turn up
With a loud bang.
Liu Niannian held the door of carriage No. 22 with one hand. She was covered in blood, and behind her were countless corpses. They had different appearances, and because of the mixing of genes, they always had some human characteristics, such as the person who had fused with the axe.
Now they were barely alive, blood sprayed into every corner of the carriage, and the interior of the old train was wet with blood. She was sure that the water ghosts of the Homecoming could only move through the accumulated water and could not move through her blood, otherwise she would have been killed thousands of times.
19 The car was crowded with ghosts, and the cold air seemed to be able to kill people directly. She saw several corpses hanging on the roof of the car. They were people from the northern transfer.
But Liu Niannian was like a key to enter the Homecoming. The troubles that could be solved by controlling water were relatively less exhausting, but mentally it felt like a rusty saw was slowly cutting her nerves.
Car 20 was a freight car with no beds or seats. Wooden boxes were piled on one side and suitcases on the other. There were even a few cages containing animals. The chicken cages were covered with cloth, revealing the eyes of a chicken, as if peeping out.
There was a python coiled in a cage in the corner, and other creatures lurking in the darkness. Liu Niannian looked for a long time before he realized what they were. People were piled on top of each other, trying to shrink their bodies as much as possible, and casting cautious, inquiring glances. Because their glances were so vivid, Liu Niannian mistakenly thought they were alive.
Those were indeed living people, stowaways in the truck, hiding in the corner, not daring to be discovered, their bodies pressed against each other, with five or six people crammed into a narrow wooden box. It was impossible for them to lie down, so they could only sit in the box, with their eyes peeking out from the gaps.
There may be people dead in the box, and they are sitting on the bodies of their companions.
These people are no different from chickens locked in cages, as if their human attributes have been completely stripped away.
Liu Niannian was not sure whether these people got on the train before or after the disaster. The only thing that was certain was that if living people were forced to this point, the world environment at that time must have been extremely bad, so bad that people felt that as long as they could get on the Homecoming Train, it would be enough.
Liu Niannian was attracted by the stowaways in the boxes, and by the time she realized what was happening, she had been locked in one of the boxes. She needed to be alert to the moving figures to avoid being caught, and she also needed to be wary of cannibalism in the narrow wooden box.
Zhu Ning's intermittent voice guided Liu Niannian to get out of car 20. The environment of car 21 was similar to that of car 20, except that it was full of monsters. This was the easiest for Zhu Ning, as she only needed to devour them.
But for Liu Niannian, it was hell. Each pollutant was incredibly powerful, and she was often killed by dozens of pollutants before she could deal with just one.
Without teammates or helpers, Zhu Ning was too far away to provide direct assistance.
Liu Niannian couldn't tell whether there was blood in her eyes or the world was originally red. When she came to her senses, she was standing in a pool of blood with a crazy smile. The sticky blood reminded her of the pleasure of killing Lu Yao.
Liu Niannian was obsessed with blood. Even though most of the blood in her body seemed to have disappeared during her journey, she stepped on the body parts and walked towards the door of car 22.
It was getting darker outside the car. It was not known whether it was night or the sandstorm had completely obscured the world. Liu Niannian left a bloody handprint on the carriage. The back of this carriage might be the nest of the golden apple snail.
The previous doors were transparent, allowing one to see from one carriage to another, but the last door was an iron door, covered in rust, with apple snail eggs overflowing from the gap.
Liu Niannian was probably crazy at that time. She didn't feel any fear at all. The apple snail's original body hadn't tried to kill her for a long time.
She hadn't heard Zhu Ning's voice for a long time and didn't know if Zhu Ning could still see.
She grabbed the car door and pushed it hard. The rusty door and track made a creaking sound, and the apple snails in the gap of the door suddenly rushed out, piling up into a pink mountain of eggs at her feet.
Then Liu Niannian suddenly stopped.
A gust of wind blew on her face. Liu Niannian was stunned for a moment and took off her helmet stupidly. She thought she was hallucinating. After the helmet was taken off, she felt a chill.
It was truly a gust of wind.
The cold wind at night blew on her face, making her eyes sting. Liu Niannian lowered her head and saw two curved rails and the sleepers moving rapidly.
Car 22 does not exist.
Liu Niannian didn't know whether to cry or laugh. She exhausted all her strength, using the special powers left to her by Liu Yu, the skills taught by Pei Shu, and the instructions given to her by An Chi, and finally reached the rear of the car.
But car number 22 doesn’t exist?
She dropped her hands, and her protective helmet slammed against the rails, then quickly disappeared from sight as the tracks passed.
The eggs of the golden apple snail fell outward as the train moved, and the accumulated blood gushed out. Liu Niannian was silent for a long time, until the scenery on both sides was exactly the same, and the buildings and trees quickly passed by, like a boring life.
She lost.
Zhu Ning was right. There was no need to enter the rear of the train. She should have gone directly to the safe front of the train, followed the Homecoming into the north wall, and then returned home.
Liu Niannian reached out and touched her face. Her face was a mess, with blood and tears mixed together. Her eyes were red, so everything she saw looked red.
She touched her wet face, stared blankly into the distance, and suddenly realized that something was wrong.
The wind is moist.
She and An Chi went through a sandstorm before getting on the car. An Chi was even swallowed by the sandstorm. Maggots kept falling from the sky. Even if the Homecoming entered some strange area, these basic elements would not change.
Sand, sky gates, falling maggots, or simply the orange sky.
None of these.
The sky in the distance is blue-black, like a soft curtain, with a few lonely stars scattered in the sky.
The buildings around were becoming more and more repetitive. If people stayed on the train for too long, they would feel bored looking at the outside world. All the buildings looked almost the same, but these buildings were really almost the same, like a long scroll that was copied and pasted exactly the same, stretched into a row of films and played for Liu Niannian to see.
This is car number 22, and this is the end point of the Homecoming train.
The space was obviously larger than a train car and seemed to have no end in sight. Liu Niannian couldn't imagine how the Homecoming managed to drag such a space forward.
Where is the shell of the apple snail?
Where did the snail meat that attacked her go?
She couldn't figure it out, but there was only one thing she was sure of: this was the end of her journey.
Liu Niannian took a step forward with his left foot, which was hanging in the air. The carriage was more than one meter above the ground, and he would fall off the carriage if he was not careful, but this was the only way.
My left leg, which was hanging in the air, fell down. It felt very strange, not like I was stepping on the ground, but like I was falling into a quagmire.
It seemed like a swamp decorated as a railway track. Where Liu Niannian was standing, the two straight tracks sank downwards, and neatly arranged sleepers rushed towards her. The houses and trees on both sides were deformed and fell towards her like an earthquake.
Buildings collapsed, trees twisted, and the Homecoming Train had already rushed away, leaving a narrow hole in the darkness, with blood seeping from the edges. The carriage was getting farther and farther away from her, and Liu Niannian had no way to turn back.
She walked forward again, her thighs pulling out from the soft rails, as if she was walking and spinning in place. She felt a resistance from below, which made her feel like she was swimming.
The rails and trees were still moving, and over time Liu Niannian really felt like she was swimming. She fell into a sea of rails, the lines flowed around her, and the sleepers were like driftwood.
She couldn't tell up from down, left from right, and couldn't see the Homecoming at all. She felt as if she was imprisoned on a strange railway for life.
The starry sky in the sky was also collapsing, attracted by the vortex below, forming bright star trails.
A black dot began to appear in Liu Niannian's sight, like a mark in the darkness, or like a laser dot when teasing a cat. Liu Niannian felt that she was no different from a pet being teased.
She was already deep in the railroad tracks, and her chest felt very heavy. Liu Niannian "swimmed" in the tracks. She stretched out her arms and made a swimming posture. As she moved, her arms hit the tracks, and the stones on the tracks splashed like water.
Nothing here is normal, but Liu Niannian feels that everything is normal. The last section of the Homecoming Train is the rails, it is normal, the rails are melting, and it is normal for her to swim on the rails.
There is no water source here, at least Liu Niannian can't feel it.
The stars in the sky moved faster and faster, drawing arcs one after another in the air, as if they were watching her.
How long should she swim? A lifetime?
She was exhausted and often found herself making no progress, with the "waves" of pebbles forming a mass that could easily throw her back with a single wave.
But she couldn't stop, she knew that if she stopped moving she would sink and be completely swallowed by the railway.
When she was exhausted, she choked on water, spitting out stones, and even accidentally swallowed a few, almost choking on them.
The black spot in the sight became bigger and bigger. When Liu Niannian got closer, he found that it was a small boat. It was completely black with stains on the edges. It was obvious that it had been stored for many years.
This makes no sense, why would there be a ship floating in orbit?
Most of the trains and boats could not be connected, one on land and the other on the sea. She looked around and no one could answer her.
Liu Niannian grabbed the edge of the boat. The edge of the boat was shaking. She didn't know it was so difficult to get on the boat. She put her legs on the side of the boat two or three times and each time they slipped down. She could only hold on to the side of the boat to accumulate strength.
When she got on the boat, she had exhausted her last bit of strength. Blood had already dyed her black protective suit red, and her face was also covered in blood, but there was no water on her. However, she could feel the heaviness of her body, as if she had fallen into the water and climbed ashore, with the weight of water on her body.
She lay in the boat, staring at the stars, feeling like she was drifting with the current, but her perception could only go so far. Was it an illusion? She didn't understand how she was supposed to float on the rails.
She couldn't imagine her own situation. If she was crazy, then at what stage did she go crazy?
She rubbed her stinging eyes, trying to squeeze the blood out of her eyeballs. She rubbed for a long time, as if her eyeballs were about to burst in her hands. Her vision was too blurry, everything she saw was double, and the "hallucinations" seemed to be getting worse.
She felt like she was looking at one of those little cards where each shift produced a different view, and that was how the world looked to her now, making her feel sick and want to vomit.
The scenes on the boat were switching quickly. In the last second, it was a fishing boat, and Liu Niannian was lying among a mountain of fish. In the next second, it was a murder scene, and a man killed his wife during the journey.
In the next scene, the boat was upside down, like a river clam, and two children hid at the bottom of the boat. Someone came and grabbed the children's hands and dragged them out. A shiny big knife appeared and cut off the children's hands.
Liu Niannian was looking at the past and present of a ship. Occasionally he could distinguish the identities of these people, but most of the time he couldn't. This ship seemed to be cursed, and everyone who touched it would be killed.
Liu Niannian felt more and more nauseous, as if someone had inserted a fork into her vestibule and stirred it. She lay on the side of the boat and tried to vomit but nothing came out.
But she found that the scene had changed again in her daze. This time she heard the sound of a train, small boats and other cargo were piled up in the carriage, and a woman wearing glasses was running hurriedly.
At this time, the boat was upside down, Liu Niannian was pressed to the bottom of the boat, and covered by a piece of oilcloth. The woman was searching hurriedly in the carriage, as if looking for a reliable place to store her belongings.
Finally, she set her sights on an upside-down boat in the corner, lifted a corner of the oilcloth, and quickly stuffed a package inside.
The woman was very anxious. She didn't even look at the bottom of the boat. However, even if she lifted the lid, she couldn't see Liu Niannian underneath. They didn't belong to the same time and space at all. What Liu Niannian saw was just a fragment of the past.
The woman moved quickly, wrapped the package in the collar of her windbreaker, and strode away. Liu Niannian seemed to have completed a handover with her across time and space, and reached out uncertainly to grab the package.
The package was a waterproof bag, which had been hastily wrapped in several layers when the incident happened. Liu Niannian opened it easily, revealing a file bag inside with a line of words on it: Reporter Mu Han.
Before the full-scale pollution came, Mu Han hid the information in the place she thought was the safest. The last carriage of the Homecoming Train was accidentally stuffed into a ship.
This is what Zhu Ning is looking for.
…
A dark underground garbage dump.
The bobcat was gradually losing heat, and it was unknown how far underground it was. There were countless corpses of plastic models, and the pale face above its head was obviously a creature from a higher dimension. He was gradually losing the perception of his body as he was clung to the black slime.
Bobcat didn't know what it felt like for other investigators outside the wall to be connected to the human-machine joint device. This practice of completely turning oneself into a tool before death was very inhumane and made him feel pain instinctively.
"Don't be afraid." A familiar voice sounded in my mind, as if a pianist played the first note.
An invisible hand stroked his back, as if gently soothing it. Bobcat jumped back and forth between illusion and reality, not sure whether it was imagination or not.
It turned out to be Zhu Ning's voice.
He must have gone crazy. At the most desperate moment of his life, he kept thinking back to the Spark Club competition. That memory had kept him alive outside the wall for so long, and then he immediately heard Zhu Ning's comfort.
A very typical fantasy, which also means that he is not far from death, like a revolving lantern.
"It's me." Zhu Ning soothed his nerves.
Lynx saw a familiar shadow in his consciousness and realized that it was not an illusion, it was really Zhu Ning, and the human-machine joint device was not snow-white mycelium, but pure black.
"I avenged the captain." Zhu Ning explained simply, "This is the price I paid."
Bobcat suddenly came to his senses. After Area 103, Zhu Ning had never met any members of the Cheetah Team again. He knew that Zhu Ning had cheated on him, and he had a vague guess in his mind, so he followed him out of the high wall. But he didn't know that Zhu Ning was really seeking revenge for Xu Meng.
Before the Bobcats walked out of the high walls, they thought they cared about the whole world, but after walking out, they realized how small they were and how small the Cheetahs were.
Even if he doesn't want to admit it, Xu Meng is still insignificant in the face of the grand narrative.
Every investigator outside the wall shoulders the responsibility called human mission. All those who go outside the wall do not do so for themselves, but Zhu Ning actually went to the far north for Xu Meng.
She gave her life in the traditional sense, her soul, her unique personality, and most importantly, her freedom.
Zhu Ning replaced Prometheus. Shanmao didn't know whether to be happy or sad, but he knew that Xu Meng would definitely not be happy if he was alive.
Zhu Ning formed a new communication network, and Bobcat was just a small and insignificant part of the communication network.
"You found the mastermind of the undead." Zhu Ning said.
She felt the underground garbage dump through the eyes of a mountain cat. Bai Cheng's appearance was too familiar to her. He was her teammate who she spent every day with.
Bai Cheng asked Zhu Ning to accompany her to dig a grave in the middle of the night. She had seen the moment when Bai Cheng just came back to life. It was very short and easy to be ignored, like a lifeless plastic dummy being given life.
Therefore, every Bai Cheng spoke very mechanically when he was first dug out and needed to learn how to use his body again.
But this was also the first time that Zhu Ning saw so many white corpses, broken limbs, twisted bodies, buried in the garbage dump, and she felt the eternal loneliness.
Bai Cheng should have been buried indefinitely. That was not sleeping, because sleeping means no consciousness. Bai Cheng was conscious. To be precise, she was buried alive.
As the giant's body rotted, the sky gate opened, pollutants all over the world became active, and the path for people to find Bai Cheng was also opened. The mountain cat came here as if guided by fate, bringing her the tentacles of Zhu Ning's consciousness.
Bai Cheng's words "long time no see" were not directed at the mountain cat, but at Zhu Ning. She could sense that some creature had invaded her territory.
"Can I borrow your body?" Zhu Ning asked.
Shanmao didn't know who Bai Cheng was, he was just a tool sent by Beitiao.
The control over his body actually belonged to Zhu Ning, who could control it directly without saying a word. Bobcat paused and silently relaxed his consciousness, as if he was sinking into a swimming pool with his knees hugged, and his five senses slowly left him.
His senses became conflicted, as if he had entered a third-person perspective, yet was looking at himself.
Shanmao became Zhu Ning's puppet.
Zhu Ning took over the lynx's body and spoke to Bai Cheng, "Is Xiaofeng okay?"
Bai Cheng has lived for at least ninety years, and ninety years is a conservative estimate. The Bai Cheng that Zhu Ning has seen is just one of them. Bai Cheng's main brain is still an ancient and powerful creature to Zhu Ning now.
The time spent as teammates should be extremely short for Bai Cheng.
Bai Cheng's main brain is like the ultimate storage space, and other Bai Chengs are consumables to her. Consumables are just like the friendship with teammates that Zhu Ning has.
Before entering the Far North, Zhu Ning entrusted Lin Xiaofeng to Bai Cheng. Lin Xiaofeng may be one of the few contacts they have.
"She's still alive, outside the Far North." Bai Cheng's voice was soft. Living for so many years gave her an inhuman gentleness. "She wants to go in and find you."
Bai Cheng's main brain sensed the situation outside the Far North. Lin Xiaofeng stopped in front of Bai Cheng, and the darkness was about to swallow them.
This was the first good news Zhu Ning heard, Lin Xiaofeng was still alive.
In the midst of confusion, it was as if a strong anchor had been dropped. She knew that there was a little girl in the snow who was persistently looking for her.
Zhu Ning felt that all the clues were converging towards him, guided by fate or a more powerful existence.
She still has one last part to explore about the world: how did the pollution break out so completely back then?
This question may be asked on the Homecoming, but Bai Cheng's main brain can definitely answer it, as she has lived from before the apocalypse to the present.
"Can you tell me what happened?" Zhu Ning asked.
Bai Cheng did not answer immediately. Zhu Ning occupied the body of the mountain cat. Under Bai Cheng's gaze, he looked like a devout pilgrim or an ignorant child.
She moved her neck, like a python hanging from the ceiling. Her pale face was only half a meter away from Zhu Ning. Zhu Ning could see her delicate doll-like facial features, thick black eyelashes, and the plastic bag leaking out from the edge of her eyeballs.
Bai Cheng has a kind of divinity, which Zhu Ning discovered long ago. From the white bone scaffold condensed under Utopia and the indifferent glance at her before her death, she was superior to humans, like a real god.
But in the past, those divine parts only lasted for a brief moment. Most of the time, Bai Cheng was like a puppet trying to integrate into human society. But in front of Zhu Ning, Bai Cheng was like a combination of past divinity.
One black and one white, they stared at each other in the underground garbage dump.
Bai Cheng: "This may not be of any use to your current situation. There is no conspiracy."
Zhu Ning was a little surprised that she knew her situation, but he soon understood that Bai Cheng probably knew that this day would come sooner or later.
Zhu Ning: "I need a reasonable reason."
Zhu Ning didn't say what to do with the right reasons. Was he trying to convince himself to accept the status quo?
Zhu Ning was like a humble student: "Please tell me, how did the old world fall?"
War? Pollution? Or an unexpected disaster?
Bai Cheng looked at Zhu Ning through the mountain cat, or at something farther away, beyond time and space.
Bai Cheng: "When humans are destroying the world, the world is also destroying us."
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