Dong Xie recalled what Karl said before, which was not much different from his inference.
"So, after anyone dies, his family must be with him and take off the mask in time. The mask taken off by the deceased will slowly break and finally be completely shattered. If it is worn by another person before it breaks,
If someone puts on a mask with cracks, they will become a face-splitter. Of course, generally no one would do such a stupid thing."
"About the Splitter..." Dong Xie asked another question: "How exactly does it become a supernatural spirit? After all, the Splitter is not a dead person."
"Well..." The beggar took another mouthful of food. After swallowing it, he said: "The situation of the face-splitting person is like this. If the face-splitting condition continues, even if you wear any mask, the mask will appear in the same position.
Cracks. Regardless of whether the mask is worn or not, the same cracks will appear on the skin at the same location on the face. Finally, when the cracks spread over the entire face, the person's face and mask will completely crack into countless fragments. At this time, the person,
It will turn into a strange spirit."
"What will happen after becoming a supernatural spirit?"
"This... I'm actually not very clear about this. This is top secret, and everyone who has seen the supernatural beings, except for the Black Corpse Team, is basically dead."
"So...terrible?"
"Well. For many years, the Black Corpse Team has taken the Face Splitter and the Face Melter out of the Black Wall. After being taken out, even if they become supernatural beings, they cannot come back. However, if they are taken out of the Black Wall,
It turns into a supernatural spirit outside, so we need the exorcists of the Black Corpse Team."
Corpse driving is also the local translation of apartment. As we all know, this word originated from the legend of corpse driving in Western Hunan. When Dong Xie was writing horror novels, he also collected a lot of information about corpse driving in Xiangxi. He thought it was just superstitious and spread rumors.
, but after entering the apartment, he felt that maybe this phenomenon really existed.
"However, how the Black Corpse Team expelled the corpses is also highly confidential. It can only be confirmed that someone in the Black Corpse Team has a special method to lure the supernatural spirits outside the black wall. However, this method is very dangerous.
Within the Black Corpse Team, the corpse chaser has the highest mortality rate."
…
Dong Xie's thoughts returned from memories to reality.
"Evicting corpses doesn't seem to be the way to survive in an apartment."
"If the mortality rate is really high, then it's definitely not." Mu Ziyi is very convinced of this point, "The way of life provided by the apartment will definitely allow the residents to gain life. Moreover, it sounds like this is not something that everyone can do.
Something that can be done.”
"However, all this beggar knows is some common sense, and there must be some secrets that only those within the Black Corpse Team can understand."
Dong Xie realized that they were all imprisoned by the masks on their faces.
Once the mask is removed illegally, they will become a face-splitter. Finally, the whole face will be shattered.
"But according to what the beggar said, no matter how long the mask is worn, it will not have any negative impact on the facial skin. On the contrary, when the mask is taken off, the entire face will be completely shattered. The mutations of the Face Splitter and the Face Melter
Spirit, the only difference that the beggar knows is that it is rumored that the Split-faced Spirit is a faceless image. As for the Facemelder, nothing is known at all. Their face has been completely fused with the facial skin, and the mask has completely replaced the real face.
.”
What kind of thing is this mask?
Speaking of which, the situation of Dong Xie and others is very similar to that of the ancestors of the people living in this black wall. The difference is that their memories have not been erased.
"After observing these days, I feel that people here are really in dire straits." At this time, Lian Zixin walked up and said: "Walking on the street, there are beggars and vagrants everywhere, even walking a few steps,
There are people selling drugs to us. It can be said that people in slums are in dire straits.”
"It is hell both inside and outside the black wall." Mu Ziyi crossed her arms and said while looking at the earth that was gradually covered with silver outside.
Suddenly, her eyes noticed a certain location.
"Wait, look at that person?"
Then, everyone looked towards the place where Mu Ziyi said, and saw a man lying there on a street corner, and the heavy snow almost turned him into a snowman. However, he did not react at all.
"Go out and have a look!" Dong Xie was also anxious. If the other party was frozen to death but didn't take off the mask in time, he would become a Face Melter!
As soon as the group opened the door of the restaurant, they were greeted by the biting cold wind, which made people feel chilled to the bone marrow.
Rushing towards the man covered in ice and snow, Dong Xie swept the snow away from his face and touched his body again. There was no body temperature anymore. Dong Xie then moved towards his chest and could no longer hear his heartbeat.
.
This man's arms were so thin that the skin was almost close to the bones. It was obvious that this man had a low immunity due to long-term hunger, and he soon died in the blizzard.
"Don't worry about him." At this time, a passerby came over and said: "With this heavy snow, the people from the Black Corpse Team will be patrolling around here soon. Is he dead? You take off the mask and put it on the
Just keep it aside, the Black Corpse Team will take away the body."
The tone of the passerby could be said to be casual, as if this was a very common thing. The death of a person was as indifferent as the death of an ant.
"Alas," the passerby also sighed, "What kind of world is this? How many people will die this winter? In this slum, there will be more and more people who cannot survive this winter."
In fact, the easiest way to determine whether a person is dead is to take off his mask. If he is still alive, he cannot take it off anyway.
Dong Xie raised his hand and gently took off his mask.
The bloodless face under the mask looked extremely young, as if he was less than twenty years old.
The clothes on his body were extremely thin, and it was obvious from a glance that they did not have much ability to keep out the cold.
The passerby came up, looked at the face of the deceased, and said, "Oh, this kid should still be at school age."
"Now, even children like this... have to become beggars..." Dong Xie put the mask on the ground and felt that the air had become colder.
"This is not surprising. The unemployment rate has been rising in recent years, and this year's food shortage is just a trigger." Passers-by knelt down and stared at the face of the dead boy, "I was also employed by me in May this year.
I was fired from the store and then kicked out by the landlord. Now I finally found a job that provides food and accommodation, but I don’t know where I will be in two months and whether I can still have a full meal.
If it weren’t for the color and class differences of masks, the ghettos would have rioted long ago.”
The snow continued to fall, gradually burying everything.
…
Back at their residence, Dong Xie and others felt heavy in their hearts.
Although the apartment provided them with a lot of money, the price of goods is rising at an incredible speed. There is no doubt that even if they are relatively safe inside the black wall, once the money runs out, it will be extremely difficult for them to survive. The unemployed
The number is unprecedentedly huge. According to the passerby, there are hundreds of people competing for the position of even one gatekeeper.
Soon...their only option is to join the Black Corpse Corps. The Black Corpse Corps is a profession with such a high risk of death, and precisely because of this, it is still able to attract people to join.
"We... based on the information we know so far, would it be too early to join the Black Corpse Team?" Kuang Wenxuan was still quite hesitant, "What will happen if we really go outside the Black Wall? There are almost no people inside the wall.
clear."
"It is known so far..." Mu Ziyi took out a piece of paper and drew a square, "Hei formed a square with a side length of about 70 kilometers, and the internal area is about 5,000 square kilometers. We are currently in the east
The slums are nearly 20 kilometers away from the central city.”
"The more I look at it, the more I feel like this black wall is like the giant circular wall in the anime "Attack on Titan"..." Dong Xie couldn't help but complain, "The internal circular wall of three thousand square kilometers is too exaggerated.
"
"Actually, the setting of "Attack on Titan" is even more exaggerated." Mu Ziyi pointed her pen at the center of the circle and said, "The total area inside the wall inside Titan is at least twice as large as the total area of the Japanese archipelago."
"You also know this?"
"I used to like to follow Japanese anime."
"That's just an anime." Even Zixin found it unbelievable: "Five thousand square kilometers... almost as big as SH City. There are such magnificent walls!"
"The means of transportation here are mainly non-motorized vehicles, and there are even rickshaws. There were originally oil fields within the wall, but in the past ten years, the output of crude oil has become less and less. After the decrease in crude oil, the supply of steel has also increased accordingly.
Reduction, because without oil, a lot of steel would become scrap iron. There are no other minerals similar to gold that can be mined within the wall, so currency and credit depend on the production of crude oil for a long time. The reduction in oil production has led to an already small industrial scale.
If it is further reduced, currency credit will be greatly reduced. The more issuance is issued, the more inflation will occur."
Hearing Mu Ziyi's remarks, Gao Yiyu quickly asked: "Well, I didn't quite understand... Does currency rely on oil and gold to have credibility?"
"Otherwise, what do you think the credit of currency is?" Mu Ziyi began to educate Gao Yiyu: "The so-called currency is the credit of the country to redeem currency equivalents. You can think of currency as a bond endorsed by the country. If the country cannot redeem the currency,
The equivalent of currency, then the value of currency will depreciate. Otherwise, no one knows how to print banknotes, and the country cannot become rich by printing more banknotes."
"Is...is that so?"
"By the way, the reason why the U.S. dollar has hegemony around the world is because of gold and oil. After World War II, the Bretton Woods system linked the U.S. dollar to gold, and all countries could use the U.S. dollar to exchange gold for gold. Later, the U.S. concluded an agreement with Saudi Arabia.
According to the treaty, only U.S. dollars can be used for oil settlement. Therefore, the U.S. dollar is closely related to gold and oil, thus becoming a world currency. As long as Americans are short of money, they can print and issue additional banknotes to the world to let them pay for the U.S. government. U.S. dollars
It will not depreciate. In addition, although the area inside the wall is large, it does not represent the area of effective cultivated land. The agricultural foundation itself is weak, and at the same time, the mineral output is also weak, and only relatively poor quality steel can be produced. In this case
Under this situation, once the crude oil is exhausted, there will no longer be an equivalent that can be redeemed for currency, and currency credit will plummet."
This should be the main reason why the economy inside the wall is collapsing day by day and the people are in dire straits!