Embers Ad Infinitum

Along the way, Jiang Baimian found that there was nothing in the open rooms, they were empty.

If it weren't for the occasional broken beds and broken chairs, she wouldn't be sure this was a place where people lived.

"The move was so clean..." she said sincerely.

"Don't give the ruin hunters a chance." Shang Jianyao sighed sadly.

Du Heng stretched out his hand and touched the handle of the door next to him, and said with a smile:

“That’s not the case.

"This handle, this floor tile, this ceiling, these lamps all still have a certain value, not to mention there may be steel bars in the wall..."

Dangdangdang, Shang Jianyao's applause interrupted Du Heng's words.

He praised:

"Teacher Du Heng, you have a lot of life experience."

Du Heng laughed:

"No matter how you say it, I am a long-time relic hunter."

Just a few years after becoming an "official hunter"... Jiang Baimian silently added in his heart.

After arriving at the elevator area, she checked:

"And there's electricity."

"There is electricity!" Shang Jianyao was shocked, "Relic hunters are lucky."

"Maybe the Eighth Research Institute didn't have time to dismantle the power station, and it should have only been a few days since they moved, and the power station is still running automatically." Jiang Baimian guessed the reason.

Judging from the characteristics of the mountain topography and ice sheets, it is impossible to build hydropower stations or thermal power plants here, and it is not suitable for solar power generation. Wind power is subject to seasonal restrictions, making it impossible to maintain the stable operation of the entire institute.

Therefore, Jiang Baimian suspected that there was a miniaturized nuclear power plant somewhere in this mountain.

"This is a good thing. You don't have to climb the stairs." Du Heng pressed the button without caring at all.

One of the elevators opened its door immediately.

Jiang Baimian suddenly frowned.

This was hidden by the mask of a military exoskeleton device, so no one noticed.

Jiang Baimian saw Du Heng and Shang Jianyao walking towards the elevator and said quickly:

"have some problem."

"What's wrong?" Shang Jianyao asked.

Jiang Baimian pointed to the elevators and said:

"Look, at least one-third of the elevators stop on the fifth floor."

"What's the problem with this?" The honest Shang Jianyao expressed his confusion confidently.

Seeing Du Heng also looking over, Jiang Baimian explained:

"Normally speaking, the transfer must be at the entrance and exit level to gather and leave.

"Those elevators should all stop at the ground floor."

"Maybe the last batch of people who came down didn't use all the elevators." Honest Shang Jianyao retorted.

"The problem is, as many people go up, as many people come down." Jiang Baimian had already analyzed the corresponding situation.

The same group of people used seven or eight elevators to go up, but not only three or four to come down.

"It's normal to squeeze a bit." Shang Jianyao said, his voice suddenly lowered, and he started telling ghost stories, "Maybe some people go up and never come back down..."

This is exactly what Jiang Baimian wanted to say:

"Then where did they go?"

"I don't know." Shang Jianyao shook his head, "Anyway, I didn't sense their human consciousness."

When he said this, he looked horrified:

"Is there a trap up there?"

"You'll know if you go up and take a look." Du Heng was still calm and didn't care much.

It's easy to say... Jiang Baimian thought for a while and had no objection. He just used the communication system embedded in the military exoskeleton to remind Shang Jianyao:

"Keep a little distance from Teacher Du Heng later and drag behind him."

Shang Jianyao raised his right hand and made a good gesture.

This time, neither he nor Jiang Baimian carried assault rifles. Anyway, the military exoskeleton device had corresponding weapon modules.

The three of them took the elevator and quickly reached the fifth floor.

There is no natural light here, so we rely entirely on street lights on the ceiling.

Fortunately, the power has not been cut off yet.

Otherwise, the search efficiency of Jiang Baimian and others will be greatly reduced.

According to Professor Qin's memory, the fifth floor is divided into three parts.

Coming out of the elevator, the first area is where the "Professor Joint Meeting" usually meets and the various departments that provide services.

In that conference room, not to mention information, not even a piece of waste paper was left.

Maybe it was because the black conference table was too big to move and was placed in the center of the room, but there was not a single chair around it.

"Too thorough, too thorough..." Shang Jianyao shook his head and sighed.

The nearby rooms belonging to different departments are also in a similar state, with only the most cumbersome things left. Occasionally, one or two paper documents can be seen, but they are either the punishment decisions of so and so, or the distribution plans of certain materials, which have already been Files that are obsolete and will not affect anything if they are not taken away.

After passing through this area and passing through a double dark metal door, Jiang Baimian, Shang Jianyao and Du Heng entered the place where "Vice Dean", "Professor Li" and other "New World" powerhouses lived.

Not only is there the room where they slept, but the original dean's office is also preserved.

For some reason, Jiang Baimian felt a heavy feeling inside as soon as he stepped into this area.

This is very close to the dull and depressing feeling before a rainstorm.

"Do you feel anything is wrong?" She asked Shang Jianyao using the communication system of the military exoskeleton device.

Shang Jianyao replied:

"Nothing wrong."

"Don't you feel a dull feeling in your chest?" Jiang Baimian asked.

"No." Shang Jianyao usually doesn't joke at times like this.

Jiang Baimian turned his head, made a voice, and asked about Du Heng.

Du Heng also shook his head:

"It's normal."

"That might be my own problem..." Jiang Baimian was almost speechless.

She analyzed it and found the most likely reason:

She is the weakest of the three.

In the realm of the awakened.

Although she has passed the psychological shadow that delayed her for a long time, she has no way of knowing how far she is from the "soul corridor". However, Shang Jianyao and Du Heng have explored the depths of the "soul corridor". The Awakened One has a mysterious origin and is only stronger than Shang Jianyao.

In the rooms of those "New World" powerhouses, not only were all the instruments that maintained their physical activity gone, but even the pushable beds on which they lay were not left.

"Locusts are crossing the border, locusts are crossing the border!" Shang Jianyao lamented, "If it weren't for the inconvenience of dismantling the toilet, they would have taken it away together."

"It's understandable." Du Heng comforted with a smile, "There is a shortage of materials on the earth. Although the Eighth Research Institute controls some military bases and corresponding farmland and factories, it is not lacking everything. Moreover, this is also to prevent us from passing through Useful information can be found through clues.”

Shang Jianyao glanced at the toilet in the bathroom and said angrily:

"We were really pushed into a hurry, so we had to pull out the excrement!

"This can analyze the physical condition of the strong people in the 'New World'. I don't believe they even took away the feces!"

You must have read too many old world entertainment materials... Jiang Baimian breathed out and said:

"There are so many mixed together in the septic tank. Do you know who belongs to whom?"

Moreover, the strong men in the "New World" usually rely on infusions to maintain their vital signs.

Shang Jianyao was stunned for a moment:

"I didn't think carefully enough."

After leaving the rooms of those "New World" strong men, they continued to go deep into this area.

Under the corridor, the wind came from nowhere, bringing a chill that pierced the bone marrow.

——It’s not quite summer in the ice fields yet, and it’s extremely cold in the mountains.

Shang Jianyao looked up at the ceiling and said:

“Why don’t these lights move?

"If they sway around, flickering in and out, it will be more sensational."

His tone was full of regret.

"It makes no sense, Xiaohong is not here." Jiang Baimian responded casually.

"Yeah..." Shang Jianyao sighed.

Not long after, they arrived at the office that Professor Qin remembered as originally belonging to the dean.

The room was closed and locked tightly, as if there was some wild beast inside.

"Do you want to go in?" Jiang Baimian asked deliberately.

Before Du Heng could answer, Shang Jianyao said:

"Professor Qin has never sensed that there is human consciousness in this."

"Let's take a look, maybe we can find something." Du Heng said in a tone that meant he had come, "There really is something, the Eighth Research Institute should have moved it long ago."

Jiang Baimian did not express any objection.

The key to that door was lost somewhere, but it didn't bother Shang Jianyao.

He raised his right foot covered with metal bones and kicked forward hard.

With a bang, the door fell apart.

There was no light in the room, so Jiang Baimian used the streetlight to see flying sawdust and dust visible to the naked eye.

Bang, Shang Jianyao turned on the light inside.

Under the light, the panoramic view of the room came into the eyes of the three people.

The place is not big. There is a desk at the far end with a few documents scattered on it. There is no computer or books.

There is a row of bookshelves near the door, and the sofa area is on the other side.

With the help of a military exoskeleton device, Jiang Baimian could clearly see the details of the books on the bookshelf at the door.

There are not many of them left, not even one-fifth of the bookshelf is filled. Most of them belong to the philosophy category, some of which are about the ancient classics of the Gray Earth people, and some are derived from the tomes of the Red River people.

Another part is management.

All in all, it’s not worth reading.

Jiang Baimian turned his head to Du Heng and Shang Jianyao and said:

"Let's search separately to see if there are any clues here."

"Okay." Du Heng did not object.

He went directly to the bookshelf and seemed very interested in the books.

Jiang Baimian and Shang Jianyao approached the desk while searching.

On the way, Shang Jianyao sighed:

"No one has cleaned this place for a long time."

"For the Eighth Research Institute, the president is a taboo topic, and it is normal to not allow employees to enter the office he used." Jiang Baimian said "hmm".

Soon, they arrived at the desk, each picked up a piece of information scattered on it, and started looking through it.

Some of these are building repair plans for the Eighth Research Institute, some are budget plans for a certain year, and some are requests for vacation.

Some of them are written in gray vernacular, and some are all in Honghe dialect, which looks very confusing.

The only two things they have in common are that they are both old and contain no valuable information.

"There is another one here." Shang Jianyao opened three drawers in succession and took out an equally old document.

Jiang Baimian approached it and found that it was an application for transforming the second research area, and it was written in gray dialect.

Rustling, Shang Jianyao quickly turned to the last page of the document.

Here someone wrote two big characters in dragon-fei-fengwu handwriting:

"agree".

There was a signature below these two characters. Jiang Baimian looked at it carefully and recognized it.

What it says is:

"Duheng"

Du Heng! When Jiang Baimian's pupils were dilated, he suddenly heard footsteps coming from behind him.

In the cold wind that pierced the bone marrow, Du Heng's voice floated over:

"What are you looking at?"