43 Silk Road 03
◎City of Ruins◎
Zhu Heng was awakened by a loud noise.
He was too sleepy to open his eyes. He could only hear a rustling sound outside the window. Something small hit the glass, and it sounded like it was raining outside.
At the same time, there were footsteps in the corridor outside the door and someone was knocking on the door.
"Brother Zhu."
"Hurry up, brother Zhu."
Outside the door, Tao Ran was calling Zhu Heng's name anxiously and persistently. All the noises mixed together and reached Zhu Heng's ears one by one.
So annoying.
Zhu Heng turned over and covered his head with the quilt.
Two seconds later.
He suddenly felt something was wrong.
Zhu Heng closed his eyes and felt the soft touch beneath him.
He clearly slept on the floor last night, but why... did he wake up from the bed?
In an instant, he regained consciousness and was about to turn over and sit up, when he suddenly heard a "click" sound coming from the bathroom, forcing him to lie down again and not move.
Helan Dao came out of the bathroom holding a white towel in one hand and a toothbrush in his mouth.
Zhu Heng closed his eyes and pretended to sleep, only opening them a crack, paying special attention to the mat beside the bed and whether there were any creases on the other half of the bed.
The bed on the floor was very messy, but Helan Dao's clothes were neatly folded next to the pillow, probably because Helan Dao had slept there for a night; and the other half of the sheet next to him was also flat, and it didn't look like anyone had slept there before.
He slowly breathed a sigh of relief.
Helan Dao closed the door casually, and just as he glanced at Zhu Heng who was still "soundly sleeping" on the bed, he heard Tao Ran's noisy shouting outside the door.
He suddenly sneered for no reason and gave the person on the bed a meaningful look, which made Zhu Heng, who was pretending to be asleep, feel numb on his back.
There's still knocking on the door.
"I'm coming." Helan Dao replied vaguely to the person outside the door, threw the towel aside, and then walked slowly to open the door.
For just over ten seconds, Zhu Heng was still lying on the bed pretending to be dead.
It was not until Helan Dao grasped the handle and was about to open the door that Zhu Heng finally realized something was wrong.
From Tao Ran's perspective, once He Landao opened the door, he would see two men in the same room early in the morning...
Zhu Heng's usually calm face showed some subtle changes at this moment. He immediately jumped up from the bed and wanted to stop it: "Wait a minute!" But he was still a step too late - the door opened.
At that moment, a layer of fine sand outside the door was swirled into the house by the airflow when the door was opened, bringing up a thin layer of yellow smoke, which dazzled Zhu Heng.
Tao Ran didn't even look at the person who came over, and blurted out: "Brother Zhu, look...you...you..."
He was stunned, looking at Helan Dao, who was wearing a bathrobe and brushing his teeth leisurely, and everything he wanted to say was stuck.
Helan Dao asked him, "What are you looking at?"
Tao Ran hesitated for a long time and couldn't say anything. He lowered his head slightly, turned his eyes to the side, and glanced towards the inner room. He saw Zhu Heng sitting on the bed. There was a bright red mark at the corner of his eye, and he still looked sleepy.
He swallowed, feeling that he had come at an inopportune time.
There were people coming and going in the corridor outside the door. These members of the archaeological team - the elite among the elites, were all in a hurry to leave here to carry out their mission. Their footsteps were hurried and chaotic, and no one paid attention to Tao Ran's abnormality.
He Landao glanced outside the door, then slowly took the door handle. He leaned over with a smile and tilted his head towards Tao Ran: "Come in and sit down?"
-
Tao Ran sat opposite the bed a little stiffly.
He looked at Helan Dao, who looked calm, and then at Zhu Heng, who had just come out of the bathroom with a cold expression that said "I want to kill the whole world".
Tao Ran: “…” He didn’t dare to speak.
Zhu Heng glanced at Tao Ran and heard a rustling sound outside the window. He thought it was raining, so he walked to the window to find the curtain switch and asked casually, "What do you want from me?"
The moment he pressed the curtain switch, the window became transparent, reflecting the scene outside.
Zhu Heng suddenly stopped where he was.
Outside the window, I saw flying sand and stones, howling winds, and a dim sky. The rustling sound was not the sound of rain at all, but the sound of sand hitting the window.
The aircraft in the air flashed red lights and flew smoothly and orderly towards their respective destinations, seemingly unaffected by the strange weather.
Tao Ran pointed out the window excitedly and answered Zhu Heng's question, "That's it! That's exactly what happened! When I woke up this morning, I saw this: the entire central city is completely covered in sand!"
Zhu Heng turned his head and stared at Helan Dao. Before the other party could speak, footsteps were heard outside the door, and Xu Wenjun's figure appeared at the door.
"Are you all here? That's perfect." She met the eyes of the three people in the room, turned off the navigation system on the back of her hand that was tracking Helan Road, and walked over with a serious face. Fortunately, the three people in the room were dressed and moving normally, so Xu Wenjun didn't have the same misunderstanding as Tao Ran.
As she brushed off the few grains of sand on her shoulders, she looked straight at Helan and said, "You saw the strange phenomenon outside."
Helan said "hmm".
Xu Wenjun continued, "This morning, Central City reported to everyone that the area was covered in desert. Based on all the current signs, we speculate that this may be a glitch in the Silk Road civilization of human history. Furthermore, this is the most serious one yet, as it has crossed the boundary between the dungeon world and the audience lounge. In other words, the system has lost control."
He Landao interrupted her without even raising his eyelids: "It's not out of control."
He neither gave reasons nor presented evidence, but simply denied it flatly, making it sound untenable to others.
But only he knew that this was not a sign of the system losing control. If it were truly out of control, this "Desert City" would no longer exist, and even the "Universe History" would not exist.
Hearing Helan Dao's firm denial, Tao Ran was stunned for a moment, turned his head to look at Zhu Heng, and found that Zhu Heng's eyes were also on Helan Dao, and he remained silent.
Xu Wenjun didn't refute Helando. Her trust in him was almost innate. Since Helando said it wasn't the system's fault, she didn't dwell on it anymore and went straight to the next topic: "All members of the archaeological team are still carrying out other dungeon missions as usual, but at the same time, the Silk Road dungeon can't be left unattended. We must find someone to break through the impasse. We can't let the central city be swallowed by the desert forever. However, this dungeon world is extremely difficult. The system has given it an S-level difficulty rating. The system also left a message."
There was no movement in the room. Tao Ran held his breath, waiting for Xu Wenjun to continue.
Xu Wenjun paused for a moment before continuing, "The system tells us that this dungeon mission has no breakthrough points. The advice is: don't proceed."
Tao Ran immediately stood up and prepared to go back to pack his things: "What are you still dawdling about? Come on, let's run away."
Zhu Heng also stood up at the same time, but his purpose was completely opposite to Tao Ran's - this challenging copy was just right for him.
Helan Dao looked at Zhu Heng and thought, “Not bad, he has some of his style.”
-
Four people came to the place where the aircraft were parked on the top floor of the Central Building. Due to the sudden sandstorm, the aircraft on the top floor could not be automatically repaired and started because their versions were too outdated. So everyone went downstairs again. At the door, everyone saw that the streets and alleys that were originally surrounded and covered by sea water were now filled with yellow sand.
In order to adapt to this new "desert city", the system directly added a batch of desert transportation tools - camels - for the residents of the central city.
Zhu Heng and Helan Dao each found a camel that they liked and rode them deep into the source of the desert.
While Xu Wenjun and Tao Ran were choosing their mounts, the camels chosen by Zhu Heng and Helan Dao changed. In an instant, they suddenly changed shape, from a camel caravan to a glowing train.
Before Xu Wenjun and Tao Ran could react, the train rushed out like an arrow, carrying Zhu Heng and Helan Dao.
In an instant, yellow sand hit his face. Zhu Heng held down the side of his face which was slightly stinging from the flying sand, and pulled down the car window with one hand to block the flying sand out.
As the train continued to move deeper without stopping, the scenery outside became more and more open, and those densely packed and crowded buildings gradually retreated to the stage, restoring the world to its most authentic appearance.
In the vast desert, there are a few oases scattered among them. At a glance, the whole world is so quiet that it seems as if there are only two living beings left, him and Helan Dao.
At this moment, a huge city came into their sight. It was like a sharp sword inserted into the yellow sand, one end facing the sky and the other end buried in the ground.
The train drove straight to the track that was not covered by the yellow sand and entered this huge, deserted ruined city.
The city is a cylindrical structure with a slight tilt. Large and small residential buildings surround this cylinder, stacked up layer by layer, leaving a huge circular opening in the middle, enclosing a round azure sky. Several unknown birds fly through the air, leaving an invisible scratch.
The train tracks are suspended above the yellow sand, leading all the way to the train station in the middle of the circular opening.
The train slowly stopped, and Zhu Heng and Helan Dao got off the train one after the other. They stepped into the soft yellow sand and sank into it up to their ankles.
Helan Dao first pulled his foot out, then naturally reached out to grab Zhu Heng's arm and pulled him out.
"Bang!"
Suddenly a sound came from under my feet.
Zhu Heng and Helan Dao stood still and stopped moving.
"Bang!"
There was another loud noise, accompanied by a few clear gasps.
Zhu Heng and Helan Dao looked at each other, turned their heads and listened attentively to the sounds, their expressions frozen.
Is anyone there?
It is not a good thing to find traces of people in a deserted ruined city.
Zhu Heng glanced at Helan and asked, "Is he an enemy or a friend?"
Helandao understood Zhu Heng's eyes tacitly and shook his head at him, still unable to confirm.
The two of them instantly reached a consensus and decided to hide first.
Hide in the dark and act according to the situation.
They ran directly into the waiting hall of the station behind them. The circular space was covered by a hemispherical glass curtain wall. Sunlight poured down from the open roof, and a beam of rainbow-colored light fell directly in the center of the waiting hall.
Dust floated lightly in the air.
Zhu Heng looked around, raised his eyes casually, and suddenly stopped where he was.
His gaze turned to the second floor, where two figures in robes were staring at them against the light.
Helan Dao unknowingly stood beside Zhu Heng, looking at the figure on the second floor with him, without saying a word, like an arrow silently gathering strength in the few seconds before it leaves the bow.
A line of blood was dripping along the edge of the second floor, and it looked extremely bright under the sunlight.
At the feet of the two figures, Zhu Heng saw two corpses lying face down, covered with dark silk.
A flying bird hit the glass curtain wall head-on, spun around, flapped its wings dizzily, and turned around.
In the waiting hall, the four people above and below all looked at the silly bird above their heads at the same time.
The stalemate was broken.
Zhu Heng and Helan Dao ran away. On the roof of the second floor, two men in long robes also reacted very quickly, running down and chasing after them.
Oh shit.
Good luck in opening the door.
【Author’s words】
Freshly released, no drafts saved, so I'm writing and updating as I go along. How refreshing... I only knew the plot an hour earlier than you guys T_T
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