35
"Is it a coincidence?" The technician looked up at Chun San after a long time.
Chun San stood in front of the screen wall, looking at the surveillance images of various districts in the main city.
It was already late at night and the safe zone was under curfew. Except for the Jiuxiang area, most residents in Zones C and D had fallen asleep.
The flash that happened five seconds ago might not have been noticed by many people.
"You're thinking too much," Chun San said, "The Lianchuan stripping started an hour ago and ended ten minutes ago."
"Would you like to report?" the technician asked.
"I'll report." Chun San said.
The expulsion of Lianchuan seemed reasonable and expected to the residents of the main city. Over the years, the main city had been irreversibly swallowed up bit by bit by the Black Iron Wasteland. Ordinary people's panic could not be expressed freely under the main city's strict management rules. Their hatred for the hyenas and their anger at "the destruction of their peaceful lives" were both strong.
After the expulsion was announced in response to public opinion, there must be other arrangements for Lianchuan's treatment.
But the "other arrangements" that Chun San thought should have gone very smoothly did not go smoothly. The meeting lasted for a long time and the opinions of the various parties were definitely not consistent.
The final decision is still expulsion, but the meaning behind this expulsion may be different for each party.
With the disagreement almost exposed, Chun San's report would be a risk no matter which side he reported to.
The technical reason for the main city's flash has never been found, and it can only be attributed to the main city's law. However, it should have nothing to do with Lianchuan. Lianchuan has experienced all kinds of limits, and has never had a "coincidence" with the flash.
Chun San has never been able to find a pattern in the flashes, and many people think that there is no need to find a pattern. The flash is a phenomenon that accompanies the beginning of the collapse process, like the sparks that burst out before a machine is scrapped.
But when reporting, she didn't want any party to mix their own interests with the fundamentally unsolvable main city law, especially taking advantage of Lianchuan which was already in a state of separation.
If we must talk about a pattern, the recent flashes can be linked to Ning Gu, when the train arrived, Ning Gu and the traveler entered the main city, and Ning Gu confronted Lian Chuan. However, it is not clear whether this time can be linked to Ning Gu's "coincidence".
She needs to report to the administrator individually.
Chun San walked into the confidential contact room, checked the equipment, and entered her password. She was the only technician with the authority to report to the administrator, but that was limited to reporting. After reporting, she would only receive a message delivery confirmation from the administrator and there would be no other feedback or communication.
But today is a little different.
After Chun San encrypted and reported the message, the system did not respond at all. The screen only showed a prompt that she had sent the message, but she did not receive any confirmation.
After waiting for two minutes, she turned off the screen.
Although no one has ever seen the administrators, they seem to be symbiotic with the system and will be online at any time when contacted.
This has never happened before.
It made her a little confused.
I am not afraid, nor panicked, nor desperate. The only feeling is confusion.
For a moment, Ning Gu thought he was back in a ghost town. It was dark all around. The occasional wind blew through his clothes. He was very cold. He had the illusion that when he was a child, he had beaten someone up and was stripped naked by the team leader and tied up at the door of the shelter for display.
He turned around and found a bright spot in the darkness.
It was square, and looked like a cross-section of a corridor or passage, with no doors or anything else visible.
Is this Lianchuan’s memory
Ning Gu stood there without moving. He had never encountered such a situation before and wanted to think about it carefully.
His first reaction was the "key", but before he could remember the order of the sizes of the holes, he felt that everything around him suddenly became dark and everything disappeared.
So it doesn't necessarily have to be that size, it could be Lianchuan
Lian Chuan began to peel off? He took the initiative to pull him in
If this could be done, why not in the Valley of the Lost
After standing for a while, he made sure that there was nothing unusual and put the cause of the trigger aside for the time being. If this was a memory related to Lian Chuan, he needed to find out what it was as soon as possible.
You're lucky enough not to be crushed to pieces and in great pain as you come up.
Ning Gu slowly walked towards the lit square.
Only when he got closer could he see clearly that it was indeed a corridor. There was no light source and it was made of matte silver metal. Ning Gu had never seen such a beautiful and flat building before. He reached out his hand curiously and gently touched the wall of the entrance.
Very disappointed.
I don’t know if it’s because Lian Chuan has never touched it in his memory so there is no sense of touch. Ning Gu only has the feeling of touching something, and there is no sense of touch under the dull wood.
After walking into the corridor, Ning Gu looked back again and found that the entrance had disappeared.
There is also a long corridor behind me.
He was now standing in the middle of a corridor that led to nowhere.
He quickly turned around and stretched out his hand to support the right wall. The corridor was the same at both ends. If he accidentally turned around, he was really afraid that he would not remember which side was which.
Since he was facing forward when he came in, he should have walked this way first.
Without looking back, Ning Gu felt the wall and slowly walked forward.
After walking a few steps, he heard footsteps from behind. Ning Gu turned around and saw several people in uniforms. They all had goggles on their faces, so he couldn't see their faces clearly.
But Ning Gu could recognize the person walking among the people at a glance.
It’s Lianchuan.
Lian Chuan was not wearing a uniform, only a set of light blue pajamas, and looked like he was being escorted somewhere.
"Lian Chuan!" Ning Gu called Lian Chuan in a low voice, "Hey."
Lian Chuan walked past him with an indifferent expression without any reaction.
"Lian Gou," Ning Gu could only hurry up and catch up, "It's me, Ning Gu."
Lian Chuan still didn't respond.
Ning Gu figured that there was no way to communicate by shouting like that, so he could only follow and looked carefully at Lian Chuan and the people around him.
The uniforms worn by the people escorting Lian Chuan were something Ning Gu had never seen before. Travelers were very familiar with the uniforms of the security and city guard cleaning teams in the main city. Many travelers who had never been to the main city knew them. After all, if they were spotted at first glance, they should run for their lives, so everyone had to remember them clearly.
He stared at the uniform and didn't see any markings, so he returned his gaze to Lian Chuan.
Lian Chuan looked similar to the one he had seen before, with shorter hair and a paler face. This memory should be from the past few years, not his teenage years.
Ning Gu breathed a sigh of relief. Lian Chuan seemed to have suffered a lot during his childhood and adolescence. Later, he probably went to work in a cleanup team and had no time to be abused.
The corridor was very long and Ning Gu kept walking forward. He passed by several locked doors and couldn't tell where they were, but there were numbers on the doors and he wrote them down.
It is hard to say how long you can remember these four numbers and whether you can remember them accurately.
When the corridor was almost at the end, Lian Chuan, who had been looking straight ahead, suddenly turned his head to the right.
Ning Gu was on his right, and he quickly raised his hand and waved, wondering if he could communicate, but he immediately discovered that Lian Chuan's gaze did not meet his, but fell on the wall behind him.
He turned around and found that on the wall, which was originally empty, there were four paintings hanging in a row!
Ning Gu stopped suddenly and looked at the wall in front of him in shock.
Although he had never seen the actual painting, he had imagined it.
This is a painting! A very realistic painting.
But what shocked him was not only that he saw the painting in Lianchuan's memory.
But this painting... is of a person.
Half body.
Almost life-size.
The clothes are different, the hairstyles are different, and even the expressions are different, but in the four paintings, you can still tell that they are all the same person.
Himself.
Ning Gu stood there unable to move.
In one of Lianchuan's memories, he saw four paintings of himself.
It took him a few seconds to come back to his senses. He forced himself to get rid of his shock and stared at the paintings carefully. There must be something strange about these paintings.
The paintings are all the same size and are hung on the wall in silver frames.
There are no markings, words or numbers on the frame.
He leaned forward again and looked at it.
The background of the painting is all black, and there are no markings other than the portrait.
But Ning Gu stared until tears were about to come out, and finally discovered that in the black background of each painting, to the left of the person, there was a black door with dark gray markings on it.
If you don't look closely, you won't notice it at all.
They are all circles with different lines inside, from left to right, a wavy line, three wavy lines, a four-pointed star and a vertical straight line.
"These are..." Ning Gu turned around and wanted to talk to Lian Chuan, but found that Lian Chuan and the men in uniform were gone.
He hurried forward and saw a sliding door at the end of the corridor, which was closed. He didn't know whether Lian Chuan had entered through this door.
I grabbed the door and pulled on it a few times, but it didn't work.
He put his ear to the door again, but still heard no sound.
"Ah..." Ning Gu was a little depressed. He supported the door with his hands and lowered his head to kick the door twice.
What does this mean
"Get in position." A man's voice came from my ear.
"The scan passed and the indicators are normal." A woman's voice.
Ning Gu raised his head suddenly.
The door in front of me disappeared, and the corridor disappeared too.
He returned to the dark and cold wind.
I didn't know where the sound came from, and there was no light around.
"Betelgeuse is ready to align," the man's voice said.
Betelgeuse.
When Ning Gu heard this name, fear and uneasiness instantly hit him wrapped in the cold wind.
Fan Lu took a sip of wine and handed the bottle to the caracal: "Would you like a taste?"
The caracal turned its head away.
"Why are you being so serious? Wine is such a wonderful thing. Everything good in the world..." Fan Lu shook the bottle, "It's all in here."
The caracal stood up and knocked the wine bottle away with one claw. The bottle hit the ground and broke into pieces, and the wine spilled all over the floor.
"Hey," Fan Lu sighed, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "I know I shouldn't drink at a time like this, and I promised you that I would stay sober while this guy is here, but it's too difficult, isn't it?"
The caracal lay back on the sofa and looked at Ning Gu lying on the bed.
Ning Gu has not eaten or drunk, has not woken up or moved for two days.
He was still alive, but his butt was probably flattened. Neither it nor Fan Lu were considerate people, and no one went to turn Ning Gu over for two days.
Now that it remembered it, it stood up again and turned over.
"Don't come to me for this kind of thing in the future," Fan Lu leaned back in his chair, "I don't care whether it's good or bad, alive or dead. I just want to drink some wine, drink when I wake up, and sleep after drinking. I don't want to care whether the world exists or not..."
The caracal didn't listen to him, walked to the bed, stood up on its hind legs, put its paw on Ning Gu's arm and pushed it in.
Ning Gu, who seemed a little thin, couldn't even push it.
Like solid black iron.
It snorted a little and pushed again.
"Let me go!" Ning Gu suddenly yelled.
Before the caracal and Fan Lu could react, he arched his body upwards, bounced up suddenly, and jumped directly from the bed to the ground.
The caracal was startled by his movement and the hair from the back of its neck to its tail stood up. It jumped on the spot and leaped onto the bed.
Fan Lu was originally looking up, and when Ning Gu jumped up and landed beside him, he suddenly retracted his neck with a "click" sound.
"Ah!" He covered his neck and coughed for a long time, "Why did you wake up? What did you dream about?"
Ning Gu stood in the middle of the room with a look of horror on his face. After a long while, the color slowly returned to his face and his expression relaxed.
"How long have I slept?" He looked at Fan Lu.
"Two days," Fan Lu also looked at him, "no food, no drink, no movement."
Ning Gu then began to feel sore all over his body. He gritted his teeth and moved his arms and legs.
"What happened to you?" Fan Lu said, "You suddenly fainted, and you were unconscious for two days, and then you suddenly woke up."
Ning Gu didn't say anything.
After a long silence, he finally spoke: "I only told Lian Chuan."
"Then you wait," Fan Lu waved his hand, "you can meet him in Ghost Town and talk slowly."
"I'm hungry." Ning Gu said.
"I'm out of food here," Fan Lu stood up, "Drink some water and take a break. I'll take you out to eat."
"I'm not going out." Ning Gu said.
"Huh?" Fan Lu was stunned.
"I won't leave here until the car comes," Ning Gu said, "I want to ensure my own safety."
"You mean I should go out and buy you some food?" Fan Lu said, "The boss doesn't even have that much face in front of me."
"It's okay," Ning Gu sat back on the bed, "I won't eat for now."
The caracal jumped off the bed, walked to the door, pushed it open and went out.
After a while, he brought back two boxes of rations and put them on the table.
"Thank you, boss." Ning Gu sat down at the table, opened the rations, and stuffed the entire box into his mouth in two bites.
"Are you okay? Are you feeling unwell?" Fan Lu looked at him, "Why do I feel like something is wrong with you?"
"It's okay." Ning Gu opened another box of rations.
"Do you feel any discomfort in your head?" Fan Lu asked again, "When you fainted, the boss cushioned you, but your head hit the ground."
Ning Gu touched his forehead and unexpectedly felt a big bump.
Finished!
He jumped up. There was such a big bump on the forehead of the handsome ghost town facade!
Fan Lu understood him very well and immediately handed him a small mirror.
Ning Gu grabbed it and held the photo in front of himself.
The disguise on his face had been removed, and he saw his own face and a red and swollen bump on his head.
But he didn't take a third look and slammed the mirror down on the table.
"One team is in place," Long Biao said as he straddled A01, "The shipping boxes have been loaded."
"Group two, in place."
"Three groups in place."
…
The ten teams of the cleanup team are already in place.
Only six groups did not report.
Group 6 from Lianchuan.
The acting team leader was Li Liang, but he remained silent.
"Everyone on standby," Lei Yu's voice came from the intercom, "Mission: escort the 07353 transport box to the target location. Send the specific coordinates after the mission begins."
"Got it." Long Biao replied.
Behind him was a transport vehicle. The vehicle was very low-key and looked no different from the vehicles used to transport supplies in the main city system. It was the kind that no one would notice.
But what was placed in the carriage was Lianchuan, in a stripped state and sealed in a special transport box made by the Training Department.
The cars coming from the ghost town have arrived outside the main city. A large number of travelers are pouring into the main city from various "exits" under the guidance of bats.
All the core members of the Travelers are dispatched.
They did not hide their tracks, nor did they retreat into the Valley of the Lost in large numbers.
Instead, it roared recklessly, rushed to the streets of Area D, and then began to attack the passage leading to Area C.
Wherever it passed, smoke and dust rose up and the scene was in chaos.
In the past, if such a situation occurred, the cleanup team would be the strongest force to stop the travelers.
But today, all members of the cleanup team were stationed along the roads leading to the trains out of the city.
The sealed box containing Lianchuan will be sent on board when the train heads towards the ghost town.