He first went to the bar and ordered a glass of milk, then settled into a cubicle and sat down.
Two grown men, who didn't get along very well, sat facing each other in a private room. One was holding a bottle of milk, and the other was holding a cup of coffee. They stared at each other in silence.
After a moment of unspoken embarrassment, Yi Heye cleared his throat and spoke first: "You're not trying to trick me again, are you?"
Pei Xiangjin sneered: "There are plenty of ways to trick you, I don't need to drag myself into this."
This speaking style was very much like Pei Xiangjin's. Although Yi Heye was a little annoyed, he still found it believable, and then fell silent again.
—It seems like the two of them really aren't suited to stand on the same side and have a proper conversation.
While Yi Heye was drinking milk to ease the awkwardness, his wide collar was exposed—Jian Yunxian had used some kind of knife, and left clear marks after carving, which couldn't be washed off or wiped clean. It seemed that the marks were stuck on his little lamb.
The moment the lamb poked its head out, Yi Heye swiftly reached up to straighten his collar, but unfortunately, Pei Xiangjin's reaction time was no joke either.
He could see the pattern on his collarbone very clearly.
Pei Xiangjin calmly withdrew his gaze, raised an eyebrow, and said, "You went to Area A to prove his innocence?"
Yi Heye became somewhat embarrassed and annoyed by his question: "...What's it to you?!"
"I don't care about you." Pei Xiangjin crossed his arms. "If you're willing to investigate the truth, that's for the best. If he's guilty, send him to jail. If he's not guilty, the rest is none of our security department's business. We can all go our separate ways and everyone's happy."
Yi Heye noticed that this person's tone seemed to have changed. His words were no longer as aggressive as before, and he was no longer as easily swayed as the others in the group, who insisted that SHEEP was the mastermind behind everything.
This made Yi Heye feel much better, but given that this guy was full of tricks and that he had suffered a lot at his hands, he decided not to make any judgments about Pei Xiangjin's character for the time being.
After thinking for a moment, he asked, "And what about you? You just want the truth to come out?"
Pei Xiangjin laughed: "We're on this side, and the real culprit is on the other side. If we don't take the initiative to push down that wall, we'll always be passive and forever be manipulated by others."
Yi Heye raised an eyebrow. He couldn't quite grasp Pei Xiangjin's perspective. He only knew that his goal was indeed very simple: he wanted to help Jian Yunxian clear his name and restore his innocence.
Of course, if he painstakingly uncovers the truth only to find that the guy is not innocent at all, he will definitely kill him with his own hands to vent his anger.
At this point, both parties had reached an agreement. Yi Heye stretched and loosened his muscles, then frankly said, "To be honest, I don't want to cooperate with you, but I have no choice. No one around me is helping me, and I don't have as many tricks up my sleeve as you guys, so I need you to help me come up with a plan."
Pei Xiangjin was very clear about his own position. Their cooperation was based on mutual benefit, so he made no attempt to hide it, saying, "Coincidentally, I also need someone to help me take the lead."
The phrase "taking the lead" immediately ignited Yi Heye's competitive spirit. Although he tried to maintain a calm expression in front of Pei Xiangjin, the light in his eyes was impossible to hide.
"What plan?" Yi Heye asked. "To bribe the border control bureau and infiltrate from the inside, or to just blast their gates open? To lead your team and charge in?"
Pei Xiangjin glanced at him with a rather strange look in her eyes, and after a long while, she slowly said, "You're quite self-aware."
Yi Heye's brow twitched, and his expression turned cold: "What do you mean?"
"You're really clueless," Pei Xiangjin said speechlessly. "Do you want me to get reported and arrested?"
Yi Heye was naturally annoyed at being called stupid, but then he thought about it and realized that what he said made sense—their initial intention in cooperating was that they couldn't find any other trustworthy people, so they had to make do and it was destined to be a small-scale affair.
Yi He's ambition to make a big splash faltered: "Then what should we do?"
“Stay home these days, and if you’re really bored, go online.” Pei Xiangjin smiled and patted his shoulder. “When the time is right, you’ll naturally know what to do.”
Yi Heye disliked riddle-makers who never finished their sentences, but judging from his demeanor, he guessed that this person had been planning this for a long time and should be considered reliable. In other words, the less you know about such things, the better, so he gladly accepted it.
"You haven't been waiting for me to bring this up, have you?" Yi Heye asked.
“I’m already planning to do it without you having to tell me,” Pei Xiangjin said.
This private meeting, aside from unifying their positions, didn't yield any useful information for Yi Heye. However, having a partner who didn't share anything with him made his mindset less volatile—at least he was no longer a headless fly with nowhere to land. Even if he died this time, he could take someone down with him.
After falling out with Director Li, Yi Heye childishly moved back to his small, dilapidated house in District D.
Although the place is empty and in a terrible state, it is still his own little home, and it can always give him a unique sense of comfort when he has nowhere else to go.
The home's smart technology is rather outdated. There are no fancy greetings when you enter the house, only water that I boiled remotely, and I made him a steaming cup of milk as soon as he came in.
After quickly taking a shower, Yi Heye wrapped himself in a bathrobe and came out, his hair still wet.
He ran to drink the milk that was at just the right temperature, and then sat down in front of the computer with his bathrobe wide open.
Yi Heye looked up and glanced at the computer webcam—that pervert Jian Yunxian always liked to hide here and spy on him.
He glanced again at the prosthetic limb soaking in water on his table, remembering how that guy had been sitting in his room like this, watching him struggle to get his hand implanted.
His curvaceous body was reflected on the dark screen. He looked at the little lamb with wide, open eyes on his collarbone and couldn't help but gasp.
This time, he didn't hide it; instead, he put on his prosthetic leg in front of the camera.
The pain was still 2.5 times worse, shooting straight through the spinal cord from the interface. Yi Heye groaned and started playing with the two nails in his hand.
The pain made his whole body tremble. The moment his arm was reattached, he immediately followed the dictates of the electric current and began to relieve himself at will.
From the moment he deliberately sat down in front of the computer, he knew he had completely lost all sense of shame.
He stared at the camera, inwardly warning Jian Yunxian not to suddenly appear at this moment, but he was also secretly hoping that there really was a pair of emerald eyes staring at him from the other side of the camera.
Finally, he lay exhausted on the chair, catching his breath. His bathrobe was scattered on the floor, and everything about him was exposed, as if he wanted the cameras to see everything clearly.
After a long, long time, he looked at the mess on his body, cursed, and took another shower—this had happened several times now, Yi Heye scolded himself, why couldn't he learn to take care of things in the shower, or just endure it...
When Yi Heye returned to the desktop, he found that the computer screen, which had been black, had lit up. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the webcam seemed to have moved slightly.
He was stunned for a moment, and then chuckled softly after a long while: "Pervert."
The one-way, remote relaxation game with Jian Yunxian allowed Yi Heye to completely relax. Just as Pei Xiangjin had said, he stayed at home and surfed the internet when he had nothing to do.
Bored, he first disguised himself and visited SHEEP's fan website, "Sheep's Dew," only to find that after a few days, the usually fiercely protective fans had become incredibly depressed due to the increasing number of news reports about SHEEP's alleged involvement in a case.
"Help! This is my only house, is it going to collapse?"
"Although I know that CEO Mei is no good, if he really did something like murder and arson, I would unfollow him and turn against him, sob sob sob..."
"I should have known this would be the outcome if I had chosen to fall into such a wicked trap! This is God's punishment for me!!"
Yi Heye was furious. He frantically edited a bunch of things, but after deleting and rewriting, he only left one sentence: "I believe him!"
Not long after the message was sent out, a group of trolls who had infiltrated the forum swarmed up and mocked him closely, calling him brain-dead, laughing at him for being mentally challenged, and telling him to go home and do his homework and spend less time online.
Yi Heye's blood pressure soared. Afraid of angering himself to death, he could only grit his teeth and exit the webpage.
What the hell are they doing? Yi Heye even suspected that Pei Xiangjin had asked him to come online so that he could secretly murder him. He drank a glass of milk to calm himself down and was just about to turn off the computer and go to bed when a news pop-up appeared in front of him.
Yi Heye had originally waved to turn it off, but a casual glance drew his attention away—
Rare photos of the interior of Area A have been leaked, prompting netizens to exclaim: "So heaven really does exist!"
Yi Heye frowned and clicked on it; a so-called "paradise" image immediately caught his eye—
Trees, birds, wooden houses, distant mountains, and a cartoon-like blue sky.
Prior to this, most of the images and videos in Area A focused on people, and the scenes were mostly indoors. People had only heard that Area A was scenic, but this was the first time they had actually seen such a large area of real-life photos, which was truly astonishing.
The scene was so beautiful that it could instantly captivate the city's eyes, but Yi Heye soon realized that the scenery in the photo was all too familiar.
He frowned, thinking carefully, then muttered a curse under his breath—
Isn't this a screenshot of the map Fang Chunyang created himself in the game LIFE?
Yi Heye's mind raced. He remembered that this hidden map had never been revealed before. Almost all the players who had seen it were dead. The only ones who had seen it, besides himself, were the people who were involved in the case at the time. To narrow it down further, it was those few who watched him carry out his mission from the backstage.
So it seems quite obvious who created this picture.
He held his breath and quickly scrolled through the comments. Amidst the sea of envy and praise, some discordant voices emerged—
"So the privileged class can monopolize such natural resources?"
Why can we only look at photos from the outside?
"Stop looking, it's not ours anyway, hehe."
Gradually, similar comments appeared more and more online, and relevant departments quickly deleted the posts, but this action only provoked a backlash from netizens.
"He was anxious, he was so afraid we'd find out there was something good inside that he covered our eyes to keep us from seeing!"
"Delete what? Are you afraid we'll pack our weapons and smash the walls to go see the scenery overnight?"
"Hehe, I also want to go to Area A. I can't wait for the next life, I want to go in this life."
Looking at these comments, Yi Heye felt a vague understanding of what Pei Xiangjin was planning, even though it was still unclear.
Author's Note:
Who can only hide behind the camera and secretly watch their wife satisfy her cravings? Oh, it's Boss Guo.
Chapter 149 (Number 149)
People seemed to have become accustomed to ignoring and refusing to observe this lofty and ethereal world as much as possible.
Because of the layers upon layers of rules, they tacitly restrained their desire to explore this matter. Even if a small number of people, like Fang Chunyang, couldn't resist taking that step, their thoughts would be completely extinguished by the suppression of absolute power.
This seemingly ordinary photo completely shattered the curiosity that people suppressed through self-discipline.
The related discussions have already reached the top of the trending searches tonight. Despite the timely intervention of relevant departments to delete posts and even the use of power to threaten, the discussions continue to rise in waves.
What's worse, a bunch of online celebrities and influencers have taken the lead in commenting on this matter. Their true and false revelations, speculations, and comments, through constant forwarding, analysis, and distortion, have been given countless interpretations.
A prominent geographer said that, based on the topography shown in the existing photos, the area on the other side of the wall is much larger than they thought.
Due to secrecy regulations, even in this technologically advanced era, no satellite image can capture the entire "target." Even terrain surveys and data measurements near Area A are strictly prohibited. Therefore, regarding the true area of the "bullseye," everyone only has a vague guess and no real concept at all.
"Judging from the image, Area A possesses a vast plain area, scarce in the outside world, with excellent water and soil quality, suitable for the growth of plants, animals, and crops. We can reasonably suspect that Area A contains abundant natural resources and reserves, enough to sustain the operation of Areas B, C, and D..."
This scholar's conjecture brought the discussion to a new level. More than 20 years ago, during the period of widespread pollution, a large number of residents in the BCD districts died tragically. Some died directly from diseases caused by pollution, but many more died from illness or starvation due to the lack of water and food resources caused by pollution.
"Resources" is an indelible pain in the hearts of this generation. All those who survived the era of massive pollution remember the endless hunger, thirst, and exhaustion that lasted through those long and dark days.
Rational people began to publish analyses, arguing from multiple perspectives against the inaction of Area A and condemning the excessive and unequal distribution of resources.
"This is an extremely unwise choice. They could have chosen to hire outsiders to farm within the walls without relinquishing their land resources, distributing the profits based on labor, thus achieving a win-win situation. But instead, they stubbornly cling to that wall, coldly watching the massive casualties outside, determined to hold onto their gold mine. This is incredibly selfish and inhumane. I cannot imagine a suitable reason, unless the treasure they possess is far more astonishing than we can imagine..."
Sentimental people began to write essays, recalling the family members they lost or left behind due to illness and suffering during the era of great pollution.
“My younger brother starved to death back then. The last jar of rice in our house had been stained black. Rats that ate the contaminated rice would foam at the mouth and die a miserable death on the spot. At that time, my brother was lying in my mother's arms, looking at that box of black rice, and asked weakly why he couldn't have a bite. I couldn't bear to tell him that at least when he starved to death, he wouldn't vomit bile like my father did, and suffer from excruciating stomach pain.”
Posts kept popping up everywhere, and the relevant departments tried their best to delete them, but they couldn't keep up with the pace of people posting.
As Yi Heye looked at the comments and articles, he suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.
He forced himself to shut down the computer and lie back down on the bed, but as soon as he closed his eyes, a clear question echoed in his mind—
What's on the other side of the wall?