【Summer Five】Iron City Wall

There are neatly stacked containers on the pier, and several seagulls gather together to peck at the grains on the ground.The giant ship was moored quietly, occasionally bumping with the wind and waves.The wind blew over the rusted hull, and the sun turned a few corners, and finally reflected on the gray shore.

Xia You walked through the block with her schoolbag on her back, and saw a few workers squatting by the guardrail to eat.They wore uniform orange uniforms, the oldest was no more than forty, and the youngest were probably only single digits.Several people shared food around two standard-sized lunch boxes, each with their chopsticks stretched out, gorging themselves in the heat of the food.The young ones were especially enthusiastic, their cheeks were bulging and still stuffed, but they were sweating profusely in the autumn season.

The roar of the crane was heard not far away, and someone yelled a few words, the voice was hazy in the mist.Xia You knew it was noon—the construction site was laying new heating pipes, and it was turning non-stop from morning to night, and the noise of heavy machinery could be heard four blocks away.

The older worker glanced up as he passed the guardrail.He straightened his neck, and a hand-sized printed number: 18 was vaguely exposed under the neckline.

Seeing that the person who came was a child, that person continued to lower his head and snatch the yellow vegetable leaves.

Xia You came all the way to the pier, leaned over and knocked on the window of the guard's room.The person inside answered "Who is it?" Xia You continued to tap persistently, the glass made a "bang bang bang bang bang" sound, and a few screws began to move again.

Soon, an old man with a bald head and sweatshirt approached, condescendingly looked at Xia You.The little boy who had just turned thirteen was fair and clean, with black and white eyes, and a junior high school uniform with a stand-up collar.

"Again?" The old man spit as soon as he spoke, "No class!"

Xia You tugged at the strap of her schoolbag, pursed her lips and smiled: "It's over, have you forgotten what day it is?"

This time I asked the old man.He scratched the back of his head with few hairs, thinking for a long time without any clue.Xia You was very patient. Seeing that he was silent, she also stood by and waited, with a polite and childish smile on her face all the time.

After about two or three minutes, there was a sudden tremor under my feet.

The rock layer squirmed up, and the thick soil on the back cracked layer by layer, shaking the intertwined city together.The shaking lasted for at least 10 minutes. Everyone could hear the loud noise coming from the ground, like a dying old man bending over and coughing, hoarse like a broken bellows, mixed with the noise of a giant slowly turning.

It seems that there is a distortion somewhere.Xia You looked up at the sky, and saw that the angle of the sun shifted by a few centimeters, obliquely shining on the roof in a distorted arc; the streets in the eastern half opened a crack that spanned the entire city, separating the turf and vegetation. It was cut off in the middle, and then slowly rose with the roar of scalp numbness, revealing the foundation made of reinforced concrete——

Half of the fifth area "flyed" and was lifted up to a hundred meters in the air.

The sky slowly covered with a huge shadow, row upon row of building blocks replaced the clouds, looking from a distance like a jigsaw puzzle with poor workmanship.Residents in the western half looked up, and at the end of their field of vision were high-hanging buildings, as if a giant beast had woken up, straightening its waist and shaking off the concrete from its body.

They tacitly stopped what they were doing, stood still for a moment, and then began to walk towards the nearby houses.

The underlying structure supporting the city is exposed, and beneath it lies an underground cavity that spans the entire area, like a big bat with wings spread.

After another two or three minutes, the vibration completely subsided, and the soil and rock formations fell prone to their feet again.

The old man patted his forehead and suddenly realized that he was about to say something when the door of the guard room opened suddenly and Xia You rushed in, gesturing to him to close the window quickly——

After two seconds of silence, the entire city was instantly enveloped in rising white mist.

Every street, every house, the underground heat pump runs through the whole city like the aorta of the fifth district - now it opens its arms, and the hot air swarms from the hole under the eastern half of the district, like a volcanic eruption, soaking everything in the city. In the thick smoke.

The residents all retreated to the house as early as the shaking began, and they were not surprised by the strangers who rushed into the same room.Some people are still leisurely carrying wine bottles, waiting for the end of the "breathing period" to continue bragging.

Most of the children are piled up in front of the window, curiously touching the air column through the glass, imagining the temperature that is neither too hot nor too cold.They looked at the bottom of the city's dark underground, convinced that the uncles and aunts living underground were dealing with monsters, and they endlessly passed on to each other.

In the guard room, the old man slumped on the bench to blow the air, betting with himself how long it would take for the white steam to dissipate.While smacking his mouth in a dull manner, he paid attention to Xiayou standing in front of the window.

The kid who had just entered junior high school had a straight face since he came in, without a trace of curiosity or fear, and he always looked at the city with almost calm eyes.

I am indeed old enough to have forgotten the days of "breathing," the old man thought, scratching his arm.On the contrary, this kid, who usually looks well-behaved, didn't react at all at this moment, amazing!

"Hey, brat!" the old man called, "I'm leaving at 03:30 today, so watch yourself!"

Xia You turned her head from the window, her eyes were as black as ink, dragging out a depth that did not match her age.

He looked at a number showing under the old man's sweatshirt, spread out his homework book, and replied with a smile: "Understood, I will definitely not cause you any trouble."

It took nearly an hour for the fog to clear away.Xia You put away the half-written paper, threw her schoolbag over her shoulder, and said goodbye to the old man politely.He opened the door, and the cool air rushed into his lungs immediately, punching through the five senses that were suffocated.

When I opened my eyes again, the world rushed towards me again.

Xia You walked deep into the pier, found a protruding oil drum and sat down, and took out a book from his bag.He read under the slanting sunlight, his expression quickly became focused, and his little finger unconsciously rubbed a corner of the turned and yellowed pages.

From time to time, the soles of the feet rumbled, the birds started up and then fell back to their original places, the boats in the port swayed with the waves, and the steel reflected cold light.The wind at the pier is very clear, without the humidity and heat in the middle of the street, and when it blows over the back of the neck, it brings a little bit of coolness.The clouds rolled and relaxed, and the fifth district fell asleep peacefully by the river, feeling like a child.

Xia You's reading speed has always been outrageous, almost ten lines at a glance.The time was fast enough to catch up with the wind, and he was immersed in the excessively quiet environment until the sun went down.

When the twilight closed, a lifeboat covered with a dustproof cloth suddenly swayed at the feet, Xia You was startled, and looked up from the book.

"!" He put away his books vigilantly, got up with his backpack in his arms, and clenched his fists facing the rickety lifeboat, finally showing a little fear in his eyes.

The setting sun hangs tremblingly on the horizon, leaving only a small spot like a fingernail, but cutting the pier into conspicuous light and dark sides.In this situation, Xia You couldn't help but think of the thrillers that her mother Minako often watched, so she swallowed, and her expression became even worse.

The dustproof cloth on the boat was pulled indiscriminately for a while, and finally slowly slipped off a corner.Xia You stared at that place, and hurriedly touched a broken brick from the ground with his left hand, intending to strike first.

A white light suddenly appeared from the opened corner, Xia You was so startled that he almost smashed the brick on the ground.He stabilized his gaze and looked over again, only to find that it was not white light at all.

On one hand, the skin on the back of the hand is so pale that it almost glistens, the skeleton is still small, and it is estimated that it is not very old.

Xia You suddenly gained confidence, and simply moved to the side of the boat, holding up a brick and ready to shoot down at any time.

The hand groped around the side of the boat for a while, and there were a few small murmurs from the dustproof sheet, which seemed to be complaining.Xia You didn't know where the courage came from, and suddenly reached out and grabbed the lace of the dustproof cloth, and threw it out——

The cabin was exposed to the air, Xia You met a pair of eyes.

The beautiful blue eyes, which are more dazzling than diamonds, are like a handful of stars falling in the deep sea, and the details are full of broken light.

Xia You was stunned, thinking for a moment that she had glimpsed a god.

The young Xia You didn't quite understand the concept of "God".He has only seen this word in endless books: Scholars have always linked it to the ruler who created the "Golden Age", claiming that the gods led mankind out of the cold winter and rebuilt their homes on the frozen permafrost; there are also believers The high walls that surround the five cities in concentric circles are regarded as gods, and they worship this protective net that isolates ice, snow and disasters.

But it is also limited to "seeing". Like the vast majority of people in the world, he has never personally understood the meaning of God.

"Who are you?" He murmured, his expression almost devout. "Who are you?"

Those eyes blinked, and the slender silver eyelashes were like a dense forest, hiding the astonishing diamonds in the mist.

"Who am I?" The boy who was too delicate to be human sat up straight, his blue eyes glanced at Xia You's left hand, and his still immature voice was quite unhappy: "Why don't you put the brick down and talk?"

This overly down-to-earth sentence instantly poured a bucket of cold water on Xia You's head.He withdrew from his mind full of ghosts and ghosts, took a step back calmly, and quickly glanced at the strange boy.

The eyes are pretty, and the face is a little red, but it's gone.

The 13-year-old boy still has no concept of beauty and ugliness—he even thinks that he is ashamed to be haunted by a pair of eyes, so he deliberately puts on airs and tries to save face.

"Okay." Xia You let go, and the brick hit the ground with a crisp sound. "I let it go, you can talk or not."

"Don't blame me for not reminding, trespassing on the pier after sunset is going to enter the confinement room. The same goes for minors."

The other party was not intimidated by him.He glanced at Xia You jokingly, and slowly jumped out of the lifeboat, bending over to wipe off the dust on his body.

Xia You realized that the child was covered in mud.He was probably wearing a white shirt, but now he could barely make out the original appearance of the clothes; not to mention the trousers, the left trouser leg seemed to have been wet with some kind of dark liquid, and rolled all the way to the bottom of the knee.

"What are you looking at?" He noticed Xia You's gaze, and he spread his hands nonchalantly, but his expression was unconsciously stained with disgust, and the flush on his cheeks deepened.

Xia Youjie is very contradictory.He is obedient, but in some respects he is too self-indulgent: the more arrogant you are, the more he wants to hit you, but he can't bear to get up when you are down.

"You don't look very..." He realized that he might be offended by saying this, so he changed the wording: "Do you need help?"

The boy was startled by his attitude of making a 180-degree turn, rolled his standard eyes, and said, "Just you? It's agreed that you can't trespass on the pier after sunset. I don't think you're comfortable staying here, too?"

These words were so unceremonious that they were even a bit rude, but Xia You always felt strange—his tone was too urgent, and every syllable was biting the last sound of the previous word, rather than driving people away, it was more like patience or repressed.

So Xia You was not angry, and said in a slow voice: "Just tell me your name. I told the manager here, and he left at 03:30. He won't check my tracking chip; but you didn't, If you are recognized by the camera, without the old man's voiceprint authentication, you will definitely be reported to the management authority. You have been hiding in the lifeboat for a long time, and you don't look like a registered citizen of the fifth district. If you are checked..."

He paused for a while, then glanced at the other's rubberized shoes, and hesitantly dropped a bombshell: "Could it be that...you came here illegally?"

The boy obviously didn't expect Xia You to ask such a question, and his spread fingers trembled, and he was quickly put behind his back.He pulled out a smile, and still said in a slightly hasty tone: "Are you very good at imagining things, and still smuggling? If you have the ability to go to District [-] in the morning, how can anyone go all the way to District [-]?"

These words were almost denying Xia You's conjecture, but the other party changed his tone and quickly added: "Wujo Wu."

Xia You was taken aback for a moment before realizing that it was his name.

The three words are neither light nor heavy, falling in the last rays of the setting sun, they are also stained with honey color, fluttering past Xiayou's ears.

His fingertips suddenly felt like an electric shock, and even his heart missed a beat.

"Well, my name is Xia Youjie." He tried to ease the strange throbbing, "Xia in summer..."

He couldn't continue because Gojo Satoru suddenly swayed and fell over without warning.

"Hey!" Xia You reflexively went to pick it up, but was sat down on the ground by the other party and fell hard.

He ignored the pain and hurriedly looked down at the person in his arms.Wujo Gojo was about the same height as him, but as light as a feather. His whole body was covered with bony bones, which made Xia You's chest a little blocked.

He reached out to touch the other's face, but it was hot.Startled, only to find that the blush on Wutiao's face was dazzling, and his breathing was much faster than normal.Xia You took a breath.Sure enough, those few words just now were not intentionally rude, but just a stubborn child with a high fever.

Somehow, even though he was only thirteen, he suddenly felt a sense of responsibility towards Wutiao.

I have to take him back.Xia You said to herself.It's a bit pitiful to eat and sleep in the open while sick, and Minako would definitely do the same.

So, the little Xia Youjie began to try to lift an unconscious person.But this was obviously a fantasy—he didn't understand why, it was just that he was stuck in his heart and had nowhere to vent it.

Facts, however, are never swayed by determination.Until the crescent moon climbed into the sky, Xia You couldn't move Wutiao out of the dock.He lowered his head to look at the boy whose face was flushed red, and suddenly there was endless frustration in his heart, and his eyes also turned red.

Forget it, this person is a suspicious smuggler who is neither relative nor reason, so it is better to leave him here and let him die on his own.He gritted his teeth and thought, trying to retract the dense grievances in his heart.

But after all, he is a half-grown child, no matter how precocious he is, there will always be things he can't handle.After suffocating for a long time, Xia You sat down, still clutching Wutiao's collar tightly, but felt a deep sense of burnout for the first time in her heart.

The school is as boring as ever, and the faculty and staff try to fool the children in different ways, just waiting until the end to receive the bonus that is not enough to buy a suit; at noon is the monthly "breathing period", and the engineers startle the whole city with great fanfare , putting the ugliest faces of the Fifth District on the table, accepting praise with half-show half-enjoyment.

Unlike most of his peers, Xiayou knows what is under the ground: apart from the load-bearing structure supporting the surface, there are rolling factories.70.00% of the heavy industry in the fifth human zone is hidden underground in the fifth zone. The chimneys emit exhaust gas day and night, and countless workers run from one end of the production line to the other, like an ant colony flooding the steel forest.

Until Gojo Satoru got out of the lifeboat, white hair and blue eyes like a frightened deer.He seemed to be a god who strayed into the fifth district and blatantly awakened the redundancy that bound Xiayou, so he pushed through the fog and naturally wanted to reach out to catch this beam of light.

At that time, Xia You didn't know how to distinguish such complicated feelings.He just raised his hand and pressed it against his heart through his clothes, feeling that a certain number engraved there was a little hot.

"Value Orientation: 65".

Like all humans living within the Iron Wall, this number was born with it.Only according to the "gene sequence" that is light and flimsy, its linear size determines the social status and living standard of each newborn for the rest of its life, so random that it makes Xia You want to laugh.

At this moment, he was holding five pieces in one hand, and pressing the cold numbers with the other hand, but he saw his long-held dream turned over, and the emerald green sprouts pierced the soil, revealing a little sharp corner.

What's this?Xia You thought dimly.

What is this?

There was a dull rumbling sound, and the sound of mechanical operation came from afar again.The raised eastern half landed slowly, and touched the ground with a loud "click".The rock formations returned to their original positions in perfect fit, the vegetation just covered the cracks, and the surface layer of the fifth area re-extended into a whole piece of land.

The night fell and the temperature plummeted.The moon hangs in the sky, and the wind brings a clear and cold chill.A few seagulls landed on the side of the ferry's mast, and their shrill cries pierced the air and spread far away.

Xia You didn't know how long she had been sitting, and the feeling of hunger and sleepiness came together.He felt the five burning body temperature under his palm, and he didn't understand what was wrong with him.

Suddenly, Xia You heard someone calling him.He responded vaguely, almost being overwhelmed by sleepiness.The sound was getting closer and closer, until the bright flashlight flicked violently, illuminating the field of vision into snow-white.

"Jie!" Minako Yangye appeared from the darkness with an anxious expression on her face: "Where did you go! Why don't you go home at this hour?"

When Xia You saw her mother's face, she suddenly relaxed.

Can't let go.

Before plunged into the sleepy deep sea, Xia You only kept repeating one sentence in his mind.He didn't know if he said it, or Minako didn't come at all, everything was just a fantasy of his hunger and cold;

But he did tighten his fingers, and firmly grasped Wutiao, who was also in a mess.

-TBC-