It was already noon the next day when Lin Sanjiu returned to Black's Market. She did not rush back to Exodus. Instead, she took a sterilizing bath with hundreds of other people and entered the black market again.
The area of Black's Market was probably bigger than the capital of a country. Lin Sanjiu went through Gate A today, and she felt as if she had come to a new place. Everything around her was unfamiliar. She walked along the street for a few minutes, and she even had to take out the map of the black market to confirm that she was indeed in Black's Market.
The night she spent at the black market last time was filled with the sweet aroma of all kinds of food, laughter, and indistinct singing mixed into a warm air. Round and plump orange street lamps floated above people's heads, illuminating their rosy, bright, and sweaty faces.
However, the area around Gate A had a cold expression on its face.
It should be time for the black market to get busy, but there were still very few people in the street. No one would look at each other, let alone look at each other's shoulders. Some of them had gloomy expressions and only looked at the people around them from under their eyelids. Some of them had bulging muscles, and their footsteps were loud and heavy. Every time they stepped on the ground, it sounded like a warning.
If they got close to each other, Lin Sanjiu might be in trouble. Almost all of them were carrying different types of weapons. Sometimes, they were even difficult to identify.
Lin Sanjiu looked down and pretended that she did not see the group of people walking toward her.
In this gloomy neighborhood, the people who occupied most of the street were particularly eye-catching, not to mention that all of them were wearing a very uncomfortable gas mask on their faces. Every one of them looked like an enlarged and distorted face of a fly. Their large round eyes glowed with a dim light as if they were always looking at their prey with a greedy look.
There were men and women in the group, and most of them were wearing tactical vests and trousers. When Lin Sanjiu walked past them, they suddenly slowed down and turned their heads to look at her.
Lin Sanjiu did not stop. She did not even widen the distance between her and them. She continued to walk past a member of the group without looking at him. When the two of them brushed past each other, there was only a distance of a fist between them.
A swarm of faces stared at her silently for a few seconds, casting a clear, heavy gaze on her back. She put her hands in her trouser pockets and walked expressionlessly for a while. Finally, the sound of footsteps came from behind her and faded away in her tense nerves.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
These people would sniff the blood of the weak in the apocalyptic world. Even after they came to the Twelve Worlds, they still could not change their habits. They would only turn around and leave when they were faced with people who were higher up in the food chain. Not only could he not show any signs of weakness, he could not even show any signs of wariness.
A muscular man with a mortar on his shoulder walked over from a distance. Lin Sanjiu looked in the direction he came from and her eyes fell on a signboard with the words "Survive by any means necessary!"
Below the sign was a row of iron doors, half open and half closed, with a sign that read "Open".
As soon as he walked in, the light immediately dimmed, and the smell of dust assaulted his nostrils. There were many shadows of different shapes hanging from the ceiling, like the dense aerial roots of an old tree hanging in the air. Lin Sanjiu had no choice but to crouch down and try her best to avoid the objects in the air as she walked deeper into the shop.
A dim white lamp was lit reluctantly at the back of the shop, as if it would be blown out by the darkness at any moment. Just as Lin Sanjiu turned in that direction, she accidentally bumped into two objects hanging from the ceiling. Something hard hit her shoulder. She turned around to avoid it, but suddenly, she turned her head back and stared at them. She froze in place.
His feet, which were covered in hiking shoes, swayed in the air.
"The owner of this pair of feet is trying to cheat me of my goods with a fake," a hoarse and deep voice suddenly broke the silence. The person who spoke sounded old, and his throat seemed to be perpetually inflamed. "The pair of feet next to him belongs to a black market investigator who is in charge of security."
Dazed, Lin Sanjiu turned around and saw a pair of feet in leather boots hanging not far behind the pair of hiking shoes. Lin Sanjiu did not follow the feet up. Instead, she turned her head and looked at the shop owner who was sitting behind the light.
He had a head full of sparse gray hair, and he seemed to be in his sixties or seventies. His cheeks were sagging, and there was a deep groove beside his nose and lips. The old man picked up a cigarette with his yellowish fingers. Without looking at Lin Sanjiu, he asked, "Tell me, what do you want?"
Lin Sanjiu looked around from the corner of her eyes. When she saw that there was no third pair of feet hanging down, she steadied her breath and asked, "Do you have any means of transportation? It would be best if it is as fast as an airplane. "
The old man cleared his throat loudly and made a loud spitting sound. He raised his cloudy eyes with a faint smile and took a drag of his cigarette. "You're looking for a means of transportation from me? Didn't you see the sign? "
Lin Sanjiu hesitated for a few seconds. She did not want to act like a newcomer, so she took out a map of the black market and told him that she was following the directions. Fortunately, the old man coughed and continued, "What's wrong? Is the bus provided by Nightwalker not enough for you?"
Nocturnal Wanderer was one of the organizations that managed the Twelve Worlds Centrum. All the transportation that Lin Sanjiu took in the Heaven Underworld was provided by this organization, and all the red crystals that she spent went into their pocket. However, there were not many people around the canyon, and there were even fewer modes of transportation. The plane that she took last time was not fast, and it was only willing to stop at Mid Mountsburg. Furthermore, it was not on time. She did not know how many flights she could take and when she could take off in a day. She did not want to put her life in the hands of the old captain.
"It's not convenient," Lin Sanjiu answered briefly. She could not help but feel a little disappointed.
The old man coughed loudly for a while. When he finally stopped the hissing in his lungs, he took another puff of his cigarette and squinted his eyes.
"How much are you willing to pay?"
"You have one?" Lin Sanjiu's eyes lit up.
"I only have one self-propelled vehicle. It's for my own use," the old man said with a smile. The wrinkles on his face deepened. "But you made the right choice to come to me."
"What do you mean?"
"I can help you spread the word and see if anyone can get their hands on an aircraft or something." He cleared his throat. His vocal cords felt like they were about to burst. "But this kind of contraband is very difficult. You have to wait patiently."
"Contraband?"
Perhaps Lin Sanjiu's expression betrayed her thoughts. The old man chuckled, "Oh, you don't know. Vehicles that can travel at a speed of more than 30 kilometers per hour are contraband. "
"Why?"
"Why? For money. "The old man snuffed out his cigarette and leaned back in his chair. His spine creaked. "Unless you are a big shot in the Twelve Worlds Centrum, no one can have their own plane or dry land boat. Oh, except for one thing. "
"What is it?"
"The flying spider." The old man smiled, revealing his yellowed teeth. "Because speed is not its main point."
Lin Sanjiu couldn't help rubbing the space between her eyebrows. She let out a long sigh.
"So, do you still need me to ask?"
She paused for a moment and gritted her teeth. "Ask."
"Then you better pick a place with no one around." The old man spat on the ground. He straightened his back and wiped his mouth. "Now, let's talk about the deposit."
"I need a deposit? What if no one has an aircraft? "
"I won't refund it. I never work for free." The old man caressed a stuffed pet dog on the table lazily. "You might not know this, but you don't have a choice."
Two hours later, Lin Sanjiu returned empty-handed after going around in circles. She finally pushed open the door of "Do whatever it takes to survive" with a dejected look on her face.
"It's not expensive," the old man chuckled as he watched Lin Sanjiu almost get kicked in the shoulder by the dead man on the ceiling. "If you had agreed earlier, you wouldn't have wasted so much time."
When he said it wasn't expensive, it really wasn't. For some reason, the shop owner did not accept red crystals and insisted on bartering with other items. Lin Sanjiu used the fresh vegetables, meat, flour, and some cigarettes and alcohol that Qing Jiuliu gave her from the grand prize as a down payment.
The journey back to the grand canyon was even more torturous than the journey to the grand canyon. She found a hooded coat and covered her head with it. Feeling a little guilty, she stood at the entrance of Mid-Hill Town for more than an hour before the old and shabby plane finally arrived.
When the old captain realized that she was the only passenger on the plane, he waved his hand hesitantly and said that he drank too much and couldn't fly. Lin Sanjiu had no choice but to take out a bag of red crystals to wake him up.
When she got off the plane, the sky was already dark. Lin Sanjiu dragged her aching bones and trudged for an hour before she finally saw the forest created by the camouflage barrier. She climbed up the canyon and followed the suspension bridge under the river. Step by step, she groped her way through the darkness. She felt that she was getting further and further away from the human world, like a dead soul sinking into the abyss.
Everything about Exodus was great, but its location was a pain in the ass.
The complaint sat heavily in her stomach, causing her to sigh all the way. When she finally stepped on the iron staircase, the circular wall in front of her seemed to have sensed her weight. Suddenly, a gentle silver-white light slowly lit up in the deathly darkness, like the eternal and tranquil shore of the Styx.
"Welcome home, Deacon," Silas said in a gentle voice.
At that moment, Lin Sanjiu had no more complaints.
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