101 The Lost Village (V)

◎Not only light, but also... people◎

"Have we been here before?" Zhu Ning was still thinking about something when there was suddenly a commotion in front of the main force.

"How long have you been walking? Half an hour, right? Why haven't you walked out?" someone else said in the channel.

Zhu Ning had been busy asking questions and hadn't paid much attention, but now he realized something was really wrong. The village was not big, and they were in a hurry to evacuate and their pace was not slow. Logically, they should have reached the village entrance.

But where is the entrance to the village? Where is the old locust tree at the entrance?

"Try again," someone said on the public channel. "Don't worry, everyone."

"Go again, go again." Someone echoed, and he kept repeating this sentence. People tend to repeat the same sentence when they are afraid because they are subconsciously afraid of not being able to get out.

I am halfway back home. As long as I walk out of the deserted village and cross the tall grass, I will be home. Hope is right in front of me.

The large group was moving forward. This time, Zhu Ning stopped chatting with others. She kept staring at the houses on both sides while walking. She once again passed by the house with the statue of a god. There was a goat head on the eaves.

The statue was staring at them through the window. There it was again, that vague feeling of surveillance, as if something cold and sticky was always clinging to you, very similar to Chu Qing's gaze.

This house is the most iconic, and Zhu Ning intends to use it as an anchor.

The village was really not big. They were moving in one direction, and the big locust tree should be right in front of them.

This time we will walk faster, and it should take at most twenty minutes to reach the end.

It is easy to get lost in the forest because the trees all look the same to the naked eye, but every house here is different, so you shouldn't be completely lost.

Passing by these abandoned houses, one could see inside through the dusty windows. Zhu Ning looked at each one carefully, having seen them once before and remembering the characteristics of each one.

This house has an electronic piano, this house has window paper-cuts, this house has cross-stitch hanging on the wall, this house has not finished the meal, the dishes on the table have not been cleared, this house has a chair that has fallen over, this house has a baby stroller on the floor, this house... there is a strange statue in the house.

Zhu Ning stopped. This was the third time she saw the statue. It was getting dark, and the statue was hidden in the shadows. Its position and expression had not changed. It was still staring at them gloomily, as if it had been looking at them for a long time.

The unknown statue just watched them pass by again and again through the window.

Repeat, repeat, and repeat again and again.

Mental pollution?

Zhu Ning felt a chill on the back of his neck. Were they lost?

She moved her neck. Outside the wall, everything abnormal was magnified. Jiang Ping was right. The way back wouldn't be peaceful. They had already triggered it.

0 and 100, nothing in between.

Jiang Ping was right next to her, and she was just about to ask Jiang Ping what to do now. After all, Jiang Ping had rich experience in survival outside the wall. Zhu Ning's first reaction was to ask for advice from her senior.

"Ah, you are lost." Before Zhu Ning turned around, Jiang Ping's voice came from behind.

Her body stiffened. This sentence was very strange. Jiang Ping's voice was gloomy and mad, as if he didn't care about their life or death at all.

You are lost.

His word was you, not us.

A person's subconscious attitude can be heard from his choice of words. In Jiang Ping's view, it was the cleaners like Zhu Ning who were lost, and he himself was not lost.

The garrison troops led the way, and the liquidators were just sandwiched between the main force, following the garrison troops' footsteps. They had to go wherever the garrison troops led them.

Jin Tao is right, people who live outside the wall for a long time are really abnormal.

At that moment, Jiang Ping was even more terrifying than the statue in front of him. He was only one meter behind him, and Zhu Ning could see Jiang Ping's feet with his peripheral vision.

Suddenly, she saw Jiang Ping's feet move and he walked towards her.

Zhu Ning looked towards the window. It was dark now and people's shadows could be seen reflected in the window.

Inside the window was a strange statue of a god, and the window reflected Zhu Ning and Jiang Ping. Jiang Ping was wearing a blue protective suit. His protective suit was different from the cleaner's, with diamond-shaped stripes on it. It could have been turned on in hidden mode, hiding its color in nature like a chameleon to avoid being discovered by pollutants. Now, under the setting sun, it looked like a very strange creature.

It seemed as if Jiang Ping was not a human being, but a monster outside the wall.

Zhu Ning looked at the reflection in the window, not sure what Jiang Ping was trying to do.

Kill her?

Do it here? How would Jiang Ping explain it when he got back? Was he really going to feed these cleaners to the pollutants, as Jin Tao had said?

Zhu Ning estimated in his heart that Jiang Ping was alone and he always had a gun in his hand. If it was a firearm, Zhu Ning could completely use metal to control it.

But she didn't know whether Jiang Ping had any special abilities.

Should she strike first? Zhu Ning's helmet also had a camera inside it during this mission, and she didn't want to give the cleaning center any leverage.

Jiang Ping walked silently. He was already close to Zhu Ning's back and raised one hand.

"Zhu Ning!"

Someone called her. Xu Meng came over at some point, and her shadow suddenly appeared in the reflection of the window.

Xu Meng broke the weird atmosphere between Zhu Ning and Jiang Ping and forced his way into their group.

"What are you doing?" Xu Meng was nominally Zhu Ning's captain, so she should have been checking to see if any of her teammates were falling behind. "Why did you leave the team without permission?"

In the reflection of the window, Jiang Ping's outstretched hand quickly retracted.

Zhu Ning exclaimed, and he and Xu Meng seemed to have an inexplicable tacit understanding. "I just think this statue is a bit interesting."

"Don't look at it," Xu Meng continued, "We're in trouble."

Zhu Ning looked back at Jiang Ping, but he couldn't see Jiang Ping's expression through the protective helmet, so he didn't say anything else.

Ever since Xu Meng stood next to Zhu Ning, Jiang Ping's gloomy feeling was hidden and he looked like a normal person.

Zhu Ning walked over to Xu Meng. Did she come here specifically to remind him? In the wilderness, Xu Meng, the undercover agent, surprisingly made him feel safe.

At least compared to a bunch of potential mental patients, Zhu Ning can ensure that Xu Meng is absolutely mentally normal.

Xu Meng: "We are lost."

At this time, the entire army stopped and they all realized that they were lost in the deserted village.

"Contact the technical department at the center," someone hurriedly called. He opened a public channel so everyone could hear. "Hello, we're in trouble. Hello! Hello!"

"Stop shouting," another man replied, his voice filled with uncontrollable fear. "Can't you see there's no signal?"

"How..." He was a little bit unbelievable. There was a signal when they came, and they contacted the center once after containing the contaminated spores, but the display inside the helmet really had no signal.

"Time seems to have stopped." someone said.

The time is displayed inside the helmet. This is one of the coordinates. It worked before, but after they realized they were lost, the clock stopped moving and remained at 5:59 pm.

"Bad, bad?"

"That's impossible, how could it be broken?"

The technology of the Clean Center has always been at the forefront of the Federation. In their era, they can change genes and even upload consciousness. It is unimaginable that the clock will be paralyzed.

There is a strong sense of tearing outside the wall, and human civilization is retreating.

Even though the technology inside the wall has developed to the point where artificial humans can be created, the civilization outside the wall has regressed to a primitive society.

The greatest terror is to throw people who are used to living inside the wall outside.

"Have you noticed that there's something wrong with the sunset?" Someone stretched out a trembling hand and pointed at the sunset.

The sunset looked very strange, falling gloomily behind the deserted village, like a pool of black and red blood.

It makes sense that people use the sunset to metaphorically represent the end of life. Under normal circumstances, the sunset fades away very quickly, and the sky will definitely change in ten minutes or so, not to mention that they watched the sunset for an hour.

During this hour, the sunset did not change at all, literally.

Because the camera automatically turned on during the mission and continued to record video, someone found the previously recorded video.

They watched it at 4x speed, and yes, the sunset didn't move from beginning to end, and the clouds above didn't move even a centimeter.

It seemed that it was not the sunset and clouds, but the projection of a computer wallpaper.

When surviving in the wild, the magnetic field may affect the clock and compass, but even the clouds and the sky will not be out of place.

And this wasn't an illusion caused by mental pollution; everyone saw it. The dozen or so cleaners present all turned on the video for comparison, and the videos they recorded simultaneously were exactly the same as before.

So much video evidence proves that this place is really weird. Where did they go?

"We are lost." said the garrison leader.

Jin Tao yelled, "How did you lead the way? Did you do it on purpose?"

Zhu Ning had talked with Jin Tao before and knew that he had hostility towards the garrison troops, which he had been suppressing, but now it finally broke out.

The leading garrison soldier was also unhappy with these cleaners, "Are you sick? Do you want to go home? Don't I want to?"

brush--

Jin Tao suddenly picked up the gun and pointed it at the garrison's head, "Did you do this on purpose?"

"What do you mean by intentional?" The garrison troops also raised their guns. The equipment in their hands were heavy weapons, while the cleaners only carried light equipment.

Jiang Ping beside Zhu Ning also moved. Once you start using weapons, you can't stop. They picked up their guns at the same time and pointed them at each other.

It seems that there are a large number of cleaners, but the garrison troops obviously have more experience in wild survival. There are two in front and one in the back, forming an encirclement formation.

Once the fight starts, it is actually difficult to predict who will win or lose.

Jiang Ping: "What are you crazy about?"

"You're the ones who are crazy!" Jin Tao yelled, "Did you bring us out here to feed us to the pollutants?"

After Jin Tao said this, some cleaners who didn't know the truth and didn't want to take sides suddenly panicked.

Why feed pollutants? They are just food?

"What?" Some people were incredulous. "Jin Tao, explain clearly. What do you mean by feeding pollutants?"

Jin Tao: "That's how the previous people died. The whole team was killed. Where do you think the probabilities of 0 and 100 came from?"

Jiang Ping sneered: "Are you suffering from paranoia?"

Compared to Jin Tao's loss of composure, Jiang Ping was very calm, but that kind of gloomy calmness, as if it had nothing to do with him, even a little playful, seemed even more weird at this time.

"Answer me!" Jin Tao couldn't control his emotions: "Is it true?"

The situation was at a stalemate. Only Zhu Ning did not have a gun. Li Nianchuan, Xu Meng and Zhu Ning, their team seemed to be staying out of the matter.

Li Nianchuan was actually considering whether to use his gun to protect himself, but Zhu Ning and Xu Meng didn't make a move. Li Nianchuan whispered to Zhu Ning, "What should we do next?"

Zhu Ning was not afraid that they would actually open fire. She had a talent for metal manipulation and could control the situation instantly. The only trouble might be being exposed to the cleaning center.

Xu Meng probably thought the same thing. Both of them made some small moves behind the cleaning center's back. When the camera was turned on, they didn't want to show their strength.

Zhu Ning can control the situation, but he also has to face the current problem. They are really lost.

But how?

There is only one road in the village. No matter how you walk, you will never reach the end. You can't even see the old locust tree that you saw when you came here.

Zhu Ning counted the houses again in her mind, because her brain was like a computer now. Even if it couldn't connect to the Internet, its most basic function was to have a photographic memory.

The order has changed.

The order of these houses has been disrupted, and the current order is completely different from what I saw when I came here.

It was as if this was not a house but a deck of cards, which were shuffled after each move.

Zhu Ning looked back at the house with the statue. The statue inside was still looking at him. It was the joker.

Time has stagnated, a deserted village where you can never get out, and you can never find the way out. This feeling is too familiar. Has a closed polluted area formed here?

There were a total of twenty-one people on the main road of the deserted village, eighteen cleaners and three garrison troops.

Fifteen of the liquidators pointed their guns at the nearest garrison troops, while three of the garrison troops pointed their guns at the liquidators in the middle.

They were still arguing and a gunfight was imminent.

Suddenly, Zhu Ning frowned and interrupted their murderous remarks, "Hey!"

No one paid any attention to her. They all held guns in their hands and did not dare to look away, staring closely at their enemies.

"Everyone," Zhu Ning said, his voice low, as if he was afraid of disturbing something, "You can shoot if you want."

Zhu Ning didn't want to stop the fight. Hostility was difficult to eliminate. If not handled properly, it would probably lead to trouble himself, and then these two groups would come together to deal with him.

Zhu Ning: "But before you start killing each other, shouldn't you look around first?"

Jin Tao originally wanted to glance at Zhu Ning out of the corner of his eye, but he saw that she suddenly became very alert. Zhu Ning's strength was there, and she was not so nervous when she met Huang Hua just now. Her sudden tense body would make them nervous as well.

What happened? What did Zhu Ning discover?

Jin Tao didn't dare to turn his head, and only looked at the gloomy and deserted houses with the corner of his eyes. After just one look, he couldn't take his eyes off them.

brush--

Suddenly, a light came on in a house, like a match thrown into a handful of dry firewood, and then lights in a row of deserted houses came on.

Suddenly, light appeared in the originally empty and deserted house. It was a little dim, not a very bright incandescent lamp, but more like an old dim electric lamp.

Not only is there light, but there are also... people.

Every house in this village is like a display case, with people standing in the windows.

An old lady in a red sweater was standing at the window closest to Jin Tao. She was standing right next to the window, with her nose almost touching it.

There was a magpie paper-cut on the window of her house. It was so worn out that the light shining through it cut the old lady's face into several strange pieces.

The villagers stood quietly inside the house, looking over expressionlessly, as if they had been here for a very long time, long before these outsiders appeared.

They watched the cleaners pass through the village, saw these outsiders go to the back mountain to collect the contaminated spores, and then watched them get lost.

What was strange was the villagers' gazes. There was no warmth in their eyes, and they looked at them as if they were livestock.

At that moment, Jin Tao had a very strange feeling. The villagers were... monitoring them?

The author has something to say:

Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or provided nutrient solution between 2022-10-26 20:36:49 and 2022-10-27 20:58:41~

Thanks to the little angels who threw the shallow water bombs: Li Yuan 1;

Thanks to the little angels who threw the rocket launchers: 1 Li Yuan;

Thanks to the little angel who threw the grenade: Ta-da is a little cutie 1;

Thanks to the little angels who cast mines: Two Breads with Cheese, Cute Shovel, Chen Ruo, NICE to MEETu, Ion Emperor Attack, Standing Ghost, cabbage007, Lying Flat, Gan Le 1;

Thanks to the little angels who irrigated the nutrient solution: Jinghuayue (124 bottles); Barulu doesn't eat shrimp (100 bottles); Yunyun, Mujiu, iswjsxh (50 bottles); Baimomo (41 bottles); Liyuan, Wendaoyu (40 bottles); Kuangbaolongshen, No Evening Breeze, Zhonglingren (30 bottles); Lolita (26 bottles); katel (22 bottles); Weiyan, Eleven O'Clock Sleeping, Miramichi, Mr. Darcy, Ke Yu, A Yu (20 bottles); dorissu 16 bottles; 15 bottles of ears without rabbit paper; 14 bottles of beautiful swordsman brought meat; 12 bottles of ordinary lying down, Huahua covering her face; two breads with cheese, Fang Niannian, I braked the girl, Mint, Murky, limited small toilet, anjaykamu, Qian Da Mingbai, axy2014, Yu Lin, Muhe, Moon and Arc, Pikachu, Snow Wind Guest, I swear not to change before Weibo lifts my ban, Youyan, Hehehe, Sanyou Fruit 10 bottles; a cup of tea, Jiujiu 9 bottles; Lingdangxiang, Linjianquanshui 6 bottles; Husband, say something, Abududuan, Tea Bag Pi, Awen, Lin Yumao 5 bottles; One person and one horse, Qingshan several layers 4 bottles; Alili all 3 bottles; 27957283, 丶冫氵灬, From Li Bai, Silver Bullet, Cute Shovel 2 bottles; Let's have something good, A Round One, Cat's Tail Can Lie, Bowl, Black Cat, Silent Box Ye Er, I Really Want to Eat Grilled Cold Noodles, Favorite Song - I Love You So Much, 35581057, The Prosperity Fades, Warmth Overflows, Daiiii, One Night, Early, Standing Ghost 1 bottle;

Thank you very much for your support. I will continue to work hard!