Chapter Seventy-Seven: New Discoveries
When Li Mo came to the old refinery site, it was already past noon. The feeling of fasting slowly welled up, making him feel slightly uncomfortable. Considering the possible emergency situation in the future, Li Mo chose the nutrient solution instead of lunch, but in the end, it was not as satisfying as food.
But it's not a big deal.
For Li Mo, there are many other issues that are more worth worrying about, such as the current situation in S City, such as his own body.
Every morning he woke up feeling more alienated from the world than yesterday, and he was gradually becoming a stranger, a stranger, who could not tolerate this world.
This is not good news for him.
Li Mo's Blade Brigade under the Ministry of Disasters, which is commonly known as the "Sword Pavilion", is dedicated to chasing and killing the aliens in the betrayal department, but at this moment he has become an alien, which once made Li Mo very frustrated.
But what is even more frightening now is that he has gradually lost the feeling of frustration, which is also a sign that he is gradually becoming less human.
Becoming an Inhuman is not only the acquisition of abilities that are abnormal to reality, but also a change in the perception of reality. It is precisely because we have mastered an alternative reality that is different from this world that we have transformed the energy from a different source into a phenomenon that is completely different from reality. Inhumans are not all madmen who are on a mission to destroy this world, on the contrary, most Inhumans have a mind far beyond ordinary people, but the problem is that the way they understand this world has changed, and this change is extremely dangerous for ordinary people in this world.
It's hard to judge whether a raging flame is good or bad, but no sane person would allow a flame to crawl around in their own home, and this is such a discordant existence for the aliens in this world.
Li Mo walked on the flat and empty grass, which was also the place where he walked three days ago.
Before he got out of the car, he took out the camouflage uniform and military boots he had prepared from his canvas bag and put them on, and at the moment he was silently thinking about what kind of mood it was like to walk through the wounded years here that night. The continuous spring rain soaked the land, making it particularly uncomfortable for people to walk, and the soft yellow mud tightly adsorbed the soles of the pedestrians' feet when they stepped on, and when they were pulled out, they were firmly stuck to the shoes and refused to leave, making Li Mo walk deep and shallow, making an intermittent and unpleasant "chirping" sound.
The ruins of the oil refinery, crouching not far ahead, exude an indescribable gloom in the wilderness. Hidden in the weeds and mud puddles, the concrete pavement still speaks of the prosperity and glory of the past. Li Mo poked his feet to find a cement block that was convenient for his feet, and tried to make his walk as comfortable as possible, and he regretted that he didn't drive the car directly to the gate of the smelter. This place is far more empty than he imagined, if there is really someone there to guard, whether he drives or not, he will expose his body, it is better to save some effort now.
After an unpleasant trek, Li Mo successfully walked into the ruins of the oil refinery, and the situation here was much better. The solid ground is poured with heavy cement, showing the silly and black aesthetic concept and architectural style of that era. Thanks to its solid structure, it stands firmly on this land despite being abandoned for many years. The criss-crossing pipes and huge oil tanks are lined up one after another, reflecting the insignificance of human beings, revealing a cyberpunk artistic sense.
Li Mo lifted his spirit and walked through it silently. The soles of the heavy, hard boots made contact with the concrete floor, but they didn't make the slightest sound. In the first few steps, he also left a few shallow footprints on the ground, and the wet yellow mud imprinted on the smooth ground like a few vague seals. Soon Li Mo completely integrated into this world, and even the sound of his breathing and heartbeat seemed to be isolated.
When he walked through the ruins, he looked more like a qualified spectator than like a literary pantomime, carefully observing everything without disturbing the world in the slightest.
The whole site sits in the north and faces south, leaning on the mountain, and the east and west mountain beams extend out to form two natural barriers to enclose the whole area. The location selection fully took into account the convenience of transportation and the intention of staying away from residential areas, which also made it the best choice if you want to enter the south of this factory, Li Mo believes that this is also the route chosen by the injured people that night.
There are few places in this world that are absolutely quiet, and when Li Mo lowered his voice to the extreme, those voices that would not normally be noticed became louder. The snapping of birds, the whining of the breeze through buildings, the hissing of rolling grass crumbs, the sound of insects' six thin legs wrapped in a hard exoskeleton across the ground, the sound of flowers stretching their petals in the warm spring breeze, the sound of voles carefully gouging the dirt in a dark corner. All came to Li Mo's ears, playing a small symphony of spring.
Li Mo took out a 9mm caliber Type 92 semi-automatic pistol from his arms and slowly opened the safe. His eyes carefully scanned his surroundings, trying to find the traces left by the night's injuries, but to his surprise, there were far more traces than he had imagined. Kicked dust, broken weeds, shriveled insect carcasses with shoe prints on their backs. Li Mo wasn't sure which traces were left by the injured years, but there was no doubt that there must have been a large number of people coming and going here recently, although the other party covered it up well, but these details were as eye-catching in Li Mo's eyes as a salute flower in the night sky.
Observation is something he's good at.
Soon he made new discoveries of the rust on the ground, which had fallen into distinct lumps, and unlike rust that had been blown away by the wind, it was like an unripe green apple shaken from a tree compared to his own kind. Li Mo raised his head and looked at the dense pipes in the air, and traces of rust were exposed from the aging and broken asphalt coating.
"Maybe he walked from above." Li Mo thought about it for a while, and gave up the idea of climbing up to take a look. The equipment he carries is not lightweight, and it is not easy to climb and wear, so it is more reasonable to check the bottom first.
Just like that, Li Mo quickly went deep into the area near the center of the refinery. He had gone through the refinery drawings provided by the Coyote Brigade several times before he arrived, but when he actually stepped into the vast steel jungle, everything was anxiously deficient. Li Mo struggled to distinguish from the huge steel tanks and towers whether they were oil storage tanks, electric desalination tanks, or high-pressure separators, so as to confirm his exact coordinates in this labyrinthine steel forest. From a distance, I didn't feel the size of this ruin, but now I found out how small it was when I went deep into it.
When he walked to a relatively empty area, he knew he was in the center of the first half of the refinery's production area. The various routes in the production area converge and disperse from here, and then Li Mo needs to judge which way to go.
Rummaging through the details and clues is a very energy-consuming task, even for Li Mo, who has gradually departed from the human realm, it is not a simple matter. The details he had observed on the way were cluttered in his mind, and at this moment he needed to pause for a moment to sort out the information in his mind before deciding which direction to investigate. This factory area is so huge, and the clues left far exceed his expectations, Li Mo suspects that it will be difficult to end the investigation until this time tomorrow.
The frantic brain was squeezing the nutrients in his body, Li Mo took out a compressed piece of energy like a milk tablet from his chest and put it in his mouth, pulled the hose through the neckline and took a small sip of water. Hiding his entire body in the shadow of a large oil storage tank, he vigilantly watched his surroundings and combed through the information.
From what has been observed, it is highly likely that a group of double digits has been repeatedly entering and exiting the site recently. This is extremely bad news for Li Mo, he is not sure if there are still such a large number of suspicious people left here, whether it is the security threat brought by this, or the interference of the massive amount of useless information on the investigation of Li Mo, who is alone, is very troublesome.
After a short break, Li Mo stepped out of the shadows and stepped onto this small "square", and he immediately noticed the problem. He thought that maybe he didn't have to think about going down that route, the small square in front of him should be the place where the conflict broke out between the injured and the B-class Inhumans that night, and even the six missing hunters could be buried here.
The smell wafting through the air is no longer a simple rust smell, but also mixed with a trace of fishy stench that ordinary people can't detect. And the ground doesn't even need to be carefully observed, and the clean cement surface is as if it has been carefully sanded with sandpaper and brushes, revealing a dazzling freshness. The contrast between the floating ash splattered on it and the ground revealing a new blue-gray texture made Li Mo think that even a layman could see how futile this clumsy cover-up was.
Not to mention the obvious backfilled hole in the ground, with countless cracks radiating around it. Li Mo squatted down next to the cave and broke out a piece of cement that had been filled back, and the fracture was still sharp, indicating that the ground had been broken recently. Using this filled hole as a base point to explore around, Li Mo soon found more clues, the traces left by the blow of fine steel balls on the oil tanks around him, the potholes the size of the soles left by excessive polishing, and the sulfur smell left in the soil by the explosion of gunpowder. And what Li Mo cared about the most was the rust that had been peeled off in large areas on the oil tanks around him.
He reached out and stroked the shiny jar, speculating on the angle of the blood splattering and where the deceased was standing. In just half an hour, he had sketched in his mind a brutal battlefield where the two sides fought fiercely, and the splatters of blood and projectiles left traces that were difficult to erase. Although the aftermath personnel were very professional and efficient, their clean-up behavior itself was ironclad evidence. In order to eliminate the blood stains and bullet marks, they scraped down the entire ground and the surrounding buildings, and such a thorough act made Li Mo realize a key problem, a sense of disobedience that had been haunting him since he stepped into the area.
These people don't care about their whereabouts being discovered by latecomers, they care more about not letting latecomers find out what happened here. The person who did the aftermath work was perfunctory in disguise, but he meticulously erased every piece of information that could reveal the past, so serious that he could see at a glance that this place had been cleaned up. It was difficult for him to see more information about what had happened before he was cleaned up.
What Li Mo didn't know was that at this moment, a ghost-like figure was entrenched in the dense pipes in the air. A pair of reptile-like cold vertical eyes stared at his every move through the gaps between the pipes. Like a poisonous snake quietly observing its prey, it exudes a dangerous aura. The owner of these eyes was staying on the pipe in a posture unimaginable to humans at the moment, and every time Li Mo lowered his head and observed intently, this figure sneaked around, narrowing the distance between the two sides. The body wrapped in the tights is flexible and powerful, but it is not thick at all, revealing slender and light curves. The plump twin peaks are tightly attached to the pipes and squeezed out various shapes with the wriggling of the body, showing their proud elasticity and abundance. Every time he flipped, the waist that was not enough to close his grip bent at a terrifying angle, which made people suspect that it would be broken in the next moment.
In just a few breaths, this figure silently approached above him, but Li Mo below was unaware...