The little girl opened her mouth.
She seemed to want to answer, but her lips moved for a long time without a single word coming out.
That bewildered look rose in her eyes again.
Yang Yong sighed.
He stood up and walked over to the large screen.
The screen still displayed a live feed of Zone 36 in the Third Ring.
The Zombies had all been cleared out, and the surviving residents emerged from their hiding places.
Looking at the Zombie corpses littering the ground, some knelt and wept, some threw back their heads and laughed, and some slumped onto the ground, utterly drained.
Being alive... was wonderful.
They had survived.
As Yang Yong watched those people who had survived the disaster, he suddenly felt that this Mechanical City might not be as cold as it appeared on the surface.
Beneath that steel shell, something was warm.
He turned to look at the little girl.
"Can I come see you often from now on?"
The little girl froze for a moment.
Then she smiled.
It was a tiny, faint smile, like the first crack opening across a sheet of ice.
But she still said nothing.
She merely raised her hand and pointed at Yang Yong.
Then she pointed at herself.
Then she held up one finger.
Yang Yong was not quite sure what that gesture meant.
But he decided to take it as a yes.
He sat back down in the chair, looking at the wall of large screens, watching this enormous steel city operate beneath his feet.
Third Elder.
This position had come too suddenly, like a windfall dropping out of the sky and hitting him hard enough to leave him a little dizzy.
But Yang Yong knew there had to be a hook hidden beneath that windfall.
That