Embers Ad Infinitum

A light mist filled the darkness, as if it was covering up something.

Shang Jianyao and Gnawa each held their weapons and walked forward silently, without turning on the searchlight function yet.

The night vision capabilities of military exoskeleton devices and smart robots are currently sufficient.

After walking like this for a while, Gnawa's head hidden in the "Chameleon" bionic smart armor suddenly turned 360 degrees, and red light flashed rapidly in his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Shang Jianyao asked curiously.

Gnawa replied with a slightly synthetic voice:

"I always feel like something is following us."

The businessmen were in an uproar when they saw it:

"Lao Ge, you actually said 'feeling'!"

"In this case, shouldn't you directly analyze what the probability is?"

"As an intelligent robot, you need to be precise in your words and pragmatic in your reconnaissance."

"..."

After the businessmen finished speaking in a garbled manner but in a clear order, Gnawa answered in a steady voice:

"Enter the fog, the electromagnetic disorder became more serious, and my reconnaissance range and reconnaissance capabilities were greatly suppressed.

"Under such circumstances, sometimes I can't even tell whether the information I obtained is from an illusion."

"I understand." Shang Jianyao changed his previous attitude and expressed his understanding.

He took advantage of the situation and said:

"When I was in the cafe, I secretly tried to communicate with Baymax using the communication system embedded in the exoskeleton device, but I got no response at all."

"At that time, it can be between us." Gnawa gave the objective facts.

"What now?" Shang Jianyao's voice entered Gnawa's audio processing program with the help of the communication system.

Gnawa quickly replied:

"It's still relatively clear, but it's also been disturbed to a certain extent."

He relied on the communication system to respond.

At the same time, he reminded Shang Jianyao:

"It is not suitable to stay in an environment with this level of electromagnetic disorder for too long, otherwise it will cause indelible damage to your body."

Carbon-based people are just more fragile than silicon-based people.

"Give me another two hours." Shang Jianyao said.

Gennava was a little surprised for a moment - this was an emotion he simulated, because such an answer was beyond the content covered by Shang Jiyao's behavioral database.

"You didn't say that the night is long and the commander will bless you." Gennava said he couldn't understand.

Shang Jianyao said sincerely:

“It’s not like we have to finish exploring this time and then we can’t come in again.

"I clock out at 8:00 a.m. every day and get off work. Xiaohong is so envious that she almost cries.

“Moreover, you don’t have to worry too much about the impact of electromagnetic radiation on the body. With the protection of certain devices, it’s not a big problem.

"The blessing of 'Si Ming' must be used on important things, such as preventing 'unintentional diseases', and cannot be wasted on such small details."

"This is indeed an idea." Gennava also made a sincere suggestion, "but if you add things learned from old world entertainment materials in just a few sentences, it will not be very helpful for communication."

Shang Jianyao smiled and said:

"This is not to help communication, but to liven up the atmosphere. Lao Ge, you are too serious, blah blah blah."

"What is bala bala bala?" Gnawa was no stranger to old world entertainment materials, but he still couldn't understand what such a sentence meant.

"To put it simply," Shang Jianyao replied seriously, "I haven't thought about what to say next, so I'll replace it with 'bala, bala, bala' first."

Gennava fell silent for a moment.

At this time, Shang Jianyao seemed to remember the focus of the discussion:

"Lao Ge, did you just say that you felt something was following us?"

"Yes, but I'm worried that this is just false information that I was mistakenly generated by the influence of the environment." Gnawa said while turning his head slowly to detect the surrounding situation.

The head part of the "Chameleon" bionic smart armor here is almost twisted into a hemp rope.

Fortunately, Gnawa turned back in the opposite direction.

Shang Jianyao clicked his tongue and said:

"Just pretend it is, I'll see how long he can follow.

"According to the current situation, we are getting closer and closer to the source of the problem, and the further we go, the more trouble there will be."

What he meant was that if something really followed him and others, the "environment" might be able to help solve it.

"That's right." Gennava didn't dwell on this issue anymore.

On my side, one is an intelligent robot with excellent resistance to attacks, and is not afraid of "unintentional disease" infection and most awakening abilities. The other is "long night, blessed by command", what is there to worry about?

After walking for another ten minutes in the mist-filled darkness, Shang Jianyao and Gnawa passed the intersection and entered the next street.

The reason why they did not go left or right was because they found that there were significantly more bones in front of them.

——In the areas they passed before, perhaps the "Careless Ones" needed food, or perhaps ice creatures had been here before. Almost all the corpses were cleared away, leaving only traces of struggles, shootings and blood spatters.

But here, the corpses on the streets and roadsides were like sandbags, lying on the ground in random directions.

They basically turned into white bones, and were covered in clothes of different styles, colors, and degrees of decay.

Gnawa quickly started simple reconnaissance:

"Some of these bodies died from attacks, and some have no cause of death yet."

Shang Jianyao nodded and said seriously:

"Is this the core area where the 'Wuxin Disease' outbreak occurred?

"It was too chaotic at that time, with the 'unintentional ones' killing each other, and it was difficult to calm down?

"And those who escaped did not dare to get too close to the source of the problem, and would rather starve to death than enter this area to collect food?"

Gennava analyzed it for a while and said:

"It's a guess, but there are so many possibilities."

"Yeah." Shang Jianyao did not refute.

He turned on the searchlight of the military exoskeleton device, and with the help of the yellowish light, he examined the bones one by one.

His focus was primarily on the clothing, objects and possible height of the bones.

Gennava knew what he was looking for, so he didn't say anything and followed quietly, guarding against any surprises.

As they walked, the two of them saw a street light on in the distance at the same time, like a servant greeting guests.

"Another 'New World' projection?" Shang Jianyao whispered excitedly.

"Should." Gnawa thought this was the most likely scenario.

Shang Jianyao did not speed up his pace. He followed his original pace and roughly swept through the bones along the way. No human beings suspected of being from "Panguage Creatures" were found.

Then, he and Gnawa clearly saw the area illuminated by the streetlight:

There is a leafy street tree near the roadside. There is a wooden brown bench next to the street tree. Sitting on the brown bench is a man in his twenties or eighties. His hair is neatly combed and he is wearing gray clothes with black stripes. in formal attire and wearing a pair of relatively small round-rimmed glasses.

At this time, the man was reading a newspaper leisurely with the help of the light of the street lamp.

"Wu Meng!" Shang Jianyao shouted happily.

That man was Wu Meng who was sealed in the ruins of Wasteland No. 13.

His projection actually appeared here.

Shang Jianyao immediately turned his head and sighed to Gennava:

"It's really like meeting an old friend in a foreign land."

"Barely." Gnawa did not use specific probabilities, choosing ambiguous words that were closer to human habits.

Wu Meng obviously couldn't hear Shang Jianyao's greeting just now, but Shang Jianyao, who had already experienced it, decisively gave up the "Berserker" assault rifle he was holding and took out the small jade Buddha.

The green light then lit up and silently flowed around, making the fog seem to have faded a lot.

Wu Meng raised his head and looked at Shang Jianyao and Gnawa through his small round glasses.

He slowly showed a smile:

"You guys..."

He still spoke Honghe dialect.

"It's us." Shang Jianyao asked curiously, "Aren't you sealed in the ruins of Wasteland No. 13? How come you still appear in the 'New World'?"

He seemed to regard his previous speculation as the truth, and took it for granted that Wu Meng was now a reflection from the "new world".

Wu Meng's expression turned slightly cold:

"If I don't rely on the 'New World', how can they seal me?"

"Oh, that's it." Shang Jianyao suddenly realized.

Before he could ask again, Wu Meng folded the newspaper in his hand and said with a smile:

"I know you want to ask a lot of things, but I'm not going to answer you.

"I can only remind you, don't go any deeper. There are dangers there that you can't deal with now."

As soon as Wu Meng finished speaking, the area illuminated by the light of the street lamp became distorted.

After this scene flickered for a few times, it completely returned to darkness filled with light mist.

"Why was the projection of the 'New World' destroyed after just saying a few words?" Shang Jianyao felt extremely aggrieved.

This was the case when he communicated with Flora and Barnard before, and it is the same when he is talking to Wu Meng now.

Gennava guessed:

"There may be some force preventing people from the 'New World' from communicating with people from the Ash Earth."

"Like what happened to the first group of 'New World' strong men in the 'Salvation Army'?" Shang Jianyao put away the small jade Buddha and raised his right hand to press the armor on his left chest.

"Should." Gnawa felt that the two things were essentially the same, but in different forms.

He suggested to Shang Jianyao:

"Return now?"

"Why do we need to return?" Shang Jianyao was very surprised.

Gnawa replied:

"Didn't Wu Meng just say not to go deeper? There are dangers ahead that we can't deal with?"

Shang Jianyao laughed:

"Wu Meng also said that the more dangerous it is, the more risks you have to take.

"He might be hinting that we should move on. Well, with that kind of power to stop us, he can't say it clearly!"

Gnawa was about to speak when he suddenly turned his head again:

"I have that feeling of being followed by something again."

boom!

Shang Jianyao, who had been prepared in the dark, used the grenade launcher of the exoskeleton device to shoot a flare behind him.

Under the sudden burst of light, wearing a helmet, he saw through his goggles that on the balcony of a building in the distance was a black feline creature that was close to the size of a cheetah.

The creature's green eyes were shrunk into a line by the flare.