Chapter 340: Inhuman (148) (1st + 2nd) [VIP]

Bai Jinshu obviously suspected that all the children in this shelter were "commodities".

There is nothing wrong with this speculation. Apart from the not-at-all-appropriate nickname of "good old man" given to Zhou Ju and others, it is abnormal to have a shelter specifically for children during wartime.

The two nuns in the church finished their prayers and took the four or five new children upstairs to the simple "dormitory" room. The children around them all had the same dull look on their faces.

Bai Jinshu didn't intend to bet which of these people were pretending and which were real. He winked at the remaining two people, and the three of them walked towards a corner.

When the three of them stood up, they were seen by Guan Hongyan who was far away. She also wanted to come over, but was stopped by Bai Jinshu with a look.

Their position was relatively close to the front and back feet, but Guan Hongyan's position was too far away, and she would inevitably attract attention as she walked along.

I don't know what it would be like to draw attention to this place, but it's obviously not going to be good.

You can tell by the fact that Huangmao is still being stared at by many people.

Not to mention that after the prayer ended, the church hall fell into a terrifying silence. All the children sitting here were silent and motionless, like a group of human-shaped wax figures. If it were not for the fact that their chests could be seen rising and falling, anyone who entered the room would doubt whether they were still alive.

Bai Jinshu and the other two slowly moved to the corner of the wall. After making sure they were far enough away from the children, Xu Zichen spoke in a low voice, "You mean all the children here are the same kind of 'prey'?"

"It's just a guess," Bai Jinshu whispered, "otherwise it can't explain why the nun was still adding children one after another when the food was scarce, but turned a blind eye to the deaths that occurred every night."

There is no other reason to explain this strange behavior except for some other purpose.

"And the ones who are being taken in here are children," Xiao Tang said with a sigh. "I feel like there's something wrong with the information Zhou Ju gave me. If a war is going on in a place, then apart from the two warring parties, are there no neutral parties? How come there are only children and no adults in this church that neither side will attack?"

"Maybe it's a customary practice. It's normal for warring parties not to hurt children," Bai Jinshu thought for a moment and then interrupted, "But I agree with your judgment. It's definitely not right that this place is full of children. They must be collecting children for something."

After all, from a practical point of view, the return on taking in children is much lower than taking in adults. Children do not have as much energy as adults, their physical development is not complete, their physical fitness is not as good as adults, and even their experience, knowledge and survival ability are not as good as adults.

Even if there really was a shelter run by a good-hearted person during the war that housed a bunch of children, he would not tolerate these children doing nothing and just being in a daze all day long.

Compared to adults, there is really very little that children can do. But since there is a place that takes them in, even though they are not related to the parents, these children should at least help with some things, such as moving things, cooking and washing dishes, right?

Why is it that the two nuns in this shelter only want to ensure that these children survive under the minimum conditions?

There is only one situation in which children's rate of return is higher than that of adults.

That is, this place needs a group of special people who have completely abandoned the knowledge and abilities possessed by normal people and have been trained since childhood.

"Raising spies? Raising undercovers? Raising assassins?" Xiao Tang uttered three guesses in a row, and then denied them himself, "Impossible, although this guess is the closest, but you have to train at least these three types, right? All these kids here are so stupid, their IQs don't seem high, they are so stupid."

"Maybe they haven't started training yet, they're just selecting people here?" After Xiao Tang muttered a lot, Xu Zichen spoke silently, "For example, they are selecting people who can find something wrong here, and then disguise themselves and hide themselves in the crowd. The qualified children selected here will be picked up by their 'parents' and sent to the real training place."

"Disguise is also a talent. The skill of being able to minimize one's presence is as rare as the trick of being the center of attention in a crowd at all times. Being able to be patient and pretend to be stupid during the day is a kind of tempering process similar to staying up all day long," he said quickly, moving his lips slightly. "In this process, the children who are identified as qualified will not be the kind who kill people every night. Being brave and resourceful is not their training direction. Some training sessions after seeing blood will have the opposite effect. Only those who hide in the crowd, disguise themselves as one of these stupid kids, and then quietly discover that something is wrong in the shelter will be their selection targets."

"In this process, those who died without being discovered, those whose presence was so weak that they were ignored, and those who were unlucky enough to be dragged out in the middle of the night are all allowable losses," he shrugged. "After all, luck is also a part of strength. Sometimes luck is more useful than strength in actual combat."

"Damn, you know a lot, buddy." Xiao Tang paused for a few seconds and looked Xu Zichen up and down. "What do you do?"

"No," Xu Zichen waved his hand naturally, "Haven't you seen the TV series? That's how it's played in the TV series."

"Tsk, if you don't want to tell me, I can still call 110 to report you," Xiao Tang didn't believe it, but he didn't ask any more questions. His attitude was much better. "Then my friend who has watched countless movies, what do you think we should do next? Is the way to leave here to pretend to be like those kids and wait to be taken away?"

"Friends who have watched countless movies don't know either," Xu Zichen let out a long sigh, "In fact, according to common sense, I would suggest not to be taken away."

"Why?" Xiao Tang asked with interest.

"Because after being taken away, there is a high probability that everyone will be separated, and you will suffer a lot," Xu Zichen thought for a moment and said tactfully, "especially for the team leader like you, it may be very miserable."

"Brother Yuan..." Xiao Tang laughed awkwardly twice, "That's true."

Yuan Shanming is indeed not good at fighting, not to mention that he is the oldest. Even if he is doing splits to stretch his ligaments while dancing, it is easier for a three or four-year-old to do it than a ten-year-old.

Dancing and martial arts are all skills that one must learn in order to master them; the more advanced you become, the more painful it becomes.

"And..." Xu Zichen looked at Bai Jinshu and added, "And I think the condition for passing this strange story may not be leaving the shelter as Zhou Ju and the others said, but leaving this 'organization'."

If I were taken away, I would be caught by them. It would even be worse if I could escape by taking advantage of the situation in the shelter.

"Hmm?" Xiao Tang rolled his eyes and put his hand on Xu Zichen's shoulder in a familiar manner, "Friend, why do you think so?"

"Because the information Zhou Ju provided is problematic, we can't completely trust her. She's not the right person." Bai Jinshu raised his chin and pointed in her direction.

"You suspect she has a problem?" Xiao Tang also looked over, "Because the information she said doesn't match what we found?"

"Well," Xu Zichen nodded, "Is it possible that they were actually involved before we came?"

This, of course, does not refer to the "killer selection", but the activities that take place every night.

Just like the two nuns couldn't possibly be unaware that someone was missing every night based on the consumption of dishes and the amount of food, Zhou Ju and the others had been here for more than ten days. Could they really sleep peacefully amid the sound of continuous artillery fire, and be so careless at every meal that they didn't even notice the increase or decrease in the amount of food?

It is definitely impossible.

Even if Zhou Ju's teammates were of poor quality, Zhou Ju herself was not bad in qualifications. She was obviously very sharp this morning and could tell at a glance that there was more breakfast than yesterday's dinner.

"What do you think?" Bai Jinshu looked at Xu Zichen, "Do you think that they seem to have cleared themselves of all charges here, but in fact they have been helping others kill people before we came?"

"Is it possible that their tip-off last night was actually a cover-up for those children, just to prevent them from finding out what those people were doing." Xu Zichen was not polite either.

"It doesn't make sense..." Xiao Tang muttered in a low voice, "Zhou Ju is a weird person. If she wants to hide something, isn't the best way to not inform us? Our doors are closed and we don't know anything. If she takes the initiative to inform us, we will definitely find out what these children do at night. Doesn't this go against their goal?"

This morning too.

They clearly did not come to eat last night, so it was impossible for them to tell how much porridge there was. However, Zhou Ju took the initiative to say that there was too much porridge, which made them guess that someone had died last night.

Someone died last night, and a child left here last night without taking sleeping pills. Once these two pieces of information are connected, we can quickly come to the conclusion that the child who left here last night killed someone.

If Zhou Ju wanted to hide something, why would he say all this?

"Very torn..." Bai Jinshu said thoughtfully.

"Yes, it's very torn," Xiao Tang nodded, "She seems to want us to know, but also doesn't want us to know."

This Zhou Ju is so weird.

The three of them looked at each other and then looked towards Zhou Ju in the distance.

Zhou Ju is now with Yuan Shanming and Yin Ge. The three team leaders are sitting on chairs. You can only see their backs but not what they are saying.

Guan Hongyan was winking at them frantically. Bai Jinshu looked over and saw that Huangmao was almost being killed by a group of kids staring at him in the direction of Guan Hongyan's eyes.

Seeing that his elder sister and elder brother finally noticed him, Huangmao's eyes were filled with tears and he blinked wildly at Xiao Tang and Bai Jinshu.

Still lip-syncing: [Save the children].

Bai Jinshu: ...

This guy can really act.

When Xiao Tang saw that Huangmao was surrounded, he rolled up his sleeves and went over to pull him out.

Bai Jinshu and Xu Zichen returned to the crowd quietly.

After knowing that some people are pretending to be dull, you will see a different situation when observing these children again.

The older you get, the more experienced you are. Although it is not known whether Xu Zichen had experienced this kind of training before, it is obvious that his eyesight is much better than Bai Jinshu's. Soon he picked out a bunch of people who were pretending from the crowd.

Bai Jinshu could see some of them, but for some of them Bai Jinshu couldn't tell whether they were pretending or really dull. It took Cen Bingqi to follow his train of thought.

At noon time, everyone went to the restaurant room again. A few new people came, and the porridge in everyone's bowl became less. Without Xiao Tang's interference in the morning, most of the children now looked at the four or five new people with dull and fierce eyes.

During the meal, Xu Zichen went to find Guan Hongyan and told her roughly their ideas. Guan Hongyan repeated them to Jin Ling and also handed Xu Zichen a bug.

Now that there is no live broadcast, the two of them spoke without restraint. If they were not concerned about other people around them, they would probably call each other by their real names.

"Jin Ling said," Xu Zichen found Bai Jinshu and Huai Jiamu separately after returning and showed them the bugs in her hand, "She let the bugs try to go out. These dead things can't leave here either. They are just like us. Once they cross a certain line, they will be teleported back to the door."

"But if she's here, we don't have to follow those kids around at night. We lost Guan Hongyan last night when she went out with someone else," he whispered as he put away the bug. "The only difficulty is that there aren't many bugs here. Jin Ling could only find three or four. We have to make sure someone leaves at night so we can use this thing to locate them."

"That's not difficult. Just observe for a few nights." Bai Jinshu nodded slightly. "Anything else?"

"Also, Brother Yin said someone came to see them and said a lot of nonsense," Xu Zichen said, "It was a kid I had never seen before, but he said right away that he saw them last night and asked them not to kill him? This is the first time a clue has come to them."

Bai Jin said: "...I roughly know what's going on."

It was nothing more than a child who was frightened by Huai Jiamu last night. He scared himself during the day today. The more he thought about it, the more scared he became, so he simply went to find them and blew himself up.

Perhaps because he was too scared by Huai Jiamu, the child did not choose to look for him and Huai Jiamu, but went directly to find Yuan Shanming and Yin Ge.

Or it may be because these two people are older.

After all, children of this age have a serious tendency to worship age. The four-year difference between four and eight is greater than the difference between twenty-four and twenty-eight between adults.

"What did he say?" Bai Jinshu briefly told what happened last night and continued to ask.

"Oh, that child? Brother Yin said it was a little girl." Xu Zichen picked up a grass root that he had pulled out from somewhere, "She said she just wanted to survive here. She didn't know where those people went every night, but they generally only took away those children who took sleeping pills and were sleeping soundly. So as long as she could convey to those people that she was awake, they would let her go."

No wonder when Huai Jiamu asked him last night whether he wanted to take action, a trace of confusion and fear flashed across the kid's eyes.

She probably mistook them for the people who came here to take people away.

"Oh, and there's one more thing," Xu Zichen remembered, "when your team leader asked her why she came here, she didn't give a direct answer, but she probably meant that she thought the older kids wouldn't show up last night until your team leader went in."

Last night, all the older children around ten years old were knocked out by sleeping pills, so of course they wouldn’t show up. The only one awake was probably Yuan Shanming.

The daytime in the shelter was unremarkable. It was basically just a bunch of really stupid kids and kids pretending to be stupid staying in the church and staring at each other. Xiao Tang experienced that for the whole morning and afternoon, and he could be seen sighing during dinner at night.

"Hey, man..." She sighed with backache, "I thought you were exaggerating this morning about staying up all night, but after this day I feel like I'm going to be stupid if I'm not stupid at all."

When her friend named Shi Yuan said that playing dumb was a way to keep oneself awake, she still felt a little disdainful in her heart, but soon this disdain slapped her in the face.

Playing dumb is really a technical skill.

He had to stare straight ahead motionlessly, with a dull look on his face, and maintain the same posture for a long time. In the end, Xiao Tang simply gave up on treatment, fell backwards, and lay flat on the ground, completely giving up on integrating into the situation.

At worst, they could just come and kill her tonight! She still didn't believe that others wouldn't save her!

Xu Zichen looked at her sympathetically: "I once maintained a posture for more than 48 hours."

Xiao Tang: ...

"Didn't you learn this from watching TV?" she said silently.

"Oh," Xu Zichen readily agreed, "I once watched a TV series in the same position for 48 hours."

Bai Jinshu watched him attack Xiao Tang silently from the side, and said nothing out of respect.

Xiao Tang was so shocked that he was in a daze. He ran away after eating, not realizing that he was actually competing with a Gu King, Long Aotian, who had devoured countless of his kind, became famous at the age of three, reached the top at the age of five, and retired at the age of seven.

After beating Xiao Tang, Xu Zichen finished his meal and strolled off to look for Guan Hongyan again.

This time, the excuse was to ask about the arrangements for tonight's vigil.

The biggest problem with the investment bank's novice village is the live broadcast that is going on all the time. Now the live broadcast signal has been having problems. If there were no people from other teams, Xu Zichen and Guan Hongyan would be even more unscrupulous.

Bai Jinshu had no intention of making Xu Zichen the target of the opposing team, so he took the initiative to walk back with Zhou Zhou and Feng Shuang.

The two of them didn't make any new discoveries today. They were discussing what kind of earplugs would be more effective when sleeping tonight. If it wasn't unhygienic and unsafe, Bai Jinshu suspected that the two of them even planned to stuff some mud into their ears.

Knowing that they would not be taken away if they showed that they were awake, no one drugged the ten-year-old children tonight. Instead, they prepared to wait for them to take people away from here and then follow them quietly.

Bai Jinshu did not comment on this plan, but he was rather inclined to think that these ten-year-old kids might not be able to do anything tonight.

After all, as long as they are not stupid, they can realize that someone drugged them last night, and they will not continue to kill people today out of caution. And if what Zhou Ju said is true, the drug will make people stupid after taking it once, and the stupid older children will not do something like killing people in the middle of the night.

In short, if we use the analogy of Werewolf, tonight will not be Christmas Eve, but there will definitely be some wolves who will not take action.

Therefore, their plan to wait until the others leave and then catch up is feasible. As long as there is no communication between the older children and the seven or eight-year-old children, those seven or eight-year-old children will continue to follow the original plan.

As time went by, most people had dispersed back to their rooms. As night fell, the sound of gunfire outside the window rang out on time, and most people in the room fell asleep.

——Of course, some of it is fake.

Bai Jinshu couldn't figure out how many children in the room were pretending to be asleep. He had heard their entire conversation last night, but there was no point in pulling them all out now. They were all three or four years old anyway. With older kids like Yuan Shanming and Brother Yin and Zhou Zhou around, even if they heard something, they would have to keep it to themselves and not say it out loud.

What’s more, they probably don’t even know what “live streaming” is.

I don’t know if it’s a psychological effect, but the sound of gunfire today seemed to be much less than yesterday. Just when Bai Jinshu was feeling a little drowsy, Xu Zichen suddenly called out, “Hey, the live broadcast has a signal again.”

Today was obviously different from yesterday. Most of the people who needed to keep watch forced themselves to fall asleep. Even if they couldn't sleep, they plugged their ears with something so that they couldn't hear such a small sound.

Only a few night watchmen who did not plug their ears could hear Xu Zichen's voice.

Bai Jinshu opened his eyes and clicked on the live broadcast room at the same time as Xiao Tang on the opposite side.

Sure enough, just like yesterday, the screen was still full of garbled characters. It didn’t look like the text sent by a normal person, and it made people feel creepy.

Xiao Tang took a quick glance and quickly closed the terminal. He looked like he wanted this thing to get away from him. Huangmao's face also looked a little distorted.

"The programmer replied." Xu Zichen didn't pay attention to the two people's performance, but continued to speak softly, "Our error report yesterday was seen."

"Huh?" Bai Jinshu originally wanted to close it, but after hearing what he said, he also opened the panel and tried hard to find a small red dot that was probably a reply to the background email among a bunch of messy garbled codes and blindingly high-saturation colors.

After clicking it, I found that there was no garbled text in the reply.

Bai Jinshu glanced at ten lines at a time and roughly summarized the meaning of this reply letter:

The reply probably said that they had received many reports of this bug where the live broadcast suddenly became garbled, and most of them were signal disconnection accompanied by garbled live broadcast, and the teams that reported the errors were all teams in the no-man's land.

They tried to fix it after receiving the error, but they never successfully reproduced the bug, so now they don’t know what caused the bug.

So when they encountered the bug again this time, they decided to investigate further. After receiving this reply, they hoped that the anchors who encountered the bug would upload their terminal data as an attachment to the reply, and open up some developer permissions to facilitate programmers to fix it.

At the end of the reply, there is a dark red button with the text: [Upload terminal data to data center].

"What is this?" Xiao Tang suppressed his nausea and opened the panel. He read the letter and his finger fell on the last button. "Hurry up and send it. This thing is too disgusting. It's simply mental pollution. Repair it quickly."

"Don't spread it." At this moment, Huai Jiamu suddenly spoke.

"Ah?" The boss suddenly called for a stop. Xiao Tang was startled and his fingers stopped in mid-air.

Bai Jinshu also opened his eyes slightly wider in surprise.

Huai Jiamu rarely spoke at times like this.

He turned his head slightly and looked in the direction of Huai Jiamu: "What's wrong? What's the problem with this thing?"

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First 20 + Random 20

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