Embers Ad Infinitum

Long Yuehong opened her mouth, as if she wanted to persuade:

"... also good."

Shang Jian Yao sat for a while, brought the plate, walked to the exit, and handed everything in his hand to the canteen staff on duty there.

Outside the "Material Supply Market", fluorescent lamps sprinkle light from the ceiling in an orderly interval, illuminating the road leading to the rest of the floor. Employees of different ages and genders gather together in twos and threes, or go to the "Activity Center" ", or return home together, or watch the children run and fight endlessly.

Shang Jianyao walked among them, and soon left Area C, walked through a street with walls filled with graffiti, and entered Area B where the rooms were denser.

In most of the "living area" of this underground building, there is no concept of architecture, and employees live in rooms, not houses. Many people who work in the "inner ecological zone" and have seen real beehives often compare themselves with this.

However, the aisles in the rows of rooms are very spacious, covered with milky white smooth stone tiles, enough for at least five or six people to walk side by side.

This is mandatory by the company, and it is said that it is to deal with certain emergencies and avoid congestion at critical moments.

Shang Jian Yao walked for a while, and saw the room that belonged to him.

There is no difference in appearance between it and the rooms on the left, right and opposite. The walls are pure black, with a certain degree of reflection, and it looks a bit deep. The wooden door is brown and red, and there are four small windows next to it.

The only thing that can make Shang Jianyao confirm that this room belongs to him is the white number on the door:

"Number 196".

No. 196, Area B, Floor 495.

Shang Jian Yao put his hand into his trouser pocket, took out a brass-colored key, inserted it into the lock of the same color, and turned it gently.

In the sound of clicking, Shang Jianyao pressed the doorknob with the other hand, pushed it forward, and opened the door.

The door only opened halfway and then stopped, because the back of it was against Shang Jianyao's stove.

This is a room two meters wide, three meters deep, and four meters high. A wooden bed barely enough to allow Shang Jianyao to straighten his legs while sleeping is placed horizontally on the innermost side. to a gap of 10 cm. Of course, no furniture can be placed here, but there are expansion screws embedded in the wall, and two sets of clothes with monotonous colors and simple styles are hung.

Next to them, separated by half a sheet of plastic film is a separate sink, and on the other side of the sink is a stove with a fume pipe above and a cabinet below.

Shang Jianyao has always been very satisfied with the existence of these two supporting facilities, because not all rooms have them.

This underground building really has too many floors and too many people live in it. No matter the elevator, the ventilation system, the sewage system, or the energy supply system, they are all facing terrible tests. Therefore, not only the elevator has many parts, but also the Different areas can only lead to certain corresponding floors, and the ventilation system and sewer system are also divided into subsystems. Every 15 floors or a specific number of floors share a subsystem.

In this way, even if there is a failure, it will only affect a part of the area and will not cause the overall collapse.

Among them, in order to stabilize the sewer system, only a small part of the large number of rooms built by the company was connected to the pipeline.

Many employees had to queue outside the public toilets in their "blocks" to wash, and at night and early morning, when the energy supply was insufficient, many floors of the living area were very cold.

It is the dream of many employees to be able to wash up wrapped in a quilt without going out.

On the other side of the door, under the four windows, there is a fairly solid red lacquered wooden table with many books piled on it, a black absorbent pen and a bottle of ink of the same color.

At this time, the light from the "street lamp" on the ceiling of the street passed through the window and sprinkled on the table, making the text on the surface of the book barely visible.

If it wasn't right between two fluorescent lamps and the lighting effect was not good, Shang Jianyao could finish reading with the street lamp without wasting energy quota.

The wooden table has its own cabinet, and behind it is a brown-red painted armchair with many mottled marks. Behind the armchair are two stools that are about to fall apart. They seem to be supporting the so-called "living room".

Behind this "living room" is the horizontal wooden bed.

Shang Jianyao did not turn on the lights in the room, because his energy ration was not much, so he had to use it sparingly.

After pulling out the key and closing the door, Shang Jianyao walked through the area illuminated by street lights and walked to the dark bedside.

He picked up the pillow stuffed with grain husks, placed it upright against the wall, and leaned against it, half lying down and half sitting.

In this posture, Shang Jianyao saw the electric frying pan and rice cooker placed on the stove at a glance.

They are rusty and appear to have been used for many, many years.

As long as Shang Jianyao can remember, they have been in his home: one was brought back by his father from the ruins of a certain city in the old world when he participated in the external operations of the "Ministry of Security". The other trophies, the other is that after Shang Jianyao's mother got married, she accumulated contribution points for a long time and exchanged them from a small market - new products in the "supply market" are much more expensive, and there is always a shortage of supply.

This room was not the home that Shang Jianyao remembered. He remembered that his original home was at No. 28 in Area A of this floor. There were two rooms, one large and one small, and a very narrow bathroom.

This saved Shang Jianyao from queuing up in public toilets and smelling the strong stench when he was a child.

However, after his father disappeared and his mother died, the suite had been taken back by the company and redistributed to qualified employees. Now this suite was newly allocated when he was admitted to university and left the orphanage.

These later rooms, in order to save energy, are not equipped with electronic locks, but use various ordinary locks that were dismantled from the ruins of the old world cities. In addition, the internal factory also produced some.

Shang Jianyao's eyes moved randomly, looking at the wooden table by the window.

He heard from his mother that it was made by his own hands when she and his father first got married, and his father saved money and bought wood from the "supply market".

This wooden table and the clothes in the cabinet below it, together with the two electrical appliances, were returned to him after being entrusted by the orphanage for three years.

However, Shang Jianyao could no longer wear those clothes in the closet.

Shang Jian Yao closed his eyes, raised his right hand, and pinched the left and right temples.

He immediately lowered his palms and maintained his current posture without any further movements.

The whole room became extremely quiet, and the feeling of darkness seemed to be getting deeper and deeper.

Shang saw that Yao was lying there, as if he had fallen into a deep sleep.

…………

Shang Jian Yao opened his eyes, and saw a wide and empty hall as no surprise.

That's bigger than the entire "supply market."

The hall is surrounded by black walls that shone with metallic luster, giving people a cold feeling. The top is dim, and the top cannot be seen, and I don't know how high it is.

In this darkness, there are countless bright spots of light. They rotate slowly, as if forming dreamy rivers sprinkled with diamonds.

Shang Jianyao was once again shocked by this scene, unable to describe the situation in front of him in words.

He can only think of the pictures of the starry sky that the teacher showed everyone on the monitor when he first entered university.

That was the first time he saw the starry sky.

And now, he seemed to be among the stars.

In the center of the hall, "starlight" sprinkled and condensed into a blurry figure.

The figure's hands are spread out, maintaining strict symmetry, as if imitating a balance.

The voice of "His" sounded hollow, echoing throughout the hall, as if conveying the revelation given by "The Stars":

"One price, three gifts."

"One price, three gifts..."

PS: Ask for a recommendation ticket~