Embers Ad Infinitum

Hearing An Ruxiang's question, Jiang Baimian took precautions in advance, turned around and glared at Shang Jianyao, signaling him not to speak, then pursed his lips and said to An Ruxiang:

“When we met him, he was sleeping on the roadside.

“As soon as we were about to wake him up, his face suddenly distorted, his body twitched a few times, and he completely lost movement.

"He, he died like this."

Speaking of this, Jiang Baimian suddenly felt that what he described was like a fantasy. He felt a little uneasy and quickly added:

"I said that, do you believe it?

"No, I mean, you have to trust us."

Frankly speaking, if she hadn't experienced it personally and seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn't have believed this kind of thing. After all, there were very few aberrant monsters with such weird abilities on the earth, and Jiang Baimian had been transferred to the "Security Department" for less than three years. In the past year, there have been a lot of missions, but not too many. The aberrant creatures encountered are all relatively common types.

An Ruxiang's cold and indifferent face had changed as early as the beginning of Jiang Baimian's description. Her expression gradually became more complex and could no longer be concealed.

Although Jiang Baimian couldn't decipher what all the other party's micro-expressions meant, he directly felt the strong, rich, and uncontrollable sadness.

She had never met An Ruxiang a few times, but she had already judged him to be a very reserved type who never showed his emotions. Now, for the first time, she saw An Ruxiang's expression, which was out of control.

An Ruxiang took two deep breaths and said:

"I believe.

“Because we encountered similar things after entering the ruins of this city.

"If you hadn't witnessed it with your own eyes, I don't believe you could make up such an experience."

Her voice was low and hoarse, as if she was trying her best to suppress something.

The man next to her had an expression of sadness and fear.

Jiang Baimian said "hmm" without saying any words of condolence, and instead asked:

"What happened to you?"

An Ruxiang raised her hand and wiped the corners of her eyes, her expression returned to indifference:

“We drove into the ruins of the city through a road deep in the swamp.

“We don’t plan to explore what secrets are hidden here, we just plan to search around the edges of the ruins to find some valuable items to take back.

"Just when we got a bunch of supplies, Xiaoguang, one of our teammates, suddenly fell asleep. He fell asleep as if he fainted while carrying a box of thick clothes.

“We thought he had a sudden illness and didn’t wake him up immediately.

“As a result, when we confirmed that he was just sleeping, his face with closed eyes suddenly became distorted, as if he had encountered something extremely terrifying.

"And then, then, he died."

Jiang Baimian wanted to say, "Forced sleep can only be aimed at one target at a time," but after looking at An Ruxiang's eyes, he forcibly suppressed this impulse.

An Ruxiang continued:

“When Xiaoguang died, we were terrified.

“We are not afraid of fighting head-on with ‘careless people’ and monsters, but this kind of attack that we don’t know the reason for, we don’t know how to defend against, and we don’t know whose turn it will be next, is really scary and frustrating.

"We decided on the spot to evacuate the ruins of the city. Anyway, the harvest was enough.

“Who knows, we are like being possessed by a ghost, and we strongly believe that there is something extremely precious on the corner of the street ahead and we must get it.

“We just passed by and saw a ‘careless person’.

"She is a female, between the ages of seventeen or eighteen to twenty-five or six. As you know, the age of the 'Heartless One' is difficult to determine purely based on appearance.

"She was more neatly dressed than the two 'careless people' we met when we were looking for items, her clothes were not so dirty, and her face was relatively clean, but her eyes were still cloudy and bloodshot.

"Well, she was wearing a white, shriveled down jacket.

"At that time, we felt that the extremely precious thing that must be obtained was on this 'unintentional man', so we accelerated closer and prepared to shoot.

“Unexpectedly, a large number of ‘unintentional people’ appeared, and they seemed to be ambushing nearby.

"This is a trap!"

At this point, both An Ruxiang and the man next to her could not help but show a little fear.

"Then what?" Jiang Baimian asked without making any judgments or guesses.

An Ruxiang took another deep breath:

“When the ambushed ‘Heartless Man’ appears, our feeling of being possessed by a ghost disappears immediately, and we no longer feel that there is something extremely precious on that special ‘Heartless Man’ that must be obtained.

“Fortunately, only some of those ‘careless people’ had guns, and some of them used the guns as iron bars, probably because they had no bullets.

"In short, we hid in time and didn't die in the first wave of gunfire. What followed was a fierce battle.

"Originally, we would have died there after killing many 'Heartless', but God favored us. A mechanical monk wearing a red cassock suddenly rushed over for no apparent reason or from where, and was extremely violent. Land attacks all female 'unintentional'.

"I could feel that he was also full of malice towards me."

Jiang Baimian finally couldn't help it and blurted out:

"Pure Dharma?"

This mechanical monk repaired himself and came to join in the excitement of the newly discovered ruins?

"Do you know him?" An Ruxiang asked in shock.

"We have dealt with him before." Jiang Baimian replied briefly.

Qiao Chu, who did not stop their communication, listened quietly and seemed to want to obtain useful information.

An Ruxiang didn't ask any more questions and returned to the topic:

"With the joining of the mechanical monk, we found a chance to escape. Shou Shi took the initiative to break off and cover our departure.

"We made an appointment to meet at a place and time, but, haha, he always said that he is a punctual person, but this time he will definitely be late..."

At this time, Shang Jianyao took a few steps forward and said seriously:

"Probably because he wasn't wearing a watch."

An Ruxiang was stunned for a moment, then suddenly laughed:

"Yes, when his precious watch was ambushed, the strap broke and fell there."

Smiling, An Ruxiang raised her hand and wiped her eyes.

After a few seconds, she said in a hoarse voice:

"It was still dark at that time, so we found a place to hide for a while. After all the commotion subsided, we made a circle and rushed to the meeting point. As a result, we met you before we arrived."

"Weren't you the ones who made those gunshots before?" Jiang Baimian sighed thoughtfully.

She then scolded herself:

"Really, why have I been neglecting things these past two days, and my thinking is not rigorous enough.

"Maybe Qiao Chu said that the real nightmare was caused by a nightmare horse, so my thinking was limited to aberrant monsters.

"Judging from what happened to An Ruxiang and the others, it is very likely that there are deformed 'Heartless Ones' in the ruins of this city, and they are very special ones with weird abilities that are rare in the outside world.

"Besides monsters that can force people to sleep, there is also the possibility of aberrant 'heartless beings'."

She said this to Bai Chen, Long Yuehong and others. It also served as a reminder to An Ruxiang to be careful of similar aberrant creatures.

Bai Chen nodded and said:

"In the 'Primordial City' and its affiliated forces, this kind of 'unintentional person' is called 'high-level unintentional person'."

Long Yuehong felt fear again.

After listening to this conversation, An Ruxiang took a breath and said:

"I have said everything I need to say, and I believe it will be inspiring and useful to you.

"Can you tell me now where the guard stone is?"

Jiang Baimian turned around and pointed to the street where he came from:

“Go through here, turn right, and be in the only room with a closed door on the right side of the street.

"However, this street is quite dangerous and there are many unintentional people. You'd better take a detour."

"Thank you." An Ruxiang and the man responded at the same time.

At this time, Shang Jianyao took a few steps forward and took out the neatly folded paper:

"On him."

"His hunter badge." Jiang Baimian also took out Wu Shoushi's relic hunter badge.

An Ruxiang reached out and took it, instinctively unfolded the paper, brought it to her eyes, and scanned it under the not-so-weak moonlight:

“I owe Ruxiang a can of beef;

"I owe A Gang two payments, equivalent to a large bag of compressed biscuits;

"I owe Zhang Laizi half a bowl of oil;

“I owe Aulanc a pistol and ten bullets;

“I owe Xiaoguang a meal of meat;

"I owe Ruxiang a flower..."

The corners of An Ruxiang's mouth pulled back, but her mouth was tightly pursed and did not open.

This made her expression look a little weird, and there seemed to be something reflecting the moonlight in and around her eyes.

Jiang Baimian and others did not speak, quietly waiting for her to recover.

After a while, An Ruxiang breathed out and said:

"Thanks.

"You don't need to give me the remaining items."

After saying that, she turned her head and said to the man next to her:

"A Gang, let's go find Shou Shi."

"Okay." The man replied solemnly.

An Ruxiang didn't stay any longer or say goodbye, and quickly ran towards the street farther away, planning to take a detour to avoid danger.

"The most important information just now is that forced sleep should only be targeted at one person at a time." Jiang Baimian withdrew his gaze and reminded the team members.

At this time, Qiao Chu, who was wearing a helmet and covering a black metal frame, suddenly asked:

"Who is Jingfa?"

"A mechanical monk who is also an 'awakened one'..." Jiang Baimian, Long Yuehong and others rushed to tell Qiao Chu the information about the Purification Law that they had learned before, and finally said, "The price he paid was 'lust' Enhanced', and because of the uploaded consciousness, it became a mechanical creature, lost the ability to satisfy those desires, became extremely psychologically distorted, and was very hostile to women."

"Hate women..." Qiao Chu repeated, without asking any more questions, pointing to the road ahead, "Go on, go around and you will reach your destination."

Shang Jianyao and others once again took their weapons and started running.

…………

An Ruxiang suddenly slowed down as she entered another street, and raised her hand to rub her temples in confusion.

"What's wrong?" the man next to her asked strangely.

An Ruxiang replied with a serious expression:

"Don't you think there's a problem? Just now, just now we lost our vigilance and even wanted to follow the person wearing the exoskeleton device.

"At that moment, I forgot about Shou Shi and just wanted to please that person."

The man next to An Ruxiang gradually frowned:

"yes.

"I, you know, I like women, and just now I was actually thinking, thinking, if it was him, it would be good...

"Isn't this... too weird?"

PS: Please vote for recommendation~