Chapter 16: The Castle
  The barren sand is vast and on the ground lies the bones of giant creatures. Some were scattered, some buried, and some parasitized with mottled archaea.
  Suddenly, the sound of the car’s engine shook the sand. A modified car drove a lonely sand trail in the wasteland and stopped in the desert.
  A white-haired youth jumped out of the car.
  “Here we are.” he said.
  The driver of the car was a young soldier. He was stunned and looked at the white-haired youth in confusion.
  The white-haired young man saw his appearance, so he said again: “Here goes 400 miles to the southwest, you can enter the signal reception range of the other side. There is still water and oil on the car enough for you to last a day.”
  Although the soldier was a little stunned, this time he finally understood.
  “Xiao Bai, what about you?” he hurriedly asked.
  “I’m leaving.”
  “Ah…”
  Xiaobai in front of him took him as a hostage but after spending four days together, Gu Yang felt reluctant in his heart.
  Xiaobai was actually not as vicious as he imagined. Since the night when he talked about his brother Gu Cheng, he never pointed a gun at him again. Most of the supplies in the car were left to him as a nutrient supplement and even killed several archaea on the way. It was also Xiaobai who taught him how to distinguish these dangerously gathered microorganisms.
  But now that he and Xiaobai were about to be separated, Gu Yang felt at a loss for a while.
  “Can we meet again?”
  “No.”
  “Wh…why?”
  “I don’t want to see you again.”
  Gu Yang’s expression froze.
  Lin Xi didn’t speak anymore, turned around and walked towards the north step by step.
  The white-haired man walked, leaving deep and shallow footprints behind him which were quickly swept away by the wind, slowly smoothing out the marks.
  Gu Yang stared blankly, until the other party’s back was far away. He turned his head and found that Lin Xi only took antibiotics with him.
  On the back seat of the car, the water source, nutrient solution, and fuel remained untouched.
  “Xiao Bai, Xiao Bai!” He shouted again anxiously.
  Unfortunately, the person in front did not look back.
  Gu Yang’s field of vision soon left only the dark sky, the bright moon, and the vast sand.
  Lin Xi left.
  With the sand wind blows is like a most decisive farewell to him.
  Gu Yang’s eyes gradually dimmed. He lowered his head, silently pushed the car and turned around. He finally glanced at the continuous sand dunes here.
  Yet at this moment.
  “Boom-boom-boom–”
  The earth trembled heavily and a gust of wind blew up in the aftershock, rolling up the sand on the flat ground, sweeping across the entire land.
  There was also the roar of wild animals in the wind.
  Gu Yang quickly blocked the rushing sand with his hands until the gust of wind stopped. He put down his elbows in shock and looked at the direction of the wind.
  That place is still had rolling sand dunes but the location of the dune has changed.
  Lin Xilian climbed over two dunes.
  The desert in this area has exposed sandstone and it is no longer as difficult as the previous. After walking for three hours, he finally saw a vast basin in front of him.
  In the basin, a mountain rises slightly.
  There are sparse vegetation on the uplifted mountain and a row of cracked city walls are clustered on the side of the mountain, there are many human buildings inside. If you stand on the edge of the basin and look around, you can still see the bustling population in the city wall.
  This is a human castle.
  But there is only one gate in the castle. At this time, people are already lining up on the corridor next to it, picking up some residues one by one on the periphery.
  Lin Xi took a few glances and walked down carefully from the edge of the basin.
  After a while, he joined and began to blend with the crowd.
  The crowd here is different from the humans living on the other side. There are emaciated and thin men walking on the road, crying women, and also some disabled humans. Most of these people were naked, with yellow faces, thin skin, and sluggish expressions.
  Lin Xi waited hesitantly for a while and finally noticed a big man with strong muscles.
  The big man is tall and strong, with a robotic arm in his right hand. The interface of the robotic arm is a neat cut of a severed limb, there are faint green archaea residues on the cut surface.
  He looked at the people next to him contemptuously and strode away from the crowd.
  “Get out of the way! Get out of the way!” After a while, the man swaggered to the front of the team.
  The person who was cut in line wanted to argue but seeing the size and arms of the other party, he immediately swallowed the words again.
  Here, no one dares to resist such a man.
  Lin Xi watched silently and walked to the front of the crowd, staggering past the big man.
  “Get out of the way!” The big man pushed him away.
  “Ah—” Lin Xi screamed and fall in front of him.
  The big man glanced impatiently.
  But at this moment, his eyes suddenly became straight and there was a hint of surprise in his eyes.
  He saw a white-haired man lying on the ground with a slender figure and fair skin. His clothes were wrinkled due to the push, revealing his narrow abdomen.
  Looking further up, he also saw the beautiful face of the white-haired man, panicking like a frightened deer.
  He couldn’t help swallowing.
  “Injured?” The muscular man leaned down and picked up Lin Xi’s waist.
  Lin Xi looked a little scared, he didn’t speak.
  The big man looked at his graceful chin line, laughed lewdly and pulled the other party into his arms.
  This seemed to frighten Lin Xi and he quickly pushed him back with his hand.
  But this struggle was like a temptation in front of the big man. He ignored Lin Xi’s resistance, sniffed between the man’s neck and asked softly, “Human?”
  “Huh.” This time, Lin Xi finally responded.
  “That’s not good. Humans can’t enter this city.” The big man pretended to be sorry.
  “Ah? Then, what should I do?” Lin Xi looked confused.
  “How about you be my slave and I’ll take you into the city?” The big man hugged Lin Xi tightly and gently probed Lin Xi’s clothes with his hands.
  Lin Xi snorted and quickly grabbed his hand.
  “Why, don’t want to?”
  “No, no… There are many people outside, can we wait until we enter the city…”
  He whispered, his eyes dodging with his face flushed.
  Dahan found him more attractive.
  He swallowed again, untied his belt, and tied Lin Xi’s hands.
  “Okay, little baby, you have to keep your word. When the time comes, don’t run away.”
  Lin Xi didn’t speak this time. He turned his head and felt that the man was tying him tightly.
  He was quickly half hugged by the man next to him.
  The city gate was getting closer. He saw two guards guarding the gate, one tall and thin smoking a cigarette at the left gate, while the other slumped on a chair at the right gate, his lower body had no legs but a tentacles of a mollusk.
  Next to them, there is also a detection device that is mechanically broadcasting in real time.
  “Germ layer detection completed. Number of infected people: 1, no heteroblast evolution occurred.”
  “Germ layer detection completed. Number of infected people: 2. Detection confirmed an artificial heteroblasts. Infected people were determined to be the III-generation mutants and the II-generation mutants.”
  “Germ layer detection completed. Number of infected people was 1, no heteroblast evolution has occurred.”
  “Germ layer detection completed. Number of infected people: 0. Test subject is confirmed to be a normal human.”
   The last one was a woman in front of Lin Xi, who was also holding a child.
  After the germ layer detection instrument announced the result, the two guards looked towards the woman at the same time.
  “Normal human?” The right door guard narrowed his eyes and a tentacle slowly stretched out.
  The woman trembled and said, ” Please help us, our village was attacked by a pack of wolves and the entire village was wiped out. The child’s father was also eaten by wolves in order to protect us… We finally escaped here, I beg the two adults to take us in.”
  “But humans are useless here…” The guard at the left door took a breath and squinted at the woman.
  The woman knelt down again: “Sir, my child is ill. I beg the two adults to show mercy, save me and my child. As long as we can enter the city, we are willing to do anything.”
  The guards at the right gate looked at each other.
  “Then are you willing to be infected by archaea?” the right door guard asked.
  He used his tentacles to carry a bowl of green soup and put it in front of the woman.
  The woman was stunned for a moment, watching the group of green hair tremble.
  “Sir, I heard that the evolutionary failure rate of women infected with archaea is 100%…”
  “Since you don’t want to try…”
  The guard at the left door half-squinted and took a cigarette: “Then you are willing to be in the city as a slave and give us mutants some fun?”
  The woman glanced at the dense tentacles on the lower body of the guard on the right and immediately did not dare to speak. She hugged the child tightly, her lips twitching timidly and didn’t make a sound.
  Suddenly, a tentacle had drilled into her stomach and came out of her mouth.
  The woman’s body twitched and she lost her breath.
  The right door guard’s tentacles lifted her corpse and threw it behind her head.
  The child fell off the corpse’s hands and was smashed at the foot of the city.
  “Next.” The two guards started counting again.
  Lin Xi’s hands were tied, his eyes were still on the corpse of the child who had not yet grown up.
  But soon, he was hugged by the person next to him and pushed forward like a display.
  “Lord Zuo, Lord Right, I am Qiao Dayi’s nephew, a third-generation mutant, this human is my slave.”
  At the same time, Gaia Village.
  The soil in the village is fertile and new shoots grow in rows on the fields, growing vigorously upwards.
  A shoe suddenly ran over.
  “Leader Wen, we searched the east and west of the village and found this device.”
  The owner of the shoe walked over to a standing figure and respectfully offered the thing in his hand.
  This is an extremely ingenious sonic device.
  If the soldiers of the other side’s advance troop were here, they would definitely find that this person was holding the Kun Whale simulation machine they installed for nearly a thousand miles overnight.
  Ning Li’s figure was also found. He picked up the device, flipped through it lightly and tried to press the switch.
  “This thing is defective.” He laughed. “The other side should have installed more than one near here, find them all.”
  “Yes, Leader Wen.”
  The people next to him stepped back respectfully and he began to instruct his men to go to the east and west hills of Gaia Village for inspection.
  The originally quiet village suddenly came alive again and several people were walking around everywhere.
  There were also people in the empty square to the east of the village. There are not only people there, but also a row of modified cars parked.
  There was blood on the bodies of these cars, as if they had just fought a battle mottled with the rust of the metal.
  Suddenly, a drop of rain hit the modified car, smearing the blood on the car.
  Ning Li’s figure was stunned for a moment, he stretched out his hand and also received a drop of rain.
  Acid deposition.
  This is obviously corrosive acid rain, but the spirit of the figure is lifted.
  He raised his eyes slowly, revealing a pair of scaly phoenix eyes and a fresh unhealed wound on his cheek.
  The red scarf fluttered in the wind.
  “The beast swarm is about to arrive, let them hurry up and find it before it gets dark.” he ordered.
~~~~~~~
Edited: 7/20/22
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