"Okay, I understand. We still have two people who haven't arrived yet. Let's wait a little longer." The guide replied, causing a commotion among the crowd.
"Who else hasn't arrived? That's not what you told us at the beginning!" a man in the crowd shouted.
"Just wait quietly! The two people this time are official, so it's hard for me to refuse! And with official endorsement, at least those small teams won't dare to do anything to us!" The guide yelled. These people were too impatient.
The few of them were helpless. With their abilities, they couldn't bypass the closed tunnel and reach the junction station from the ground. They could only keep quiet. After waiting for a few more minutes, Jiang Ling sensed two enhanced people approaching them.
"Sorry for the wait, everyone! Let's go!" The guide finally spoke, drawing cheers from the crowd. Then, the guide led the two "humanoid Gundams" through the crowd, and everyone made way for them.
Jiang Ling saw two armored warriors about two meters tall. The exoskeletons on them seemed to have changed again. Compared with the exoskeleton she had seen, the joints of these two sets of armor were sealed with some plastic-looking materials, which made them look like Onion Knights as a whole, a little bloated.
The two armored warriors did not take off their helmets or say anything. They just followed the guide quietly. The only sound they could hear was the sound of rubber soles stepping on the hardened ground.
After the armored warrior passed the others, Xidu, who was quite perceptive, pulled Dong Xie and Jiang Ling and followed behind the warrior before the others could react. Dong Xie was almost tripped on the sleepers by his pull, but was supported by Jiang Ling.
"Hurry up and catch up, this way we will be in the middle of the team, which will be safer!" Xidu urged in a low voice, and the three of them sped up a little bit towards the front.
In this way, everyone was led by the guide, step by step into the darkness of the old subway tunnel.
Jiang Ling had assumed they would go up through the station's ground entrance, but she hadn't expected to reach the surface directly from here. The tunnel wasn't completely dark; workers had installed sparse lighting in the tunnels they had already explored. Before entering, everyone had waited for a long time in the dim light. They quickly adjusted to the brightness, their pupils dilated.
The guide seemed familiar with the area, reminding everyone along the way not to take the wrong turns. Everyone walked briskly, their focus on getting on, too focused to chat. They hurried along the side of the old railway tracks. Though these tunnels were ancient, they seemed to have been carefully maintained until before the war, with no signs of leakage. Unfortunately, they had been out of use for a while after the war, and the air had a damp, musty smell.
After about an hour of tunneling, they arrived at what appeared to be a newly excavated tunnel that sloped upwards. "We'll have to climb the slope for over half an hour. Do you want to take a break?" the guide said, stopping in front of the slope, where there happened to be a flashlight.
Most of the team members were young people, and Dong Xidu and Xidu had been traveling all year round, and had developed muscles with strong endurance, so they did not stay for long, but just checked their equipment and supplies.
Strictly speaking, this slope wasn't just one, but rather a combination of dozens of shorter slopes. Jiang Ling felt like the guide was leading them up a structure similar to a spiral staircase.
Slope, tunnel, slope, tunnel, turn, slope, tunnel... If someone who didn't know the way ran here, they would probably keep turning until they died of thirst and hunger and still couldn't find a way out. Jiang Ling felt the air around them gradually becoming humid and stuffy. It seemed that the guide's route was very correct. They were getting closer to the ground.
"As long as we see a brighter platform, we'll be halfway there!"
The guide's panting voice drifted faintly from the front to the back. The basement level was approximately sixty meters above ground level. If they climbed vertically, it might only take a few minutes to reach it. However, after more than ten minutes of climbing in the dark, they still hadn't reached the halfway point the guide had promised.
The young men following behind gradually stopped talking, and their breathing became more and more obvious. When the team was about to be separated, they finally saw the light coming from the front of the tunnel.
Jiang Ling closed one eye and paused at the entrance of the tunnel ramp to adjust to the brightness. Then she saw a brightly lit platform. It looked like a military camp, with some soldiers patrolling. But they paid little attention to the people resting at the entrance.
She had never seen such a military camp before. A rail car was parked near the platform. A temporary searchlight was placed in the center of the camp. Some military tents were built around it. There were also some square machines piled near the tents, and many small lights were flashing on the machines.
"Xidu, do you know what it is used for?" Jiang Ling approached Xidu and asked in a low voice.
"It should be a mobile command camp. Look at those two mobile soldiers, they ran over. We probably need to rest for a while!" He hid in the shadows and pointed at the exoskeleton warriors following them.
Although Jiang Ling didn't know much about military matters, she was curious about them. Military equipment was usually very advanced. Wouldn't anyone be able to handle those things? She tried to listen to the conversations in the camp, but the people around her were so noisy that she could barely hear a word: "...Extra energy pack...Acid-resistant...Don't...in water...Reddish-purple..."
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