard for those of us who grew up in a normal society to comprehend. Even in ancient China, with all its human relationships and clan laws, you’d only imagine this kind of existence during the insane Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.
Eventually he passed out. I asked the woman next to me, “What was he actually saying? Can you translate it for me?” She froze and asked, “Are you sure you want to hear it?” I was still naïve and said, “Of course—if I don’t hear it, it feels awful.” She confirmed again: “You really want to hear it?” I had no idea that some things, once heard, can never be undone.
She told me he had been apologizing the whole time, repeatedly saying “Sorry, daughter.” He regretted gambling, regretted owing money to contractors and gangs. Now the gang had taken his daughter and forced her into prostitution to repay the debt. He worked nonstop to earn more money, didn’t rest even during the holidays, and ended up falling ill working in freezing winter rain. First pneumonia, then COVID—his lungs were almost burned through. The hospital wouldn’t take him and sent him directly to the church. He kept muttering, “My daughter is still waiting for me… I can’t die here… If I can’t pay the money back by Christmas, they’ll sell her into a brothel. I have to work. I have to make money…”
Because I didn’t understand Spanish at the time, and because it was close to the holidays, I was wearing festive clothes and in a good mood—and that woman kept asking me, “Are you sure you want to hear this?”—and I foolishly said, “What’s there I can’t hear? I’m here for hospice care, aren’t I?”
I stood there, looking at that young “Gundam,” my head filled with the sentence “I can’t die here.” He said that if he couldn’t pay by Christmas, they would sell his daughter into a brothel. I was wearing red that day, feeling good, and still insisted on hearing his story, making the translator tell me.
Thinking back now, I really brought it on myself. The translator spoke without emotion, like reading an instruction manual, but every word pierced my heart like a knife. This construction worker looked extremely young—he wasn’t even thirty. Construction work ages people; his actual age was probably even younger.
How old could his daughter have been? I don’t even dare imagine. Over in West Street, many gangs specifically target people who can’t repay debts, gathering them to keep gambling. Maybe only one person in the end can pay it off; the rest are doomed. Like in Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor—I don’t even dare imagine where those who couldn’t repay ended up.
Here, many people live without any dignity—frankly, like wild dogs. It’s not that they don’t want to live with dignity, but once they borrow money from gangs, there’s no way out. These creditors won’t give you any dignity at all.
These things cause me immense pain, because I come from a socialist country. The story of The White-Haired Girl exists everywhere in reality. I believe U.S. soldiers can also become liberation fighters. This is a great creation of the Chinese Communist Party and a great honor of the Chinese nation. This experience made me understand even more deeply the importance of those two sentences on Tiananmen Gate—this is what we should strive to do. Even if we can’t see it now, one day in the future, we surely will.
It’s not that I’m not strong—but some things really are hard to bear. I’m not even finished with that experience yet. You think it ends here? No. He hadn’t died yet. With enhancers, he wouldn’t die immediately, even while being tormented by both COVID and pneumonia.
It was the night of December 24—Christmas Eve. When we went back the next day, he had already passed away. When he died, he was gripping a piece of paper so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. When we sorted through his belongings, it took some effort to pry his hand open.
Inside the paper was a photo of his daughter. On it were written a few words: “Daughter, I’m sorry, I’m sorry… God, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.” Wrapped with it was a small holy image—Mary and the Child.
Sometimes it’s not that I don’t want to tell these things—it’s that once told, people feel terrible listening, yet they haven’t experienced it themselves. Not becoming the person involved is actually a kind of happiness. After that, I was depressed for a long time and only recently started to recover. As for those things, I’ve let them go—people are ultimately powerless.
Some people, like “Heshan Shuo,” still cling to illusions about America until the very end. Guage tells stories much more restrained than I do—not because he doesn’t know, but because he doesn’t want to scare people. When he talks about Cthulhu or the underclass of the U.S. East Coast, if you’ve truly gone deep into American grassroots society, you know every word he says is real. He just doesn’t lay everything out in detail the way I do.
So when you listen to Guage, you’re not overwhelmed. When you listen to me, it’s very hard to endure.
No real way out for the underclass
My view of Westland has always been this: it does not give the underclass a real way out. What does it give them in the conventional sense? It tells them, “You want to rise up? Fine—go fight other people just like you. Let the underclass tear each other apart.” This precisely explains the general condition faced by the underclass there—give them an illusion, give them a dream, but give them no real path.
Guage doesn’t want to go into too much detail because he doesn’t want to spread out the bloody reality like I do. When I listen to Guage, it’s completely different from how you listen. For people like me and my teacher who have truly encountered the dark underside of American grassroots society, what we hear comes with concrete cases, concrete images, even specific “Gundams.” You can go back and rewatch Guage’s episode on “East Coast Cthulhu” now—the feeling will be completely different.
When he says “the subway eats people,” you might think it’s a metaphor or an urban legend. But in my mind, what instantly appears are autopsy reports, crime-scene photos, and evidence logs. My first reaction is: Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore—the real archives of those places.
Someone mentioned street racing—people racing outside the window. Sure, in summer many people like to race. But do you know what my first reaction is when I hear the words “street racing”? It’s a case I encountered over there: a very young Chinese man, freshly graduated with a PhD, had landed a job at Apple. He loaded both his wife’s family and his own family into one car. A racing accident happened—both families were wiped out. This is completely normal over there. So really—don’t race. Even if you think you’re skilled and your car is good, don’t do it.
I’ve handled too many “Gundams” from street racers. Sixteen-year-old twins—car destroyed, people dead. One head stuck in a tree branch, the other’s cervical spine twisted 180 degrees. Like racing? That really is a road of no return.
Americans in the sewers
After handling so many racing tragedies, I often feel how limited humanity’s understanding of danger is. But speaking of dangerous environments—do you know what’s truly terrifying beneath the subway? It’s not the “Skaven tunnels” of urban legends or hyped-up stories—it’s sewage pipes.
Many people don’t realize that the sewage pipes beside subway tracks are quite wide—wide enough for an adult to crawl into. Some even have maintenance shafts with simple scaffolding. Some homeless people lay a wooden board across them and sleep there. But once heavy rain hits, these places instantly become death traps. Water levels surge, people can’t escape, and they drown alive.
Every year, municipal departments routinely clear sewer blockages, and the number of bodies we find there is far greater than most people imagine. What’s even more disturbing is the cleaning method. Major U.S. cities commonly use strong acid cleaners—in astonishing quantities. A country with far fewer people than China consumes several times more acid cleaner than we do.
Pipes flushed with acid produce indescribable things: partially dissolved flesh, torn connective tissue, bone fragments. Sometimes there are even victims burned alive by the acid. Imagine being trapped in a sewer, submerged in high-concentration acid, skin and muscle gradually dissolving. That’s not simple drowning—it’s death by chemical burn.
And that’s not the end. After acid washing, municipalities use high-pressure abrasive water jets for secondary cleaning. The water mixed with sharp abrasive particles is like countless tiny files, scraping flesh off bone. The effect is similar to ancient lingchi—except this is mechanized, mindless “cleaning.” Among what’s flushed out are rats, stray animals, and occasionally human remains.
Someone asked whether this is like Lion Camel Ridge from Journey to the West. I said that reality in some corners of America may be even more absurd and horrifying. This isn’t supernatural—it’s a silent tragedy beneath our feet in modern cities.
It reminds me of the classic sewer-dweller image. I’ve seen such a person—his right hand was withered like a fish fin, but his left hand was normal. His legs were short, making him look like a ghoul. They really crawl on the ground to enter sewers.
You should know that winter at rescue sites is extremely cold. But sewage systems are warmer because household wastewater carries heat. That’s why many people choose to live there. Sometimes thermal expansion occurs—but don’t imagine the chemistry or physics too much; it’s easier that way.
This makes me think: when is the most painful time for these people? It’s after snowfall, or when winter ends and spring begins. Why? Because melting snow sends icy runoff into underground drains—and that’s when it truly becomes deadly for them.
Speaking of sewers, even villains like Krang and Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles qualify as horror characters. I’ll put it this way: TMNT and all its villains are essentially second-hand creations based on American sewer horror legends—a compilation of them.
But reality is even more outrageous. In large sewer systems, there are central junctions where many pipes converge. At these points, things settle and accumulate. Can you imagine it? A semi-transparent, jelly-like mass weighing over forty tons—human remains, animal remains, household waste—all fused together.
That’s alternating sedimentation. You didn’t think slime had no real-world prototype, did you? You truly don’t know what all fused together in that mass. Shoggoths and slime are basically based on this.
Now you understand why sewer cleaners and repair workers not only earn high wages but don’t need degrees. Long-term accumulation and fermentation cause microorganisms to trigger chemical reactions that release toxic gases. The smell of decomposition is terrifying.
People say you can easily make seven or eight thousand dollars a month doing this, even more in big cities. So why the high pay? Because turnover is extremely fast. Chlorine gas, ammonia, and various decomposition gases make the environment deadly. Flashlights can’t even be used—only cold light lamps or glow sticks. Of course, there are protective measures.
This is not the world you know. You live in New China, in a socialist country, in a nation daring to remake heaven and earth. Do you think when I say some people are “socialist giant babies” I’m joking? I never joke. Some people take for granted things that the vast majority of humanity will never have. You should truly be grateful to live in a socialist country. On Earth, living in a socialist country already means you’ve won the lottery.
So many people work in sewers—are there maps like power grid maps for future use? Yes, but they need constant updating. Each generation of sewer management companies issues maps to their workers. But even with maps, it doesn’t solve everything. When it’s time to die, you die. It’s like a dungeon—new bizarre things spawn every day. Maps help, but they don’t guarantee survival.
What you consider ordinary happiness is a luxury to them. What you find unimaginably terrifying is their daily routine.
Final thoughts
In 2025, China has 1.41 billion people. Based on per-capita spending on food, clothing, housing, and transportation, it ranks around 15th to 20th globally—already comparable to Italy. By 2030, it’s expected to enter the top ten. At this point, if you still want to send your children to study in America—uncles and aunties in the livestream—you should really think carefully about it.
