25 hour

Chapter 50 Ch49 The Bridge

"Do you know "Death Stranding"?" Shen Tomato asked on the phone.

"It's Hideo Kojima's game. I haven't clicked on it since I downloaded it, but I've read part of the novel and, of course, the trailer."

He smiled, and finally got back to the topic: "I feel like I'm in a game now."

The off-road route on the central plateau goes deep into the hinterland of Iceland. There is no paved road with good infrastructure. Looking around, there are only countless F-level off-road trails that can only be passed by four-wheel drive vehicles on the endless wasteland.In the uninhabited land of the inland plateau, the essence of the essence of Iceland's "different world", including volcanoes, glaciers, lava, deserts, etc., is gathered along the way, which also makes this place a place of pilgrimage for countless off-road enthusiasts land.

However, unlike those adventure enthusiasts who dragged a complete set of supplies for thousands of miles, Shen Teng just saw the breathtaking natural landscape in the game trailer and learned that these pictures were actually taken from Iceland. Just come out and walk around.

For more than a month in Reykjavik, Shen Teng has already measured every piece of land in the city with his own footprints. After leaving the capital city, Qin Zheng took him to see the Great Falls, Glacier Lake, Intermittent Spring... On the way and at the destination, Shen Teng also had a brief glimpse of the stunning scenery of the youngest continent on earth, but those were just the tip of the iceberg.

Shen Teng really wants to know what kind of scene will be born in his heart when he is in the land that can be photographed by the doomsday wasteland.

But this time, he wanted to see for himself.

"Did I scare you? If so, I'm really sorry, I also had a whim at night."

The off-road road was bumpy, and Shen Tom's voice was ups and downs. He seemed to find it interesting, and his tone was much more relaxed than when he was in the urban area. Even without the video, Qin Zheng could still think of Shen Tom's smiling expression at the moment.

"And, didn't I report it to you?"

Perhaps it was too pleasant, but Qin Zheng didn't hear much genuine apology in his words.

Recalling that more than a month ago, Qin Zheng had "threatened" Shen Teng carefully. If he wanted to get along with him, he should be prepared to be restrained, and Shen Teng also "obediently" agreed.But now the facts have proved that the "honest man" is only fierce in his mouth, while the free man is still free. Even if he takes the initiative to take off his wings, fold them up, and offer them to others with both hands, the winged Shen Teng can always turn around. Afterwards, he found a new way to exile his soul.

He returned to the initial state of going on the road alone, but this time he didn't seem to be alone—after all, before this, Shen Tengke had never been on the phone with another person during the process of traveling alone across the mainland.

"I passed a piece of tundra just now, the kind covered with volcanic ash soil, I didn't think it was that good up close, but when I saw that the mountains in the distance were also black and green—of course, a beautiful matcha green—suddenly I felt Came to the alien lair."

Today's weather is not sunny, with dark clouds covering the sky, and the sight stretches into the distance from the earth-rock path. The wasteland tundra in no man's land rushes towards the snow-capped mountains in the sky like waves, and the large cloud on the skyline is very low. Faint light shines through the gaps in the clouds, and Manli is working hard to create the realm of the gods.

The off-road road is not wide. Whenever there is a car in front of you, there will always be a car that needs to stop and give way, but the people on the road are friendly and kind. Even if you don’t know each other when you pass by, you will look through the window to the stranger who may only have this relationship in your life. Man waving hello.

After slowing down to make way for another couple, Shen Teng, who was on the road alone, couldn't help laughing: "It's so strange, obviously I am far away from you now, but I always feel that you are sitting next to me at this moment."

Sitting next to him, facing the paper map brought in from the travel agency, he used a marker pen to draw the route without saying a word, and occasionally raised his eyes to remind Shen Teng to pay attention to the road ahead. Opening his mouth wide, Qin Zheng patiently told him in an unhurried tone: The reason why Iceland looks good on a cloudy day is because the moss with different distribution densities creates rich brightness changes for the land, so even if there is no sunlight Direct shots are also very layered.

"really weird."

Shen Tomato stopped the car, cast his eyes on the snowy top of the Black Mountain Range in the distance, and said softly, "I miss you so much."

Obviously he was the one who couldn't sleep at night because he was still not used to having a fixed person sleeping beside him all the time. When he was lying on his side on the bed with his eyes open and observing the light coming through the curtains, he was the one who had a sudden whim and immediately went on the road, elated and immediately He was also the one who packed up his clothes and left home to pack his things... But when he really packed his bags, completed the procedures for renting a car, and embarked on this road of adventure alone, he suddenly began to miss him in this quiet moment that should be his own. That Qin Zheng who only tiptoed to kiss in the early morning and was turned away by himself.

After a brief silence, the first words the young master said to him today came from the other end of the call.

"Have you had breakfast?" Qin Zheng asked softly.

Shen Tom turned his head to look at the "Tsar" note on the car's Bluetooth display that only belonged to that person, slowly raised the corners of his mouth, then raised his eyebrows and eyes, as if he was still immersed in the shock brought to him by this vast land, and replied more gently Said: "Have eaten, how about you?"

Qin Zheng said "hmm", changed the subject, and answered Shen Teng's earliest question: "I played it. I mean, "Death Stranding."

The connotation of the game is very rich. To put it simply, it is probably a story about the protagonist as a lone expedition team uniting the existing society and saving human beings in a different space before the sixth mass extinction on earth comes.Just like the name of the game, Hideo Kojima has included quite rich and thought-provoking philosophical speculations about life and death, the soul, the universe, and the connection between people.

In the year when he played games, Qin Zheng was still in high school, and his thinking about these topics was only in its infancy. The only thing that left a deep impression on him was Cliff's tragic ending in order to protect the child.

"Standing aground for love", this kind of thing is far away and unimaginable for Qin Zheng, who has no loving father and mother. The touch brought by the moment is not so much touching as dazzling, but he has kept it down for so many years, even When Shen Teng briefly described to himself what he saw just now, Qin Zheng could also immediately call out the memory that had been buried for a long time in the game. He had just embarked on the delivery journey for the first time in the game and had just covered the tundra. When he felt confused and tired of the long journey, the camera zoomed away silently, the background sound lowered, and the moment the lonely and distant song sounded in the earphone without warning, an indescribable feeling suddenly sprouted in his heart Great move.

What a coincidence, the moment he saw the sticky note that Shen Teng left for himself this morning, the "I'mLeaving" that accidentally started playing in his earphones was also one of the bgm of the game.

"Wow," Shen Teng was still laughing, "Then do you know what kind of scenery I'm looking at now?"

At this moment, 26-year-old Shen Tom is bumping on the cross-country road in no-man's land, passing through the wilderness scenery that 16-year-old Qin Zheng once ran alone on the computer screen holding the handle. Zheng also sits in the warm nest in the semi-basement, slowly going upstream along the river of time, and sits back beside the young man Qin Zheng with a hint of hostility in his eyes, and quietly rebuilds with him the destroyed but also destroyed The Destroyer is constantly experimenting with connected worlds.

It feels far away, but not empty, and Qin Zheng can't help but think of a day two years ago when he was still studying on the West Coast. That day was very ordinary, but he suddenly realized it after receiving a certain call "I have grown up."

At that moment, he felt that the stone he had thrown into the hollow in his heart many years ago finally sent a long and long echo upward.

"Hey! Guess what I saw?"

Surprised by what he had seen and heard, Shen Toma asked and answered within three seconds: "One, two, three 'killer whales'!"

Qin Zheng curled his lips and did not expose his little trick: "Walk a little further, and there will be red velvet Oreo cakes."

In this magical land of Iceland, no matter how unusual things are, they will appear so natural because they are born here. The snow-covered black mountains are like huge whales stranded on the land. In addition to the green "alien nest", there are also The pitch-black volcano covered by dark red lava... This is the kingdom of ice and fire, and it is recognized by the world as the least earth-like interstellar continent. Small.

Suddenly, there was a strong sound of wind and clothes rubbing in the earphones, and then Qin Zheng heard the sound of Shen Ma closing the car door behind him.

"I heard that before the Apollo missions to the moon in [-]s, NASA set up an astronaut training area in the desert of Iceland, because the degree of desolation there is the closest to the sense of presence on the surface of the moon."

Shen Toma hasn't traveled deeper into the hinterland of Iceland. He mentioned that the long-awaited desert is still far away, and he won't even go there during this short trip, but what Shen Toma presents at this moment is another It is like a snow-covered stone forest born after a meteorite hit the earth.As if summoned by something, Shen Teng wrapped his jacket tightly and walked towards the alien-like surface in the strong wind.

In June, all parts of Iceland were still covered by large tracts of ice and snow, and the wind hit his face like a knife, with no regard for human feelings. Shen Teng hadn’t seen a passing vehicle for a long time. At this moment, there was only him in the world. And a Qin Zheng who is not here.

"Have you played "Lifeline"?" Shen Teng was having fun, and his thoughts drifted to other games.

Lifeline, Lifeline, a series of puzzle-solving mobile games, the game stage covers a wide range from mythology to life to science fiction.The "Quiet Night" played by Shen Tom was set on an alien planet. The protagonist Taylor's spaceship crashed. In order to survive, he had to embark on a series of amazing adventures, and the player played the role of Taylor who accidentally contacted through communication In the next few hours, the strangers on the earth will help him dispel his worries, solve various problems, and stay away from danger.

The realism of the game is reflected in the real-time communication and related communication in the form of text. After a short communication, it often takes several 10 minutes or even several hours to get the safety report of the child who has never met before.

The moment he jumped into the snow, Shen Teng laughed heartily and asked the person on the other end of the call: "Do you think we are very similar to Taylor and the players now?"

He didn't even shy away from thinking: That rented Toyota RAV4 was Taylor's crashed starship, the Warifa.

Not only "Death Stranding", but Hollywood movies such as "Interstellar" have also been filmed in Iceland. The earth's environment here even NASA admits that it is close to an alien world based on scientific research rather than imagination.

Shen Teng is sitting here alone at the moment, surrounded by overturned dark clouds, the lonely and huge ancient surrounding mountains, and the magical surface under his feet that will take tens of millions of years to form. The wind is whistling in his ears, even Qin Qin Zheng's voice also became very far away.

Apart from not wearing a space suit, Shen Teng suddenly felt that he was now the same as Anne Hathaway at the end of the sci-fi film, carrying the last seed and hope of the earth, hoping to continue human civilization alone in the vast and endless universe.

He doesn't know what will happen in the future, and the people he inadvertently contacted through the communicator can't really help him except to give comfort and tentative suggestions. All the choices still need to be made by himself, but at least at this moment he is not alone .

Shen Tom still remembers that the game had different endings, both good and bad, and he played the worst ending of Taylor freezing to death and losing contact for the first time.

"It's really similar," Qin Zheng interrupted his dangerous memory, "Taylor is not a real astronaut either."

On the contrary, the unlucky kid who is talking about tuberculosis is a science major who was accidentally selected in the lottery to skip grades. The content in the student handbook is only about mouse experiments, and he knows nothing about space knowledge. At best, he is just an intern on the Warifa .

Is he swearing?

Shen Toma gave a suspicious "hehe", and replied with the mechanical voice that Taylor used every time he disconnected in the game: "Shenisbusy."

Obviously the wind was loud, but for some reason, Shen Teng always felt that he heard Qin Zheng's low laughter.The voice was very soft, but also very pleasant. It seemed that Qin Zheng was laughing against his ear in this icy and snowy field, which made people feel strangely uncomfortable.

Shen Teng rubbed his inexplicably itchy ears, and changed the subject: "I remember that Armstrong is your alumni, right? The first person to land on the moon... Tell me, how he felt when he looked back at the earth from the surface of the moon , which is more beautiful or lonely?"

If Qin Zheng is really playing "Lifeline" at the moment, then two options will probably pop up in the dialog box:

A. Of course it is wonderful. He saw the scenery beyond the world that the earth creatures have seen for the first time in hundreds of millions of years.

B. Be lonely... like you are now?

Different choices will trigger different mental states of Shen, which will also have a corresponding impact on subsequent survival choices and will.If it was in the past, or even not long ago, Qin Zheng would probably have worried about the bomb buried under Shen Teng's eyelids, and carefully worded a true and hopeful answer that was neither A nor B.

But at this moment, maybe Shen Teng, who was traveling alone, also touched a certain rebellious nerve in Qin Zheng. He only felt that he, who was lying on the sofa, seemed to have become a stranded killer whale lying on the rugged terrain of Iceland. Seeing through the shortness of life and the irresistibility of extinction through thousands of years of weathering, he said frankly: "I believe he was moved at that moment, not just because he was the 'first' person who turned around and saw the earth, It is also because he is the first person to witness the insignificance of life. Afterwards, I think the rest of his life may be caught in the contradiction that life is as heavy as Mount Tai but it is not worth mentioning, and he will grow old unconsciously."

This time it was Shen Teng's turn to be silent.

He didn't seem to have expected Qin Zheng to answer like this, and after a long while in the deserted stone forest, he softly said, "What about you? Will you also fall into this kind of conflict?"

I don't know what came to mind because of this question, Qin Zheng smiled: "Everyone knows it, but the time, length and degree of conflicts are different. But I... For a long time, I was more inclined to be worthless. Give that answer."

In the environment where he grew up, Qin Zheng has now grown into a very good appearance, which is rare. Even if this appearance may be just an appearance, whether he has more positive emotions or more indifferent attitudes in his heart does not matter. It does not affect Qin Zheng's decision to "spend this life well, whether it is long or not".

Even if he didn't go to the moon, but just looked up at the moon, Qin Zheng was constantly troubled by the value of life, but this is normal. As long as human beings keep thinking, the troubles and entanglements will never stop, and just like Shen Teng and Jeff As I said, everyone's thoughts are changing all the time.

Shen Teng spread out his hands that were numb from the cold.

His palm prints are very similar to Shen Yuru's. The life line is long and light, so it's hard to tell whether it's a sign of longevity. The career line is quite deep, but it's only half as short as the former one. The first line is the line of love... from the bottom of the little finger all the way up to the root of the index finger, the scale is as deep as the trace left by holding a thorny vine.

Is love really such an important thing to him?

Shen Tom turned his palm sideways, and sure enough, under the changing light and shadow of the cloudy sky, the depths of these three lines also changed in different ways-this time it was the turn of the lifeline to be the deepest.

Maybe this is the moment when he feels life is so precious?

Shen Teng smiled meaninglessly, clenched his palms into fists, put them to his lips and breathed out a mouthful of hot air to keep warm.

“A few years ago, I was blowing my hair by the window one day—yes, in Paris, I was living in a place that was very similar to my house. Thanks to my grandmother, I always felt that luthiers had to live in the in that environment."

So even with a distance of nearly [-] kilometers, he still subconsciously tried to find a residence with a loft in a foreign land.

"Where was that? Oh, I was drying my hair. You know, my hair was too long and it was blowing slowly, and I had to find something else to do to kill boredom in the process. It was evening and I was Sitting on the edge of the bed reading, occasionally looking up, you will find that the sky outside the window will always have some changes visible to the naked eye, first it is sky blue, then gradually darkens, and then the sunset rises. The roof across the street blocks my vision In the vast expanse of sky, I saw that the walls of other people’s houses gradually lost all reflective light sources after being briefly illuminated by the setting sun that I couldn’t see. The city was going to sleep. But before everything went dark, I raised my head again , walked to the window, and saw the lamp and the moon that were several times brighter than my impression."

There are no memories at all, and the sense of pictures with trivial details, but Qin Zheng suddenly empathized with the moment when he heard the music of LowRoar in the game during Shen Tom's endless narration.

"I still remember that it was the first quarter moon that night, and it was exactly the same shape as the emoji that popped up when I typed 'first quarter moon' in the phone input method."

I still remember that it took me 54 hours to clear the game, the teacher's tone of voice was hypnotic in class, and I lowered my head to outline the scene of the dark beach in the exercise book.At that time, I had no interest in Northern Europe, until many years later I went to the black sand beach in Iceland with you, and saw that the reefs standing in the sea were exactly the same as the volcanic rocks that had reappeared countless times in my dreams Then I suddenly believed...

"Do you believe in fate?" Shen Teng asked him.

Qin Zheng lowered his eyelids and asked without answering, "Do you know what my favorite line is in "Death Stranding"?"

When Shen Teng looked at the distant black icebergs covering the tundra in the uninhabited wilderness, Qin Zheng sat on the carpet in the semi-basement, holding the handle and restarting the game many years ago.

The earphones are connected, and in the singing that was born in Iceland, they are separated by several years and hundreds of kilometers, and the same scenery is reflected in their eyes.

Qin Zheng said: "You are my bridge to the future."

You are my bridge to the future.