Chapter 48 Chapter Forty-eight

There is a hole in the floor of the server room, and Juliet crawls into it after the orphan.There is a long iron ladder below, a passage leading to the thirty-fifth floor.Juliet judged that the room on the thirty-fifth floor should not be accessible from the spiral staircase outside.She asked the orphan if that was the case, and the orphan said yes.After climbing down this passage, they proceeded along a winding corridor with lights on top.The orphan didn't talk much at first, but now, the chatterbox seemed to open suddenly, and he started talking non-stop.He kept explaining to her the servers up there, talking a lot of stuff that Juliet couldn't understand, and finally they came to the end of the corridor and opened a door, which revealed a messy room.

"This is my home." The orphan spread his hands.There was a mattress on the floor in the corner, pillows and a crumpled quilt dropped on the floor.Two side-by-side shelves were obviously being used as a kitchen, and there were several water bottles and a few cans on it, as well as some empty cans and boxes.The room was a mess and there was a bad smell, but, Juliet guessed, the orphan probably didn't think it was messy or smelly.At the other end of the room was a wall of bookshelves filled with large iron boxes, about the size of large gear boxes, several of which were ajar. "Do you live here by yourself?" Juliet asked. "Is there no one else here?" There was an involuntary hint of longing in her voice.

The orphan shook his head. "Then what's under there? Have you looked for it?" Juliet looked at the wound on her hand.The blood has stopped. "There should be no one there." He said, "However, sometimes I feel as if there are other people, because I found that the tomato was missing, but after thinking about it, it should be eaten by a mouse." He was stunned He stared blankly at the corner of the wall. "There are too many rats," he said, "too many rats—" "However, sometimes you feel that you are not the only one here, don't you? There are more people alive, right?" She hoped that he could think about these issues more.

"That's right." He rubbed his beard and turned his head to look around, as if he was thinking whether he should buy her a glass of water or give her something to eat, "Sometimes I find that things have been moved, Or things were missing, or the plant lights in the plowing area were left on. But I always remember later that I did it myself.” He smiled self-deprecatingly.It was the first time she had seen him make such a natural movement.It suddenly occurred to Juliet that he must have laughed like this often over the years.Maybe it was because he often laughed like this that he didn't go crazy, or maybe it was because he had resigned himself to his fate, so he could only smile bitterly.Either way, you can only smile.

"When I saw the knife, I thought I put it myself. However, when I saw the water pipe, I thought it was strange. Was it put by a mouse? If so, the mouse must be big Scary to death." Juliet smiled. "I'm not a mouse," she said.She pulled the tablecloth on her body, raised her hand to touch her head, and suddenly couldn't remember when the cloth tied to her head disappeared. The orphan seemed to be thinking about what she had just said. "So, how long have you been here?" she asked. "Thirty-four years." He didn't think about it. "Thirty-four years? You have lived here alone for thirty-four years?"

He nodded.She suddenly felt dizzy, and it was really hard to imagine how a person could survive for such a long time? "How old are you?" she asked.She felt that he was not as old as she was. "Fifty," he said. "Fifty next month. I remember it well." He smiled. "It's fun to talk." He stretched his fingers around the room. "I talk to things a lot, and I whistle a lot." Then he turned to look at her, "I'm a good whistler." Juliet suddenly understood that she might not have been born at all when the accident happened here. "How did you manage to survive all these years?" she asked.

"I don't know. I didn't think I would live for so many years. I thought I could only live for a few hours. As a result, each day passed, I ate, I slept, and I—" Speaking of this, he Suddenly he turned his head and looked to the side, then stood up and walked to the front of the shelf, rummaged inside for a long time, and found that the cans were all empty, and finally found a can.That can, the lid has been opened, there is no label on the side.He lifted the can. "Would you like some beans?" he asked. She instinctively wanted to refuse, but seeing his eager eyes and pitiful expression, she couldn't bear it. "Wow." At this moment, she realized how hungry she was.She could feel the taste of dirty water in her mouth, the stomach acid she vomited up, and the unripe tomato.He came over and handed her the can.She stirred the soup in the can with a spoon for a long time, scooped up a tablespoon of beans, stuffed them into her mouth and chewed a few times.

"And then, I poo," he said a little sheepishly.At this time, she had just swallowed the beans. "I'm sorry." He took the can back and scooped out a tablespoon of the beans himself. "It's just me here, so I go to the residential area to go to the toilet, until the smell is unbearable, I will change." "Uptown?" Juliet asked. The orphan turned his head and looked around, as if he wanted to find a place to throw the empty can. After looking for a long time, he finally put the can on the ground with a small pile of garbage. "There's no water to flush the toilet. I'm the only one here." He seemed a little embarrassed.

"Since the age of sixteen, you have been alone." Juliet had secretly calculated the time just now. "So, what happened here thirty-four years ago?" He raised his hands. "Inevitably, everyone has gone crazy. Once it's over." He smiled lightly again, "But it seems that people who are not crazy don't have any benefits, do they? I don't get any benefits. Even I can't give it to myself. A little reward for myself. Even I can't help it. I try to stay awake, hang on, day after day, year after year, but I still don't get any benefits. So, being a normal person seems to be It's nothing special. I'm not crazy, so it seems nothing special." His face darkened. "Then one day, on a certain day, you suddenly can't think about it, and suddenly you are very afraid of what will happen to yourself. Do you know that feeling? It's over once."

Then, suddenly, he sat down on the ground, crossed his legs, and his trousers were crumpled at the knees.He tugged at the folds unconsciously. "There was a day in our bunker. It's over once." He looked up at Juliet, "Thinking of the past years, everyone worked so hard to live, and it was all in vain. It's all over. By the way, do you want to sit down?" come down?" He pointed to the ground.She still couldn't bear to refuse.So, she also sat on the ground, a little distance away from the stinking bed, with her back against the wall.She has a lot to ask him.

"How did you survive?" she asked. "I mean, how did you manage to survive the day of the accident? And afterward." As soon as she said the words, she immediately regretted it.Is it important?Is there any point in asking these?But she still wanted to know.Maybe, she can use this to predict what will happen next, but it may also be because she is a little worried, will living this kind of life here be worse than death?If so, it would be better to die outside. "Because I live in fear every day." He said, "My father's mentor is the person in charge of the information area. This is the information area." He nodded. "My dad was no ordinary apprentice. He was very important. He knew that there were these rooms in the bunker. Only two or three people in the whole bunker knew about it. That day, there was a sudden fight, and just as the fight started, he took me to the This place, hand me the key, and he left to lure the enemy away. Unexpectedly, I became the only one who knew this place." He looked down at his thigh, and then looked up again.At this time, Juliet suddenly understood why he looked younger than his actual age.Because of his shyness, that look of fear, that made him look younger—it was all in his eyes.As a teenager, he lived through a catastrophe, and he's lived in a never-ending fear ever since, frozen in time.His body grew, but inside that shell was a frozen soul, a frightened young man. He licked his lips. "They're all dead, right? I mean the ones who ran outside." The orphan stared at her face, trying to find the answer from her expression.She could feel the infinite longing in his eyes. "Yes, they are all dead." She said very sentimentally, and suddenly recalled that day when she shuttled among the corpses and crawled over them.She tried desperately to put that scene behind her. "So, you saw them outside, right? They're all dead?" She nodded. He suddenly lowered his head. "The image on the wall disappeared in a short time. At the beginning, I only sneaked up once. There were people calling from it. Later, after a while, I went out more often. I see I have been messed up by them in many places. However, I haven't seen half a corpse—" He thought carefully, "I haven't seen half a corpse in about twenty years." "So, for a while, there were other people in the bunker, right?" He pointed to the ceiling. "Sometimes they would come in the room up there, the server room, and they would fight. There were people fighting everywhere. The fighting got worse as you got to the back, you guessed it? Fighting for food, for women, Endless." He turned and pointed at another door in the back, "These rooms are like a bunker within a bunker. They were designed to last ten years. But if you're an orphan, you can last longer. Long time." He smiled slightly. "What do you mean? A bunker within a bunker?" He nodded. "Oh, by the way, I forgot I was talking to you now." He said, "I'm sorry, when I used to talk to people, I took it for granted that the other person knew everything like me." He turned to Zhu Liye blinked, and Juliet immediately understood that what he called the other party was himself.He talks to himself all the time. "Do you know what a bunker is?" "Of course I do," she said. "I was born and raised in a bunker like this. But, maybe it's fair to say that we're all normal and living a good life." The orphan smiled. "So, what's a bunker?" he asked again.He unconsciously showed that provocative gesture unique to young people. "The bunker is—" Juliet pondered how to put it, "the bunker is our home. Like those tall buildings behind the hill, but the difference is that we are underground. The bunker is part of this world , the part where we can live. The inside of the world." Only then did she realize that the bunker was even more indescribable than she had imagined. The orphan laughed. "So you thought the bunker was this kind of thing. However, when we use certain words, we often don't understand their true meaning." He pointed to the large bookcase full of iron boxes, "All the truth It's all in there. All the history of the past." He glanced at her. "Ever heard the word 'brute bull'?" She nodded. "Of course I have." "But do you know what a cow is?" he asked. "Niu is the kind of person who is very reckless, or the kind who is very fierce bully." The orphan suddenly laughed. "Look, there are so many things we don't know." He looked down at his nails, "A bunker is not a place for people to live in. It's not at all. The word bunker was made up by people later, and it sounds better That's all. It was originally called a silo. The word silo can be traced back to a long, long time ago. At that time, a lot of crops were planted outside, and there was a large area with no end in sight—" He reached out and waved his hand to the ground, as if The ground is really an endless field. "Back then, there were people everywhere, too many for you to count, and everyone gave birth to many children—" He looked up at her, and then suddenly clasped his hands together, as if embarrassed, asking in front of the woman to having a baby or something. "They grow a lot of crops," he went on, "too much to eat. Even with so many people, they can't eat them all. They can't eat them all at once. So, they store the crops until they get into trouble." When it's available. They've prepared an untold amount of grain seed, and poured the seed into these silos. The silos above the ground—" "On the ground?" Juliet answered him, "The silos on the ground?" She suddenly felt that he had made up all these, maybe he was too lonely these decades, so he had to make up some stories for entertainment . "I can show you the photo." His tone suddenly became a little rough, as if he was not happy, because she doubted him.Then he stood up, walked to the bookshelf where the tin boxes were placed, looked at the small white label at the bottom of the tin box, and ran his fingers across the entire row of tin boxes. "Oh, I found it!" He grabbed one of the iron boxes and held it in front of her.It looks like it's heavy.He unfastened the buckle on the side of the iron box and lifted the lid. There was a heavy object inside. "I'll get it," he said.He said this even though she hadn't made any gestures to suggest that she was going to help him.He grabbed the side of the iron box and turned it to the other side, and the heavy object fell out of it and fell onto his palm, and the center was right in front of his palm without leaning to one side.It seems that he is very skilled.It was a book, about the size of a children's book, but about twenty times thicker.She noticed that the sides of the book were trimmed neatly. "I'll show you," he said.He flipped through many pages in one breath, a whole stack of papers, one stack after another, and then he started to turn page by page, and finally stopped at a certain page. "Found it." He pointed to the page in the book. Juliet leaned over to look and saw a picture, but the scene in the picture looked almost real, like the image on the wall of the restaurant on the top floor.The feeling of looking at the picture is like seeing the photo of the real person on the identification card, except that the photo is black and white, while the picture is in color.She was suddenly a little curious, wondering if there was a battery in the book. "It looks real," she muttered, running her fingers over the picture. "That's real," he said. "It's a photograph, a photography." Juliet was amazed by the color of the picture.Seeing the endless green field and the clear blue sky, she suddenly thought of the false image she saw on the helmet display, and suddenly wondered if it was also fake.She had seen some photos before, and the images were rough and dirty, but these photos were completely different. "Look at those buildings." He pointed to what looked like white cylinders in the picture.A lot of cylinders stand on the ground, "That's the silo. The seeds are stored in it, and they can be used when there is trouble, and then, when the trouble is over." He looked up at her.There was only one or two meters between Juliet and him, so she could see the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes and the vicissitudes of life on his face covered by the beard. "I still don't quite understand what you mean by saying this." She said to him. He suddenly raised his hand and pointed at her, and then pointed at his chest. "We are the seeds," he said. "This is the silo. They put us here until the trouble passes." "Who? Who put us here? And, what's the trouble?" He shrugged. "Unfortunately, it's useless." He shook his head, then sat back on the ground, staring at the photos in the book. "Seeds cannot be stored for too long," he said. "Can't be stored in such a dark place. No way." He looked up at her again, bit his lip, tears welling up in his eyes. "Seeds don't go mad," he told her. "They don't go crazy. They've had bad times, they've had good times, but it doesn't matter now. If you leave them alone, then, no matter how many seeds you store, if you keep leaving them, time Too long, and the seed will-" He stopped suddenly, closed the book, hugged the book to his chest, and shook his body gently back and forth.Juliet looked at him. "What happens to the seeds over time?" she asked him. He suddenly frowned. "We'll rot," he said. "All. We're buried under here, all rotted, and rotted so badly that we'll never grow again." He blinked and looked up at her. "We'll never grow again."