past

Team Green is friendlier than Ivy expected.

In the month after entering the wasteland, they traveled nearly 2,000 kilometers and discovered many species that were slowly recovering.

The running antelopes, the squirrels that don’t shy away from people, the giant salamanders in the river…

They also found the footprints of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, which were heavily imprinted on the earth and rushed all the way to the plains.

Ivy wanted to follow the Tyrannosaurus Rex's footprints to find their burrows, but was stopped by Wei Xi.

"Ahead is a battlefield between humans and artificial intelligence," Wei Xi said, "over there is the lair of the machines... Expedition teams passing by are likely to be captured by them."

Ivy did not insist.

She is much more cautious now than before.

As a small expedition team, there are seven members in total, including the captain Wei Xi, the deputy captain Cong Cong - the girl who received Ivy's data sheet that day, the twin brothers Qingkong and Yuyun who are said to be good at fighting, and the hooded brother Dangdang who is in charge of the specimen collection mission.

As well as logistics management, chef, accountant, cleaner and special communication Tiger——

Ai Wei pointed at the special communication and asked in confusion: "What does this mean?"

"Oh, this one," Captain Wei Xi introduced enthusiastically, "He is very good at solving some problems."

"Yes," Congcong glanced at the tall and strong Tiger who was cooking in a pink apron, and blushed suspiciously, "Before, an expedition team tried to steal seed specimens from us, and we couldn't communicate. Tiger used only one punch to knock the man out of his bladder."

Ivy: “…”

She silently wrote it down on the note.

[Special Violence Communication Tiger]

Wei Xi was still happily sighing: "...I never thought that this year we not only received government subsidies, but also received funding from the military the day before yesterday to buy us the latest cars and weapons. Oh my god, we are so lucky..."

Ivy lowered her head and tied the gun assigned to her leg. She had originally prepared to use old guns and vehicles that had been eliminated by the military, but she didn't expect that the things she was using now were exactly the same as the latest models displayed at the base.

This is really the only good news recently.

"...and," Wei Xi said happily, "the application for the military doctor has been approved, so our expedition team can also be equipped with a traveling doctor. I heard that the other party is from the research institute, and I don't know how he came here..."

Research Institute?

Ivy thought absentmindedly, could it be Yu Mo?

——It’s really Yu Mo.

When Ivy saw a familiar face at the supply station, she was completely numb.

Yu Mo was wearing a white sports suit, her long silver-white hair was slightly trimmed, and her tsavorite eyes were filled with tenderness.

Before getting out of the car, the members of Team Green looked out of the window.

His beauty was out of place in the wasteland.

They didn’t even wear any protective gear or professional protective clothing—this is a wasteland, and there is heavy pollution and nuclear leak wastewater in many places!!!

There was only the mournful Dangdang. He took off the hood of his hoodie and sniffed hard twice, his voice low, as if he was reciting a poem.

"I smell the smell of old age and decay, beneath the beautiful and delicate false skin," said Dangdang, closing his eyes. "Like an aged soul, or like gradually decaying internal organs, an inhuman old monster has painted himself a perfect human skin."

Tiger slapped him on the back of the head and was shocked: "Boy, are you possessed?"

——Dangdang didn’t say anything.

Tiger hit him too hard and knocked him unconscious.

Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, Yu Mo walked straight towards Ivy and took the initiative to greet her: "Xiaobao, you have lost a lot of weight."

Wei Xi was surprised: "Do you know each other?"

Yu Mo smiled and reintroduced the relationship between himself and Ivy, but this time, when he naturally reached out to put his arm around Ivy's shoulders, she dodged slightly.

Yu Mo kept smiling: "Xiaobao?"

"I'm a little dizzy," was all Ivy could say, "Maybe I need to rest."

"Yes, yes," Congcong immediately added for her, "We found a ginkgo forest this morning. Logically, the first expedition team to discover it should conduct the survey, but a girl named Iris came out and said that she saw it first. Ivy argued with her for a long time, but was finally driven away..."

Yu Mo was puzzled: "Iris's girl?"

"Alice," Ivy looked him in the eye, "from District 5."

She could see nothing unusual on Yu Mo's face.

"Is that so?" Yu Mo said, "That's a bit too much... Is this considered a violation of the rules?"

"In the wasteland, strength is everything," Wei Xi sighed, "There's nothing we can do. Iris has too many people. There are dozens of them, and we only have seven."

In the end, Song Feng came forward to resolve the matter. He gave them some of the plant seeds and animal bones he had collected, but was determined not to give up the Ginkgo Forest.

He even tried to persuade Ivy in a less crazy tone to give up Ginkgo Forest.

Because Green only has seven people, and the Ginkgo Forest is too large and wide, the seven of them cannot complete a detailed survey, which is a waste of resources...

Song Xu thought that Ivy and the others were right, after all, Ivy was the first to set foot in this jungle. Unfortunately, his voice was too weak to compete with others.

He could only quietly stuff a big bag full of delicious bagels, canned food, compressed cookies and fruits into Ivy's mouth.

"Alice is new here. She took a matching test out of curiosity and found that she and my brother have a matching degree of 87%. As you know, my brother has always believed that a high genetic match is the most perfect - but Iris is forbidden to fall in love internally, so my brother is quite polite to her," Song Xu whispered, "If the girl with a matching degree of 89% doesn't appear next year, maybe my brother will consider it..."

After hearing this, Ivy didn't feel any emotional reaction, she just felt so pitiful.

They are influenced by highly compatible genes and then get married. Everything follows genetic choices rather than personal consciousness. Poor human beings.

Poor her, poor Lorraine.

No.

He is not to be pitied at all.

Lorraine has absolutely no emotions that a normal human being should have. In his daily life, apart from going to work, he goes to bed. He is a high-ranking general, a respected teacher, his soldiers worship him, his students respect him, and the civilians envy him.

What's so pitiful about him?

She is the one who is pitiful.

Even in the wasteland, among the expedition teams that speak with strength, Ivy can get complete respect.

Tonight we stayed at the supply point, which was not only prepared for expeditions and the army, but also an important hub for navigation between multiple safe zones. Soldiers were guarding the supply point to prevent the invasion of artificial intelligence machines - only here could people sleep comfortably in their beds.

However, Ivy rejected Wei Xi and Cong Cong's suggestion that the three of them sleep in the same room.

"I don't like strange hotels. I prefer sleeping in the expedition car," Ivy said. "Just sleep there. Don't worry about me."

Most capable people are different from the crowd. They are very considerate. Congcong is worried and asks: "Don't you need me to accompany you? Are you afraid of being alone?"

Ivy smiled and shook her head: "I'm not afraid."

Apart from the weird "Alice" and "Ally", she really had no fear.

Ivy took a hot bath in the room, changed her clothes, and took back all her clothes, blankets, and quilts from the washing machine. On the way back to the car, she ran into Iris's men again.

They were purchasing large quantities of supplies from the supply depot. With a large number of personnel, the consumption was also high. They were transporting those expensive canned beef boxes onto the trucks.

Alice's sweet voice lingered in the air, and everyone praised her for discovering the ginkgo forest first, but Song Feng's nose twitched, and he suddenly stood up and looked elsewhere.

It was a figure carrying two large bags with a lot of things on her back. She walked with firm steps and ease, as if she didn't care about anything.

Song Feng took two steps forward subconsciously, and in his sight, but the next moment, another wild dog-like figure shot out at an extremely fast speed——

The entire supply point was filled with Song Xu's cheerful and high-pitched voice: "Ivy--!!!"

Song Feng closed his eyes, slowly sat down, and decided not to go.

——I can’t afford to lose this person.

Both brothers went there and saw what it was like.

Song Xu didn't care so much. He happily helped Ivy carry the heaviest bag, and sent her to the car chatteringly, almost wagging his tail.

"...I knew you would sleep in the car tonight," Song Xu said, "Are you scared to be alone? Do you want me to accompany you? I bought a lot of cherries and I'll bring them over later. Oh, I also took a shower. Can you smell me? Do you think I smell good?"

A fluffy, golden head pushed into Ivy's arms. She was thinking and staggered, almost sitting on the ground because of him.

"Smells good," Ivy said. "It's almost too good to be true - help me take it off so I can open the door."

Before he finished speaking, the car door opened from the inside.

The moonlight shone on Yu Mo's hair, which shone brighter than silver. He naturally took the things from Ivy's hand and smiled: "Xiaobao, the wasteland is more vast and more desolate than I imagined. I'm a little scared to be alone. Can I come to your place to rest?"

Song Xu's blue puppy eyes widened in shock: "Why did you come to the wasteland if you were afraid of danger?"

He looked inside the car and was even more shocked: "When did you make the bed?"

Yu Mo looked at Ivy tenderly: "Is it okay?"

Song Xu briefly weighed the status of himself and Yu Mo in Ivy's heart.

After hesitating for only a moment, he quickly ran to the rear driver's seat and lay down hard: "I'm going to sleep here tonight too!"

Ivy had been busy all day and had no time to deal with the problems between the two men. For the expedition team, sleeping in the same car at night was common. When lives were at stake and conditions were harsh, there was no distinction between genders between them.

She lay down quietly, covered herself with a blanket, and just as she closed her eyes, she heard Song Xu pleading coquettishly behind her: "Aiwei, Aiwei, can you tell me a bedtime story? I can't sleep."

Ivy said, "But I'm a little tired."

"Let me do it," Yu Mo smiled, "It just so happens that I just heard something interesting not long ago."

Song Xu muttered something quietly, but Ivy didn't hear it clearly.

But Yu Mo's next sentence successfully attracted Ivy's interest.

"Some time ago, when I went to the Dark Zone to buy medicine, I met a strange middle-aged man with a red neck and a big beard, wearing a baggy sweatshirt and overalls," Yu Mo said. "After he knew I was a doctor, he asked if I could help him find a person's file. I asked who it was, and he said it was a man named Cyril, who was the same age as me this year."

cyril.

Ivy's eyes widened.

The "Cyril" mentioned by the bearded man is the same age as Yu Mo - Lorraine.

Song Xu behind him had already screamed out in surprise: "Is it the serial killer Cyril from the Dark Zone?"

He still had a lingering fear: "I even had to suspend classes in elementary school because of this..."

"It was him," Yu Mo said gently, "but from the bearded man's mouth, I heard a different story about Cyril."

"The bearded man said that he first met Cyril in a morgue filled with androids. Cyril was just ten years old at the time. He had no mother, and his father took him to live in a 'coffin shop' and made a living by stealing."

Coffin laying.

Ivy knew this saying, which meant that many people in the dark zone couldn't even afford to live in a room, so some people put two beds in one room, and each bed had three spaces: upper, middle, and lower. They rented out the rooms as single beds, but because they were too narrow, they were called coffin rooms.

She realized something.

"Cyril's father was an alcoholic and gambler. When he won, he would go to prostitutes and when he lost, he would beat the child. When Cyril was ten years old, he accidentally drank industrial alcohol and died of poisoning," Yu Mo said. "That year, it was raining heavily in the Dark Zone. Big Beard passed by the bionic corpse field and heard some strange noises. Big Beard walked over and saw Cyril, who had lost his right foot, crawling in the bionic corpse pit, dragging a line of blood in the mud... looking for a foot that could match his own stump... He tried to connect the bionic man's broken limbs to his own broken limbs."

Ivy was stunned.

"Some wealthy kids from the First District come to the Dark District for fun and recruit followers - in fact, they are human targets for sparring. This behavior is prohibited in the First District, but it is allowed in the Dark District. The first requirement for human targets is that they must be physically healthy and cannot be disabled."

"Cyril wanted to get rid of his identity as a member of the Dark Zone, but he was betrayed by his partner when he was competing for this position - his leg was caught in his partner's trap and had to be chopped off."

"Big Beard immediately took him to the hospital. After he was bandaged, Cyril suddenly asked him if the guy who always troubled him was causing Big Beard a lot of trouble."

"Big Beard was very surprised because he had never mentioned this to anyone else."

"Cyril looked at him and said, I don't recommend you do it yourself, I have a better idea to solve this matter."

"What idea?" Song Xu asked, he was obviously fascinated by what he heard. "Why did Cyril know? Isn't he only ten years old? What can he do? And, he doesn't have a right foot?"

Ivy's lips were dry. "Did Cyril kill that man?"

"In exchange, Big Beard paid for Cyril to have a discarded bionic right foot installed, so that Cyril could pass the test perfectly and successfully get the opportunity to practice with the rich young master - oh, speaking of this," Yu Mo said, "that rich young master also happened to be named Hector."

Ivy could hardly hear her own voice. "The medical conditions in the Dark Zone are limited. Installing a bionic right foot will definitely cause the body to reject it. It will be very, very painful. Why did Cyril insist on taking this opportunity?"

"The bearded man also asked Cyril the same question, why he had to take this opportunity," Yu Mo said, "With Cyril's ability, he could have lived comfortably in the dark zone without working so hard. So, Cyril told him -"

The car door was opened.

“Why can we only live comfortably in the dark zone?”

A low voice came.

Ivy sat up suddenly with a start, and saw the tall Lorraine in the moonlight, dressed in a military uniform, with a solemn expression, and so calm and rational that he seemed to be stripped of all emotions.

He said, "Why not choose to step onto the bright pinnacle of power?"

Ivy never expected to see him here. Lorraine should be on the battlefield right now - yes, this place is very close to the war zone, but -

"Compared to this, Doctor Yu Mo," Lorraine narrowed his eyes and looked at Yu Mo, "You were supposed to be in the army, but now you have violated the agreement and come here, and appear in my wife's car. I think I need an explanation--"

"And you," he asked Song Xu sharply, "you left the Iris expedition team without permission, broke into the Green team's expedition car at night without permission, and stayed here, violating the peace treaty between the expedition teams."

"So, the current employment environment has become so bad that you two can't wait to go to prison and work for the government?"