Water accumulation (II)
It's not just the people on the couch.
Over my shoulder, the cat's blinking speed is getting faster and faster.
And at the edge of my elbow, at the edge of my vision, one of the guys who had been leaning against me in a corner had disappeared at some point.
My scalp tingled and I subconsciously wanted to run away, looking up at the air vent above my head.
The transom is closed.
"Zhang Jia..." My throat was a little tight, "We didn't close the window when we came down, did we?"
The captain responded from his throat.
So, the transom, the missing guy, the guy on the couch…what’s all this about?
I thought that by this point, we had already mastered most of the basic rules, and coming to the B&B was just the end of verifying some core assumptions.
But the sudden new changes at this time were completely different from the characteristics I had observed before, and they suddenly turned me back to a naked baby. Huge doubts and self-doubts suddenly surged up.
No, rather, I just now slowly recalled a fact that I already knew:
There is no such thing as knowing the rules to get a "security key" and then be able to leave the "level".
Since when did I become so lazy and relaxed?
In response to this question, the answer came to me.
Because after I woke up, all the clues and answers came to me one by one in a very orderly manner, and it was no longer as foggy as before;
It was because in the valley, I never seemed to be in real danger on my own, and I always received help and protection;
Because every answer has been paid for with one's life, so I always...
——Everything you wish for always comes true.
The chill instantly invaded my whole body, and I suddenly felt an indescribable fear.
The cat on my shoulder suddenly arched its back, with all its fur standing up, and let out a long hissing sound towards the darkness ahead.
I looked at it with difficulty, out of the corner of my eye.
But this time, I restrained myself, put aside my doubts, thought nothing, and just watched it.
At this moment, I felt a chill all over my body as if an electric shock had been passed through my body, and I suddenly realized that the cat had been secretly watching me out of the corner of its eye.
As soon as our eyes met, that oily green eye in the dim light suddenly froze, and my whole body froze.
At this moment, another guy behind me suddenly said:
"…It's not invisible. That thing shouldn't be invisible."
I reflexively tried to turn my head away, but my body failed to move and no sound came out.
He seemed to know that this discovery was very timely and crucial, and he thought anxiously and said:
"Master, have I told you before? I make a living by my nose in this business?"
I paused, feeling a strong sense of uneasiness and rejection like a needle piercing my body.
I felt his arm move, as if he was sniffing and wiping it unconsciously:
"I'm very sensitive to smells... Originally, it takes a lot of patience to come to a place like this. But when the cat noticed the movement just now, I couldn't smell it. I suspect there is some kind of strong poisonous gas in the room that can paralyze our sense of smell and other senses. That's why we didn't notice what was approaching first."
My heart sank.
"Donkey reacted the most to our front." I heard myself lowering my voice and speaking calmly, "But the source and center of the poison gas may not be there. The poison gas and the things in the dark may not be the same thing."
He hesitated for a moment and said, "Let me try. Being near a place with heavy poison gas will do more damage to my nose. Maybe it can help me make a judgment."
“…No. No.”
I told him not to move, and cold sweat finally began to slowly appear on my back.
It's not because of this so-called poison gas and reasonable explanation.
But I suddenly realized one thing.
Make a wish, the mechanism of making a wish can actually be like this.
It can put the quickest answer in the hands of people around, easily accessible, without any trace of interference, and not created out of thin air. Just like what Zhang mentioned along the way, his inherent sense of smell.
With this answer that can always respond to me in the first place, I don't have to worry about it. When people face danger, their instinctive laziness and escape are naturally satisfied at this time.
This time, it was not even like in the cave, where the guides and couples made a wish and found the mutation sprouting in their chests. As the wish was fulfilled and the weight of the wish was intensified, the mutation deepened. That kind of mutation process was too easy to be interrupted and temporarily escaped after the presence of comb jellies.
For some reason, the price this time seemed to be paid in advance by the person who fulfilled my wish.
If, if I don't notice it and get used to it, then at some point, when I get used to it, I will suddenly find that there is nothing around me, and at this time, there will be only me on the banyan tree's plate, without gradual deterioration, only a one-time harvest and swallowing.
Without waiting for my agreement, the guy asked again, and this time his doubtful voice was very clear.
"What's wrong, Master? Why don't you try and know?"
The sound was very close, one word at a time, or even closer.
I held my breath, gritted my teeth and turned my head away.
I don't know when, he lowered his head, his shoulders completely collapsed, with a weird smile on his face. Like a cat, he stared at me quietly and intently from the corner of his eye.
I saw that on his face, there were black aerial roots bulging out from under the skin, stretching out strange bright red lines on the skin.
In the dim light, if you looked at it carelessly, you would think it was some kind of colorful tattoo moving across his cheek.
This is what I was interrupted and left unfinished. This is the "mural" that made me question.
I took a step back slowly, slowly.
The other two were also silent, with their heads down. Obviously no one was going to take the next step, and the guy just seemed to be talking to me as usual, answering my questions and willing to take risks for me.
But I couldn't help but sweat all over my body.
The cat was still lying heavily on my shoulder, seemingly alertly looking ahead, but its gaze suddenly turned and looked at me.
I retreated again and again, and the others seemed to be very concerned about me. Their lips were tightly closed on their drooping faces, not moving, but they spoke clearly to ask me, and they would respond to my every request:
"——What's wrong, Master?"
My legs went weak and I finally retreated to the sofa and fell down on it.
"call……"
This was the first time in my life that I could hear my own rapid breathing so clearly and accurately after running 800 meters.
This tangible feeling of fear and oppression was so strong that I heard countless voices in my head screaming questions and collapse. I had to cover my face tightly and then close my eyes.
Banyan tree, banyan tree.
I thought to myself, so that's how it is. This is how it ensures that its prey will make a wish that can be fulfilled.
No matter how obsessed one is, after constant high pressure, as long as there is a trace of hesitation and doubt, the instinct for survival will surely take over everything and become an irresistible strong desire.
But I don’t want to make a wish.
I have chosen one of the three and have committed to my choice.
"...Sit. Sit on the sofa." I said in a hoarse voice, feeling how miserable I was, with a strong stinging and itchy feeling in my chest.
"I know you can't tell the difference now, and you really want to attack the ghost things around you. It's okay, just sit down and listen to me."
A moment later, there was a slightly heavier footstep, followed by three more.
The circular sofa, which was soaked and rotten, was really uncomfortable with the cotton and broken springs.
I paused, realizing that four people were already sitting next to me, all with slumped shoulders, looking at me with their peripheral vision, revealing extremely evil and weird looks. I couldn't help but shudder.
Well, I can't tell. Maybe I'm just talking nonsense at this point.
But I took the cat on my shoulder into my arms, stroked it slowly, and said:
"A question. The true form of the 'Goddess' is a comb jellyfish. So, what is the true form of the 'banyan tree'?"
A strange cat's cry sounded in a low voice.
"——I just realized that I have never actually seen a banyan tree. I have never seen the mature form of a banyan tree."
Yes, I actually haven’t seen a banyan tree yet.
It sounds ridiculous, but at this moment, I must silently recite a passage from that travel guide that is full of errors and omissions.
The manual says:
[A banyan tree is a tall, gray, slender creature with branches and roots.]
During the storm eight years ago, I only looked up at the banyan tree once, and what I saw was something as pale as a severed limb; those floating corpses in the water that were parasitic on the banyan tree and filled with foam, I only approached them when I was also sucked and contaminated by the parasitic roots, and quickly moved away.
Now, eight years later, the banyan tree is at its most languid moment. It always withers and its parasitism is constantly interrupted by comb jellies.
Therefore, I don't seem to have seen what the individual that comes out of the banyan tree is like after it is completely hatched without being disturbed.
"A group of fingernail-sized comb jellies gathered together to form the Goddess, Bluestone, and Storm."
I repeated again in a strange way, which was very difficult to understand, "What are the things that gather together to form a banyan tree?"
The cat in my arms panted and meowed again. I opened my eyes and found that I and everyone else were still half-lying in front of the air vent of the small terrace, with the lock-picking tools in my hands, and I had only opened the air vent a crack.
Under the air vent, the accumulated water had overflowed the entire enclosed first floor. A swollen, pale corpse was hanging under the air vent, its frozen, pale eyes pressed against the air vent glass, staring at us blankly.
It's waiting, it's listening. Waiting to hear us make a wish.
Among us, there was a half-human figure squatting, also soaked and white, with an almost gelatinous body. If you looked from a distance, you could easily mistake it for someone wearing diving equipment.
Many gray, tree-root-like things snaked out from the human figure and connected to the back of our necks, as if injecting some kind of toxin into us, causing intense dryness, itching, numbness, and hallucinations.
This is the thing we found at the beginning on the third floor near the roof. It seemed to have fallen down along the path formed by those "ivy" plants.
I reached out and touched the gray roots, and found that unlike the black dead ones, the living ones were a bit hard, with many fluid-like lines and small holes on them. When I pinched them in my hand, they were a mixture of colloid and minerals similar to calcium or silicon.
It took a long time for us to make a wish, and soon it began to rot in the air.
I sighed, held back the dizziness that had not yet subsided, and pulled those slender gray roots out of the semi-gelatinous floating corpse.
Now, we can finally see its full picture.
Unlike comb jellies, it has no brain, no trunk, no head or tail, no organs, and I didn't even see any mouthparts for eating.
Only scattered bone needles and flagella protrude from the gray roots, like short, bare branches.
"…What the hell is this?" The captain fell to the ground in a daze, hissed, and pulled out the roots behind his head. "I was almost scared crazy by it."
"I remember you asked before whether it was meat or vegetarian."
I pointed to the foam inside the floating body and couldn't help laughing at the absurdity. "This is its larvae. It's an animal."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com