American homeless people, surviving in the city

"What? We have new recruits at our camp again?"

Lynch, who was being dragged along by Raul, had no opinion on the matter. He just sighed in his heart that life was really tough for Americans these days. Only a few days had passed, and already newcomers were back on the streets.

"Hehe, these are all people I've been chatting with on the street these past couple of days. They didn't have any suitable places to stay, so I persuaded them all to come here!"

"Besides, some of the people I've brought here are acquaintances of ours!"

Wearing a light yellow raincoat, Raul was skipping and jumping in the rain, clearly not at work today, full of energy.

He was never like this when he came back after a day's work for a ruthless boss.

"Really? Then I'll have to see who's here." Lin Qi laughed.

Raul nodded: "Of course you have to come and see! Most of our neighbors don't live very close together, and this small campsite in the green belt is originally our territory. If any new people want to join, they definitely need your permission."

The two jogged back to the small campsite.

Lin Qi immediately noticed that there was not only an extra tent in the camp, but also two extra vehicles!

One of them was actually a small motorhome. Its gray-white rectangular cabin was more than a meter taller than the tents next to it, making it extremely conspicuous at first glance.

"Are all the new guys living in cars?" Lynch looked at Raul with some doubt. "If you all have cars, wouldn't it be better to find a place near a public restroom or supermarket? Why did you drive into a remote little place like ours?"

"Well...they each have their own reasons. You'll find out when you talk to them later!"

As they spoke, the two had already arrived at the center of the camp.

Although it was raining, perhaps because of the arrival of new people, Raul had already set up a rain shelter here with a plastic tarpaulin.

Under the awning, a number of faces, some familiar and some unfamiliar to Lin Qi, had already gathered.

Besides the familiar old James, the two programmers I'd seen picking up lunch at noon were also in the crowd.

In addition, there was a tall, broad-shouldered, white woman wearing a helmet.

Although her shoulders were not as broad as those of the two towering bodyguards she had seen downstairs at Sylvia's house, they were still comparable to Lynch's.

For a woman, this is already quite outrageous.

What's most striking is that, even in this weather, she was only wearing a dark gray sports vest with a windbreaker casually draped over it.

The cold wind and rain howled past her, yet she chatted and laughed freely in the crowd, dressed in such clothes, showing no sign of feeling cold at all.

Beside her, a little girl who only reached her waist was clinging tightly to her, looking timidly at everything around her.

"It seems you've... brought in some very interesting people."

After surviving on the streets for a few days, Lin Qi's mindset was no longer as timid as it had been when he first transmigrated.

He strode forward to face his new neighbors and the now more lively camp.

The first person to spot Lynch approaching was old James, who was standing at the edge of the awning chatting with the crowd. Seeing Lynch's expression, he immediately understood what Lynch was thinking and quickly waved his hand.

"...Don't look at me like that. I have no intention of joining your camp. This old man is too old for me to live without the convenience of being near Third Avenue."

"I only came to freeload because I heard there were new people joining tonight and there would be a dinner and party."

He then turned to the crowd, raised his voice, and shouted to them in a hoarse voice:

"Alright, enough chit-chat. Our owner of this greenbelt campsite, Lin Qi, is back! Come and meet him!"

Old James's magnetic voice drowned out the patter of rain, and the crowd under the awning turned to look at Lynch with curious or bewildered expressions.

I've only lived here for two or three days, how come I already have the title of "Master of the Green Belt"... It sounds a bit useless...

But as a new identity from another time, it doesn't seem so bad.

Lin Qi chuckled inwardly, folded up his umbrella, and walked into the awning.

Closest to him were a pair of programmers wearing red and blue plaid shirts. When they saw Lin Qi approaching, they gave him shy smiles.

Among them, the man in the red plaid shirt reached out his hand to Lin Qi:

"Hey buddy, it's been a while since we last met at noon, I didn't expect to see you again so soon."

"My name is Gleason, and the one next to me wearing the blue plaid shirt is Irwin. You can tell us apart by the color of our clothes... because we both only have this one piece of clothing left."

"We're so sorry to have taken the liberty of moving into your place, but we hope you won't mind?"

"Of course, I can tell you're all law-abiding and good people. I welcome you to move in."

Lynch gripped Gleason's hand tightly, mentally giving the two nicknames, Little Red and Little Blue, as he warmly welcomed them to the team:

"Speaking of which, you should have another friend, right? How's his illness?"

"Oh, you mean Ton? He's still lying in the car."

Speaking of his companion, Gleeson sighed: "His illness is contagious, and he can't get out of bed yet, so we're not letting him come out to meet everyone."

"We don't have any good solutions for his illness. We can only buy him some painkillers and let him rely on his own willpower to get through it... We hope he can get better."

"If you ever see a stranger wearing a yellow plaid shirt loitering near our car, that's definitely Tang En."

So there's a little yellow one too... This trio of red, yellow, and blue is really having a tough time.

Lin Qi sighed inwardly, then asked the question that had been on his mind:

"By the way, while I welcome you, I'm still curious why you chose to stay at our somewhat remote little camp?"

"Since you have a car, wouldn't it be far more convenient to live next to a public restroom or Walmart?"

"Ha." Gleason gave a wry smile. "Living there is convenient, but it also brings a lot of trouble."

"Parking your car on the side of the road next to a public toilet or in the parking lot in front of Walmart may not get you kicked out by security guards or police immediately like you would if you were staying in a tent, but it will still get noticed eventually."

"Trouble will ensue once it's discovered."

"Of all the troubles, being evicted is the least of them, but being constantly evicted means we always have to drive to different places to live, which is very fuel-consuming..."

"You know, we've only been unemployed for a short time, and none of us can bring ourselves to beg... We can get food from various charity distribution centers, and sometimes a little medicine, but we can't get gasoline..."

"Therefore, finding a stable place is more important to us."

Immediately afterwards, "Little Blue" Erwin, wearing a blue plaid shirt, took over the conversation:

"But a more serious problem than being driven away is the gang's extortion."

"This morning, while we were resting on the side of Ninth Avenue, a man wearing sunglasses suddenly knocked on our car window."

"That man was big and burly, with tattoos on his arms. He looked like someone you didn't want to mess with."

"Gleason had just rolled down his window when he punched me. Then he said he had been watching us for a long time and that since we were making a living on that street, we had to give him $100 right away and then give him half of our earnings every month thereafter."

"Otherwise, he'll make us pay."

"The three of us were homeless and didn't have much money to begin with, so there was no way we could just give him $100 for nothing. So I immediately stepped on the gas and drove off."

"But ever since then, we've been driving around the streets, not knowing where to settle down..."

"It wasn't until we met Brother Raul that we realized, after his persuasion, that finding a secluded place to hide, where we wouldn't be easily discovered by the gang, was better than enjoying that pitiful convenience next to a public toilet..."