The wind was stronger than yesterday and the temperature was much lower. The debris carried by the wind began to carry tiny ice particles.
Ning Gu squatted beside a broken wall and pulled his hat up to his nose.
This is a ski hat that Uncle Feng gave him a while ago. It’s old and can’t withstand the wind very well. He usually wears a big woolen hat on the outside, but he didn’t wear it today because he was in a hurry to go out.
Not far from him there was a small fire surrounded by a low stone wall. Due to the special fuel, it was shaking wildly in the strong wind but never went out. It could be used for warmth, but Ning Gu did not go over.
Warm places tend to attract all kinds of strange life forms, which may be dangerous or not. He is generally unwilling to take such risks.
Someone walked over from behind the wall. The footsteps were so light that there were only a few short and crisp sounds that were cut by the strong wind in the ears.
"Did you bring it?" Ning Gu asked.
The footsteps stopped, and after a while the King of Earth climbed over the wall.
"Did you bring it?" The King of the Earth sat down next to him and glanced at him. "What are you wearing?"
"Protect my handsome face," Ning Gu turned his head, "Did you bring it?"
"Is your goggles broken?" The king knocked on the goggles covered by his hat. "I have new ones. Do you want them?"
Ning Gu lifted his hat impatiently and said, "I'll give you a chance to tell me whether you brought it or not. If you don't, I'll give you two seconds to escape. If you're too late, you'll die."
"I brought it." said the King of Land.
"Give it here." Ning Gu stretched out his hand.
The King of the Land looked at his hand and said, "Ning Gu, it's not that I don't trust you, but the rules cannot be broken. An exchange is an exchange, one hand for another."
Ning Gu also glanced at him.
Ning Gu's goggles were indeed leaking air, and his eyes were still squinted through the goggles. It was very difficult for him to look at the land king, and his tears were blown out. He said with tears in his eyes, "Get away."
The king looked at him.
"Then take it out and let me have a look at it first," he said, "I just don't trust you."
The reason why the Land King is called the Land King is not because he owns a lot of land, but because he is familiar with ghost towns.
The name "ghost town" was given by the general public in the main city.
This space is independent of the main city, has no borders with it, and even the locations of both are uncertain. It will only be suddenly connected to the main city at certain specific times that no one knows.
The main city once wanted to call this place a satellite city, but they obviously couldn't agree to it because it was not certain who was the satellite of whom. Moreover, for the people in the main city, this space with unknown origins, boundless darkness and constant winds was more like a ghost town.
Fortunately, people in the main city did not follow this line of thought and call the people living here ghosts.
Instead, they continued to call themselves travelers.
The King of the Land is a veteran of the Travelers. He was one of the earliest people who escaped from the main city and came here because of a mutation of abilities that were not authorized by the system.
No one is more familiar with this place than him. If anyone wants to find something strange or get some scarce supplies, he can usually find the solution.
But the land king is an old swindler.
Very cunning.
Many people have suffered losses from being the king of land, but Ning Gu is unwilling to suffer this loss.
Although Ning Gu is a rare species among travelers who has not yet shown any mutation in ability, he doesn't even have the ability to spark.
But in Ning Gu's eyes, the land king is as rare as he is.
For many people who have meaningless abilities like pink snot bubbles, Ning Gu, who has been punching pink snot bubbles and kicking human lighters since childhood, can be considered a bully.
So the King of Land did not hesitate and took a few steps back.
Ning Gu stared at his hands.
The king reached into his coat pocket, quickly pulled out a folded piece of paper, quickly waved it towards him, and quickly put it back into his pocket.
"Did you bring it?" asked the King of Land.
Ning Gu knew immediately that the paper was fake without even any hesitation.
What he wanted was a painting, a real painting, with colors, and you could tell what the painting was about, not the kind where a crazy uncle just scratched a few lines on the wall with a stick and said it was a caracal.
The folded paper in the King's hand was blank when held against the light, without even a single line on it.
Moreover, given the understanding of a ruthless businessman like Di Wang and a bully like him, it is impossible for such a difficult thing to be put in an inner pocket with only one layer of separation.
You have to take it out from your underwear.
Because the bully might grab it.
"One hand..." Before the King of Earth finished speaking, Ning Gu jumped up.
This is going to be snatched.
The King of Earth reacted quickly, turned around and rushed into the darkness.
But Ning Gu was faster than him. When he swung his arm on the back of his head, he fell to the ground before he could even take the third step.
Ning Gu rushed over and rammed his knee into his lower back, so that he could not move. He could only turn his head and yell, "What are you doing? Beating up an old man! And stealing things? Be careful or I'll tell the leader! How could such a respected person raise a robber like you!"
A group of travelers gather together to form a tour group, and the leader is the tour group leader. The tour group leader is Ning Gu's uncle, who is considered to be the person who raised Ning Gu.
Ning Gu was quite afraid of the team leader, but he was only afraid when he met him. He is not afraid now.
He pulled off the king's coat and pulled out the folded paper from his inner pocket.
Although he knew it was fake, he still felt inexplicably excited when he opened it. Perhaps he wanted a real painting too much.
So when he saw that it was really just a blank piece of paper, the disappointment in his heart could not even be blown away by the wind.
"How dare you use this thing to trick me?" Ning Gu pressed his knees against the king's waist and pinched his neck. "Is your bone tight?"
"Don't complain. Do you have what I want?" the land king shouted with difficulty.
Ning Gu stared at him for a while, then his hand touched his boots.
"What! Are you going to use the knife again?" shouted the King of Land.
"Are you worthy enough to hold my knife?" Ning Gu slowly pulled out a feather from the small secret pocket on the inside of the boot. The gray and white gradient color was very beautiful.
"Hmm?" The King of Earth glanced desperately in the direction of his hand.
"I have." Ning Gu pinched the feather and waved it in front of him.
The King of Land fell silent, but his eyes suddenly widened.
"Do you have new goggles?" Ning Gu carefully put the feather back into the secret pocket and pressed the leather bag hanging on Di Wang's waist.
"Feathers for goggles?" asked the King of Land.
Ning Gu became furious and grabbed his hair and slammed his head to the ground.
The King of the Land immediately rolled his eyes and fainted.
Ning Gu opened the leather bag, rummaged through it a few times, and found a goggles, which was indeed new.
He pulled the old goggles off his face, hung them around his waist, and put on the new ones.
The old one can be repaired and nailed. The wind is strong recently and the holes of the nails are almost blown away.
However, Ning Gu went back to the shelter and took a look around but didn't see any nails. When he got home, he saw the captain standing in his room.
"Uncle," he greeted, tidying up the things piled on his bed, "Sit down."
When he was a child, he lived with the leader. When he grew up, the leader found this small house for him, and he usually lived there alone. There was nothing in the house, except for a small iron cabinet and a small table. Even the bed was made of various old cushions. All the single houses in the shelter were almost like this. Only young couples would tidy up their houses better.
However, Ning Gu's cabin was much messier than other single cabins. It was filled with all kinds of useful and useless things he had exchanged... basically useless things in the eyes of the team leader.
"You can't sit down," the captain said, "Didn't someone bring you a chair last time? Where is it?"
Ning Gu coughed, said nothing, and sat down beside the bed.
"You went to exchange things?" The captain bent down and looked at him, "That can also be exchanged?"
"You can change anything you want." Ning Gu said.
"Oh," the captain still looked at him, "I thought you only robbed things?"
Ning Gu frowned. The old scoundrel Di Wang actually took the initiative to complain to the team leader.
"You should behave yourself these days," the team leader also frowned and didn't talk to him about the robbery. "I will probably bring people on the bus tomorrow, so don't cause any more trouble..."
"Tomorrow?" Ning Gu raised his head.
"Yes." The leader responded, "You stay at home..."
"I want to go." Ning Gu said.
The team leader looked at him with some surprise.
Ning Gu had wanted to go to the main city since he was little. He was probably the most persistent of all the children in the shelter. He even secretly got on the bus twice, but because he stayed where he was and didn't run around, the team leader pretended not to know.
Ning Gu knew that the team leader didn't want him to go to the main city, so he would rather follow the car secretly and never mentioned it.
This was the first time he directly said "I want to go".
The team leader didn't know how to answer for a moment.
"Let me go," Ning Gu said, "Dingzi's brother has been there before. Isn't he about my age?"
"It's not a matter of age," the leader said, "you can't go. The main city looks glamorous, but it's actually much more dangerous than here."
"Because I'm just an ordinary person?" Ning Gu stood up. "Aren't there ordinary people in the main city? Those who can be killed by mutations have been killed, and those who can't be killed have been rushed here..."
"Shut up." The captain frowned.
"I'm not afraid of death," Ning Gu said, "I'm just afraid of dying without having seen anything or knowing anything."
"You," the captain pointed to the things he had exchanged for in the room, "you have seen more than I have."
"You know that's not what I meant." Ning Gu was a little unhappy. He never spoke so aggressively to the team leader normally.
"No matter what you mean, you can't go." The captain said and turned and walked out of the room.
Ning Gu wanted to follow out and say something more, but the door closed in front of his nose.
Bang.
He grabbed the handle and tried, but couldn't open it.
It was the team leader who did it.
The door can only be opened after he walks a certain distance away.
In fact, it has no effect, but what this move now expresses is that he doesn't want to talk to Ning Gu anymore. Maybe he knows what Ning Gu will say if they continue talking.
"You can't stop him like this," Li Xiang walked over from behind a lantern nearby and glanced at Ning Gu's hut. "He's not someone who can be convinced by a few words. It's rare that he told you he wants to go after so many years."
"We can't go this time." The captain said in a calm voice.
"Want to bring goods?" Li Xiang asked.
The team leader said nothing. He walked a few steps and then stopped, looking at the red lanterns lined up in two rows in front of him, extending into the distance, like a bridge over the void in the darkness.
The lanterns are all made of glass, and the red flames jump in the strong wind, but they can last for a long time without going out.
The shelter uses these lanterns to mark the paths leading to various places in the dark. There are special people who light them, and Ning Gu jokingly calls them human lighters.
"Do you feel it?" Li Xiang stood for a while and asked.
The ground is shaking, which is not uncommon and happens every once in a while.
However, no one knows what this vibration means.
There was once someone who speculated that this vibration might affect the abilities of some people, but it was just a guess.
This man possessed the ability that those hiding in the deepest buildings in the main city feared the most, but he disappeared after a tremor and never appeared again.
Ability and possessing ability are unpredictable things. No one knows whether it will exist, what it will be, and how strong it will be. But it is very precious and is a part of them, like the body, the hands, and the feet.
The disappearance of any ability is a tear that the team leader cannot accept.
"Confirm with them again." The team leader continued to move forward.
"It has been confirmed," Li Xiang said, "There is only one."
"It's not about confirming this." The captain looked around and followed the lantern into the path. He walked out of the shelter before stopping again and turning to look at Li Xiang. "We must have a self-destruct device. We can't make any more mistakes."
"I understand." Li Xiang nodded.
"It's not easy to defend this place," the team leader pulled his collar, "Any possible interference must be eliminated. Tell them that if they can't guarantee it, we will no longer cooperate with them in the future."
Li Xiang glanced at him and nodded slightly: "I'm still looking for it, but I haven't found it yet... Maybe the self-destruct device is just delayed?"
"Don't have such illusions," the head of the group said, "be prepared for the worst in everything."
"The worst," Li Xiang frowned and said in a low voice, "Did you do it on purpose?"
"We have no allies." The captain glanced at him, turned and walked into the darkness.
Ning Gu was holding a cold light bottle and walking on the uneven, cold and hard ground. He was going to the garbage dump, and he was going to cross the garbage dump and go to the other end.
When he was a child, he asked the leader how big the ghost town was.
The captain did not answer him.
To others, the ghost town has no boundaries.
In other words, it’s not that there is no boundary, but that no one can come back from the other side of the boundary.
Since the day the ghost town appeared, it has been ravaged by strong winds and thick black fog. The black fog is the edge, and there is still black fog outside the black fog. The thickest and darkest part is the "edge" that travelers will never cross.
The nearest "edge" is just on the other side of the garbage dump. Ning Gu and Dingzi went there together when they were children. They sat at the highest place and watched the black fog that kept rolling towards them with the wind.
Like a tongue, Nail said.
Later, Ning Gu found out that the place was indeed called Shewan.
Generally speaking, Ning Gu would not come here alone, and travelers rarely go deep into the garbage dump alone. Travelers who live normally in the shelter would not even go to the garbage dump, let alone go to Tongue Bay, which is far away at the other side of the garbage dump.
Everyone knows that the natives of ghost towns are not travelers, and the real natives are lurking in the darkness.
Crazy Uncle once said: "You know, they have no shape, no vision or hearing, but they can sense everything that is hotter than the cold wind..."
Then devour.
Ning Gu often went to Tongue Bay and stayed there for a long time each time. He wanted to know what was inside Tongue Bay more than the danger of encountering indigenous people.
Uncle Crazy held the cup in his hand and squatted on the spire made of scrap metal parts, watching Ning Valley gradually disappear into the darkness.
And there was that shadow that flashed by at a distance where he would never be noticed.
Uncle Feng took a sip of the already cold water and said, "Let's see who has the tougher life."