【Summer Five】Iron City Wall

Jonny told them that the No. 13 Furnace paid very low salaries to the peripheral employees, but it was better than taking care of board and lodging.Due to the relocation of the black market, most of the entertainment industry that was originally located in this area has moved to the No. [-] melting pot in the opposite direction, resulting in fewer and fewer people working here.

"So there will always be vacant rooms." Jonny walked on the iron-gray corridors of the dormitory, "Basically, the occupancy is not full. I have been here for two months, and no one has moved the vacant rooms."

The centralized dormitory is not far from the factory. The dusty outer wall is six stories high and contains hundreds of rooms.The sound insulation is as expected, and every time you step on a floor, you can easily hear the noisy noise behind a dozen or twenty door panels.Some of them were amplifying the radio, babbling and singing operas from an unknown country, and their shrill and soft voices went straight to Tianlinggai.

Some corridors smelled of cooked food faintly. Jonny explained that some workers bought ingredients from the canteen and went back to the dormitory to cook. However, in the past, no less than dozens of people have caused fires due to faulty circuit boards.

Just five questions, so how do you deal with it?

Jonny scratched his hair shyly, and said: "I know a friend who knows a little about powered armor. He said that the portable stove is convenient and safe, and I have been using it all the time. I happened to cook in advance today. If you don't mind, come here Take a couple of sips."

After speaking, they climbed to the sixth floor and turned into the most remote room.Johnny pointed to 620 and said that he lived in that room, then stood on tiptoe and tried to touch the key from above the porch of 619.

"They're usually placed...here." He jumped several times but couldn't reach it, his face was flushed, he lowered his eyes in embarrassment, and wanted to try again sullenly.

Xia You glanced at Wutiao, who gave a "tsk", stepped forward and stretched his arms to easily touch the door frame, picked up a few at random, and the keys fell into the palm of his hand.

"Just open the door?" he asked.Johnny withdrew his hand, nodded repeatedly, and blushed even more.

The door lock was unscrewed, revealing a dormitory of less than eleven square meters.A bed, matching tables and chairs, and a half-person-high cabinet—standard, not much.

"Then you rest first? I'll come back later." Johnny straightened his messy hair and was about to close the door.Xia You stopped him: "Is there a first aid kit here? Or any medicine for trauma?"

Facing Jonny's instantly worried gaze, he waved his hand and smiled nonchalantly: "Isn't this the first day, we were rubbed by a car on the road and suffered a little injury."

Johnny responded immediately: "No problem, I'll get it now!" After that, he left in a hurry.

The room suddenly fell silent.Xia You walked forward, brushed her index finger on the bed, and wiped off a thick handful of ashes.

"I hope you don't become a clean freak at this pass." After he finished speaking, he leaned against the bedboard and slid to the ground almost exhausted, with a layer of cold sweat dripping from his forehead.The spiritual energy that penetrated the spine and supported the body like an iron rod dissipated instantly, and the composure he pretended to show to outsiders collapsed, exposing the weak and fragile person underneath.

Wujo stood aside, watching him silently.Xia You was not sure if he gritted his teeth, the man hesitated for a moment, and finally sat down on the edge of the bed carefully, with a stinky expression like someone owed him a billion.

It is strange to say that Wutiao looks weak, but his physical fitness is shockingly sound: others have a cut that will last for a week, but he will recover in less than two days.He was the one who was taken away by the phantasy species this time, and he should have been injured more seriously, but compared to Xia You, he looked like a normal person.

"There are some standing medicines here!" The door was pushed open by Jonny in a hurry, "It was given by Miss 503 Glass. You are all right..."

Before he finished speaking, Wu Tiao quickly got up and stood in front of Xia You, the silent coldness on his face was still there.Jonny choked on the unspoken interjection, blinked, a little at a loss.

Xia You, who is used to smoothing things over, was trying to speak, but Wu Tiao covered him tightly, cleared his throat, and put on his sloppy smile again: "Jie is still asking when you will come - thank you, and thank you by the way Pass that Miss Nitzi!"

Johnny: "...No, you're welcome. Well, if you are hungry, you can come to my place and have some food to fill your stomach. Anyway, I am alone..."

The fingers holding the medicine box curled up slightly, Wutiao glanced at Xia You, and his eyes lightly stopped on the side of his neck - there was a slender cut where the bloodstains hadn't dried completely.

"I'll go," he said with crooked eyebrows and a half-smile, "Jie will just stay here and wait."

The door closed, Xia You exhaled slowly, opened the medicine box to disinfect and bandage herself.The extremely traditional iodophors, cotton swabs, and bandages—these things have long been replaced by more efficient creation sprays in the surface world, and it is unexpected that the workers in the big cavity are still using them.At any rate, the disinfecting effect was still there, so Xia You applied iodophor on the wound without blinking, and gritted his teeth when the pain was severe to prevent himself from accidentally injuring his tongue.

The injury on his back could not be treated for the time being, he got up enduring bouts of dull pain, tore off a small piece of fabric from the quilt, slowly moved to the bathroom at the end of the corridor to wash and wet it, and then went back to the room to gently wipe the dusty bed. appliance.

Fortunately, it was just dust, and after repeated cleaning several times, at least it could get into the eyes.

At least the bed should be cleaned, Xia You thought.Wu is a light sleeper, don't fall asleep again tonight.

Soon, Gojo came back with a bento box full of meals.One meat and one vegetable are simple, but they are not monotonous because of the matching of dishes; the edges of the food are decorated with crystal water vapor, and the hot mist is dense, and the appetite can be stimulated only by the appearance.

——It seems that Jonny is a person who knows how to live. His cooking skills are not only first-rate, but also delicious.

"Have you said thank you?" After eating, Xia You put down the chopsticks, intending to return them after washing. "Whether it's good intentions or not, we have been helped by others."

The five legs sat cross-legged on the bed, and they didn't look dirty: "Tell me, do I seem to be such a rude person?" He rested his chin and watched Xia You tidy up the dishes, and asked suddenly : "How is the injury on your back?"

Xia You was stunned for a moment, then smiled: "It's okay, I'm not some noble young master, I'll be fine in a few days." Then a certain tendon immediately felt a throbbing pain, which made him frown calmly, and secretly twitched. gas.

Naturally, this little trick can't be hidden from Wu Tiao.He forced Xia You back on the bed, opened the medicine box with one hand and lifted the clothes with the other, his lips were tightly pressed.Xia You hissed, and turned her head to tell him to act softly, but was blocked by the rare seriousness on Wutiao's face.

Under the shirt were crisscrossed scars and bruises, some of which were still bleeding slightly.Even with the padded garbage heap as a buffer, the injury caused by the rampage of the fantasy species and falling from a high altitude is still not trivial. Not a single soft tissue was injured, and the only thing that is fortunate is that no bones were injured—this means that as long as it is handled properly, It will be all right within two weeks.

Looking at it, Wutiao suddenly stretched out his hand in a strange way, and gently stroked a blue and purple bruise.He didn't use any strength at all, but the fingertips hanging in the air trembled almost invisible, as if he was afraid of adding another stroke to the mottled and intertwined wounds.The gloomy blue accumulated in those eyes, and the waves fainted heavily, mixed with a bit of shock like falling rocks.

When he stared at those wounds, it seemed that his heart also curled up, shivering and sore - just like the hand that dared not let go.

"If you want to cure it quickly, are you going to punish me for this?" Xia You didn't know what this guy was up to, so he didn't move for a long time.

Wujo woke up like a dream, retracted his hand like an electric shock, unscrewed the alcohol and poured it on his back mercilessly.Xia You blurted out a cry of pain, and he immediately slowed down, carefully picking out the foreign object from the wound with medical tweezers, and wrapped him tightly with gauze.

Neither of these two people is a medical professional. Fortunately, they have learned a lot and are complicated, and they are quite handy in dealing with mild trauma.Wu Tiao pulled Xia You's collar to check for any omissions, even a scratch, forcing the latter to raise his hand to ensure that he hadn't made a sudden move before giving up.

"Okay, that's it for tonight."

They borrowed a change of clothes from Jonny, briefly rinsed in the public shower, washed and dried the dirty clothes, and planned to go back to the room and fall asleep.Due to limited conditions, the two of them had to sleep in the same bed again—half of them covered with quilts, sleeping against the wall without insomnia, and making room for the one who couldn't sleep.

The bedding had a musty smell and was as damp as if it had been soaked in water.Xia You tried her best to ignore the discomfort on her body, lay on her side facing the wall, and did not respond to the five words.

"What are you going to do tomorrow?" the other person asked.

They all know that "tomorrow" does not just mean "the next day".

Xia You thought for a while: "I still plan to go to the black market. I didn't expect that there will be a large-scale relocation underground. If the NO.13 furnace is really so lively, we must not just stay here and waste time."

If you want to find a reliable middleman, you have to go to a high-end site.The black market has always been the central axis of commercial settlements. As long as they can get along, there will be no unreachable resources and intelligence.Johnny has provided them with some "startup capital" and will have to support themselves for the rest.

Wutiao muffled a reply, indicating that he had no objection.

The twilight was very heavy, and the only lamp in the room was broken, and the two of them were too tired to fix it.Silence and darkness came together, filling the [-]-square-meter dormitory like a rising tide, dyeing the heavy curtains pitch black.

Xia You was immersed in the viscous night, and belatedly realized a fact: he really fell from the surface of District Five and was in the big void.

From the moment he opened his eyes, he forced himself to think intensively, not to touch any negative thoughts.But when he was lying on the bed and was finally able to catch his breath, the strings in his heart loosened instantly.

How is Minako doing now?The two boys in the family disappeared out of thin air, and just happened to encounter some kind of turmoil in fantasy, so it was impossible for the mother not to think much about it.She must be very anxious, maybe she will call Hong Shu back, and the two of them are looking for someone everywhere like chickens without a head.

There are letters in Dakongkong to contact the outside world, but each letter has to be opened and inspected by the General Administration Bureau.Mistakes like Xia You and Wu Tiao who have no formal status have no way to communicate with their parents on their own.There is nothing they can do but hope that their parents will trust them: that they will survive from a desperate situation.

Having said that, the future is still unknown.The big void is too chaotic and disorderly, and universal concepts are hardly applicable here; the special sense of distance between people forms a deformed social network, and everyone who steps in is applauded and dances with the rules.The road ahead is full of fog, where can the two underage middle school students go?

Xia You let herself wander in the current of panic, fear and uneasiness, knowing that she would not sink there.

——Because as long as he turns over, he can see the messy short silver-white hair of the guy next to him; if he yells, the guy will open his eyes sleepily, showing cat-like impatience.The vast sea and stars are all embellishments, the sky is flowing in his eyes, and the unruly holy blue only opens its arms for Xia You, sending down delicate and gentle grace.

"Jay."

Three sticky syllables rolled down from between the teeth, turning into a breeze around the canyon, gently brushing away his sorrow and fear, like blowing away a cloud.

When he looks into the abyss, Satoru is his unquestionable anchor.

Xia You thought wildly and fell into a deep sleep.