The Third Winter Soldier

USA, Las Vegas, autumn.

Lilith casually stroked the broken hair on her forehead, wrapped her thin coat around her body with both hands, strode across the intersection, and stood in front of the newsstand across the street. I searched on the Internet, looked up, and said to the old man who was reading the news on his mobile phone: "Give me a copy of today's newspaper!"

The old man at the newsstand raised his head to look at her, nodded, then put down his mobile phone, quickly took a copy of the daily newspapers published by each newspaper office, and handed them over.

"Thank you!" Lilith handed him the money, tucked a roll of newspaper under her arm, and turned to leave.

The old man at the newsstand sent Lilith away, muttering, "Strange girl."

At this time, Lilith had already walked quickly through the busy street and turned into a deserted alley. She didn't know anything about the feelings of the newsstand old man, and of course, she was not interested in knowing.She walked for a long time in this long alley, and stopped at the end of the alley. She raised her head and took a look. There was no cloud in the sky, and the blue color was easy to make people feel happy. After removing her broken hair, she tilted her head and stared at the sky for a long time before continuing to walk.

An old house is hidden in the depths of this small alley. It is a two-story wooden building surrounded by high-rise buildings. There are still some paint left on the gray facade, but these are hard to identify Its original color has been revealed, and where the paint has dried and peeled off, the original color of the blackened wood inside has already been exposed. A signboard that looks like a house is casually hung on the porch, which reads: Caesars Hotel.

Lilith casually pushed open the door of the hotel with a newspaper in her arms. A man wearing a black peaked cap and a black leather jacket, carrying a black backpack, was hurrying out with his head bowed. His pace was extremely fast. , Lilith was hit by his arm before she could dodge, the guy's arm was as hard as iron, forcing the newspaper under her arm to fall to the ground with the impact.

However, the man just raised his head, glanced at her without emotion, and continued to walk out quickly without stopping at all.

Lilith turned her head to look at his back, her brows twitched, resisting the urge to catch up, and leaned over to pick up the newspapers scattered all over the floor. On the front page of the newspaper, different headlines were used to describe the same piece of news: A congressman was mysteriously murdered, and only black shadows were captured on surveillance.Suddenly, her eyes fell on one of the newspapers. Unlike other newspapers, this newspaper provided a surveillance screenshot for the news, and simply posted a police reward notice under it.

Lilith raised her head thoughtfully, looked at the alley where the man disappeared, with a smile on her lips, stood up slowly, and murmured: "I'm sorry, why didn't you apologize!" She walked into the hotel.

There is a dark brown old-fashioned counter at the entrance of the hotel, which is more than half a person tall. Behind the counter, there is a cabinet of the same color against the wall, which is divided into seven horizontally and vertically. A total of 49 small squares are used to store the cabinets of each room in the hotel. Keys, and safekeeping of guests' belongings.In the recliner under the cabinet, the plump hotel owner was watching a movie with his feet up and an ipad.

Lilith walked to the counter, knocked on the countertop, and said, "Hey, Caesar."

Romeo*Caesar pressed pause on the phone slowly when he heard the sound, raised his eyelids to look at it, seemed dissatisfied with being interrupted while watching a movie, and asked blankly: "Oh, what's the matter?"

"Did you notice the man who went out just now?" Lilith asked.

"A man? Which man? I don't know." He said impatiently, "Okay, what do you want?"

"You don't know? I think you'd better know." Lilith smiled, showing her white teeth, leaned closer to the counter, and said in a low voice, "You said, if the FBI knows the suspects they are looking for all over the street, they will hide here , You said that this small hotel of yours can still be kept?"

Caesar was stunned, looked at her blankly, and asked suspiciously: "What suspect? You mean the one who went out just now?"

Lilith raised her eyebrows and looked at him silently.

Caesar put down his phone and walked to the counter, his expression became a little uneasy, "Are you serious? What did that person do?"

"When did he live here?" Lilith didn't answer, but asked him, "How many days does he plan to live here?"

Caesar stared wide-eyed, looked at Lilith, and swallowed, "This morning, no, no, early morning, around two or three o'clock? What did he do?"

"How long does he plan to stay?" Lilith continued to ask.

"I don't know." Caesar shook his head, "He gave me about a week's worth of cash, but he didn't specifically say how long he would stay." He looked at Lilith nervously, "He, what did he do? Can you cannot……"

Lilith looked at him with a smile and said: "You will know soon, dear Mr. Caesar, but before that, I suggest you be more careful, because that is a villain who does all kinds of evil, you can Be careful, the most important thing is, don't call the police recklessly, the other party is not an idiot, if you are noticed by him, I don't guarantee that he will do anything to you!" Her eyes were quite Han looked around the dilapidated hotel meaningfully.

Caesar accurately received her meaning, and involuntarily looked around his hotel. He didn't know what to think of, and he shuddered fiercely, and said in a low voice: "I, I must keep my mouth shut! Never let that person See something! But..."

"That's good, don't worry about anything else, I'll take care of it." Lilith glanced at him, "By the way, do you have a letter from me today?"

"No, no." Caesar looked at Lilith nervously. However, after Lilith got the answer, she took the newspaper and walked up the creaking stairs slowly, leaving Caesar after being threatened by her. He swallowed again, and glanced outside the hotel door, "I hate all the bad..." He slammed his mouth shut and sighed sadly.

Lilith closed the door of her room, threw the newspaper on the bed, walked into the bathroom, and stopped in front of the crude and yellowed sink. She turned on the tap and scrubbed her hands carefully, and then let the water wash over her. After a long time without dirty hands, she raised her eyes to a small round mirror on the wall as she pointed her hands. out her face.

Lilith looked at herself in the mirror. She had light chestnut hair, thin cheeks, and dark brown eyeballs. In the dim light, she looked no different from black. She turned off the tap, shook her hand, and took a towel from the side. Pulling off the towel from the rack, she wiped her hands, brushed the hair that had fallen from her cheeks to behind her ears, looked at herself in the mirror again, and twitched the corners of her mouth, and Lilith in the mirror twitched her mouth as well. She sighed softly, and murmured: "It seems that I won't be able to adapt to you for a while." After finishing speaking, she casually threw the towel on the shelf.

On Lilith's bed, in addition to the roll of newspapers she threw up just now, there are also many old newspapers that she has read in a mess at the head of the bed. Those newspapers look crumpled and seem to have been ravaged Then it was smoothed out again.She took off her shoes, climbed onto the bed and sat down, casually picked up a newspaper and read it.

There is nothing new in the newspapers every day, with the same social emergencies, strange entertainment news, and watery financial information. Lilith flipped through it boringly, threw it on the bedside, and then picked up another one. Start browsing.

I don't know how long I'll have to buy this crap!Lilith thought gloomily, and accelerated the flipping speed in her hands.She didn't know why she kept buying newspapers and reading information that she wasn't interested in at all. She was controlled by some strange subconscious mind, and it seemed that buying newspapers had affected her life and death.No, no, she stopped reading. It is money that affects life and death. She has to make money to support herself. Lilith thought so, then grabbed the newspaper with the police reward notice on the front page, and read it carefully. Once again, staring at the surveillance screenshot for a long time, nodded secretly, and said to himself: "Well, 1000 US dollars, you can get it if you provide clues, very good!"