showdown
[Lost] How to judge?
Can a person remember every detail of the situation around him or her?
I think that's unlikely.
In extremely dangerous environments, people may subconsciously force themselves to remember all kinds of details in order to identify crises that may have been overlooked, but this consumes a lot of energy and spirit and cannot be sustained.
Take myself as an example. In the strange stories I experienced, I often flashed back many scenes. For almost all the guys who had even a few words of communication, I could try my best to recall the details of our interaction. Thanks to this, I was able to connect many moments of inspiration and make various inferences from them.
But that doesn't mean I have a photographic memory.
In fact, I have also remembered a detail that I missed many times. Sometimes it was because of my instinctive fear that I subconsciously avoided something that was too close to the essence of a ghost story, and most of the time it was simply because I couldn't remember it.
In fact, if it weren’t for Zhang Tianyi’s reminder, I would probably not have discovered this problem with Dongzai and the possible hidden dangers behind it.
Not to mention being able to detect if there has been any change in the surroundings, to determine if you are [lost].
Having said that, this topic makes me somewhat discouraged.
If somewhere in the world, my college roommate whom I haven't seen for many years suddenly turns into a greasy bald man, can I judge that it is the world that has changed, or that I am [lost]?
Let's think about it more profoundly. If a person's family encounters divorce or disaster, can they say that it is not because of problems in life but that they have lost themselves?
If my parents won 50 million tomorrow and our family suddenly became rich, could I suspect that I was [lost]?
If we really want to think about it endlessly, there is simply no point in talking about it based on the little we know now.
However, I also roughly understand why Zhang Tianyi still speaks in a very casual tone.
Because this thing is too big and too strict, worrying too much is just a waste of time, no different from worrying about the sky falling. It's better to just treat it as a piece of idle gossip and talk about it casually.
Compared to something that is too scary but too ethereal and unreal, I decided to be more pragmatic and pay attention to other issues that I can grasp.
I didn't care that we had agreed to change the question, and I asked:
"Is this situation just a coincidence?"
"Yes. Within the scope of strange stories, many things will be distorted to accommodate its rules, even [getting lost] is the same."
I was immediately relieved.
This is the only issue I am able to care about now. I can't keep raising a cat and then tell me one day that my little fat cat has been lost and replaced with a new one.
However, I changed my mind and understood a little, so I repeated it to confirm with him.
"——So, in order to avoid getting lost frequently, and to maintain the life and relationships that you don't want to give up yet, actively engaging in ghost stories has become a way to quench your thirst with poison?"
"People can temporarily avoid the gaze of [lost] by following the rules of ghost stories?"
In this way, in addition to seeking an ultimate solution, I can probably understand the logic behind why the Zhang family let their people delve into the strange stories.
No wonder the owner of my black notebook was so fanatical and determined after discovering that Gao Liu had lost his ability to heal himself. Because at that time, the people in the camp generally believed that this meant that there was some kind of power deep in the pit that could seal "superpowers".
Now I know that the so-called superpowers come from the pollution and parasitism of ghost stories. Looking back at the notes, I can understand how ecstatic the owner of the notes was to the point of almost losing his composure, and why he wrote such a crazy statement as "at any cost". And why are these unscrupulous guys willing to participate in this seemingly unprofitable death journey.
They are racing against time with the ghost stories.
They are gambling on whether they will take the risk to reach the answer first and end all their wanderings; or whether they will accelerate their own loss and misfortune because of taking the risk before that.
As a survivor of the pit eight years ago, Xu You had witnessed the deaths of so many of his comrades, but he still agreed to accept orders and rush to the pit again.
Now it seems that apart from responsibility, if there is no accident with the convoy, he can just accept some slight pollution and inspiration in the camp after arriving. In that case, he is actually using the rules to seek some kind of shelter from the pit.
But it was a risky gamble and a wrong one.
This kind of thing is probably not an isolated case among the Zhang family. What I saw was just a very common corner of the true face of this world.
As I said this, the phone beeped again, this time with some landscape photos.
I flipped through it and asked subconsciously: "You ran away here too? This must be teleportation, right?"
What I got was a somewhat helpless silence, and a snort that was somewhat angry and amused.
I was confused for a moment.
He knocked on the other end of the phone again: "When you sent the message, I had just finished calling home. Now it's your turn."
I was so embarrassed that I realized that this was actually a warm family interaction and Zhang Tianyi, as my brother, really came to chat with me.
"The Zhang family took over the hospital after they discovered the incident. The original hospital staff saw so many people and were afraid something might happen, so they tried to contact you all. Your broken phone sent the group message to the landlord and the property management."
"Your fellow villager Brother Li heard that you were admitted to the hospital and he told our parents about it again in a hurry."
He smiled and said, "A bunch of people are dizzy. I can only represent someone to report to my family every day that they are safe. I've been trying to comfort them for the past two days."
As someone who is "fainted", I feel embarrassed.
He has not had direct contact with his family in recent years, and he has probably been questioned a lot by his family. He is bound to be scolded.
However, when it comes to small talk, I feel a little flattered.
I've been discharged from the hospital and come back to run the store and play games. How could he not forget to chat with me while wandering around? It's enough to chat with my parents. There's no need to be polite to me.
Is it possible that I will die soon?
"I'll be busy traveling in the next two days, so I won't have time to call home." Zhang Tianyi suddenly smiled, "Of course, there are some things I really can't get over, and I can't explain to my parents. So..."
Damn, I finally realized, no wonder he was so considerate today, it turns out he was waiting for me here.
He finished his nonsense and asked me to continue making up stories with my family? Is he a human being?
I was furious and asked him to clean up the mess for me first, and he sent me a smiling emoticon.
I was extremely depressed, but I still asked him what he was going to do and whether he needed my help.
He told me to just rest. Not only him, but everyone else would not bother me unless it was a matter of life and death.
It would be good to be able to take a break and not get involved in those messes, but how can we say that?
"You can rest."
Zhang Tianyi whispered, "You are very tired."
I was slightly stunned.
This is not the first time I have heard something like this.
When I was recuperating in the hospital bed, Gao Liu once left a message to remind me. She said calmly: "Advisor, don't you feel that your emotions are almost exhausted?"
I didn't quite understand what Gao Liu meant at the time. Besides, she herself was a person of indifferent temperament, and it was a bit ridiculous to remind me, a guy who was full of complaints and nagging.
Yan Mo also told me to take a good rest and relax.
But I was lying on the hospital bed, bored to the point of growing hair. When I heard this, I couldn't help but touch my face and asked the team leader Zhang Jia who had been watching beside me: "Do I have dark circles under my eyes? Or is my face cracked again?"
The team leader had just finished an all-night guard and was looking at me in a daze. He stretched out his hand and grabbed my face, then said perfunctorily, "It's thick, no problem." I sighed and then hurriedly scolded him for being too heavy-handed.
This is the third time I heard it, and I feel a little weird.
I had to reflect on it for a moment and asked Zhang Tianyi: "I didn't actually use up much physical energy along the way, nor did I personally use up any energy being chased by monsters."
"Um."
"Although the situation was critical, it was generally the guys who ran errands and I just did some talking. The hardest part was climbing the mountain trail for an entire afternoon. I was either dizzy or lying down most of the time."
"Um."
I touched the back of my head and was totally confused. I thought to myself, yeah, then where on earth was I tired?
It's been half a month. No matter how tired I am, I should have rested enough. There's no need for you to spoil me so much.
I can't help feeling a little embarrassed.
Zhang Tianyi said: "When people are extremely tired, their emotions become dull first, and then they gradually lose their personality traits, becoming extremely irritable and anxious, and their moods tend to fluctuate greatly."
I was startled again and bit my nails subconsciously.
"As you go along in your adventure, you will probably feel that you are left with only surprise and fear. Eventually, you will become calm, and even the surprise and tension will disappear."
"Xu Ranxing, you may not have noticed that you talk more when you are nervous and tell some bad jokes. And your interactions with people around you will become more frequent. You are a person who relies on protecting others to gain a sense of security."
"People like Zhang Jia, who have seen you get involved from being clueless, can easily see that you have even reduced the habit of assigning tasks to others. In the same situation, you would say that you would leave everything to professionals, but now you are afraid that someone will be sacrificed, so you try to do everything yourself."
"..." I blinked with some difficulty, "You mean, I'm almost going crazy."
"Madness is the norm for people like us." Zhang Tianyi's tone became serious.
"So you must give yourself time to adapt to the new you and stabilize yourself. Otherwise, once you get used to changing and compressing yourself to cater to the pressure of weird stories, you will soon find yourself becoming a blur."
"and……
I also need to confirm that Xu Ranxing has always been Xu Ranxing. Once I find out that [missing] happened, you were replaced by another you who is extremely similar, or something else..."
He paused and didn't say anything else, but I felt the coldness and scrutiny in his unfinished words. For the first time, I intuitively understood the origin of his ambiguous attitude.
I see.
Whether he wants to or not, he will definitely need me wherever he goes next. But I am not enough to make him feel at ease now, so he is still waiting. Others who may need me are also waiting.
It was this urgency that forced him and me to come clean and talk it out.
Because I am a person who extremely hates lies and deception, if someone tries to look down on me or control me, my personality will definitely cause strong resistance and counterattack.
Confessing this possible suspicion is the only way to continue to maintain unbroken trust with me.
I took a deep breath, thought about it, and answered him: "Give me a few more days. Like you said, I should also go to the Zhang family to find out what my brother did and what kind of person he is."
"Zhang family's party?"
"Okay, I'll go." I said, clicking on Yan Mo's profile picture.
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