Chapter 23 Civilized Sinner 23

【This is indeed your diary. 】

[So, this is actually my second time entering the small world? ]

[Yes, something must have happened at that time, causing the mission to fail and force a logout, and finally even the traces in the system space were wiped out. ]

【But, isn’t this our first collaboration? 】

After Yan Nan raised this soul-questioning question, the system fell silent.

Yan Nan asked again: [Why do I have no memory of this? ]

[Injured flesh and soul, miraculous elixirs, magical arts, I have traveled through countless small worlds with the executors and have seen too many things that can affect or even change a memory, not to mention that humans are inherently unreliable.]

[Then you must have seen something that can restore memory, right? ]

[Of course there is such a thing, but are you really confident that I can help you restore your memory? ]

[Okay, let’s not talk about this for now, but judging from the contents of this diary, Yuan Qing’s appearances are too frequent.]

[It seems like you two had a really good relationship before. My last guess was right, Yan Nan.]

-

It has been raining for several days in a row.

The car was warm, and Yan Huai leaned beside him, already tired enough to fall asleep.

Yuan Qing sat in the driver's seat and looked at the water stains flowing on the car window.

He didn't know when it started, but the rain was getting more and more frequent. He had hardly seen clear weather for several days.

There has been no good news from the other bases recently. Small waves of zombies keep gathering, the zombies mutate in shorter and shorter intervals, the land is becoming increasingly difficult to grow food, and the climate is gradually becoming worse...

Yuan Qing closed his eyes and didn't want to look at these annoying little water drops anymore, but the sound of raindrops hitting the car window continued to drill into his ears.

The rain kept falling and falling, getting heavier and heavier, as if the great flood that would overturn the heavens and the earth and destroy the world had already arrived.

God, are humans really unforgivable?

-

"Where are you going to find him?" Song Yanghui, who was sitting in the back seat, asked suddenly.

"I don't know." Yuan Qing didn't turn around.

The man in the front seat had his entire back pressed against the seat. From Song Yanghui's angle, he could only see the outline of his tense face. He sighed softly.

These days he watched Yuan Qing busying around. In seven or eight days, they had almost covered the entire southeast region. He could see that Yuan Qing had a clear goal in mind, but he obviously didn't know the specific location, so he could only select similar places and then eliminate them one by one.

Song Yanghui followed him silently, gradually outlining a general destination in his mind.

This was probably a factory, not far from the city before the apocalypse, and it was probably abandoned long ago.

Because there are no human connections, there won't be any zombies wandering around.

About why Yuan Qing has been looking for a factory and how he can be sure that Yan Nan will appear there.

These doubts have been lingering in Song Yanghui's mind, but he did not ask them directly. However, seeing how tired the two of them looked these days, he couldn't help but speak.

"What are you looking for - are there any features on it? Or images?"

Yuan Qing slowly lowered his head, his thoughts lost in memories.

-

He was indeed looking for a factory, but he had seen it only once, in a dream.

That night in the wild, he, who usually slept lightly and was highly alert, was deeply immersed in a premonition dream, and was not suddenly awakened until Yan Huai came to call him in the early morning.

In his dream, he watched the base being destroyed, and his former teammates fell one by one in front of him. But he was lucky enough to survive, and under the cover of his teammates, he escaped all night.

In his last look before escaping the base, he saw a white shadow standing above all the zombies. The zombies that were so ferocious just now now crawled obediently at his feet, allowing him to drive them.

Who is that? How can a human being command zombies?

Yuan Qing, who had nowhere to go, began to wander around the wilderness. Along the way, he saved many people and received offers from countless bases, but he never chose to join any of them.

The white shadow he saw that night became an unforgettable nightmare in his dreams.

He explored and searched everywhere, just to find any traces left by that guy.

His keen intuition told him that the white shadows at night were definitely related to the zombie virus that destroyed the entire human civilization.

What follows is a long and chaotic scene in the dream.

When the dream became clear again, he came to an empty factory.

And on the high platform with railings in front of him, the white shadow that was extremely familiar and yet unfamiliar to him was looking down at him.

The moment he saw Bai Ying's face clearly, Yuan Qing's heart began to pound violently, his mouth opened wide, and his face showed an expression of extreme panic.

No? How could it be him?

Yan Nan, he once thought he had died in the zombie tide, because he went to the research institute first that night, but the institute was full of corpses and no one survived.

How come he is here now, and in this posture?

-

For Yuan Qing.

Yan Nan was once someone he respected as a teacher, although their relationship broke down due to differences in opinions.

But Yuan Qing never thought that Yan Nan, who had no entertainment in life for several years and devoted himself to experimental research, would actually be the real culprit behind the creation of the virus.

He couldn't believe it, but the cruel truth lay starkly before him.

Yuan Qing's emotions were like surging waves, but soon, rationality returned to his mind.

Something is not right.

He was not alone. From all around him, he could hear the incessant howling of zombies. He seemed to smell the rotting smell of the zombies.

Yuan Qing lowered his head and saw that his skin was exactly the same as the zombies around him, purple and rotten.

And all around, on the entire factory floor, there were countless zombies standing shoulder to shoulder, standing in unison, their empty eyes following Yan Nan's movements.

At this time, Yan Nan, who was standing on the platform, looked away.

A black figure that was much taller than him walked out from behind Yan Nan. Yan Nan looked up at the black figure, then turned and left.

So the zombies in the factory scattered one by one. Yuan Qing hid among the zombies and was shocked to find that this factory was running day and night, and the zombies gathered together were the workers in the factory.

—

Yuan Qing paused to recall and spoke slowly: "Most of the scenes in the dream took place inside the factory. Only once did I see the situation outside, and there was a ship."

"A ship?"

"Yes, the factory looks ordinary from the outside. The only special thing is a ship made of steel wires."

"The iron-red exterior and black mast pierce the sky..."

"You've only seen its appearance, but you can't pinpoint its exact location, right?"

"Yes." Yuan Qing fell silent.

Seeing his solemn expression, Song Yanghui couldn't help but chuckle. When Yuan Qing turned around to look at him, he quickly said, "As far as I can remember, I once saw a building very similar to the one you described."

"You know?" Yuan Qing asked in surprise.

The man in the back row nodded slightly. "But I still have a question in my mind. Are you..."

He suddenly stopped talking in the middle of his words, then raised his hand and rolled down the rear window. The hot air in the car suddenly disappeared, and the incoming cool air made Yuan Qing's mind gradually clear, and the bitterness and entanglement in the young man's eyes quietly emerged.

He probably knew what Song Yanghui wanted to ask.

Complex and gloomy emotions flowed through his heart, and finally stopped at his lips. "I used to be a pawn in the black market for many years... At that time, I thought I was almost dead, but Yan Nan saved me."

"I can't help it... I always... I didn't really believe this dream at first, but everything that happened later confirmed the content of the dream..."

When he imprisoned Yan Nan in the dungeon and served as the fair representative of the entire base, his private feelings were still playing tricks on him.

He hoped that wouldn't happen, just in case it didn't, if he could explain it to him.

But the base was still destroyed. The God who told him everything in advance did not intend to remind him. Instead, He seemed to be laughing at him softly. Even if he knew what would happen in the future, he was still powerless to change the ending, the ending of every friend and relative around him, and the ending of mankind.

If his life could only develop along the trajectory of his dreams, then how ridiculous would all his efforts to resist be in the eyes of fate?

"I don't think you haven't changed at all." When the young man was immersed in his thoughts, the man in the back row suddenly interrupted him.

The senior, who was much more mature than Yuan Qing and had experienced more things, reached into his pocket, but unfortunately he had been busy these days and the little money in his pocket had already been spent.

He sighed, then spoke slowly, "At least Yan Huai is still here, isn't he?"

As he spoke, he raised his chin and said, "One will lead to two, and two will lead to three. Don't be discouraged. It's time for us to set off."

Outside the car, the sound of sparse rain stopped at some point, the dark clouds parted, and the cool sunlight shone down.

-

[Yuan Qing was quite special. I didn’t notice it at the time, but later I analyzed the reason why he behaved strangely.] A voice suddenly rang out in the dark space.

So, what is it?

[It's a loophole caused by the chaos of time and space.] The system explained, [It's all because of the loophole created when we logged in. When we passed through the storm, a lost data stream from my save was attracted to Yuan Qing in the chaos, and he knew part of what would happen in the future. I checked that data, and it happened to include the plot of the final villain explosion.]

[So we don't need to worry, he will definitely find this place? ]

[Yes, this is where Yuan Qing obtained the virus serum in the final plot, so he will definitely come here.]