Yinquan Town (IV)
Chapter 15
At five in the morning, the sky was bright and the fog was thick. Liang Qing and the others threw John into the tavern. Daisy conjured up a fake Daisy and props, and then followed them back into the car.
The system announced this morning that after last night, only 28 players remained in the town, having eliminated 749 zombies. No players had triggered any key clues or items. At 12:00 PM today, the system will send in another 72 players, bringing the total to 100.
"This is quite strange. There has never been a precedent for a copy to have a systematic filling of the number of players." Shi Xiaofeng slowed down the car. They quietly glided across the main road in the thick fog and groped their way through the center of the town.
Nie Yun pointed at the map and said, "There are black spots in all the houses and facilities in the town, especially in the tavern. John will most likely be unable to get out."
The doll said coldly in the back seat, "If he still had a trace of mercy for Daisy in the end, I wouldn't have killed him. Ah——"
The coolness lasted only three seconds. The doll's face twisted and her pale hands waved in the air: "I told you! Don't! Bit! My hair!!"
"Hehehe, hahahahaha..." Liang Baobao sat in the safety seat, happily grabbing Daisy's hair and biting it. Not only that, he also smeared his saliva on it.
Daisy's high-pitched warning did not pose any threat to him at all. Liang Baobao's chubby face was filled with the joy of wanting Daisy to continue playing this screaming game.
Liang Qing held her forehead with her hand. If they kept shouting like that, they would all be exposed. She quickly separated the doll from Liang Baobao and wiped Daisy's hair with baby wipes.
Seeing Liang Baobao's heartless laugh, Daisy was shaking with anger and still screaming, "Boys are the most annoying!"
"Yes, yes, he's a naive little brat. When he understands what I'm saying, I'll ask him to apologize to you. Here, after we clear the customs, I'll find somewhere to buy you some pretty hairpins, okay?"
Liang Qing comforted him.
Daisy paused for a second and looked at Liang Qing suspiciously: "Really? Is it the kind of hairpin that little human girls wear?"
As a doll, Daisy wore a tattered, colorless dress, had disheveled faded blond hair, and had small, thin limbs. She was not at all as glamorous as the Barbie dolls sold in shopping malls.
"Yes, there are new clothes!" Nie Yun turned around and added, "If you don't have your size, I can make them for you!"
"Hmm..." Daisy responded proudly, crossed her arms, glared at Liang Baobao, and finally calmed down.
Liang Baobao looked at Daisy and imitated her words: "Hmm..."
"Boss, Baobao seems to have grown up again. He can even laugh out loud..." Nie Yun happily reached out and rubbed Liang Baobao's little head.
"Shh...what is that?" Liang Qing saw a dark shadow rushing out from the left out of the corner of his eye. Shi Xiaofeng slammed on the brakes but it was too late.
A figure bumped heavily into the hood of the car, bounced three meters away, and fell to the ground with a dull thud.
Shi Xiaofeng gasped, not knowing whether he had hit a human or a ghost.
Liang Qing pulled out his silenced gun and pointed it in the direction the man had fallen. Several people nervously stared ahead. Slowly, a book popped out from under the hood of the car—a tattered Bible.
"Don't, don't kill me." An old voice came out.
Nie Yun stuck his head out and quickly looked back: "An old man, about seventy years old, looks like a priest."
The Bible was held high above his head. A long gash had been cut across his face, and blood was gushing out. The bloodied old man stood up tremblingly. "Gold digger, don't come to this cursed place! Run for your lives! This town has been destroyed by the demons of the dark abyss! I will use my life's flesh and blood to guide the Lord's holy light here to dispel Satan's thick fog!"
"It's an NPC." Shi Xiaofeng asserted.
"Why? Maybe the players are pretending?" Nie Yun was unsure.
In the back seat, Liang Qing opened the car door, waved, and motioned the old man to get in while saying to Nie Yun, "Have you ever seen a living person with such a big scar on his face still have the energy to talk nonsense?"
The priest who had just taken his seat: ...
"Is your face okay?" Liang Qing threw a towel over. The priest took it and wiped it casually. After the blood dried, the wound slowly healed.
"Thank you, stranger! This is not the place for you to chase your dreams of gold digging! Here Satan has..."
"Speak human language." Liang Qing interrupted him. The priest moved his mouth but did not continue.
"What happened here?" Liang Qing raised his hand and declared in advance, "Don't answer more than three words. Otherwise, I'll throw you down."
The priest immediately cooperated and spoke frankly: "A terrible disaster."
“Where have the residents gone?”
"Die or flee."
"Where do zombies come from?"
"Deep underground."
"where?"
"The heart of Satan."
Liang Qing held his forehead with his hand and said, "Tell us where we can go to learn about what happened in the town before, whether it's the people or the records left behind."
"Town History Museum."
"Where?"
"I church."
"Are there zombies?"
The priest nodded: "A lot."
"Show the way."
"good."
Liang Qing spoke very quickly, and to match Liang Qing, the priest himself unconsciously sped up. Nie Yunshi Xiaofeng, who witnessed all this in the front row, was astonished.
Nie Yun turned his head and moved his lips: Boss, do you really believe him? What if there is a trick?
Liang Qing was amused: "I also have a routine. My routine is to destroy all routines."
It is called a church, but it is just a house that is relatively well preserved compared to other ruins.
The priest walked ahead, muttering something incoherently, holding the Bible, too frightened to even open his eyes. He was right. The few zombies wandering the church garden saw the car stop and swarmed over it like flies to blood—but they all avoided the NPC priest.
Liang Qing counted them: "The three on Xiaofeng's left are yours, and the two on Nie Yun's right are yours."
As for herself, while holding Liang Baobao, she quickly dealt with the two people who were wandering around the second-floor window and the five who ran out from the depths of the church.
The three men shot and killed their way through the church. A few minutes later, the church was cleared. Liang Qing locked the door. The priest led the group to a small room on the second floor behind the main hall. There were letters, old newspapers, photos, and some specimens of farm tools and weapons.
It is indeed a simple town history museum.
Nie Yun was in charge of keeping watch, while Shi Xiaofeng and Liang Qing searched for clues separately.
"Twenty years ago, the name of Silver Spring was St. Augusta. Later, the largest silver mine in the United States was discovered and it was renamed Silver Spring. Tsk, why not call it Silver Mine Town?" Shi Xiaofeng said to himself.
"It was because the silver ore was first discovered when it flowed out of a spring." The core duties of the priest NPC have been completed. He sat dejectedly at the door of the room and spoke in a blank voice.
"Where is the spring?"
The priest remained silent, and Liang Qing found the answer: "At the foot of the mountain east of the town. Not far from here."
"What about the fog? Where does that thick fog surrounding the town come from?"
The priest was silent.
"What if we absolutely have to leave here and just go through the fog?"
The priest remained silent. It seemed the players had to discover the answers to these questions themselves.
The town was mostly white, but there were also quite a few black people living there. Liang Qing was drawn to a landscape painting on the table: a few black people stood in a vast cotton field, holding sickles and hoes, their expressions gloomy as they stood under an oak tree. The woman in the center looked a lot like Anna, the tavern owner.
She turned over the landscape painting and saw two paragraphs written on the back. These two paragraphs were written in English mixed with other languages, but the pronunciation could be guessed just by looking at the letters. The two paragraphs were very similar, with only some changes in the order of the words.
Liang Qing was watching intently when he heard Nie Yun behind him pointing to the window and saying, "Someone's coming!"
The three of them came to the window. Downstairs, deep in the white fog, a jeep drove out. It rushed all the way, knocking away the zombies blocking the road and shattering its own windshield into several pieces, but its speed did not decrease at all.
The harsh sound of the wheels rolling over the road attracted many zombies from near and far, and the jeep rushed towards the direction of the black fog.
The church was at the edge of town, and the three of them watched helplessly as the jeep plunged into it...
At first, there was no sound at all. A moment later, the black fog thickened, and from within came a tremendous crunching and gnawing sound, as if ten thousand mouths were simultaneously opening to eat. The numbing sound was mingled with the sounds of crushed metal and human screams.
Liang Qing took Shi Xiaofeng's telescope and looked carefully. After about five minutes, the black fog calmed down, a broken tire rolled out, and the zombies on the street gradually calmed down from their fanatical excitement.
The reckless player told everyone what would happen if they forced their way into the black fog.
"What kind of monster is in there..." Nie Yun whispered.
"I don't know, but there should be an answer somewhere." Liang Qing looked at his friends, "Let's go to the silver mine."
As if a key word had been triggered, the priest suddenly straightened up and said mysteriously, "The entrance to the silver mine has long been sealed by huge rocks, along with the thousand gold diggers who were unable to escape! The Lord has already revealed it, and their greed has blinded their eyes!"
Liang Qing waved his hand: "Lead the way."
The priest pretended to be embarrassed: "I said the entrance to the silver mine is no longer open, and I don't know where the silver mine is..."
"Really? Then where does this door behind the Town History Museum lead to?"
Liang Qing raised his leg and kicked, and an inconspicuous small door with a gate was kicked open. Dust fell on the wall, and the stone ground in front of the small door was unusually clean.
The priest smiled awkwardly, hunched over, and walked into the door, turning on the nearest light. "The secret passage leading to the silver mine is here. Please come this way."
Shi Xiaofeng and Nie Yun: ...
The air in the secret passage was a little thin. Liang Qing raised the flashlight and looked over the priest's head. Besides the dark tunnel, the narrow path was lined with words.
The characters were of different sizes, handwritings and engraving materials, and they were scattered all over the long corridor.
"Rose, my love, take care of the child."
"Nancy, I miss your apple pie."
"Jackson Eisenwell was blessed with an angel daughter in June."
"What are these, last words?" Nie Yun read a few sentences and found them creepy.
"It should have been left behind by the miners. Do you remember the zombie we encountered on the road when we came here?" Liang Qing lowered his voice and said to the two people behind him.
"Remember, it scared me to death."
"He's dressed like someone from the last century, with unnaturally pale skin and tattered work clothes. He must have been a miner here in the past. Considering the song in the tavern... perhaps the first zombie came from the silver mines in Silver Springs. If that's the case, finding the cause of the zombies' birth might lead to a way to escape the black fog."
Liang Qing had just finished speaking when the priest in front of him chuckled and stopped. At the end of the secret passage was a pitch-black abyss.
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