Chapter 57
"This... is there something wrong?" Lu Shiyu turned to ask Tang Zeyu: "Could it be that the price in the book is different from the actual selling price?"
After all, some books are deliberately priced high so that some stores sell them at high prices and some stores sell them at low prices. In this way, customers who buy them at low prices will feel that they have made a profit, but in fact the book should not be sold so expensively.
"No, when I bought it, I paid according to the price on the back of the book." Tang Zeyu denied the speculation about the yin and yang price.
But that's even more bizarre. Not only is the book ridiculously expensive, but even the original author doesn't know about it. Could it be that a shady publisher is changing the price to make money? Even if they did, they couldn't have made it this expensive. No one would buy it at that price!
While Lu Shiyu was still wondering what was going on, Professor Chen had already snatched the book away.
"Strange, there is such a thing?"
Professor Chen took out his glasses from his jacket pocket and put them on. He carefully counted the price of the book spine. After a long time, he seemed to remember something and hissed.
"Did you discover anything?" Lu Shiyu asked.
Professor Chen returned the book to Lu Shiyu, took off his glasses, folded them and put them back in his pocket. His expression was as complicated as if he had yawned in the morning and swallowed a fly.
"Hmm..." Professor Chen raised his head and looked at the cave entrance at a 45-degree angle.
"I probably forgot to put a decimal point when I quoted the price."
“…”
The room fell into silence for a long time.
"He said he... forgot something?" Yan Hong doubted her ears.
"He said he forgot to put a decimal point," Chen Yunliang said calmly, "It's normal. People's brains start to decline after they reach middle age, so forgetting things is normal. Don't make a fuss about it."
Professor Chen: “…”
It’s better not to explain.
Lu Shiyu glanced down at the price and asked, "So Professor Chen's book isn't selling because the price is wrong? But why didn't the publisher ask about it again?"
"The publishing house probably really thought he wanted to sell it at such a high price," Chen Yunliang said, pushing his glasses. "Often, rich kids suddenly get the idea to write a book, and their families arrange all sorts of awards to hype him up as a prodigy, then use their connections to get his book published. But in reality, no one reads or buys it. It's simply for the amusement of the rich. As for the price, of course, they can set it however they want. No one buys it anyway."
"They pay the publishers to print the books themselves, and the publishers only need to make a few books and put them on the shelves for show. For the publishers, they make a lot of money for free, so no one cares."
However, the kind of person Chen Yunliang was talking about is obviously not the same type of person as Professor Chen. Professor Chen was truly creating content, and even lived outside the base for more accurate records. As a result, because he entered the wrong price, the publisher mistook him for a rich man who was out for fun, and they just gave him a perfunctory response and didn't take him seriously at all. From a certain perspective, Professor Chen can be said to be unlucky.
I thought Professor Chen would start cursing again, but he was so calm this time. His eyes, which had become cloudy due to his age, looked in an unknown direction.
"Forget it, forget it," Professor Chen said, holding onto the back of his chair and sitting down. "I've never thought of making a living from publishing books. Even if they don't sell, it won't affect me much. I'll contact the publisher when I get back. I just don't know if I can still make changes."
"By the way, that kid from the Tang family, you came out here on an assignment, right?" Professor Chen suddenly remembered and asked casually, "What assignment did you take?"
"Come out to find something."
Tang Zeyu answered truthfully, but Professor Chen didn't believe her at all. He smiled and waved his hand, "If you don't want to say it, forget it. Don't try to fool me."
Tang Zeyu found that his explanation was unclear, so he said, "I'm not kidding you. I really came out to look for something, but I can't tell what it is yet."
Professor Chen didn't want to continue this topic, so he turned around and asked how long it would take them to go back.
"We can go back once we find our target. It's not far from here," Tang Zeyu paused, "but we're lost nearby and can't find the right direction."
Professor Chen looked smug, as if to say, "I knew it!" and said, "That's right, you can't find the direction. Perhaps you haven't noticed yet, but the trees around here are secretly moving on their own."
"Can trees move?" Lu Shiyu asked. "Can trees grow legs and sneak away when no one's paying attention?"
Professor Chen's eyes were filled with approval: "Yes, they really can grow legs and run away secretly."
"The trees around here are like social animals, living together in crowded groups. When they encounter prey that intrudes into their group, they quietly trap it. When the prey falls asleep at night, they use their roots to drag it underground and turn it into nutrients."
Everyone was surprised when they heard this.
"Wouldn't it be dangerous to spend the night in the woods?"
Those trees trap prey during the day and drag the sleeping prey into the ground to be turned into fertilizer at night, so they need to leave these trees before night falls, but those trees will stop them and prevent them from getting out, which is a vicious cycle.
"That's why I found this cave and used it as a camp."
Professor Chen pointed his finger downwards, and everyone looked down. The floor of the cave was made of stone.
"Those trees can't bend down, so they can't get into the cave. Besides, the ground is pure stone, so there's no way their roots can get in."
Looking at it this way, the originally unremarkable location suddenly became like an iron wall, giving a full sense of security.
"That's not right. If those trees eat other creatures at night, then why have we seen other creatures? Shouldn't they have been eaten by the trees?" Shao Xingyang questioned, "Didn't we just catch a distorted creature?"
"Of course there will be other animals. Those trees aren't really stupid," Professor Chen snorted. "If all the animals disappear, what will they eat? Who will fill the other roles in the ecosystem?"
"They only prey on a small number of creatures to control their population. If there are intruders, they will be eliminated first. It's not quite appropriate to say that in this forest, the trees are like livestock farmers who keep poultry in captivity, managing the ecology of this area. We are considered foreign invaders, and we may disrupt the originally stable environment here. Therefore, they will find a way to eliminate us, these destabilizing factors."
Professor Chen shrugged and said, "Besides, humans like us who have come here are like pie in the sky to them. They'd be a waste if they didn't eat us. Even if they ate us all, it wouldn't affect the creatures they manage, so there's no need to let us go."
Tang Zeyu walked out of the cave and looked outside. The sun was about to set. According to Professor Chen, it would become dangerous outside at night. It would not be as simple as being unable to get out. The only way now was to spend the night in Professor Chen's cave camp and try to find a way out tomorrow.
"Professor Chen, we may need to stay here for one night." Tang Zeyu said after returning to the cave.
"Of course you can stay here, but I don't have any extra bedding."
Professor Chen took out a match from the drawer, lit one and then lit several lamps in the room, and the light reappeared in the gradually darkening camp.
Several people took out sleeping bags from their bags. Since they were in a cave, they didn't even need to set up a tent.
Tonight's night watch is the turn of Chen Yunliang and Shaoxing Yang, and Shaoxing Yang will be on duty for the first half of the night.
Those who didn't need to keep watch crawled into their sleeping bags, but since it was still early they didn't rush to sleep. Instead they started chatting.
"Speaking of which, since it's dangerous outside at night, what about Professor Chen's apprentice?" Shao Xingyang asked, his upper body tilted up. "He shouldn't be able to find a similar place outside to hide from those trees, right?"
This means that the danger that Professor Chen's apprentice might encounter seems to have doubled. After Lu Shiyu thought about it for a while, he felt that Professor Chen's apprentice was in great danger.
"Don't worry about him. He'll have his own way," Professor Chen said as he took off his shoes and socks and lay on the bed. "He'll be back on his own after a while anyway."
Lu Shiyu felt complicated when he heard this. Professor Chen's idea was too optimistic. It seemed as if he didn't worry about his apprentice being in danger at all. He was so angry when his apprentice was mentioned before, but now he seemed to not care.
"Besides, I can't possibly go out and look for him, so don't get me involved."
Lu Shiyu: “…”
This is the real reason.
"Professor Chen, you have lived here for a while, so do you know how to get out?" Chen Yunliang asked.
"If you want to get out, there is a way..."
"What method?"
“…”
"Professor Chen?"
“…”
"Professor Chen, are you listening?"
Chen Yunliang crawled out of his sleeping bag and heard a loud snoring. Shao Xingyang, who was sitting in a chair, looked back and said, "He's asleep."
Chen Yunliang: “…”
"Do I fall asleep so quickly when I get older?" Shaoxing Yang scratched his head.
"But who is Professor Chen's apprentice? He's so mysterious?" Yan Hong emerged from her sleeping bag and asked, "Why does it seem like he knows everything?"
"I don't know. Hey, Professor Chen is related to the Chen family, right?" Shao Xingyang looked at Chen Yunliang and said, "You should know a lot of inside gossip, right?"
"I've already told you what I know," Chen Yunliang said helplessly, spreading his hands. "They said it was a side branch, and they'd long since severed ties with the family. The company he works for is even kept secret. How would I, a member of the exploration team without the family's support, know who his apprentice is? I've never even heard of him."
"Then you can tell us some other gossip, right?" Yan Hong reached out and pushed Chen Yunliang's sleeping bag. "Just tell us some gossip about the upper class that you know. Anything is fine."
Chen Yunliang recalled it and said, "I can't tell you."
"Why?"
Chen Yunliang turned to look at Yan Hong: "They are too rich and still not doing anything. I'm afraid you will be so angry that you can't sleep at night after hearing this."
Yan Hong: “…”
Listening to Chen Yunliang's incredible gossip, Lu Shiyu put his hands in his sleeping bag, took out the diary from the supernatural space under the cover, stretched his hands out of the sleeping bag and began to write in the diary.
Halfway through recording, Lu Shiyu suddenly felt someone approaching. He turned around and found it was Tang Zeyu.
"What's wrong?" Lu Shiyu asked.
Tang Zeyu raised his eyes and met Shanglu Shiyu's gaze, seeming to hesitate whether to say anything.
"If you don't say anything, I'm going to sleep." After saying that, Lu Shiyu retracted his hand into the sleeping bag and pretended to curl up in it.
"Wait a minute," Tang Zeyu said after a moment's hesitation, "If we can get out of the woods tomorrow, we'll probably reach our destination the day after tomorrow."
"Great news!" Lu Shiyu's face was filled with obvious joy and excitement. "We'll be able to complete our mission and return soon."
"But I always have a bad feeling," Tang Zeyu frowned slightly and said, "I have a feeling that the road ahead will not be smooth."
Although the goal was clearly within reach, it gave him an inexplicable and huge sense of uneasiness. Tang Zeyu could not find the source of this uneasiness, nor could he guarantee whether this uneasiness would come true, but his intuition was always accurate.
"If you encounter any danger next, remember, your first priority is your life."
"What about you?"
"My responsibility is to protect my team members, and you."
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