"OK."
"Can."
"no problem."
"Get in the car."
Bai Chen, Long Yuehong, Jiang Baimian and Shang Jianyao spoke in unison, without any hesitation.
The young man wearing a dark shirt, trousers, and a black trench coat immediately went around the front of the car, came to the passenger seat, and opened the door.
He smiled lightly and said to Jiang Baimian:
"Can you go to the back row?"
"No problem, you sit, you sit." Jiang Baimian stood up enthusiastically and stepped aside.
When the man took off the silver rifle behind his back and sat in the passenger seat, she bent down slightly and said with a pleasing smile:
"How may I address you?"
The black-haired, golden-eyed man frowned invisibly:
"Joe Chu."
"It's so nice." Jiang Baimian did not hesitate to praise.
"Look at other people's names, look at yours." Shang Jianyao hit Long Yuehong sideways.
Long Yuehong is not surprised at all, and agrees:
"Yeah yeah."
In their admiration, Jiang Baimian opened the rear door and said to Shang Jianyao:
"Move to the middle."
Before she finished speaking, she changed her tone and said:
"No, you come down first, and I'll sit in the middle."
I am not too happy to see businessmen and Yao, Jiang Baimian emphasized again:
"I'm the leader!"
Shang Jianyao got out of the car reluctantly and watched Jiang Baimian sit in the middle of the back row.
After hearing the term "team leader" from the grey earth language, Qiao Chu, a man with black hair and golden eyes, turned his head subconsciously and glanced at Jiang Baimian.
Jiang Baimian seemed to have been waiting for a long time, meeting his eyes and smiling sweetly.
Qiao Chu didn't say much, and looked back unhurriedly.
Jiang Baimian did not feel lost, leaned forward, resting his chin with one hand, admiring Qiao Chu's profile as if he could hardly move his eyes away.
After Shang Jianyao sat down again, he found that because of his position, he could only see the back of Qiao Chu's head, and from time to time he would be blocked by the backrest of the chair in front of him, and his face suddenly showed an undisguised disappointment.
Qiao Chu looked at the broken bridge in front of him, and suddenly asked:
"Do you have anything to eat?"
"Yes!" Bai Chen quickly turned sideways and opened the armrest.
"Yes, yes, yes!" Jiang Baimian withdrew the hand holding his chin, and hurriedly searched for food in his pocket, while Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong straightened up, turned to the back, and tried to get a can of braised beef for Qiao Chu.
Without a doubt, Bai Chen was the fastest, handing Qiao Chu a small bag of compressed biscuits and an energy bar.
"That's it. You both eat a little, I don't think there will be a rest at noon, so you have to take turns driving." Qiao Chu took the food and gave an order like a leader, but Shang Jianyao and others had no objection.
After eating the biscuits and the energy bar with the water in the water bag, Qiao Chu put away the items, waited for a while, and turned his head to Bai Chen and said:
"It's time to go.
"Go to the hills to the northwest."
"Okay." Bai Chen, who had finished his lunch, agreed, but didn't look away.
Qiao Chu stretched out his left hand, patted Bai Chen's right arm, and said with a gentle smile:
"Drive well."
"Okay!" Bai Chen was flattered, and immediately sat upright and started the jeep.
Qiao Chu turned to look at the back row and smiled slightly:
"I want to rest. You pay attention to the situation around you, and wake me up when you get to that hilly area."
"Okay!" Jiang Baimian and the others answered in unison.
Qiao Chu didn't speak any more and turned his head back.
The smile on his face quickly disappeared, and his eyes became unusually cold.
Then, he took out a sky blue box from his pocket and snapped it open.
Inside the box is a small mirror.
Qiao Chu stared at himself in the mirror, raised his right hand, and straightened his hair seriously.
After examining it repeatedly, he slowly put away the mirror case, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes.
In the evening, the jeep returned to the hilly area where Black Rat Town was located. At this time, Wang Beicheng's 23 brigade had long gone.
No need to remind, Jiang Baimian and others turned into alarm clocks and woke up Qiao Chu on time.
Qiao Chu glanced at the darkened sky:
"Let's rest here tonight, and continue to drive northwest tomorrow morning."
"Okay." Bai Chen found a familiar campsite and stopped the jeep.
Then, the four of them scrambled to get the tent ready, lit the bonfire, and took out a few military cans from the trunk.
"You guys have quite a lot of supplies..." Qiao Chu sat in the passenger seat with the door open, watching Shang Jianyao and the others busy.
Not long after, Shang Jianyao trotted over and took the initiative to ask Ying:
"I'll go over there to fetch water."
Qiao Chu followed the direction he pointed, looked at the location of the clean water source, thought for a few seconds and said:
"No, our water will last for days."
"Mmmm, it will take a while for the can to heat up. Do you need me to sing you a song?" Shang Jianyao didn't insist at all, and asked with a smile instead.
"..." Qiao Chu looked at Shang Jianyao with suspicion for two seconds, "No need."
"What about the Gold Coast Swing Hula?" Shang Jianyao asked.
Qiao Chu frowned slightly and said:
"No, I want to be quiet for a while and call me when the can is hot."
"Okay!" Shang Jianyao responded enthusiastically.
After he turned and walked towards the campfire, Qiao Chu took out the sky blue plastic box again and opened it with a snap.
Looking at himself in the mirror, Qiao Chu's expression became a little more vivid, and he sighed in a low voice:
"Hey, it's really troublesome..."
And just like that, the night passed quietly, and the sun rose again in the east of the Black Marsh Wilderness.
After breakfast, after some secret contest, Jiang Baimian finally took advantage of the authority of the team leader to grab the duty of driving, while Shang Jianyao, Long Yuehong and Bai Chen could only squeeze in the back row with a bit of grievance.
Qiao Chu turned his wrist and looked at the mechanical watch, relying on the compass on the dial to determine the starting position.
"Go in that direction, keep going." He pointed to a place to the northwest.
Jiang Baimian didn't question it. He drove the jeep and went around the hilly area first, and then ran wildly in the direction Qiao Chu said.
Over time, the surrounding terrain became flatter and the dirt became darker and more rotten, and by the end, the silt had become the dominant feature, and there was less and less hard pavement.
This is going into the depths of the Great Swamp.
Compared with Bai Chen, Jiang Baimian's experience in this area is slightly insufficient, and the car almost fell into the bottomless mud twice.
She had to give up the driver's seat and return to the middle of the back row, while Bai Chen drove the jeep earnestly and diligently, like a child expecting praise.
The speed of the jeep undoubtedly slowed down a lot, and it did not travel more than 30 kilometers until noon, and various plants gradually grew in the surrounding swamps.
They are either dull or bright in color compared to normal, and look rather odd.
Jiang Baimian still remembered the responsibilities of his team leader, and casually reminded Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong:
"Seeing the gathering of similar distorted plants means that it has entered the polluted area, but the plants here are not strange enough, not dangerous enough, and the pollution level should not be too high.
"Under such an environment, ordinary people can also do activities, but if there is no protective equipment, it is best not to exceed three days, and those who have undergone mature genetic modification can last for about ten days, but the premise is that they have prepared in advance. food and water.”
Qiao Chu turned his head again and glanced at Jiang Baimian, but quickly retracted his gaze and pointed to the side:
"Go this way."
"But..." Bai Chen subconsciously wanted to make his own suggestion.
The routes she chose were all low-polluting and suitable for vehicles. If she changed the route rashly, she might encounter the kind of swamp that expanded the field, and even the car and the people fell into it and sank to the bottom.
"Go this way." Qiao Chu emphasized again.
"Okay." Bai Chen chose to obey.
After the vehicle was diverted, it entered an area unfamiliar to Bai Chen, which slowed down the speed of the Jeep a lot. Bai Chen needed to judge the road conditions based on his own experience while driving.
About twenty-five minutes later, when everyone in the car finished their lunch and prepared to replace Bai Chen with Jiang Baimian, the scene ahead suddenly changed:
In the deep black swamp with no edge in sight, thick vines with rotting soil drilled out from the bottom, forming a low "forest".
They are blue and black in color, each with the thickness of an ordinary python, with countless reddish spikes on the surface.
These strange vines are entangled and spread throughout every area in front of the jeep visible to the naked eye, except for the dark swamp itself, which has become their embellishment - even the sky, as if it was blocked by a low "forest" or something else The problem becomes gloomy, gray, and depressing.
Seeing this spectacular but terrifying scene, whether it was Jiang Baimian, Bai Chen, Shang Jianyao or Long Yuehong, they all felt an indescribable shock at the same time.
In shock, they had a question almost at the same time:
"Why are we here?"
At this time, the corners of Qiao Chu's mouth twitched, revealing a gentle smile:
"Don't be nervous."
The words of this voice dispelled the doubts of Shang Jianyao and others, and made them look at Qiao Chu obsessively again.
Qiao Chu sat up straight and began to seriously instruct Bai Chen how to drive and where to drive.
Looking at the python-like blue-black and reddish vines passing by the window, Jiang Baimian moved his five fingers on his left hand.
She instinctively took out a pen and paper from her pocket and recorded what she saw.
Shang Jianyao sometimes looked at the back of Qiao Chu's head, and sometimes looked out at the vines, and there was always a feeling that they harbored great danger.
Just then, his left arm felt a slight bump.
Shang Jianyao turned his head subconsciously and saw Jiang Baimian leaning the white paper in his hand here.
He looked intently and saw that the current scene was faithfully described on the white paper, and in addition, there was a strange sentence at the end:
"... There is such a heavily distorted area in the depths of the Great Swamp, but the amazing thing is that the chip in my left arm told me that the radiation pollution here is not too serious. Maybe the pollution has decayed and weakened over time
"... those vines were covered with reddish spikes, as if they had just been sucked up with blood...
"... The chip on my left arm tells me that the current position is completely different from the intended target of Qifeng Town..."