Signs of awakening
[Ahhh, this is too exciting! ]
[No matter how many times I see Jump scare, I will still be scared QAQ]
Qiao Ze almost screamed, took a few steps back and hit the sink to support himself.
Her hand knocked over the lipsticks on the sink - presumably, they belonged to the female corpse in the cubicle.
Qiao Ze paused for several seconds before uttering a curse word. His face turned pale as he pressed the light brain frantically, but to no avail: "…This is a crappy signal! I can't get through, damn it!"
She hurried out of the bathroom, took the things she bought and went outside to try to find a signal to call the police that someone had died here.
But she didn't notice that the moment she turned around, the hanging corpse actually turned its eyes and looked at her back!
[Help! Has it turned into a zombie? ]
[Qiao Ze is really brave. He was walking alone in a mall and encountered a corpse, but he still acted in an orderly manner.]
When Qiao Ze went out, he found that he still couldn't make a call. It seemed that a heavy rain with thunder and lightning had started outside. Perhaps the signal was destroyed by it.
Her face was pale and she gritted her teeth as she drove to her mother's workplace.
There must be a signal in Crimson Technology, right?
Heavy rain was pouring down, and the sky and the earth were dark. Perhaps it was an illusion, but the sound of rain and thunder was mixed with the roar of wild beasts, which made people feel even more uneasy.
There were a few cars that were about to enter the company. Qiao Ze knew the people in them. They were his mother's colleagues. Strangely, there was no security guard at the company's gate. Qiao Ze drove straight into the underground parking lot, but heard a cold electronic voice -
"Ding... Intruder detected... Determined to be expelled... Expelled..."
The staff members were puzzled: "Isn't this the voice of our company's AI flower elf?" "What is the flower elf saying..."
Before he could react, the garage door fell down with a bang, the water pump on the wall started, water poured in, and a worker was washed away in an instant!
Qiao Ze opened her eyes wide in horror. The scene suddenly became chaotic. The staff shouted for help, but it was not only the flowing water, but the flower elves also released electric current. The people who tried to rescue in the water convulsed and died on the spot. She escaped because of the hovercraft.
[The AI has rebelled, it's called Flower Fairy, and it's reasonably suspected to be related to the virus that grows flowers. 】
[Help! This is too scary for the protagonist. It seems that the world around him has suddenly become scary and unfamiliar. People he knows are dying right in front of him...]
The scenes of humans being processed to death were particularly immersive, and Lu Zibing hugged his arms tightly as he watched.
Qiao Ze's disbelief was visible to the naked eye. She made a quick decision and rushed towards the garage door on the wall, breaking a gap in it, but still couldn't get out.
The water level rose rapidly, and the feeling of oppression was alarming. It seemed that zombies appeared underwater. Qiao Ze's vision was obstructed and she could not see clearly. She only knew that something was trying to climb up and float to attack her.
This part was very tense and exciting, and Lu Zibing was so nervous. The monster had already climbed onto the roof of the car, and the charged water was about to reach the tires. Suddenly, a loud bang came from the upper side, and a huge gap was blown open in the wall.
A figure in a white coat descended from the sky on a single-seat hoverbike and ruthlessly carried away the zombie climbing on the roof of Qiao Ze's car. The motorcycle broke apart due to the impact, and the man in the white coat jumped backwards, propped open the side door of Qiao Ze's car, and ducked in!
"mom?!"
Bang!
Qiao Ze's surprised call and the second explosion overlapped. Qiao Dai pulled the gearshift of her car and jumped out. In slow motion, the entire car body was pushed out by the force of the explosion and rushed into the darkness.
Lu Zibing shouted, "How cool!"
He had never expected that Qiao Dai would appear like this. Her blue eyes, no longer young but still calm, were like a sharp blade, cutting through the night together with her silver hair.
Qiao Ze couldn't help but look back and saw a scene he would never forget.
The gap created by the explosion went through the first and second floors, and through the gap one could see countless corpses - moving corpses.
They were even wearing the same white researcher coats as Qiao Dai, with work badges attached, but now their skin was red and ulcerated, with beautiful and strange flowers growing on the wounds.
The zombies on the second floor were crowded together, moving forward only by instinct, and fell down with a crackling sound.
Some of them cannot move after they hit the ground, which means they are "dead on the ground" in a physical sense; but some of them can still get up and continue to move forward.
Not to mention those on the first floor, they were already rushing in all directions.
This place is remote, but there are still residents.
"What are those things?! Is it some kind of infection?" Qiao Ze was so shocked that he almost forgot to look away.
Just as Qiao Dai was about to answer, her face changed. She reached out and pulled the joystick again, allowing the hovercar to narrowly avoid a falling lightning bolt. “Don’t look back, just focus on driving!”
This is the wilderness, and the thunderstorm weather is extremely unsuitable for traveling, but they have no choice.
Lu Zibing could sense that since Qiao Dai appeared, the focus of the camera had been on her. Qiao Ze had experienced several ups and downs, and his expression was uncertain. It was obvious that he had countless questions in his mind, and he wanted to tell his mother what happened in the mall, but he opened his mouth but didn't say anything.
Need you ask? Those humanoid monsters are the answer.
In the heavy rain, she drove at full speed. This is the scene in the trailer. The hover car drove into the city. What is different from the trailer is that the expressions of both of them are very solemn and not frivolous at this time.
When they met the flying zombie on the way, Qiao Ze finally understood the term "zombie". Qiao Dai rammed the zombie hard, but in the heavy rain, the corpse stood up again, which was the terrifying moment in the trailer.
At the critical moment, Qiao Ze didn't care about being afraid. He stepped on the accelerator and knocked the zombie out again. Then he calmly stepped back, accelerated again and ran over the zombie's head!
The shock was still on her young face, but her movements were calm as she was forced into a cruel role of survival.
The zombie finally stopped moving as its brains splattered. The flowers growing on its body withered and burned into black ash in an instant.
[Sure enough, its weakness is in the obvious place just as the masters analyzed, the head! ]
[Hiss, no wonder Shang Dao marked it as 20 banned this time, it’s really bloody…]
"Where are we going?"
"City A."
“Why is there no official organization to rescue us?”
"The worst possible scenario is that the army has already abandoned this place."
The city they are in is numbered B, and City A is the adjacent city. It takes about one day and one night to drive the hover car.
"Why do we have to go there?" Qiao Ze tried to recall, "I remember you said... your company's headquarters is there. Mom, were those monsters created by your company?"
Qiao Dai's face was a little gloomy: "I don't know."
At this point, the plot has reached its climax and entered a soothing zone, which is also the first part of the truth being revealed. Seeing this, Lu Zibing frowned: "Is Qiao Dai in a bad state? Amnesia?"
Although she was quick in her movements, there was an inexplicable delay in her response to the conversation.
As Lu Zibing was thinking, the camera swept across several flashback scenes, which seemed to be Qiao Dai's memories.
She came out of the office with a sullen face and had just put down her wrist with the light brain when a figure appeared from the corner and injected an unknown drug into her neck, causing her to faint.
She was dragged and locked into a medical bay, with the words Crimson Technology written all along the way;
She didn't know how long it had been before she woke up to the piercing alarm. She smashed open the medical cabin and the door of her room, only to find that Crimson Technology had already fallen and her colleagues had turned into monsters...
Obviously, the following story is connected to the previous one.
The image of the light brain in the first fragment seemed to hint at something, that is, Qiao Dai was very likely to have known about it at that time and was not on the side of Crimson Technology.
But she was framed by the company and fell into a coma, during which time the virus broke out.
[What exactly is this virus and where did it come from? Why is the company researching this? ]
[Qiao Dai's background is probably not simple. I guess she is an official undercover agent.]
The problem with the barrage is also Qiao Ze’s problem, but Qiao Dai tiredly pressed her forehead against it and said, “I can’t remember it myself. My brain has been affected by drugs.”
They drove from night to day, and along the way, horrifying scenes came into view of the audience. The virus spread incredibly fast, and the originally peaceful and prosperous city was turning into a hell on earth, including the square that the audience had seen in the trailer.
When they entered City A, an ominous sign was that no one stopped them when they passed the toll booth, there was no staff member inside the booth, and the shelves and glass were broken all over the floor.
It seemed that the disaster had struck City A at least half a day earlier than them, but Qiao Ze had never heard of similar news in the neighboring city.
City A, home to the headquarters of Crimson Technology, fell earlier than City B.
Not only human corpses will mutate, but animal corpses will also. Stray cats and dogs will become particularly hideous and terrifying after being mutated. They will be smaller in size and more flexible in attack.
Although AB City is not a first- or second-tier city, it has a combined population of nearly 10 million, and Qiao Ze's high school is also here.
The good news is that both cities are located on islands, and the virus will not spread to the land cities outside so quickly; the bad news is that the outside world has obviously already known about the virus and has cut off all sea routes.
There was no conversation until Qiao Ze said solemnly, "I'm running out of energy."
The hover car has three charging modes: gas, electricity, and solar energy.
It takes about half an hour to charge the first two, but it is dark now, so they can only choose the first two.
The mother and daughter carefully chose a charging station. Qiao Dai used the weapons brought from the company to deal with a few wandering zombies, got out of the car to recharge, while Qiao Ze was responsible for keeping watch in the car.
She was paying attention to the ground and the sky, but the audience's hearts slowly sank because the camera penetrated the ground and came into the sewer.
The dim light revealed a deep pink claw, and two zombies with distinctive appearances gradually appeared in front of the camera.
They are taller and larger, with long tongues with barbs coming out of their mouths. They have tentacles that look like ribs on their backs and long tails for maintaining balance. They are almost indistinguishable from human forms, and they move in the pipes as flexibly as spiders.
He sniffed with his ugly nose and looked in the direction of the mother and daughter.
Click, click, their claws hit the walls of the pipe, making hollow echoes.
Main galaxy, Ferry Star.
Ferry is an inconspicuous planet in the main galaxy, hovering around the second or third tier. It has neither famous scenery nor special industries to attract tourists.
Its only advantage is that it is closest to the main galaxy's "medical star" Quetu, and it only takes half a day to get there by taking the star track train.
Therefore, the housing rental industry and sanatoriums here are very developed, and patients seeking medical treatment can be seen staying here temporarily all year round.
Regardless of one's status, everyone is equally weak in the face of illness.
——This is the truth that Marian learned after working on Ferry Star for more than 20 years.
Marian is the owner of an agency. There are countless people working in the agency industry on Ferry Star. Their business scope ranges from helping clients contact suitable hospitals on the neighboring star to finding satisfactory places for clients to stay.
Therefore, although Marian is just an agency boss, she has met countless important people.
She even witnessed the death of the legendary musician Yun Shu, who passed his spiritual vision to his child, Yun Yongxue. Yun Yongxue also spent his early adaptation period on Ferry Star.
...Therefore, Marianne usually could guess the status of important customers in a short time, which was one of the little pleasures of her work. However, the one she was personally receiving now was hard for her to understand.
The identity of that important person was kept very closely guarded, and Marianne could only infer that she must be a politician.
When she was sent here by her subordinates, she was in the medical cabin and never showed her face. She must have been in a coma. All matters were handled by her subordinates.
Marianne had never seen her subordinates in the news, but they were well-trained and well-educated in every move, and it was obvious that they were of extraordinary status.
In fact, judging from the physique of some of the people inside, the big shot also has a certain military background.
They rented a secluded mountain villa and kept a low profile. They used unlicensed private vehicles for transportation, all in black. It was the first time Marianne had seen a vehicle driving on the road without a license.
The big shot has been sleeping for a long time. Marianne has seen many such cases. It must be syringomyelia.
She paid attention to the news, but she had not seen any possible reports. The other party's sleep was a secret to the outside world.
What shocked Marianne the most was that this important figure had been assassinated while living there!
There were more than one group of people. She knew of three such attempts, but none of them succeeded. Judging from the performance of the subordinates of the big shots, they were used to this.
What is the other party's status?
Before this, she had only seen assassinations in literary works and distant news.
The other team had not contacted her very often, but recently they asked her if she had any resources for rehabilitation equipment as they needed to order a batch.
Rehabilitation equipment?
Could it be that the big shot is about to wake up?
Marianne was curious, but she knew better than to ask.
She attached great importance to the other party's order. After purchasing the appropriate equipment, she arrived at the manor today for an interview.
However, the other team seemed to be busy with something and no one was there to receive her for the time being.
Marianne sat in the comfortable living room, watching the screen to pass the time, while inevitably paying attention to the movements upstairs, seeming a little absent-minded.
"Do you like director Shang Jingyan's works?"
Suddenly, a voice interrupted her distraction.
The speaker was walking down the stairs. She had a soft voice, a slight smile, and was meticulous in every aspect, with gold-rimmed glasses on her nose.
Marian knew her. She was the person in the big shot team who communicated with her most frequently. She guessed that she held a position such as secretary or assistant.
But after so long, Marianne didn't know what to call the other person.
——If Shang Jingyan were here, she would be able to recognize that this lady was the "Luo Fu" she had met in the cafe.
"Yes." Marian answered Luo Fu's words and touched her hair embarrassedly. "I was particularly obsessed with it a while ago. Her style is so unique."
The projection in the living room was showing half of "Pink Is Coming". Marianne had been busy with shopping these days and hadn't been able to catch up on the show at midnight, so she was just watching it now.
She felt guilty as if she had been caught slacking off, but unexpectedly, Luo Fu also sat down on the sofa, staring intently at the screen.
"It's a very good work." Luo Fu said, "My employer also appreciates Director Shang."
Marianne nearly choked on her tea. Her employer?!
This, how can such compliments bring up a big shot as well? Her employer should have been in a coma before Director Shang became famous...
Marian didn't know why Rove wanted to talk to her, but she could keenly sense that something important was happening on the other team today, and there was a faint atmosphere of tension.
Luo Fu seemed to be waiting for something. Because she was nervous, she came to her place to watch a movie to relieve her emotions.
Thinking of this, Marianne actually relaxed.
She no longer paid attention to the upstairs and focused all her attention on the movie.
The light screen has already shown two big zombies in the pipe breaking out of the ground. The soil layer is as thin as paper for them.
The hovercraft was almost overturned, and Qiao Ze was thrown out and hit the ground, spitting out blood.
The two zombies were shot in the head but the bullets had no effect and they kept approaching them. When their lives were hanging by a thread, a new character appeared and saved them.
It turns out that this kind of zombie needs to be hit in the head and heart to die. After being rescued, the two learned that some of the surviving humans in City A had temporarily gathered together and sent out teams to rescue people and explore outside the city.
They took the mother and daughter to the base. This scene was dazzling. The base was so well-organized that it was hard to believe that it was established in just one day.
——Marianne began to doubt. Could it be that these people had anticipated this?
Qiao Ze has food, Qiao Dai has guns, and the two are closely connected and obviously not easy to mess with, so they are treated favorably by the leader of the base. Correspondingly, their advantages are also very eye-catching, and someone is secretly watching them.
In the process of being taken to familiarize themselves with the base, they learned about the existing classifications of zombies. The most dangerous of them are zombies that have been transformed from humans, while zombies that have been transformed from animals often lose their ability to move after a short period of time due to their small brain capacity.
There are different types of humanoid zombies. In addition to ordinary zombies, there are also flying "Tracers" and the "King of the Ground" they encountered at the energy station.
In the next few days, they stayed in the base temporarily to recuperate, and they also experienced firsthand that among all the zombies, the ground king had the strongest attack power and was the biggest threat to the survivors' activities. Even if they knew its weaknesses, it was still difficult to kill it.
There was some signal in the base, and Qiao Ze contacted his friends immediately, but there was only empty sound.
The barrage started a discussion about this:
[It's possible that there's no signal, so there's still hope. But after all these days, why is AB City still unattended? What on earth is the official doing? ]
[Ah, actually I think the movie hinted very clearly that the signal did not disappear because of the zombies, but because the outside world took the initiative to cut off the communication between the two cities... This means that cities AB have been abandoned. ]
For the umpteenth time, as Marianne watched Director Shang's work, a sentence came to her mind: The darkness in the human heart is more terrifying than anything else.
She felt a chill down her spine, yet at the same time she couldn't help but feel curious about the plot.
There are no disaster films on the market, and of course there are even fewer works that describe the horror of human nature in the face of disaster.
Marianne somehow had an idea: If a catastrophe really happens...how will our world deal with it?
She shook her head to dismiss this absurd idea.
A work is just a work. This pink flower virus does not exist in reality and does not conform to the laws of biological science.
Most adventure movies will form a team of protagonists, and Pink is no exception.
Working with the Qiao mother and daughter were a male college student and a female police officer.
The former is about the same age as Qiao Ze, and the latter is about the same age as Qiao Dai.
Due to the dense population, the school was one of the first places to fall. Moreover, the pink flower virus broke out during the day, and most people were in class, unable to avoid it, and the school fell in an instant.
The college student was sleeping alone in the dormitory at the time. The dormitory building he lived in was relatively remote. There was no water and food in the dormitory, so he waited for several days before being rescued and escaped the disaster. During that time, he also rescued several classmates, showing certain abilities.
The police officer's situation was even worse. She was saved by Qiao Dai Qiao Ze. After the zombie outbreak, the police in the city were organized into teams and sent out to rescue the people, but they knew very little about zombies and the loss rate was alarming.
The policeman was on vacation attending a symphony concert and was urgently recalled.
When the Qiao mother and daughter found her, her mission had failed, and the captain and another team member died to cover her.
Marian moved her arms. She realized that the length of "Pink" was obviously longer than the average length of an ordinary movie, but up to now, she didn't feel bored at all.
She secretly tilted her head and found that the secretary was also watching attentively, and there was no movement upstairs.
Many movies have a "MacGuffin", which is a clue item that connects the core. In "Pink", it is the information at the headquarters. Qiao Dai did not give up the information. As soon as she recovered from her injury, she wanted to set out again, but she could not do it alone.
She told the other three people openly that they now had two choices. One was to escape before the military destroyed the place. With Qiao Dai's identity, she should be able to get official protection, but this would also be equivalent to abandoning the people of the two cities.
The second option is to break into the Crimson Technology headquarters and find the information and vaccines, but this is very risky. Not only is it very likely that they will fail halfway, but they may also find that their efforts are in vain, and by then it will be too late to turn back.
The college students and the police did not agree with the idea of going to get the information, and believed that they should leave the city as soon as possible; but Qiao Dai insisted on going to the headquarters. Otherwise, even if they left here, the zombie tide would continue to spread, and the official agencies outside would still not have first-hand information, which would cause greater delays and casualties.
As for Qiao Ze, he was a little indecisive and said he would follow his mother's arrangements.
However, the internal conflicts that gradually broke out in the base and the lack of news from the authorities eventually made the college students and the police change their minds and decide to get the information.
It’s a pity that on the way, they encountered a small-scale zombie outbreak and the police were injured.
"I've been bitten. I'll go out and lure away the zombies later. You guys go."
Qiao Ze looked reluctant, his eyes red as he said viciously: "What discouraging words are you talking about? You must still be saved!"
But Jodeh had already whispered, "Do you have any last words?"
This was previously a city area, a prosperous and bustling commercial center.
The place where they were was previously an opera house. There was a performance going on when the virus broke out. Various musical instruments were scattered around the stage. Even many of the wandering zombies were wearing suits and dresses, instinctively holding musical instruments in their claws.
Marianne had a premonition, and her heart began to tighten and became extremely heavy.
The policeman suddenly spoke up, saying something that seemed completely unrelated: "In fact, I originally wanted to major in music conducting in college, but ended up becoming a policeman by accident."
"...Although I have been complaining all the time, I have finally fulfilled my mission, right?" She smiled, and the pink festering had spread from the wound on her shoulder to her neck and face.
"If you want to commemorate me after you get out, please play a nice symphony for me."
The policeman picked up a baton scattered among the instruments, picked up the speaker and connected it to his mobile phone.
The infection caused her physique to begin to mutate. She passed through the zombie swarm in just a few steps, leaping over countless rows of chairs in the auditorium, and reached the highest point of the ruins, the stage.
The zombies were startled by her and turned away. Then, she turned on the speakers, and a magnificent symphony resounded over the ruins.
Qiao Ze pulled the handbrake and the hovercraft rushed out of the ruins.
[Fuck! QAQ Although I had a feeling that there might be a lunch box before the end, this scene was still too shocking. I got goosebumps all over my body...]
[Oh my god... So the foreshadowing of the police should be here. She went on vacation to listen to the symphony orchestra performance, and the location was here...]
The police played the recording she had made when she watched the performance earlier, with the volume turned up to the maximum, deafening.
She saluted gracefully on the stage, smiled, closed her eyes, and the baton in her hand began to fly up and down, as if she was really conducting a symphony at a ball.
And below her was a group of zombies that kept gathering, just like her orchestra and audience.
The hovercraft drove farther and farther away at high speed. Qiao Dai kept looking at the police until she was swallowed up by the tide of zombies and turned into an invisible dot.
The comments were all in tears, and Marian couldn't come back to her senses for a long time. The tremors brought by the shock were still reverberating in her nerves. She had a premonition that this scene would definitely become a classic in film history!
At the same time, one floor away from Marian, was the medical cabin.
——The version of the work that Shang Jingyan made for "Luo Fu" is different from the one shown to the public. It is more like a game, with "Qiao Dai" as the first-person perspective, and the name is "Boerle", so that De Boerle can experience it immersively.
According to past experience, Deboler's mental fluctuations are strongest at noon, so they also started playing at noon.
The healers and staff also watched "Pink Coming" in its entirety in order to correspond to Deborah's spiritual fluctuations.
“There is a reaction…”
“It really works…”
"The fluctuations have changed..."
The screen of the instrument showed the fluctuations of Deboler's mental power, somewhat like an electrocardiogram.
The medical staff were talking quietly, their voices low but their excitement was hard to conceal. To forge a dream, this was the origin of the name of the dream builder, and Shang Jingyan lived up to these three words.
Ever since "Pink Advent" was connected to Deborah's mental linker, her map has begun to fluctuate, changing with the ups and downs of the plot, and becoming more and more obvious.
Could this be a sign of awakening?
Inside the cabin, Deboler was sleeping peacefully. She was 78 years old this year, and looked like a 60-year-old woman in Shang Jingyan's previous life. In the videos she had seen, she was always energetic and in good health.
But after a year of coma, she now looks a little old and thin. Deborah's hair was originally silver and shiny, but now it looks pale and dull.
Deblène is a politician, but she does have a military background and has been in the police system. She once had a partner, and Shang Jingyan used the other's characteristics and deeds as the prototype for the role of the policeman.
During the playing of the film, there were three places where Debler's mental fluctuations showed small peaks.
The first place was when he saw Qiao Ze, the second place was when he met his police teammates, and the third place was when "Poller" decided to continue to get the information.
In the second half of the team exploration and rescue plot, Deborah's attention became noticeably focused. As expected, she is a responsible leader, and rescue can cheer her up more than her own disaster.
Ever since Qiao Dai asked about the last words, Debler's mental power began to fluctuate violently, which had never happened before during the past year of sleep.
While the police were conducting the symphony of the zombie tide, everyone clearly saw that behind the transparent partition of the medical cabin, Deble's eyelids moved, and a thin tear flowed from the corner of her eye, dripped into the nutrient solution and disappeared.
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