When the first glimmer of light in the early morning illuminated the entire town base, the doors of several houses in the building opened wide, and several men and women in combat uniforms walked out of their respective residences.
Someone who got up early to grab the well and wanted to fill up the first bucket of cold water that had been soaked overnight heard the movement, thinking that someone had left the door early, sat up from the bed in a daze, and looked out of the dirty window with blinded eyes. .
Seeing that there were several evolutionary people living in the building, she immediately retracted her body and muttered something complaining while lying on the bed.
Some young people who got up a little later hurriedly jumped down the stairs that were missing half a corner, biting a hard brown rice cake in their mouths. The strong and high-yield brown rice is mixed with stalks and kneaded into a hard dumpling. People with bad teeth can gnaw on it so that the gums are sour.
He bit the cake with his teeth, and was still putting clothes on himself. After jumping downstairs three times, he said with a smile, "I'm sorry for getting up late."
Seeing the teammates who had been waiting downstairs for a long time, the young man scratched his head, reached out and handed the pancake to a slightly tired female evolutionary person beside him, "Have you eaten yet, take two bites?"
This female evolutionary person is Zhou Fang. At this time, she avoided the young people who came close to her with disgust on her face, "Stay away from me, it's been a long time since you brushed your teeth!"
She was wearing an army green assault suit today, with the machinery she was using on her waist. At this time, she looked valiant and somewhat majestic.
Looking at the watch, she couldn't wait for the person who wanted to wait, she patted the captain next to her on the shoulder and said, "You guys wait first, I'll be back soon after I have something to do."
After Zhou Fang hurriedly walked away, the young man was still nibbling on the hard brown rice cake, looking at her back and asked the captain beside him curiously, "She went to tease that man over there again? "
A few days ago, Zhou Fang saw a new man who moved in next door, and it immediately caused waves in the entire team. Several teammates in the same team sneaked around to see what kind of man he was. The female lieutenant above the top bowed.
However, men look at themselves as the most handsome, and others are not as handsome as themselves, so a few people didn't see how special Jin Yang was, but felt that the evolutionary woman who followed him was really good-looking.
These teammates all concluded that Zhou Lan couldn't grab the girl, and secretly waited for her deputy team to collapse. Unexpectedly, she was still in high spirits after running for a few days.
The leader of the team is a middle-aged man with a level-4 evolutionary ability, he shook his head slightly, "No, she has been in a hurry these days and fell in love with that girl again, she said that she will grind her to our team. Come here. I don't know what you young people are thinking."
At this time, in the small single building not far from the building, a faint fragrance wafted out along the window. To a young and beautiful woman wearing a pink bunny apron, with long hair tucked to one shoulder, busy in the kitchen.
Zhou Lan watched for a while, and pouted with some dissatisfaction. She hesitated while standing outside the window, and finally she bent her fingers and knocked on the window.
Yin Yiliu, who was preparing breakfast in the room, heard the movement, glanced out the window, then walked over and opened the window, "Why are you here? Didn't you say you were going to pick up someone today?"
Since that day, Zhou Lan was frightened at the mouth of the alley and boasted that Jin Yang had raised her own little white face, Zhou Lan didn't come the next day, Yin Yiliu thought she gave up, but she knocked on it again after a day. The door of his own house, the target seems to be turned to himself.
"Yeah, but the person on the other side came very slowly. I'm going out this time for as little as a day or more than three or four days. I'll bring you gifts when I come back." Zhou Lanchong Yin Yiliu squinted and smiled, she heard footsteps The voice came from the other end into this hall, and suddenly felt a little guilty, and the voice unconsciously lowered by two points.
"Then I'll go first, remember to miss me!" Zhou Lan kissed Yin Yi Liufei, and then turned out of the yard.
When Jin Yang was at home, he was wearing a loose black shirt. His hair was a little long and his eyebrows were somewhat covered. At this time, he glanced at the empty window with a blank expression, and suddenly understood what it meant to shoot himself in the foot. .
He frowned in dissatisfaction, like some neglected big dog silently accusing Yin Yiliu of calling back a stalker, Yin Yiliu didn't see it, coughed lightly and laughed inwardly.
"In the morning, I cooked the frozen dumplings that I saved before. They are stuffed with sugar and sour residue that you like to eat."
She scooped the hot glutinous rice balls out of the pot and put a large bowl in front of Jin Yang. The hot water vapor reflected the round glutinous rice balls in the white soup, which made her very appetizing.
Jin Yang's inexplicable dissatisfaction and jealousy were breathed out by this bowl of sweet and sour dumplings. Although he never said what he liked to eat, Yin Yiliu would be unconscious when he was eating. Observe carefully what he moves the chopsticks most, and then do it for himself silently next time.
This kind of feeling of being cared for is really good. A person who has been alone for more than 20 years is suddenly warmed by a group of silent warmth, which fills his heart.
Jin Yang is a little naive when he eats dumplings. He has his own hobbies and obsessions in some aspects. For example, when eating these soft and glutinous dumplings, he must use a spoon. Once the chopsticks pierced the skin of the rounded dumplings to let the filling out, or mixed with the soup, he would secretly get angry like a kindergarten child and silently remove the broken dumplings from the bowl.
Since Yin Yiliu caught his cute and paranoid hobbies, it was as if he had opened up a new world to tease him.
Seeing that Yin Yiliu, who couldn't hold back his smile, pierced the spoon with his chopsticks, Jin Yang suddenly had a helpless look, the bright red sugar hawthorn slowly flowed out from the shriveled skin, and he was greeted by the water vapor again. into the mouth.
A sweet and sour taste immediately filled Jin Yang's mouth. The sweetness of his teeth was softening. He smothered his head to eat. He suddenly remembered that he was very hungry when he was a child. Jin Rumeng's glutinous rice balls were put into his mouth.
The hot hawthorn stuffing in his throat hurt a little, but the sweet taste made him deeply remember it.
The garden filled with sweet and sour residue is like a thorn in his heart. No matter how rich he is and how many delicacies he can eat, he is all alone, cooking a bowl of dumplings for himself in the lonely and cold night. .
But now it's different. As soon as she opened her eyes, Yin Yiliu's life breath lingered around her, and there would be cooked food lively on the table while she was talking and laughing. The taste was the same as when he was young. Hiding in the corner and swallowing silently is exactly the same.
He endured the heat and swallowed into his throat, and it was this heat that burned his softest part, which made him feel the truth of the people around him.
He is no longer alone in the dark, no longer the poor little guy who was looked down upon and bullied by everyone when he was a child, and he is no longer the business world yanluo who was feared by the people around him later.
He is just an ordinary person who longs for warmth, that's all.
Yin Yiliu, who had been holding her cheeks and watching him swallow with a light smile, suddenly noticed the fluctuations in his mood and felt that something was wrong, and hurriedly held the hand he was still putting the spoon in his mouth.
She opened her mouth to say something, but in the end she didn't ask or say anything, instead she frowned as if complaining: "What are you doing when you eat so fast, the skin of the dumplings will fall into your stomach if you eat it too fast, and you won't be able to digest it. "
In fact, Yin Yiliu knew that Jin Yang must have had a bad past. Sometimes she could see a man standing silently by the window while she was busy, looking at the gradually sinking sun outside the window, the darkness enveloped him and swallowed him, so she just It's like disappearing from your side.
When she was in a panic, she would rush into the silence and darkness of no one, and find some topics to dispel the lingering loneliness in Jin Yang. The man smiled at her, but her eyes were still deeply bound by the past.
Over time, Yin Yiliu was relieved.
No matter what Jin Yang's past was, in his own eyes, he was the most powerful being, no longer an image imprisoned by a book, but a living flesh and blood.
I will be worried because of his silence and shy because of his smile.
If Jin Yang is trapped in the past, she is willing to accompany him step by step to the center of the vortex.
At the same time, outside Rongcheng, Zhou Lan and his party had quietly arrived at the designated meeting place.
The weather in Rongcheng, which is about to enter June, is gradually getting warmer, and a new species unique to the end of the season has also begun to emerge on the edge of the swamp. Open, a leaf pole can often fall on the top of a dozen.
At this time, a series of flower buds, together with the already blooming ones, rendered the dark and dead swamp mud a piece of brilliance.
Zhou Lan squatted on the ground, took out the clean handkerchief in her arms and folded a large amount in her palm. She hugged the sticky broken root with the handkerchief, and put it in the pocket of her jacket.
When some teammates saw that the vice-captain, who had never liked these flowers and grasses, even started to fold the flowers, he immediately came up to him with a smile on his face and wanted to fiddle with them.
Zhou Lan frowned and kicked the troublesome teammate beside her. The baby seemed to be protecting the bunch of flowers in her palm, "Don't touch it, I'll give it away when I get back."
"Deputy team, if we only come back after three days and five days, you will be a piece of scum."
Someone next to him laughed sullenly, and Zhou Lan's face suddenly looked unsightly. She gestured to take another kick. The captain around him saw someone coming from afar, and whispered to stop the playful teammates beside him.
"It's all serious, people are here."
At this time, a group of people came out from the dense forest on the other side of the swamp, and the leader was sitting on the back of a high mutant beast. He was wearing golden armor, and at this time, it was shining brightly in the sun.
Zhou Lan could hear the people around her muttering: "My darling, this is made of gold, I'm going to be blinded..."
As the mutant beast gradually approached, a group of people also came to the vicinity of the team. The evolutionary man in golden armor had a huge and slightly folded wing logo printed on his body, and Yin Yiliu and Jin Yang had just arrived. The logo on the group of people they met in the jungle when Rongcheng was exactly the same.
The mutant beast is a third-level mutant horse, with a pointed horn growing on the top of its head like a unicorn, and its whole body is shiny and black. A pair of large and agile eyes stares down at the crowd in front of it, and its wet nose There was a burst of nostrils in the spray.
Zhou Lan always felt that they were despised by a horse, but they also had to admit that the appearance of this group of people was very proud, and they looked different from those who were scrambling around in Xiaopo Base every day.
There are also two first-level mutant beasts beside the voice-changing horse, and two evolutionary people are also carried on their backs, with the exact same logo as the leader printed on their bodies.
Yin Yiliu and Jin Yang may not know this logo, but Zhou Lan and others all know that it is called "Wings of Freedom", and it is the logo of the hottest large-scale group on the mainland today.
After the Wasteland Age, an alliance spontaneously formed in some small bases that were not managed by the central base and the military.
At the beginning of the alliance, it was not taken seriously, because every day, countless teams of large and small rise and fall, and this group silently develops and promotes their ideas.
When the double-winged symbol appeared in the eyes of everyone again, it already had a formal and resounding name.
Mercenary Alliance.
As the name suggests, the mercenary alliance is a group established by a group of idle evolutionary people who are not controlled by any forces. All evolutionary people or groups registered in it must wear the "Wings of Freedom" logo when they walk outside, and they are also today's largest. A group that takes over mercenary missions.
An ordinary-looking middle-aged man walked out from behind the evolutionary man in golden armor who appeared in a high profile. At this time, he smiled and shook hands with Zhou Lan's captain, and Zhou Lan and others were clearly in front of this man. Many respects.
Xu Xin, the current lord of Fancheng next door.
If Rongcheng is a chaotic and idle place of freedom, then Fancheng led by Xu Xin is more like Rongcheng in the era of Yan Chengmiao.
As the closest base to Rongcheng, the moat outside Rongcheng also flows through Fancheng's territory, which means that the sixth-level intelligent creatures in the river will not only endanger Rongcheng, but Fancheng will not be spared once there are waves. .
Xu Xin has always admired Yan Chengmiao. When the Yan family was alive, the traffic and trade between the two bases were the most frequent. Now some regulations and systems in Fancheng are gradually improved through exchanges.
It is a pity that Yan Chengmiao and his wife died in the hands of Shen Zhiyu. Xu Xin was heartbroken and indignant, but he was unable to intervene in Rongcheng.
He disliked Thief Shen the most, and the trade between the two bases was completely cut off.
It's just that although the trade is cut off, it is related to the safety of the base. After the appearance of the mutant electric eel, Xu Xin still fell into deep anxiety. I never thought that Shen Zhiyu could be so vicious and directly use his own people to fill the river.
Regarding this sixth-level intelligent creature, even Xu Xin is not sure about it. He has been negotiating with the people from the Mercenary Alliance, hoping to get their help, but he has not been able to negotiate because the other party's appetite is too high and the price is too high.
Until recently, when he heard that Shen Zhiyu had made an idea for the orphans of the Yan brothers, he couldn't sit still, gritted his teeth and agreed to the request of the mercenary alliance, and the other party sent a high-level figure in the alliance. , is a sixth-level evolutionary person, and there are several fifth-level and fourth-level people, who are in common to suppress the mutant electric eels in the river.
Zhou Lan's team has always been supported by Yan Chengmiao before, and the captain and the Yan family have a good relationship. Later, after the Yan family fell, the team gradually declined. Many former partners in the team chose to leave with a snobbery. It is they who can entrust their backs.
Xu Xin immediately thought of their team. After contacting them, Zhou Lan and others were very willing to make a little contribution to this operation, and it was considered that they did their best for the former Lord Yan.
After a few chats, they decided to explore the topography around the moat before Rongcheng was disturbed.
The evolutionary people from the mercenary alliance have not spoken much, and they seem very arrogant. Zhou Lan can see the teammates around him winking at him, secretly stabbing these evolutionary people with sky-high nostrils.
At this time, the moat was quiet, without any waves, and there was no trace of a giant water monster hidden here.
The evolutionary man of the mercenary alliance in golden armor never got off the mutant horse from beginning to end. At this time, he frowned when he looked at the dark and sticky mud around him, "Where are the six-level mutant beasts?"
Xu Xin knew that these people from the mercenary alliance had a big temper, so he explained it in a good voice, saying that he would first investigate the trip and familiarize himself with the surrounding environment, but this person's expression was still twisted.
As they went deep into the swamp, the legs of several evolved people were deeply immersed in the swamp, and they felt a resistance to taking two steps.
Just as they were about to approach the edge of the lake, they suddenly heard a voice in the swamp.
Although the sound was small, they were sure not to hear it wrong.
Zhou Fang grabbed the arm of the person beside him, pricked up his ears and listened anxiously for a long time: "Listen, is someone calling for help?!"
It's not that she heard it wrong. Someone is indeed shouting for help in a low voice. The voice is intermittent as if it will soon die. Several teammates around her are suddenly anxious, "Someone has fallen into a swamp, hurry up and look for it!"
After searching for a while, the intermittent cries for help were still absent. Just when Zhou Fang was irritable, the teammates who had already moved to the distance suddenly shouted in surprise: "Brothers are here! There is a cave here. , the sound seems to come from here!"
Zhou Fang turned around with a happy face, raised her feet and hurried over there. The mud under her body did not reach her knees, and she would bring up a little mud when she walked. In order not to stain the bouquet in her pocket, she put it between the buttons on her chest.
There was Xu Xin's voice behind him: "Don't act rashly, be careful..."
But before he finished speaking, the young man who was already excited to dig through the mud and wanted to save people suddenly staggered down, and the whole person fell into the mud and made a muffled sound.
Zhou Lan's heart skipped a beat and roared towards the place where there was no one, "Xiao Wang, what's wrong with you?!"
Not far from where Xiao Wang fell, another man screamed and his body sank fiercely. This time Zhou Lan finally saw it clearly, her pupils shrank and she shouted: "Yes, there is a mutant beast attacking. !"
She did see a huge furry limb wrapping the man around the waist just now, and then pulled him into the swamp, the thick mud sinking into the man's mouth and nose like concrete, suffocating him immediately. Not even a cry for help came out.
The missing person is not her teammate, but a fifth-level evolutionary person in the mercenary alliance.
A tense and terrified atmosphere suddenly clenched everyone's heart.
In the evening, the scorching sunset glow fell on the long moat, and the water surface was quiet and shimmering, and the scene was very beautiful.
Yin Yiliu was cooking roast chicken at night, and the chicken breast was scorched. At this time, there was oil dripping on the ground with a faint burnt smell. She hurriedly wiped it off with a paper towel, and her fingers were a little red from the burn. .
The smell of barbecued meat permeated the whole room, she took a deep breath and prepared to call Jin Yang in the living room out for dinner.
When passing by the window next to the kitchen, she glanced out the window at the orange-red sky, and suddenly thought of the girl who knocked on the window every morning and evening.
She shook her head and smiled, and was about to put the cooked chicken on the table when the window suddenly slammed lightly.
When she turned around, she saw a girl standing outside the window, not the same Zhou Lan who said goodbye to her with a smile in the morning.
Yin Yiliu thought about it and put the roast chicken on the table. Since Zhou Lanlai came, it was polite to treat her with a chicken leg. But when he opened the window and saw the state of the woman standing in front of him, Yin Yiliu was stunned.
Zhou Lan was wet, with a few drops of mud splashing on her head and face. Her lower body was almost covered in mud, and she was lost.
At this time, when he saw the window opened, he looked at Yin Yiliu in a dazed way.
"You... what's the matter? Go in the room and wash your body and change into clean clothes?" Yin Yiliu didn't know what happened to Zhou Lan, but it was obvious to the naked eye that the woman's condition was not good.
Zhou Lan smiled reluctantly, took out a handful of wilted red flowers from her chest, and handed them to Yin Yiliu, "The gift that was promised..."
Yin Yiliu looked at the little flower with her head hanging down in her hand, and hurriedly found a vase, filled it with water, and at the same time looked at Zhou Lan with a worried face, "What's wrong with you?"
Zhou Lan thought of what happened in the swamp today, and her body trembled slightly.
The mutant beast in the quagmire kept dragging his teammates down, and the sixth-level evolutionary man who had been unwilling to go to the lake jumped down from the mutant horse and used his evolutionary ability to force out the hidden monsters in the quagmire.
It was a huge mutant plant with a body length of almost three meters, with a pair of terrifying furry compound eyes the size of two basketballs. This spider had always lived under the muddy swamp, and was a fourth-level onomatopoeia.
It can imitate human voices to lure humans, make them think that they have their own kind to relax their vigilance, unexpectedly drag them into the mud, and shred them cruelly with their sharp abdominal feet.
In the end, although they managed to kill the cunning spider in the quagmire under the resistance of the sixth-level mutants, the lost teammates could not come back. The sixth-level evolutionary person is very angry, and may not help in the end.
Zhou Lan didn't know how she came back. Her mind was filled with the scenes when her teammates died. Her eyes were finally fixed on the sparkling lake. A huge flat head was half exposed from the lake, with piebald upstream. Walking Zidian.
It was an incomparably huge mutant beast. At this time, it stared at the panicked human beings with playful eyes, and then immersed in the deep water for a while.
At that moment, Zhou Lan suddenly understood that there was no such thing as a sudden disaster. Perhaps it was all because the intelligent creature was manipulating it.
Zhou Lan felt sad and angry at the thought of her teammates who were still laughing and grinning by her side during the day and said they were gone.
She suddenly thought of something, and grabbed Yin Yiliu's palm like a life-saving straw, "You, is your evolutionary ability very high? Can you help us, please!"
She really didn't know what to do, she only knew that Yin Yiliu's strength was at least a fifth- or even sixth-level evolutionary person, and she could not wait to let that sea monster die immediately.
Looking at Zhou Lan's excited and irrational eyes, Yin Yiliu frowned slightly, and she slowly pulled out her wrist from Zhou Lan's tightly clenched hands, turning red.
She was silent for a while before opening her mouth: "I'm sorry."
Zhou Lan's expression gradually became silent, and her hand slowly dropped.
Yes, people don't know anything, what are they crazy about.
Besides, even if Yin Yiliu is really a high-level evolutionary person, why should he let others charge for his teammates
After Zhou Lan calmed down, she suddenly felt like a mentally ill person who was in a hurry to go to the hospital. She saw that Yin Yiliu was still tentatively asking about her situation, she forced a smile and replied, and then stumbled out of the yard .
Seeing Zhou Lan's back gradually disappearing from view, Yin Yiliu frowned for a long time, she knew that Jin Yang was already standing not far behind her, and neither of them spoke.
The setting sun outside the window gave off the last rays of light, spilling into the open window.
The little red flowers in the vase were now covered with a faint golden light, and the slender shadows were drawn long on the table.