It is clear that the noise of the shooting has already attracted the attention of flying monsters resembling something that weaves nests into the dome of the cathedral.

A large shadow swept over his head at once.

Su Mengfan turned around and stayed for a while, he saw that the beasts had dispersed, and only one, the one he had injured, was left in the middle of the street.

It continued to scream, staggering towards the building, hoping it could hide there.

But it had no chance of being saved: the monster made another circle at a height of several tens of meters, retracted its massive tenacious wings and landed on the victim.

It swooped down so fast that Su Mengfan didn't even get to see what happened next.

The giant bird grabbed the beast that let out its last scream of pain, and without much effort, lifted its prey and calmly led it back to the top of one of the tall buildings.

The monsters chasing him didn't jump out right away, but Su Mengfan couldn't waste time because he was worried that the monsters might come back.

He ran forward against the wall of the house to a place where he deduced that the garden loop should be there.

He had run about half a kilometer before he could breathe, and he looked back to see if the beasts that had preyed on him had come to his senses.

The streets were empty.

Su Mengfan walked a few dozen meters and stared at one of the alleys, he was startled and saw a familiar still shadow inside.

Now he began to understand why these monsters did not rush to the open area, but preferred to stalk their victims in the narrow little streets.

When hunting for him, he fears attracting the attention of larger monsters and falling prey to them.

Now Su Mengfan had to turn around every minute: he remembered that the beasts could move extremely fast, and at the same time they were especially quiet, and he feared that they would catch up with him by surprise.

By the time they moved quickly from the alley again and began to surround him, the end of the street was already in sight.

Based on experience, Su Mengfan immediately shot into the sky, hoping that it would attract winged monsters to scare away those beasts as before.

They did froze for a moment, standing on their hind legs and stretching their necks.

But the sky was still empty—the monster had clearly not been able to dispose of its first prey.

Su Mengfan understood this faster than his monster opponents, and he ran to the left, bypassing one of the houses and snoozing into the nearest entrance.

Although the commander had warned him that the house was occupied, he would go crazy if he ran into such a powerful and nimble enemy while the beast was chasing.

They would have torn Su Mengfan to shreds before he could pull back the bolt of the machine gun.

The entrance was dark, and he had to turn on his flashlight.

The dilapidated walls appear in circular dots of light, with dirty words scrawled decades ago, a dirty staircase and several ruined and burned apartments with broken doors.

The daring rats bounced around as if this were their territory, and a picture of ruins.

He had wisely chosen the entrance, the staircase window looking out onto the street, and by climbing the upper floor, he could be sure that the beasts had not decided to chase him.

They crept up to the front door, but instead of entering, they surrounded it, crouching down and turning their butts into stone statues again.

Su Mengfan didn't believe that they would retreat and let Bai Ji's prey go.

Soon, they will try to catch him from the outside, and of course if they don't find out what is hidden at the entrance, Su Mengfan himself will be forced to escape from there.

He climbed up a floor, illuminated the door, and found that one of them was closed.

He bumped his shoulder, knowing it was locked.

Without much thought, he aimed his machine gun at the keyhole, fired his gun, and kicked the door open with all his might.

When he entered, he found that it was exactly the same apartment that he had been hiding in, but he couldn't miss the opportunity to see the untouched residence of the previous dynasty.

First, he slammed the door shut, and closed it with a cupboard in the middle of the hallway. The obstacles can't withstand a severe impact, but at least they can't pass through without being noticed.

After that, Su Mengfan walked to the window and looked out carefully.

This was actually an ideal firing position - from the height of the fourth floor, he could fully see what was coming to the entrance.

About ten wild beasts were sitting around it, half-surrounding it.

Now he has the advantage, and he has seized the moment in time.

Turning on the laser sight, he aimed the little red dot at the head of the largest beast, took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.

There was a grunt, and the monster fell to the side silently.

The others hurried away in different directions like lightning, and in a few moments the streets were empty. To be sure, they don't want to fight hard.

Su Mengfan decided to wait and see to make sure that the death of their companion had really scared the remaining beasts away.

At the same time, he also had some time to check out the apartment.

Although the glass here, like the whole house, was broken a long time ago, the furniture and all the utensils are surprisingly well preserved.

Small mats cover the floor, just like the rat poison they use in {Hayabusa Station}. Maybe that's why Su Mengfan didn't see the rat in the room.

The longer he looked at the apartment, the more convinced he was that the original inhabitants had not abandoned it in a hurry, but had maintained it, hoping to return in the future.

There is no food left in the kitchen to attract rats or insects, and much of the furniture is carefully wrapped in cellophane.

Su Mengfan walked from room to room, and Su Mengfan tried to imagine what kind of life the people who lived in it lived every day.

How many of them live here?

When do they get up, when do they come home after work, when do they have dinner?

Who sits at the end of the chair?

He knew a lot of work, rituals, and things only through books, and now looking at the real abode, he was convinced that much of what he had imagined was completely wrong.

Su Mengfan carefully lifted the translucent polyethylene film and checked the bookshelf.

Several colorful children's books sit among the detective novels he knew at the bookstall in the subway.

He grabbed the spine of the book and slowly pulled out a notebook.

While he was flipping through the decorative descriptions of happy animals, a piece of cardboard fell out of the book.

Su Mengfan bent down and picked it up from the floor: it was actually a faded photo, on which was a smiling woman holding a child, and next to the woman stood a five or six-year-old boy, his hand tightly grasping the woman's pants, looking a little nervous.

He was stunned.

His heart was pounding.

It had just been beating slowly to pump blood throughout his body, when it suddenly accelerated and began to beat inappropriately.

If it wasn't poisonous, Su Mengfan would love to take off the clinging gas mask to breathe a small amount of fresh air.

As if fearing that the touch would turn the photo into powder, he carefully removed it from the bookshelf and held it up to his eyes.

The woman in the photo is about thirty years old, and the child she is holding is no more than two years old, and it is difficult to determine whether he is a boy or a girl from the funny hat on his head.

The child looks directly at the camera, and his expression is surprisingly mature and serious.

Su Mengfan flipped the photo, and the lenses of his gas mask became dark.

On the other side, written in a green ballpoint pen: "I hope the brothers Alcoen and Artem are happy every day." Those words seemed to make him lose his focus.

His legs went limp, he slipped on the floor, and in the moonlight, the photo fell from the window.

Why was the woman's smile so familiar to him, so much like himself?

Why did he start to feel breathless as soon as he saw her?

Before one of the city's destructions, more than 10 million people lived in it.

Alcohen is the most commonly used name, and even in a large city with a population of a million, thousands of children have to be called by this name.

It seems that they all call it that to the existing inhabitants of the subway.

The odds are so small that it really doesn't make sense to think so.

And how could the name Artyom be exactly the same as the name of the little boy he imagined in the library?

And why is the woman's smile in the photo so familiar to him?

He tried to recall fragments of his childhood memories, which sometimes flashed through his mind.

A cosy little room, gentle lighting, a woman reading a book...... A wide bench.

He jumped to his feet and walked through the rooms like a whirlwind, trying to find furniture within them that resembled the furniture in the center of the room he imagined.

Suddenly, he noticed that the furniture in one of the rooms was as he remembered.

The couch looks a little different, there are no windows there, but the picture may have left some kind of distorted mark on the six-year-old's consciousness...... Six years old?

Six?

Isn't it supposed to have memories of when you were a child?

Why?

But don't have those memories?

There is no date in the inscription, it can be a photograph taken at any time, not necessarily in the days before the residents of the apartment must leave forever.

He was sure that the photo might have been taken six months or even a year before that.

Then the age of the boy standing next to the woman in the photo will coincide with his own age...... Then it is possible that you yourself are in the photo...... and his mother...... It will be even greater.

When Su Mengfan came back to his senses, he suddenly found that a tear from the corner of his eye was sliding down his cheek.

When Su Mengfan reached out to wipe away his tears, he touched the protective shield.

At this moment, Su Mengfan seemed to immediately remove the protective cover, but he couldn't do it.

Tears flowed down like a collapsed dam.

The tears are salty in the mouth, but they are indeed sweet in the heart.

If nothing else, it's the only thing he can put his hopes on now.

An unfamiliar voice said coldly in his body: "But the photo may have been taken three or five years before that." ”