248 Anchor

He knew Zhu Ning needed an anchor to pull her along.

After the door opened, a familiar smell hit me in the face. At certain moments, people's sense of smell is more sensitive and it is easy to mobilize memories of the past.

In the past, the Noble Queen Inn was very lively. Some people were dancing, some were singing, and the bar was full of people. Song Zhizhang would mix a purple drink for Zhu Ning, and she would drink it.

The bustling crowd dispersed, leaving only a mess on the ground. Zhu Ning had never been to the prestigious Queen's Inn in such a dilapidated state. Shadows overlapped within the room, and the vitality of the people seemed to have been drained away in an instant, leaving it eerie and dark like a haunted house.

The Noble Queen's store was searched several times and was in a mess. The wine stored in Song Zhizhang's wine cabinet disappeared.

In this world, unless one is really poor, no one would be willing to steal. If Song Zhizhang knew about it, given his personality, he probably wouldn't get angry. He would say gently that he would help in any way he could.

Song Zhizhang would never get angry over a few bottles of wine.

The roof of the booth in the west area was pierced by a stray bullet, and it was almost in ruins. Snow fell in, and the light from outside leaked in.

There were several footprints on the ground, and it was hard to tell who left them. There was a pile of glass shards gathered together. It should be what Zhuang Lin said, that an employee came back, probably wanted to clean up, and left without any props in his hand.

Zhu Ning walked in step by step. The ground was covered with debris, which made a creaking sound when she stepped on it. She remembered the first time she came to the Noble Queen store, and a clerk introduced various men to her.

Zhu Ning learned it here that there are some men in the world who are honest and dull and are good at making money.

Thinking about it now, Zhu Ning wanted to laugh. Before Song Zhizhang left, he gave the other store employees a holiday. There was no one in the store, and no one said welcome home to her.

Zhu Ning originally wanted to go to his own home first, but after thinking about it, he went to Song Zhizhang's room first.

Song Zhizhang lives on the eighth floor. He bought this land alone. He used to live in a cage-like room, and later lived alone on a high floor. It was separated from other employees' dormitories by several floors, and the space in between was empty.

Song Zhizhang is full of secrets, and he hasn't told Zhu Ning anything yet, so Zhu Ning can only guess, looking here and there, as if entering a contaminated area to look for clues, trying to piece together Song Zhizhang's complete life.

But those are all speculations. As for what his real life was like, no one can tell. He has become an eternal secret.

Zhu Ning walked upstairs and found it more and more dangerous. The stairs were broken into two parts by a stray bullet. Song Zhizhang's room was almost destroyed. Many furniture were smashed and there was nothing intact left. Even thieves didn't bother to steal.

Those who came to look for Zhu Ning only gave it a cursory look and found nothing to dig up.

Zhu Ning walked up and saw that the place below was crumbling and could collapse at any time. She stood in the middle of the ruins and wanted to pick up something, but found that she had no idea where to start.

The ruins over there should have been the living room. Zhu Ning was sitting on that sofa chatting with Song Zhizhang. Song Zhizhang was wrapped in a black high-necked home suit, dressed like a dark night vampire, and was made very uncomfortable by Zhu Ning's teasing.

At that time, Zhu Ning always wanted to pull open the high collar and take a good look at what was underneath.

"We agreed that after this is over, you will tell me the secret."

Before leaving, Song Zhizhang promised that if he won, he would show it to her. Zhu Ning thought about the scene and felt that Song Zhizhang must be very interesting.

A gust of wind rushed in from the broken wall. The cold wind was like the howling of ghosts and wolves, making the papers on the ground rustle.

It's gone, everything is gone, only ruins are left.

Zhu Ning went downstairs and walked to the door of the basement. Compared with the disaster upstairs, the basement was better preserved.

Zhu Ning walked into the basement and turned on the lights. The corridor was emitting an ambiguous purple-red light. Sometimes when she finished her tasks and returned home, she would meet a rich woman walking into the room with her male companion. The neon lights in the house were flashing, and everything was full of passion.

Zhu Ning was particularly curious about several special supplies rooms at that time, and Song Zhizhang even gave her a discounted price.

There is no hustle and bustle now, and the ground is full of garbage. Zhu Ning's home is at the end of the corridor. That should be the room where Song Zhizhang lived. The alienated Song Zhizhang was afraid of losing control, so he trapped himself in the basement for a long time.

Later, he stabilized, came out from underground, met Zhu Ning, and gave his original room to Zhu Ning.

Zhu Ning walked towards her home, not knowing what was inside. Just as she passed a certain place, she suddenly saw a flash in front of her eyes, and a light blue light fell down.

Zhu Ning activated the holographic projection, and the stripper suddenly appeared.

Zhu Ning still doesn't know what this person is, the holographic stripper. She felt uncomfortable when she first saw it, but after watching it for a while, she felt that this device was particularly interesting.

Zhu Ning suddenly saw him, as if she saw an old acquaintance, and almost laughed out loud. She exhaled and leaned against the wall to watch the striptease. She didn't know why she felt so relaxed watching this thing at this time. She hadn't relaxed for a long time.

This place had been looted, and the holographic projection was embedded in the ceiling and couldn't be moved. It wasn't particularly valuable, so no one wanted it.

Zhu Ning stared at the projection. The virtual projection danced tirelessly one dance after another. Zhu Ning never got tired of watching it, but his eyes became sore from staring at the light of the projection.

Eeyore——

Suddenly, there was a creaking sound from upstairs. Zhu Ning's body froze. She slowly raised her head and looked at the ceiling. Someone pushed open the back door of the Noble Queen's Shop.

That door was extremely difficult to open and had been broken for a long time. It would make a noise every time it was opened, and everyone who opened it would complain.

"He's so stingy that he doesn't even bother to fix the door."

Zhuang Lin had said in advance that there would be someone in the store recently. The staff from the Queen's Store had returned. Two handsome male bartenders pushed open the back door, holding cleaning tools in their hands, and propped a brick against the back door.

They had come to see it a few days earlier and came this morning for a final inspection, bringing the necessary tools.

They put on aprons, masks and gloves and said, "Come on, get to work!"

They cleaned up the broken glass, fearing it might hurt someone. "Let's finish it quickly and get it over with. We need to get someone to reinforce the building upstairs. It looks like it's about to collapse. We'll have to work on it when Boss Song comes back."

"There are no customers now, so we're not in a hurry to open the door, right?"

"Didn't they say that District 103 would resume the catering industry first?"

Another person was surprised, "You call our business the catering industry?"

"Yeah," he said seriously, "Eat, Drink ...

“That makes perfect sense!”

Zhu Ning couldn't help laughing when she heard this. This shop was really fun and everyone was very interesting. Zhu Ning turned on her omniscient perspective and found the two bartenders very familiar. She remembered that they would call her the boss lady.

She leaned against the wall and listened to the two people talking above her. One of them suddenly said, "By the way, have you contacted the boss? I can't reach him, and he doesn't respond to my messages. When will he come back?"

Zhu Ning's smile froze when he heard this. Another person replied, "Probably in a few days. He's different from us. He has a pass, so he's probably enjoying himself right now."

They sounded a little sour when they talked about it. If they hadn't won, Song Zhizhang would be the only one alive in the end, and they, the two ordinary people, would have had to die. They guessed that Song Zhizhang must have lost his deputy brain. After the apocalypse, many people lost contact, which was quite normal.

But they felt that Song Zhizhang must be fine, because he had a pass to the Kingdom of God. Not to mention during disaster times, a ticket was hard to come by even at normal times.

The two people upstairs were still chatting. I guess because this store was their shelter, they cleaned it particularly diligently. They were talking about which bastard had robbed the store. It seemed like someone had been here again, so they had to repair the door and lock it.

As Zhu Ning listened, she felt the conversation gradually drift away. She continued looking at the ceiling, her head tilted back, her jaw tense, as if her body was frozen and numb all over.

Song Zhizhang will not come back.

He became a wall, solidified into a sculpture, but not many people knew it.

Zhu Ning tried to look up, but there was only a projection device overhead, and her vision was a little blurry. The glare of the light made her eyes sore, and she couldn't see clearly. When she blinked, her vision flickered. She took a deep breath, and finally focused her vision, and suddenly she noticed a faint, cold light flickering on the ceiling.

The light was very dim and it was easy to miss it if you didn't look carefully. Zhu Ning raised her hand and her shoulder smashed the dancing projection. She groped above it. Generally speaking, as long as it was connected to the Internet, Zhu Ning could easily read it. Her fingertips touched something cold.

A switch was pressed, and it turned out to be a fingerprint lock, which recognized Zhu Ning's fingerprint.

A new ray of light was projected from behind him. Zhu Ning was stunned. He thought he would see Song Zhizhang's projection when he turned around, just like the last words that the first generation Zhu Ning would leave for himself.

But when she turned around, she only saw a very small arrow spread out on the ground. The arrow was warm orange and very faint, like some kind of guide.

No one would care about a holographic projection, especially men. Most straight men would subconsciously look away when watching men dancing striptease. Only Zhu Ning would be curious and take a second look.

Song Zhizhang left something for her? Zhu Ning's legs felt like they were filled with lead. She lifted her feet and walked forward, following the direction of the arrow.

The arrow flashed, pointing to Zhu Ning's house. The door was not closed, the wooden furniture was overturned on the floor, and the water cup that Zhu Ning had chosen earlier was broken into two pieces on the ground.

She had bought a complete set of three cups, one for each of them, and they were usually neatly arranged on the dining table. Zhu Ning only saw that her cup was broken; she didn't know where the other two had rolled away, or perhaps they were so badly broken that they were no longer visible.

Song Zhizhang used to come to Zhu Ning's house often. Zhu Ning thought that as a boss he was quite free, so he would sometimes leave some of his belongings behind. Under the overturned chair back, there was a brown coat of Song Zhizhang.

In the past, when Zhu Ning saw something, she would either ask Lin Xiaofeng to send it over or send it back herself. Now that she thinks about it, it feels like Song Zhizhang did it on purpose. Because Zhu Ning is very busy, he would find an opportunity to meet her twice more.

If Song Zhizhang were still there, Zhu Ning would probably have brought the coat upstairs to him.

Zhu Ning had been in love before, and she could feel that Song Zhizhang was quite special to her. She had tried to test him a few times, but Song Zhizhang was very arrogant and always said that he was the same to everyone, just like a central air conditioner, refusing to admit anything more.

Zhu Ning was very busy for the past two months, pushed around by Prometheus and the First Generation. Her fate was arranged by others. She was immersed in conspiracies and intrigues and had no energy to look back.

Now Zhu Ning is free and Song Zhizhang is dead.

Zhu Ning seemed to be standing in the long river of fate and looking back. It was a man-made stage play destined to be a tragedy. Zhu Ning was the murderer and also a puppet. She was the victim and the perpetrator. Because she had no control, she was always losing, whether it was Xu Meng or Song Zhizhang.

The small arrow was still flashing. Zhu Ning followed the direction of the small arrow and walked to her bedroom. It was in this bedroom that she got the black mucus and recognized herself.

Now her bed was in a mess. They were probably afraid that there was a secret passage under the bed, so they even lifted up the bed.

There was nothing special under the bed. The small arrow pointed to the bathroom. The mirror, sink, bathtub, and glass door were all smashed, and there were glass shards all over the floor.

When Zhu Ning stepped on it, there was a crackling sound and the arrow continued to flash.

The arrow pointed to the area under the bathtub. She carefully moved the glass away with her foot, stared at the debris on the floor and carefully identified it. Suddenly, she turned off the bathroom light and found something strange. A tiny gap, less than an inch, was emitting a faint light.

It doesn't look like sunlight, but rather the light of an incandescent lamp. It's not clear when the lights are on on both sides. When the bathroom ceiling light is turned off, it's a little more obvious than before, but it's easy to miss if you don't look carefully.

The arrow pointed to this location, which was the end point. Zhu Ning squatted down and groped on the ground. The place where the light leaked was actually a keyhole.

There's a space down there? Did Song Zhizhang leave her a relic?

Zhu Ning didn't even think about looking for any key, and directly used the master key. With a click, a rectangular light appeared under the bathtub, and a tunnel door slowly opened in front of Zhu Ning.

The tunnel was very narrow and there was a light on inside. Zhu Ning touched the wall and it felt very rough. The key point was that Zhu Ning had seen this kind of stone before. It had pale lines on it. Song Zhizhang's absolute defense was condensed from this thing.

The safest fortress in the world is not made of reinforced concrete, but Song Zhizhang's absolute defense, which can withstand the attacks of thermal weapons and the superpowers of most superpowers.

Sudden--

Zhu Ning felt the air in front of him change slightly, as if a transparent person was walking, bringing up a very weak breeze, and then two thin arms stretched out from below, like a jumping elf suddenly appearing and hugging Zhu Ning's neck.

Zhu Ning did not struggle. Feeling the familiar warmth, Lin Xiaofeng placed his chin in the crook of Zhu Ning's neck, his warm breath falling on his shoulders.

Lin Xiaofeng hugged her tightly, "You came to see me."

Zhu Ning froze for a moment, and then his arms slowly tightened. The fresh life rushed into Zhu Ning's arms, as if a fire ignited dry wood, and the warmth spread quickly. Zhu Ning did not need any wealth or great ideals, just a hug would be like a god's enlightenment, and a hug would make her go from a walking corpse to a living person.

Song Zhizhang did not leave any last words, keepsakes, or treasures. He left Lin Xiaofeng to Zhu Ning because he knew that Zhu Ning needed an anchor to pull her along.

The author has something to say:

Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or provided me with nutrient solution between 2023-05-08 15:42:26 and 2023-05-09 13:50:41~

Thanks to the little angels who cast mines: 3 in Tangli; 2 in Wuyouwudang At; 1 in Xia Riyaoyaobing, Huo Zhiyinxue, 33130042, and He Yijiande;

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