When Valenti learned the news, it was already the evening of September 23.
At that time, she was taking a slow train from the suburbs back to her residence in the city.
Outside the carriage was a large area of exposed farmland. When she passed here two months ago, there were still large waves of golden wheat in this area, which were mature spring wheat that had just been harvested in July and August.
This winter wheat has been sown, and the green buds in the field ridges are quiet. They will go through a long period of late autumn and midwinter and will not grow until March next year.
She took out her camera and planned to take a few photos to record it, but when the scene in front of her came into the lens, the nearby and distant signal towers became particularly dazzling.
There are a total of 47 livable places in the vast third district. They are concentrated in the north-central and south, forming two prosperous residential areas. If there is such a person who has been traveling tirelessly on various roads in the livable area of the Third District for the past eight years, then the biggest change he has discovered is probably the signal tower erected on the side of the road.
These signal towers are silver-white and independent. Their bases are square steel frames, with fishbone-shaped metal frames stacked up layer by layer along the central iron pole. Each signal tower is at least five meters high and three meters wide.
They were originally distributed in the isolation zone, the no-man's land between habitable areas and wasteland, but in recent years, ahgas has taken precautions and introduced them into habitable areas to build a more complete monitoring network.
Because these big guys are incompatible with the architectural style in the livable area, when the signal tower first appeared in the livable area, many residents went out of the city to take photos with the signal tower. Some architectural critics in newspapers lamented that these bizarre-looking things either belong to the distant past or the future that has not yet arrived, in short, they do not belong to the present.
Those architectural critics were at least a third right.
Through these signal towers, ahgas can not only pinpoint the coordinates of each mercury needle, but also identify anything that moves at high speed: if a chelate passes through it, the nearby mercury needle workstation can quickly identify and respond.
Compared with eight years ago when we were fearfully facing the tide of chelates in the wasteland, the armor used by humans to resist chelates has become stronger. Although this all points to a terrible possibility - sooner or later, the battlefield of chelate annihilation will extend into the habitable zone.
Because of this, whenever Valenti saw someone happily standing under these signal towers to take photos, she would inevitably feel a subtle conflict. When these behemoths suddenly entered people's daily lives, no one in the crowd seemed to think carefully about what it meant, and everyone gathered around happily.
"drop--"
Valenti's reverie was interrupted by the beep of her cell phone. She lowered her head and found that she had received an emergency notification email.
Sender: Office No. 004
Date: 23/09/4631
Recipient: Valenti
Email title: Notice on social relations investigation related to mercury needles in Niah Province
text:
Dear Ms. Valenti Viking,
We regret to inform you that a horrific murder occurred in the province of Nia late last night. In order to find out the truth as soon as possible, please go to the "Lage Workstation" or "Lage Workstation" in Bruno City before 6:30 tonight. "Dylan Workstation", our investigation team will ask some questions about your past social relationships, please answer them truthfully.
If you are unable to arrive on time, please contact your direct supervisor and inform you of a convenient time and location.
Note: Do not reply to this email.
Office No. ahgas004
After reading the entire text, Valenti frowned - Office 004 is mainly responsible for disciplinary improvement within Mercury Needle, and emails from them are usually study documents with abstract themes or internal disciplinary announcements, and there are rarely such specific notices.
Almost at the same moment, she received a new text message from her colleague Ava.
Ava: @Valenti Dear, have you received the email sent by 004?
Valenti: Got it!
Ava: Are you out of town today? Are you able to make it?
Valenti: Yes, I'm on the train now... This train should arrive at the station at 6:12. If nothing else happens, I should be able to arrive at the Lago work station before 6:40. Although I will be late, I won't It will take a long time.
Ava: Do you need me to give you a ride? I drove there just past Bruno Nord Station - where did you get off, right?
Valenti immediately responded with a series of thank you expressions and gave his specific train information.
At 6:17, Valenti got into Ava's car, and the two of them drove to Lager's workstation.
Ava is the first colleague Valenti met in the province of Nia, and she is currently her best friend here.
Ava will be seventy-two next month, and it was only when she was fifty-six that she officially retired from the front line and turned to civilian work on the home front.
For most retired mercury needles, the battlefields filled with blood and tears on the front lines are cruel, but life in livable areas is not so enviable.
There is another kind of war here, and the "enemies" in the rear hold the sword of mediocrity - redundant bureaucracy, complex and tacit rules of conduct, and intricate and intricate interpersonal relationships... Faced with these situations, many retired veterans who have just arrived often feel like they are tied to a chopping block and being bullied one by one.
But these problems are obviously not worth it to Ava. Her life here should be very good.
Valenti had this intuition when she first met Ava - for most people, aging will make their brains foggy, making them more kind and kind in their daily lives. temperament.
But for Ava, it was just the opposite.
Aging had thinned her cheeks, leaving the corners of her eyes and around her lips covered with spiderweb-like wrinkles. It also caused the lines on her face to completely lose their youthful plumpness and become severe and tough.
On her wide and full forehead, the light V-shaped silver hair is combed very neatly. They are always tilted to one side at a fixed angle. The light blue eyes underneath are often half-open, as if they are indifferent to many things. .
But once someone caught her interest, her eyes suddenly opened. At that time, her stretched shoulders, straight back and slightly raised chin formed a solemn and cautious posture, making her look like A shrewd falcon.
In Valenti's heart, meeting Ava was like a precious gift, which she had never mentioned to Ava - she would always remember the morning of her twenty-eighth birthday, when she was washing herself in the mirror, and suddenly I noticed an extra wrinkle at the corner of my left eye.
This was the first time Valenti realized that he was getting older, and it felt like a slap in the face without warning.
But within three months of knowing Ava, this anxiety was quietly loosened. Valenti liked Ava's wrinkles, the aggressive, often upturned corners of her mouth, and even her meanness and harshness became an indescribable part of her charm.
The existence of people like Ava in the world shows that aging is not always a one-sided massacre. In addition to lamenting the loss of youth, a person can approach her middle age and old age with another upward outlook. .
Ten thousand words of verbal self-comfort are nothing compared to having a real example around you.
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