"A total of six points, thank you for your patronage!" Jiang Wenwen made the gesture of "six" with her hands, and then asked Jiang Ling for points.
This guy only figured it out at this time. Jiang Ling felt helpless. Why didn't he figure it out when he secretly drank her drink?
"Here, remember this for me!"
After this farce, Jiang Ling finally understood the danger of the mutants. If every one of them were this powerful, the troops on the front lines would be in real trouble. This one alone had caused thousands of casualties, and it was easy for her to imagine what crazy actions the other mutants would take if they broke through the defenses. These highly intelligent criminals were completely irrational, intent on destroying the foundations of human civilization from the beginning.
But she still wanted to go and see.
Jiang Ling didn't know why she had this inexplicable urge to get out and see the world. Even if the road ahead was fraught with danger, she still wanted to be there, not hidden in some obscure corner. Adults excel at suppressing their desires, but their hearts are consumed by them. Inside her subconscious, there was always someone constantly shouting, "I want to get out. I don't want to stay in my cradle." She had been a homebody for decades, and now the home that had bound her, her world, was gone. She deserved to be free now. She should be out there. She needed to be out there.
At that moment, a powerful emotion swept through Jiang Ling's mind. She realized that ever since she'd considered exploring the outside world, she'd been constantly trying to find excuses to stop herself. First, it was equipment, then weapons, and now it was money. This kept her stuck, and she didn't know what she would use to limit herself in the future. Danger? Teammates? Or fear? She found herself still afraid. She wasn't a hero, she didn't have the courage to forge ahead. She was simply being pushed forward by life, and she had never considered what she truly wanted to do.
Go forward, go forward, go towards your goal! she shouted to herself.
Don't you want to think about your escape route? What if you hit a wall? She was struggling internally.
Her emotions and her rationality intertwined and collided, ultimately annihilating each other like matter and antimatter. She gave up thinking and decided to follow her heart. Sometimes overthinking isn't a good thing; those who truly achieve great things may not even consider any escape routes from the outset. Clearing Jiang Ling's mind was also a good choice; not choosing meant choosing the wrong one.
In reality, she was already prepared for any change; she just needed an opportunity. She had no choice about that opportunity, for she had left her future to fate. Whether she believed in fate or not, she simply acted accordingly. Isn't that what playing it safe and lying flat is all about? She'd always done it.
. . . . . .
It felt like years had passed, and she had become accustomed to this daily routine of working and living. Every day, she met familiar strangers, walked through strange yet familiar streets, opened and closed her door, and lived out her long life in peace and stability. What was wrong with this? No need to race against the clock to gather supplies in the freezing cold outside, no need to fight against those mutants beyond common sense, no need to struggle with her own fears, no need to endure any wind or sun. From beginning to end, she could think like a child.
. . . . . .
Time flies, and she suddenly looks back. When she's old and fading, looking back on her life, will she say, "I have no regrets"? Just repeating this familiar yet strange life, this peaceful and comfortable life, day after day, watching people gather and disperse through the fog? Forever wandering in this vast yet tiny maze, forever stepping into tunnels traversed by countless people, never daring to stray far from her cradle.
“Ding Dong~”
She heard the sound of dripping water again, which made her feel itchy.
What makes the soft water droplets persevere in hitting the hard iron plate?
She still longed for adventure, she wanted to go out and see, she wanted to see the stars.
. . . . . .
The hallucination suddenly reversed, and everything returned to its original position as if it were rewinding at high speed. Jiang Ling's dazed eyes brightened again. She felt like she had just had a dream. In the dream, she no longer longed for travel, no longer was curious about the future. The person in the dream was definitely not herself! She had finally escaped that terrible nightmare.
"Huff, huff, huff!" When Jiang Ling came to her senses, she found herself squatting on the balcony. The scenery around her was exactly the same as in her memory. The dream was so real that she almost got lost in it.
"Dad, how long has it been?"
"Huh? A few seconds?" Jiang Wenwen was confused. She had just finished saying that the mutant was killed when the guy in front of her squatted down on his own.
"How many seconds? When did it start? Wait?" Jiang Ling found her memory was disordered. How could she remember that she had lived for a very long time? The next moment, beads of sweat oozed from Jiang Ling's forehead. She realized that she had just been under mental control.
This made her extremely angry, that mutant actually tried to defile the souls of others even until his death. She suddenly turned into a "succubus", and then her mind suddenly became clear.
That damn mutant stayed at the entrance of the passage from beginning to end. Everything before was just an illusion.
"How long has it been?" After transforming into a beast, Jiang Ling finally understood the seriousness of the situation. His human form was no match for this guy.
Jiang Ling forcibly seized control of the two people at home. She then saw the mountain of flesh at the entrance to the passage and the crowd standing around in shock. With a thought, the stunned people instantly regained their mobility and fled from the monster in fear. She no longer underestimated the mutant. Once the others were out of the way, she immediately attacked its torso with a beam of light.
The immense energy instantly penetrated the entire flesh mountain, creating numerous bloody holes throughout it. Jiang Ling bombarded the mutant relentlessly, firing countless times. By the time she could no longer sense the mutant's vital light, she had already reduced it to charcoal.
Jiang Ling used her sensory abilities to scan the entire site several more times, ensuring that no one had slipped through the net, before she released her beastly form. It was only then that she heard the alarm blare throughout the site.
The survivors didn't dare stay here at all, and followed the instructions on the terminal to stay away from this troubled place. Jiang Ling finally breathed a sigh of relief, not caring about the scattered glass fragments on the ground, and sat down on the ground.
She later learned that the mutant had come in through the ventilation duct. The Countermeasures Bureau had been tracking it for several days, and it had caused thousands of casualties. Executing it by slow slicing like Jiang Ling did was already a light punishment for it.
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