Abyss Express

In this underground city of eternal night, there is no natural light, and there is no artificial starry sky like the sky of the station.

Everything was pitch black except for the electric lights of the city.

The three of them packed up their equipment and it was time to set off.

They boarded the black Volga, which was still the old but clean car.

On the outskirts of this vast and lonely underground city, the wilderness on both sides of the road is hidden in the darkness, and that kind of blackness seems to attract people's eyes.

Xue Ming only felt that he had boarded a narrow and cramped submarine. Looking out the window, there was only pure darkness, as if he had come to the deep sea below 10,000 meters.

It seems that in order to save electricity, a street light will be turned on only a few hundred meters away. These street lights are like light-shaped baits for monkfish, which makes people feel uneasy.

At the distance where Wangshan runs to a dead horse, the urban building complex in the extreme distance is like a huge group of such ugly sea monsters. The opposing vortex of hot air makes these lights psychedelic, as if slowly wriggling with the dark sea water.

— That feeling came again.

Even if he was wearing a spiritual garment, even if he was hiding in this "submarine", Jiang Xueming could still feel the inexplicable spiritual pressure similar to facing those ancient golden eggs on the mansion by the sandy beach where the wind gathers.

It was as if his body could faintly feel that he was approaching a great and unknown existence, and his physical body was trembling and panicking involuntarily, which was not something that human willpower could resist.

Just like when facing a natural disaster, any individual is so small and fragile.

Xue Ming wants to divert his attention from the scenery outside the window.

"Sir Nanami"

Nanami drove seriously and raised her fist: "Jessica!"

Jiang Xueming took out his notebook: "Jessica, I have a few questions."

Nanami didn't wait for Xueming to finish speaking, she couldn't stand the complicated Chinese structure, and answered immediately.

"Ask!"

"How did you get here? Officer Jessica."

"I won't tell you."

"Can you show me your employee ID?"

"No, girl, secret!"

"How much do you know about BOSS?"

"Kitty! Good job!"

"where are we going?"

"B14 living area! B15 water tower, you don't have to go if you don't want to go to the water tower."

"Did you often go to these places when you were on duty?"

"The dormitory is over there, my dormitory."

"Is your dorm room as messy as your office?"

"The office needs to meet guests, it will be decent, a little bit, a little bit, Just so so"

Bu Liuxing heard the shrill sound of teeth grinding from Xue Ming's end, and he was so frightened that he quickly hugged his cane, thinking that the car had broken down.

Then there was silence—

— Tens of seconds of silence.

Only the roar of the engine is left. The road is very flat, and even the road noise from the gravel and tire friction can't be heard.

Jiang Xueming returned to normal, he continued to ask.

"Sir Nanami, when you are usually on duty."

"Jessica!"

"Alright, Chief Jessica, what is the most dangerous and urgent situation you encountered while on duty?"

"Meet the weirdo."

"Are these people residents of the city?"

"Yes, it was good, but it will become strange."

"How weird?"

"Take a knife, cut me, scold me, ask me for help, do my homework, ask me to feed the puppy, and don't let me go."

"What will you do with them?"

"Fire! Da da da da da da!"

"Uh" Ah Xing heard the pronunciation of "Fire" and didn't react for a while. In the mouth of Chief Nanami, it was like "Fat!"-but the series of da da da da behind it made it clear.

Officer Nanami will open fire directly when encountering unreasonable demands from these residents.

Jiang Xueming wrote in his notebook silently.

[When you meet abnormal humans, you can open fire directly. ]

Then he asked, "Sir, do you have a license to kill?"

"It's not a murder, it's not a person." Nanami paused for a moment, then turned her head and glanced at the back seat. The look in her eyes seemed to be panicked. The little secret in her heart was discovered, or she was covering up something. A guilty conscience.

Jiang Xueming immediately asked: "If it's not a human being, then what is it?"

"Boss said that it was [Desperado]—unkillable." Nanami's voice also began to tremble, as if recalling the weird people and strange things she encountered when she was on duty.

Jiang Xueming heard the word "Desperado" from Mr. Victor, which refers to people who should have died for a long time, but did not expect to be alive in the world.

Perhaps what Mr. Victor repeatedly mentioned, the half-dead thing at the border of life and death, is related to these "creatures".

"Sir, please tell me." Jiang Xueming continued to ask, "How did you deal with these desperadoes?"

"It can't be killed, it can be broken into pieces."

"They are all broken, how can they live?"

"The next day, I lived."

"Is it useful to start?"

"The head is also broken."

"What about kicking legs? If you cut off the limbs of these things and take them away, can you still live?"

"Can live, there are strange things running over. Must."

It's too much effort to communicate like this——

—— Seeing Brother Ming's anger level skyrocket, Ah Xing quickly answered the conversation in fluent Japanese.

"I will translate, I will, I will!"

Jiang Xueming seemed to have seen a ghost, and suddenly such a pure and pure Japanese chief appeared beside him, and he was a little confused.

Bu Meteor smiled and said, "Japanese! I understand a little bit!~"

Jiang Xueming: "No, you can speak Japanese, didn't you say it earlier?"

Bu Meteor: "You didn't ask me either"

It's much easier now.

Jiang Xueming was relieved from that crazy mood, thinking in his heart, he had to find time to learn the languages ​​of other countries when he returned to the station, otherwise if the next station of the train was thrown to Siberia for them, he would have to find a few sled dogs from Dongbai translate.

Bu Liuxing relayed Brother Xueming's question.

"That kind of weirdo, can he recover after amputating his limbs?"

Hearing the language of her hometown, Asaka Nanami suddenly became energetic, as if she had heard an order from an elder or an officer.

"Yes! After the limbs are taken away, they are still alive, and black blood will continue to flow out of them."

Bu Liuxing then asked: "Just now you said that after these limbs leave their owners, there will be monsters. You said monsters, not weird people, right?"

"Yes! It's a monster! Once I also wanted to dismember the monsters to prevent them from coming back to life. The limbs taken away will be taken back by the monsters. The monsters are monsters' beasts, and they are loyal."

"What were those monsters like?"

"There are cats and dogs, birds, and hamsters. They cooperate with each other, drill through doors and windows, and cooperate with severed limbs. It is hard to guard against."

"You can hide the pieces in the safe."

"They will try the password again and again, tirelessly, until they get it right."

"What about burning the pieces?"

"Ash followed the wind and went back."

"What about sealing it with molten iron?"

"I haven't tried it. They will also try to find the remains of their owners and throw them into the steel furnace, right? Matter is indestructible."

"Can these monsters also regenerate?"

"Yes, it was broken into pieces, or it was directly broken into pieces, and it didn't take long for it to return to its original shape."

Speaking of this, Chief Nanami described it with lingering fear.

"Once, I went on duty to patrol. Without knowing it, I got a finger in my hair. I went back to the dormitory and fell asleep. When I woke up, I found that the whole bed was covered in blood-two dogs were crazy. Scratching the door, the macaw on my head gnawed off my locks of hair, and a bad cat ran away with its fingers. I was so scared that I never dared to fight these weird monsters again, just holding a gun Threatening them, if they want to harm me, I will da da da da da da!"

Jiang Xueming had already written two full pages and was still asking questions.

"You just said that these weirdos would ask you to help with homework?"

"Weirds have weirder lives too, and they don't seem to realize what's going on in the city."

"That is to say, can we communicate?"

"As long as they don't let them discover anything related to [death], don't let them find out that they are [Desperadoes], even if they think about it, death is a forbidden word in their consciousness, just like killing, grave, aging, etc. Nothing to do with death - they will immediately ask you to stay and live with them, like them, or attack you and try to kill you."

"Have you ever been killed? Are you dead? Nanami." When Xue Ming said this, Bu Liuxing was stunned for a moment.

——Is Brother Ming suspicious of this armed employee?

Ah Xing hesitated for a long time, but still did not translate this sentence.

But Nanami understood, as if she had been greatly wronged, she yelled and cursed in Japanese: "I am alive! What are you talking about?! Xia Zhongyelang!"

"I'm sorry." Jiang Xueming replied in Japanese, and he only knew a few words, which he used to entertain Japanese customers in the lo mei shop.

For example, "Hello", "Welcome", "No yen accepted", "POS credit card", etc., and the phrase "I'm sorry", I didn't even learn "Welcome to come again next time".

"Is an apology useful?! Kneel down and admit my mistake!" Nanami's reaction was very fierce: "I managed to get out of this place alive! How can you say I'm dead? You bastard!"

Bu Meeoxing hurriedly persuaded him with kind words.

After waiting for a long time, Chief Nanami regained her composure.

It's hard for Ah Xing to imagine that such a small girl has such strong energy in her heart.

Perhaps without this kind of high spirits, without this kind of anger bursting out from the desire for survival, I am afraid that what Xue Ming and Ah Xing saw was another armed employee.

Jiang Xueming sincerely apologized, and asked persistently: "I'm sorry! I'm really sorry! Officer Jessica, I also want to know, is there a possibility that the characteristics of [Desperado] are contagious? Like the Vita brand, it is Is it a disease?"

"No, it's like a blessing and a curse." Nanami tapped the brakes to slow down the car.

A car came head on. When the two cars met, they flashed each other's high beams twice, and slowed down to meet and pass. Another Volga waiting outside the car window ran away.

Nanami just finished speaking.

"It's not contagious, but if you live in this city for a long time, three months, or half a year, you may also become [Desperadoes]-although the possibility is slim, it's best not to try to live here for a long time, I usually Live in the office."

"I understand." Jiang Xueming took a look outside, and when he got into the car, Volga, who was driving by the left side of the window, did not close the window.

He clearly saw that the armed employee in the other car was the driver, his face was full of anxiety and cold sweat, and in the farther co-pilot position, there was a passenger's blood-stained spirit garment.

As for where the passengers went.

Jiang Xueming didn't see clearly——

——Maybe he was lying on the back seat and would not be able to see him for a while, or maybe he was left in this city of deadly puppet traps and would never be seen again.

Perhaps the answer can be obtained from the sticky dark red paint-like blood on the car door.

It was black and red clotted blood coagulated into different layers, and the blood was radial, with a huge amount of bleeding and a shape that sprayed extremely far.

——It was a fierce battle.

Nanami also seemed to have seen the tragedy in that car. She frowned, pretending to be fierce, as if she wanted to drive away the fear in her heart.

"After so many long-winded questions, are you afraid?"

"The last two questions—"

Jiang Xueming took out the summoning bell from his pocket, shook it vigorously, and a crisp ringtone came out immediately.

"—one of them, it will take at least sixteen hours for my waiter to arrive, ring the bell now, is it all right?"

"Didn't you already shake it?! Ask me if I have any questions?" Nanami's expression became very exciting: "Hey! I am protecting you two! It is written in the regulations that passengers can only ring the bell when they are under fatal threat , and ring the bell, more than half of my salary will be gone! It is my responsibility to put you in a fatal threat!"

"I did feel a fatal threat." Jiang Xueming was full of doubts, thinking in his heart—isn't this the way the summoning bell is used?

No matter how fast Seventh Brother was, he came here by car.

In this remote Death Puppet Trap City, it is a problem whether there is any network support for them to call for help after entering the city.

That's what Jiang Xueming thought when he got the summoning bell. If he encountered something difficult to deal with, he would ring the bell immediately.

Do you really wait until something strange hits your face before shaking people? Isn't that shaking people over to collect the corpse?

——Am I thinking wrong?

Xueming wondered, this summons bell, could it be that the passengers should die, find a place to hide, and ring the bell to wait for rescue?

Bu Liuxing imitated the example and took out the summons bell, preparing to make Chief Nanami's performance salary this month even worse.

Nanami: "Don't!"

Jiang Xueming: "Don't."

Nanami was so frightened that Chinese words came out: "Yes, yes, yes! Take care of him!"

"Why?" Bu Liuxing was full of doubts.

"Ms. 3301 is protecting my sister. She is on vacation." Jiang Xueming said emphatically.

In any case, the bell to summon Seventh Brother had already rang. The waiter must answer the passenger's call.

After at least sixteen hours, Seventh Brother, an experienced little witty ghost, will come over to help.

"One last question. Sir Jessica."

Jiang Xueming leaned forward, came to Nanami's ear, and muttered softly.

"Why do you care so much... so much about the name Jessica?"

"Because! Me! [Nostalgia·思旧]!" Nanami slammed on the gas pedal.

The sudden push back made Jiang Xueming fall back to the back seat.

The Volga enters the Bakou Bridge. The bridge pillars on both sides are cliffs tens of meters high. Under the cliffs are underground rivers and inland water circulation systems.

The moment he entered the city, Xue Ming felt that the whole world was lit up.

Pedestrians on the street, vendors or small workers, carts carrying goods, hydraulic arm four-pile cranes that are replacing billboards, and workers on the crane platform.

All of this, all of this, seems to be alive under the illumination of the artificial ultraviolet headlights of each block.

Until Jiang Xueming looked up and saw the empty platform, and the workers' hands had rotted into brown iron strips with rusty signs.

— as if everything had been dead for a long, long time except these people.

This scene is very, very weird.

Many children even waved to this Volga with a smile, as if seeing a big brother and sister returning from a long journey, and shouted out a greeting in an unfamiliar language.

finally--

——The three of them got off the bus at the B14 building complex, and saw the wildly growing green belt next to the pavilions in the city, and the water tower on the man-made hill farther away, which was the highest point of this living area.

Nanami was fully armed and pointed to one of the old buildings to the two passengers.

"It's here."