Tang Ji was walking on the streets of Night City with a bouquet of flowers. He wore a neon mask on his face. What flashed on the mask was Tang Ji's own face. But with this layer of disguise, no one knew his identity.
Yes, there are many people wearing this kind of OCS Tangji mask on the market.
There is a rather ridiculous saying that this kind of attire can help improve your survival rate in front of players, because there is a one-in-a-thousand chance that players will turn around and run away the moment they see you. This sentence even means
It is written directly in the advertisement, and even an authoritative statistical agency endorses it.
But considering that some of the founders and operations team of that statistical agency have already fled to Phoenix, and some have gone to the Crystal Palace because they made wrong choices and are now buried underground, so its authority is also great.
discount.
Night City is much more depressed than before. Except for the smart taxis of Delamain Company, which are still operating normally, there are not many operating vehicles on the streets.
On the one hand, shelters are being built inside and outside the city, causing huge panic to the citizens. On the other hand, businesses are closing down everywhere, and many people have lost their jobs, so there are far fewer people traveling.
However, there is good news for these unemployed people, that is, many of their landlords have fled and no longer care about their properties in Night City, so they have finally achieved housing freedom.
The bad news is that apart from the products of the Gray Field Project, there is almost no other normal food available on the market.
When this kind of food first entered the high-end food market in the name of being healthy, highly nutritious, and low in calories, everyone, especially white-collar workers, would even spend extra money to snap up this food. However, people soon discovered that its output was not at all
Production of luxury goods.
And as the products of the Gray Field Project flooded into the market and filled everyone's dining tables, people discovered that this stuff was so unpalatable that it could make people lose their appetite or make them depressed.
What Tang Ji bought this time was a plastic electronic flower. During this period, the nuclear war between the two sides of the war had a considerable impact on the environment. In addition to the bad natural environment, there was also logistics. Logistics also suffered huge damage. Night City
It is no longer possible to buy flowers.
If there was no doomsday atmosphere before, this is a very obvious sign.
Of course, if Tang Ji uses his privileges, let alone flowers, he can drink the ten-thousand-year-old ice water from the North Pole if he wants to today, but he doesn't want to.
He wanted to commemorate Angelina, as an ordinary person and a husband. Moreover, Angelina had always preferred electronic flowers when she was alive. She felt that flowers were just for looking at, while the fragrance and color of electronic flowers could remain forever.
.
The memorial square that Luther built to flatter Tang Ji really hit the mark. From then on, when Tang Ji saw Luther's bald head, he felt much more pleasing to the eye than before. It can be said that Luther can survive until now because of
this.
When Tang Ji appeared in the Memorial Square, there was no one there. Memorials are for living people, and now living people don’t know whether they will live tomorrow, so no one came.
But it’s better if no one comes. Tang Ji likes to be quiet and to be alone with Angelina.
"I did think about destroying the world at that time." Tang Ji walked to Angelina's sculpture, placed the bouquet of electronic flowers there, and explained awkwardly: "But just thinking about it, just talking in anger, the result
Now we are really going to do this, doesn't it sound a bit fantasy? This world has been like a nightmare since you left, and every day becomes completely different from before."
"Remember the apartment we lived in before? No one lives in it now. The Valentino gang built a shelter there. Who knows, how many people we know will be alive by then." Tang
Ji spoke softly. It had been a long time since he had spoken to someone like this.
Oh, strictly speaking, talking to Angelina is not talking to a human being, but even the most ignorant primitive rage is staying in the sea of consciousness at this time, without saying a word of unnecessary nonsense.
"Mikresen said that after the Apocalypse, more than five million people will survive in shelters around the world, and there will also be some small private shelters. The scattered population in the space station will survive, but in the end how many people will be able to persist? The end of the apocalypse is still unknown." Tang Ji sat cross-legged in front of Angelina's sculpture, as if the two of them sat together and chatted with each other after get off work. "I still remember the first time I saw the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. , I was so frightened that I stood there with a blank mind, I just hope you are okay."
"Later, I got used to it. Now the nuclear bombs in stock are almost running out. Military Science and Technology built a total of 120 tactical nuclear bombs last month, and they have been used up this month." Tang Ji pulled the electronic flower to light up.
He gave me a small bouquet of flowers and babbled without saying anything else: "Otherwise I wouldn't have been unable to buy flowers."
"Oh, by the way, your favorite flower shop is closed. I heard that some refugees went in to steal things. As a result, they broke the glass, destroyed the temperature control system, and all the flowers inside died." Tang Ji seemed to
Thinking of something, he complained: "The central prison is full of flowers, but those are flowers raised by Mikkelsen. I always thought it was an exaggeration to say that the dogs he raised were all spies, but now I believe it.
The grass he grows has eavesdropping capabilities."
"Mikkelsen has been thinking about Xiao Su, probably because he is young and easy to deceive. Wu Qianying now keeps Soult by his side to keep an eye on him." Tang Ji continued: "Martin and the others are doing it over there in Arizona.
We found a shelter. It’s a bit far away, but it’s safe. There aren’t many people there, so I guess the players won’t run wild there.”
"If you are still here, we can also take refuge in Martin's shelter. I have seen that their place is very big and can meet your request for a house with a small garden." Tang Ji has not said this for a long time.
He talked too much. He wanted to finish talking for the rest of his life today.
"Many people in the city want to live in the shelter, but less than 200,000 people can eventually live in the shelter, which is almost a ratio of 35 to 1. Without these things, it is estimated that neither of us would be qualified to live in the shelter.
That part." Tang Ji smiled somewhat self-deprecatingly.
As he really saw the whole world, he felt more and more how naive he was back then for not giving Angelina a better environment.
If he wasn't so stubborn, if he wasn't so nosy, if he had a better temper, maybe he would have been promoted and died in a conflict with my family.
Tang Ji held it in for a long time, and finally said: "I sent my son to the moon. If something unfortunate happens in the future, Amaropati will be the most likely place to continue studying Enron diseases."
"If I'm not here anymore, I will definitely go to hell. You can help me keep an eye on him in heaven." Tang Ji said the last thing, then looked at Angelina's sculpture for a long time, turned and left.
Coincidentally, when Tang Ji went out, Mr. Edward also welcomed his own visitors. John Fleming brought most of the alliance and their families to Night City.
Most of the first generation members of the League of Gentlemen are elderly people over sixty years old. They do not have much desire to enter the shelter for themselves, but they undoubtedly hope that their family members can enter the shelter.
For John Fleming, it is not difficult to arrange a place for ordinary people in a certain shelter. It only needs to use some previous human relationships to solve the problem. What is really difficult is to let even the alliance have a vitality.
The entire organization entered a certain shelter.
No one wants to give up their rights, especially for an elderly person like John Fleming who is getting more energetic as he lives.
He couldn't find an official shelter willing to take him in, so he thought that those private shelters that were large enough would be the best choice. It just so happened that the two largest privately-built shelters currently known were in Night City.
.
According to the information obtained by John Fleming, the shelter built by the Valentino Gang does not have any high-end combat forces stationed there. They do not have the hard power to resist the potential invasion of players. Coupled with Edward's relationship, it is entirely possible for him to use
Enter the Valentino Gang's safehouse as a security guard.
To this end, he brought his ace thug, Avalon.
Although Avalon's abilities cannot be used in the shelter at all, as an old politician who has worked in the government before, John Fleming is confident in persuading the other party to accept him.
"Mr. Scimitar? Can I call you that?" John Fleming sat opposite Scimitar. It was obvious that both of them were gangsters in the true sense, but one was dressed more formally than the other.
"Mr. Fleming, we are very pressed for time, so why not stop talking and get straight to the point." Scimitar loosened his tie. He was dressed so formally because today the shelter in the suburbs was going to officially cut the ribbon, and there were a large number of gang members.
and family members are about to move in.
Compared with the shelter in Heywood District, the Valentino Gang's shelter in the suburbs of Night City is larger and better prepared. However, in order to stabilize the situation within the gang, they enter the shelter in proportion to the number of high, middle, and low personnel and family members.
.
"Okay, I understand." John Fleming was not polite. He directly pulled out a map of California and drew a few circles on it with a pen: "These are the official shelter locations in California. They are all public."
You can see the information, I can see it, and the players can also see it. The question now is if players attack your shelter at a possible time in the future, how do you plan to respond?"
"Haha, I'll just lie down and deal with it." Scimitar looked at the time impatiently. When Edward called him, he agreed without hesitation because he knew that the other party was involved in the shelter in Heywood District.
Helped to speak.
To put it more seriously, the tens of thousands of people who will be able to survive in this shelter in the future will all depend on Edward's intervention, so Scimitar acquiesced to give twenty vacancies to Edward's friends, and as a result, more than 160 people came.
This is a hard-to-find ticket to the shelter! It’s not Chinese cabbage! Scimitar felt that the other party was a little too disrespectful.
As for the threat from players, that is a problem that the whole world cannot solve. Scimitar feels that he cannot solve it, so he can only hide and wait for one day in the future to leave the shelter and find that the players have left quietly.
He also didn't think that the guy opposite who was working as a mercenary middleman had this ability. Otherwise, he would have stood beside Tang Ji long ago, right?
"This is our data. We have 172 records of killing players, and all of them have corresponding video evidence." John Fleming took out a folder, which was one of his trump cards.
Scimitar frowned. This was a very attractive place. He had to admit that those who could kill players were ruthless characters.
The Valentino Gang has indeed recruited a group of superhuman members to defend against players, but unfortunately these people have very poor obedience. The higher their level, the worse they are. For street gangs like the Valentino Gang,
In other words, LV1 stage superhumans can barely use it, LV2 stage superhumans can only be used with caution, and LV stage superhumans are simply a disaster.
Scimitar has no doubt that his entire gang may not be as valuable as the opponent. The opponent will either become a target for the player, or he will kill half of the gang on an unpleasant morning and then eat the other half alive.
This is the image of superhumans in Scimitar's mind. Players are a little more unscrupulous and chaotic, but superhumans are not much stronger than them.
"This is our advantage. We are mercenaries. We respect the rules set by our employers. You can see that every one of our employments is well received, and Avalon has never killed any employer." John Fleming continued.
sales pitch, and then another card was played.
"Think about the future again, Mr. Scimitar. When we walk out of the shelter again, we are faced with ruins. Where is the future of the Valentino Gang?" John Fleming pointed at another part of Night City.
Several Shelters: “We could extend the contract to five years after we get out of the shelter, when everything starts over again, maybe”
Scimitar is a little excited. After all, it’s the end of the world. What else is more romantic than dreams?
"You ask for too much, and we can't spare enough space for you." Scimitar said while bargaining: "Fifty people is almost my limit. You know, there is room for those friends who are high-ranking officials.
But what you said makes sense, why should I care about them?"
"Sir, I brought them here. I can't tell them that only fifty of you can survive. The rest have to find a place to die on their own. The people who did this to me are scattered." John Fleming shook his head.
, he knew that he should leave at his own pace next.
