Chapter 25 The Tower of Gray Dome 25 I found a cheat.
There weren't many monsters inside the nuclear power plant; only faint roars echoed from all around, reverberating longer and longer through the walls, making one feel as if they had entered a monster's lair rather than a human ruin.
The three walked carefully on the ground. Nanmen Jue looked down at the shapeless corpses. Some of them could still be made out of their clothes. Some were wearing military uniforms, similar in style to those of the guards. Others were wearing protective suits. Over the years, these clothes and withered flesh had stuck together, like a pot of overcooked pig's blood porridge.
Nanmenjue felt a bit nauseous.
He had encountered his fair share of bloodshed since arriving in the Reincarnation Space, but none of it was as shocking as what he was seeing before him. The dead civilizations were displayed in a cruel form. Nanmen Jue had never realized so clearly before that this was a possible future.
It's so similar to the real world.
They proceeded cautiously, being careful people, and there were no dramatic incidents like accidentally kicking something they shouldn't have and disturbing the monster. Even when a monster that looked dead suddenly grabbed Nanmen Jue's leg, and the other two were terrified, thinking they were doomed, Nanmen Jue simply pierced the monster's brain faster than they were, without making a sound the whole time.
She drew her weapon—the scalpel she had sharpened.
She found the weapon very useful and secretly decided to bring one with her to every world she visited in the future.
This tranquility was broken as they turned into a corridor.
The three of them walked around the corner and came face to face with the monsters that were roaming the corridor.
What else can we do? Just do it!
The three resignedly drew their melee weapons. Tong Gu's weapon was a sharp blade longer than a dagger, while Qin Yehan simply swung his gun butt and smashed it down.
One hundred, one hundred, one hundred, one hundred...
Nanmen Jue kept track of the numbers in her mind, nimbly dodging left and right. She was the weakest in terms of physical strength, but she was the most ferocious. When Tong Gu turned around and saw her excited, gleaming eyes, he was so shocked that he almost dropped his weapon.
"What are you so happy about?!" he muttered through gritted teeth.
The sounds of battle attracted more monsters to gather in this direction. Qin Yehan grabbed Nanmen Jue's arm and said, "Don't get too carried away, let's go!"
Using himself as a shield, he ruthlessly carved out a path, dragging Nanmen Jue along with him. Nanmen Jue curled his lip, watching his points slip away with regret, and then stabbed two more people to death in the blink of an eye.
The situation was chaotic, with blood and unidentified limbs flying everywhere. Nanmen Jue couldn't see the way until he was dragged into a room. Tong Gu slammed the metal door shut, keeping all the screams and scratches outside.
The three of them, panting, looked at each other and then burst out laughing.
"I'm really impressed by you," Tong Gu said. "Are you a psychopath? I've never seen anyone so excited about seeing a radiation monster."
“Now you’ve seen it,” Nanmen Jue said.
Tong Gu: "..."
"Alright, we've wasted enough time." Qin Yehan, displaying his rationality, promptly stopped a childish argument from erupting. "This is the place."
Nanmen Jue looked around. It was an office with a decor style that seemed to be left over from the last century. The upper half of the wall was white, and the lower half was painted a reflective green. At this time, it was peeling off and looked terrible, but because the temperature was too low, no epiphytes had grown.
Behind the dusty desk sat a skeleton.
The fabric covering its body had completely fused with the dried, decaying flesh and tissue, clinging tightly to the remaining skeleton. In front of it was a controller with many knobs and buttons, the purpose of which was now unknown.
Nanmenjue approached the skull and saw a metal nameplate on his mangled chest. She used a scalpel to pick it out.
"This is the evidence I'm referring to." Qin Yehan walked to the controller and began to debug it. "I was incredulous when I first discovered that it could still be powered on, so I tried to see if I could find any clues. But its usage is a bit different from the current machines, so I need to look into it."
Nanmen Jue looked at the words on the metal nameplate and asked, "Don't you recognize these words?"
Both of them looked up at her, and Tong Gu shook her head.
"Although it looks very similar to modern characters, I just can't recognize it; it's only vaguely familiar."
"Fortunately, we can still understand what they're saying," Qin Yehan said.
He found a way to turn on the controller, and amidst the crackling sound of electricity, a human voice rang out.
“Listen carefully,” Qin Yehan said softly, “this is the most compelling evidence.”
"It is now... sizzling sound... September 2nd... sizzling sound... notification... sizzling sound... retreat... leave no one alive."
There was still electricity, but the power was worrisome, and the words mixed in with the current were quite unclear, requiring great care to distinguish them.
"But it requires people to persevere... sizzling sound... voluntarily staying... sizzling sound... may humanity triumph and civilization endure forever."
For some reason, the last sentence was spoken with exceptional clarity, flowing through the present day, hundreds of years later, and filled with a profound sense of desolation.
"Sizzle sizzle..."
Nanmen Jue looked up at the two of them, and Qin Yehan shook his head slightly, indicating that they should not rush.
After a long hiss of static, the same sound rang out again.
"I succeeded... Zzzzt, I survived the Zzzzt nuclear attack, Zzzzt... Communication will be restored in this area, everyone else Zzzzt... has been evacuated into the tower, except for Zzzzt..."
This is likely because the nuclear power plant was fortunate enough to escape the nuclear attack. If it could continue operating, it could provide electricity to the surrounding area, which is a vital resource in a post-apocalyptic world. This worker risked his life to ensure this.
The three of them remained silent, listening intently to the recording. They couldn't make out what he said next until the very last sentence, which was as clear as the previous one.
October 4, 3128.
This is a date.
Nanmen Jue understood why Qin Yehan considered this strong evidence of another Gray Tower, because in the historical records of the Gray Tower, the date of its activation was 3239.
More than a hundred years too late!
The staff member mentioned the tower, indicating that their generation did indeed retreat into the gray tower, but there was already a tower more than a hundred years before the current gray tower, that is, before the end of the year recorded in the gray tower.
But is this tower referring to the Gray Tower? Over the past hundred years, some events have occurred that led those in power to erase a portion of history?
Nanmen Jue believed that this only indicated doubts about the history of the Gray Tower, but could not be taken as conclusive evidence of the existence of another Gray Tower. She wanted to speak, but Qin Yehan gestured for her to be quiet.
besides?
Another long sizzling sound followed, even longer than the previous pause. Nanmen Jue's legs were starting to go numb from standing before he finally heard voices again.
This time, his voice was much weaker.
"Zzzzz... Attack... Zzzzz... Trapped... Zzzzz... No way to leave."
Thinking of the monster lurking outside the corridor, there's no need to say more about why this person has no reason to leave.
The radiation monster appeared quickly, and he was unable to escape.
There was another hissing sound, followed by a sudden, deep sigh that became surprisingly clear.
"I heard that the black tower was built on the Botai Plain. I haven't been there yet... but my family has all gone there. I hope they can live there safely until the end of the world."
Then came another ear-piercing sizzling sound. Qin Yehan turned off the sound and said, "That's all. I listened for a long time after that, and no one spoke until the end."
“The Baotai Plain…” Nanmen Jue said softly.
If another reincarnator were here, they probably wouldn't have noticed anything unusual about what was said. But Nanmen Jue, with her diamond-like stubbornness, had specifically studied the history of the Gray Tower. She remembered very clearly that the current location of the Gray Tower was recorded as the Sagakang Valley!
The name was strange; Nanmen Jue had glanced at it several times and couldn't possibly have misremembered it.
Her heart skipped a few beats, and her gaze toward Qin Yehan was sharp.
"Of course, we can't rule out the possibility that the name was changed later, because we haven't found any other evidence yet," Qin Yehan said. "That era is much further back than we thought. If it weren't for this unknown staff member, we wouldn't even know this information."
“His name is Chu Aning,” Nanmen Jue said.
The two were taken aback.
Nanmen Jue opened his gloved palm, on which lay a rusted metal plaque.
"This should be his work badge; it has his name on it."
Both of them stared at her in shock. Tong Gu asked, "You can read the characters from a pre-civilization?"
Nanmen Jue didn't explain, he just nodded and put the nameplate into his pocket.
"Wait a minute!" Qin Yehan suddenly exclaimed excitedly, "We'll soon find out if that place has changed its name. Come with me!"
As he spoke, he rushed to the door, and before the other two could speak, he yanked open the door and stared at the pile of radiation monsters outside.
"Aww—"
Before the first wave of monsters could rush through the door, Qin Yehan slammed it shut.
He turned around expressionlessly. "Let's go look out the window."
Nanmen Jue and Tong Gu exchanged a glance and burst into silent laughter in unison.
She laughed until tears streamed down her face, and slapped her thigh hard with her intact hand, causing Qin Yehan's expressionless face to contort.
"...Let's get down to business."
He strode toward the window, and Nanmen Jue and Tong Gu exchanged a glance, both of them grinning in surprise.
Qin Yehan's ears turned red.
Qin Yehan opened the window, glanced around, nodded to the two of them, and disappeared outside the window frame.
When Nanmen Jue went over to take a look, the building wasn't tall, only three stories high, but the protruding ridges under the window frames were particularly narrow, and the ground floor was full of zombies.
She turned her head and saw Qin Yehan, such a big guy, clinging to the wall like Spider-Man, and she couldn't help but burst out laughing again.
Qin Yehan's ears turned even redder.
He didn't turn around, pretending not to hear.
Tong Gu peeked out from beside Nanmen Jue and asked, "Nanmen, are you sure you can do it?"
"I'll give it a try." Nanmen Jue tightened his gloves. "If I fall, remember to bring my head back to Sister Wu and Chu Xi."
Tong Gu: "...Or should I carry you across? If you fall, Brother Qin will feed me to the monsters too."
Nanmen Jue said, "If he really cares that much, wouldn't he carry me on his back? Don't let him take me to karaoke."
Tong Gu: "What do you mean by 'counter'?"
Nanmen Jue raised an eyebrow and smiled at him, then climbed out close to the wall.
The most important thing when walking through this kind of place is not to look down. Nanmen Jue used the method of staring at people, focusing only on Qin Yehan's figure, and soon arrived at another window.
He kicked the glass and shattered it. The monsters below heard the noise and roared as they gathered in this direction. The three of them jumped into the room one by one.
This floor should all be office space, and this room is also an office. The layout and decoration are similar to the previous one, except that there are no corpses in this office, only overturned tables and chairs, and paper documents scattered all over the floor.
As soon as Nanmen Jue looked up, she knew why Qin Yehan had brought her here.
On the wall directly opposite the door, there was a huge map hanging!
Tong Gu seemed to be here for the first time as well. He stood in front of the map, stunned, and after a long while, he let out a slow "Wow."
"This is... what the world looked like before the end of the world?"
"It can only be." Qin Yehan strode over, his eyes fixed intently on Nanmen Jue. "So, can you understand it?"
He knew there was a map here, but he couldn't read the writing on it. He never expected that Nanmen Jue would be able to read it!
With the help of the main god's built-in voice pack, Nanmen Jue could read any text as if it were her native language. She simply nodded and began to search for the two place names on the map.
The map was huge, and she searched very carefully. Both of them were very quiet, afraid that even the slightest sound of breathing would disturb her.
Finally, Nanmen Jue moved. She came to the map, and her tall stature made it easy for her to reach the top of the map.
She smeared some ash on the wall next to her, first drawing a circle near the left side, and then another circle near the center.
“This is the Sagakang Valley.” She pointed to the circle on the left, then moved to the circle in the middle. “This is the Baotai Plain.”
She turned to look at the two men, who were speechless in the face of such irrefutable evidence.
Tong Gu stared at the map with an almost awe-inspiring gaze, his eyes darting back and forth. "So, we really, really..."
“There really is a second Gray Tower,” Qin Yehan said softly. “Or perhaps, more than one.”
The three stood there silently, forming a quiet and eerie triangle.
Nanmen Jue, being from a different world, was the least affected. As she stared at the hanging map, a tremor enveloped her like a spiderweb. She could hear Qin Yehan's breathing beside her, trembling slightly.
These worlds, these people, have their lives, their histories, their struggles—are they really just non-existent data?
Qin Yehan's questions were answered with irrefutable evidence, but Nanmen Jue's were not.
She stepped forward, took the map, rolled it up, and stuffed it into her backpack. Just then, her bracelet vibrated, and her alarm clock, which she had set for two hours, went off.
“We have to go,” she said.
The two nodded in surprise, and Nanmen Jue ignored them and began searching the room.
These two people are illiterate and don't know what might be useful.
She picked up the documents from the ground one by one. The words on them were long since blurred, but she could still vaguely make out words such as "evacuation" and "report".
It's useless.
She approached the collapsed table, opened the drawer, and found a book inside. Just as she took it out to examine it, Qin Yehan suddenly tensed up.
"What's wrong?"
Something's not right.
As Qin Yehan spoke, he strode towards the window, then his pupils widened in shock.
Nanmen Jue immediately realized something and quickly came to his side. The light slanted and fell on the silent cooling tower.
It's too quiet.
The radiation monsters that had previously swarmed together like ants below have all disappeared.
"It's too quiet," Nanmen Jue said softly.
In the jungle, once the birds, beasts, insects, and fish all fall silent, it means... a higher-level predator has appeared!
The three exchanged a glance and, without hesitation, jumped out of the window. Qin Yehan was the first, followed closely by Nanmen Jue. As soon as she stepped out of the window frame, her pupils suddenly contracted.
The cooling tower not far away should have been abandoned long ago. She had seen corpses everywhere at the round opening when she was on it before, but now the tower in the middle was starting to emit black smoke!
"What is that thing?!" Tong Gu exclaimed in horror.
Nobody knew what it was, but everyone knew that this was the time to—
"run!"
Nanmen Jue simply closed her eyes and jumped off the third floor, betting that Qin Yehan could withstand her fall!
She wasn't wrong. Qin Yehan rushed forward and caught Nanmen Jue, and Tong Gu quickly followed and landed. The three of them started running like crazy.
They faced numerous difficulties when they entered, but now all the monsters have suddenly disappeared. All signs indicate that the thing inside the tower is definitely not a benevolent being.
"Damn it, could it be a high-level monster?" Tong Gu hissed. "We can't be that unlucky, can we?!"
Upon hearing this, Nanmen Jue was startled, and her eyes suddenly lit up. Before she could speak, Qin Yehan grabbed her wrist, his eyes full of warning.
"Don't worry, I won't go looking for death if it's really going to happen," Nanmen Jue said.
But Qin Yehan was clearly not at ease. He dragged Nanmen Jue forward and quickly returned to where they had come down.
Because they needed to get back, the steel cable they had left behind was not put away. The three of them grabbed it and climbed up, even faster than when they came down.
However, after climbing only a few steps, Nanmen Jue began to feel a distinct sense of suffocation. She gasped for oxygen, but it had little effect.
Not only her, but Qin Yehan and Tong Gu's breathing also became heavy, obviously there was something in the air that seriously affected them.
"It gets dark so fast," said Tong Gu, who was at the bottom.
Dark? They've only been here for two hours, how could it be dark already?
Nanmen Jue slowly raised his head. No, this wasn't darkness, but black smoke!
It's the black mist coming from that cooling tower!
Nanmen Jue kicked Tong Gu, "Wake up! If you can't handle it, stab yourself!"
Tong Gu suddenly came to his senses. He gritted his teeth, pulled out his weapon, and stabbed himself in the thigh.
"Ouch, it hurts so much!" He hissed and grimaced in pain. "I would never have done something like this before, but after spending so much time with you, I suddenly realized that stabbing myself isn't such a big deal."
Nanmen Jue realized he was talking about being a masochist, but he didn't have time to pay attention to him. They held their breath and desperately climbed to the top of the cliff, collapsing to the ground almost simultaneously.
"Get up." Qin Yehan's voice was hoarse as he reached out to pull Nanmen Jue up.
Nanmen Jue's vision went black, and the thing in his head started to throb with pain again.
It seemed to have gotten worse. The exercise must have caused the blood to rush to the optic nerve, which was now pressing on it. She blinked and confirmed that the blackout in front of her was caused by an organic lesion, not by an emotional problem.
She casually got up and followed the two men's footsteps, but she couldn't see the road clearly. Halfway through, her legs gave way and she tripped over something.
"South Gate!"
Tong Gu followed closely behind her, immediately bowing to help her up, and Qin Yehan also turned back.
"Hang in there, the car isn't far away!"
They all thought that Nanmenjue was overworked and affected by radiation.
Just as Nanmen Jue was about to use his strength to stand up, he suddenly touched something furry.
In the freezing cold, a place filled with nothing but corpses and monsters, I touched something warm and furry.
Goosebumps rose rapidly all over Nanmen Jue's body, starting from her fingers. If it were an ordinary person, they would probably scream and run away at this point, but Nanmen Jue was a stubborn person by nature, and she insisted on looking down to see what was scaring her.
A frozen body, black feathers, hooked claws... This is actually a crow?
Honestly, this was the first time Nanmenjue had ever seen a bird in this world.
"South Gate?" Tong Gu looked down at her anxiously and with a puzzled expression.
Without thinking twice, Nanmen Jue scooped up the still-breathing crow, held it in his hand, and continued running forward. Soon they arrived at the car, and without even opening the door, all three of them jumped into the car through the window.
Less than three seconds later, with a whoosh, the car shot off like an arrow.
As Tong Gu drove, he glanced back with lingering fear, and what he saw made him gasp, his voice sharp, "Look!"
After escaping, they discovered that the black smoke was spreading at an incredible speed, even reaching the top of the cliff, like living tentacles tentatively extending into the earth.
It really looks like a living creature.
The three of them didn't look too good.
Qin Yehan's expression turned grim: "It seems highly likely that it is a high-level monster."
"Luckily we ran fast, otherwise the three of us wouldn't even be enough to fill its teeth." Tong Gu patted his chest with lingering fear and looked at Nanmen Jue in the rearview mirror. "Thank goodness Nanmen set his alarm two hours in advance."
Nanmen Jue wiped the blood from his nose under his mask. "This doesn't seem to have anything to do with my alarm clock, does it?"
"How can it be nothing? If you hadn't reminded us that we should leave, the black mist might have already devoured us by the time we noticed anything amiss!"
Nanmen Jue raised an eyebrow. She could see that the child's eyes were full of admiration when he looked at her. She guessed that she had greatly improved his favorability by using the golden finger given to her by the main god.
Qin Yehan also turned his head, "That's right, and you were the first to notice the black mist. We owe you a lot this time, Nanmen."
Oh well.
Nanmen Jue accepted the thanks as a matter of course, and looked down at the crow lying on her lap, its claws hooked, looking as if its life or death was unknown.
She hadn't noticed the crow earlier because of the urgency, but now she realized it was huge; its head and tail feathers extended beyond her legs, and its seemingly black feathers shimmered with iridescent dark light.
A very beautiful big bird.
The two people in front of us also noticed the crow. Tong Gu asked curiously, "Why are you picking it up?"
Nanmen Jue took out a towel and patiently wiped away the ice crystals from the crow's body, then covered its body with his hands to keep it warm.
"Doctors have a benevolent heart," she said.
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Author's note: Ta-da! The biggest listing in the South Gate is now online!
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