This hot air balloon thing, to move in a direction, can only rely on the airflow in the air.
Experienced pilots will continuously adjust the height of the hot air balloon to achieve adjustments in direction.
But without a doubt, Lu Bai has almost zero experience in this aspect.
He can only go wherever the wind blows.
……
The sun slants westward, the remaining sunlight like blood.
On the country road, two figures one behind the other, with a somewhat travel-worn look.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” Yao Yi thumped his thighs twice and couldn’t help asking.
The landing position of the hot air balloon was very undesirable, falling into a very remote mountain gully.
“Have a bit of patience.”
Lu Bai smiled and pacified him.
While the hot air balloon was drifting with the wind in the air, he had paid attention to observing the scenes on the ground.
Continuing along this road, it shouldn’t take long to see a small county town.
Yao Yi sighed, his expression slightly puzzled: “Why don’t we just call for rescue directly?”
“Then how do you explain your girlfriend’s death? Tell the rescue personnel that your girlfriend turned into a monster?”
Lu Bai slightly slowed his steps, glanced at Yao Yi, and continued to add: “And have you forgotten that the monster is still inside you?”
As soon as these words came out, Yao Yi’s expression froze, and he subconsciously reached out to touch his chest.
They walked silently for another stretch of road.
He took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth: “There are other reasons too, right? You definitely have secrets on you.”
“Sort of.”
Lu Bai nodded, and Long Fang appeared in his hand out of thin air, flipping his wrist like juggling, and that slender katana disappeared again.
In fact, the weapons obtained from the armory can all be actively stored away.
It’s just that this portability benefit can only be enjoyed by the original owner of the armory; even if others snatch the weapon, the system won’t provide this storage function.
This point could be somewhat glimpsed from Fan Ding taking out a sword out of thin air in the previous deathmatch duel and the two-person group casually giving away a gun in the supermarket.
Lu Bai was quite satisfied with this function; after all, a strange weapon like Long Fang, if carried around all the time, would really be a bit conspicuous.
Watching a katana over two meters long appear and disappear repeatedly, Yao Yi sincerely exclaimed: “No matter how many times I see it, it feels amazing.”
Beep beep~
The harsh horn sound of a truck came from afar, not very clear, but not ignorable either.
“Did you hear that?” Yao Yi asked uncertainly.
“Yeah, looks like we’re almost there.”
……
Jiangyu County.
A small county town with a resident population of less than 100,000.
Due to being only about half an hour’s drive from the urban area, the young people in the county town naturally all choose to work and live in the large city.
The result is that elderly people over sixty account for more than half of the county town’s resident population.
And in county towns like this, night always lasts a bit longer.
Just as the sun sets, there are already few pedestrians on the streets; the dilapidated streetlights emit dim yellow light, carrying a sense of indescribable desolation.
A young woman in her early twenties rode an electric scooter slowly past the intersection and stopped in front of a scrap recycling shop at the northernmost edge of the county town.
Woof, woof woof!
A two- or three-year-old Chinese rural dog saw its owner and started barking eagerly from far away, but was tied by a rope and unable to pounce.
“Hee hee, Pudding, did you miss sister?” Tong Shujuan squatted down and began vigorously rubbing Pudding’s head.
However, unusually, this mongrel dog did not show affection as usual, but instead continued “woof woof woof” barking, with the sound getting louder and louder.
“What’s wrong, Pudding?”
Tong Shujuan felt a bit strange, looked around, and then noticed there was no leftover rice in the dog bowl nearby: “Oh, you’re hungry.”
Creak~
At that moment, the side door was slowly opened.
Several elderly people walked out of the house, all looking at Tong Shujuan expressionlessly.
Among them, one man and one woman were Tong Shujuan’s parents; although these elderly people appeared silently in a somewhat anomalous way, she didn’t think much of it.
Still squatting by the dog, she looked up and asked: “Mom, did you forget to prepare dinner for Pudding?”
However, no one answered her; everyone just quietly watched her.
The mongrel dog barked even more fiercely, even baring its teeth at these elderly people.
“Wha… what’s going on?” Tong Shujuan gradually felt that the situation seemed off.
The several elderly people exchanged glances with each other, then started conversing as if no one else was there.
The first to speak was Tong Shujuan’s mother, her tone sounding very stiff: “We need, younger, bodies.”
“Who of you, will switch?”
“I need to change.” The old woman who looked at least seventy said.
“Okay.”
Tong Shujuan’s father affirmed: “Juan, Juan, come inside.”
This scene of their conversation fell into Tong Shujuan’s eyes, making her involuntarily feel a chill down her spine.
Especially some words in the elderly people’s speech made her scalp tingle repeatedly, and even her speech uncontrollably trembled: “You… you’re joking with me, right?”
“No joke.” Her father said so.
These were clearly her own parents, why did they feel so anomalous?!
Tong Shujuan mustered courage and asked: “Then why are you talking like this?”
Hearing this, the several elderly people looked at each other.
“She noticed, doubt.”
“Not, natural enough.”
“This language, hard to learn.”
While speaking, the several people closed in on Tong Shujuan.
Seeing this, Tong Shujuan took out her mobile phone, pressed 110 on the dialing interface, and showed the phone screen to the several elderly people.
She was both panicked and scared, her voice faintly carrying a sobbing tone: “If you’re joking with me, stop it now!”
The elderly people ignored her, stiffly closing in on her.
At this moment, this silent scene appeared exceptionally terrifying in Tong Shujuan’s eyes.
Scared to the point of trembling all over, she couldn’t even hold her mobile phone steady: “Enough… stop!”
At that moment, a mild voice suddenly rang out.
“Sorry to interrupt, I’d like to ask if there’s a restaurant nearby?”
Lu Bai curiously looked at the situation at the scrap yard.
As the saying goes, mountains look close but tire horses to death; he and Yao Yi had seen the county town at dusk, but by the time they actually arrived at this small county town, it was completely dark.
Standing at the intersection, he and Yao Yi looked around; most of the shops along the road were closed, only one general store still had lights on, but no one was seen around the general store to mind the shop.
In this case, even though the situation at the scrap yard next door seemed a bit off, Lu Bai still decided to speak up and inquire.