Chapter 1228, The Neglected

The magical thing about the Gate of Keys was that you yourself couldn’t determine exactly where that door led to.

It could be a place you’ve been before, such as Chen An An’s favorite candy house.

It could also be a place you’ve never seen before, such as Chen’s beach.

That’s the most anticipated part, what’s really in that gift box, even you don’t know.

Because, not everyone knows themselves clearly, people always avoid some answers in life.

But Luo Lan was very sure about his heart, he never avoided his heart, he knew every answer in his heart.

This also made him more determined.

The first moment Xu Concealer stepped into the Key Door, he already knew where he was, which was …… the small bungalow that Qing Zhen and Luo Lan had once lived in, in the 111th Barrier.

That year, because of the treatment of their father, they sold their original residence and switched to Mule Fort Road to rent here.

This living is 8 years time.

Later, Qing Zhen became the shadow of Qing’s, these two brothers then began to soar, bought a better house, villa, manor ……

Life was getting better day by day.

Xu Concealer had only been here once, still helping Qing Zhen move some old objects from the past.

Now that he came here again, he realized that the furniture here was exactly the same as when he came here a few years ago.

Xu Concealer asked suspiciously, “Boss Luo, why is the door open here?”

“This is my house,” Luo Lan cheerfully laughed.

“Wasn’t this the house you guys used to rent, I thought you had already returned the house to the landlord,” Xu Zou said.

“No, I bought the house,” Luo Lan said, “Normally, I live here when I’m at Barrier 111. But the chances of me going back to Barrier 111 are too few, so you guys don’t know about it.”

This made Xu Conceal a bit surprised, a number two figure of the Qing Clan like Luo Lan was living in such a shabby place?

Luo Lan glanced at Xu Zou, “What, it doesn’t fit my style? Don’t underestimate this house, I can only sleep soundly in this house.”

While speaking, Luo Lan has opened the main door of the small house, outside the door is the Mule Fort Road, there is also an uncle at the door who is pushing a car selling cold skin, with pots and pans placed on the car.

Xu Concealer looked at this scene with some surprise, this Luo boss is so sure about his heart.

Most of the people in this world are afraid to guess the answer when faced with the door of the key.

Luo Lan looked at everything in this house, when their family of three huddled in this small one-room bungalow, the sick old man lived in the inner room, while he and Qing Zhen lived in the living room.

The two of them bunked on the floor, and if they fought outside during the day, when they sneaked back in the middle of the night, Qing Zhen had to tiptoe around and bandage Luo Lan’s wounds.

In winter, they also had to carefully guard the briquettes at the door to prevent the neighbor’s uncle from stealing the briquettes they had worked so hard to steal from others ……

The days away from here were certainly richer, but every time Luo Lan thought back, she always felt that this little bungalow was the one that carried all their joy.

There was no Qing’s shadow back then, and they didn’t need to think about war and politics.

The life that only old men should think about hadn’t yet come into their lives.

It was possible to laugh with abandon, to carry the suffering forward together, to look back once in a while, with all the dilemmas behind them, and as long as they moved forward, every step was better than the past.

But now it seems like this is not the case, every step is more arduous, so Luo Lan often dares not look back, he is afraid that he can’t bear to continue walking forward.

“Let’s go, the later soldiers follow, remember to tread lightly, this floor of mine is not sturdy to begin with,” Luo Lan urged.

One hundred and eighty soldiers walked out one after another from the house to the streets of Mule Fort Road.

That cold skin seller’s uncle looked dumbfounded as he watched more than a hundred people walk out of such a small bungalow!

How could such a house of only fifty square feet hold so many people? And all of them were soldiers with loaded guns!

In just a moment, the uncle who bought the cold skin suddenly felt that he knew the truth: underneath this house, there must be a secret military base of the Qing Clan, the kind that is rumored to be hidden under the ground!

At this moment, the soldiers marveled at the magic of the Gate of Keys, which had taken them days to travel to the Central Plains, but only a few steps to return.

“Sir, is this sorcery?” The company commander of the special company asked Xu Zui.

“Well,” Xu Concealer said, “This is the sorcery that Boss Luo brought back from the Northwest.”

Saying this, the company commander subconsciously used his gaze to look for Luo Lan’s figure, but Luo Lan had already disappeared.

“Where is Boss Luo?” The company commander exclaimed.

The alert Xu Concealer didn’t say half a word, turned around and rushed towards the house, but where was Luo Lan’s figure in this small house?

Xu Xu remembered that they had come out from the opposite wall of the TV in the living room, so he rushed to touch that wall.

However, there was no Key Door on the wall now, it had been closed by Luo Lan herself from another direction!

Xu Concealer stood on this side of the wall and took a deep breath, the other party had pretended to calmly tricked all of them back to Barrier 111, but in fact, they wanted to return to Barrier 61 by themselves to save Zhou Qi.

This Key Door was given to Luo Lan by Ren Xiaosu privately, so Xu Concealment and the others actually did not know the principle of this sorcery.

Luo Lan had remembered what Ren Xiaosu had seriously explained before parting: although this Key Gate was two-way, it would likewise have drawbacks if it was used as a means of escape.

If all of them passed through the key door of the bridge pillar to the 111th barrier, then if someone directly destroyed the Qianling River Bridge, then all of them who passed through this key door would fall out again.

So at that time, Ren Xiaosu explained, “If this Key Door is used to escape, you must let someone else open this Key Door for you, and then he will twist counterclockwise ten times from the outside of the door, and the door will completely disappear, and those who went in can’t go back to the other end of the door.”

The key door had a way of opening, naturally it also had a way of destroying, ten turns clockwise was opening, ten turns counterclockwise was destroying.

Only, this way of escaping is then doomed, on the way to escape there will inevitably be one person left outside the door, looking at the others to leave.

This person was destined to be sacrificed.

However, Luo Lan had never told Xu Concealment and the others about this matter, in Luo Lan’s opinion, if there was really a need for that one person to sacrifice himself to preserve the others in this plan, then this matter had to be done by himself.

Moreover, it was his own business that he wanted to save Zhou Qi, those one hundred and eighty warriors had old people and young people, why should they follow him to play with their own lives?

There was no need to let others pay for themselves for the risks they wanted to take.

Luo Lan knew very well that if he had insisted on saving Zhou Qi before, then the warriors would have to follow him to his death.

“There’s no reason for a big old man to let others sacrifice,” Luo Lan muttered.

He didn’t want Xu Concealer and the others to follow him and risk their lives, but he had to go save Zhou Qi.

Although that wilting son of a bitch always liked to tease himself, and although the other party only loved money, but that was his friend.

Luo Lan knew that if Zhou Qi really only recognized money, then the AI server unit in this 61st Barrier right now could not have been blown up.

The timing of the explosion was not right.

He looked at the Key Gate that had been destroyed and turned towards the SUV parked next to him.

However, just then, the trunk of an SUV suddenly opened.

“Surprise or not? Surprise or not?” Qing Laosan spat out the dust in his mouth while drilling out of the trunk.

Luo Lan froze in place, “Wait, didn’t you just enter that key door?”

Qing Lao San laughed joyfully, “I knew that none of you would care about my death. Hey, I’m good enough to call you big brother, you didn’t even pay attention to whether I went in or not after you entered the door? It’s really saddening.”

Indeed, as Qing Lao San had said, his role was to come to the Central Plains to pretend to be Qing Zhen, once this task was completed, then he wouldn’t have much value left, this kind of existence of a double could only be used once in all probability.

Moreover, the AI Zero had already proved that it possessed the ability to distinguish between the main body and the double, so Qing Laosan’s value then decreased once again.

So much so that, after Xu Concealer and the others had returned to Barrier 111, they had actually forgotten to check if Qing Laosan had followed them back.

This was a person who was ignored by everyone, and the other party had hidden in the trunk at an unknown time, then waited for Luo Lan to return.

At this time, Qing Laosan had already taken care of himself and started to take out the firearms from the trunk: ”How many spirits are there in that Ying Ling Shrine of yours? Hurry up and prepare your firearms to save people.”

In the trunk, there was also a reserve of ammunition, which Xu Zui wanted to take away earlier, but Luo Lan said not to waste time, and the guns and ammunition weren’t worth a few dollars.

“You stayed, just to go with me to save Zhou Qi?” Luo Lan was puzzled, “How do you know I’ll definitely come back, if I don’t, what will you do?”

“If you don’t come back, I’ll just drive back to Southwest by myself, what else can I do?” Qing Laosan smiled and said, “But I know you will come back, even if Zhou Qi is really dead, I’m afraid you’ll want to confirm it yourself. I didn’t just study Qing Zhen when I was at the Fire Seed, I also studied you.”

“Studied me?” Luo Lan muttered while converging the firearms from all the vehicles into one car, “Why do I feel as if you were idle when you were at the Spark, either studying this or that? Don’t you play mahjong or fight the landlord or something with your friends?”

Qing Lao San laughed and did not answer the question.

“Alright, since you’re not afraid to die, then come with me to save people,” Luo Lan said.

Qing Laosan suddenly said, “Don’t you always ask me why I go to the southwest, maybe this time I’ll have a chance to tell you.”

……

On the mountain road two hundred kilometers northwest of Barrier 61, Ren Xiaosu silently looked at Vanilla and Tang Huolong in front of her.

Ren Xiaosu’s hair was messy and her clothes were all dirty.

This time Zero Manipulation Dusk had struck too explosively, hard enough to split the steam train in two, just as Shadow Lao Xu had been struck in the center of the eyebrow, and had to wait for it to regroup before it could be used again.

Along the way, Ren Xiaosu had run over here hard, and later, when he didn’t think he was fast enough, he even asked Old Xu to carry him on his back.

Fortunately, Dusk’s slap on Lao Xu at that time did not touch the fatal head.

At that moment, the duo of Vanilla and Tang Huanglong were one in front of the other, with the former vaguely shielding the latter behind him.

In the stalemate, there were hundreds of steel needles constantly swirling around Herb’s body, while on top of the small stove in front of Tang Huanglong, the sugar thickening had already boiled down to the color of amber.

The old man surnamed Tang was stirring the boiling pot with a huge iron spoon, and seemed to be planning on scooping out a spoonful of sugar thinning from it and splashing it on the smooth iron plate beside himself.

“Who told you to come and stop me?” Ren Xiaosu asked.

“That’s a question we don’t have to answer, right?” Vanilla said calmly.

Ren Xiaosu asked again, “I’ll ask again, did Wang Shengzhi give you the order, or was it the AI?”

At this time, Ren Xiaosu also saw that on the branches of the trees by the roadside, there were white thousand paper cranes that were constantly falling on the treetops, and those cute but scary little guys stopped and stood on the branches combing their feathers that were not there in the first place.

“Artificial intelligence?” Vanilla was puzzled, “It was Officer Wang Shengchi who called us.”

“That means it wasn’t Wang Shengzhi who gave you the order in person,” Ren Xiaosu nodded, “Then did you know what you were up against before you came to stop me?”

Tang Huolong replied, “We only received orders to delay you here, and he didn’t say exactly how long we needed to delay you.”

“Just by you guys?” Ren Xiaosu sneered.

When these words came out, both Herb and Tang Huanglong were in a state of awe, while those thousand paper cranes on the branches by the roadside all stopped their movements and turned their heads to stare at Ren Xiaosu dead in the face.

At this time in the sky drifted a cloud, originally clear sky actually turned dark, as if heaven and earth are also catering to Ren Xiaosu’s anger in general.

However, right at this moment, taking advantage of the moment when the dark clouds in the sky created a large area of shadows, Ren Xiaosu struck out like thunder.

Only to see a door of shadows open in front of him, Ren Xiaosu reached out and lifted the stove and pots in front of Tang Yinglong in one go, splashing the ground with boiling hot sugar.

All of this happened in an instant, a moment later as if nothing had happened between them, leaving only the stunned Herb and Tang Yinglong.

Tang Yinglong could not cry, he had fought quite a few times, but it was the first time he had seen an enemy like Ren Xiaosu who was directly able to lift his pot.

But on the contrary, this move happened to be the most effective against him.

Ren Xiaosu said, “Because of Yang Xiaoguan I don’t really want to be enemies with you guys, so please get out of the way, I’m going to save someone.”

Vanilla and Tang Paint Dragon looked at each other in dismay, in fact, they were not even sure why they were blocking Ren Xiaosu from traveling to the Central Plains, and now that Ren Xiaosu was saying that he was going to save someone, neither of them knew who the person Ren Xiaosu was going to save was.

At this time, Yang Anjing slowly turned out from the mountain road, “Who are you going to save?”

“Luo Lan,” Ren Xiaosu said in a cold voice.

“Wang Shengzhi didn’t intend to kill Luo Lan,” Yang Anjing said calmly, “Don’t worry about that.”

“Maybe Wang Shengzhi didn’t intend to kill him, but what about Artificial Intelligence Zero?” Ren Xiaosu said, “Tang Zhou, who was in charge of sending information to my Northwest Army, died on the way to Barrier 144. On my way to the Central Plains, I was also hunted down and blocked by Zero, do you all know about these?”

Yang Anjing fell into deep thought, “These were not in Wang’s plan, so how can you be sure that this was not Qing’s scheme? Deliberately discrediting Wang.”

For the understanding of artificial intelligence, Yang Anjing was inferior to Wang Shengzhi, after Wang Shengzhi guessed that Zero might have awakened its own will, even Yang Anjing did not reveal it.

Therefore, right now, even Yang Anjing was not clear that Zero had actually become completely different from what she had perceived.

Ren Xiaosu said, “I’m pretty sure it was the AI that did this, since Wang Shengzhi never intended to harm Luo Lan, why did he have to send you guys to stop me? What is he afraid of? If you guys don’t have any half-heartedness, then let me ask again, when you got the order, could you confirm that it was the order given by Wang Shengzhi or not?”

Yang Anjing fell into deep thought, this time she had felt something odd, but the problem was that no one had thought about it to zero.

There was nothing wrong with Wang Shengzhi’s voice or mannerisms, even the coughing on the phone was no different from what she remembered.

But just like what Ren Xiaosu said, she knew very well what kind of attitude Wang Shengzhi was looking at this peace talk with, with Wang Shengzhi’s character if he learned that Ren Xiaosu was coming, he should still be a little happy.