Chapter 112 Headquarters She wanted to break through the glass that bound everything...
It wasn't until she unlocked her phone and entered WeChat that Liang Jun noticed the group chat was already covered with red dots.
Neither Qi Zhixia nor Gu Keke had their phones with them, and they happened to be in the hospital warehouse when they sent the message.
In the overly tense atmosphere, Liang Jun naturally didn't notice the slight vibration of her phone.
She eagerly entered the chat box and clicked the green direct access button in the upper right corner.
The first reply was sent approximately half an hour after they left the ward.
Ren'e: [What are you going there for?]
Ren'e: [Is there any new discovery?]
A few minutes later, Lao Ren sent another message.
Ren'e: [Okay, everyone be careful.]
Ren'e: [Xiao Luo is driving; I've already told him.]
Liang Jun continued scrolling down, and a series of street photos came into view.
She started by clicking on the first large image and kept scrolling through them.
These are mostly the more useful clues they've collected.
A tattered white cloth fluttered in the wind at the top of the flagpole, with an emergency distress number written on it in striking black ink.
In front of a long-closed chain fast food restaurant, there are still stalls offering free meals. Rotten and spoiled food is everywhere, and maggots are disgustingly bred on a small blackboard.
Supermarkets and pharmacies, places that provide supplies, have long been looted. The shelves are crooked, and the ground is splattered with mud. They have long lost the mechanical order they had when they first arrived, and are now a complete mess.
Has the outside world become like this?
The heart is like a balloon being confined in a glass box and inflating.
Although it had the desire to be strong and grow up, the transparent glass box was almost invisible, tightly confining the balloon inside.
Air continued to pour in, and the thin balloon bore unimaginable pressure, seemingly with only one path left: to "explode and shatter."
Is this the only way?
Liang Jun held her breath.
No, she wouldn't let her inner growth stagnate at this stage.
She wanted to break free from the glass box that bound everything.
The last image has been displayed; no more content can be loaded.
Liang Jun lightly touched the screen and returned to the group chat page.
Following closely below those pictures was a voice message from Luo Chuange.
There were no outsiders in the ward, and after looking around, Liang Jun finally chose to play the volume out loud.
Luo Chuange's voice came through the receiver, "These are all relevant intelligence we collected on the road, but most of them haven't been checked for usability yet. Let's send them to the group first and everyone can screen them together."
The other two people who were huddled on the bed looking at their phones also looked up at Liang Xuan after hearing the sound.
"Are you looking at the messages in the group too?" Gu Keke shook her phone, which was connected to the charging cable. The screen showed the photos sent by Luo Chuange. "Perfect, we're looking at them too."
Seeing this, Liang Jun simply turned her phone volume up to the maximum and then opened the next voice message he sent.
"Some photos may not be very clear, and some may show reflections from the car windows, because we didn't get out of the car."
"The outside environment is even harsher than we imagined. We encountered many groups of survivors on the road, but instead of showing any friendliness, they tried to steal resources from our vehicle..."
"Luckily, I have the habit of locking the car doors immediately, and it's also a good thing I didn't choose Sister Jun's Highlander back then, otherwise the situation would be terrible now."
The audio bar has finished playing.
Liang Xun's gaze moved downwards, noticing two WeChat system notifications flashing across the chat page in quick succession—
"Luo Chuan Ge" retracted a message.
Maybe I accidentally sent the wrong content.
Liang Jun didn't think about it any further.
Scrolling down, it seemed that he hadn't received any replies from anyone else for quite some time, so Luo Chuange tentatively sent a text message to the chat box.
Luo Chuange: [Are you guys alright? Why aren't you replying to my messages?]
This message arrived just as they were waiting for Geng Qing to return in the warehouse.
In that tense environment, how could one possibly have the mind to reply to messages in the group chat?
Soon, Luo Chuange on the other end of the phone seemed to realize that something was wrong and made several group calls in succession.
Without exception, all of them displayed the status "The voice call has ended".
The group chat was initially created using a "face-to-face group creation" method, so no individual contact information was kept among the members—which greatly worried Luo Chuange.
The fear of the unknown grew stronger, and considering the various wicked people they had encountered along the way, Luo Chuange and Lao Ren dared not continue "hunting" outside and had to change their plans to return to the hospital first.
Luo Chuange: [I don't know the specific situation on your end.]
Luo Chuange: [We'll be right back.]
Liang Jun's heart skipped a beat.
As I swiped down again, I saw their latest message.
Ren'e: [Why isn't anyone looking at their phones? Could something really have happened?]
Ren'e: [Let me tell you, we ran into an old acquaintance on the road.]
Scrolling to the bottom of the chat window, Liang Jun held the phone in both hands and frantically typed on the keyboard at the cursor position.
Liang Jun: [I'm sorry, something unexpected happened in the warehouse, so I wasn't able to reply to your messages immediately. I apologize for making you worry.]
Qi Zhixia and Gu Keke were also rapidly tapping their phone screens. Before long, two fresh messages popped up in the "Never Die" group chat.
Qi Zhixia: [I'm sorry to have worried you.]
Gu Keke: [Heart emoji]
The moment the pink kitten emoji was sent, Luo Chuange replied instantly to the voice message.
"That's good, that's good. I'm glad you're all alright. By the way, what kind of accident happened? Was it serious?"
Liang Jun: [Don't worry, it has nothing to do with rule-based worlds. He's just an ordinary mental patient.]
She moved her finger slightly upwards, pressed and held Lao Ren's chat box, and selected the "Quote" function.
Leung Chung: [What old acquaintance?]
Liang Jun: [Could it be Sister Xin and the other two?]
"You hit the scoring point, but didn't answer it completely correctly."
Luo Chuange sent another voice message, the background seemingly filled with the sound of chaotic footsteps, "Only Sister Xin and Jiang Zhiling came, I didn't see Ge Lin."
As the voice message finished playing, the voice also stopped abruptly.
But the footsteps that seemed to be stealing the show were still there, and even showed signs of gradually getting closer.
Not only Liang Yan, but the other two also noticed this and immediately became extremely alert. They even jumped off the bed barefoot without having time to put on their shoes.
Just as they darted out of their blind spot, the door to room 602 was pushed open.
Luo Chuange and Lao Ren stood in front of the door like giant pine trees, carrying their black backpacks. Although they had only been gone for less than a day, the two looked as if they had been drained of all their energy; their faces were sallow, and a layer of black stubble had sprouted on their chins.
Seeing that their three companions who were guarding the ward were safe and sound, Luo Chuange and Lao Ren tacitly stepped aside, revealing Xin Sang with a full head of red hair and Jiang Zhiling in white clothes hiding behind them.
"It really is you guys!"
Gu Keke tiptoed and ran straight to Xin Sang and Jiang Zhiling, embracing them both tightly. "I thought you weren't coming..."
Her voice gradually faded, replaced by faint sobs.
Xin Sang was both amused and exasperated. "Baby, what are you complaining about? We don't have any suitable teammates. We promised to come and join you, and we'll definitely keep our word!"
Liang Xuan also wore a smile of joy after a long separation. Her doting gaze shifted from Gu Keke, but then fell on Jiang Zhiling beside her.
In just a few days, Jiang Zhiling had become incredibly thin. The white suit hung loosely on her body, making her look like a soulless shell, the clothes swaying precariously around her flesh.
Liang Jun immediately felt uneasy, and she gave Luo Chuange and Lao Ren a look.
"Don't all crowd at the door to catch up. Everyone has been busy all day. Come in and sit down to rest."
"Yes, yes, yes!"
Reminded, Gu Keke suddenly understood. She turned around, then embraced Xin Sang and Jiang Zhiling on her left and right, and brought them back to the hospital bedside. "There are four beds in the ward. The patients who used to stay here have been discharged, so the whole room is ours. Please sit wherever you like!"
Gu Keke, being meticulous, naturally understood Liang Xuan's deeper meaning, so she took the initiative to follow Jiang Zhiling and sat down next to her.
Surviving repeatedly in such a high-pressure gaming environment greatly diminishes the normal social skills possessed by ordinary people.
Therefore, even though they hadn't seen each other for a while, they had very few topics to talk about, and soon the conversation fell into an awkward silence.
Liang Jun kept observing Xin Sang and Jiang Zhiling without making a sound.
Xin Sang was in the best condition among them. Apart from a slight hint of fatigue from the long drive, his overall energy level far surpassed that of the other students.
In contrast, Jiang Zhiling seemed less optimistic. Her once bright and expressive eyes had completely lost their sparkle, and her swollen, almost peach-pit-like eyes were hard to miss. It was clear that she was trying to join in the conversation, but the fine lines around her eyes, revealed by her forced smile, betrayed her underlying helplessness.
She had only seen Jiang Zhiling in this absent-minded state before, when Shao Feng passed away.
Liang Jun silently withdrew her gaze.
The addition of new team members means that Liang Jun, as the team leader, will have an even greater responsibility.
After calming down and thinking it over carefully, she decided that the most urgent thing was to get them into the group chat.
Effective communication is the only bargaining chip for survival in the future.
Liang Xun turned on her phone screen and handed over the QR code for the "Never Die" group chat. "You all have your phones with you, right? Scan the code and join the group. We can communicate in the group if needed."
The "Never Die" group has grown to seven members.
Liang Xun put away her phone and looked behind Xin Sang and Jiang Zhiling, asking curiously, "Where's your luggage?"
"They're all in my car."
Xin Sang habitually tossed her vibrant red hair. "Xiao Luo said we didn't have to rush to get our luggage, so I didn't move."
Liang Xun glanced at Luo Chuange sitting on the bench, and after receiving a reassuring look from him, she turned to the two of them and continued, "Director Geng might come to the ward again in a while. I'll introduce you then, and ask her if there are any extra wards available. It's inconvenient for us to be crammed into one room all the time with so many of us."
“If we can get another empty ward, you two might need to move in.” She looked at Luo Chuange and Lao Ren. “Before, when there were fewer people, it wasn’t a problem for men and women to share a room to save resources; but now that there are significantly more women, we need to make proper arrangements.”
Luo Chuange and Lao Ren nodded repeatedly, "Understood, understood."
And what happened next was exactly as Liang Jun had planned.
At 7 p.m. sharp, Geng Qing entered ward 602.
She had come to inform Liang Jun and the others that the mental patient had been settled; but to her surprise, two more unfamiliar faces appeared in the room.
After introductions, the group nodded to each other, and that was how they got to know each other.
Regarding the ward issue, Geng Qing stated that ward 601, which was opposite theirs, had recently become vacant, and since the inpatient department's beds were not too scarce at the moment, it was not impossible to allocate one to them.
In this way, the "Never Die" team successfully split into two branches.
The boys' headquarters is ward 601, and the girls' headquarters, which is also the command center, is ward 602.
All plans were being implemented step by step, and all actions were progressing too smoothly.
They were fully prepared and eagerly awaiting the last day of their rest period.
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Author's Note: The next chapter will begin a new dungeon!
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