From the end of the world

Chapter 86: Ma Zao Reappears 3
Zhu Shi looked at Ma Zao in doubt, then looked at me.

This situation is still easy to predict.

As long as Zhu Shi and I cooperate to investigate the weirdo, it would be strange if we were not together when we found Ma Zao. And without discussing it with Ma Zao in advance, Ma Zao would most likely reveal the truth that we had known each other for a long time.

Although this sentence cannot be said to be my motto, I often follow this idea to do things. Therefore, in this situation, I should have been prepared in advance.

But no matter how it works, am I actually prepared for it?

Actually not really.

Maybe this will surprise people who know me, but I didn’t even think about whether this situation would happen.

As the saying goes, "care leads to confusion." When people face someone they care about very much, they will lose their normal mind and then be unable to maintain their pace normally. It was not until this time that I deeply realized the power of this saying. In the past few days, I have repeatedly imagined the scene of finding Ma Zao, but those imaginations have no practical guiding significance at all.

I can think about things before and after I found Ma Zao relatively normally, but I can't be at ease with the scene of "finding Ma Zao" itself. Because this matter is too important to me, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is related to life itself. Whenever I sketch the scene of myself finding Ma Zao in my mind, the ink of my imagination is all about sketching the element of Ma Zao, and lacks the description of other scene elements.

Simply put, I would imagine what Ma Zao might say to me after I found her, and what I might say to her, but I never imagined whether there would be anyone nearby who might hear our conversation, and what the bystander's reaction would be.

This is really bad.

In the past, I lied to Zhu Shi in order to prevent Luo Shan from knowing that Ma had been with me for a long time, and now it is finally time to pay back the debt.

While I was still trying my best to think, Zhu Shi's eyes had become dangerous: "——Senior Brother Zhuang?"

So could you please not call me "Senior Brother Zhuang" at this time?

"Let's talk somewhere else first." I changed the subject reflexively. "It was too noisy here just now. Look, someone is already looking over here."

The weirdo had crashed through the community wall and was screaming because of my burning. Some residents of the surrounding buildings had already appeared, either on the balcony or opening the window to see what was going on. There seemed to be a few security guards moving over in the distance.

Ma Zao showed an expression as if she wanted to leave this place alone. I was very familiar with her reaction. When I lived with her before, she would show similar emotions from time to time.

In order to prevent her from suddenly teleporting away, I immediately said to her, "Ma Zao, don't leave. We have clues about that weirdo."

She had already made a move to turn around, but she turned back immediately after hearing the words and asked vigilantly, "Really? Zhuang Cheng, if you are fooling me again..."

What are you talking about? Have I ever fooled you? I almost said this, but after looking at Ma Zao and then Zhu Shi, I swallowed the words back and said, "I promise I won't fool you."

"You two seem to be very familiar with each other..." Zhu Shi seemed to have realized that I was hiding a lot of things from her.

Ma Zao let go of the phantom kukri in her hand, and the knife quickly disappeared into thin air. Then she picked up the severed hand from the ground, took out a plastic bag from her pocket, and put the severed hand in it.

We left this troubled place immediately. On the way, all kinds of thoughts kept turning in my mind. I was thinking about how to explain to Zhu Shi next, and I wanted to ask what Ma Zao had been doing these days, why the thermal marker and GPS bracelet had lost their function, etc.

At the same time, there was an emotion in my heart that was enough to overwhelm these thoughts: joy. I finally found Ma Zao, and now I am so happy that I even want to set today as my lucky anniversary.

After leaving the community for a distance, we stopped outside a small forest.

Ma put the cat whisker mask back on her face.

"Zhuang Cheng, you just said that you have clues about that demon. What's going on?" She spoke first. "Also, who is she?"

"Brother Zhuang, what is your relationship with her?" Zhu Shi also looked at me seriously. "You told me before that you didn't know anything about her. Were you lying to me?"

"Wait, wait..." I pressed my hands in the air, "Come one by one, one by one..."

I feel like a cheating man who has been caught cheating on two women and is confronted by two women at the same time. Of course, I don't have that kind of intimate relationship with them. Zhu Shi is just my friend, and Ma Zao is just my...what, my target? My former cohabitant? My criminal target? In short, it's not that kind of messy relationship between a man and a woman.

I should think about the lucky things first to calm myself down. Fortunately, Lu Youxun did not follow us to the front line, otherwise he would have discovered Ma Zao's existence. Before leaving last night, he told me that he would no longer use props such as electronic telescopes to secretly spy on me. Now he should not have seen this scene. I hope he keeps his word.

"Can I tell you about your story?" I first asked Ma Zao for her opinion.

"Are you talking about the end of the world and time travel?" Ma Zao seemed to be observing my position. "It doesn't matter. I wanted to make those things public from the beginning. But even if I tell them now, no one will believe it."

"Doomsday? Time travel?" Zhu Shi wondered.

Ma Zao thought about it and said, "Let me explain it." In the past, she told me the truth in order to test how people of this era would react to the doomsday she described. Now, she seems to be treating Zhu Shi as a sample of similar reaction.

Ma Zao told Zhu Shi about his identity as a doomsday time traveler and the news that the doomsday was approaching. He also told me about his interactions with me in the past few days.

In exchange, Zhu Shi also told Ma Zao about his identity as a demon hunter and the existence of Luo Shan.

During this process, I interjected a few words from time to time to explain the relationship between myself and Zhu Shi, while observing Ma Zao's current condition.

Her health is obviously much better than when she lived with me. When she was with me before, her face looked pale, she would occasionally stagger when she walked, and she would even get tired after standing for a long time. But now her walking and standing postures are very stable, and although her face cannot be said to be very rosy and energetic, at least she does not look weak.

Not only that, she was even able to fight the monster in close combat before, and even cut off its head. Lu Youxun had said that the monsters' bodies could withstand the baptism of bullets and rain, and they had dynamic vision and reflex nerves that were enough to capture the trajectory of bullets. However, those extraordinary qualities were easily surpassed by Ma Zao when facing him.

With such a strong fighting capacity, in fact, Ma Zao didn't need to steal real guns when he sneaked into the public security department to investigate the required intelligence. However, from another perspective, Ma Zao at that time might have been so weak that he even had to use ordinary guns and ammunition.

Soul trauma - that's how she described the injuries she suffered. I don't know to what extent she has recovered from the injuries now.

"Luo Shan... Demon Hunter..." Ma had already digested the information from Zhu Shi. "So that's how it is. The monks of this era are indeed hiding..."

I noticed that she used the word "friar".

In the past, she had also used words like "blessed monk" when introducing herself.

Monk is the name given to demon hunters by transcendentalism. One of their basic demands is to change "demon hunter" to "monk".

If the term "demon hunter" has disappeared in the apocalyptic era and has been replaced by "monk", does it mean that in the future, it will be transcendence that will win in the internal conflicts of Luoshan?

Although Zhu Shi frowned after hearing the title of monk, he did not dwell on it, but looked thoughtful.

During the previous communication, I noticed that she occasionally showed a penetrating look in her eyes. Although her eyes did not change color, she must have used "Buzhou Mountain" to distinguish whether Ma Zao's talk about the end of the world and time travel was a lie or the truth.

She had said before that this ability was not usually used on her own people. Obviously, in her eyes, Ma Zao was not one of her own, but a "civilian demon hunter" whose good and evil were still unknown.

After a moment, Zhu Shi said in a cautious tone: "...I'm sorry, I still can't believe what you said about the end of the world and time travel.

"You mentioned earlier that you planned to make these things public. You probably hoped that the people of this era would mobilize their own power to nip the apocalypse in the bud. But if there is no evidence, no one will believe your prediction.

"Can you provide evidence for what you say?"

"Can't my blessing power serve as evidence?" Ma Zao said this probably because she remembered what I said before: as long as she used her superpowers in front of me, I would be willing to believe her.

Zhu Shi glanced at her and asked, "Are you talking about the power of return that you used on that weirdo before?"

"You!" Ma Zao was shocked.

The power of return? Is this referring to the ability that Ma had shown earlier? I analyzed the information revealed by this title in my mind.

"I'm sorry, I can see through other people's special abilities when they activate them. I accidentally saw it when you were fighting the monster just now." Zhu Shi said calmly, "I admit that the power you used before does not belong to any system I have seen in the past, but in the world of demon hunters, there are countless mysterious magic systems. Your power cannot be evidence that the end of the world is near."

"Hmm..." Ma Zao revealed a wary and annoyed look.

"Also... can I ask you a question?" Zhu Shi showed a skeptical expression, "At first I thought I had seen it wrong, but the more I looked at this thing, the more I felt something was wrong..."

"What do you mean?" Ma Zao was puzzled.

Zhu Shi's gaze fell on the other person's left wrist.

"What's that on your wrist?" she asked.

I just felt like sitting on pins and needles.

She was staring at the red GPS bracelet on Ma Zao's left wrist.

(End of this chapter)