Doomsday Wonderland

"It's obviously not a road here," Lin Sanjiu said as he crouched on the ground beside the stairs.

She and Pina walked back along the same path without much effort, and the journey went smoothly beyond her expectations. The two soon discovered that if they walked in the opposite direction after entering the floor gate, they would eventually make a circle and return to the route indicated by the yellow arrow; in this way, there was only one other way to try—that is Outside the door of the floor, the staircase continued to go down.

On the first floor or two, everything was normal.

Under the dim light of the stairwell, there are many dark corners hidden, but other than that, there are only bright red warnings painted on the wall one after another: "You have deviated from the designated route", "Please return to the designated route immediately"... The more Going down, the warnings are denser and harsher.

When the red letter warning was so dense that it was almost shocking, it suddenly broke.

It was against the backdrop of a blank wall that Lin Sanjiu and Pina found that they couldn't go any further.

There was no light in the stairwell below, the only source of light coming from the dim, unreliable bulbs behind them. The darkness and gloom swallowed the next stairway—but it didn’t explain why the stairway was in a blur, like the current of water stirring the mud and sand at the bottom of the lake, circling and shapeless. would be lost forever in another world of delusions.

The fool wouldn't go any further; Pina, who was squatting beside Lin Sanjiu, patted her knee and said, "Go back, it seems that Jia Jiatian is wrong, this is not a labyrinth at all."

"The way to move forward should be under that wall," Lin Sanjiu thought for a while, then said, "Perhaps the difficulty of this road is how to move forward. It's strange, why didn't Pan Cui pick up the contactor? What... Could it be that you have found a way, but you can't make it?"

With a little worry, the two followed the route indicated by the yellow arrow, and this time, they entered the empty corridor again.

Everything was the same as last time. When they passed the coffee shop, they quietly looked inside and found that the ordinary person was still sitting on the sofa, the computer was turned off, and he was reading a paperback.

Lin Sanjiu and Pina looked at each other, not knowing what to do with the situation, and they were worried that Pan Cui and Jia Jiatian, who had always been silent in front of them, simply turned around and left without saying a word—no matter what their attitude towards them was. How ordinary people react, or whether they react, doesn't seem to have any effect on their itinerary.

Not long after he left the coffee room, Lin Sanjiu received a call from another contactor.

"Hello, Pan Cui?" She picked it up immediately and greeted.

"It's not Pan Cui, it's me," it was Jia Jiatian's voice that sounded from the contactor. He didn't give Lin Sanjiu a chance to ask questions, so he continued to ask, "Did you find any results?"

"Oh, this shouldn't be a labyrinth," Lin Sanjiu said as he walked. "We searched all the places we could find. Except for the road pointed by the yellow arrow, there is no other route."

"Are you guys on your way back now?" Jia Jiatian asked, "There's something new here, and I can't say exactly what's going on, whether there's a new way... Anyway, you'd better come back soon. "

Apart from sounding a little confused and confused, he didn't seem to be in a hurry, as if the "new situation" was not dangerous; Lin Sanjiu made an estimate and felt that they and Pan Cui were not far away, so he simply hung up the contact. The device, greeted Epiphany, and rushed over at a faster pace.

In just a moment, the two of them crossed the remaining distance and rushed over the last corridor corner; when Lin Sanjiu caught sight of the scene behind the corridor corner, she hurriedly stopped the car under her feet.

Pina also followed behind her and stopped abruptly; she raised her eyes and exclaimed in a low voice, and asked, "Isn't this a dead end just now? Why is there an extra hole? No, that's not it. Hole…"

The last yellow arrow on the route and the wall in front of it that blocked the way are still the same as before; however, there is a small distance between them, as if the ground suddenly opened up, revealing the A **** that goes deep into the ground.

The angle of the **** is very steep, and when one stands on the ground and looks at it from a distance, it is almost like looking at a well; one has to walk a few steps forward to see the surface of the **** in the dark, as violent as a collapse The ground slid into the depths.

However, when Lin Sanjiu looked away from the "wellhead" and turned around, her heart suddenly became tense, she strode towards the corner of the wall and asked anxiously, "Pan Cui? What are you doing? Now, are you all right? Are you hurt?"

At this time, Pan Cui was sitting on the ground with a pale face, leaning softly against the wall.

On the clothes on her chest and on the ground, there were small and scattered spots of bright red blood, which contrasted dazzlingly with the nearby white wall; It was so hard for Pan Cui to speak aloud—when Lin Sanjiu rushed over and crouched down beside her, Pan Cui could only wink at her, as if to signal that she was fine.

"It's a skin injury," Jia Jiatian explained for her, "I checked for her, and only one layer of the epidermis was cut. The depth of the wound was very coincidental. It happened to completely cut the skin, but the throat was completely intact. The arteries are not broken...otherwise, her life will not be saved."

As he spoke, he slightly lifted the ball of cloth in his hand—Lin Sanjiu realized that it seemed to be a T-shirt from Jiajiatian, and most of the bottom was stained with blood—checked it, and said with a sigh: " The bleeding is getting better, but it hasn't stopped completely."

"You stop the bleeding with dirty clothes? What if you get infected?" Pina also rushed over and hurriedly said, "I'll look for it, I seem to have some antiseptic ointment..."

Lin Sanjiu also remembered that he had a lot of first aid supplies in his card library, and quickly took out a box. She motioned Jia Jiatian to take her hand away and looked at the wound carefully; Jia Jiatian was right, the deep and long gap in Pan Cui's neck looked shocking, but fortunately it was not fatal.

She quickly pressed several large **** of hemostatic cotton on the blood opening and asked, "How did she get injured?"

"I don't know either," Jia Jiatian said with a frown, "I only know that the opening on the ground and her injury happened almost at the same time. I didn't expect a **** would suddenly open under my feet, I almost fell, and by the time I came to my feet and stood firm, Pan Cui had already fallen to the wall, covering her neck with one hand, her hands covered in blood... I almost frightened me at the time."

Pan Cui seemed to be pressed hard by the hemostatic cotton, and let out a pained groan from her nose.

"Didn't you see clearly?" Lin Sanjiu asked her, only to realize that Pan Cui couldn't answer now.

"All in all, let's help her deal with her wound first," Jia Jiatian seemed to think that as soon as they came, her mission came to an end, so she sat next to her and said, "Fortunately, her injury will not affect her movement, nor hinder us. Continue to go."

Pina glanced at him unhappily, as if she wanted to say something, but she still didn't open her mouth.

Although Jia Jiatian's words sounded inhumane, it was the reality of a few people's last resort: starting from Pina, who entered the earliest, after waiting for others, exploring the way, and turning back, she only had a little more than 22 hours left. , and the real danger on the road seems to have only just begun.

"Can you continue walking?" Lin Sanjiu was a little worried and asked Pan Cui, "Is it better to take a break?"

Pan Cui raised her hand, pointed to the opening on the **** not far away, and compared herself again, probably indicating that she could walk, no problem.

"Okay," Lin Sanjiu was not at ease, and asked Pina again, "I'll bandage Pan Cui's wound, and you can see if there are any hidden weapons nearby. Not so lucky."

The evolutionary people who live in the apocalyptic world have quite a wealth of experience in dealing with trauma; after a while, the work of hemostasis, disinfection, medicine and dressing is all done. Pina, too, scrutinized the opening of the ramp more than once during this time, and her report surprised several others—but not because of the presence or absence of traps nearby.

"This is not a slope," Pina said, pointing to the ground while surrounded by three people. "It's a pipeline...or rather, a closed slide. And, it's really the way we should go."

"Slide?" Lin Sanjiu glanced deep into the ground with a probe, and indeed saw a vague yellow arrow in the shadows. She reached in and took a careful look around, and found that Pina was right; the ramp was enclosed by a plastic cover all around, and it went down steeply.

Lin Sanjiu tentatively threw a few small things into the slide, but nothing happened. No matter how she looked, she couldn't see what might jump out and cut people; a few people gathered together to discuss for a while - Pan Cui could only gesture - seeing that it didn't look like there was a trap, she finally decided to slide down .

"Let me go first," Lin Sanjiu suggested, "If there is any danger, I will handle it."

"Pan Cui," Jia Jiatian asked, "How about you go in second? It might be safer to follow behind her. Pina and I are in the rear."

Pancui paused for a while, then squeezed out a small smile with a pale face.

"Okay," Lin Sanjiu sat down at the opening of the slide and said, "I'm leaving—"

The last word was washed away by the sudden darkness, and inside the long, tortuous slide was pulled into a continuous exclamation; Lin Sanjiu didn't expect that the slide was even steeper than it looked, She fell straight into the depths of the ground—there was no lower floor, no ceiling or floor, the whole building seemed to be a solid block of concrete, hollowed out by a tunnel that kept going down.

I slept for a long time over the weekend... finally came back to life

(End of this chapter)