Chapter 517, Contaminated Zone 24 (Part 5)

Xia Mingang: "..."

He was just thinking about something when he was interrupted by a woman's voice.

"Let's get down to business. How are we going to get out of here?"

Yun Zhao packed the remaining food into his backpack, slightly raised his chin, and looked at Xia Mingang, "Have you found any clues about the gatekeeper?"

The most important thing right now is to find a way to get out.

Although it was Xia Mingang's first time entering the contaminated area, he was, after all, a sentry who had received professional training.

He was also eager to find the gatekeeper to prove himself.

Believe it or not, we actually discovered a lot of strange things.

"The terrain here is very strange."

Xia Mingang frowned, somewhat puzzled. "The terrain is very strange. We're clearly on the eighth floor right now, but if we go out the other side of the corridor, it's on the third floor..."

"And it's not just this one place; many buildings are like this, making it hard to tell which way is which."

Xie Tu pondered for a moment: "The characteristics of the mountain city should not have any direct relationship with the polluted area."

Xia Mingang was taken aback by the truth.

After he calmed down, he opened the memo on his communicator and said, "The text on the neon lights, the small print is made of dark matter. If you stare at it for too long, it will change, and you will quickly become dizzy."

Xie Tu nodded and spoke again: "Rule number one: light pollution moves, so you can't stare at it for too long, or you'll be mentally polluted."

Xia Mingang: "..."

"We had already reviewed the information about this contaminated area before we came in."

Xie Tu bluntly stated, "The intelligence team has summarized three pieces of information. The second and third points are radio broadcasts and shadows, respectively."

"I've checked your shadows, and I didn't find anything wrong. Did you hear the broadcast?"

"No," was Qi Shiqi's reply.

He slumped into his chair, his gaze quietly shifting away from Qi Ling, and pulled out a pen to start taking notes.

"Broadcast and shadow?"

Qi Shiqi didn't notice the two. His face was still pale from prolonged hunger, but he was eager to know more: "What kind of broadcast and shadow were they?"

Yun Zhao then briefly explained it to him.

"Oh, I see."

Qi Shiqi's voice was hoarse: "At first I thought the clues would be hidden in the text messages. The text was very strange, and the advertising slogans all seemed to have a certain tone, which was very incongruous."

At that moment, Xia Mingang made me so angry that I just wanted to leave.

He was too eager to find clues and accidentally fell into a trap. Luckily, he had an inhibitor in his trench coat pocket.

Qi Shiqi recalled what he saw: "When I felt dazed, a passage kept scrolling through my mind, saying that this was a parkour mecca, tempting me to run."

He did as he was told instinctively and almost fell off the railing.

There's a drop of tens of meters below; if he fell, this old man would surely die.

Fortunately, Xia Mingang caught him in time and injected him with an inhibitor.

Although Xia Mingang was unreliable, after he came in, he gave him the only bottle of water he found and the only inhibitors he had.

Despite his cursing, Qi Shiqi knew very well that they could only hold out for three days at most before someone outside would come in to rescue them.

Even if they are not from Dawn Base, they will be sentinels from their base.

"It's spiritual pollution."

Yun Zhao turned to Qi Shiqi: "The intelligence team said they have already ruled out those neon signs."

"However, even if the sign isn't the gatekeeper, the fact that the text is composed of dark matter indicates that the gatekeeper has been manipulating the changes all along."

"Perhaps we can look for the area with the highest concentration of dark matter."

The sentry teams that entered earlier, to avoid being corrupted, probably dared not set foot in certain areas.

But now that she's here, there's nowhere in this polluted area that we can't go.

Xie Tu nodded and slowly stood up. "Professor Qi needs to rest. You all stay here for now. Yun Zhao and I will go out and take a look."

The streets outside are uneven, with constant ups and downs, and Qi Shiqi is currently in a weak state, so it is not suitable for him to go out with them.

Qi Ling was taken aback. "Am I staying here too?"

“Yes, call us loudly if anything happens,” Xie Tu said.

Qi Ling glanced at Qi Shiqi and mumbled an agreement.

The two kept stealing glances at each other.

Yun Zhao said nothing, but slightly raised his hand to create a barrier to protect Qi Ling.

Qi Ling is actually best suited to follow her.

He is covered in dark matter and is extremely vulnerable to being controlled by the gatekeeper.

But Qi Ling is probably worried about Qi Shiqi's current state, so it's better to let him stay here.

Perhaps it would be better for the two of them to talk things out.

Yun Zhao hopes that Qi Ling can gain family affection and increase his sense of belonging to this world.

At this moment, Xia Mingang, who had been completely ignored, pointed to himself and asked, "What about me?"

"You stay too." Xie Tu's attitude was quite cold.

His tone suggested that even if he disagreed, there were plenty of ways to make him agree.

Although both are S-class, Xia Mingang is still a newcomer and cannot possibly be Xie Tu's match in any aspect.

Xia Mingang sighed and accepted the arrangement.

In the realm of the spirit, Bixi slowly stretched its body and once again let out a heavy exhale.

Finally, I met someone who could take care of my original self.

＊

Yun Zhao and Xie Tu left them some food and then got up and left the hut.

The two chose to go down through another exit.

Just as Xia Mingang had said, at the end of the corridor, the floor was displayed as the third floor. Coming out from this side, we arrived at the other side of the road.

The neon lights continued to flash, day and night, and the scrolling text messages changed from time to time.

On both sides of the road, there are five or six signs hanging from high to low.

The billboard across the street, which was originally displaying the words "24-hour convenience store," is now slowly twisting into "24-hour memory recycling station."

The black material that makes up the characters wriggles like a living thing.

Yun Zhao, wearing sunglasses, looked up at the screen for a while and asked, "Does looking at these things make you feel uncomfortable?"

"meeting."

Xie Tu didn't look at the signboard, but studied the terrain, and replied, "Looking at it for too long will more or less have an impact on you."

“Xia Mingang did the right thing in this regard.”

The S-class Sentinel domain is extremely unstable.

Xia Mingang didn't read the text information, but instead clearly confirmed the shape of the terrain before searching for supplies.

He may have initially tried to find a gatekeeper, but Qi Shiqi was an ordinary person, and it would be easy for him to get into trouble without him.

If a senior researcher were to suffer any mishap because of him, even if he were the base commander's grandson, he would still be subjected to public condemnation.

He was actually very clear about this in his heart.

Because he wasn't in a hurry, he probably knew that if he didn't go out for three days, people outside would definitely come looking for him.

Moreover, although the building appeared to be tall, it had three exits.

It can be used for both offense and defense.

Xie Tu commented: "At least it's not beyond saving."

Yun Zhao nodded perfunctorily, his attention focused on the text on the signboard.

She felt no discomfort looking at the neon lights while wearing sunglasses; to her, these words were just like ordinary words.

[Neon Funeral Home: Say goodbye to the physical body, we create a personalized obituary for you.]

[24-hour bank: Hehe, welcome! Up to 333 months interest-free.]

[Navigation chip, precise obstacle avoidance, guiding you around deadly traps, install now!]

There is too much information, too much clutter, and it is constantly changing, making it impossible to distinguish which information is useful.

Yun Zhao read the characters on the signboard to Xie Tu.

She looked suspicious. "Does the gatekeeper intend to turn this place into a real cyberpunk site?"