Tree 2
"Why can't I press the check button and check the cabinet?"
On the computer screen, the burly character controlled by Yin Sui was walking around the room. Ji Xunjin leaned over to take a look and saw that he was holding deflated cans in both hands. When he opened the cabinet, the frame banged against it and he had no space for his fingers to pull the cabinet door. If it were in reality, he would have probably broken into the room.
"You need to put down the thing in his hand first, and press the F key to let go."
The two jars finally landed, and after putting down their contents, the hands reappeared due to the game's settings. She controlled the person to walk around without fear and even yawned: "Not scary."
"Scary images only pop out in the dark, why don't you turn off the lights?"
So that's how it was. She flipped through the menu and found the tutorial for beginners. She successfully found the power switch and clicked it to turn it off. Only then did the game officially start.
Ji Xunjin came up with a plan: play a horror game to create an atmosphere of panic and anxiety, creating an opportunity for the anomalies that want to cover it up. Unfortunately, it didn't work when the game officially started.
Instead of being afraid, Yinsui yawned and idly snapped his fingers with his head down.
Outside the window, the wind was calm, and the trees had lost all their afternoon restlessness. The street lights in the garden were fully turned on, and clusters of halos covered the ground, leaving no trace of the scenery.
Just like the game setting, perhaps because of this, they did not act rashly.
"It's so brightly lit outside, it's no fun playing games."
She thought Ji Xunjin understood what she meant, because he immediately said, "How about turning off the lights?"
"Let's do it." That's exactly what I meant.
The street lights went out.
The view outside the window is very different after turning off the lights.
The images recorded by the surveillance cameras set up in advance are being transmitted to the computer in real time. In the small window next to the game screen, which looks like a game map, there is a full view of the scenery outside the window.
The dusk was vast, spreading endlessly and obscuring the appearance of all things. Through the thin light seeping in from the window, one could only make out the black bar erected on one side of the house, and the side branches above the black bar were blurred into a messy ball of thread.
There are one, two, three, four...seven.
--eight.
The hand holding the infinite mouse moved because of distraction, and a hideous ghost jumped out from the depths of the corridor, and a bright red kill prompt appeared in the middle of the screen.
Without time to care about the false life and death, Yinsui opened the photo album on his mobile phone and compared them one by one to find out which tree the extra tree was. Finally, he locked his target on the shrub that was half exposed under the window frame.
It has side branches and each branch is covered with purple-red leaves, which is particularly eye-catching, but its height is limited. The last time I took a photo, the light was dark and I missed it because of the blind spot under the windowsill.
So it’s not unusual, it’s just a visual difference caused by the different heights of the front and rear cameras.
There’s no point in just waiting, so why not just forget about it today - where are the people?
Yin Sui turned around. The bright lights illuminated every detail in the room, but there was no one there. Ji Xunjin, who had just been sitting next to him playing with his phone, had disappeared into thin air. From the place where he disappeared, he could see the mottled night in all directions.
"Ji Xunjin." In the silent world, the name that came out of his mouth sank into the abyss like a pebble.
The computer showed no signal, indicating that they had entered a chaotic space isolated from the human world. Yinsui originally just wanted to confirm this, but in a casual glance he noticed something even more remarkable: the eighth missed bush was actually bent in the middle.
The frozen time in the upper right corner of the surveillance screen showed the last minute. She turned her head to look at Ji Xunjin but her eyes were looking directly at the window, so she must have noticed that she was about to look over and shrank under the windowsill in advance.
When I took the photo for the first time, I should have been able to take it higher than the window, but I was not discovered because I was hiding like I am now.
The rustling sound of leaves fluttering rang out again, becoming louder and clearer. She heard the kind of very empty and distant whistle bouncing among the dense branches and leaves, bustling like a group of bird catchers running around to attract wild birds.
Thousands of black spots on the bark blinked their eyes and cast their gazes towards the only place where there was light. Countless roots spread underground, rustling. The wind or something else drove them, and the leaves came from afar in search of the light, omnipresent and omniscient.
Green, bright and full of vitality during the day, they disappear and are ready to move at night. They are relentless peepers waiting for an opportunity.
Receiving the signal for the attack, the eight trees in the garden danced almost frantically, even without wind, rubbing their unique green limbs against each other. During the day, they were extremely peaceful and passive, allowing the wind or animals to push them around and uproot them, but now the time was ripe and they launched into a hysterical struggle, their feet sinking into the ground, unable to move, but their upper bodies clawing at the dome with their teeth and claws.
The whole gradual process was completed in an instant, and Yinsui, who was surrounded, felt the whistling of the overwhelming leaves.
Even the eighth shrub that had been hiding and spying secretly raised its head, made the posture of a cobra standing up before attacking, half of its body leaned towards the window, and repeatedly hit the glass with its thin branches. If it changed into a human form, it might be kowtowing continuously.
At the main gate, there was another tree with pointed, angular leaves, about three meters high, almost touching the ceiling. It did not belong to any of the other trees in the yard. It had quietly squeezed most of its body in through the open main gate. In this way, the only window and the only main gate were guarded by trees, and she was in a dilemma for a moment.
“Pah—”
"Patta-da-da"
"Patta-da-da-da-da-da-da-"
There was definitely something else in the noise made by the tree, the sound of something moving, heavy feet stepping on the ground alternately back and forth. It wasn't the tree that moved to the door that was making the noise, at least it didn't move when it was being stared at, but the footsteps kept on making the noise.
Something is approaching outside!
"Da, da, da, da..."
A tall, bloody, and severely burnt humanoid creature appeared outside the main gate and walked straight towards them.
As if it weren't bad enough, when all sorts of strange things were happening simultaneously and it was already overwhelming, a third voice suddenly interrupted from outside the window: "How about turning off the lights?"
Just like what Ji Xunjin was saying while leaning outside the window.
But this time she recognized it; those were his exact words when he asked her to turn off the lights in the game. The subsequent words about turning off the real lights and the current one were all photocopies of the first time.
On the other side, the humanoid creature at the door raised its axe high and chopped at the tree that blocked the way. Bright red branches and leaves flowed out like water and flooded a large area of the floor.
There are wolves in front and tigers behind. You have to go to the front door or the window. If you don't want to sit and wait for death, you must find a way to face the challenge.
There are axes used to chop down trees, and the red humanoid creatures undoubtedly belong to the category of "lumberjacks". They are naturally opposed to trees, and from the appearance, they are an overwhelming threat in terms of force. The trees outside can shake their branches, and they have never been seen walking. They seem to teleport according to some rules and can make and imitate sounds.
The choice of doors and windows was also between the lumberjack and the tree. When the tree in front of the door shook violently and fell down, Yinsui, who had already walked to the window and was ready to jump out, became more determined in his thoughts. He pushed open the window, flipped over to the windowsill and jumped down.
According to the experience of the first two spaces, although the geographical location and state are chaotic and changeable, they still follow the underlying logic of reality, especially the existence related to the essence of space, such as the paper kites in the botanical garden that can be easily burned, and the process of people in the Xingfu Village community being crushed by the pestle for medicinal purposes.
From this, it follows that axe-wielding lumberjacks are naturally antagonistic to trees, so in this space, the last humanoids to arrive are at the top of the food chain, and the trees are the hunted. As an outsider, she could definitely not be the hunter, even though they all had human form, meaning they either had a companion with the trees, or the lumberjacks and the trees were hunting her together.
In either case, the lumberjack is the most threatening, so the first priority is to stay away from him and put the tree aside first.
On a windless night, the fall brought a cool breeze, and all the trees calmed down and then immediately boiled.
"How about turning off the lights?" These words lit up like a lantern in the dark forest.
As she walked forward, her words echoed in the distance, like lanterns lighting up and going out one after another, just in time, echoing in the vast silent barrier.
The leaves above continued to rustle, helping to cover up the hurried footsteps.
But running around like a headless fly will not solve the problem.
After keeping a certain distance, Yinsui stopped. If he didn't stop now, he would probably be forced to stop in a while.
The further I ran, the farther I was from the original building. Regardless of the actual distance, the entire real world had completely dissolved in my perception. Even if I tried to go back, I couldn't. It was like the bluestone slabs under my feet had turned into an endless expanse of dark mud, the texture of which was soft but strangely sticky.
She dug half a foot into the soil, and when she pulled it up, she inevitably brought up a lump of soil, which stuck like glue and couldn't be shaken off. She had a premonition that if she went any deeper, she would be planted in the ground, along with other deeply rooted trees. Then, she would be chopped down by the pursuing loggers.
While she still had time to breathe, she tried to review what had happened. "A scapegoat? One more tree, another target to distract the lumberjacks? But if that were the case, the tree at the main gate wouldn't have had to sacrifice itself to block the attack, using its life to buy time. It's more likely that they've been observing from the shadows for a long time, and for some unknown reason, decided to recruit me. Since I came in, they've truly taken care of me as one of their own."
Although everyone was very loyal, she really had no intention of staying to cultivate the soil for herself.
What to do? The lumberjacks are on their heels, so he has to run, but running won’t get him anywhere.
Crawl? When Yin Sui imagined that his arms and legs would sink into the earth just like his feet if he crawled, he immediately gave up the idea. It would be better to walk. If he really couldn't move a step, he could just hop around for a while.
Since she was in space, she should abandon the solutions outside. If she were to think from the perspective of the tree, how could she avoid the lumberjacks? As a single tree, she could hide and retreat. Unlike reality, where there were an infinite number of trees, she could survive by simply running. But that didn't apply to her. As a group, falling down and crushing lumberjacks was common news, but that didn't apply to the supernatural lumberjacks. She would have fought back long ago if she could.
"Da, da, da, da..."
The executioner approached again. Yin Sui twisted the back of his hand hard to remind himself to stay awake. Running without thinking was like drinking poison to quench thirst in the current situation.
As long as he didn't find another way to escape and break the deadlock, the cold axe would fall on him sooner or later, either in the next minute or the next hour.
There must be some aspects that you haven't thought of that will cause your thinking to go into a dead end. Take a deep breath, think carefully about whether there is something else you haven't noticed before, or your thinking is not open enough to come up with the right idea.
When doing math problems, if the last step is still far from the standard answer no matter how you change it, you should go back to the previous steps to find the error. This method applies to all problems.
So she gave up worrying about how to escape and started to work out the conditions she had unconsciously set for the escape before she started.
——I am a tree.
The tree that was assumed to be the enemy was slow to act and instead helped to delay time. When he tried to climb out of the window, the eighth bush, which he thought was a malicious observer, stretched out its branches to catch him steadily. After these two things happened, he was unknowingly classified into the tree camp.
Once a cognitive misunderstanding occurs, it's hard not to continue down the wrong path. If we remain unaware, we can easily become trapped. Song Qi believes that climbing a ladder can lead to ascension, the patient who jumped from a building believes that sacrificing oneself offers a chance for survival, and she believes that she is a tree and will bear the fate of a tree.
I am a human being and should use human methods.
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