Pit (5)
Faced with my question, the distracted wild cat was a step slow.
He blurted out before he could fully recover from his shock, clearly defending himself out of habit: "Gao Liu is like this, she has had her own ideas since she was young, but she is always focused on getting things done, always likes to take the lead and go into danger, it's not..."
It's nothing? Are they afraid that if I get rejected, they will lose face and have a problem with Gao Liu, and trip her up at the critical moment? I shouldn't be that kind of person in their eyes.
Once again, I felt that indescribable awkwardness, as if the wild cat was talking about something else.
But before I could think about it, Wildcat stopped talking, as if he had just realized who I was. His expression changed several times in an instant, becoming vaguely resistant and tense again, with his three white eyes drooping and a little uncertain.
Something is wrong. I wondered what Wildcat was subconsciously afraid of. It seemed that she not only thought that the current Gao Liu was a fake, but also refused to acknowledge the deep emotional connection between the two siblings.
But when he first saw the "Gao Liu" in the camp, his first reaction was such an urgent desire to confirm it. Even after the person left, he was still trapped in deep obsession, as if he was afraid that if he confirmed it, something would happen to his sister.
Two completely opposite logics are effective at the same time in the performance of the same person. I can only wonder if he is hiding some information that I don't know.
Also, I always feel that after waking up in the camp this time, I have forgotten something important, and my reactions and emotions have become very stiff and unnatural.
Is my abnormality the same as the wild cat's abnormality?
I know in my heart that I am actually a person who relies heavily on information and intuition. Therefore, I often react half a beat too quickly, skipping the entire process, drawing conclusions and taking action first, and only vaguely realizing what drives me afterwards.
So now, what exactly is this missing piece of information that has me stuck?
I kept staring at the wild cat. Maybe he saw that I would not give up, and he knew that if I got stubborn, things would get chaotic. Finally, hesitantly, he took something out of his jacket and handed it to me.
I was prepared to hear what unpleasant past Wildcat Gaoliu had that he was not comfortable talking about, and how it was connected to this shithole, but when I took the thing, I was slightly stunned when I saw it.
It turned out to be a booklet sealed in plastic.
This booklet is extremely confusing; it is a low-quality promotional leaflet for public welfare purposes.
The first half of the above content advocates harmonious neighborhood relations and building a warm community culture, while the second half reminds that there has been some blockage of groundwater recently and the roads are slippery, so please pay attention to safety, especially the elderly and pregnant women.
There are also some illustrations to demonstrate how family members should accompany their child and seek medical treatment if they unfortunately fall.
It says “recently”, but looking at the printing date, it was at least eight years ago.
What Wildcat said next was totally unexpected to me.
He said that this pit was indeed not the first time it was excavated. Eight years ago, the most elite group of the Zhang family had reached the deepest part, and in the end only three or four people retreated. They remained silent about what they had experienced.
The pit was sealed until half a year ago when for some reason other people came here one after another and restarted the exploration plan. Then Xu You's convoy set out from the dense forest and brought me here from afar.
Hearing this, I immediately felt something was wrong, so I had to interrupt him:
"Did your team leader come down here eight years ago?"
Wildcat nodded.
I asked again, sweating a little: "Only three or four retreated...how many were they?"
Wildcat was a little confused: "What?"
I thought to myself that I had this problem again, always thinking half of my thoughts and speaking half of my words. At this time, I really needed the cooperation of the wild cat to give me enough information, so I adjusted my habits and tried to break it down to explain my weird way of thinking:
"I know it's a strange question. Let me put it this way. Let's take ourselves as an example. There are a total of ten guys coming down, divided into two teams. Just now, Gao Liu took away two or three guys to check the entrance and exit of the tunnel. This is the consensus of our impression, right?"
The wild cat said yes with some doubt, and his face changed. He immediately asked himself: "Yes, then, how many are there?"
I sighed, and we looked at each other, both feeling a little creepy.
Right, how many people are there? With such a small number of people, why is everyone's concept so vague? Is it two or three people? No one can tell, and they just assume it's all vague?
"Counselor, you mean... the situation back then is the same as our current situation, it's all because of..."
Because I was tricked and mixed into the mud. The mud will confuse people's cognition of their partners, including their identities and numbers.
This means that it is very likely that they brought out at least one mud monster eight years ago.
Moreover, from the brief interaction we just had with the chef, we can see that the one who is the evil spirit in the mud really needs the other party's cognition as an anchor. The less the other party notices, the more the evil spirit in the mud will tend to be normal and will not be alienated by stress.
This instinctive reaction is very subtle. Even we ourselves are caught up in extreme emotions and begin to show signs of alienation, and only after being interrupted by an accident do we gain an understanding of our current self.
Therefore, in an extreme state, if nothing happens to shock him, I even suspect that the Mud Swarmer himself will gradually forget his abnormality and live a completely stable life as a normal person. Until the anchor point is suddenly broken, and the inhuman essence and memory suddenly awaken.
The node that was compressed and then suddenly exploded suddenly tore apart all normal self-identity, and the result must be extremely painful and difficult to accept. The abnormal changes and deterioration caused would probably be very intense and rapid.
I pulled Wildcat aside, explained to him everything I was thinking, and asked him if he could help me guess based on the information he knew:
After the Ni Zhong Su is completely stable, can it use the fixed identity at this time as part of the anchor point, and continue to consolidate and practice some of the necessary characteristics of this identity as a code of conduct?
"You mean..." Wildcat muttered, "The pamphlet."
"Wildcat, is this booklet owned by the survivors who came out eight years ago?"
Wildcat's expression was very unpleasant: "This one belongs to the leader."
This answer sent chills down my spine. Then, before I could come to a clear conclusion, a sense of desolate sadness spread through my body through my intuition.
No, pause, don’t think about this for now, prioritize one by one.
I forced myself to control my thoughts again, my eyes felt a little stinging and I felt a little irritated.
——Let’s get back to the most pressing issue at hand. What was the reason for Wildcat’s abnormal attitude? What was the matter with Gao Liu jumping into the pit that he mentioned? What was he trying to explain in the booklet?
"He jumped."
Suddenly, a gloomy voice said.
The wild cat stopped me behind in an instant.
Then I realized that the guy who was the first to lose control was the one speaking.
The cognitive conflict makes me a little nauseous.
A voice in my head emphasized that I had clearly seen him behaving abnormally many times, but I immediately ignored and forgot about it and did not take any action to respond.
Another voice said very softly that this was one of the companions who accompanied me to the field. He was just like me and all the rest of us, and I should trust him.
The teeth of the person in front of me were unusually white and sharp in the dim light. It didn't seem like a conversation, but rather something that was slowly and inappropriately parroting words. The whole head moved and suddenly repeated to me:
"Jumped...down."
In the intense cognitive conflict, the face had somehow become deformed, with the cheekbones and facial bones slightly elongated, like a dog or a mouse, as if the facial skin was about to be torn and pushed out.
I felt a chill all over my body as I watched, and I felt as if I had grasped something in the spiritual light. I saw him shrink back, and suddenly let out a sharp sound that sounded like laughing or crying, and retreated into the darkness.
"wildcat!"
I immediately called out to the wild cat to stop him from chasing, and at the same time asked the guys around me who were alarmed to surround him to avoid being attacked.
That face appeared in my mind, and after it was torn apart, the dirt on it kept falling off, revealing his original appearance. After the kind of familiar trust that confused my cognition gradually lost its effect, I felt that the distorted face was very familiar.
Not any of our current team, but some of the details that haven't been destroyed are very vivid, and I must know him, having been face to face with him at close range during these two days.
Who is it?
I was thinking hard when I heard Wildcat mutter, "The booklet... I wanted to tell you that the booklet was the relics that Gao Liu helped to collect and asked me to pass on to you. It was from that time that I felt something was wrong with my sister."
Relics?
These two strange yet familiar words hit me on the back of my head. I slowly opened my eyes. The goose bumps all over my body could not be dissipated at all, and were covered by more intense and complex emotions.
"Gao Liu has been helping the team doctor recently, you know the consultant."
Wildcat said, looking into my eyes, probably afraid that I couldn't accept it, and paused before continuing slowly:
"Before coming down, you asked everyone to cremate the bodies that had been collected, and you also asked for a portion of the ashes to be left with the team doctor."
"——Zhou Tingmao." I heard my voice become very strange and cold.
"This is Zhou Tingmao's relic, so you decided to give it to me first and let me deal with it myself along with the videotape. Is that right?"
I questioned the information I had already confirmed, and heard my heartbeat becoming more and more complicated, turning into an unreasonable questioning and anxiety:
"Zhou Tingmao, Yan Jing'er is dead. I saw him die."
The guy just now was Zhou Tingmao.
"Advisor." Wildcat took a deep breath and answered me with difficulty, "What I want to talk about next is my sister's abnormality. At that time, Zhou Tingmao's body had not been cremated yet. Gao Liu took a look at the remains and stayed in the storage room alone for a long time, until we gathered and set off."
"When I went to call her, she had been looking at the booklet left by Zhou Tingmao. I recognized it as something that belonged to the leader. Then she suddenly asked me if I had seen her elsewhere today. Just like she asked you just now."
"Also...in that tunnel, we saw with our own eyes the tall and thin figure jumping down. His face was covered so we couldn't see his facial features, right?"
The wild cat's throat trembled, and its three-white eyes were full of bloodshot: "But I was at the bottom, and I could see it when I looked up."
"That's my sister, Gaoliu. She has always been very tall and was often told that she didn't look like a woman. Because of this, she suffered a lot when she was a child and was bullied many times. There is no way I could have made a mistake."
But at that time, Gao Liu was clearly above me, covering the entire team from behind. And we went down all the way, excavating metal fragments, and Wildcat explained some common sense about going underground to me, and he didn't show any abnormality during the whole process.
Wait, I suddenly understand.
"At that time, the team suddenly sent a message to keep quiet and turn off the power..." I suddenly realized something, but I couldn't laugh because of the excessive surprise. "At that time, the team was not attacked by something. It was you who sent a signal to remind the other guys to cooperate with you to attack "Gao Liu"?"
"Then I...?"
Shopkeeper Yan Er looked up helplessly and said, "My ability can temporarily isolate and control people. Wildcat was at the bottom at the time. He used the time to explain to you to buy time and dug a two-meter-wide hole on the side of the tunnel. I took the opportunity to transfer you in. Fang Ao was guarding you at the side at the time."
But an accident happened.
Both of them looked at me with gloomy and helpless expressions.
"While we were fighting, we were attacked by something. Then, the dirt and walls around us disappeared. Wildcat was nearly broken in two by something. It was Gaoliu, who we thought was an imposter, who tried to stop him. Her forearm was broken on the spot."
"But then she took the opportunity to attack me and kicked me straight into the depths of the tunnel," Wildcat said blankly.
I frowned, feeling that something was wrong. “What were those noises in the headphones? Who reminded me later?”
"Huh?" Shopkeeper Yan Er was stunned.
The three of us looked at each other.
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