Chapter 15 Distortion

7:40 in the morning.

Life countdown: 4 hours and 12 minutes.

A green taxi took Chen Ke on First Avenue in Opportunity City. Even if he took a taxi, it would take 20 minutes to drive from Pihom's gun shop to Haomaiwu Noodle House.

The driver was a fat middle-aged white woman. She was not as talkative as the buddy last night. She just drove silently all the way. Chen Ke sat in the back seat and used this time to load the 9mm flame bullets given by Pihom into the empty magazines one by one.

These empty magazines have plastic quick-draw sleeves at the bottom, which makes it easy for the shooter to quickly pull the magazine out of the holster, and know whether he has it reversed in the dark.

Chen Ke is very much looking forward to the effect of these flame bullets. If they are as useful as Pihom said, he can save his life to use the holy objects at critical moments.

The female driver kept glancing at the rearview mirror, looking a little nervous.

The car passed by the office building last night. I didn't expect the people in the administration to be so efficient. The whole building was surrounded by a temporary wall in one night, and one lane of the four-lane road was occupied.

The part below the third floor of the office building has been covered by a black outer wall. The material of the building looks very similar to carbon fiber, but Chen Ke guarantees that it must be very hard.

When the black outer wall covers the entire staircase, this place will become the so-called "black box space", right?

On the black outer wall, Chen Ke saw a row of white bold letters: Rank D. Associated with Parker's investigator level, Chen Ke guessed that this represents the strength of this black box space.

It seems that Parker also violated the rules last night. When the administration was still making the spiritual explosion space into a black box, he entered it as soon as possible...

Wait! Chen Ke suddenly had a wrong thought in his mind.

Why was Parker able to enter the office building with the sudden spiritual explosion effect at around 10 o'clock in the evening? He absolutely did not believe that "he happened to see it when he passed by after get off work".

It is very likely that Parker was waiting for the psychic explosion effect to occur in the office building from the beginning.

Things were not so simple from the beginning. Chen Ke couldn't help but wonder how many people were in the building that night? What were Pankia and the S Group planning? How many mysteries were behind Parker?

Chen Ke put the magazine in his pocket and put the Glock 17 behind his waist. He took a deep breath and pulled himself out of the vortex of conspiracy.

These things had nothing to do with him. He only cared about the life countdown in his head.

Finding Pankia and removing the countdown was his only goal.

The car stopped at Avenue 32. Across the street was the Haomaiwu Noodle House, a one-story building with a very Chinese flavor, which happened to be on the corner of the street. The red roof, the simple signboard with oil paintings of porcelain bowls and noodles, and the three traditional Chinese characters "Haomaiwu" next to the noodles, ah, the feeling of home.

Chen Ke paid and got off the car. This trip cost 12 Lianbi. Standing on the street, he looked around the surrounding buildings. They were mainly apartment buildings. It was past 7 in the morning, and the surrounding shops were not open yet. A dirty three-story department store was the most eye-catching landmark in this area.

A police car whizzed by, and Chen Ke couldn't help but think of the two bodies in the hiding place. He wondered if the blond man and the mixed-race woman had been discovered by the neighbors. Someone should have called the police by now.

Crossing the street and coming to the noodle shop, Chen Ke pushed open the glass door, and a warm air flow hit him in the face. The smell was very similar to the Internet cafe he often visited in junior high school.

The noodle shop was full of people. Some diners were eating noodles in big mouthfuls, and some were still waiting for their meals. There were twos and threes of customers standing at the dining table to pick up their meals. Everyone was silent and orderly.

There were not many shop assistants. A middle-aged Asian man with square-framed glasses leaned against the corner, and two female shop assistants in aprons were busy serving noodles. The kitchen must be very busy.

Chen Ke looked around and curiously observed the noodles that the diners were eating. It was a kind of clear soup noodles in an extra-large porcelain bowl. It looked very light, and the color of the soup was very close to clear water, which made people lose their appetite.

He turned to observe these diners.

They were dressed simply, and their clothes were a little dirty. Both men and women had a listless expression and no energy. Their skin was dull and their hair was messy, just like homeless vagrants or unemployed people whose income could not be guaranteed.

Not only that, Chen Ke also noticed that these people had different degrees of deformity.

The guy sitting by the window had eyes that were a circle larger than those of ordinary people, and it felt like his eyeballs were bulging. The middle-aged woman waiting at the food counter had her legs turned outward in an O shape, and her bow legs were very serious. The man standing diagonally opposite Chen Ke, waiting for an empty seat, had a belly that was so round that it had broken through the category of "beer belly", and his cheeks were also slightly bulging.

At a glance, these diners all had these problems, but the degree of severity was different.

Order a bowl of noodles.

Chen Ke walked to the counter and looked at the menu. He found that this restaurant actually has quite a few types of noodles, and the accompanying pictures are also very appetizing, but why are these diners eating only clear soup noodles?

"This man, are you also from the Scarlet Phoenix Republic?"

Just as Chen Ke was looking at the menu, the middle-aged man with square-framed glasses came to him and started talking.

"Huh?" Chen Ke was stunned.

"Huh? Not from Scarlet Phoenix? From Risheng?" The man with square-framed glasses was also stunned and asked immediately.

Chen Ke realized that Scarlet Phoenix Republic and Shengyang are both names of countries.

"From Scarlet Phoenix." He replied in Chinese.

The man with square-framed glasses was delighted and said with a smile: "Fellow countryman, fellow countryman. How long have you been here? I haven't seen you here before?"

"It'll only be a few hours. Your business is pretty good." Chen Ke said.

The man with glasses smiled and lowered his head to adjust his glasses. When he looked up, he approached Chen Ke with an indescribable weird expression and asked in a low voice: "Do you smell any bad smell?"

Chen Ke was stunned. What does that mean? He actually smelled it subconsciously. In addition to the slightly turbid smell caused by the lack of ventilation in the room, there was no other disgusting smell in the air.

But in other words, he didn't ask about the fragrance of the noodles. After all, the noodles were boiled in water, so how could there be any smell?

"No smell." Chen Ke answered truthfully.

The man with glasses sighed, and a disappointed expression appeared on his face. He shook his head and asked: "Are you here to eat noodles too?"

"Do you only have plain noodles?" Chen Ke asked back.

The man with glasses rolled his eyes at Chen Ke, ignored him, and walked to the counter to play with his mobile phone.

Although I don't know why the attitude of the man with glasses is so different, there must be something wrong here.

"I want beef stew noodles." Chen Ke said to the waitress.

"There's only plain noodles, you can eat it if you want." The waitress choked Chen Ke.

"Tsk... come and have a bowl!" Chen Ke didn't expect this restaurant to be so bad.

He took out a few Lian coins and put them on the counter. There was no plain noodles on the menu. Chen Ke didn't know how much he should pay, but with the price of 4 Lian coins for beef stew noodles, the plain noodles shouldn't be too expensive.

"What are you doing?" The waitress asked in surprise, looking at the banknotes on the counter.

"What are you doing? Noodles are free?" Chen Ke asked back.

The waitress looked at Chen Ke in surprise, which made him confused. He suddenly felt a strange atmosphere. Looking back, some diners in the restaurant also looked at him with inexplicable eyes.

What's going on?

Chen Ke could only take back the Lianbi to resolve the embarrassment. He knocked on the counter and urged, "Hurry up."

Carrying the noodles, he found a seat near the wall and sat down. The buddy opposite him had just finished eating and was about to leave after wiping his mouth. Suddenly, he sneezed, and the noodles and saliva that had not been swallowed in his mouth sprayed all over the table, which was disgusting.

Chen Ke frowned, picked up the bowl and moved to another place, breaking open the disposable chopsticks and stirring the noodles.

The noodles were very chewy, but they looked too bland. Chen Ke picked up a few noodles and smelled them next to his nose. Except for the light fragrance of flour, there was no taste.

There might be something wrong with the noodles, but with his current physique, he was not afraid that the noodles were poisonous. Let's try it!

Chen Ke picked up a chopstick and sucked the noodles into his mouth "whoosh whoosh!", chewed and swallowed. It was not delicious, with only the taste of flour in the mouth, not as good as the Tongyi Laotan Pickled Cabbage Instant Noodles.

At this moment, a line of small words suddenly popped up in the corner of Chen Ke's eyes:

"-10 minutes of life to resist the distortion curse"

He frowned, as expected, thinking of the monster in the photo that Pihom showed him, he might not be the victim of this noodle shop! Chen Ke stood up suddenly and walked towards the man with glasses angrily.

"What...?" The man with glasses looked at Chen Ke who was walking over, slowly put down his phone, and looked a little terrified.

"Can you go out and talk when you have time?" Chen Ke grabbed the left wrist of the man with glasses and said coldly.

"Are you from the Administration?" The man with glasses asked in a low voice with his eyes lit up, and he was actually a little overjoyed.

"You'll know when you go out." Chen Ke grabbed the man with glasses and was about to go out, and at this moment, he suddenly felt a wave of murderous intent rushing towards him from behind.

"+1 minute"

"+1 minute"

"+1 minute"

"Murderous intent: 50/50"

...

He turned around and saw that all the diners in the noodle shop were looking at him, and they were all wrapped in a circle of red outlines...