The alarm with a strange tune reverberated throughout the room.
Xiao Qiao instantly got excited. "This is the sound! I've heard it countless tis."
It's remarkable she can be so excited by such a strange alarm sound.
The sound didn't stop. Gu Mian looked at the radio on the table and asked, "Does this sound often echo in your world?"
Xiao Qiao pondered seriously. "It has a rhythm; it sounds periodically... each ti it lasts about three minutes. When the sound plays, the ghosts beco especially terrifying and only return to normal after the sound stops..."
Watching her rack her brains, it seed she had revealed everything she could think of. What Xiao Qiao said was very much like the horror movie nad Silent Hill that Gu Mian had watched. Could the Twilight Gods World also be divided into two parallel worlds? Besides, could this radio really broadcast the sounds of the Seventh World live? Was it connected to the Seventh World?
While Gu Mian was contemplating, the alarm sound stopped abruptly.
He frowned slightly. Xiao Qiao said an alarm would last three minutes, but this one clearly stopped in less than two.
Xiao Qiao, equally confused, patted the radio on the table. The already dilapidated old device nearly shattered under her palm.
Hearing the radio emit a fragile sound, Xiao Qiao silently withdrew her hand. "That's not right, it's all wrong... The alarm probably sounds only every few days, but I just heard it this morning..."
Gu Mian guessed she had only just then rembered the alarm's interval. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been so persistent in guarding the radio.
"So, it's not a live broadcast?" Gu Mian leaned over to look at the radio on the table that Xiao Qiao had almost smashed.
Theoretically, the radio from the Seventh World should only sound once every few days. However, it rang in the morning and then again at noon, and this ti the sound didn't last for three minutes.
Chu Changge, standing nearby, adjusted his glasses. "I guess this signal from the Seventh World is affected by dinsional differences. Their ti isn't the sa as ours, similar to the saying 'a day in heaven is a year on earth.' It's also possible that ti in the Seventh World is completely chaotic, and what we hear each ti is a sound transmitted from a random point in their jumbled tiline."
That was possible.
"Speaking of which," Gu Mian said, thinking about the voice he had heard earlier, "that person who claid to be the No.1 Guardian, was that also a broadcast originating from the Twilight Gods World?"
But Xiao Qiao clearly said there were no living people in her world. If there were indeed no living people in that world, then was the broadcast sent by a ghost?
"This radio has always been with you," Chu Changge looked at Gu Mian. "Haven't you heard strange sounds from it before?"
"I often listened to it before the Global Ga started," Gu Mian replied. "Back then, the radio could pick up many channels, so it was hard to notice a specific one. Thinking about it carefully, I don't believe I heard any strange channels before the ga began. The first ti was shortly after the ga started, when you all were around."
That was when he heard the "No.1 Guardian."
"Everyone is dead," Xiao Qiao, squatting beside the table, suddenly spoke up. "My world has been on the brink of destruction for a long ti; there are no living people."
No.1 Guardian, living people, the alarm sound... These things clearly didn't belong to the sa world. Could this radio be connected to other worlds as well? Gu Mian was sowhat perplexed.
Just then, a STATICKY sound suddenly emanated from the radio, followed by a person's voice—
"Goodbye..."
It was a woman's voice. She sounded as if she were on the brink of death, yet she had managed to bid them farewell with her last breath. Her voice was low and hoarse, like the creak of an old, neglected wooden door swinging open, grating on the ears.
Yet, Gu Mian felt this voice was sowhat familiar. This voice, its tone altered and its original timbre lost, he seed to have heard it sowhere before.
Before the woman's words fully faded, the harsh alarm sounded again. This ti, however, it lasted only ten seconds before stopping abruptly. Only rustling STATIC could be heard from the radio again.
Xiao Qiao suddenly stood up, her expression sowhat puzzled.
The alarm just now confird the other side was the Twilight Gods World, but who was that woman? Were there really any survivors in that world on the brink of destruction? Who was that "goodbye" addressed to? Did she know soone could hear her farewell through the radio?
"Quick," Gu Mian suddenly stretched out his hand and pulled Xiao Qiao. "Quickly say 'goodbye' for ."
Xiao Qiao looked at Gu Mian with dull eyes, as if hypnotized, and robotically repeated, "Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye..."
"Alright, I know it's not you now." Gu Mian dismissively pushed her aside. Xiao Qiao wouldn't say goodbye in such an intelligent-sounding tone.
Pushed aside, Xiao Qiao looked a bit aggrieved. She stood up, thought for a mont, then plopped down on the sofa, inching her way towards Gu Mian.
Chu Changge's voice ca from the side, "I rember the one who called herself the No.1 Guardian—she's a woman too, right?"
That's right, Gu Mian recalled. A standard female voice. Not the sa one who just said goodbye. Are there still that many people alive in the Seventh World?
An atmosphere of suspense and mystery pervaded their side, while Fatty's area presented a completely different scene.
He was humming a song as he took a bag of chicken wings from the fridge and skewered them with tal skewers he had prepared earlier, his joy unmistakable.
If Gu Mian's side was a mystery thriller channel, Fatty's was a cheerful urban life channel. Gu Mian silently turned his head. If he didn't know Fatty so well, he'd suspect he was a character who'd crossed over from a different genre.
Noticing everyone looking at him, Fatty assud they were anticipating dinner.
He raised his head proudly, waving the skewer in his hand, and announced, "I bought lamb, beef, chicken wings, enoki mushrooms, pork trotters, pork hearts, crab sticks, green peppers, crayfish..."
Listening to Fatty list the ingredients, Gu Mian actually felt a bit hungry.
While Fatty joyfully prepared ingredients all afternoon, Gu Mian and the others had been staring at the radio.
Who knew this thing would behave like an intermittently reanimating corpse? It made a sound once and then went completely silent, as if dead again.
It remained silent until evening, when Fatty set up the grill in the backyard for a barbecue.
The tempting aroma of barbecue wafted into Gu Mian's nostrils.
He went to the window and looked down.
He saw Fatty in the yard, grilling so beef tendons. Fatty picked up so cumin powder from the side and sprinkled a layer on top, instantly making the aroma even richer.
Barbecues, of course, are best with more people to liven things up.
At this mont, Keke, Liu Ruyan, and the others were already seated at the table Fatty had prepared. Even Xiao Hong and the Green Dwarf had been drafted by Fatty as the "atmosphere squad." That hopeless Xiao Qiao, upon slling the aroma, instantly forgot about her tragic hotown and looked ready to jump from the upper floor into the yard.
Just then, Fatty looked up and saw Gu Mian and Xiao Qiao at the window.
He waved the skewered at in his hand, calling out, "Doctor, co on down! I'm almost done with the first batch."
Xiao Qiao, at the window, looked eager to leap. Afraid she might actually jump, Gu Mian had to turn, pick up the radio from the table, and say to Chu Changge and the other person present, "Let's go down first."
In the end, Gu Mian carried the radio down to the yard.
He found a seat and sat down, placing the radio in front of him.
Fatty just then brought over a large basin of spicy crayfish. He looked contentedly at the cheerful crowd around the table, feeling proud of his massive contribution to the harmony of the Doctor's "harem."
Just as Fatty was basking in his self-satisfaction, the radio in front of Gu Mian suddenly crackled to life again.
The voice this ti sounded normal. The speaker's voice was clear, and full of emotion. Gu Mian imdiately recognized it as the sa person who had said "goodbye" earlier.
"Is anyone there?"
He heard these three words from the radio.
At the sa ti, everyone at the table froze.
They all recognized this voice.
It was 007.
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