Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 279 Aromatherapy Bottle

"Food coupons..." Sun Hang murmured.

Food coupons are "special tickets" for the quarantine zone. Unlike ordinary towns that adopt a market economy, most of the material supplies in the quarantine zone come from supplies regularly shipped in from the outside world.

This means that the goods that people in quarantine areas can buy are limited.

Except for a few people who have connections with the military and can get some unplanned goods through smuggling channels, for the vast majority of residents in the quarantine zone, once a commodity is sold out, it is gone. Unless they wait for the next supply to be delivered, no matter how much money they have, there is nowhere to buy it.

In order to prevent hoarding, in addition to issuing currency that is common throughout the federation, the quarantine zone will also issue "special tickets" based on a per capita quota. In addition to paying for goods, you also need to use tickets for designated types of goods. There are grain tickets for rice and flour, salt tickets for salt, and even a bicycle ticket for a bicycle.

This is to prevent someone from buying up all of a necessity at once and then selling it at a high price.

Of course, in order to prevent the special tickets from becoming another form of currency, all tickets in the quarantine area are subject to time limits - if they are not used this month, they will become invalid next month.

Invalidated tickets, like the one in Sun Hang's hand, will be stamped with a square red seal with the words "invalidated".

"From a certain day on, there were no more supplies delivered from outside, and the people in charge of the distribution of supplies in the town could no longer contact the army outside. Without food, what was the use of having food coupons?" The old woman said slowly, "But no one dared to leave Maoyun Town... not even the most powerful people in the town dared to. Privileges or smuggled goods are all insignificant matters. As long as you have connections, the garrison will turn a blind eye... But if someone tries to escape the quarantine area, even if this person bribed officers and soldiers the day before, they will shoot him without mercy... This is the bottom line, and no one dares to violate it."

"Time passed day by day," the old woman continued, "and finally the first person in the town died of starvation, and then the second... Someone rushed into the yard of a rich family with a hoe in hand, only to find that even the wealthy families who were usually superior to others in the town were counting grains of rice to survive."

"People gradually realized that something was wrong. Some people said that something might have happened in the outside world and the garrison outside the town had been withdrawn... Rather than starving to death in the town, it is better to try your luck outside."

"This idea was quickly supported by the majority, and a team of more than a dozen young men left the town with a limited supply of food, but they never returned."

"Some say they were killed by the army, some say they betrayed Maoyun Town and fled for their lives, and some say they may have encountered strange creatures outside and died a violent death."

"The town organized a second and third team. The number of people in the team became smaller and smaller, and the rations they could carry became less and less."

“No one who leaves the town can come back.”

"No one was willing to leave the town anymore. People were suspicious of each other. Someone died of hunger every month... At first, families of deceased people would hang a piece of white cloth at the door, and you could hear relatives sobbing at night... But later, even death became a common occurrence, and the number of new white cloths decreased... Either the living people were so hungry that they couldn't even hang a piece of white cloth at the door, or the last living person in the family starved to death."

"It was not until the crazy butcher Zhao who lived at the bridge head walked into his neighbor's house with a butcher knife that the people in the town realized one thing: they still had one last kind of 'food' to eat."

The old woman stopped here. She stood quietly and watched the carnival in the square in silence.

The townspeople ecstatically stuffed the "food" they were given into their mouths, pushing their cheeks hard and chewing it voraciously. They were completely unaware of the smelly blood flowing down the corners of their mouths.

People eat people.

"It's boring. I'm leaving now." Sun Hang waved his hand. "Please show me the way."

"Where are you going?" asked the old woman.

"Go back to where I should be." Sun Hang said, "Someone is waiting for me, and they are probably getting anxious."

"This is where you should come back to... This land is your 'homeland'."

"Do you mean to say that I am a descendant of refugees from Yunnan and Yunnan... or that I was born in the occupied area?"

"I don't know, but the person who brought you here said so." The old woman shook her head slowly.

"The one who sent me here? Who?"

"Don't ask, don't ask..."

"Is her name Anna?"

"..."

"Damn it, I knew it." Sun Hang cursed, "Did that girl tell you why she did this?"

"..."

"Forget it. I guess you don't deserve to know." Sun Hang took a deep breath. "Just tell me how to leave."

"If you want to leave, you can leave at any time." The old woman said calmly, "What you see is what you think... Maoyun Town no longer exists."

Sun Hang looked at the square in front of him, thought for a moment, and then closed his eyes.

When he opened his eyes again, the square had disappeared, the stage had disappeared, and the townspeople who had been queuing to receive "food" had also disappeared.

As far as the eye can see, there are only desolate ruins.

Sun Hang turned his head and looked at the place where the "old woman" had just stood. He saw some white bones occasionally among the overgrown weeds.

"Is this the ruins of Maoyun Town..." Sun Hang looked around, and at this moment, he unexpectedly discovered that all his lost abilities had returned.

Sun Hang felt an itch between his eyebrows, as if something was sticking to it. He reached out and scratched it, and a withered yellow leaf suddenly fell down.

"What is this? 'Blindness'?"

Sun Hang walked forward. All that remained of the stage, which was more than a meter tall, was a circle of ruins surrounded by wooden stakes. On these stakes, one could vaguely see traces of knife and axe cuts, as well as patches of black stains - it was unclear whether they were remaining paint or blood that had seeped deep into the wood.

"Forget it, it's none of my business." Sun Hang stretched out his hand and wiped the wooden stake. "It's just eating people. Any way of eating is eating. At least you know to spit out the bones after eating."

Sun Hang turned and walked out of the town.

Yang Qi's off-road vehicle was still parked in the original position, but the muddy path had long since dried up and was covered with weeds that were taller than his feet. When Sun Hang stepped on it, the dry grass leaves immediately made a series of crisp sounds.

The rusty steel structure sentry tower in the distance was still there, but the "Ganoderma Lucidum" wrapped around the tower had disappeared, leaving only a tattered doll sitting dejectedly at the bottom of the tower with a baton nailed in its hand.

The rubber covering on the outside of the baton has aged and cracked, revealing the rusty steel pipe inside.

Sun Hang walked straight to the SUV, but when he opened the door, he suddenly stopped. The next second, he closed the door again and walked around to the left rear side of the SUV.

There were a few faint fingerprints on the left rear window, and judging by the dust accumulated near the fingerprints, they had obviously been placed there recently.

Sun Hang reached out and printed a few more of his own fingerprints on the car window, and compared them with the original ones - these fingerprints did not belong to Sun Hang.

Yang Qi's car has a small problem, which is that the left rear window is always not closed tightly. You can push the window down by holding it with your hand and pushing it down.

However, considering that Yang Qi seldom puts anything valuable in the car, and in Tianfu City where there are cameras everywhere, no thief who is tired of living would dare to steal a car with the emblem of the Weird Things Research Institute printed on it, so this harmless little problem has never been fixed.

Sun Hang opened the back door, leaned his upper body inside, and began to grope under the back seat.

Soon, he felt a flat, hard object.

He took the thing out - it was an aromatherapy bottle made of glass. The sealing cap was missing, and the seal at the mouth of the bottle was densely pierced with a dozen small holes with something like a toothpick. The inside of the aromatherapy bottle was empty, and no one knew what was originally inside it.

"Given Yang Qi's personality...she probably wouldn't put aromatherapy in the car, right?" Sun Hang pondered.

Yang Qi doesn't wear aromatherapy or perfume, and she hardly wears makeup. She goes in and out of the research institute with a bare face all day long. But it's fortunate that she is naturally beautiful. At least she is not like some Internet celebrities who can transform from a human to a ghost directly with a beauty filter and makeup remover.

Sun Hang had never smelled any fragrance on Yang Qi. Even if there was, it was at most the smell of laundry detergent or shampoo.

As for Sun Hang himself, it is even more impossible for him to buy such a thing.

"Who put this thing in the car?"

Sun Hang weighed the bottle in his hand, and a wonderful idea popped into his mind: Since I can trace the memory of humans, can I trace the memory of dead things?
At the moment this thought came to his mind, a blurry picture gradually emerged in his mind.

The picture was blurry and the camera was shaking badly, but Sun Hang could still recognize that the scene was in the underground garage of the Tianfu City Weird Things Research Institute, where he parked the SUV.

A sneaky figure broke into the picture. The man looked around for a while, walked quickly to the SUV, and pushed down the left rear window with his hand.

Then he took out the aromatherapy bottle from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, threw the bottle through the car window with a quick movement, and then pushed the window back into place.

"Who the hell is this guy?" Sun Hang replayed these scenes over and over again. Sun Hang didn't know the man who threw the aromatherapy bottle into the car... but for some reason, Sun Hang always felt that the man's facial features seemed familiar.

"Can't we go back a little further?" Sun Hang complained.

As soon as he finished speaking, the scene suddenly shifted to an exquisitely decorated study room, and a middle-aged man with sparse hair pushed the door and walked in.

Sun Hang knew this person. He was the Tianfu City Management Committee member who had previously "talked" to him, Lu Hongming.

Sun Hang remembered very clearly that after a series of subsequent events, Lu Hongming was removed from the position of member of the Tianfu City Management Committee and took up an insignificant sinecure - Yang Qi even talked to Sun Hang about this matter. Of course, her main purpose was not to tell Sun Hang that Lu Hongming was demoted, but to warn Sun Hang to try not to threaten a federal government official in that way in the future.

After entering the study, Lu Hongming hesitated for a few seconds, then quickly walked to the desk.

In the center of the desk, there was a package packed in a cardboard box with the words "To Mr. Lu Hongming" written on it in black marker.

"A package for me? Why is it on the desk?" Lu Hongming turned his head to look at the door. From his expression, it seemed that he wanted to call his family, but he gave up the idea the next second. He took out a paper cutter from the pen holder beside him and cut the tape that sealed the carton.

There were only two things in the carton.

There was also an aromatherapy bottle with half a bottle of transparent liquid and a letter inside.

Lu Hongming unfolded the letter.

Although Sun Hang couldn't see the handwriting on the letter from the blurry picture, the content of the letter also appeared in Sun Hang's mind as Lu Hongming read it.

"Hello, Commissioner Lu Hongming.

I have a small favor to ask of you.

Please put this bottle of aromatherapy into an SUV with license plate number XXXXX in the underground parking lot of Tianfu City before XX o'clock on XX month XX day.

There is a fault with the left rear window of this car and it cannot be locked. It can be opened and closed by pushing and pulling it manually.

After doing all this, you will get back everything you lost before. In addition, the hunter named Sun Hang will also completely disappear from your life.

Please do not reject my request, do not trace the source of this letter, and do not take the contents of the aromatherapy bottle for testing, as that will have very bad consequences for you.

Please trust me. "

At the end of the letter, a very detailed bill was attached.

This bill was very strange. Each line only had a date and the names of some items - for example, X month X day, X bottles of XXX liquor; X month X day, a gilded incense burner, two pairs of Hetian jade pendants, etc. Other than that, the origins, destinations and uses of these things were not specified.

But for some reason, after seeing the bill, Lu Hongming's expression suddenly became as if he had lost his parents.

"This bill...could it be a record of your corruption?" Sun Hang was stunned for a moment, and immediately guessed the correct answer.

As for the person who wrote the letter, although it was not signed, Sun Hang had already guessed who wrote it.

Anna Dimoshina.

Although I don't understand why Anna, with her ability, has to ask Lu Hongming to do this, but apart from her, I'm afraid no one else can lure Sun Hang to this place.

Coupled with the brief glimpse of Xu Dasheng's home, this was almost a clear indication.

The person who wrote the letter and provided the aromatherapy was Anna, and the person who carried out this action was most likely Lu Hongming's son... As for the purpose of Anna's doing this, was it just to let herself experience the customs and culture of Maoyun Town?
She seemed to be trying to convey some message to him... Sun Hang recalled the conversation between himself and the old woman. There was one sentence that made Sun Hang ponder.

"This is where you should come back to... This land is your 'homeland'."

(End of this chapter)