323 Toad Man (V)
◎She asked me to kill a can◎
There was a man standing at the door. He was wearing a helmet and everyone could see him faceless. The only thing that could be seen clearly was the knife in his hand.
Zhu Ning wasn't afraid of people coming; she was even more afraid of no one coming. Perhaps under the influence of mental pollution, she was looking forward to what would happen next. Would they come to kill her? Or would they kill the inmate next door?
Sure enough, the person at the door moved quickly and ran towards this side at a high speed. He was a very qualified killer.
Zhu Ning sat cross-legged, like a bullfighter, and even wanted to hurry up.
Zhu Ning didn't know the man next to him, so he called him his cellmate in his heart. When he saw someone rushing towards him, he actually smiled.
He made strange growling sounds, like the roars of a dog in excitement, waiting for his executioner to come and kill him.
The man bumped into the cage and grabbed his cellmate with one hand. How big could the prison in the shelter be? He could reach the cellmate with just a stretch of his hand.
The cellmate's face flushed red after being caught. Zhu Ning observed him and found that the infected person seemed a little dull, as if he had taken some kind of drug. Although he was obviously a mutant, his movements were no longer agile.
They could still fight back and forth, but now they were quickly subdued and pinned to the ground. The iron bars were twisted, and a knife was flashing, quickly pressed against their cellmate's neck.
When people are pushed to the extreme, they will have the instinct to survive, but he didn't. He actually stopped struggling. Zhu Ning guessed that he also had a smile on his face. All the dead would show a very satisfied expression.
The beeping sound became louder, like the accompaniment of this murder short film. The blade cut through the prisoner's protective suit, and blood would be seen if it went down another inch.
But the knife did not fall, as if controlled by an invisible force, the killer's elbow stopped abruptly.
Zhu Ning had a gloomy face and raised the fingers on his knees. The man's neck turned reluctantly, making a rattling sound.
Zhu Ning used puppet control and slowly tightened the puppet strings. To be honest, she didn't care about the life or death of the controlled object, she just wanted to get the clues she wanted.
With a bang, the dagger fell to the ground. The controlled person lifted his knees off the ground, raised his arms like a manipulated puppet, put them on his neck, and took off his helmet under Zhu Ning's gaze.
That's Jin Shan's face.
Zhu Ning had been observing the shelter from a God's perspective and had seen Jin Shan's body. She was Guo Zilin's companion and had sat opposite her with a timid look on her face. She remembered that Jin Shan had been dead for a long time.
Now he was no longer timid, with an almost crazy smile on his face, staring at Zhu Ning with his bulging eyes.
It turns out that the dead will return to the crowd, so the number of people increases.
There would be no point in Zhu Ning killing her.
After being rescued, Zhu Ning's cellmate showed no gratitude at all. He was more like a crazy drug addict, banging his head, as if he could not relieve his anxiety at all.
Zhu Ning recalled the previous dead people. Everyone had a smile on their face, which looked like they were relieved, but also like the happiness after taking drugs.
The person who was killed was happy, and the killer was also happy.
There was a person kneeling and licking a toad. The scene was like an introduction and a preview of the accident that was about to happen in the shelter.
The dead Jin Shan came back. After she took off her helmet, her hands stayed at her neck. Now Jin Shan's fingers tightened, as if she wanted to strangle herself. This was not Jin Shan committing suicide, but Zhu Ning could hardly control the violence in his heart.
I really wanted to kill someone. Countless toads were buzzing in my head, and at the same time, a voice kept saying, "Kill her, kill her!"
It's just a pollutant anyway. No one will care if you kill her. If you kill her and then kill others, you will be the real boss here and turn the shelter into a living hell.
Quickly and comfortably, you will achieve true peace.
The pollution is getting stronger and stronger. Maybe Lao Liu heard this sound before he killed Guo Zilin.
Zhu Ning gritted her teeth. It took her so much energy to control her desire to kill.
She knew that once she took this hurdle, she would never be able to get over it. Killing Jin Shan was a small matter, but it was like licking the first bite of toad, or taking the first sip of marijuana. Zhu Ning would search for toads for the rest of her life.
She heard the beeping like a dog hearing a bell, as if she had found the antidote, and she would become an addict lying in a field, losing her self-esteem.
Zhu Ning adjusted her breathing. Her tongue was no longer a tongue, but had become a limp toad. She could no longer make human sounds, and soon she would no longer be able to think independently like a human.
She had already reached this level of pollution, and others would be even worse. The sounds of killing could be heard outside, and the smell of blood had already penetrated into the cage.
The inmate next door took off his helmet and kept banging his head on the ground. He must have been very strong to be able to walk here outside the wall, but now he has no dignity at all, and his mind is occupied by one thought.
He was incontinent, his face covered in snot and tears. Sometimes he shouted at Zhu Ning, "I'll kill you," and sometimes he shouted, "Kill me."
He took off his protective suit and kept scratching his body. Soon green bumps appeared on his skin and he was about to turn into a complete toad.
Zhu Ning retracted her hand, and Jin Shan's body fell on the edge of the cage. Zhu Ning put one hand on her forehead and read her memory for the second time. She wanted to know if the dead still had any memories.
Maybe she could see Jin Shan coming back to life.
This time the reading speed was very fast. Zhu Ning quickly withdrew his hand and his face changed.
Jin Shan’s memory is exactly the same as Guo Zilin’s. How could it be that they are the same?
Even if people experience the same thing, their focus and memories will be different.
They received instruction from their mentor on the wall, had a wild party, and went out of the wall together. Their teammates died one after another, and they were chased by cans and hid in a shelter.
Guo Zilin's memory became vague after he entered the shelter. Zhu Ning didn't pay attention to this detail when he read it for the first time, because all the retrospective memories were trying to see further to find clues.
Zhu Ning read the memory again, but no matter how many times he did it, it was the same.
It’s as if a director edited the memory, cutting off the beginning and the end, retaining only the essence and playing it on tour.
Starting from outside the wall and ending at the shelter.
Zhu Ning had a preconceived notion. Could it be that the memories of Guo Zilin that she read were not real at all, but implanted by someone?
Zhu Ning suddenly realized a detail. The pilgrim entered the shelter for a different reason than them. Everyone else came in because of the sandstorm, but the pilgrim was being chased by a can and had to hide in it.
When Zhu Ning first saw this memory, he thought it was very funny. A group of inexperienced pilgrims were frightened by a can along the way. It was an old Sprite bottle with a worn surface.
It is not the protagonist of the story, but appears in the corner of every scene, causing chaos wherever it goes. It cannot be killed by guns or blown up by bombs. A can bounces out in the firelight.
The pilgrims were at their wit's end and really couldn't find a way out, so they finally rushed into the shelter. They were probably the first four people to come in, earlier than the others.
When they came in, the four pilgrims would have died, becoming part of the contamination, and the scene would have repeated itself.
It is because of Guo Zilin’s death that there is chaos here and everyone is speculating whether there is a pollution chain.
Zhu Ning recalled that when he first entered the shelter, the pilgrim was very eye-catching because of his incompatible temperament. Then the pilgrim was beaten by Lao Liu. Was Lao Liu a living person or a pollutant at that time?
Mental induction is very subtle and unnoticeable.
Zhu Ning had completely misunderstood the direction when she read the memory for the first time. She had always thought that there was something wrong with the Pilgrim organization, and all her attention was on the nun-like mentor.
She even wanted to enlarge the necklace around her mentor's neck, trying to see the totem on the ground clearly to find clues.
She didn't even notice a can.
The can kept rolling, and even when there was no wind, it could move forward on its own, making a beeping sound. There was a toad lying on the inner wall of the can.
This is not an uncommon sight; smaller toads can fit into many places after the rain.
Zhu Ning once stepped on a garbage bag on the road. His feet felt very soft. When he moved it away, he saw a dead frog.
The image of the can kept appearing in Zhu Ning's mind. It looked like an icon, or like some kind of stamp had been punched into it.
She simply couldn't shake it off. The very act of reading her memories was a form of mental pollution, and her mental pollution worsened.
Bang, bang, Zhu Ning heard the toad's call again, but this time it was different. It was accompanied by the noise of rolling cans, and the two noises overlapped.
Zhu Ning saw a can in the corner, which rolled out quietly from the corner. So this was her target?
The can didn't stop and rolled out, leaving Zhu Ning's sight. Zhu Ning cursed in her heart, she actually needed to assassinate a can?
Is she crazy?
Is this really normal logic? Later, when her teammates asked her what orders she had, she said that if she saw a can, she must kill it?
Are you sick?
Zhu Ning was willing to believe it, but would others be willing to cooperate? She would be treated as a lunatic and immediately executed.
The cans may just be a form of pollution, making Zhu Ning not only unable to lead others, but also making him a target of public criticism. Hunting lunatics has always been an old trick.
Zhu Ning felt like she was going crazy. Her arms trembled unconsciously and she pressed her right hand with her left hand. Was she sick or was the world sick?
Zhu Ning retracted the puppet strings. She couldn't interfere with this chain of pollution.
After Jin Shan was freed, he went to kill Zhu Ning's cellmate again. That cellmate basically put his neck close to him for him to kill. One wanted to die, and the other wanted to kill someone.
After Jin Shan strangled him, both of them showed satisfied expressions. Crazy, this world is crazy.
Soon Zhu Ning's cellmate died, and then before Jin Shan could stand up, she was pierced through the head by a bullet that suddenly appeared. Zhu Ning didn't see who the murderer was, but it didn't make any sense, because the murderer standing at the door also turned into a corpse.
The polluters just want chaos and don't care.
Death is like a chain of dominoes, falling one after another, killing people, producing new murderers, and then killing more people, but the overall number of people has not decreased, but has increased instead.
…
Pei Shu was in a trance after killing "Lao Liu". His head was full of noise and he wanted to find another person to kill.
His rationality only lasted for two minutes. The atmosphere here had completely changed, and his rational emotions were becoming increasingly thin. A burst of exaggerated laughter came from outside the house. Pei Shu saw someone stabbing another person to death while laughing, and then passed by him.
Pei Shu was in a bad mental state. He injected himself with a mental healing agent, and his eyes kept flashing. Sometimes he was in a mental hospital, and sometimes he was in a shelter.
The walls around him became whiter and whiter, and he returned to the hospital corridor. The smell of disinfectant was in his nose, but this hospital was very strange. There was a toad squatting at the end of the corridor.
The toad's disgusting skin was out of place in the clean hospital.
It was so noisy that Pei Shu couldn't stand it anymore. He wondered where the toad came from. He raised his arms, but felt a pain on the back of his neck. Someone hit him hard on the back with a heavy object.
Pei Shu staggered and wanted to set fire with his backhand, but the man was like a vine, opening his arms from behind, suddenly hugging Pei Shu's body and twisting it.
Before Pei Shu could stand up, he was immediately thrown to the ground. A dull, mechanical voice came to his ears, "I'm Bai Cheng."
Pei Shu lowered his raised hand, breathing deeply, and allowed Bai Cheng to suppress him from behind. Pei Shu had a lot of experience in being subdued. Although he was crazy, he knew how to cooperate with others when he was crazy.
Bai Cheng should have used restraints to restrain him, and he had already stretched out his hands, expecting a pair of handcuffs to come next.
Bai Cheng's approach was more direct. She quickly stabbed Pei Shu's shoulder with a knife. The pain brought a hint of clarity in the chaos. At that moment, Pei Shu's mind was full of thoughts: You are so cruel.
"Are you awake?"
Pei Shu covered his shoulder and nodded. Bai Cheng said coldly, "It's okay. I'll stab you when you're not conscious."
Pei Shu: "Are you contaminated?"
If you go crazy, just stab someone. When you leave the contaminated area, you must become a hornet's nest.
Bai Cheng: "No, my mind is far ahead."
Bai Cheng's main brain is not in the shelter. No matter what type of mental pollution it is, it must infect a sufficient area of the brain. However, in order to completely infect Bai Cheng, at least thousands of Bai Cheng's brains need to be infected before the main brain can be affected.
Pei Shu didn't bother Bai Cheng to take action. When he looked up, he realized how chaotic this place was. In addition to him, other people had also killed pollutants.
Guo Zilin, Jin Shan, Lao Liu...
After killing these people, the spread of pollution accelerated. An Chi looked helpless, and the few rational people among them were still trying to find the real source of the pollution.
Some people were madly trying to leave this damn place, but as soon as they opened the door, the flying car was swept away and disappeared forever.
But the window was not closed tightly, and sand rushed in, as if the shelter would be buried by sand sooner or later. Everyone was covered with a layer of yellow sand, and the blood was obscured by the sand, a mixture of red and yellow, like some kind of art painting.
Pei Shu's eyes began to double again. He swung the knife across his shoulder, regaining some clarity. "Where's Xiaofeng?"
Bai Cheng: "I've arranged for her, don't worry."
Pei Shu didn't ask for specific details. While he was still conscious, he immediately said, "I found a clue. The dead person came back alive. The first victim should be the source of the pollution."
He was better at finding a way to survive, but with the raging wind and sand, there was no way to survive.
Pei Shu: "Those four pilgrims are probably already dead. We are just killing their corpses repeatedly."
Bai Cheng: "I worked with An Chi, who is the rational one. We sorted out the entire chain of clues here, and it is similar to your guess."
An Chi had come into contact with all the deceased and had the most clues. She asserted that all the problems lay with those pilgrims.
They may have been dead for a long time, but they have been continuously releasing pollution since the beginning. As long as people start killing, the purpose of the pollution source is achieved. The more people are killed, the stronger the pollution source becomes, and it feeds on chaos.
I know the general logic, but I don’t know how to crack it. How did these four people get infected in the first place?
Zhu Ning can read people's memories, maybe she can get a clue. She shared the memories of the pilgrims before. The more Pei Shu thought about it, the more complicated it became. Could it be that there is something wrong with the pilgrims as a group?
Pei Shu asked, "Where's Zhu Ning?"
Bai Cheng: "She even locked herself in a cage and asked me to kill a can."
Kill the can, there is a toad inside, these are Zhu Ning’s original words.
This really sounded like the talk of a madman, but because it was Zhu Ning who said it, Pei Shu didn't completely deny it right away. He asked, "Do you believe it?"
Bai Cheng gave a stiff smile and asked, "Why don't you believe it?"
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Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or provided me with nutrient solution between 2023-08-20 20:41:34 and 2023-08-21 20:37:13~
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