215: Chapter 215 Licking and Scheming

The gray daylight filtering through the gaps in the blinds cut narrow bands of light across the dust-covered floor, shifting slowly to mark the passage of time. The room was deathly silent, save for Ling Ye's own suppressed breathing and the subtle, itchy sensation of wounds healing, like an undercurrent beneath the tide.

His short-term goals were clear, but executing them required walking on thin ice at every step.

He dealt with his injuries first. Using half a relatively clean rag found in the room and the last bit of fresh water, he carefully cleaned the most serious burns and corrosive wounds on his body. The wounds on his back were hard to reach, so he could only wipe them down hastily. Lacking medicine, he had to rely on 'Star Visualization' to guide the 'dual rings' to provide continuous, faint nourishment, supplemented by simple mental techniques from his 'Legacy' to accelerate clotting and inhibit infection. The process was slow and painful, but he could feel the wounds slowly closing, the burning pain subsiding, and the itch of new skin forming.

He smoothed out the internal trauma through deep, slow breathing, synchronized with the constant, vast rhythm of the 'Ancient Ring' mark. After several hours of deep meditation, the congestion in his chest and the hidden pain while breathing had significantly eased.

After finishing this, he swallowed the last bit of compressed rations and drank the final few sips of water in his canteen. Hunger and thirst were temporarily suppressed, but his supplies were completely exhausted.

His physical strength had recovered somewhat, equivalent to about thirty percent of a healthy state. His hearing had mostly returned, leaving only a slight ringing. His vision was clear, and although his mind was fatigued, it was no longer scattered.

It was time to scout the outside and this building.

He moved silently to the blinds and pressed his eyes close to a slightly wider gap to look out.

Outside was a narrow, trash-filled back alley, with a tall brick wall covered in graffiti and cracks on the opposite side. One end of the alley was blocked by collapsed furniture and debris, while the other led to a slightly wider street where he could see the sides of buildings across the way and the occasional blurry, dirty shadow of a vehicle (perhaps a military truck or transport vehicle?) passing by. The sky was an eternal leaden gray, with no sunlight to be seen. The air carried a vague, distant clamor, faint sirens, and... a trace of an extremely faint, burning smell similar to incinerated trash.

This appeared to be the edge of an old residential area of the city; the buildings were low and dense, but clearly damaged and abandoned during the catastrophe. Judging by the direction of the alley and the rhythmic, low rumbling heard occasionally from afar (possibly generators or large equipment), he was likely in the northwest edge of the 'Dark Nest' radiation zone. He had not completely escaped its influence, but he was no longer in the core area.

He saw no patrolling soldiers or wandering 'Mutants' for the moment. But the street was clearly not 'clean'.

After observing for a while, he left the window and began to explore the building.

The floor he was on seemed to be a basement or semi-basement. He gently pushed open the door and returned to the stairwell. The stairs extended upward into darkness. He held onto the wall and climbed up step by step. The stairwell was piled with more miscellaneous items, thick with dust, clearly untouched for a long time.

The first floor was an empty, seemingly ransacked small shop, with shelves overturned, glass shattered, and packaging and debris scattered on the ground. There was nothing of value. The rolling shutter door leading to the street was tightly shut and locked from the inside; he did not want to risk opening it.

He retreated to the stairwell and continued upward. The second floor appeared to be residential; several doors were tightly shut, while some had been violently forced open, leaving a mess inside. He cautiously checked the rooms that had been broken into, but found nothing except broken furniture and domestic waste. The air was filled with a faint, musty odor and... a trace of an extremely faint, long-dried scent of blood.

Just as he was about to give up and retreat to the room downstairs, he made an unexpected discovery in an inconspicuous closet on the third-floor landing, blocked by broken wooden boards.

Prying open the rotten boards, he found some old clothes and torn quilts piled in the closet, and at the very bottom, buried under them, was a heavy, locked metal cookie tin. The box was very old with peeling paint, but the lock was just for show; it opened with a gentle pry.

Opening the box, a glint of light flashed in Ling Ye's eyes.

Inside were:

Two unopened cans of beans with blurry labels (likely expired, but the seals were intact).

Half a plastic bag of soda crackers as hard as stones.

A small bottle of iodine (expired, but perhaps still effective), a few Band-Aids, and a small roll of medical gauze.

A rusted but barely usable pair of pliers and a small screwdriver.

A few dry batteries of different sizes with unknown power levels (two of them were the right size for a radio!).

At the very bottom lay a yellowed children's diary with a cartoon cover, and a crumpled, hand-drawn simple map of the nearby neighborhood. It was marked with immature handwriting indicating 'Home', 'Small Park', 'Convenience Store', and a place circled in red ink with the words 'Dad says it's dangerous here, can't go'. Judging by the orientation, it seemed to point to the southeast—exactly the direction of the old 'Industrial Zone' where the 'Dark Nest' was located!

Food! Medicine! Tools! Batteries! A map!

Although the quantity was scarce and the quality questionable, for Ling Ye at this moment, it was like charcoal in snow! Especially the batteries and that child-drawn map; they might provide crucial information.

He suppressed his excitement and carefully put the items away. He quickly flipped through the diary; it was a child's daily record from before the catastrophe with no direct value, but he kept it anyway.

With these precious gains, he quickly retreated to the relatively safe empty room on the second floor. He did not eat the canned food immediately (to save it), but instead chewed a few hard crackers and drank some of the half-bottle of unopened but settled bottled water found in the room (risking it, with no ill effects so far).

Then, he impatiently took out the crystal radio and the two batteries. He installed them, turned on the power, and lowered the volume.

'Zzz... la... This is... Dawn City... Joint Control Channel... Repeat... All residents please take note... Within three kilometers of the 'Dark Nest' exclusion zone in the southeast, a curfew and traffic control are in effect... Unauthorized personnel are strictly prohibited from approaching... Report any abnormal energy fluctuations or unknown biological entities immediately...'

'Emergency broadcast: New, unstable energy disturbances have been detected in the underground pipe network around the Old Factory District and the 'Dark Nest', which may be related to the local underground explosion that occurred this afternoon (cause under investigation). Personnel in relevant areas, please be vigilant and pay attention to the safety of underground structures. Repeat...'

'Missing Person Notice (Encrypted Band): Continuing to search for an individual with the following characteristics: young male, approximately 17-20 years old, black hair, height approximately 178 cm, possibly carrying a standard-issue rifle, agile, possesses strong individual combat capabilities, last seen near the abandoned pipe network in the northwest of the Old Factory District. Those who provide clues... (signal interference) ...'

The broadcast information was fragmented, but alarming enough. The curfew range had expanded, the underground explosion had been noticed, and the search notice for him... the description was so specific, even mentioning the rifle and combat characteristics! This was definitely not based solely on reports from Chen Yan or Su Qing! Was there an on-site witness? Or... some more sophisticated tracking method? Were those 'Plainclothes Agents'?

Ling Ye turned off the radio, his face grim. His situation was worse than he had imagined. He was not only being hunted by the military and the 'Cleaning' forces, but might even have been targeted by forces related to the 'Dark Nest' (those 'Plainclothes Agents'?), and the intelligence they possessed was quite precise.

He had to be more cautious and leave this area as soon as possible.

He took out the hand-drawn map, verifying it against the map fragments from Zhao Haichuan and his own sense of direction. Combining the broadcast and his observations from the window, he roughly determined his location: about two to three kilometers northwest of the 'Dark Nest', in a vague, boundary zone between the curfew area and the relatively 'safe' area. The nearby neighborhood seemed to be abandoned, but the main roads had military patrols.

The red-circled area on the hand-drawn map labeled 'dangerous' by the child was a bit further west of the 'Dark Nest', appearing to be an old substation and supporting Warehouse area. On the edge of the map, written in crooked pencil, were the words 'Has blue light, glows at night'.