Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong didn't react immediately until the people on the two bicycles saw them.
Clang, clang, the two people, each carrying a rifle, directly abandoned their bicycles, rolling and leaping to hide behind nearby obstacles.
Seeing this, Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong finally woke up and stopped simply raising their assault rifles warily and reflexively. They quickly dove to the side, using the two pillars at the entrance of the hospital to shield themselves.
The scene became extremely quiet for a moment, with only the occasional sound of birds chirping from afar.
Seeing that Long Yuehong seemed to want to pick up the walkie-talkie, Shang Jianyao raised his voice and shouted across the space:
"We have no malice!"
After a brief silence, a slightly hoarse voice, as if with phlegm in its mouth, came from the other side:
"Neither do we!"
Shang Jianyao immediately responded:
"Perhaps we can exchange information!"
After a few seconds, the other side shouted:
"This kind of communication doesn't seem very convenient!"
"Then we'll get a little closer!" Shang Jianyao suggested loudly without thinking.
The two on the other side were whispering to each other behind the obstacles, but because of the distance, Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong couldn't hear the specific content clearly.
In less than a minute, the other side responded:
"Okay!"
Upon hearing this, Shang Jianyao turned his head and said to Long Yuehong:
"I'll go first, you follow, provide support and protection."
"Okay." Long Yuehong released his right hand from the gun handle and made an okay gesture.
Shang Jianyao didn't try to get the other party to leave their hiding place first. He held his assault rifle and left the pillar step by step, his muscles tense.
During this process, he was highly vigilant, ready to pounce and roll at any time.
Seeing that he showed sincerity, one person on the other side also came out, in the same guarded posture.
This person was in his thirties, about 1.7 meters tall, wearing a slightly shriveled, dirty, deep blue knee-length down jacket with three or four patches. His hairline was severely receding, balding quite a bit.
His hair was light yellow, his eyes were light blue, and his facial features and contours were deeper, with obvious differences from Shang Jianyao, Long Yuehong, and others, clearly belonging to the Red River race.
Perhaps because of his long-term activities in the wilderness, this person's skin had many dry cracks, and his fingernails were obviously black.
He gripped his rifle tightly, closing the distance with Shang Jianyao meter by meter.
After they entered a range suitable for conversation, Long Yuehong and the remaining person on the opposite side left their hiding places and moved closer to their companions.
"What's your name?" The bald man, like before, spoke in Ashlands language, which was the native language of Shang Jianyao and others, not Red River language.
While speaking, he didn't relax, still highly vigilant.
"Shang Jianyao," Shang Jianyao replied calmly, "A formal Ruins Hunter, what about you?"
Long Yuehong, who originally wanted to answer first, immediately breathed a sigh of relief—he was very afraid that Shang Jianyao would "act up" at this time. After all, they weren't acquaintances, and no one could appreciate or tolerate his "humor."
The bald man thought for a moment and said:
"Harris Brown, Intermediate Hunter."
He didn't show his Hunter badge, nor did he ask Shang Jianyao to show his, because this was in the ruins. There were no special machines to read the information in the chip, and it was impossible to confirm the true owner of the badge and the corresponding credit level. In the wilderness, many people would casually register for a Hunter identity or obtain corresponding items from the corpses of enemies. Simply having a badge didn't represent anything.
—The technology of engraving names on badges was too primitive and very easy to imitate. Most importantly, the person holding the badge could completely choose to report the name on the badge instead of their real name.
This conversation between Harris Brown and Shang Jianyao was actually closer to "small talk," used to set the atmosphere.
Shang Jianyao glanced at Harris Brown's companion, and found that it was a woman, about 1.6 meters tall, with quite ordinary facial features.
Her flaxen hair hung down naturally, just reaching her shoulders, and she wore a beige beret that had been washed relatively clean.
"You don't seem to have gained much?" Shang Jianyao shifted his gaze back to Harris Brown.
Harris Brown replied without much of a smile:
"We're just passing by, spending a little time trying. It's normal not to gain anything.
"In this ruin, it's already very difficult to obtain supplies without suitable equipment.
"Is this your first time here?"
"Yes." Shang Jianyao answered frankly, and then asked, "Did you also take on that mission to find the black-haired, golden-eyed guy?"
Harris Brown nodded slightly:
"I'll give you a piece of advice, for a fee:
"Give up on this mission. Things have been very uneasy north of Yuelu Station recently."
"Is it related to the anomalies in the depths of the swamp? You heard the roar that night, too, right?" Shang Jianyao pressed.
Harris Brown's expression gradually became serious:
"Yes, we were north of Yuelu Station at that time.
"After dawn, we continued forward and found several corpses, corpses that had only been dead for a few hours.
"These corpses didn't have any fatal injuries, but their expressions were very distorted, some showing pain, some full of fear, and some seeming to be smiling, smiling very terribly."
Long Yuehong felt goosebumps all over his body, and his scalp tingled slightly, but this feeling was quickly dispelled by Shang Jianyao's question:
"No fatal injuries... what about the clothes, are they still there?"
What the hell kind of question is that... Long Yuehong couldn't help but mutter to himself.
Harris Brown's expression stalled slightly:
"No.
"Obviously, someone discovered the corpses before us and took all the items."
"Professional." Shang Jianyao praised, making Harris Brown feel a little out of sync with the conversation.
He took a silent breath and continued:
"Sigh, they didn't even leave the hair behind, otherwise I could have gotten a wig. In short, after seeing those corpses, we gave up on the mission and headed back all the way, not daring to rest much. We just arrived here an hour ago."
"Pretty fast." Shang Jianyao commented casually.
Harris Brown didn't turn his head:
"We're riding bicycles, which can use some of the small paths in the swamp, while cars and motorcycles can't pass through and can only detour."
Shang Jianyao nodded lightly:
"One last question.
"Are there any other Ruins Hunters or wasteland wanderers here?"
"There are a few others, but with your equipment, as long as you don't actively attack them, they won't provoke you either." Harris Brown's head reflected some light in the sunlight.
Shang Jianyao asked as if pondering:
"What if we didn't have these weapons?"
Harris Brown's face suddenly twisted slightly:
"In the Ashlands, weakness is the original sin."
His eyes became a little fierce, revealing some undisguised hatred.
Without waiting for Shang Jianyao to ask further, he exhaled and let his expression return to normal:
"It's my turn to ask.
"This is the reward that needs to be paid for that piece of advice."
He didn't really expect Shang Jianyao to answer for sure, not to be unreasonable. Anyway, the information contained in that piece of advice wasn't really that valuable, because many Ruins Hunters who had withdrawn had more or less discovered anomalies.
Besides, this had already happened more than a day ago, and it would take at least a day or more to get from here to north of Yuelu Station. So, even if Harris didn't offer the advice and let the two people opposite him go, they probably wouldn't be able to catch up with what happened.
"Can I pay with something else?" Shang Jianyao released his left hand from holding the assault rifle magazine and reached into his clothes pocket.
"We'll have to see." Harris Brown and his companion suddenly raised their vigilance, afraid that Shang Jianyao would take out something dangerous.
Shang Jianyao quickly pulled out two small bags of compressed biscuits and showed them.
—This was originally supposed to be part of his ruins lunch.
"...Very good, you're very generous." Harris Brown didn't expect the other party to be willing to exchange food.
This could barely allow them to deal with a meal.
Shang Jianyao then threw the two small bags of compressed biscuits over.
Harris Brown and his companion didn't catch them, letting the two small bags of compressed biscuits fall to the ground.
This was because they were afraid that the other party would open fire while they were catching the biscuits.
"Talk to you later." Shang Jianyao showed a smile, as if saying goodbye to a friend.
He and Long Yuehong immediately walked step by step towards the gate of the steel factory ruins, not relaxing their vigilance against Harris Brown and his companion.
The other party did the same.
After the distance between the two sides became large enough that it was impossible for even a sharpshooter to hit them, Harris Brown had his companion pick up the compressed biscuits and pushed the two bicycles over.
After watching the two ride their bicycles out of the ruins, Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong, holding their assault rifles, looked around the square outside the gate.
"The outside should be the residential area. Should we search here first, or inside?" Long Yuehong asked hesitantly.
Shang Jianyao didn't look at the rows of "green" buildings on both sides of the square that were either collapsed or dilapidated. He pointed to the gate and said:
"Inside first, to figure out the basic layout."
"Okay." Long Yuehong didn't object.
The two then passed through the iron-black gate that could accommodate multiple cars side by side.
"It seems that there is a limit to the Ruins Hunters. This gate hasn't been cut apart and moved away." Long Yuehong looked back and exclaimed.
Shang Jianyao followed his gaze:
"Maybe it's not worth it."
They stopped talking and walked along the wide but dilapidated road into the depths of the steel factory.
On the right side, there was a row of very tall, wide bungalows. Unlike the bungalows in the hospital outpatient area, there were no walls separating them into small rooms. There were only pillars marking the divisions.
In some of the rooms without left and right walls, there were still grooves that people could stand or lie in.
"What is this place?" Long Yuehong asked puzzled.
Shang Jianyao shook his head:
"I don't know. But, don't you think it would be very convenient to repair the bottom of a car if you stood in those grooves?"
"This is the repair area? The side is equivalent to a garage?" Long Yuehong suddenly realized. "Remember to mark it later."
On the left side of the road, there were ponds that emitted a stench, groups of trees spaced close together, and small buildings hidden in the depths of the greenery.
Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong temporarily ignored these places and delved deeper into the factory area step by step.
Before long, they arrived near the towering "chimneys" and saw many steel supports and rough buildings standing around.
Giant dragon-like iron-black large pipes slid down from somewhere on the "chimneys" to different places, and the angles weren't too steep.
These pipes weren't closed, seemingly the remaining half after a circular shape was horizontally cut open.
Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong entered this area, walking up and down along the road, traveling through the rusty steel forest.
Soon, there were incomplete guardrails on the edge of the road, and outside was a pool full of rainwater, it was unknown what it was used for.
Because there was shelter from above, only a little sunlight could shine in, and the surroundings seemed very gloomy and dim.
In addition, no sound was coming, and it was completely silent, Long Yuehong became more and more frightened.
He couldn't help but say:
"Didn't you say there were other Ruins Hunters? Why haven't we met any?"
Shang Jianyao glanced at him:
"It doesn't seem very auspicious to say such a thing at this time."
As soon as he finished speaking, a clang sounded from above.
A black shadow fell quickly, collided with some of the steel supports and building outcroppings, and then crashed heavily not far ahead.
This was a human, his body already had some damage, and blood was quickly flowing out.
At this time, the clang was still echoing in this area, not completely subsided.
Before Long Yuehong and Shang Jianyao could react, they saw a figure walking from the corner of the road ahead.
This figure was a little taller than Shang Jianyao, and his entire body was made up of a black metal skeleton. His left arm held a grenade launcher, and his right palm had a flame nozzle and a laser emission hole.
"He" was wearing a tattered yellow monk's robe, with a bright red kasaya draped over it, and had a pair of red glowing eyes on his face.
ps: Asking for recommendation tickets~