Longmen Memoirs

Before he left Victoria, he took a sum of gold coins with him specifically for this purpose.

When Chen Mo came out.

Texas was squatting in front of a shop at the entrance of the alley. The car was parked not far away. She put on the hood of her coat to cover the ears on her head. There was a gray dog ​​in front of her.

She was reaching out and stroking the top of the dog's head.

As if she heard Chen Mo's footsteps, she turned her head, and Chen Mo was looking at him.

Texas stood up, the greyhound crouching at her feet.

"Whose dog?"

"do not know."

"Can't bite?"

"will not."

"I've kept you waiting for a long time, Texas." Chen Mo said, and then asked: "Have you finished shopping?"

Texas pointed to the paper bag placed aside, which contained daily necessities and food.

"Then let's go, let's go to the next city."

"Aren't you going to continue searching?" Texas asked doubtfully. She walked aside and picked up the paper bag.

"No, autumn has arrived, and we still have a long way to go before returning to Longmen."

Chen Mo stood beside her, Texas turned his head slightly and looked up at him beside him.

They were side by side, and all Texas could see was the profile of his face over his shoulder.

"Hmm." She nodded.

The greyhound followed the two quietly until they got into the car, then reluctantly left.

In the rearview mirror, Texas looked at the greyhound left there.

She looked away and glanced at the snake driving the car.

Longmen, she actually didn't have that much expectation for the city Shekou mentioned.

Chapter 42 In Ursus

April 8

Head east along the vast territory of Ursus, leaving the warm and relatively prosperous south.

The weather is getting cold.

As we go deeper into this land, a clear coldness spreads down people's backs.

It was obviously only August, but the land in the northeast of Ursus seemed to have entered winter early. Texas thought that if it were in Syracuse, it might only be the rare snow season that would cause such a chill. .

"What, you feel cold?"

"A bit."

"It's not bad in the south. If we go further north, to Ursus, that area they call the snowfield, where there is snow and frozen soil that never melts all year round. When the temperature is the lowest at night, it can even It feels like the blood in the body can be frozen together."

Snake noticed that the girl in the passenger seat shrank her neck. She put her hands into her coat pockets and buried half of her face in the black scarf wrapped around her neck.

Snake discovered that the wolf did not seem to adapt to this cold weather. Like the lazy Aslan, she easily became sleepy and tired when the temperature dropped.

The temperature began to warm up in the early morning, leaving patches of hazy fog on the car windows.

The car bumped every now and then, running over dirt that had been frozen all night.

"Is this the case with Longmen too?"

"Longmen, well, Longmen is warmer, but Longmen is a mobile city. It will not and will never stay in just one place. Much like us now, Longmen can always find a suitable land for it."

Texas glanced at Snake. His hands were holding the steering wheel without looking at him. Texas' hands that were retracted into the bag tightened slightly.

"You just said, further north."

"what happened?"

"Have you been to Ursus before?"

Snake looked at Texas in surprise.

"……Why do you ask?"

"Ever since we entered Ursus, you seem to have started to act a little strange, um... I mean... I mean, you seem to be thinking about something often. I saw you were in a daze several times, and you mentioned Ursus. When it comes to Sass, you always make people feel..."

She paused in her words, as if she hadn't thought of an adjective yet.

"You think you care too much about this place, don't you?"

Snake took over what Texas had left off, but Texas didn't answer, just focused his gaze on Snake.

"I don't necessarily want to know."

She opened her mouth, but only half of what she said seemed to be half of what she said.

After looking at the snake, Texas looked at the road in front of the car. Chen Mo could only see Luper's side face at the moment he turned his head, her calm side face, and the hanging blue hair. , those eyes that were looking towards him from the corner of his eye.

"It's not like you would say something like this before, Texas." Snake said suddenly.

"Ok?"

"Are you caring about me?"

"..."

"Why didn't you speak?"

"No need to change the subject like this."

"Changing the subject? It's not something that is difficult to talk about." Snake said: "You are right, I have indeed been to Ursus before. This story may be a bit long to tell."

"I do not mind."

"It must have been a long time ago. I remember that I was still young at that time. I had just turned ten and followed a windowless car here. The car was very bumpy and the light was pale and dim. I sat inside and didn't know what time was passing outside. How long has passed, how many days and nights have alternated, and where have we arrived? I think I may have forgotten the existence of time at that time."

Snake said, looking out the window on the road were the woods flashing by on both sides of the road.

His words caught Texas' attention.

Even though Luper didn't turn his head and look at him, Luper didn't interrupt him, just listened quietly.

"You went north to Ursus?" Texas asked.

"How could I possibly know where it was at that time?"

Snake tapped his index finger on the steering wheel, and he replied matter-of-factly: "It doesn't make any difference to me whether it's north of Ursus or somewhere else. I just remember that the snowstorm was so heavy that day that it was so heavy that people couldn't keep their eyes open. When I opened my eyes, I couldn't see the road clearly. The snow was very deep, deep and cold, as if my feet were stuck in and I couldn't lift them up anymore."

"There were several children about my age in our car, and we followed a man into the snow. This was the only way for us to survive, but the man in front of us didn't even think about stopping and waiting for us. I I also knew that he would not stop and that if I failed to keep up with him, I would be buried in the snow.”

Snake paused for a moment, as if recalling something, and then continued:

"The snow is too cold, Texas. When it pours into the shoes, it turns into ice before it can be melted into water by the body temperature. The steps become heavier and heavier. Each step takes more effort than the last one. With every step I took, I could feel my body getting colder and heavier."

"I think it won't be long before I fall down. I think I'm not willing to die in the snow like this. I think I can take one more step, one step after another, even if the man is no longer visible in front of me. , even though I don’t even know which direction I should continue walking in, but when I look back, there is nothing behind me.”

"I can't see the faces sitting in the same carriage with me, and I can't see the footprints I left. Even if I want to look back, there's no trace. In fact, I only have one way to go, unless I want to be buried. In the snow, frozen to death, I could only move forward, even though I didn't know how long I had to go, and I didn't know how long I could hold on. Even in Texas, maybe I didn't even know what I was doing at that time. I didn’t think about this, maybe at that time, there was only a blank in my mind, and I was just moving forward numbly.”

Texas didn't answer.

After a while, she suddenly whispered: "But you survived."

"I survived."

"Then?"

"Later, after walking through the blizzard, I saw the man again. He was waiting in front of a black wall. The wall was very high and the door was very wide. There was a small gap, and there was a warm light in the gap. Snake, I walked over, but he didn't seem to see me, and let me walk in." Snake smiled: "Looking back now, when I just came out of the snow and saw that wall, I felt a surge of emotion in my heart. I felt a little thankful that I had survived, and I even thought that this difficult disaster was over."

"But no, no, I should say it has just begun." Snake said: "But even if it has just begun, what does it have to do with me at the time? At that time, I felt that as long as I am still alive, this is enough. ”

"I killed the first person in there, and then I was trained and they transformed me into the person they wanted me to be."

"why?"

"Who knows why? There are always many reasons, but sometimes reasons are not needed. For example, if you kill someone on a whim, do you think you need a reason to do so? No, Texas, people don't need it when they crush insects. We don’t need a reason, we won’t say sorry to them, we won’t even feel that we are doing something wrong, but in their eyes, we are just bugs.”

Snake said:

"So none of us bugs have ever asked them why, because we know that our lives are not in our own hands, and we also know that we can only survive if we obey."

"I'm very good, or rather, I understand this truth very quickly, so among us people, I have a lot of blood on my hands, and human life is about this, Texas, kill After there are more people, I don't care about these anymore. I don't care about other people's life and death. Of course, in fact, we are all the same in this point. Because of this, I am slowly becoming like the man I saw when I came here. Slowly become them, ha.”

He smiled silently, and the smile on his face made Texas feel far-fetched, because there was no warmth in the smile, only coldness, coldness and self-deprecation.

"No, you are different from them..." Texas suddenly said, and she didn't know why she came up with this idea.

Her voice rose much higher.

After saying this, I was stunned.

The snake turned to look at her. Texas met the snake's gaze and looked away slightly.

"Why are you so sure that I'm different from them? Because I saved you, or because you haven't seen with your own eyes how I kill people?"

"Well……"

Texas didn't think about how to answer. She thought about it for a while, and just when she opened her mouth to say something, Snake interrupted him.

"Thanks, but Texas, but the people who died there by my hands, they don't think so."

"...You don't think so either?" Texas asked in a low voice.

"Me? I don't regret what I did to survive, and I don't care how others look at me. I can't die for the opinions of those insignificant people. Of course they can say that, whatever they want I think, no matter how you look at it, it has nothing to do with me, but they are not involved in it, but when they stand on the opposite side of me, I will not be soft on them."

Chen Mo, who said this, never thought that one day the irrelevant person in his mouth would change, just as he never imagined another life when he was living for this.

He was indeed soft-handed, and he couldn't help but be soft-hearted.

"..."

"Do you think I'm a cold-blooded person?"

After quieting down, Texas didn't answer when Snake suddenly made a sound.

"Because I am a snake, Texas. Snakes are cold-blooded creatures. Unless the sun shines on it, the short-term warmth cannot stay on it for a long time."

"Do you want to continue listening?"

"..."

"I am listening."

"Where did it go?"

"...You said you were slowly turning into them."

"Yes, I gradually became them, and later we were divided into groups, but I was not happy to see this kind of change that I couldn't stop, because I felt that I could survive on my own."

Snake said that the car drove onto a relatively flat dirt road, and finally could see wheat fields and scattered houses along the way. A broadcast sounded from the car radio, which meant that they had entered the radiation range of the mobile city signal.

Snake raised his hand and turned off the broadcast.

"I have a teammate. He is an Ursus. Although he is of similar age, he is very tall and strong. Contrary to his size, he has a weak personality. He is not willing to kill people, but you have to I know that there is no way to survive without killing people, so of course his hands were stained with blood, but he is different from me. He only felt scared and regretful after killing people. He did not realize his situation and also People who are not accustomed to their own experiences will not live long, but unfortunately, my life and his life are tied together."

"Because of his delay, I had to face two opponents alone, and at the same time, I had to worry about his life and death. I felt that I would be killed by him one day, so I thought of a way. I lied I lied to him and said, you don’t want to kill, but you will kill me. What’s the difference between this and you killing me? I lied to him and said, he doesn’t need to kill, I will kill for you, I will kill for you. You bear this crime." Snake's voice became lower and lower, "I took advantage of his kindness, Texas, even though he may know this in his heart, but I helped him find an excuse to convince himself, I was quite proud at that time, but I thought it was nothing more than that, this guy was simply stupid and hypocritical."

Snake's words suddenly stopped.

After a brief pause, he sighed softly.

"It's stupid and hypocritical." He said: "We were sent out to deal with the infected, just like Ursus' attitude towards the infected. We cleared... and massacred the entire infected gathering point. Those people were short of clothes. With little food, hunger and cold, and fleeing into the wilderness to survive, we killed them all, killing them all without any effort."

"If there really is such a thing as destiny, maybe at that time, it had already mapped out the future script for me. Among those people, there was a small group of people who migrated from Kazdel to Sarkaz in Ursus due to the war. The infected in the stronghold are alive because of them, but they also died in our hands."

"Later, from then on, he suddenly told me that he wanted to kill someone. I was surprised at the time because I didn't understand why he thought so, so I asked him if he would kill someone. He told me no, but he You can learn." Snake said: "After he came back, he kept talking. He said a lot about himself, but I didn't listen. I didn't listen to what he wanted to tell me. He talked about his past, and I have nothing to do with my past."

"Originally, he was a person who liked to laugh, Texas, with that silly smile. I couldn't imagine how he could smile in our lives, but suddenly one day, when he no longer looked like I'm familiar with that kind of smile, but I don't like it, and when he learns how to use his advantage to kill people, I feel like there's something wrong."

"I can't describe the feeling, but the tacit understanding between us has become more and more, and the chance of our survival has become greater and greater. I have never thought that I will be killed by him one day. Maybe he is using this This is a way to respond to my original deception on him, or maybe he just recognized the reality."

Snake said, he raised his head slightly, the sky above his head was gloomy, as if it was about to start snowing.