In the early morning of waiting for the execution, Zhou Zhen decided to make a summary of the 22nd century, and after eliminating the swear words that kept coming to his mind, he carved an upside-down proverb on the gray wall of the prison:

"When God opens one window for mankind, he will close another."

The story about him should be told from the end of the century.

The time is 2199, Zhou Zhen is seventy-five years old, and he is still free.

At this time, the intertwined national borders on the earth have long since ceased to exist, and after the energy wars of the middle of the century, governments have announced their dissolution one after another, and world power is unified in business alliances.

For the world's 30 billion people, the window of the era of abundance has opened for 60 years, and textiles and food are like air, abundant and completely free.

The closed door is called the energy crisis, and the traditional energy sources such as coal, oil, and natural gas are all exhausted, and there are few nuclear materials left, and human and animal power are struggling to support a technologically advanced society.

One day in the summer of this year, the weather was sunny in the early morning.

Zhou Zhen stood on the crumbling viaduct, taking off his sheepskin bucket hat and fanning the cool breeze while squinting his eyes and looking ahead.

In front of you is a city that has been abandoned for many years, with grassy trees on the roads, houses covered with vines, and a real jungle on the ruins of a concrete jungle.

Its inhabitants have long since moved into low-energy, three-dimensional cities, frequented only by the unemployed, gangsters and energy hunters.

Zhou Zhen's goal was the tallest building in the city, which used to have a rather elegant name, called the Light of Technology, but because he had been in a bad mood lately, in his eyes, it was more like a surface abscess with dirt and dirt, and the thought of entering the abscess made him feel sick to his stomach, and the smell of breakfast came to his throat.

His brain gave a conscious command, and the parasitic system in his body began to function, which quickly eliminated the vomiting irritation and cleaned the bad breath by the way.

The parasitic system was an accidental spoils of his energy wars, representing the highest level of government technology, and the corporate alliance has been trying to develop a parasitic system, but so far it has not even figured out how it works.

Zhou Zhen is a pragmatist, he is not interested in the working principle, he only knows that since the implantation of the parasitic system at the age of twenty-eight, he has stopped getting old, the injury can heal quickly, and he will hardly get sick, the only drawback is that it consumes a lot of biological energy to maintain the operation of the system, which greatly increases his food intake.

On the viaduct, Zhou Zhen found an observation point with a good view, put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

A moment later, a young man rode briskly up the bridge on a scrawny old horse.

After a while, Zhou Zhen's chestnut thoroughbred slowly followed.

The young man is in his early twenties, wearing a baseball cap, and looks very similar to Zhou Qian, both are Asian, both have thin and long faces, and all have standard and no distinctive facial features, all of which belong to the appearance that people forget when they see it, but the young man is very fair, and Zhou is very sloppy, always dusty and unshaven.

The young man dismounted beside Zhou Zhen and looked in the direction he was looking.

"Old Zhou, this is the old city? Which building is the light of technology? When are we going to go in? ”

The young man was visibly excited, rubbing his hands together and asking questions.

Zhou Zhen remembered the metaphor of abscesses, and felt that he was like a fly buzzing around pus and blood, so he took two steps away and snapped his fingers with a disgusted face: "Telescope." ”

The young man pursed his lips and took out the remote sensing telescope from his saddle pocket and handed it to him.

Zhou Zhen didn't answer, his mouth snorted, and he raised his hand to take off his baseball cap.

"What are you doing with it, you will do the task reconnaissance, give you five minutes, and the target is the tallest building on the periphery."

"I do? The company has a rule that interns are not allowed to do task reconnaissance. ”

The young man stared suspiciously at the telescope in his hand.

Zhou Zhen is most annoyed by people talking about the regulations, they are energy hunters, and the opponents are the unemployed and gangsters, these guys will not do things according to the regulations, but he is also a partner of the Armored Rat Energy Company, and it is not good to openly challenge the company's regulations in front of the interns.

He suppressed his emotions and squeezed out a smirk: "Yes, I remember the company's regulations very well, your name is Zhong, what is Zhong?" ”

"Zhong Xiaoguang."

Zhong Xiaoguang's face was full of embarrassment, the two had been together day and night for two days, and Zhou Zhen didn't even remember his name.

"Zhong Xiaoguang, I made a mistake just now, this time it's not a mission reconnaissance, it's just ordinary reconnaissance training, you practice well, I'll help you record."

"Oh, then I'll try."

Seeing that Zhong Xiaoguang raised the binoculars, Zhou Zhen patted him on the shoulder, then took out a cigarette case and matches, lit a cigarette and began to swallow the clouds and spit.

"The building has a total of 60 floors, and there are residents on the second to seventh floors of the basement, a total of 87 people."

Zhong Xiaoguang reported while observing: "Among them, there are nineteen adult women, fifty-two adult men, and sixteen minors, who seem to have babies and young children. ”

After reporting the number, he stopped and waited for Zhou Zhen to make a record, but turned his head to find that Zhou Zhen was not around, and then turned around to see that this guy was sitting on the ground on the belly of a horse, with a fisherman's hat covering his face, revealing only a mouth with a half-cut cigarette in his mouth.

Zhong Xiaoguang just wanted to complain, but the corners of Zhou Zhen's mouth twitched a few times: "Continue to scout, look at what I'm doing, you still have three minutes." ”

"Didn't you say you were going to record it?"

Zhong Xiaoguang said angrily, Zhou Zhen raised his hand lazily and pointed to his head, meaning that it was all recorded here.

Zhong Xiaoguang had no choice but to continue to reconnoiter in anger.

Before joining the company, Zhong Xiaoguang admired Zhou Zhen very much, and Zhou Zhen dominated the performance list of the industry forum for 15 years, which can be called a legend in the energy hunter world.

But it's better to be famous than to meet, in fact, this guy is not only lazy and short-tempered, but also looks a few years older than himself. He also plucked up the courage to ask Zhou Qian, but Zhou Zhen never heard it, so how much Zhong Xiaoguang admired it at the beginning, and how suspicious he is now.

"These people are supposed to be unemployed."

Zhong Xiaoguang continued to report.

"Nonsense, who will live in the old city if not the unemployed, weapons and equipment? You have two minutes left. ”

Zhou Zhen threw the cigarette butt at him.

"There are crude weapons, including five handmade short guns, seven handmade long guns, thirteen crossbows, no more than thirty standard bullets, ammunition..."

The weapons and equipment of this group of unemployed people are all in tatters, there is no standard shape, and it is very difficult to identify, Zhong Xiaoguang feels that his eyes are about to be blind.

"Stop!"

Zhou Zhen suddenly interrupted him.

"What's wrong again?"

Zhong Xiaoguang complained impatiently, put down the binoculars and turned back, but he didn't see Zhou Zhen at first glance, and then lowered his head and found that he was lying on the ground in a standard prone shooting position, with a rifle on his right shoulder and his head in the direction of the bridge.

"Get down!"

Zhou Zhen raised his right hand slightly and waved it down, Zhong Xiaoguang was stunned for a moment, and immediately obeyed the order to lie down and slowly crawled to his side.

"What's wrong?"

Zhong Xiaoguang asked in a low voice, Zhou Zhen pointed ahead, Zhong Xiaoguang looked in the direction of his finger, about two kilometers away, on the wilderness, more than a dozen figures on horseback were slowly approaching them.

"Who is it?"

"It's supposed to be a gang."

"What do they want?"

"Energy credits, weapons, equipment, horses, human organs, what you should ask them not for."

Zhou Qian's voice was very calm, but Zhong Xiaoguang was excited again, he had only heard of bandits, he had never seen them with his own eyes, it was said that these guys never left a living mouth, he had been looking forward to seeing it.

"Telescopes."

Zhou Zhen snapped his fingers again, Zhong Xiaoguang understood what he meant, put the telescope in front of him and was about to look at it, Zhou Zhen snatched it up, and complained in his mouth: "I mean hand it to me, it's hard!" ”

Sure enough, as expected, the people who came were indeed bandits, a total of thirteen people, all fully armed, seven bolt rifles, one semi-automatic rifle, and four crossbows, all of which were standard equipment made in the arsenal.

The man in the center looks like a leader, holding a single-shot sniper rifle and looking through the scope towards the viaduct.

Zhou Zhen knew that this was a dangerous person, and it was very difficult to use a sniper rifle on a moving horse, but he could see that his hands were very stable, which required a good understanding of the gun, the horse, the terrain and his physical condition, according to the speed at which he was traveling, he and Zhong Xiaoguang would soon enter the range of fire.

"Old Zhou, show me."

Zhong Xiaoguang snapped his fingers at Zhou Qian, and Zhou Zhen slapped him on the head: "Where did you learn these movements!" ”

Seeing Zhong Xiaoguang rubbing his head aggrievedly, Zhou Zhen thought about it and threw the telescope to him.

"Old Zhou, what clothes are they wearing? Performance art? ”

Zhong Xiaoguang found that these gangsters were wearing shabby old-fashioned military uniforms, the dark green had faded to a dull yellow, and their clothes and pants were patched everywhere.

"You know a fart, it was the uniform of the government coalition during the energy war, and the bandits all wore this, but in fact, people don't call it bandits, their organization has a name."

Zhou Zhen explained as he adjusted the door of his imitation M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle, which was designed during World War II more than 200 years ago, but in an environment of energy depletion, it is already the most advanced individual weapon on the market.

"Why are you wearing this? What are they called? ”

Zhong Xiaoguang continued to ask with curiosity on his face, Zhou Zhen felt very strange, I don't know if he is a newborn calf who is not afraid of tigers or has few tendons, he was very excited when he saw so many guys with loaded guns, and he was not afraid at all.

"The name is very long, I don't remember, when the government coalition was defeated, some veterans who were unwilling to surrender to the business alliance formed a bandit, wearing this means that they will never admit defeat and will not cooperate with the business alliance."

Zhou Zhen's eyes were aimed at the leader with the sniper rifle, and his fingers were lightly placed on the trigger: "Help me watch a little." ”

"See what?"

Before Zhong Xiaoguang finished speaking, a crisp sound sounded in his ears, and then, in the field of vision of the telescope, a burst of blood mist rose from the back of the leader's head, and his body fell backwards, his feet still hanging on the stirrups, allowing the frightened horse to drag his corpse away.

"I... Old Zhou... You..."

Zhong Xiaoguang was dumbfounded, with just one shot, all his doubts about Zhou Zhen disappeared.