Chapter 77: Where is person 077?
Yang Jinxia gazed at Chen Xu’s face until he felt a bit uncomfortable and asked her, “Why are you looking at like that?”
“Nothing.”
She bead a smile, one that ca from true inner joy, “I just think that you really are a good person.”
Chen Xu felt sowhat uneasy inside and said, “Hiss, it feels like you’re praising , but sohow, that phrase always makes one feel weird.”
“I an it.”
She rested her chin in her hands and said, “I know, when the constraints of law and morality are lost, and we find ourselves in tough situations, people can beco utterly limitless and capable of doing anything. I’ve always been so grateful that it was you I t. With any other man, my fate surely wouldn’t have been so good.”
“It’s not about whether soone is a good person or not.”
Chen Xu shook his head and, perhaps because he’d kept things bottled up inside for too long, he was especially talkative today, “Let tell you a story.”
“I have a cousin who is two years older than . When I was in the fourth or fifth grade of elentary school, the person I envied the most was him.”
“His mother really doted on him, giving him a lot of pocket money. He bought all sorts of tasty snacks and toys, and often skipped classes to go to internet cafes and play gas. He led a very carefree life. His mom never managed him, and when his dad tried, she would stop him. With his mom backing him, he beca even more brazen in playing hooky.”
“Back then, every holiday, I would hang out with him, snacking and playing around. One weekend night, we were out playing very late, almost midnight, and I wanted to go ho, but he refused. Suddenly, he suggested we start a fire for fun and lit up a bike repair shed by the roadside.”
“The fire grew bigger and bigger, and I was terrified, so I hurried back ho. Because I ca ho so late, my family scolded . That night, I was so scared that I couldn’t sleep at all.”
“Later, I heard from others that it was fortunate the nearby residents noticed early on. They extinguished the fire before it spread too much and prevented greater damage.”
“This incident scared for many months. Afterwards, I secretly asked him why he did it. He said it was just boredom. I simply couldn’t understand. He had so much pocket money, could buy whatever he wanted, skip classes whenever he wanted, and go to internet cafes. That was like living a life of the gods. And yet, he said it was boredom?”
“After that, I beca a bit afraid of him and didn’t hang out with him much.”
“A few years later, he went to high school, and his life beca even more carefree. He hung out with so friends from society, driving around in a small car every day, taking girls out for rides. He had one girlfriend after another.”
“It was only after my middle school exams were over that I heard he was arrested. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised at all; soone like him who ssed around all the ti was bound to run into trouble sooner or later. But what I didn’t expect was the seriousness of his cri.”
“He and so others raped a girl and stabbed her boyfriend. The boyfriend died on the spot.”
“Later, my dad, for so reason, decided to take back ho to visit him at the detention center. My dad asked him why he did it. He was very remorseful and said that they just wanted to have so fun and didn’t expect things to get so out of hand.”
Yang Jinxia listened quietly without interrupting.
After Chen Xu finished speaking in one breath, he smiled and said, “Ever since then, whenever I’m under a lot of pressure, especially tired, and feel like giving up, I think of him and then ask myself, if you let go of everything and do whatever you want, will you be happy?”
“Not necessarily. Even if he had not been caught, I think his life seed pretty empty.”
“Thinking about it that way, life doesn’t seem so tiring after all.”
Having gotten everything off his chest, Chen Xu felt much better. Seeing that she still hadn’t started eating, he said, “Hurry up and eat, or the noodles will get mushy.”
“Okay.” Yang Jinxia picked up her chopsticks and said, “You eat too.”
While eating, she glanced over at Chen Xu.
…
After settling into this refuge, Chen Xu wasn’t as hobound as before. Apart from spending two or three hours a day reviewing materials, he wandered around the rest of the ti.
This place was much larger than the previous refuge, with a total of seven floors structured like a pyramid. The topmost layer was the smallest, and as you went down, each floor was larger.
The top four floors were residential areas, and the bottom three floors were production areas, with various types of factory workshops. The entire refuge was like a miniature kingdom, almost self-sufficient.
However, by now, most people had already left with the rescue team. Apart from the first floor, the remaining six floors had been abandoned.
After getting permission from S01, Chen Xu went down level by level and indeed found quite a few things.
When the people of the refuge left initially, they had no ti to take everything with them. Each room had a lot of items left behind, mainly daily necessities. Occasionally, he also found so electronic items, probably left behind accidentally by the previous owners.
After a few days of exploring, he was almost certain that the only remaining inhabitant of the entire refuge was S01, a single robot. As for humans, there were no signs of anyone. He always rembered that S01 had ntioned a small group of people still remaining here.
So the question arose, where had these people gone?
He asked S01, and it replied that it was confidential, and he didn’t have the clearance to know.
Thus, apart from searching for useful items, he also wanted to find where those people might be.
After nearly a month, he had scoured all six lower floors, checked every room, but to no avail.
On the second floor, in a rather luxurious room, he found a personal terminal resembling a handheld computer. He tried logging in and was successful. It must have been connected to the mainfra.
Within this terminal was a complete map of the refuge. He used this map to search every room.
Although he hadn’t found any people, he did bring back a few useful items.
“Look what I’ve found.”
Upon returning, Chen Xu eagerly went to find Yang Jinxia.
“What is it?”
After a month of recuperation, Yang Jinxia had fully recovered. She was tending to a potted plant in the hall. After Chen Xu went down to the very bottom floor, he had found so soil and brought it back for her, planning to grow so vegetables or sothing similar.
In a month, the vegetables and at they had brought from G5232 were nearly gone. The quality of their food had dropped a notch.
Chen Xu said happily, “Look, three mini at synthesizers. From now on, we won’t have to worry about not having at to eat.”
“That’s great.” Yang Jinxia was also pleased, as having at to eat was indeed good news.
Chen Xu then brought up a serious topic, “I just couldn’t find the people. I’ve searched everywhere, no sign of anyone.”
Yang Jinxia nodded and said, “That ans they could only be in one place now.”
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