From the end of the world

Chapter 57: The Disappearance of the Doomsday Girl 2
GPS is the abbreviation of "Global Positioning System". As its name suggests, GPS can theoretically cover most of the earth's surface and near-earth space. At least that's what I found on the Internet.

But now, my mobile phone can't receive the GPS signal from Ma Zao.

How should I understand this situation? Did Ma Zao go to an area with poor signal? Or is there something wrong with the device?
First of all, we should rule out the problem of the bracelet's battery life. The red GPS bracelet on Ma Zao's left wrist has a maximum standby time of three months, and the bracelet was fully charged when I put it on her. Secondly, it should not have been damaged by water when she took a shower. I specifically confirmed when I bought it that the bracelet has a very high waterproof rating.

Maybe she found something wrong with the bracelet and destroyed it immediately... Is that true? Judging from the gentle manner in which she spoke to me when we parted, it was hard to imagine that she had realized my true intentions towards her.

All the prior preparations ended in failure, and I truly felt helpless.

No, you can't give up yet!
I have to fight till the very end.

With this in mind, I entered the fire elemental form again, condensed a large fireball, and launched it into the sky.

The huge fireball exploded in the sky, turning into thousands of "fireflies" that shot in all directions like exploding fireworks.

Although Ma Zao disappeared from my sight, she may not have left Xianshui City. Next, I will conduct a carpet search of Xianshui City until I find her. This is a very stupid and inefficient method, and it is the only way I can do it now.

In the form of fire element, the more flames gather in my body, the stronger my physical performance will be. Strength, speed, perception... even the speed of consciousness processing can be regarded as "physical performance" and improved together.

Therefore, even if there are thousands of "fireflies" transmitting images, I can process them now. Strictly speaking, this cannot be called "simultaneous and accurate processing". Perhaps it is limited by my mental structure, which still tends to be human, and my consciousness still has a focus problem.

Ordinary people without super powers should be able to understand my difficulties. Suppose someone takes out three pieces of colored paper with a line of words written on each piece of paper, and then shows them to another person, the latter will definitely be able to tell at a glance what color the three pieces of colored paper are. But if you want to tell what words are written on the three pieces of paper, you can only tell them one by one.

I could only process the images from different locations hastily at the same time, screening out any parts where "there were people wearing clothes or with heights similar to Ma Zao", and then concentrate on distinguishing them one by one.

Moreover, Xianshui City is still a city after all. Thousands of "fireflies" may seem like a lot, but it is really difficult to conduct a carpet search of the entire city. What's more terrible is that the city not only has outdoor areas, but also complex indoor areas, which makes it even more difficult to find.

I searched until dusk, and then until the night deepened and the silver moon hung high in the sky. My mind was numb, but I still didn't find any clues.

At the same time, I was also keeping an eye on the GPS signal, because it was possible that Ma Zao had simply moved to an area with poor signal... but the GPS signal never appeared, and it turned out that it was impossible to count on this.

I could only temporarily exit the fire elemental form and give my stiffened consciousness some time to recover its elasticity.

I looked around and it was already late at night. Cicadas were chirping nearby and the streets were lit up with colorful lights of nightlife. This unfinished building ruin was like another world. I felt the wind was cold for no reason and turned around and went downstairs.

When I passed the corridor downstairs, I saw the room where I first met Ma Zao. There was still blood she left inside, but now it was a black stain that was hard to tell its original shape. There was a lonely scaffolding lying next to it. It must have been knocked over by her accidentally, and the noise attracted me to her side.

On the way home, I walked through the crowd and bought two portions of spicy roasted pig's trotters. Then I entered the community and opened the door of my house.

There were no lights on at home. Ma Zao had a bad habit. If I didn't turn on the lights when I was out, she would not turn on the lights herself after dark, but would leave the room pitch dark.

Even if I told her she could eat whatever she wanted in the refrigerator, she would not take it herself. She would only eat it if I took it out and handed it to her. If I bought her only one portion of food, she would not accept it. Either I would buy one for myself or we would split it in half.

At first, she was reluctant to turn on the TV. It was only when I told her that she could learn about the operation of society in this era through TV programs that she would turn it on when she was alone. She would not watch entertainment programs, but only those current affairs programs. She would not watch them for a long time, and most of the time she would read the books and magazines in my house. Her expression was very serious.

Only when eating would she unconsciously reveal a childlike innocent and happy smile, treating the ordinary food I made as a delicacy and eating it with great care. Whenever I saw her eating so happily, I felt that the time of eating was shining, and I hoped that time could pass more slowly.

I pressed the lighting button at the entrance without saying a word. Ma Zao always stayed in the living room. When the dark living room was illuminated by white light, it seemed as if she would also appear under the light. Then she would jump off the sofa and run to me in small steps. I would hand her one of the spicy roasted pig's trotters, and she would complain in dissatisfaction that I treated her like a child, while obediently accepting the roasted pig's trotter.

But this scene did not appear. The living room was empty, no one was sitting on the sofa, and the space was filled with silence.

I walked slowly into the living room, threw the plastic bag of food on the dining table, and sat down on the sofa, and began to be in a daze like Ma Zao in the past. I didn't recall or think about anything in particular, I just wanted to clear my mind for a while. But before a minute had passed, I couldn't sit still and took a look at the bedroom. Of course, Ma Zao couldn't be here, I just came to take a look. After that, I paced around the house again, and every bit of living with her in the past emerged in my mind.

After a while, I came to the refrigerator again. There was an old backpack on top of the refrigerator, hidden close to the wall. If you didn't know it in advance, you wouldn't know it was hidden there. The old backpack contained some things, including the tattered hospital gown that Ma had worn before, and the real gun with four bullets.

I returned to the couch and opened the old backpack. The hospital gown and the gun were both neatly placed inside. I took out the hospital gown and unfolded it.

Unlike the blood-stained appearance at the beginning, this hospital gown was slightly washed. It wasn't me who washed it, but Ma had secretly scrubbed it when I first took a shower at home, but it was obviously not clean enough. I didn't wash it again afterwards, but used my superpowers to dry and sterilize it and then put it away.

Will I be able to meet her again?
What will happen to me in the future? Will I just go back to the days when I can’t encounter anything strange?
Is she doing well out there? She doesn’t even know how to use mobile payment, she has no money, no phone, and no ID. What should she do if she’s hungry, and where should she stay overnight?
I put the hospital gown into my old backpack with an unrelieved emotion.

That’s when I noticed something was wrong.

This old backpack contained not only hospital gowns and pistols, but also other secret items, one of which was Agent Kong's coke finger. I put it in an empty glass jar and placed it at the bottom of the main compartment of the backpack.

This empty glass can is still lying in the backpack, but as the name suggests, this empty glass can is now truly an empty can.

There's nothing inside!
I immediately took out the empty cans and searched the old backpack thoroughly, even turning the empty backpack upside down and shaking it, but there was still no sign of Coke Fingers.

Impossible. I remember very clearly that Coke Finger was indeed hidden in the empty can, and the lid of the empty can was tightly sealed, so it couldn't have fallen out. And after that, I never took Coke Finger out again, and I didn't even take the old backpack off the top of the refrigerator again. Coke Finger couldn't have disappeared on its own.

Unless someone takes it!

who is it?

Besides me, there was only Ma Zao in this house for the past few days. Since it wasn't me who took it out, it could only have been Ma Zao who took it out.

It's impossible that there was a thief in the house, otherwise some valuables would have been lost, and I didn't see any signs of that when I was walking around the house just now.

Let's take a step back and assume that a thief broke into my house and found this old backpack on top of my refrigerator, and also found a real gun inside the old backpack. In the end, he only took away the coke finger, which is meaningless to ordinary people...he even put the empty glass can containing the coke finger back to its original place. Is this possible?

Ma had discovered this old backpack a long time ago, so I can only blame myself for not hiding it deep enough, but the question now is... why did she take Coke Finger?

Did she realize that the origin of this charred finger was unusual?

But why did she leave the pistol behind? She clearly wanted to get the pistol back some time ago... Wait, she said that even if she left, her influence on me would continue for several days... Did she want to leave the weapon to me?

Can I use the clue of the charcoal fingers to analyze her future whereabouts?

I kept thinking and analyzing the empty can.

Perhaps it was because I was overly tired from the previous carpet search through thousands of "Fireflies", and my brain was working at high speed now, so I felt sleepy soon and fell asleep without knowing it.

Afterwards, I had a dream.

A dream filled with grey mist...

(End of this chapter)