Chapter 43 Countdown 18 Hours
At dusk, Youxi stood behind the blinds, gently opened the leaves a little, and observed the situation outside from the shadows.
The community where her worldly character lived was diagonally opposite the four-lane road. After she left by bus in the early morning, she quietly returned here.
She still believed in some old sayings, such as the most dangerous place is the safest place.
Of course, she also thought about leaving Hairu City, but the geographical conditions here are special. If you want to leave and go to other cities, you must use transportation.
Either take a boat or a plane, or you can leave by train, truck or car.
She definitely can't take public transportation now. After using [Disguise Lipstick], her image does not match the one on the ID card, but if she returns to her original appearance, she is afraid that she will be stopped before getting on the bus or plane.
There was no problem with driving, but if she really wanted to leave Hairu City to go to another city, she had to go through a mountain tunnel.
The total length of this mountain tunnel was 55 kilometers, and the mountain above the tunnel was more than 2,000 meters high. In this apocalyptic world, especially after she had experienced the collapse of the undersea tunnel, it didn't sound very safe.
As for climbing the mountain to leave by herself, when the steep cliffs around her appeared in her mind, the idea flashed through her mind for a moment and she gave up.
It was originally a global disaster, and no matter where she went, she could not avoid it, so it was better to stay still than to move, so she should reserve her energy on the spot and wait and see.
Later, facts proved that her judgment was correct.
This is a twelve-story commercial building. She is currently on the sixth floor - a large-scale 24-hour Internet cafe that allows overnight stays and has private rooms.
She decided to come here after finding pictures of the private rooms inside the Internet cafe on the Internet.
The private room has a window facing the road, with a good view. In addition to computers, there is also a TV, a large sofa and a bathroom, so staying overnight is not a problem at all.
She arrived here before noon and originally wanted to see if she could get in without an ID, after all, her face and the ID did not match. If not, she would think of other ways.
As a result, she got in smoothly. Afterwards, she paid the two-day fee, and in order to avoid suspicion from the other party, she also bought a bunch of buckets of instant noodles, various snacks and drinks.
There is a water heater in the private room, so even if she does not go out for the next two days, it will not arouse suspicion.
After all, her current image is that of a young boy, and it is reasonable for a boy to be addicted to online games in a private room.
After entering the private room and locking the door, she first checked around to see if there were any cameras. She knew that some Internet cafe private rooms would have them, but this is a different world after all, and there will always be some subtle differences in the normal state of the world. She
took out her mobile phone from her native world, which had an APP that could check whether there were any hidden cameras. She just needed to scan the room to see if it was safe.
Fortunately, there were no cameras in the private room, and everything was normal.
She hadn't slept since she woke up at around one in the morning. The world seemed stable, with a 48-hour period of relative peace in the early stage, but in fact, there were crises everywhere and it was not easy at all.
She lowered the blinds and went to the bathroom to solve her physiological problems. When she wanted to wash her hands, she suddenly remembered something and only opened the water drum without reaching out to touch the water.
Clean water flowed out, and there was no strange smell, but for safety reasons, she still took out the hand sanitizer to wash her hands.
Afterwards, she put the chair behind the locked door, took out the blanket, and took a nap on the sofa.
In the evening, Youxi woke up to the alarm. Everything was normal in the box. She picked up her mobile phone and turned on the selfie function. The person on the screen had restored the original appearance of the world's characters - her appearance when she was thirty years old.
She walked to the window to check the situation outside. There was still a black SUV parked on the road at the entrance of the community across from her.
Although the doors and windows were closed, she knew who was inside. The car had been parked there since she left the community in the morning. She had also seen the car when she entered the private room at noon.
The other party probably judged that she was still hiding in the community - after all, she had never been seen out, and except for her cell phone, wallet and related documents, she did not take away any of the world's belongings, so they still did not give up. They
might also start looking for her everywhere in the community, or try to locate her with the cell phone, but it was useless. The world's cell phone was thrown into the Star House warehouse by her last night. As long as she did not take it out, they would never be able to locate her.
**
After observing and making sure there was nothing unusual, Youxi sat down to eat dinner.
She took out a portion of fried rice cakes, a bowl of spicy beef vermicelli soup, and a portion of almond tofu as dessert.
Her appetite had not fully recovered yet, so she could only eat a small amount of meat for the time being.
The fried rice cakes tasted exactly the same as the ones she had eaten in the store that day, chewy and soft, the beef vermicelli soup was spicy and fresh, and every bite was a pleasure, and the almond tofu had a silky milky aroma and a hint of sweetness.
After eating, her appetite recovered a little, and she took out a box of durian meat to chew on.
This is the best golden pillow durian, with a soft texture, sweet but not greasy, and because it has been chilled, it still has a slight coolness, and it feels like eating ice cream when you take a bite.
While she was chewing, she used the computer in the box to surf the Internet and check the local news.
There was no news or video related to the collapse of the undersea tunnel or the subway accident, nor any news related to black bugs, and there was not even the word "bug".
She did not give up, and slowly pushed forward from the news of the past two days, day by day, trying to find and piece together useful information from all kinds of mixed messages.
Five days ago, a news report about a group of workers fighting each other on a seaside construction site rolled across her retina. Because of the words "seaside construction site", she could not help but look at it a few more times.
In the video, reporters rushed to the scene to shoot, and the people fighting seemed to be construction workers, and there was nothing special about them.
It is unknown what caused the conflict, but they were all very emotional. From the occasional close-up shots, it can be seen that both sides of the fight were already furious and refused to give in to each other.
Even though other construction workers and the police who rushed to the scene pulled them apart, the fight could not be pulled apart for a while.
Later, the fighters began to use tools, such as bricks to smash, and some even stabbed with steel bars.
The scene became chaotic, and the police asked for help to increase the number of personnel before they were able to control the scene.
Finally, the reporter did a follow-up report outside a police station, saying that the troublemakers had been detained and might face punishment later. As for the cause of their fight, the incident is still under investigation.
Youxi calculated the time. It happened five days ago. These people should still be imprisoned.
She flipped forward again and paused for a moment when she came across another piece of news.
This was a news from eight days ago. It was a notice that a mountain sewer was temporarily closed due to disrepair. It was a very small piece of news, and there was not even any picture.
But the words "disrepair" and "temporarily closed" made her subconsciously think of last night's night news. It was obviously an undersea tunnel that collapsed, but it was treated as disrepair.
She read this pure text news several times and made a bold guess in her heart.
Maybe the same thing happened in this sewer, and the relevant personnel came to investigate. Because the matter was strange (the first time it was discovered) or they had been prepared (not the first time it was discovered), they closed the sewer and made a blurred focus.
But no matter what kind of news it is, it is only her guess at present.
Perhaps all the mysteries can only be revealed after the end of the 48 hours of relative peace time.
Now, there are still 18 hours left before the end of the safe time.
**
At 11 o'clock in the evening, the black SUV parked outside the opposite community finally left. It is not known whether it gave up on her as an "experimental" object or for some other reason.
In order to prepare for the 48-hour deadline tomorrow afternoon, Youxi decided to sleep a little longer. Before going to bed, she took off her clothes, took out the [Instant Cleansing Oil] and went to the bathroom to "take a shower".
Although it was only the second time she used it, she already liked the feeling of instantly isolating all the dirt on her body.
She didn't stay outside for long today, and she didn't have any new wounds on her body, but she was still worried. Living in such an apocalypse, she used [Instant Cleansing Oil] every day just to make herself feel at ease.
Sure enough, after using it, there were only some very fine dandruff on her feet, not even dirt.
You Xi was satisfied, and with an oily face, she put on a clean short-sleeved T-shirt and sportswear again, then took out the blanket, set the alarm and closed her eyes.
She still didn't sleep well that night. After all, she was in a strange apocalyptic world, and her hearing was too good. From time to time, she could hear the sound of smashing things and arguing in the distance while she was half asleep and half awake, as if someone was having an emotional breakdown and cursing and fighting.
But because the noises were far away, she didn't wake herself up completely.
There wasn't much time left, so she had to take advantage of it to rest.
Later, she was awakened by the sound of an argument nearby.
She opened her eyes, took out her phone to check, and it was less than six in the morning.
The sound of the quarrel came from outside the private room door, and the incident should have happened inside the Internet cafe.
She listened carefully for a while and quickly figured out the reason for the quarrel. They were a couple who came to travel from Liancheng, next to Hairu City. Originally, the girl was going to go back last night, but the boy wanted to play for a few more days, so the girl agreed to stay and accompany him for two more days.
The two had an appointment to play games with someone last night, so they temporarily checked out of the hotel and booked a private room in this Internet cafe to play games overnight.
However, not long ago, the girl just received a phone call from Liancheng Public Hospital, saying that her parents were affected by a threatening incident nearby late at night, and the glass windows of their residence were hit by a petrol bomb, causing a small explosion and fire.
Both her parents were injured, especially her father, who was seriously injured in order to protect her mother. He is now undergoing surgery in the hospital.
The girl panicked when she heard it, and quarreled with the boy while sorting her things.
"Bang--" The sound of heavy objects being smashed began to be heard outside, and the other people in the Internet cafe were alarmed. Judging from the footsteps and breathing, there were about a dozen people staying in the Internet cafe overnight.
You Xi thought about it, got up, put on a mask and baseball cap, opened the door of the private room and went out to check the situation.
This Internet cafe is like most Internet cafes. After entering, there is a large hall. There are two corridors inside. There are private rooms on both sides of the corridor, and there is also a small private room without windows in the middle. Because she wanted to face the road and be by the window, she asked for a large private room with a more expensive price, which is located at the innermost side of the entire corridor.
The sound of the initial dispute came from the private room near the hall in the corridor. Later, the sound left the private room. Now both of them are in the hall.
Others were also gathered there, including the night watchman of the Internet cafe. No one noticed Youxi's appearance.
No one knew who started to smash things first. When Youxi stood at the entrance of the corridor, she found that two computer screens had been smashed.
The night watchman at the Internet cafe was not the same one she had seen at noon. He must have changed shifts. He tried to persuade them to fight at first, but now he was furious and turned around to tell another night watchman sitting behind the cashier to call the police. People
standing nearby were watching the excitement, and some people tried to persuade them, but were thrown at by the girl with a cup.
She didn't know if it was because of her emotional excitement, but her eyes were red, and she looked extremely angry, with a completely distorted expression on her face.
She was screaming and smashing things, and she was no longer able to speak coherently as Youxi had heard at first. She seemed to be completely caught up in some extreme emotion, which reminded her of the men in the news of the fight at the construction site last night.
They were the same at that time. No matter how others persuaded or pulled them, they seemed to have a blood feud with each other and were determined to fight each other to the death.
The boy was arguing with her at first, but now he was frightened by the other party's crazy smashing of things. He shouted his girlfriend's name and tried to apologize, but the other party suddenly rushed over and seemed to strangle him.
Fortunately, someone nearby pulled the girl back in time, but even after being pulled, she still struggled.
You Xi frowned.
Something was wrong.
Not only was the girl wrong, but the smell in the air was also wrong. She smelled that damp fishy smell again. Are there black bugs here? Strange, she didn't smell it when she came to the Internet cafe before.
You Xi analyzed it carefully again, and finally set her eyes on the girl.
The damp fishy smell came from her body.
You Xi began to look the other person up and down carefully, and finally found a thin long wound under her ear that was about to heal. Probably because there was not much bleeding, she didn't even use a band-aid.
A series of pictures flashed through her mind, including pictures from the news and scenes she had seen with her own eyes. Those chaotic and mixed messages seemed to be automatically pieced together and strung together bit by bit, trying to tell her an overall message.
When the message was about to come out, her thoughts were interrupted by two policemen who rushed over.
The other party was in a hurry, with a tired face, and it seemed that he had not slept all night and had been working all the time.
I don't know if it was because they were particularly experienced or for some other reason, but when they saw the girl's condition, they only asked a few questions to the people around them, and didn't even communicate with the boy, and they just took out the stun baton and went forward.
One of them held the girl, and the other knocked her down.
The girl twitched a few times, and her originally manic and angry look slowly subsided, and her body softened and fell down.
Her boyfriend rushed over to catch her before she fell to the ground, looking at the two policemen with panic and anger: "What are you doing? She just quarreled with me because her parents got into trouble!"
Even though he had never seen the police handle similar incidents before, he knew that it was not normal for them to take out the stun baton and use it without saying anything.
The other party did not answer, but instead began to ask about the other party's identity information, relationship with the girl, and places he had been to in recent days.
Finally, they asked a question that seemed irrelevant to others: "Have you two been injured recently?"
The boy was frightened by the other party's solemn expression and serious tone, and answered: "No, nothing - Oh, my girlfriend accidentally cut herself with her nails three days ago, right here on the ear... Does this count?"
"Where were you three days ago?"
"Three days ago we hadn't set off yet, we were in Liancheng."
After listening to them, the two policemen looked at each other, and then asked the boy to take the girl with them to the police station to deal with the follow-up of this matter.
One policeman took the two away, and the other policeman stayed and asked if anyone was injured. Even if it was a minor wound, as long as there was bleeding, they had to tell. If they didn't tell now, it would be impossible to ask for compensation if there was any trouble later.
This statement is a bit strange, but due to habit, everyone still believed the police's words, so they checked themselves carefully.
Sure enough, two more people were scratched by the flying debris when the girl smashed things just now. They were not serious and only bled a little. The two said forget it, these minor injuries are nothing.
However, the police said no, and asked them to go with him. After that, he temporarily answered a phone call, and his tone became a little tougher after hanging up the phone, hoping that the other party would cooperate with the work.
The two people wanted to say a few words, but were stopped by their companions, saying that there was nothing else to do anyway, so they just went there to avoid conflicts with each other.
In the end, the second policeman took away the two people with wounds and their respective companions.
After the police left, it took everyone a while to react, saying that this matter always felt a bit strange.
"Do you think that woman just now seemed a little abnormal, as if she was sick?"
"You know zombies, right? Generally, people infected with zombie viruses will show strong aggressiveness in the early stages!"
"Fuck! Don't talk nonsense! My hair stands on end!"
"Haha, I'm just joking. If there really is a zombie virus, we would all have been taken back and locked up!" I don't know who said this, but it caused a moment of silence after it was said.
After a while, someone spoke in an uneasy tone: "Well... infection with the zombie virus also requires conditions, such as biting and blood contact. Do you think the two injured people who were just taken away would..."
"Stop talking nonsense! They are fine, how is it possible..."
...
The sounds outside were blocked by the door of the room that Youxi closed. She locked the door and turned on the computer directly to check some news she had seen yesterday. The
various fragments of information that were interrupted in her mind not long ago were automatically pieced together again.
The dilapidated mountain sewers...
the construction workers who lost their minds and fought at the seaside construction site...
the girl just now...
the abnormal attitude of the police...
the noises and arguments that rang from time to time throughout the night...
She remembered that Hairu City had a special terrain and was surrounded by mountains on three sides.
This ring is a real ring, so the edge of the mountain is actually at the seaside!
Youxi's mouse suddenly stopped while he was browsing the page.
Found it!
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