Chapter 127: “Are you police officers?” “Yes, he is the police flower.”
Having stayed in the altar for a long time, these people had gotten used to rushing through things in reality, as their free time was extremely limited.
So, at Zhong Yirou’s suggestion, they moved without hesitation.
“There are quite a few addresses on the list, so let’s split into three groups.”
As soon as Zhong Yirou finished speaking, Wu You directly said, “I want to be with Wujiu-ge.”
Zhong Yirou smiled and put an arm around his shoulder, “Little brother, you’ll be with the Taoist brother. He looks very reliable, and if we encounter any demons or ghosts on the road, you’ll be the safest among us.”
Wu You drooped his eyes and stared at Zhong Yirou, his expression seemingly saying, “Do you really think I’m a child?”
Shen Ti directly pulled An Wujiu to his side, saying, “I’m with Wujiu, the Taoist with the little brat, and the beauties together. Perfect.”
An Wujiu felt very grateful. Searching for his sister wasn’t really an important matter for them, yet now these people had to sacrifice their precious time to help him.
“Thank you,” An Wujiu said softly.
“Thank for what?” Zhong Yirou fiddled with her curls, “You thank us, but we’ve been pulled along by you all this time. Should we thank you every day? Don’t overthink it; we’re all friends.”
Hmm.
An Wujiu responded in his heart.
He was very fortunate to have such a group of comrades who had gone through life and death with him. Without them and without Shen Ti, he wouldn’t have been able to recover his mental health so quickly.
“Then let’s go,” Nan Shan said, “The sooner we set off, the sooner we might finish in a day.”
An Wujiu suddenly thought of Noah and glanced towards the bedroom, “Let’s let Noah rest at home and leave her a message.”
Everyone left the apartment, and as they were about to part, An Wujiu mentioned Noah’s coughing up blood to Zhong Yirou.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Zhong Yirou was a bit surprised, “I should have checked her; how could she be coughing up blood?”
“We’ll talk about it when we get back.” An Wujiu thought for a moment, “She doesn’t seem to want us to know; maybe she has some unspeakable secret.”
Searching for a girl who had been missing for years in such a vast area was not an easy task. Even these locations were just an old police record, not entirely up-to-date. Maybe someone moved in the meantime without leaving any contact information. This primitive way of searching was like finding a needle in a haystack.
Following the addresses on the list, An Wujiu and Shen Ti went from place to place. They first arrived at an old underground market near the city center. This place mainly sold cheap prosthetics or second-hand equipment. The environment was poor, and the only light in the dark basement came from various advertisements, like a closed trash can filled with glow sticks.
Once inside, their view was filled with various vulgar ads. Everything else was pitch black, and there were no visible door numbers. Helplessly, Shen Ti grabbed a random man who had set up a stall to ask for directions.
“Oh,” the man, wearing a strange exoskeleton that looked like it would break at a touch, pointed to a corner not far away, “Turn there, yes, right there, then just walk past ten shops like mine, turn right, and after the next corner, turn left…”
Shen Ti’s head hurt from listening, “Why don’t you just take us there?”
The man’s tone changed instantly, “I can’t just help you for nothing. If I take you there, what about my shop…”
Shen Ti grabbed a random retail item from the stall without even seeing what it was and said directly, “Not asking you to lead us for free.” He pointed randomly, “I’ll buy all these.”
The shop owner’s expression changed again, enthusiastically packing the boxes into a bag. After Shen Ti paid, he quickly led them to the door number.
On the way, An Wujiu asked him, “Is it always this empty here?”
The shop owner shook his head. Under the highly saturated blue and red light, An Wujiu saw that his right eye, unlike his left brown one, was blue.
“Don’t look at how many are closed now, it used to be very lively here,” the shop owner said to them, “You know, there’s a demand for these things, there are too many poor people now. It’s just that some trouble happened recently, so it’s a lot emptier.”
An Wujiu asked again, “What trouble?”
They turned a corridor, and the shop owner asked mysteriously, “Did you see the commotion in front of the city hall today?”
Shen Ti smiled, “Answering a question with a question is not a good habit.”
The shop owner cleared his throat, “Alright, I’ll be direct. I don’t know if you saw it, but today’s riot was like a bunch of crazies. It wasn’t the first time either. This second-hand market has seen several such incidents, people causing trouble in the streets, then the cops came and took a few for questioning, but nothing came of it, and that was that.”
“Unexpectedly, such incidents became more frequent. I heard…” he lowered his voice, “seems like those people had implanted prosthetics that caused madness, all kinds, big and small, making me nervous, afraid I’d go crazy too.” Saying this, he fearfully covered his eye.
“And then?” An Wujiu asked, “Did the police come again?”
“Yes, later they arrested a bunch of people. Initially, they wanted to shut down the entire market for inspection, but you know, their power is limited. In the end, they just banned the sale of second-hand prosthetics. Luckily, I only sell small items; otherwise, I’d be implicated too.”
Silent all this time, Shen Ti asked, “When did such incidents start?”
“You mean the thing about people going crazy?” The shop owner thought for a moment, “It’s been quite a while, at least three or four months ago. We’re not sure if this place was the first, but there have been incidents outside with people using nanobots. Who knows which came first.”
An Wujiu and Shen Ti exchanged a look.
They had met in the altar just three months ago, and such incidents had been happening even before then, maybe even earlier. They could no longer trace back to the first case.
An Wujiu had a foreboding feeling. From the incubation period to the current small outbreak, it was like a virus infection, except the infection route had become prosthetics, nanobots, and other technological products that could enter the human body. These contaminated items were like parasites, implanted into the body without resistance, even voluntarily.
And those in the altar, risking their lives for their survival, were completely unaware of the “contamination” of the real world, as if they were divided into two camps.
One group consisted of infected and controlled believers, while the other were the sacrificial offerings trapped in the altar.
This illusion made An Wujiu shiver all over.
“We’re here; this is the place,” the shop owner said to the two of them, “You’re quite lucky; this shop hasn’t closed.”
The shop owner greeted them and was about to leave. An Wujiu nodded in thanks and then looked at the shop.
The shop’s advertising lights and signs were colorful and seemed homemade, with layers of draped fabrics giving it a bit of a punk mystique. Initially, they didn’t see the shopkeeper, until An Wujiu noticed a pair of feet and realized someone was lying on a reclining chair in the corner, covered from head to toe with a black blanket, only showing a pair of booted feet.
An Wujiu walked in, but he was too tall and accidentally bumped into a wind chime made of various metal scraps, making a sound. He quickly raised his hand to catch it and instinctively looked back at Shen Ti.
Shen Ti smiled, “Too low, I can’t get in.”
The sleeping shopkeeper was startled awake, poked her head out from under the blanket, and looked at them. Once she saw that they were two extremely handsome men, she immediately stood up and tidied her clothes.
Her hair was dyed purple, and her lip and nose piercings glittered in the dim light.
An Wujiu carefully observed her face and realized she was the person they were looking for, though she didn’t resemble his sister.
“What can I do for two handsome guys?” She spread her arms awkwardly and then clasped her hands, “I don’t know if I have what you need here.”
An Wujiu got straight to the point, “Sorry, we’re actually looking for someone. May I ask, how many people are in your family? Do you have any siblings?”
The question was a bit strange, so the girl was taken aback, “Uh…”
She awkwardly leaned closer and whispered, “You’re not a policeman, are you?”
Shen Ti laughed, “Yes, he’s a police flower.”
An Wujiu turned his head and said, “Don’t talk nonsense.”
He turned back to the girl and said, “I’m looking for someone very important to me, so I want to ask you. You don’t need to tell me too specific information; I just want to inquire, with no ill intentions.”
Maybe the handsome face was too persuasive, even with such a strange request, she still accepted it.
“Alright.” She said frankly, “I have a younger sister and a younger brother. I’m the eldest. My dad overdosed and died, and my mom…” She shrugged, “She’s an alcoholic. She beat me when she was drunk, so I ran away. To this day, I don’t know where she is, or even if she’s still alive.”
An Wujiu couldn’t deny he was a bit disappointed, but he also felt sorry for the girl’s family in front of him, feeling like he had opened up her wounds, so he didn’t know what to say for a moment.
Instead, Shen Ti leaned over and, tilting his head, deliberately asked in a smooth manner, “You’re so good-looking; this face must be original, right?”
“Of course.” She proudly lifted her chin and asked, “Aren’t you?”
“Well, I’m not. I’ve had seventy-eight modifications altogether. Do you see my eyes?” Shen Ti leaned closer. In the light, his eyes glowed green, like some kind of beast’s pupils.
“Such beautiful eyes, and they’re fake?”
“Yes, and they were expensive.” Shen Ti smiled, speaking as if it were true.
“Unbelievable.” She was a bit surprised, “Being rich is nice.”
Shen Ti then asked, “Were you born here?”
“Yes.” She replied casually, “I’ve lived in several neighborhoods since I was born, like a rat making holes, you know. But I’ve never left F City all these years.”
Shen Ti’s neck was sore, so he simply leaned his head on An Wujiu’s shoulder, looking at her, “You seem to have a good memory.”
“You’re right, I remember things from when I was one or two years old very clearly.”
With this unintentional question, An Wujiu basically had a clear idea. She was born in this city, didn’t have an older brother, was the eldest in her family, and had never had plastic surgery. None of the criteria matched.
They didn’t talk much. Out of kindness, An Wujiu bought some items from her, and the two left.
Coming out of the basement and back to the surface, the harsh sunlight made him feel like a deformed fish that had lived in the deep sea for years, caught and brought to shore, unable to hide from the glaring light and sorrow.
Their first target ended in failure.
Similar situations happened to them six times in one day.
They found a waitress in a Chinese restaurant who had lost a leg and had never seen her biological parents, which was heartbreaking. There was also a girl who had eloped here for her lover and now worked as a hostess. She had a brother who was drunk and in prison.
Additionally, they met an unemployed vagabond, a cleaner, and a jobless bar singer.
Most of them lived in poverty and hardship, unable to live well. Asking one by one, An Wujiu’s heart grew colder. He thought hope was slim because if others had any leads, they wouldn’t have had no contact until now. They must have been like him, unable to find any likely candidates.
An Wujiu had anticipated that finding his sister wouldn’t be so simple, but he still held a small hope that she would be on this list.
When they left the last address, it was already too late. The night descended amidst the noisy light pollution, and the city became bizarre again, restored to its artificial vibrancy.
A few raindrops began to fall. At first, they didn’t mind, but then the rain grew heavier, mixed with the unmistakable smell of chemical residues.
“Let’s find a place to stay.” Shen Ti took An Wujiu’s hand, leading him through the rain to shelter.
They randomly chose a restaurant to fill their stomachs, intending to continue searching later. But by the time they finished eating, the rain outside was pouring heavily, like a polluted river flowing over the glass plain.
The restaurant played the weather forecast, and they learned that the rain would last all night.
“Let’s not go.” An Wujiu looked at the rain outside and said to Shen Ti.
“Then go back?” Shen Ti asked.
An Wujiu turned his face. The dazzling lights reflected through the gentle rain onto his face, making it exceptionally beautiful and charming. His eyes were filled with disappointment and sadness, but An Wujiu was a strange person. The more he was in pain, the more beautiful he looked.
“Right.” Shen Ti saw the two bags on his side of the booth, “We’ve been carrying these two bags all day and haven’t had time to see what we bought.”
An Wujiu remembered and looked up.
Shen Ti, acting cute, said to him, “Come and sit here.”
Seeing his expression, An Wujiu thought he couldn’t be the only one who fell for it, considering how good-looking Shen Ti was.
An Wujiu sat over, and Shen Ti handed him the items they bought from the girl, placing his own pile of boxes on his lap.
An Wujiu lowered his head and opened the bag from the girl. Inside were small handmade items that looked thoughtfully made, despite possibly being from recycled materials.
“They’re quite cute.” An Wujiu picked up a small electronic dog and turned to Shen Ti, “What did you buy?”
The second-hand market was too dark for them to see anything, so they bought items blindly. Now, they had the joy of opening surprise boxes.
Shen Ti’s items were all boxed, making it hard to see directly, so he had to unpack them one by one.
The moment he opened the first one, his face turned as green as his eyes.
“What is this?” An Wujiu leaned over and thought it looked odd, resembling…
A certain reproductive organ.
“What does he sell?” Shen Ti wanted to put it back but accidentally pressed an unknown button, making the cylindrical object move.
Shen Ti cursed instinctively, trying to find the switch. An Wujiu, after a moment of shock, quickly joined in the search. A male waiter passing by widened his eyes and used his tray to shield them both.
After much effort, they finally managed to stop the thing. An Wujiu was sweating and noticed Shen Ti’s ears were red, looking very cute. He couldn’t help but reach out and touch his ear.
Shen Ti was startled, turning to look at him like an animal.
“So that’s what he’s selling. No wonder his lights were so strange.” An Wujiu withdrew his hand and asked Shen Ti, “Do you want to keep looking?”
“Do we need to?” Shen Ti put the tool away and tossed the bag aside. “I don’t need that kind of experience.”
An Wujiu, who hadn’t laughed all day, started laughing now, and the more he laughed, the happier he got.
Shen Ti, resting his chin in his hand, glanced at him, thinking it was good that he managed to cheer him up so easily.
“We’re not going back tonight, right?” An Wujiu, after laughing enough, pointed his index finger at the ceiling. “There seems to be a hotel upstairs. I saw the sign when we came in.”
Shen Ti raised his eyebrows, feeling a bit nervous, and after a while, he finally spoke.
“You’re not really planning to use those things, are you…?”
An Wujiu laughed. “I don’t have that kind of kink.”
He reached out and grabbed Shen Ti’s dangling earring. “I just want to hold you, lie down and kiss you, and fall asleep in your arms.”
That poor waiter 🤣