The extra
I didn't pick up the tape immediately, but took a few deep breaths in silence.
Eight years ago, Yan Tou'er and his companions did not know about the existence of the so-called mud monster.
But at this point it seems to us that the problem has already occurred.
The number of people is wrong.
In the first recording: At first they didn’t know that they could protect themselves by “family pairing”, and there was no so-called public expulsion. It was because a certain mechanism of the pit was triggered that led to the disappearance of the first person.
Next, the search team fell into a coma, and three of them went missing because they had no "family" to protect them.
Finally, the recording was missing here and jumped for at least one day, and then there had to be the first referendum at night, and a guy died.
And in the second recording: After two night referendums, three daytime murders, a guy collapsed during the day and was cruelly dealt with by Yan Touer, a total of six people died here.
So far we have excavated four bodies from under the reservoir, and found a female body not far away, which I mistook for Gao Liu.
Since their deaths did not seem to be caused by being buried by their teammates, but rather by being dragged into the ground by something after a sudden attack, we can tentatively assume that they are the four people who disappeared on the first day, plus one person who may have disappeared during the period when the recording jumped and was missing.
In other words, 10 people have clearly died here.
When they first came to the field, they gathered together for roll call, there were 22 of them in total, but now there were only 12 left.
However, there are three parts of the audio that Manager Yan Er transcribed. I only listened to the second part because I was drowsy.
"In the last section, 10 more people died. One of them lost his mind and chose to commit suicide by hanging himself on the bed." A voice recalled the recording and said with difficulty.
I heard the chatterbox's originally cheerful voice become full of confusion and fear. "The captain just said that three people survived eight years ago, right? But, but if that's the case..."
In this way, there will be one more person in the number.
Judging from the recording, there should have been only two people who survived eight years ago, Xu You and Zhou Tingmao, whom I know.
There are three coming out, what is the extra one?
For a moment, my mind flashed with the extremely treacherous and vicious creature that escaped from the mud disaster on a moonlit night, the missing one among the twenty-two people in the convoy.
It was this ghost that followed Xu You around, causing the entire distortion of the convoy.
It once stared and laughed at the unsuspecting shopkeeper Yan Er in front of the camera, with an unpleasant earthy smell all over its body.
Could it be? Could it be that thing?
It was as if I was struck by some inspiration that did not belong to me. An indescribable tremor swept over me, making me feel an unprecedented fear.
Before, I always thought it was the source of pollution derived from the "sentry box" rules, consistent with those skinned humanoids with bloody flesh and deformed limbs.
Perhaps it was captured by the pit as part of the rules of the sentry box ghost story, then escaped, and then was forcibly summoned by the pit again eight years later. The rules of the two ghost stories interfered with each other, and because of my exaggeration, it triggered the final confrontation between the convoy distortion and the moonlight mud disaster.
But now, I find another possibility: this is the last thing that the pit mother conceives in the womb.
It left after being born, perhaps captured by the unfinished sentry box, thus becoming one of the core components of the "sentry box" ghost story.
It exists as a "vagrant" without family protection in the rules of the post, used and expelled by the post. Occasionally, it may also drive out and prey on new fetuses for the pit mother.
I can't tell which of these two assumptions is closer to the truth, the former or the latter.
But if it is the latter, then I can probably understand some of the mechanisms and core rules of the "Post" ghost story.
Because in this sense, the "sentry booth" is a separated, new and fragile womb.
The fetus in the booth will naturally be temporarily protected by it, and the mud monster trapped in the mother's body will temporarily become the fetus's loyal guardian.
In front of this running logic:
Mother is trustworthy.
The post is credible.
The guards are believable.
As long as the "wall" that makes up the sentry box is not broken and the uterus is intact, the fetus inside will always be safe.
Therefore, the wall cannot be destroyed, and one cannot be tempted to leave the womb of the sentry box.
However, this gestation period must have a limit. During this process, if the fetus is never delivered and does not mutate, it may trigger another rule.
At this time, the original guards of the sentry box will gradually become distorted, trying to expel and prey on the people hiding in the sentry box.
At this time, the mother cannot be trusted, the guards cannot be trusted, and the mother will cause fatal harm.
"consultant……?"
"consultant!!"
So...what is that rule?
My head started to hurt again.
“Pah.”
It was unreal, I felt a slight pain, a small lump of mud fell off along with my face skin, and then blood started dripping.
Amid the panic and hazy noise of the people around me, I fell on my back, feeling extremely regretful. I had been silent for too long, completely immersed in my thoughts, and forgot to speak out the information I had speculated and tell everyone.
Will I die? No, at least I won’t die because of my shamelessness. I was filled with grief and indignation.
It was at this moment that I heard a faint scratching sound for the first time in a long time, and a shrill breathing sound circling in my ears in panic.
"Meow……"
The voice gently arched my face and neck with grievance.
I felt myself sinking, my limbs losing strength, and as I felt a slight tingling pain, my vision completely lost focus and turned into a colorful black.
Dongzai.
The image of a little tabby cat emerged in my mind. It looked very familiar, with a white scarf and gloves, and was fluffy and round.
It was as if it was trying ignorantly to get in through some stubborn and turbid water and come to my side, not knowing what it would face.
I shuddered.
"Don't move."
I said weakly, feeling my memory of the cat and its existence becoming clearer and clearer: "Don't come over. Hide like before."
There may or may not have been a faint meow in response, and I couldn't be sure whether it was my delirium.
I need physical cooling and oxygen. I thought in a daze, trying to squeeze out a few words in front of me:
"Reservoir..."
For the next five minutes or more, my consciousness was completely confused, as if I was dreaming and screaming at the same time.
I felt like a group of people were pushing me into some kind of liquid, and then someone cursed and shouted that he had a pot, and then the liquid was poured all over me.
There was also Fang Ao's voice, which made me so angry that I wanted to curse in a daze. He shouted that asking the boy about the catheter was useless, and he counted as half. Then he might have been kicked into a corner by the wild cat Gao Liu and his sister.
Then someone shouted to boil water, saying that the consultant was going to freeze to death. I almost struggled to jump up like a drunken shrimp in white wine. I seemed to be cursing in my heart, saying that I didn’t want boiled water, but what came out of my mouth was all nonsense that I couldn’t understand.
They held me down tightly, feeling a strong burning sensation and suffocation. The liquid caused an indescribable burning sensation when it came into contact with my skin, and I probably screamed again.
"Still soaking?" I heard the wild cat ask hesitantly and reluctantly.
The other two pairs of hands pushed me down without hesitation.
I don’t know how long my consciousness was blurred this time. I even had two dreams. The first dream was that I turned into a Trisolaran, shouting at the top of my lungs about dehydration and immersion under a black sun.
Another dream was that I was in front of a convoy covered in mud and rust, and Zhou Tingmao was lying dead on the ground. Xu You was right next to me, and I pointed at Zhou Tingmao and said to Xu You, "Look, Yan Jing'er is dead." But Xu You looked at me coldly, and his entire facial bones suddenly deformed and mutated, turning into the rotting head of a dead rat, and suddenly pounced on me with his fangs bared.
I suddenly opened my eyes and was soaking wet.
This time I was unconscious for at least half an hour. My face and body were burning and probably turned red. At the same time, I vaguely felt that not only the mud and skin on my face were falling off piece by piece, but my arms were also cracking.
"Awake? Are you feeling better?" a gentle and kind female voice said. I looked towards the voice blankly and was immediately startled. It was the female team doctor in the camp.
My whole body froze, and then I saw that I was not in a pool, but in a transparent column filled with turbid yellow liquid.
That was the equipment originally used to treat high blood pressure, and it contained artificially prepared things that simulated the amniotic fluid environment.
Then, in a state of complete numbness, I slowly realized that I had a nasogastric tube inserted to allow oxygen to escape from the immersion.
The female team doctor looked at me and asked with concern: "What's wrong? Is it still painful?"
I shook my head. Unspeakable emotions made me immediately start knocking on the glass, trying to get my teammates to quickly leave this camp at the bottom of the pit.
I still haven't figured out the behavioral logic of the Mud Monster. As a group of people who have one foot on the edge of distortion, we must not stay with the people in the camp all the time.
Moreover, in the recordings left by Yan Tou'er and his men, people were killed during the three daytime hours. If the harassment was caused by the mud monster that had already transformed, I'm not sure if delaying the matter among us would also lead to such a mutual tragedy.
These idiots clearly knew what was going on, so why did they still lead me to the camp? Don’t they want to be human anymore? I was furious, wondering why the bad feudal remnants in the team were gone, and one or two of them were completely disobedient.
The knocking was so intense that I completely forgot that I could speak.
There was only one voice in my mind that said firmly, No, I will force those idiots to come in.
At this time, I had no way to persuade the female team doctor. In her eyes, I was just a patient. As for who met the female team doctor during the process of sending me to the camp, what reasons were given, and how she was observed by the female team doctor, and what kind of image concept was established?
I don't know any of this.
But I understand one thing, if some guy shouts that I am Yan Er’s distant uncle and that I was injured in a fight with him, then I absolutely cannot say that I am his little ancestor.
Otherwise, it would cause the female team doctor to be confused and ponder, and my friend who sent me in and Yan Er might get into trouble because of anchoring cognitive bias.
Even though that probability would not happen so easily because of our spontaneous ability to guide confusion.
The distortion that almost occurred with the chef's friend cannot happen again.
So, how can I make this good-tempered and patient team doctor, following her self-consistent logic, rush to help me call the "family members"?
I took a deep breath and thought to myself, the patient needs emergency treatment now.
Think about it, think about it, are there any less critical rules and scraps that can allow me to get slightly injured from thinking without directly scorching my brain?
For example?
I quickly asked myself, "Since this is deep in the pit, why is there a camp with people exactly like the ones in the camp? When Gao Liu was above the camp, why did he see me and Wildcat drowning due to amniotic fluid after going to the ground in his delirium? Why does the rules of the pit inexplicably emphasize two people or an even number?"
My thoughts were wandering, and finally, I caught a hint of inspiration. I felt my head buzzing and the tinnitus came again.
Tiny beads of blood were rolling in the liquid in front of me. I saw the team doctor's face suddenly change, and I immediately rushed out to call for help. There was a small noise in the camp.
In my heart, I sincerely apologized to the kind-hearted team doctor. At the same time, to my own surprise, I came up with my own answers to these questions.
Mirror.
When the camp was scanned with a machine, it was concluded that there seemed to be a deep pool of water under the pit.
Assuming that the amniotic fluid in the womb underground forms a mirror, then we below and the camp above are reflected in it, becoming each other's shadows.
We are fetuses in the amniotic fluid. We have not yet been born. We have not yet lived and are about to drown in the womb.
And above the pit, we in the camp were born and alive before we entered the mother's womb to be conceived.
——The mirror is above and below, the life, death and time that we who are born have is a solidified hook that bites the corresponding one. This twin mirror image will continue until one of us is really trapped and given birth, breaking the symmetry of the reflection.
It turns out that this is one of the underlying rules of this weird story.
As I suddenly realized what was happening, it felt like my brain was hit by a small hammer. I was caught off guard and the pain instantly magnified and spread throughout my body like my skin being peeled off.
I couldn't brake and screamed again.
This is a misunderstanding. It seems like I’ve gone too far.
"drop--"
The alarm in the ward rang violently.
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