11
One of the entrances to the Lost Valley, at the end of an alley.
Hammer always goes in from here and takes a fixed route to prevent himself from being too happy and wonderful in the market and unable to find the way back.
The alley was lined with old houses on both sides, the kind where people lived, with a few shops here and there, selling things similar to the one he had robbed clothes from before.
But I have to say that although the houses are very old, the housing conditions are much better than those of the people in the ghost town. Even the team leader cannot live in such a regular house.
In order to withstand the wind, the houses they live in are all built in strange shapes that follow the wind direction, and many of them are so crowded that people cannot even stand inside.
The reason Ning Gu's hut was able to stand upright was at the cost of having been blown over four times. Each time, he lost a lot of the small things he had collected. He was able to snatch some of them back from every household, but he didn't know where some of them had gone.
There was even a tragic incident where something obtained in exchange from the land king was picked up by the old profiteer and wanted to be exchanged with him again.
There were no pedestrians in the alley, and of course there wouldn't be any. When the alarm sounded that a traveler was coming, everyone retreated into their houses.
Some people are afraid, some people are not so afraid.
But it is certain that travelers are not welcome, just as travelers also have some dissatisfaction with the people in the main city.
Ning Gu could feel the gazes from both sides as he walked through the alley.
But every time he turned his head to look over, he could only see the slightly swaying curtains and the lights suddenly going out... He was still more afraid.
Is it that scary
Ning Gu thought about it and said, of course there is, after all, travelers are monsters, and you two just stole a piece of clothing and kicked the owner twice.
He was carrying the murderous aura of someone who had just completed a robbery.
"We're here," Hammer pointed ahead, "Follow me, I'm not kidding, let's not get separated."
"Got it." Ning Gu waved at him.
The scene ahead is a bit strange.
Not all places in the main city have high metal walls. Here, you can see the Black Iron Wasteland at a glance.
And this alley, as if it was cut by some huge force, came to an abrupt end in front.
It seems as if there is a line. Standing on this side, there is the city with morning and evening. Crossing the other side, there are ruins that stretch as far as the eye can see, and the rugged and lifeless hard wasteland.
The entrance was in a small building with half of it collapsed. When you pushed open the door, there was a staircase leading downwards. It was pitch black and you couldn't see anything, and there was no sound either.
Ning Gu looked back at the alley.
"It's almost gone," Hammer said. "I heard from them that this alley used to be longer. The entrance we are entering now was the same as that one. It was the main city area and people lived there."
"How did it become like this?" Ning Gu asked.
"The main city has been collapsing. I think, sooner or later, it will all turn into a black iron wasteland." Hammer looked at the paint mark on his hand and walked down the stairs.
Ning Gu also looked down at the mark on his hand.
A painting! I'm here to find a painting! I'm Ning Gu! I'm here to find a painting! I still have to go back to the ghost town!
Following Hammer and walking down for a distance, he smelled a smell he had never smelled before.
It smelled nice, a little sweet, and had a few other scents, one of which he had definitely smelled in Crazy Uncle's house.
When staying in the ghost town, you can't smell much because the wind is too strong. Even if you fart through your clothes, the wind will blow it away immediately. You can only smell farts when you are indoors... And the scent of the small objects he exchanged for often gives people a feeling of being very old and having a lot of years. It's not common to find such things that smell good at first sight.
"What's that smell?" he asked as he saw a bend in front of him and a faint red light coming through the corner.
"We're here." Hammer stopped and took a deep breath, as if he was about to step into some extraordinary place.
Ning Gu didn't know whether this was a necessary procedure, but he still took a deep breath. No matter whether it was necessary or not, the sense of ritual was still there.
After turning the corner, Ning Gu saw a world that was completely different from the ghost town, the wasteland, and the main city.
A black cave that grew and spread in an unknown way in the hard metal world.
They couldn't see the whole picture when they stood at the entrance. He knew in advance that this was a hole underground, so he could judge that it was a hole.
The stairs under your feet extend downwards, and you can see layer upon layer of light. Countless holes and tunnels are densely distributed on each floor in all directions. You can't see the bottom, nor the edges of the four sides.
Red light can be seen coming through the cracks in the cave wall. It's not bright, but it's enough to illuminate the surroundings.
Ning Gu stared at it for a long time before coming to a simple conclusion.
A huge underground world.
"It smells like tea leaves," Hammer answered his previous question. "It's a very rare thing. Don't think you can get it just because you can smell it. You may not find a pack even if you go around the Lost Valley. This smell comes from the tea-scented water that people in the valley spray on themselves. It's fashionable."
"Then I'll get some more of this water and bring it back for Ding Zi." Ning Gu said.
"What do you have to offer in exchange?" asked Hammer.
"What do you need to exchange?" Ning Gu also asked. When he came here, he really didn't think about exchanging things, he just wanted to take a look.
"At least it has to be something glass, like a vase or something," said Hammer.
"I don't have it," Ning Gu thought for a moment, "Can I just rob it?"
Hammer glanced at him and said, "Don't say this kind of thing openly. It's so embarrassing."
"I understand." Ning Gu nodded.
There was no one at the entrance, and Hammer led him down a flight of stairs.
Before he reached the bottom of the stairs, Ning Gu heard someone talking. On the right was a huge hole, like a hall.
There are small shops all around, but not all of them can be entered, and many of them are closed.
There were people starting to appear here. When I looked over, I saw several bats wandering around in the hall.
Bats have very obvious characteristics. It is said that they are not sensitive to pain so they are diligent in modifying their bodies. The modification style is basically to do harm to their own flesh. As long as you see bones growing outside the flesh or they are made of metal, you can be sure that it is a bat.
Of course, the transformation is not limited to the bone exterior...
In addition to the bats that walk around with a mysterious, confused or suspicious look on their faces, there are also many people whose identities cannot be seen.
According to Hammer, there should be quite a few travelers and homeless people in the main city who are trapped here because they are "too happy".
"Some of them escaped here on their own," Hammer said, "but they are very few. It's too difficult for ordinary people to escape from the hyenas and run here."
Ning Gu didn't say anything. After all, he had experienced it deeply and had just experienced it.
Even though he escaped from the hyenas and Lian Chuan, he still didn't feel too excited.
He had no idea how he escaped.
When Lian Chuan approached him little by little with the breath of death, there was nothing else in his mind except "I don't want to disappear yet and I haven't seen anything yet."
So, he defeated Lianchuan with his mind.
If you tell this to any traveler, they will just burst into laughter.
The kind of person who can't even find the right posture to brag.
"Every time I come here, I come here. I can see a lot of interesting things after a round. Some can be exchanged, and some cannot be afforded. Of course, if you have the common currency of the main city, you can also buy them." Hammer led him and introduced him in a low voice. "If you don't want to buy things, you can also listen to their conversations and ask about things. But they just stay here, and they may not know more than us... Oh, there are food and drinks here, which can be exchanged with the rations of the main city. They are all things we have never eaten. There is also wine..."
Hammer said this, and turned around to look around: "You can't drink the wine. If the captain finds out, he will be hung in Tongue Bay and licked by the tongue for three days."
"Can't drink?" Ning Gu looked at him. "I bet a glass bottle that the first thing you do is go find some wine to drink. Your behavior is too obvious."
"Is it obvious?" The hammer straightened his back, thought about it and smiled, "The nail always said I can't pretend."
"You're indeed not as good at pretending as him." Ning Gu nodded.
Thinking of Dingzi, he looked at the small house next to him that was emitting red light. He wanted to bring back a pair of goggles for Dingzi, as he wondered if he could exchange the clothes he was wearing for one.
"Did you see the passage?" Hammer asked him.
"Yes, I see it." Ning Gu saw several long tunnel-like holes around this large cave hall.
To be honest, he felt that his eyes were not enough.
He was born and raised in a ghost town and had never been anywhere else. The neat houses in the main city had already opened his eyes, and now this underground world was even more novel at every glance.
"Remember the one we came from, and then follow the three on the right," Hammer pointed with his hand, "You can go through them all. I went through them with the captain, and at the end is another smaller cave with no forks. You can't go into the other two, and I've never been in them."
"Well," Ning Gu wrote it down carefully, "What about the other halls? I think there are many more floors..."
"What are you thinking about?" Hammer interrupted him in shock. "This is it. I won't go anywhere else. I only go to these places every time I come here. That's enough! We have everything!"
“…Oh.” Ning Gu was also shocked.
Hammer stared at him intently, and finally poked his chest with his finger: "Ning Gu, I know what you are thinking. This is not a ghost town. I know you are a bully in the ghost town. Everyone is afraid of you and you are not afraid of anything. But here you are nothing, don't you know? You are just a fool who came to the main city for the first time."
"I know." Ning Gu also stared at him, "No need to say such harsh words, you are the fool."
"Fool," a man suddenly came over, "First time here? Do you want to learn from me?"
Ning Gu couldn't believe his ears. He turned his head and looked at the man whose beard had grown to his nose.
Judging from his attire, he should be a homeless person, and he doesn't have any metal bones on his body.
"Who are you talking to?" Ning Gu asked.
"You," the tramp replied impatiently, "are you really a fool? I'm looking at you and you're asking me who I'm talking to..."
Ning Gu raised his foot and kicked him in the chest. The homeless man flew out and fell into a small house when he landed.
The noise was quite loud. There were only a few people walking around, but after the kick, a bunch of strange-looking people appeared out of nowhere.
When the homeless man came out of the hut cursing, two people followed him, who looked like bats.
One of them had only half of a face, with the other half replaced by metal. The craftsmanship was not very good, and even from such a distance you could still see the dents on the metal surface.
There is also a popular bat modification model, with a piece of torn flesh on the leg revealing the metal leg bone.
"Let's go." said Hammer.
"What?" Ning Gu turned his head. Hammer was not an honest man in the ghost town. Not to mention being afraid of trouble, he was also willing to cause trouble. Even though most of the travelers were not ordinary people, he never said he would leave when he encountered someone with strong abilities.
Now we only have a few spring legs, and you’re just going to let us go
"It's empty down here," said Hammer.
Ning Gu was stunned for a moment, then realized that the hammer's ability required solid ground, and this underground market was made up of holes and tunnels... For Ning Gu, who grew up on the ground in a ghost town, this situation was really unexpected.
In other words, they are now standing here as two ordinary people, and they are very arrogant.
"Let's go!" Hammer pulled his sleeve, turned around and walked quickly towards the second passage.
Just as he turned around, the man with half face and spring leg suddenly rushed forward.
With Ning Gu's many years of experience in fighting and being beaten, he immediately determined that the attack was directed at Hammer. After all, Hammer, who had no abilities, looked like a skinny boy.
Ning Gu was furious, not because of the sneak attacks and picking on the weak, he always did such things, but he was angry because this man dared to beat his friend in front of him!
"Go away!" He said in a calm voice and rushed towards the two bats at the same time.
The modification of the spring legs is somewhat useful, as it runs ahead of half of the face.
But based on Ning Gu’s previous superficial analysis and random judgment of the bat, the fighting power of the spring leg is definitely not as good as half a face.
So he jumped up halfway through the run, stepped on the thigh of the spring-legged man who was taking a step, and kicked hard.
Since bats can jump so high, he should be able to jump pretty high with the help of this leg.
Unexpectedly, his bet was right. The bat's legs were like a springboard.
After the bat howled and fell to the ground, Ning Gu suddenly leaped into the air.
When I hit my head on the ceiling of the cave, I finally understood why the bat was just running and not jumping.
He could even hear the sound of his head banging against his head.
Boom!
It turns out that spring legs are so elastic
Fortunately, he may have had a potential ability that had just been stimulated, and the collision did not knock him unconscious. While falling back, he turned half of his body to the side, and with the help of the inertia of falling, he punched half of the other person's face.
The combined force was so great that half of his face fell to the ground and he fainted.
When Ning Gu fell to the ground, people all surrounded him. I don’t know if it was because there had been nothing interesting to see for a while, but they started beating him up.
Although he was a bully in Ghost Town, there was no habit of gang fights in Ghost Town, and he was immediately knocked down by a barrage of punches and kicks. While holding his head and squeezing to the side, he took the time to take a look, but he couldn't find the hammer.
"Beat him! Beat him!"
A group of people who didn't know where they came from surrounded him and shouted.
As he squeezed his way out of the crowd, he swung his fists at a few people who were close to him.
Someone pulled him in the chaos.
The force was huge, comparable to the force he used to hit half of his face.
He was immediately pulled out of the crowd, and before he could figure out what was going on, he was pulled into a room without red light.
And someone from the crowd outside who were shouting and yelling pointed in this direction, and the noise suddenly died down and turned into a buzzing sound. After buzzing for a while, it was as if they suddenly lost interest and dispersed.
Ning Gu straightened his torn coat, touched his face, turned around and looked behind him: "Thank you..."
There was no one behind him.
He turned his head again, but still didn't see anyone. After turning his head four times in a row, he was sure that there was no one in this small dark room with all the light-transmitting gaps blocked.
"Thanks." He insisted on saying thanks and walked quickly towards the door.
A small breeze blew past his side, and a voice sounded in his ear: "Who are you?"