Chapter 420: The Sixth District and the Ninth District

An area near the city center of Cape Town, South Africa, is called "District Six." Originally, this was a multi-racial residential area. Later, South Africa implemented a policy of apartheid, and District Six was only allowed for white people to live in; all colored indigenous people were driven away.

This was also the origin of the name "District Nine," serving as an irony, after all, 6 reversed is 9.

Most people didn't have such knowledge and experience. Of course, South Africa's status in the world political landscape was low. Even when Jin Yong saw this novel, he only understood the deep meaning after checking some old news about South Africa in English newspapers.

Hong Kong readers directly understood this District Nine as an alien version of the Kowloon Chengzhai.

After briefly explaining some basic background, the time came directly to thirty years after the aliens arrived on Earth, and the male protagonist, David, appeared.

David was a white elite at a South African company called MNU. He was middle-aged, had a wife and children who loved him, and his father-in-law was a high-level executive at MNU. He was in the prime of his life.

Recently, due to the conflicts between the aliens in District Nine and the locals, conflicts and injuries often broke out, making it a place where crime bred. The United Nations decided to relocate the 1.8 million "Prawns" in District Nine to a remote area far from cities and humans, and it was MNU that took on this job.

"Prawn" was a derogatory term humans used for aliens, roughly similar to calling black people "nigger," because they looked like lobsters walking upright.

There was also an illustration here, which was provided by Wei Ming.

MNU assigned the male protagonist David to lead a group of mercenaries into District Nine to be responsible for the demolition work.

Before leaving, he and the mercenary leader, Colonel Grog, went to collect weapons. Besides conventional weapons, he also saw a batch of new weapons he had never seen before.

Colonel Grog told him: "Those are weapons found in the Prawns' spaceship."

David asked: "Are they very powerful?"

Grog said: "Very powerful, but these weapons should be bound to the Prawns' DNA. Humans cannot use them. We are trying to find a way to crack this restriction."

This buried an important foreshadowing. There was another foreshadowing: why didn't the Prawns use these weapons themselves, willing to be kept in captivity by humans?

The convoy of David, Colonel Grog, and others drove toward District Nine. Along the way, David was very excited. He didn't consider this task to be very difficult. In human eyes, Prawns were like animals. Did humans need to get their consent to occupy the animals' grasslands and forests?

However, the situation in District Nine was more complex than he imagined. The Prawns were not cooperative. The District Nine they were in was right under the hovering spaceship, so they were unwilling to relocate to other places.

Moreover, besides Prawns, there was also a group of Nigerian gangsters in District Nine. They also hoped that District Nine could continue to exist because the more chaotic it was, the more money they could make.

Through the perspective of the male protagonist David, the readers roughly knew what kind of life the alien Prawns in District Nine lived, and how humans and Prawns communicated.

Residents of the Kowloon Chengzhai would probably feel a sense of empathy.

This process also shaped several important characters, including the male protagonist David, Colonel Grog, and the gang leader.

The male protagonist had a headache, thinking why didn't the Prawns have a leader? It felt like a plate of loose sand. If there was someone to take the lead, talk to him directly, and get him settled, it would be fine.

At this time, a Prawn wearing a red vest and his son, Little Prawn, were rummaging through a garbage pile for something. Later, Little Prawn found it, and they returned home excitedly, starting to extract these liquids.

After they left, the male protagonist broke in unintentionally. His hand-itchiness had been written about before, such as pulling out the pipes used by Prawn eggs to transmit nutrients, directly killing several Prawn fetuses, etc.

This time, coming to this somewhat mysterious room, he didn't change his nature. Seeing a container filled with things, he took it directly and forced it open. As a result, the liquid inside got all over his hands. The things inside were sticky and foul-smelling, and seemed to be corrosive, making him very uncomfortable. After simple bandaging, he decided to call it a day.

And today's update also ended here. *Ming Pao* split this medium-length novel of more than 30,000 words into three parts: upper, middle, and lower.

Ni Kuang also finished reading this novel for the first time. Obviously, Wei Ming left a hook at the end; the liquid that sprayed out accidentally was definitely not simple.

However, looking at the whole thing, it was just so-so. There was imagination, but it wasn't as powerful as he had boasted before. It could be considered a work with some minor innovations in conventional sci-fi novels. In Ni Kuang's view, it wasn't as interesting as *Transformers* and *Jurassic Park*.

Furthermore, Wei Ming's writing style is indeed very good; he narrates with ease, and the atmosphere is fully realized. That might be because he writes slowly and can polish his work meticulously. If he were to write ten thousand words a day like himself, he probably wouldn't have the time to properly refine his prose, and being able to tell a story coherently would already be quite remarkable.

In short, Ni Kuang believed that some of the top works in his *Wesley* series could still fight.

Many readers who paid attention to Wei Ming's new novel also had this idea. Some could see the allusion to South Africa's apartheid policy, while others simply felt the story's creativity wasn't top-notch.

Only people like Zhou Huimin felt it was good, excellent, and high-class no matter how they looked at it. My Ah Ming is invincible in the world!

The next day, those who had read the first part basically all bought the new *Ming Pao* to continue chasing the update.

David, who was contaminated by the unknown liquid, began to vomit violently and even had a face-to-face encounter with the red-vest Prawn.

On the way home, he felt hungry again, so he bought some bread at a convenience store. While eating, he began to have black nosebleeds, and even his fingernails began to peel off.

However, David still braced himself to return home. His wife had prepared a promotion surprise party for him. Although he felt uncomfortable, he still braced himself to finish the party. As a result, he fainted on the spot while cutting the cake and was sent to the hospital.

In the hospital, David's bandaged left hand was cut open by the doctor, and then a shocking scene appeared: several fingers that were completely not human popped out from the bandage—they were Prawn fingers!

David's left hand, which had been sprayed, had completely turned into the appearance of a Prawn.

Seeing this, Liu Rulong knew that the novel had finally reached the climax.

A proud human was transforming into a lowly Prawn.

He saw at a glance that the male protagonist would definitely not just change one hand, because this male protagonist David reminded him of Gregor in Kafka's *The Metamorphosis*.

Next, the male protagonist became an experimental object at the company. Coming to the MNU laboratory, the male protagonist saw Prawn corpses and remains everywhere, looking very bloody and terrifying.

In order to save himself, the male protagonist escaped from the laboratory and embarked on a journey of self-rescue. The company's high-level executives, including his father-in-law, had a unanimous opinion: David must be brought back. He perfectly fused human and Prawn genes, and his body was worth a fortune.

After escaping, TV stations and radio stations all over the city were wanted David, and even exposed photos of his mutated hand. ===== CHAPTER 421 =====