29
This is the seventh large cave hall. It is deserted and there is no trace of anyone having ever existed there. Lian Chuan took a look and turned into the first tunnel on the right.
This tunnel is very long and extends slowly upwards. It is the longest straight tunnel on the way to the exit.
The Lost Valley is a somewhat peculiar place.
I was clearly heading towards the exit, but the more I walked, the more it felt like I was heading towards an abyss.
There are no more people, no more sounds, the flow of air has become slow, and occasionally there is an illusion that even I don’t exist.
Lian Chuan is very wary of this state. Being closed, quiet, endless and repetitive will make people slowly tired and distracted in an unconscious state.
He looked back at Ning Gu, whose gaze was fixed on the right front of him and did not meet his gaze.
After waiting for a second, Ning Gu still did not withdraw his gaze, and he immediately raised his hand.
Just as he was about to slap Ning Gu in the face, Ning Gu suddenly stopped, took several steps back, and pointed at him: "What are you doing?"
"I thought you..." Lian Chuan didn't finish his words, turned around and continued walking forward.
"Do you think I'm going to get lost?" Ning Gu laughed, "I'm just feeling it."
"Yeah." Lian Chuan responded.
"Don't you want to ask me how I feel?" Ning Gu asked.
"Are you hungry?" Lian Chuan asked.
"… No," Ning Gu sighed, "I don't get hungry that easily. I'm just feeling this road. Is it the wrong direction? Isn't it the opposite of the road before the turn?"
"This road is up there," Lian Chuan said, "It goes up."
"Oh," Ning Gu took a few steps, "No wonder I feel so tired from walking."
Lian Chuan stopped and looked at him.
"It doesn't mean I want to rest." Ning Gu said.
"You can take a rest in front." Lian Chuan said.
"I didn't say I wanted to rest!" Ning Gu quickened his pace and rushed ahead of him.
Although he was told that there was no need to rest, Lian Chuan still stopped in a double-layer cave hall after walking through this long straight tunnel.
"You rest here," he said.
"I said I don't need to rest," Ning Gu said, and suddenly felt something was wrong. "I'm resting here? What about you?"
"I'll go upstairs and take a look." Lian Chuan said.
"I'll go too." Ning Gu said immediately.
Lian Chuan didn't say anything, but looked up.
"What are you going to see up there?" Ning Gu asked again.
"That grave." Lian Chuan said.
"I'll go too." Ning Gu repeated.
Lian Chuan didn't say anything else and just looked up for a while.
"What's wrong?" Ning Gu also looked up.
The cave looked like a fat figure 8. They were at the bottom, and there was a circle of small caves above, but there was no sign of a grave.
In fact, the term "grave" is quite strange. Except for the main city, there are no such things as graves in the Black Iron Wasteland and the Ghost Town. The metal cemetery in the Ghost Town will not really bury people, and there is no place to bury in the main city. I heard that people of a certain age line up to be destroyed...
"Where is the grave?" Ning Gu asked.
"I don't know," Lian Chuan said, raising his hand and drawing a few lines in the air, "but this part of the hole is very large, and the tunnels don't intersect. There is a large space with nothing in it."
"I don't understand," Ning Gu said, "I couldn't even see the three-dimensional map clearly."
"I wonder if Jiuyi has a younger brother." Lian Chuan said.
Ning Gu was stunned for a moment and then smiled.
After laughing, she looked at him in surprise: "Lianchuan?"
Lian Chuan looked at him.
"Is that you, Little Trumpet?" Ning Gu waved his hand in front of his eyes, "Can you still joke?"
"Follow me closely, in case anything happens, I can't take care of you because we are too far away." Lian Chuan jumped up, climbed onto the wall of the cave, and reached the upper level in two strokes.
Climbing was a piece of cake for Ning Gu. Although there was a section on the upper level that was parallel to the ground and he needed to rely on his hands to climb through the gap, he had been climbing in metal cemeteries and garbage dumps since he was a child. For this section, he just jumped hard and reached the edge of the upper level, then pushed himself up and climbed up.
In this case, there is no difference between me and the strongest hyena, and I may even be faster.
The small caves in the circle on the upper level were all empty, with no people and nothing.
He followed Lian Chuan into a small cave, then passed through it. After walking through a few tunnels and small halls, Lian Chuan stopped and said, "It's all empty outside."
"You said that there is no one here. Has it always been empty, or did it become empty later?" Ning Gu looked around. "If it became empty later, why? Where are the people? Is it the same as the main city? But this place didn't collapse..."
Lian Chuan has never faced so many whys. His whys have long been stuck in the depths of his memory, in a place where the system will not reset but will not be easily recalled by him.
Why
He wanted to send Ning Gu out as soon as possible, as Ning Gu's thoughts made him uneasy.
But he would not stop Ning Gu from speaking. All of Ning Gu's whys were suppressed in his mind in an instant.
This cave hall has only two entrances, and there are several holes symmetrically arranged around it, which do not look very big when viewed from the outside.
In the Lost Valley, the only places where you can see the interior are the half-holes around the vertical hole. In other places, such as the tunnels, cave halls, and small caves, there are no "windows" that can see what is on the other side of the rock wall.
On the map, there was a huge space around this cave hall with no tunnel passing through. When Jiuyi's finger passed through here, there was a slight jump, and he himself might not have noticed it.
But Lian Chuan was sure that there was something outside.
"What are we looking for?" Ning Gu asked.
"Find an opening," Lian Chuan said, "where you can see outside."
"Okay." Ning Gu turned around and prepared to act separately.
Lian Chuan grabbed his arm.
Ning Gu stared at him and nodded: "Got it, I'll follow you closely, otherwise I'll die and no one will save me."
"No one will save him if he dies," Lian Chuan said, "Only if he is alive will someone save him."
Ning Gu paused and said, "I understand."
There are six small caves arranged symmetrically around the area. Compared with other places in the Lost Valley, they appear particularly neat and tidy, without any of the rough and primitive temperament of the Lost Valley.
The first four holes were pretty mediocre.
When Lian Chuan walked into the fifth cave, he stood in the middle of the cave. He did not come out immediately. He looked up and seemed to be frozen.
"What's going on?" Ning Gu followed immediately, but he didn't look up right away.
What if Lian Chuan suddenly saw something and got lost? He couldn't just rush up there too.
So he looked at Lian Chuan's face first: "Hey, Lian Chuan?"
"It's this." Lian Chuan still looked up.
"Are you okay?" Ning Gu controlled his strong curiosity and insisted on asking again.
Lian Chuan retracted his gaze and glanced at him: "It's okay, this is it, the grave that Jiu Yi mentioned."
"Let me take a look." Ning Gu didn't wait for him to finish his words and quickly raised his head to look upwards.
There is actually a small opening on the top of the cave, about one meter square, but because the cave is not high, you can clearly see a large part of the outside from here.
Although it was all black, there was not even a hint of red light coming through the cracks.
But there was a soft light in the air.
"That's a..." Ning Gu opened his mouth in surprise, searching for a long time before finding an unfamiliar word, "Coffin?"
"Yes." Lian Chuan also raised his head again.
It was a large transparent coffin, suspended in the air, emitting a faint, soft white light, not too bright, nor dazzling.
But inside the coffin, there was no "person that Jiuyi didn't want to see".
No one, no nothing.
But there is something else.
Blue, not the blue used by the cleanup team's weapons.
It is very faint, so faint that a gentle breeze or a brighter light would make the blue disappear.
Ning Gu had never seen such a blue color before. It was a blue that was so distant, so empty, so clear that even breathing could be seen. There was also white, clusters of mist, lightly adorning this soft blue and floating slowly.
The two of them didn't know how long they looked at each other. Lian Chuan closed his eyes and lowered his head.
His neck was sore, so he pinched the back of his neck.
When he turned to look at Ning Gu, his mouth was half open and his head was tilted back.
"Ning Gu." Lian Chuan called him.
Ning Gu didn't move.
When Lian Chuan reached out to help him, a tear slipped from Ning Gu's eye.
"Ning Gu!" Lian Chuan suddenly felt uneasy and held the back of his head and pushed him forward hard.
Ning Gu staggered forward two steps before stopping.
When she turned her head, there was still a hint of confusion on her face, and traces of tears were still at the corners of her eyes.
"Are you okay?" Lian Chuan looked at him.
Ning Gu was stunned for a moment, then leaned against the cave wall. After a while, he shook his head and said, "It's okay."
"You cried." Lian Chuan said.
"Really?" Ning Gu quickly raised his hand and touched his eyes.
Lian Chuan looked at him and felt that he should be fine.
"I think so..." Ning Gu wiped his face and turned to look at him, "You look really good, don't you?"
"Yeah." Lian Chuan responded.
"What is that?" Ning Gu asked.
"I don't know." Lian Chuan said.
"Is that what's outside the black fog?" Ning Gu asked, "I've never seen anything like it, nor have I ever heard of it."
Lian Chuan turned around and slowly walked out of the cave: "Let's go."
Ning Gu didn't say anything along the way.
He followed Lian Chuan silently. Lian Chuan looked back several times, but he just lowered his head and kept walking forward.
When Lian Chuandi looked back for the third time, Ning Gu raised his head and asked, "Are you afraid that I'm dead or that I'm lost?"
"I'm afraid you'll cry again." Lian Chuan said.
"You haven't cried yourself, so why don't you let others cry?" Ning Gu said, "I was just touched for a moment, but I can't keep crying. Even children don't cry for that long."
"Yeah." Lian Chuan turned around and continued walking.
He didn't know if there were many children in the ghost town, but it was not easy to see children in the main city. The last time he saw a child was when he went to the central school to deal with a bug.
But I only glanced from a distance and saw a dozen or so children.
He really didn't know whether the child would cry for so long.
"One day," Ning Gu said behind him, "I'm going to go and see."
"Where are you going?" Lian Chuan asked.
"Outside the black fog," Ning Gu said, "there is no fog, no wind, but light and many colors. There must be such a place, just outside the black fog."
"Yeah." Lian Chuan responded.
"Do you want to go?" Ning Gu asked.
Lian Chuan didn't say anything.
When they stopped at the last cave hall, Ning Gu, who had been silent and no one knew what he was thinking, sat down on the ground and then lay down again.
He even shouted in a long voice: "Ah—"
"What's wrong?" Lian Chuan was a little nervous when he called him.
"I'm so tired," Ning Gu spread his arms, "I'm tired and hungry."
"We're almost there." Lian Chuan said.
"Really?" Ning Gu looked at him, "Didn't you say you would be gone for a long time?"
"It's been a long time." Lian Chuan said.
"Ah," Ning Gu sighed, "No wonder I'm so tired."
Lian Chuan rummaged through his coat pocket, took out a small box, and threw it on Ning Gu's stomach.
Ning Gu picked up the box and took a look at it, then sat up in shock: "Ration?"
"Yeah." Lian Chuan nodded.
"How many boxes did you steal?" Ning Gu asked in shock. He opened the box in shock, picked up a piece and stuffed it into his mouth in shock. "Are there any more?"
"I took it." Lian Chuan said.
"Okay, okay, take it," Ning Gu nodded, "How many boxes did you take?"
"Two boxes." Lian Chuan said.
"Here," Ning Gu sat next to him and handed him the box, "Eat one piece, no, eat two pieces, you haven't eaten anything."
"I have food to eat when I return to the main city," Lian Chuan said, "but you don't."
Ning Gu looked at him and said, "What's there to brag about? Is it that great?"
"Go ask Jiuyi if you have a chance," Lianchuan said.
"...What?" Ning Gu was stunned.
"Does he have a younger brother?" Lian Chuan said.
Ning Gu ate all three rations and did not let Lian Chuan eat any more. Lian Chuan gave him the feeling of being a robot, especially in terms of his body functions. No wonder he was the precursor of the unconventional plan.
Although the three rations were just a token amount for Ning Gu, he still felt much more restored after eating them. The energy was definitely stronger than those homemade foods in Guicheng, and the taste was much better too.
Thinking of the ghost town, he couldn't help but frowning again.
If the team leader comes back and can’t find him, he will definitely be furious. Will Dingzi be in trouble
Will he be hung on the bell tower again
No, that shouldn't happen. If he returns to the ghost town with doubts about the leader...
"Here, take this," Lian Chuan handed over a card, "My ID card."
"What?" Ning Gu looked at him.
"After we get to the exit, I'll go out first," Lian Chuan said, "No matter what happens, you don't come out. Calculate the time and wait a day before coming out."
"Why?" Ning Gu was stunned, "Aren't we going out together?"
"For safety reasons," Lian Chuan continued, "go find the station exit by yourself. Remember not to show up before the train arrives. The main city won't trust me so easily anymore."
"What should I believe in you?" Ning Gu said.
"He said you were taken away by the poet." Lian Chuan said.
"But..." Ning Gu frowned. No matter how he thought about it, he felt that Lian Chuan was taking too much risk. He pointed at Lian Chuan's head and asked, "Will they..."
"I have a solution." Lian Chuan said.
"What should I do..." Ning Gu was interrupted by Lian Chuan before he could finish his words.
"I don't know when the car will come," he said, "If it takes too long, the boss will come to find you and take you into the main city. You take my ID card..."
"Will we be discovered?" Ning Gu worried.
"I will try to modify the identification information. As long as I don't report it lost, no one will check it," Lian Chuan said. "I don't usually use the ID card. If I can't modify it, the boss will tell you other ways."
“…Oh.” Ning Gu held Lian Chuan’s ID card, hesitated for a long time, and carefully put it in the small bag inside his shoe.
Lian Chuan didn't say anything else. He leaned back against the wall of the cave and closed his eyes.
Ning Gu was stunned for a long time.
"Why are you like this?" He couldn't help but ask again, "If you want me to help you, just run away with me, and then we can slowly try to see what's going on with your memory. Of course, if you lie to me about the captain, you're done..."
"Not enough." Lian Chuan closed his eyes.
"What's not enough?" Ning Gu asked.
"Do you have a lot of questions?" Lian Chuan said.
"Well," Ning Gu thought for a moment, "there are a lot, but I never asked before, and even if I asked, there would be no answer."
"My whole life," Lian Chuan whispered, "is all about why."