At the front of the group is a young woman dressed in black. She has short hair, wears a thin black cotton jacket and seems to be afraid that Tang Mo will shoot again, as she holds her hands up firmly to show that she means no harm. She is followed by a short, slim young man. Both men were similar in size and both stepped out of the large rock where they were hiding with their hands raised.
In this kind of farmland, there is no way to gather the sound, and many subtle sounds are swallowed up by the wind. Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo had been concentrating on practising their guns, and as they were hiding quite far away, they had not spotted them at first.
Tang Mo scanned the two men coldly, looking them up and down before turning his head towards Fu Wenduo. The two men nodded, making sure the man and woman were no threat.
Fu Wenduo loosened his grip on Tang Mo, who put the pistol in his handbag. They didn't come any closer, they just watched the pair from a distance. Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo didn't say anything, but they were getting a bit restless when the short-haired woman said first, "So ... you believe we're harmless?"
Fu Wenduo did not answer. Tang Mo said faintly, "No." After a pause, he added, "Didn't believe it."
The woman's face froze and she looked over at her companion. The man explained, "Here's the thing, we live in a house not far from here. She is my sister, my name is Wang Wenhao and hers is Wang Wenjuan. We both grew up in this town. After we graduated from university we worked in Wuxi, then the Earth came online and she and I went back home to get away from it."
Tang Mo did not say anything, the man's face showed a trace of embarrassment. He looked at Tang Mo, then at Fu Wenduo, and after a moment, continued stiffly, "We're just ordinary reservists, and the city is a bit dangerous with a lot of powerful players, and we ... don't dare to stay there. Just think about going back home and planting our own fields for dinner and avoiding those what horrible The black tower games."
The short-haired woman hurriedly said, "Here's the thing. We really don't mean any harm. We haven't seen a living person for a long time, and we suddenly heard a gunshot and came over to take a look. Don't get the wrong idea, we'll leave now."
The two siblings looked at Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo with great embarrassment, and their faces were full of embarrassment as they stood and walked. They did not look like ordinary peasants, and their speech was somewhat cultured, as if they were really white-collar workers who had gone to university and then worked in the city.
Seeing that Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo were not talking to each other, the two men made a fool of themselves. The two siblings looked at each other, turned around and tried to leave.
Boom!
A dazzling white light flashed across the sky. The next second, the deafening sound of thunder rang out above the four men's heads. A bolt of lightning struck from one end of the sky to the other, almost smashing into the earth. The Wang family siblings cowered in fear at the sound of the thunder, and Fu Wenduo frowned as he looked up at the darkness of the sky overhead.
A thick, dark cloud sits heavy on the earth and the air pressure is extremely low. The wind stops on the farmland and the dense, impermeable feeling foretells of an impending downpour. It was the first rain to come in spring, just after the New Year, and it might be an early spring this year.
The young man and woman looked at the dark clouds in the sky and the man turned his head to Tang Mo: "It's going to rain soon, do you want to take shelter? Our house is just around here. Ah yes, you should have a car, you can take shelter in it. But I think the rain might be a bit heavy ..."
The two young men and women looked sincerely at Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo, and they didn't push too hard, they just said it. Fu Wenduo's eyes swept over their hands and the corners of his mouth curled up as he was about to speak, when Tang Mo asked in a calm voice, "How far is it?"
Fu Wenduo turned his head in surprise and looked at Tang Mo.
Wang Wenhao froze and said, "It's not that far, the row of farms in front of us, and the small two-storey building in the middle is my house."
Tang Mo looks up at the farmhouse in the distance. It really wasn't that far away, only a couple of hundred metres. He said, "Trouble."
Not expecting these two men to actually go home with them to escape the rain, the Wang family siblings were a bit of a novelty and quickened their pace to take their guests home. But they couldn't walk as fast as the rain, and halfway through the walk, beads of rain pelted the four of them. By the time they got inside, Tang Mo's hair was all wet. Fu Wenduo lifted his hand and pushed his wet hair back into his head. The Wang family siblings kindly found a chair for them and they sat down casually.
The city is well supplied, but the truth is that when it comes to food and water, it's nowhere near as good as the countryside.
The short-haired woman took a bowl of vegetable soup from the kitchen and served two more bowls of steaming rice to Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo. They took them calmly and left them on the table without eating. Tang Mo: "I just ate, I'm not really hungry."
The Wang family siblings laughed dryly and the four of them sat in the large living room of their rural home, looking at each other.
Fu Wenduo sits with his back straight, and he sits by the door, pulling his chair up and placing it in the doorway. The chair rests against the door, pulling it halfway open on both sides. From time to time, rain blows into the room through the wind, but he looks down at the ground as if he is unaware of it, wondering what he is thinking.
Tang Mo looked out at the sky: "It's going to rain for at least another half hour."
The young man wondered, "And you know how to read the weather?"
Tang Mo didn't deny it. The rain was coming down hard outside, and it was a drizzling spring rain, and with the thickness of these dark clouds, it would not stop for half an hour. He lifted his head and scanned the house. It was an ordinary two-storey rural building. Most rural people do not decorate, and the floor is made of concrete. A large mirror took up half the wall, and directly opposite the wall was a long cupboard bordered by a shrine to Buddha, and a statue of the Goddess of Mercy and the President.
The brother and sister seem to have lived here for a long time, and every part of the house is cleaned and tidied.
Tang Mo looked away for a moment as he looked over at the embarrassed young man, "What is it you want to talk about?"
The young man stared, and after a moment he said, "... you know?"
Tang Mo did not answer.
The young man coughed, a little less than kindly: "You are not bad people either, and if you were, I'm afraid you wouldn't have let us go just now. My sister and I have been back home for a long time, and we are the only two people alive in our town. We can't touch anything The black tower game here either, and by definition we can survive by planting our own seeds. But ..." his voice rose in bitterness, "this ... this ... "
Tang Mo: "My name is Viktor and his name is Donji."
The young man nodded, knowing that Tang Mo was talking about a pseudonym, but he didn't point it out. He said, "Viktor, you know, a month and a half ago The black tower suddenly said that every player must attack the tower once in three months. So my sister and I would have to play The black tower."
Tang Mo: "What games have you played?"
The short-haired woman said, "We didn't play any games at all. We don't know how it happened. That day four months ago, all the colleagues around us disappeared and we both survived. Then we went back home together and didn't participate in any games halfway through. Oh yes, there was one time, last November, when we were dragged into a tower attack game by a stowaway called Fu Wenduo. It's the game that all the China players play."
Sitting by the door, Fu Wenduo looks calmly at the rain outside, while Tang Mo gives him an impassive look.
The young man said in a helpless tone, "So we both have no experience playing the game at all. We were particularly happy to meet you this time and thought ... Mr Viktor, Mr Donji, could you tell us some information about The black tower game. And also, how is the world out there?"
Tang Mo: "You guys came back here after you came online from Earth and never went back out?"
The young man nodded, "Well. on the 18th of November, the Earth went online and everyone around us disappeared. on the morning of the 20th, my sister and I came back here. After that the most we did was get dragged off to a strange game of Tower Attack and then we didn't see anyone again. Mr Viktor, can you tell us about what's going on out there? It's not free, we've grown some of our own food and made some buns. I think supplies are pretty tight out there now too, you guys can take them if you don't mind ..."
Bang!
A gust of wind blew through the house and blew the door on the other side open. The iron-clad door slammed hard against the wall, making a loud rumbling sound. Fu Wenduo was unmoved, sitting alone in the doorway as if he had not heard the terrible commotion. The short-haired woman gave him a strange look as she stepped forward, closed the door behind her and said carefully, "Mr. Tang, why don't you stop sitting here? It's raining here."
Fu Wenduo looked up at her. His eyes were calm, and his dark eyes stopped at the short-haired woman's body and looked at her steadily. Wang Wenjuan was so nervous by his look that she swallowed hard, but then she heard Tang Mo's calm voice ring out, "He likes to get wet."
With a step down, the short-haired woman hurriedly walked back inside.
The two siblings hesitated. The young man added: "We really don't have much here either, so we understand if you don't want to talk about it, Mr Viktor. I'm sure it's not a very nice world out there either, where are you going from the highway? Do you want to go home too?"
Tang Mo: "We're going to Nanjing."
"Nanjing, that's a long way. There's so much traffic on the highway right now, it would take a day and a night to drive there."
The three of them spoke for a while longer.
The rain outside is getting lighter and lighter, and gradually the sound of rain stops, with only a few traces of rain still floating in the air. Undeterred, the Wang family wanted to hear from Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo about the outside world.
"It's going to stop raining, so why don't we eat something before we go?" The short-haired woman quickly ran into the kitchen and multiplied another bowl of hot vegetable soup out. This time, Tang Mo surprisingly caught the bowl of hot soup. A look of surprise flashed across the woman's face and she thought for a moment before adding, " Mr Viktor, can't you really tell us something about what's going on out there. We just need a little bit and we haven't seen a living soul for too long."
The two siblings look at Tang Mo expectantly.
Tang Mo's hand touched the edge of the bowl of soup, and he looked down at the hot soup with the leaves floating in it. After a long time, he said, "It's not really a big deal, it's rare for people to know each other, so it's nothing to talk about."
The Wang family siblings look at him with surprise.
Tang Mo looked up and smiled, "But before I do that I want to ask, have you ... ever heard of the name Li Wen?"
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What the author has to say.
Mr. Fu: Who am I, where am I and what am I going to do? [COS an orphan in the wind