I am romantic

[-]. Strange events are not unique

Tang En never expected that in his basement, he would see such a terrifying and unimaginable thing.

It was an ordinary weekend, he came home from get off work, and in the middle of taking a shower, the lights suddenly went out.Eighty percent of the fuse is blown again!Cursing the old apartment that was worthless except for the low rent, he wrapped a bath towel around his waist and fumbled for a flashlight from a cabinet drawer.

The distribution box was in the basement. He walked down the narrow and rusty iron ladder. The creaking sound under his feet was like the soundtrack of a low-budget thriller movie, which made his teeth ache.

The pale light of the flashlight swept over a pile of messy and dusty debris. He walked along the wall to the distribution box and pulled open the cover forcefully.

At this time, there was a sudden crisp sound, like a glass bottle falling on the floor, which was especially loud in the dark and dead basement. "—Who?" He immediately moved the flashlight following the sound, and a figure suddenly appeared in the slender beam of light.

Tang En's first reaction was that it was a person.But he had never seen a normal person with such a lean, muscular, hairy body.The beam moved up from (approximately) the chest of the other party, and then he saw a head that he would never forget——

Its skull is long and slender, its muzzle protrudes long and pointedly, and its sharp white teeth stick out from its closed lips. Its small and round eyes reflect two spots of blood-red light. Raised triangular hairy ears.

Tang En's hand trembled, and the beam of light shook accordingly, and then he saw an even more astonishing part - the hanging arm of the opponent was almost as long as his knees, with four sharp hooked claws growing at the end, and on the forked Dimly visible behind the legs is a thick and long...tail like a whip?

... what the hell is this? !

Tang En felt that he should scream and run away, but in fact his brain was dead, so he just froze in place, his muscles were stiff and he couldn't make a sound.

The thing on the opposite side took two steps back, raised its paws to block the light in front of its eyes, and let out a few low hisses from its mouth full of fangs.

Tang En held the flashlight like a statue.The thing continued to retreat, and finally turned around quickly, jumped to the corner of the wall, and the figure suddenly disappeared.Tang En moved the light subconsciously, and found that the louver cover at the entrance of the ventilation duct was gone, revealing a dark cave, like the mouth of a ferocious beast in the dark night.

It seems that they escaped through the ventilation duct. God knows how such a long body got in... Tang En turned around numbly, and pushed the tripping handle in the distribution box. The light suddenly came in from the top of the stairs, illuminating the basement corner of .

He silently pulled up the bath towel that had fallen from his crotch, walked up the stairs bluntly, and slammed the basement door shut.

It wasn't until this moment that a delayed switch on his body suddenly turned on, and the tension and fear finally came to his brain.He quickly put on his clothes, grabbed the keys and a few banknotes from the shoe cabinet, and rushed out of the house without looking back.

In the cyborg bar, Dunn sat in the corner, pouring cup after cup of the cloudy yellow liquid into his mouth.The friend Pei Ji next to him couldn't help but grabbed the bottom of his cup and persuaded him, "You drank too much, do you want to lie drunk on the street?"

"I have to get myself drunk, and then when I wake up, I tell myself that what happened just now was just a nightmare... You don't know what the hell I saw!" Tang En put the glass on the table and paused. "I thought I had fucking timed into Alien!"

"Alien? What's that?"

"Uh, it's a movie from the old century. I found it in a junkyard."

"Those are all contraband! Doesn't the City Safety Law prohibit the private purchase and reading of books and movies from the old century? Why are you still watching them!" Pei Ji lowered her voice and blamed.

"Isn't this what we're going to talk about today?" Tang En said.

Pei Ji sighed in frustration, "...you must have watched too many movies from the old century, and you have hallucinations under psychological hints."

"I wish it was a hallucination too! Instead of a monster that looks like a hybrid of a mouse and a human appearing carelessly in the basement of my house, and tore the cover of the ventilation duct!" Tang En replied angrily, "Did I Tell you, that thing is a full two meters high, and its claws are longer than your palm?"

Pei Ji gasped.

After drinking half a cup for himself, he said thoughtfully: "Hearing what you said, I also remembered a weird thing. You know that I have been working at the Municipal Institute of Biochemistry. Occasionally, I can step into some core areas. Once, probably... er, more than a year ago, I saw a pair of babies in the culture tank of an A-level laboratory. A baby boy and a baby girl , they were all just born. Later, about half a year later, when I stepped into that laboratory again, I found that the pair of babies soaked in the incubator had turned into five or six-year-old children—it must be those A pair, the hair color and complexion match the name on the wrist tag; then, after another year, just a few days ago, I saw the two in the culture tank for the third time, and they are now fifteen or sixteen years old Looks like a teenager!"

"Can specimens grow too?" Tang En asked in surprise.

"It's not a specimen, it's a living body, but it's always been in a deep sleep state. You said, even if it's soaked in culture fluid, it's possible to grow from a baby to a teenager in one and a half years?" Pei Ji shook his head incredulously.

"How do I know? I'm just a repairman, not a scientific researcher. Besides, who knows if the man and the woman are real people? They might be the product of some crazy scientist's brains. Cyborgs and the like..." Tang En said disapprovingly, "Now that technology is so advanced, even the policemen on the road have been replaced with iron-brained machines. be surprised."

Pei Ji murmured in a low voice: "I think they are real people... even they grow too fast, as if they had been given a ripening agent."

"Okay, it's creepy, but at least they don't show up in your basement in the middle of the night."

Pei Ji patted his arm reassuringly, "Do you want to call the police and stay at my house for a while?"

Tang En thought for a while, and rejected the other party's kindness: "Forget it, I don't want to be locked up as a mental patient. I'm still used to living in that crappy apartment, and I used steel plates to seal the ventilation pipe openings, and then welded the basement door. If you die, you should be fine."

"I hope." Pei Ji was a little worried, "If something similar happens again, don't forget to tell me as soon as possible."

"Crow's Mouth." Tang En forced a smile and lightly punched his friend on the shoulder.

When he got home, he stood outside the basement door and listened. There was no movement, so he opened the door and walked down.The sundries inside were turned over in a mess, and it seemed that some tools were missing. Tang En was not sure whether it was the monster who did it before, or whether it was a visit afterward.But what will be left in the basement is naturally not an important item, and he doesn't care, he just hopes that the other party will take what he wants, and don't look back.

The next day, he bought two thick steel plates and sealed the ventilation ducts tightly.I wanted to weld the basement door, but I thought about the fuse that was short-circuited all day long, so I gave up the idea and installed a door lock.

The days that followed returned to their usual calm, going to work and going home as usual, as if the frightening glimpse of that night was just a fading nightmare.

Tang En would go to that bar to meet Pei Ji every now and then.His friend seemed to be very interested in the pair of fast-growing man and woman in the laboratory culture tank, and would bring up this topic from time to time.

"I heard a few doctors arguing over there today. It seems to be about whether to wake them up." Pei Ji said enthusiastically, "In the end, everyone reached a consensus that the time is not ripe enough, and we have to wait for a while."

Tang En lazily responded.He is just a commoner, and he is tired enough to run around for his salary every day, and he doesn't care about things that are far away from his own life.

"What about you? Has that ratman ever appeared?"

rat man?It's quite an apt description, Tang En thought. "No, it didn't show up again."

Pei Ji seemed to feel a little regretful: "If we can find a way to catch it and transport it to the research institute, the doctors will definitely be interested. Our research institute is highly valued by the higher-ups, and I have seen the 'creator' come down to inspect it several times. ——You know that civilians like us, who were born in the lower city, may not have the opportunity to meet them in this life!"

"Have you seen their faces? What are they like?" Tang En asked curiously.

"It's still a long windbreaker, gloves, and a mask, nothing is exposed." Pei Ji sighed, "Forget it, I don't expect to see what's under the mask, that's the 'creator', and we can only look up exist……"

Tang En shrugged: "So don't think about it so much, just be your temporary worker honestly. However, if I see that rat man again, I will notify you. The reward for catching it from the institute is right for us." half point."

"No problem." Pei Ji agreed.

But to Tang En's surprise, on this night, the Rat Man visited him again.

When Tang En opened the door of the old apartment, he didn't find an uninvited guest in the dark living room.Until he reached out to touch the light switch, an unusually low voice suddenly sounded, mixed with a reptile-like hiss.

"He's been here, Kira...I smell him..."

It was a common language, but Tang En was stunned for several seconds before he could sort out the semantics from the noise.

At the same time, he turned on the wall lamp in the entrance.

The dim light shrouded the old room, outlining a long and treacherous silhouette in the depths of the living room.

The shadow stepped forward, revealing its true face.

As if a nightmare that was about to be forgotten reappeared clearly, Tang En's eyes widened - it should not be the one he met before.Although they all look similar, this one appears to be darker and stronger.

He didn't know where he got the calmness and courage to look at this hideous creature so carefully. In addition to his own guts, it is obvious that the language communication is indispensable.

"Kira? Is that the name...been here? The one I saw last?" he said incoherently.

"Kira, my brother," said the Ratman, "I am Yura. I am looking for him. Here is the freshest smell of him."

"Wait a minute, I feel a little dizzy..." Tang En took a deep breath, and supported the shoe cabinet to stand firm, "You must first let me understand what kind of creature you are facing. Obviously you are quite intelligent, but please forgive my ignorance. Never heard of or seen it."

"Most of you don't know, the few you have seen call us monsters, or ratmen. But our official name is cavemen." Yura the ratman spoke more fluently, "because we Dwell in underground caverns, and build your own city there—much larger than this Soma you inhabit."

"Impossible! Soma is infinite. I heard that someone tried to go out, but they couldn't cross the boundary of the city in their whole life." Dunn categorically retorted.

Yura raised his right paw and made a "stop" gesture, obviously not wanting to argue about this topic. "You haven't answered my question yet. Where's Kira?"

Tang En pointed in the direction of the basement, "If the person I saw in the basement last weekend was your brother, he left through the ventilation duct."

Yura flicked her long tail, turned around and left.Tang En said: "Wait, I'll open the door to the basement, and the ventilation ducts, the entrance is sealed with steel plates."

The Ratman didn't look back, but raised his four sharp claws, and then easily tore off the iron lock on the door like ripping kraft paper.

Tang En was stunned. When he chased down, he found that the bent and deformed steel plate had been forcibly torn off, exposing the dark pipes on the wall again, like a cave leading to another world, deep and mysterious.

The Rat Man disappeared again.

Tang En looked at the uneven thick steel plate that fell on the ground, and finally gave up the idea of ​​sealing the ventilation duct again, and replaced it with a new louver cover.He could only hope from the bottom of his heart that the ratman would find his brother smoothly, and then go back to their underground cave hand in hand, and never show up in front of him again in this life.

Until the next day, when Tang En was hanging on the outer wall of a certain building to repair a huge broken exhaust fan, he was still thinking about the uninvited guest from the night before.

An underground city much bigger than Soma?This is impossible!That monster is talking nonsense... He thought wearily, twisting the screws in his hands.

There was a thick layer of dirt on the fan blades of the exhaust fan, and some places had merged with the rust, making it extremely dirty, and he had to use more detergent to clean it.He remembered that a month ago, when the exhaust fan was first installed, it was brand new and clean.But this is also normal. Many devices and objects in Soma City have a lifespan of only a few months. Even if it is a new car, it should be reimbursed within two years at most.

After cleaning one of the fan blades, he pushed his toes against the wall, and when he swung to the other side with the safety cable tied around his waist, he suddenly felt a black shadow descend from the sky, surrounded by a sharp wind, and brushed past his face.The skin on his face even felt the slight pain of being pushed by the airflow.

Tang En looked up subconsciously, and there was no difference between the gray sky and the wall with dense panes and interlaced shelves.The safety rope was also neatly attached to the railing outside one of the windows.He looked down at the narrow alley below him again.The alley in the early morning is very quiet, only a passing man in a restaurant uniform is looking up with a delivery basket.

Their eyes collided with each other from the height of three floors.

Tang En suddenly realized that there was something wrong with that man... From his abdomen, a stick protruded, and the irregular tip was dripping dark red liquid...

He moved his gaze to the opponent's back, where the other end of the stick was inserted obliquely.It fell from some rotten railing on the roof, piercing through the human body like a toothpick through a sausage.

The muscles at the corners of Tang En's mouth twisted, and he almost screamed.

The delivery man didn't immediately realize what happened, and seemed very puzzled by the grinning expression of the man hanging in mid-air.Finally, he looked down in the direction the other party was pointing at, and finally discovered the abnormality of his body.

He lowered the basket and grasped the protrusion of his abdomen with both hands, trying to pull it out.But the iron rod was too long, and he only pulled about ten centimeters before it got stuck.He tried a few times, but to no avail, so he had to give up, and instead grabbed his back with his backhand, trying to pull the stick out of his back.

Tang En just hung in the air like this, watching a bloody guy wrestle with the iron bar that pierced his body, like an office worker in a hurry who couldn't tie a tie well, he was anxious but not panicked.

... This scene is even weirder than the Ratman who appeared in the basement.Tang En thought in shock.

The man who delivered the food worked hard for a long time, but there was still nothing he could do with the iron rod, so he raised his head and asked for help from the only bystander: "Hey, buddy, are you just watching? Can you come down and help?"

Dunn didn't know how to answer this question.Usually he is very willing to help others, such as helping to line up or something, but the guy in front of him who was supposed to be dying on the emergency stretcher, who was most likely to die before being sent to the hospital, obviously completely violated common sense, and made his normal thinking There is a blank.

"You..." He opened his mouth, not knowing what to say.

At this moment, the sound of the engine approached from far away.Taking advantage of the height, he saw four or five mechanical patrolmen riding hover bikes coming at a high speed.

Out of the mentality of not wanting to cause trouble, he immediately hooked his toes to the nearby railing, and climbed in through an open window.

After a while, Tang En couldn't hold back his curiosity. He poked his head halfway out from the edge of the window and looked downstairs——

The delivery man was lying face down on the ground, with a pool of blood under his body, and an iron rod stuck in his back, motionless, like a dead person.

The mechanical police were lifting him up and putting him into a body bag together with the iron rod.A weak arm hung down from the pocket that hadn't been closed yet. Tang En saw that guy's face, pale, stiff, and bloodless, with a grayness that had lost all vitality. It was clearly the face of a dead person.

No one could act as if nothing had happened after suffering such a severe trauma. This scene is reasonable. Tang En couldn't help but wonder if what he saw and heard just now was another short and sudden nightmare?

Could it be that he was suffering from some kind of disease that caused him to be unable to distinguish between reality and illusion, so that he always ran into inexplicable things such as talking rat people and alive dead people?

Tang En was lost.

The author has something to say: the third article, the elopement of humans and AI~