Compared with Yuncheng, Donglin Town is more like a village.
There were watchtowers on treetops, low houses, torches stuck on tree trunks, and gravel roads.
Although Yuncheng did not have the kind of tall buildings that Qiu Shi had seen in the ancient pictures, it looked much more majestic because it was built against the mountains and countless mines and caves.
Moreover, Yuncheng has much more sufficient electricity and daily necessities.
In contrast, Donglin Town looks like a huge gathering place for homeless people.
But at the same time, they also have weapons that are inconsistent with their backward appearance.
Just those few vehicles and the counterattack equipment in case of ambushes are at least on par with the City Defense Department, and most of the City Defense Department's vehicles do not have shielding devices.
It was already night, but many residents of Donglin Town were still awake. As we followed Mayor Luo inside, we saw townspeople walking on both sides from time to time, both men and women, old and young. Just like in Yuncheng, there were basically no children and very few teenagers.
Some people would even greet Mayor Luo: "Mayor Luo is back."
"I'm back," Mayor Luo said, "It's going to rain tonight, so remember to collect the clothes that are hanging out to dry."
Qiu Shi was a little shocked.
In fact, let alone walking among the houses like Mayor Luo, Mr. Long has never left the hill where the company is located, let alone strolling around the city and talking to the residents like this, let alone the outer city. It doesn't even need to be Mr. Long. When Li Feng appeared in the outer city, he never got out of the car. He always drove past at a whizzing speed. If he drove slowly, he might be pelted with stones.
Qiu Shi glanced at Xing Bi and whispered, "Is it so joyful here?"
"They kidnapped Hu Xiaoling happily." Xing Bi also said in a low voice.
"Is there anything wrong?" Qiu Shi continued to speak in a low voice. Not knowing if anyone would overhear him, he moved very close to Xing Bi.
Xing Bi scratched his neck.
"Get lost." Qiu Shi cursed.
"There are biological bodies here." Xing Bi also leaned close to his ear and said.
His breath swept across his neck, and it was indeed a little itchy, so Qiu Shi scratched his neck.
However, Xing Bi's words still made him feel heavy in the heart.
Although the person following Deng Yeye when she appeared outside the city was a biochemical being, if something happened to Donglin, it should be related to the biochemical being, but when I really heard Xing Bi confirm that there was a biochemical being here, the feeling was completely different.
"Symbiote?" Qiu Shi asked with his mouth.
"Both." Xing Bi said.
"His ancestors." What Qiu Shi fears most now is the symbiote.
The existence of the symbiont means Xing Bi's instability.
After walking for a while, Qiu Shi realized that he had underestimated Donglin Town. The place where they got off the bus was considered the outskirts of the town. After walking for a long time inside, they saw a very high wall, which was made up of huge tree trunks placed horizontally and arranged upwards.
It must be a long time ago, and these tree trunks are covered with various ferns. When passing by the wall, Qiu Shi reached out and touched it. He could feel that the wood under the ferns was treated and very strong, and it was estimated that fire could not burn through it.
"This is a relatively important area for us," Mayor Luo introduced. "The production of daily necessities is all here. The area is very large and is not completely fenced off."
Mayor Luo's words sounded a bit careless and completely unguarded, with two key points in one sentence.
"Very frank." Qiu Shi glanced at him.
"We have no ill intentions," Mayor Luo smiled. "We have no other choice but to invite you here in this way. Donglin Town is a friendly and peaceful place."
"Really?" Qiu Shi looked around and saw a dozen peaceful and friendly people following them. "It's really rare these days."
"You'll know after a few days," Mayor Luo said, "I heard that you haven't lived in Cloud City, so you may not feel it..."
"We'll leave tomorrow," said Qiu Shi.
"Tomorrow?" Mayor Luo looked at him in surprise.
Qiu Shi didn't say anything, just looked at him.
"If a guest comes today and leaves tomorrow, there won't be enough time to properly entertain them," Mayor Luo stopped beside a huge old tree. "This is not Donglin's way of entertaining guests."
"You are not a guest," Qiu Shi couldn't stand Mayor Luo's speaking style and said irritably, "You don't have to wait."
"Take a rest first." Mayor Luo stretched out his hand towards the ancient tree.
Qiu Shi looked in the direction of his gesture and found a spiral staircase on the tree trunk, leading to a wooden house at the top.
"What the hell is this?" He was stunned. "Live up here?"
"It's too humid in the jungle," Mayor Luo said, "It's drier up there, and the view is better... Please."
Qiu Shi didn't want to go up, but the people surrounding them began to slowly move closer. Xing Bi took a step forward and stood beside him.
The atmosphere instantly changed from being happy and harmonious to being somewhat tense.
Having not yet met Hu Xiaoling and not figured out what this group of people wanted to do, Qiu Shi temporarily suppressed his anger and planned to listen to their arrangements first.
He turned his head and glanced at Xing Bi. Although the existence of the symbiote was a hidden danger to Xing Bi, for some reason, he always felt that Xing Bi possessed much stronger power than he imagined, so as long as Xing Bi was there, he had support.
"This is your room," Mayor Luo said, "his room is in..."
"What did you say?" Qiu Shi's anger, which had just been suppressed, suddenly flared up and he stared at him.
"The house is small," Mayor Luo smiled kindly, "it can't accommodate two people. The bigger houses are usually full of our townspeople. Please understand."
"I understand your ancestors..." Qiu Shi was halfway through his words when Xing Bi placed his hand on his shoulder and gently grasped it.
He forced himself to swallow the word "Zong".
"It's okay," Xing Bi said in a low voice, "I don't even need to get down from the tree to come here."
Qiu Shi raised his head and glanced at the treetops, and understood what Xing Bi meant.
"That's not what I'm talking about." What Qiu Shi is most concerned about now is not his own safety. If the two of them are separated, he is worried that these people will have some tricks against Xing Bi.
"I know." Xing Bi said.
When Qiu Shi walked up the tree ladder, Xing Bi stood there watching.
Mayor Luo gestured several times for him to follow him to the tree house next door, but he didn't move and didn't look at Mayor Luo.
Qiu Shi reached the top and looked down. It was very high and he would definitely die if he jumped down.
He opened the door of the tree house and looked inside, then turned back and gestured to Xing Bi below to indicate that it was safe. Xing Bi turned around and walked to the side with Mayor Luo.
Qiu Shi didn't return to the house until he could no longer see him, and then he walked around twice in annoyance.
Although he could not see anyone around him, he could feel someone was watching him.
In the treetops nearby, in the houses below, somewhere further away.
Donglin Town is not friendly, even if the people you meet on the street are smiling.
Fortunately, Mayor Luo fulfilled his promise.
About half an hour later, Qiu Shi heard the heavy sound of someone running up the stairs.
He jumped up from the small bed in the room, rushed over to open the door, and when he looked down, he heard Hu Xiaoling's voice: "Brother Shi! Is that you?"
"Yes." Qiu Shi replied.
"It's really you," Hu Xiaoling shouted as he ran up, his voice beginning to cry, "Why did you come here? Why did you come? You said you would take care of yourself first!"
"Stop talking nonsense." Qiu Shi said.
Hu Xiaoling ran up, stared at him first, then rushed over and hugged him: "Brother Shi!"
Qiu Shiye hugged him and patted him on the back a few times: "Are you hurt?"
"No, is everyone okay?" Hu Xiaoling shook his head and looked down.
"All right, let's go in and talk." Qiu Shi pushed Hu Xiaoling into the house and looked down, but there was no one there.
"No one is following me," Hu Xiaoling said, "I can walk around freely in here, but I can't get out..."
"Can't go out?" Qiu Shi closed the door and looked at him.
"Biochemical bodies," Hu Xiaoling whispered, "There are a lot of them here, living in those houses and outside, all over the place."
Qiu Shi didn't say anything.
"I never thought I'd encounter so many biochemical beings in my lifetime," Hu Xiaoling said. "They look the same as us... just better looking."
"Did they give you any trouble?" Qiu Shi pulled Hu Xiaoling over and turned him around to look at him twice.
"No," Hu Xiaoling said, "No one cares about me after I got here. Brother Shi, I'm not their target either."
Qiu Shi looked at him.
"They just wanted you to come here," Hu Xiaoling lowered his voice, "and asked me if I knew your background."
"Do you know?" Qiu Shi said.
"That's right, did I know? How would I know?" Hu Xiaoling said, "When I arrived in Yuncheng, you and Zhao Lu were already there."
"What else do I ask you?" Qiu Shi asked.
"Ask me about the situation in Yuncheng," Hu Xiaoling said, "I said I've been there for more than ten years and have never been to the inner city, and I've rarely been to the outer city. If you ask me about the situation outside the city, I can still tell you a little, but if you ask me about the situation inside, I should arrest Li Feng..."
Qiu Shi smiled.
"I'm fine," Hu Xiaoling said, "You really shouldn't have come. This place is no longer Donglin Town. It's..."
He lowered his voice and said, "It's almost time to kill them all."
Qiu Shi didn't say anything and just sighed softly.
"Are you here alone?" Hu Xiaoling asked.
"No," Qiu Shi glanced in the direction Xing Bi went, "I came here with my partner."
"How is it?" Mayor Luo stood at the window of his office, looking at the tree house in the distance.
Chen Dang, who was standing next to him, was silent for a while, then said in a low voice: "No."
"Is it because of the distance?" asked Mayor Luo.
"No," Chen Dang said, "He was prepared. Someone else must have tried it before."
"Go talk to him," Mayor Luo said, "If we don't deal with him, it will be difficult for us to keep Qiu Shi."
"How can we solve this problem?" Chen Dang said, "He is Xing Bi."
Mayor Luo looked back at the people behind him and asked, "Does anyone have any ideas?"
"Let's give it a try," someone said, "Xing Bi's memory has been locked, so maybe he's not as strong as he used to be."
"How strong is it?" asked Mayor Luo. To him, the last war seemed like a distant legend.
"Because of them, humans stopped creating the third generation of biochemical bodies," Chen Dang said, "and started to equip the submersibles with kite flyers."
"You?" Mayor Luo looked at him.
"Xing Bi and Lin Sheng," Chen Dang said, "They are both in Yuncheng."
Mayor Luo didn't say anything, but looked in the direction of the tree house for a long time: "He was on the side of humans back then, wasn't he? It's good for us."
"I can only say that it is more human-oriented." Chen Dang said.
"Can you just turn him off?" someone asked behind me.
Chen Dang didn't say anything. After a while, he sighed and said, "Find someone to talk to Qiu Shi first. I'll go see Xing Bi."
"So this is the terrain. Those tree trunk walls are not difficult to climb... But I can't climb up." Hu Xiaoling poked the wooden wall with a knife. The wall was covered with dot-shaped knife marks, which looked messy. This was the map for the corpse collectors themselves. Most people couldn't understand it. "Other places are all biochemical bodies. They can detect you before you get close."
Hu Xiaoling's stay here these days was not in vain. He has been around the whole town. These people don't seem to stop Hu Xiaoling from wandering around, as if to prove that they are peaceful and friendly.
"No one cares, right?" Qiu Shi stood up.
"Yeah." Hu Xiaoling nodded.
"Let's go out and take a walk." Qiu Shi walked over and opened the door.
The mayor and an old lady were standing outside the door.
Qiu Shi was stunned. He seldom saw children, and similarly, he seldom saw old people.
The old lady looked older than the missing old man. She had a deep frown on her face and her eyes were cloudy. Qiu Shi was not sure if she could still see.
"Child, do you want to go out?" asked the old lady.
Can be seen.
Qiu Shi paused: "Yeah."
"He is Qiu Shi." said Mayor Luo.
"Oh," the old lady came close to him and stared at his face, "you have grown so big..."
"Yes, it's been more than 20 years." said Mayor Luo.
"They look quite similar." The old lady reached out and touched Qiu Shi's face.
Qiu Shi leaned back and avoided her hand.
"Hey!" Hu Xiaoling raised his arm to block her, "Why are you still touching me?"
"Is there something?" Qiu Shi patted Hu Xiaoling and looked at Mayor Luo.
Hu Xiaoling stepped aside.
"Let's chat?" Mayor Luo said.
"Yeah." Qiu Shi retreated back into the house and sat on a chair.
After the old lady entered the room, her eyes stayed on Qiu Shi's face, making him feel a little uncomfortable.
"Let's finish our business first," he said. "Or you can watch and talk at the same time. Don't just stare at it."
"The temper is similar," the old lady laughed, "all the boys in the Qiu family have this personality."
The Qiu family’s child
"I gave you your name, child," the old lady said. "Time has changed for the better. Qiu Shi, you have a younger brother named Qiu Yu."
The education level in the outer city is indeed not very good as Xing Bi said.
Qiu Shi didn't say anything, just leaned back in his chair and looked at the old lady.
He doesn't know what time is not with me.
After a while, he moved, put his legs on the bed next to him, took out a cigarette and lit it: "Continue to make up."
"I am your great-grandmother." said the old lady.
"That's outrageous." Qiu Shi frowned as he held the cigarette in his mouth and almost choked.
"What is great grandmother?" Hu Xiaoling asked.
"Dad's grandmother." said the old lady.
Hu Xiaoling also frowned. For them, the word "grandfather" was unfamiliar to people who didn't even have parents, and the word "grandma" was unfamiliar to them, as was "dad's grandmother"...
"You might as well say it's my great-grandmother," Hu Xiaoling said, "At least I know who my father is. You insist on saying it's Brother Shi. Isn't that just making it up?"
"You are immune to infection, right?" the old lady looked at Qiu Shi.
Qiu Shi raised his eyebrows and looked at her.
Hu Xiaoling turned away in surprise.
Qiu Shi took a puff of his cigarette and looked up at the old lady slowly: "You have a lot of spies in Yuncheng, right?"
"You were born in Suishui City," the old lady said. "It was established after the infection began. There are many healthy humans who escaped from the infected area, as well as immune humans living there."
Mayor Luo took out a paper map from his pocket and spread it on the table in front of him.
Qiu Shi only took a quick glance and found that the map was almost exactly the same as the one in the old man's suitcase, except that the old man's map did not have any place names written on it.
The old man drew a circle and wrote the location of the word "Qiu". On this map, the words "Sui Shui" were printed.
"This outfit is too uncomfortable." Brigade Zhao pulled at the Security Bureau uniform on his body.
"The main problem is that it doesn't fit. This set is mine and it's quite comfortable." Xiao Lei was very happy because he could finally wear the uniform again.
"Get to work, move quickly, we don't have much time." Li Feng got out of the car and looked at the large number of refugees in the stranded area of the checkpoint. The number was more than he had imagined.
"How do we do this?" Zhao Lu jumped out of the car.
"Find the ones that are okay, find forty of them," Li Feng threw out his pet and started to follow the video, "If there are any problems, point them out to me in the video later."
"Okay." Zhao Lu nodded.
"Don't let anyone know who you think has a problem." Li Feng instructed.
"I understand. Don't worry." Zhao Lu said. As he followed Li Feng to that side, he asked again, "Has Brother Shi arrived at Donglin?"
"We're here." said Li Feng.
"What happened next?" Zhao Lu asked, "Is it safe? What's the situation there? Did you see Xiaoling?"
"Go pick someone for me," Li Feng stopped and looked at him, "I'll tell you when you're done."
"Fuck." Zhao Lu glared at him and walked over there.
"What about me?" Xiao Lei asked.
"You..." Li Feng turned to look at him, and after a few seconds he said, "Pick one in your mind too, and see if it matches what Zhao Lu picked."
"Is it a test?" Xiao Lei asked.
“…Yes.” Li Feng pulled his coat and did not walk over. He just stood there and looked at Zhao Lu.
"Aren't you going over?" Xiao Lei walked forward a few steps and turned back to ask him.
"It's too dirty." said Li Feng.
Xiao Lei looked at his pajamas and nodded: "Oh."
Brigade Zhao swaggered through the people from the City Defense Bureau and began to pick people.
Li Feng crossed his arms and looked at the people over there. To be honest, he could hardly tell who was who among them. They all had the same dirty faces, the same dusty clothes, and there were only two simple expressions on their faces: numb or pleading.
He didn't know why these people had to come to Yuncheng, a place he knew nothing about and existed only in his imagination, and they wishfully believed that this was their happiest refuge.
There is no room for these people here any longer. Their fate was determined from the moment they decided to go to Yuncheng.
However, in this messed up world, the ending for most people has already been written.
Even someone like Qiu Shi, who refused to enter the city and didn't want to stay in the outer city for long, could not avoid being caught in despair in the end.
"Director Li, do you feel sorry for me?"
No way.
The Security Bureau called. Li Feng put on his headphones and watched as the people who had been picked out by Brigade Zhao started to get on the bus one after another.
"How is it?" he asked.
"The first and second batches of names have been sorted out," the secretary's voice came out, "They are mainly concentrated in the city area, and there are also some in the farm transportation area, but a little smaller. The names and numbers have been sent to you."
"Okay," Li Feng said, "Don't go home today. Something else might happen."
"I'll be in the office all the time," said the secretary.
The underground area refers to the sewage area in the inner city, a place Li Feng had never been to and never thought of going to, but it is the most hidden place and any problems there would be least likely to be discovered.
"Transfer the call directly to the underground area supervisor." Li Feng said.
A few seconds later, a rude male voice sounded: "Underground area!"
"I'm Li Feng from the Security Bureau." Li Feng said.
"Director Li," the man lowered his voice, "I'm the underground area supervisor. Do you want to know about Zhang Sihai's situation?"
“… Zhang Sihai is with you?” Li Feng was stunned.
"I was brought here by the City Defense Department," the man said. "As a child, I have to endure some hardships, but the hardships here are really too great..."
"Get him out," Li Feng said, "I'll go find him later."
"Do you need to tell Director Zhang?" the man asked.
"Whose food are you eating?" Li Feng asked.
"Security," the man said, "I'll get him out right away."
Qiu Shi felt like his brain was about to boil.
Although the old lady was almost as old as Xing Bi, she seemed to be still in good health. She was more energetic than many refugees in their forties or fifties that he knew. She spoke slowly and calmly, with Mayor Luo adding a few words from time to time.
It's nothing more than that, you are not alone, you have a younger brother, your parents were killed by the biochemical body, but your great-grandmother is still alive, you were rescued from the pursuit of the biochemical body, you are all immune humans, you are the humans selected by this world to adapt to the new world...
Hu Xiaoling was no longer able to speak, and he sat next to her with his mouth open the entire time.
Qiu Shi has no real sense of relatives. Although he curses his ancestors every day, he doesn't feel anything when his real ancestors stand in front of him. He has no interest in his own life experience now. He just feels confused.
"Where is Xing Bi?" He interrupted the old lady and looked at Mayor Luo.
"He is resting nearby." said Mayor Luo.
"He doesn't need to rest," Qiu Shi stood up, "I want to see him."
"He is resting." Mayor Luo repeated.
"Bullshit," Qiu Shi walked to the window and yelled at that side, "Xing Bi!"
Hu Xiaoling didn't know what was going on, and he didn't care about anything. He stood over and started yelling, "Xing Bi! Xing Bi! Xing Bi!"
Xing Bi did not respond.
With his hearing ability, the fact that he couldn't hear sounds of this level meant that he had encountered trouble.
"What are you going to do to him?" Qiu Shi turned and looked at Mayor Luo.
"He won't do anything. We coexist peacefully with the biochemicals," Mayor Luo said. "He is just meeting his own kind now."
Qiu Shi slightly turned sideways.
You can just do that gesture without raising your hand specifically.
OK
"Meet your ancestors." Qiu Shi clenched his fist and pressed it down.
The author has something to say:
To be continued tomorrow.
Oh no, Xing Bi was knocked down by his partner again⊙▽⊙.