Ni Ji saw a large mushroom garden, with huge snow-white caps and swaying mycelium, pure white and beautiful, standing far away.
The sky was gray, and floc-like spores jumped from the cap and drifted away with the wind.
In polluted areas, the more beautiful something is, the more dangerous it is.
This scene brought back some bad memories for Ni Ji. He had once been in such a contaminated area filled with spores, and he had lost everything important around him.
The sky is full of spores, the ground is covered with corpses, and no one can save themselves.
Ni Ji stared at those pure white mushrooms, and quietly stepped back silently. His back hit the brick wall at the corner of the street, and he felt a chill.
He then realized that he had been sweating a lot on his back without knowing when.
He has traveled to many places and met many people.
Although everyone was prepared, the fighting in the contaminated area was still severe, and the death rate was unprecedentedly high.
Ni Ji ran very fast, almost to the limit of his speed. He saw many dead people along the way and also asked many living people.
No one saw the guide.
When he turned a corner one time, he saw the body of a woman with long black hair lying on the street corner.
At that moment he stopped and a fear rose in his heart.
Even though I soon found out if it was that person, I still felt anxious as if it was on fire.
It felt like there was a ball of fire burning inside my chest, roasting my entire heart.
Ni Ji leaned his back against the cold wall, took a breath, and the sweat on his forehead flowed down his cheeks.
Calm down, he said to himself, she is actually a very strong person, stronger than me.
But she was also very fragile, with such thin wrists and not much strength in her legs, so she couldn't run fast or jump very far.
Ni Ji looked down at his own hand, remembering that slender hand that once held his black glove.
He now wished desperately that a tentacle could come out at this moment and pat the back of his hand or wrap around his ankles.
Why did Lin Yuan come here alone?
Golden tree contaminated area.
For so many years, no one has been able to enter or leave, and no one has survived. It is one of the most dangerous contaminated areas in the world.
Anyone who chooses to come here, no matter for what reason, is a desperate criminal.
In Ni Ji's heart, that beautiful girl as beautiful as the moon deserves a carefree life.
Drinking afternoon tea in a courtyard with flowers and desserts, surrounded by many friends.
In fact, he also vaguely knew that, although that person looked slender and soft, she was actually very similar to himself. Under that beautiful shell, she was covered in scars, incomplete and incomplete, damaged and corroded by something, and could not express her emotions completely like a normal person.
On the bottom of the sea, every time spirits come into contact with each other.
When he was hugged on that wild night.
The man read himself, and he also saw the beautiful underwater creature that was tiny and a little lonely.
Ni Ji thought that she often didn't care about herself and even had a tendency to be self-destructive. For her own goals, she didn't know how to protect herself and would burn herself out without caring about anything.
Ni Ji can burn up his own sea, but he will never want to see the bright moon in the sky disappear.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead, suppressed all his messy thoughts, turned himself into the calm sentry again, checked his guns and weapons, and walked around the mushroom patch.
Ni Ji met an acquaintance on the street corner here.
The people who passed guides to each other and exchanged intelligence in the tavern last night.
Dazhu was sitting on the ground by the road, leaning against the wall, smoking a compass.
Ni Ji walked towards him and stopped far away from him.
In fact, he had known Da Zhang for many years. When he first arrived in the North, Da Zhang was already a well-known sentinel captain in another outpost. He was cautious in style, had strong combat abilities, and was an experienced veteran.
At this moment, the captain was sitting on the dangerous roadside, smoking a thin compass as if no one was around.
A snow-white mushroom grew on his head, which was leaning against the wall.
The sticky and white hyphae draped down, covering half of the man's face. The soft webs swayed and slowly eroded his shoulders and body.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" He saw Ni Ji and took down the guide element in his hand. "You also know that in our line of work, this is a matter of time. I have lived long enough."
"How long can you hold on?" Ni Ji asked him while standing there.
There is no special concern or sympathy, only these five words.
Dazhen looked at Ni Ji seriously for a while, then suddenly gave a bitter smile and said, "You."
Their acquaintance was very superficial and they had only met each other a few times.
But he immediately understood the meaning of Ni Ji's short five words.
These sentinels who are on the line of death every day sometimes have many similarities.
You don't even need real communication to understand each other's thoughts.
Ni Ji hoped that he could hold on a little longer, waiting for him to open the escape door. As long as he could get out, he would still have a chance to survive.
"It's symbiosis." Dazhen looked at the sentry in front of him who was much younger than himself, "It's not that easy to die. There's still a long time."
The golden tree pollution area is like a horrible nightmare. It captures almost all invaders. Most of them are not killed immediately, but the status of humans and animals is reversed, and they are subjected to humiliating and long-term torture.
Almost everyone who stays here for a long time will go crazy.
If someone said he would open the door to the contaminated area, it might not comfort a veteran like Scythe.
But Ni Ji might be an accident. He was the strongest person who had entered and exited the contaminated area 381 times and escaped unscathed. In the entire northern outpost, no one actually disobeyed him.
If he could really open the "door" of this contaminated area, many people trapped here would still have a chance to get out alive as long as their spirits had not collapsed.
"No, don't be too hasty." Da Zhang sat there and said to the young man, "You have to be careful, even more careful. As long as you are still alive, I think everyone still has hope."
Ni Ji nodded, said nothing more, turned around and left.
"Wait a moment." Dazhong called him.
He sat on the ground, holding up the mushroom that used his body as its bed.
When the things here invaded his body, he also vaguely saw some truths inside this contaminated area.
"I understand a little bit now." Dazhong pointed to his head, "Everything here is someone's dream. You have to find the hidden person. He is the pillar here, that is, the golden tree."
"Go to Rose Camp. Ni Ji."
***
"To the Rose Garden."
Lin Yuan was looking at the map in her hand, remembering what the sentry had told her before: to go to the rose garden, the rose garden at night.
"There is a person there. If we find him, we may be able to solve all of this." The sentry closed his eyes with a little sadness. "In the most painful times, I saw a person and a tree several times. The golden roots of the tree controlled everything in this world like a spider web."
Lin Yuan looked around and found that there seemed to be only one place on the map that was related to roses.
She moved towards that place carefully.
The Golden Tree contaminated area was more difficult for Lin Yuan than any other contaminated area he had ever visited.
There are many strange animals wandering around here. Those animals are powerful against the norm, and their purpose is to capture and abuse humans.
The most troublesome thing is that they are not human, nor are they real animals.
At least Lin Yuan's tentacles couldn't detect the emotions of living creatures from them.
Walking in a world without emotions is like walking in darkness for Lin Yuan.
Unable to "see", "perceive" and "touch" in advance, it's like being blindfolded and unarmed.
Dangerous monsters could rush towards her from the darkness at any time. Fortunately, she couldn't see them, but most of the time, the monsters couldn't see her either.
Lin Yuan walked very carefully, but inevitably got hurt. She stopped to bandage her face and arms, bandaged the wounds, took a breath, and looked up at the "Rose Garden" in front of her.
Originally, Lin Yuan thought that the so-called rose garden would be a garden, a plantation or something like that.
When she got closer, she realized that she had completely misunderstood.
The "rose" here has another worldly meaning that is not so good.
The old steel gate, surrounded by high walls, and inside the gate is a long street littered with all kinds of paper scraps, with lanterns hanging in front of the houses on both sides...
This is a very bad place.
Lin Yuan recalled the time at the Military Control Office when the wronged Ni Ji was tied to the rack and stood trial.
The judge at the time said with a malicious laugh, "With a face like this, he should be sent to the Rose Camp to serve his country."
The guards watching the scene burst into laughter, their faces twisted with excitement, and uttered insulting words, shouting that they wanted to take care of him.
Each major outpost has its own sentry organization, and there are many military camps in the empire.
The First Battalion, the Second Battalion, the Royal Guards... there was once a military unit stationed in this town.
But no real military camp is named after a flower.
rose camp.
Before standing in front of this iron gate, Lin Yuan had no real idea of what this place was like.
It was not until she came here and looked up to see the mottled words hanging on the iron gate that she suddenly realized how deep and obscene those people's malice towards Ni Ji was at that time.
Sometimes the evil between humans is not necessarily less severe than that between monsters.
When Lin Yuan entered the contaminated area, it was the "daytime" period in the contaminated area.
There were no clouds or sun in the sky, and no one knew where the light came from. It was a grayish white, like a virtual screen.
After hiding here and there and wandering around for a long time, all I saw were empty streets and the deserted "Rose Garden".
When Lin Yuan stood in front of the gate of the rose garden, the sky seemed to be a curtain pulled by someone. It suddenly became dark, and a huge waning moon rose in the night sky.
The incomplete silver crescent moon is extremely huge.
Silvery, cold, and broken into only a half-circle like a hook, but so big that it almost cuts through the entire dark night sky.
"Night" comes with the rise of the silver moon.
The deserted streets were lit up with street lights. On both sides of the road, the dark houses were lit up one after another.
During the day, the quiet house was filled with the sound of talking.
Countless figures appeared in those lighted windows. Someone was reading in the attic, a family of three was eating by the window, an old man was watching TV with a cat in his arms, a young man was brushing his teeth by the window...
As if it had never been polluted, the town's bustle, prosperity, laughter and warmth are still the same as before.
Of course, the pain and filth are still the same as before.
The iron gate of the rose garden lit up with colorful lights. Rows of red lanterns in front of the houses inside lit up.
Joyful laughter, music, and soft singing were heard. The sound began to become noisy, and the figures coming and going through the dilapidated iron gate gradually became clearer.
Those people walked in the light and shadow of the bustling and noisy lights.
Everyone who comes here is laughing. This is a place for fun and to relieve worries.
In this world full of lights, except for the rose garden which was strangely lively, the road outside the gate was still empty.
Every household on both sides of the street had their doors and windows tightly shut. Lights were on in the windows, and the shadows on the windows continued their lives. It seemed that no one dared to open the door and take a look at the outside world.
A long line of minotaurs holding long knives appeared at the street corner. Compared to the "daytime", at night they wore neat uniforms, their eyes shone like red lights, and they walked around the street corner holding sharp knives like law enforcement weapons.
At night, they were able to ignore the tentacles' shielding. The leading minotaur was only slightly stunned, and then he saw Lin Yuan standing alone in the middle of the street. He made an angry sound and led the team to rush towards Lin Yuan.
Lin Yuan acted decisively and squeezed into the rose garden with colorful lights and into the bustling crowd.
She squeezed her way through the crowded crowd, smelled the scent of these people, and felt all kinds of emotions belonging to human beings.
She didn't know whether these "guests" coming and going were human or mutants. But at least for now, their emotions, behaviors, clothes and appearance were similar to hers.
Like? A guest who used to live here and patronize this place every night.
Let's just treat them as humans.
Lin Yuan blended into the "crowd" in the rose garden.
The minotaurs also squeezed in. Holding long knives, they pushed through the bustling crowd, looking for the trace of Lin Yuan, the outsider, with red eyes.
As Lin Yuan ran inside, some of them began to confuse Lin Yuan with other people. Their movements began to slow down and the distance between them and Lin Yuan gradually widened.