Changzhi lowered its head, its short dark brown hair slipping past its ears, and its shadow covered half of its face.
It became quiet and docile again, sitting by the roadside without saying a word. Aside from the fact that it wasn't working, it looked like an ordinary duoluozhong in the Heaven Underworld.
"Our families lived next to each other at that time."
After Lin Sanjiu passed him a lighter, Timo finally lit up the crude cigarette produced after the apocalypse. He exhaled a long puff of white smoke. The smell of low-quality tobacco was so strong that it seemed like it had been mixed with chili peppers. It stung Lin Sanjiu's nostrils and eyes. Even the stench from the garbage truck was obscured by the smoke.
"It was a hand-built metal shed. After removing the nails, it could be folded up and taken away." He pointed to the parking lot in the distance. "It was separated by cloth curtains, and there were three to four families living there. Even among posthumans, there are very few posthumans who could spend as much as you did. You wanted to buy a three-hundred-acre house in one go, let alone us. The shantytown we lived in at that time was a wasteland, but it was always densely packed with at least a few hundred families. My house and his house live in the same iron shed, separated only by two curtains. "
Lin Sanjiu stared at the parking lot. After some time, she asked, "Are you and its … parents posthumans or normal people?"
"Forget about our parents," Timo squinted his eyes and waved his hand. "We don't have a father. We only have a mother." He flicked the ash off his cigarette and added, "Not only us, but many people who were born in the Twelve Worlds Centrum don't have a father."
"Why?"
"Why? When did you leave the human society? " Timo looked at her through the smoke, a little surprised. "I mean … a human society that has never experienced the apocalypse."
Lin Sanjiu thought for a while and frowned. "I think it has been at least seven or eight years."
"Oh, for posthumans, your life has just begun." He pinched the end of his cigarette and looked as if he wanted to smoke it until there was nothing left. "I only understood it after I became an adult. No matter what the Twelve Worlds Centrum looks like, it will no longer be a normal human society. Family is the most basic unit of society, right? It was destroyed long ago. "
"You guys teleport once every 14 months, and this place has slowly turned into a f * cking grassland." Timo puffed out a puff of smoke. "Male posthumans walk around like wild animals. Though they were doing the same thing, the child only grew in the womb of the woman. Nine months later, when the child was born, the father would be long gone, like a male tiger on the grassland. My mother is a normal human, and her mother is a posthuman, so when Mei and I teleported away, she was placed in my home. "
Without realizing it, he had replaced "it" with "she".
"And then?"
The wind blew from the end of the alley, rustling the plastic bags on the road. For a moment, only silence answered her. Lin Sanjiu turned to look at Timo and saw that he was staring blankly at Naga-ashi across the road. She had no idea what he was thinking about. She had to call him again to bring him back to his senses.
"What? Oh, that … My father is an evolved human, so he raised us for a while. But after a few years, he never came back. I don't know if he died or he couldn't be bothered to care about us anymore. Compared to Mei and that woman, our lives were pretty good. She had to struggle to survive in the apocalyptic world and she had to come back to raise her child. It was really tough. "
When Timo said that, he looked at Naga-ashi warily as if he was afraid that his words would agitate it. When he saw that the woman with the cracked mouth did not respond, he continued vaguely, as if he didn't want to go any deeper. "Then, there was nothing. We just made do with our lives. After that, we all grew up. "
Naga-ashi was still staring at the road as if it wasn't the one being discussed. Her short brown hair was unkempt, and the wind caressed her face. At first glance, she was just a quiet young lady.
Both of them grew up together, but one of them became a duoluozhong.
Lin Sanjiu nodded. Just when she was thinking about what she should do next, she heard a sharp and painful scream coming from the end of the alley. As if she had been electrocuted, Naga-ashi's face turned as white as a sheet of paper under the mask.
"What's that sound?" Lin Sanjiu jumped up immediately.
Timo cursed inwardly. He threw the cigarette butt away and asked the woman with the cracked mouth, "Did you say that you were cleaning the streets for someone else? That's why you used this garbage truck to attack me?"
Cold sweat broke out on Naga-ashi's forehead. It didn't even bother to answer him. Its body was trembling uncontrollably. The scream grew louder and louder, and it was getting more and more painful. It was like an electric drill drilling into its bones. It was hard to imagine what kind of torture the creature that was making the sound was going through. Lin Sanjiu rushed toward the source of the sound and saw a man striding toward her.
He was obviously a posthuman. His muscles were so lean that they stuck to his bones. His eyes were so deep that they looked like the holes on a skull. He was wearing a shirt with a slanted front. One of his arms was exposed, and it was covered with a strange tattoo.
Not far behind him, there was a black thing the size of a dog. It was thrashing and struggling. Even though the terrifying scream came from that thing, Lin Sanjiu couldn't tell what it was. She didn't know any creature that could twist and turn its body like that.
"What happened?" The male posthuman shouted at her. He pointed at Naga-ashi in a rude manner, "Is that your duoluozhong?"
Lin Sanjiu's face darkened involuntarily. Before she could say anything, the man raised his voice again, "Why did it take the garbage truck? Don't you know that the guy who was cleaning the streets is sleeping? You don't even know how to care about it. Why did you buy a duoluozhong? "
"I'm so sorry!"
Timo seemed to have sensed Lin Sanjiu's sudden burst of anger as he stood in front of her, preventing her from approaching the man. "Erm, erm … She's new here, so she was careless. I'm sorry to have caused you trouble. Erm, let the street sweeper continue his work. We'll leave now. "
It was only then that Lin Sanjiu realized that the dog-sized thing was a duoluozhong. It seemed that Naga-ashi had borrowed the garbage truck from it.
The man lifted his chin slightly and glanced at him. "A normal person?" He licked his lips as if he had to mentally prepare himself before speaking to a normal person. "Why did it take the garbage truck? How come its sleeves are broken? "
Timo stuttered a few words. He tried very hard to come up with an excuse, but he didn't succeed. The man stared at him and knitted his brows. "Did it sneak out on its own? There's blood on your neck. "
"That's not it. The wound was … She did it." Timo threw a quick glance at Lin Sanjiu and explained hurriedly, "It's like this. The duoluozhong isn't obedient enough, so I suggested to my friend to increase its workload … as a lesson."
The man's expression finally softened a little. He looked at Lin Sanjiu.
She had just shifted her gaze away from the man's tattoo. Even though there wasn't a single word on the tattoo, it left a clear message in her mind, just like the advertisement on the balloon ship, "We operate these twelve worlds."
Below the message were the names of a dozen organizations. Lin Sanjiu didn't know most of them, but she had heard of "The Munitions Factory" and "Heaven Academy".
At this moment, Lin Sanjiu wished that she wasn't in Heaven Underworld.
If this was a normal apocalypse, she had a hundred ways to teach the man in front of her a lesson. However, Timor's fingers were still gripping her arm tightly, and she could only nod reluctantly.
"She's new. Are you new too?"
The man yelled at Timo, "Don't you know how to explain the rules first? If we let every duoluozhong have a good rest, the first ones to die will be unevolved ones like you! "
Timo's apologetic attitude left Lin Sanjiu speechless. Perhaps it was because they were both posthumans, the man didn't make things difficult for Lin Sanjiu. He finally turned around and walked back. He kicked the duoluozhong that looked no different from a garbage bag.
The duoluozhong was small and skinny, unlike the woman with the cracked mouth. After it stopped howling, it hurried over and climbed into the rumbling green car without sparing anyone a glance before it sped away.
"Damn it. Do you really think you're somebody now that you're dealing with a few duoluozhong?" When the interlude was over, Timo's good attitude disappeared, "If the duoluozhong gains the upper hand, he will be the first one to die."
He paused for a moment and sighed, "But then again, when that day comes, I'm afraid that all humans will end up worse than the duoluozhong."
Lin Sanjiu stared at him for a while and asked softly, "What do you plan to do with Nagisa?"
"Who? Oh, "he rubbed the wound on the back of his head and hissed," What do you mean what do I do? I don't know what to do. "
"Aren't you afraid that it will come to kill you again?" Lin Sanjiu thought for a moment, "If I force it to agree …"
"It won't work," Timo waved his hand and turned around, "The duoluozhong is very persistent. It will come again and try to kill me. Huh? Where is it? "
Lin Sanjiu was stunned. Only then did she realize that the road behind her was empty. Nagisa had sneaked away when they weren't paying attention.
"I know where it works. It can't go far," Lin Sanjiu said hesitantly. She didn't know either. Even if she knew where Nagisa was, what could she do?
"Don't worry about it," Timo sighed heavily, "If it wasn't for a coincidence, it wouldn't have found me. Let it go. I'm in this line of work. Don't you think I can't hide? "
"Then … let it chase you forever? Are you going to hide forever? "
Timo laughed bitterly. He searched his body for a while. Lin Sanjiu didn't know what he was looking for, but he couldn't find anything. He let out a long sigh.
"Do you know," he said in a hoarse voice, "Mei Peipei will be 25 years old in a month. She became a cleft woman when she was 14 years old. Ever since then, she's been trying to kill me, and I've been running and hiding from her all this time. I have been living like this for more than 10 years. Even if I have to continue living like this, I have nothing to complain about. "
Lin Sanjiu stared at him blankly. For a moment, she didn't know what to say. However, the words that came out of her mouth seemed a little too cold, "How … did she become a duoluozhong?"
Timo waved his hand again. He didn't seem to want to talk about this topic. He brushed it off twice, "By the way, you saved my life. I don't have anything to repay you, so I'll tell you a piece of news."
"What news?"
"You have met the owner of the circle just now," he coughed slightly and said in a low voice, "He's the waiter from that bar."
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
