Chapter 288 Stagnant World
You Xi slowly approached the location of the handprint from the inside of the crystal bubble, and at the same time reached out to wipe it. After confirming that the handprint was printed outside the bubble, she breathed a sigh of relief.
What was more terrifying than waking up was to find that the bloody handprint was not printed outside the crystal bubble, but inside.
Fortunately, that was just her guess, and this station was not that difficult to be crazy.
After waking up, she couldn't fall asleep. As usual, she took out the camping light and checked along the entire crystal bubble. After confirming that there were no other problems, she untied the seal of the bubble and carefully climbed out.
After simply rinsing her mouth with mouthwash, she held the camping light and drank "refreshing tea" while tangling with the bloody handprint outside the bubble.
If there hadn't been this handprint, she wouldn't have had to crawl out just now, she could just put the bubble into the space door. Now, with a bloody handprint on it, should she put the bubble away or not?
If she didn't, what if it got stained with something strange? Would she be able to crawl in and sleep tonight?
Youxi had an obsessive-compulsive disorder. She stared at the handprint for a while, then took out a bunch of things: a camping light, a disinfectant spray bottle, a long-handled brush, concentrated laundry detergent... and started to clean and disinfect.
For some reason, this handprint was particularly difficult to wash. She changed several kinds of laundry detergent, and finally used the "air stain separator" she bought at the "Fairy Tale Paradise" station. It took two washes to completely clean the blood stain.
Finally, she used the space door to form a stream of warm water in the water tank to rinse the crystal bubble clean.
When she put the thoroughly cleaned crystal bubble into the space door, her phone vibrated.
Tip: "Evil Thought Mark" has been dispelled, the tracking status is lifted, and the SAN value is increased by 0.5.
Youxi looked at the four words "Evil Thought Mark" and felt uncomfortable. It seems that the bloody handprint just now is not just a mark, but also has a tracking function.
The thing didn't attack her last night, it should not be because it didn't want to, but because it couldn't. The "mark" was left so that it could find her again today. Maybe after being marked and found a second time, it can meet the attack conditions.
Now that the "mark" has been dispelled, the opponent has to start all over again.
It seemed that she could not rest in the same place today and had to change to another place.
However, right now, she had another more urgent matter to solve. When she watched horror stories in the past, the protagonists seemed to have no other needs except solving puzzles and escaping.
She wanted to keep everything simple, but even though it was so dark around her, she couldn't take out the portable toilet and use it directly. In the end, Youxi still released the tree house, and after taking care of her physiological needs, she took a five-minute combat bath.
As for meals, she directly took out a bottle of nutrient solution.
This was her first time drinking nutrient solution. It tasted a bit like the lactic acid bacteria she had drunk before. After drinking it, her originally empty stomach was filled up. Thinking that she would not feel hungry for the next three days, she still felt a little magical.
On the second day of being trapped in the dark abandoned building, Youxi's SAN value returned to 18. She opened the team group, told her about the "refreshing tea" and "evil thoughts mark", and exchanged information with her friends.
She thought she couldn't just sit there and wait for death, so she decided to start from the first floor and re-explore the library building.
**
The first floor is a high and open hall. In addition to the navigation service desk at the middle door and the surrounding landscape rest area, there are two room doors and a staircase on the left and right sides.
She had checked these four room doors yesterday. They should be the administrator's lounge and the newspaper room. The desks and shelves inside were empty, just like the upper floors. It seemed that before the building was completely closed, the books and materials inside were cleared out in time.
Just like yesterday, the dark room doors, the tables and chairs were overturned, and thick dust covered everything.
Youxi checked more carefully than yesterday, shining the flashlight over every place. She was also more cautious than yesterday. Occasionally, if she saw something left behind, she would not rashly reach for it, lest her SAN value be reduced for no reason.
This is a library, so it is inevitable that some books and materials are left behind. She tried it yesterday, and all the items that fit the library were fine. She felt that if she wanted to find clues and trigger hints, then the target should be those objects that are unrelated to the library, or even a little abrupt.
According to this idea, the second search was more specific than the first search yesterday.
There was no problem with the first floor.
The second and third floors were small reading rooms, which were somewhat similar to the classrooms she knew inside, which was why she initially mistook this for a teaching building. It was
still that long and dark corridor, with a reading room on one side and a wall on the other. The windows were at both ends of the corridor. They were the kind of tall European-style lattice wooden frame windows, and the outside was covered with gray brick walls.
Perhaps because she calmed down and searched particularly carefully this time, she found an old brooch in the corner of the bookshelf in the second small reading room on the left side of the second floor.
Because the brooch was dark in color, rusty and covered with dust, she did not notice it yesterday.
You Xi was ready and reached out to pick up the brooch. It was a women's sun-shaped brooch with several depressions in the middle door, surrounded by curved silver ornaments, similar to the shape of the sun's rays.
The silver ornament part has turned completely black, and there should have been some inlaid gems or something in the depression, but now only a dull white stone is left.
The remaining white stone also loosened and fell off as she took it.
She used her fingertips to brush away the dust on the silver ornaments below the middle door, and saw a few words written on it: Illuminati.
The action of taking the brooch did not cause the SAN value to decrease, nor did it trigger a prompt message, indicating that this was just an ordinary item. You Xi put the brooch back in the corner of the bookshelf and continued to check other places.
Further ahead, there were traces of burning on the wall on the other side, and a lot of broken and charred books and papers were scattered on the ground. There should have been a small fire here, and the fire was put out before it spread.
She did not reach out to this area because she triggered a decrease in SAN value here yesterday, but did not trigger a prompt task.
Therefore, she judged that this should be a purely negative area. When she carefully checked the surroundings for other clues, someone in the team group sent a message.
The person who sent the message was You Zhenzhen, who said that he had just had a fight with someone.
You Zhenzhen: ...The resources at this station are very scarce. Those passengers saw us yesterday and noted the building we entered. Today, they thought they could take advantage of their numbers to take down the two of us and pick up our loot. Unexpectedly, they were taken down by me and Sister Yatong! Sister Yatong also got a ticket for one station. This is simply door-to-door delivery!
You Zhenzhen looked very happy, and told them about the dropped items they had picked up one by one, including an item option called "Refreshing Tea". In addition, they also selected a puzzle piece.
She took a picture of the puzzle piece and sent it to the group.
The picture was received very slowly, and it was not until You Xi finished exploring the reading room and was about to leave that the picture showed that it had been sent successfully.
The fragment was similar to the puzzle fragment she knew, but the whole was fan-shaped, with a complete arc part and a recessed slot on each of the straight parts on both sides, which meant that there were other fragments on both sides that could be spliced with it.
The angle of the fan was about 120 degrees, so it was inferred that as long as two more fragments were found, a complete circle would be obtained.
One side of the fragment is white, and the other side is black. On the black side, you can vaguely see a corner of a building. On the white side, there is an incomplete word "Dark 2". The word "Dark" is complete, and "2" is missing a small piece because the puzzle is incomplete, but it can still be recognized.
Because it is a dropped item after killing the tourist, and this thing is not a prop, You Zhenzhen and Tang Yatong discussed it and chose this fragment.
However, when the fragment information is displayed on the mobile phone, there is no other hint except "(1/3)" at the end. They think that they may need to find two more pieces of the same fragments to complete the circular puzzle before they can find the answer.
It was already daybreak where they were. Just like yesterday, it was a cloudy, sunny day with intermittent sunlight. Looking out the window, there were still no people on campus. It was quiet everywhere and felt very depressing.
Probably because the way to reduce SAN value was different, they did not receive similar prompts as Youxi did last night. The items that increase SAN value may have to be obtained through other methods.
At the same time, they also tried that if they left the room during the day, the SAN value would not decrease, so they planned to take advantage of the daytime to plan the campus area to explore today.
Finally, You Zhenzhen reminded her to be careful. After all, even her shield could not prevent the reduction of SAN value. Those invisible things were non-physical and the attacks were silent, so she had to be cautious while exploring.
Youxi agreed to all the requests, put away his phone and turned around to leave the reading room, when he suddenly felt the surroundings shaking, just like an earthquake, the whole building seemed to be shaking.
But unlike an earthquake, it seemed that only the building was shaking, while the tables, chairs, bookshelves, and cabinets inside the building did not shake accordingly.
This feeling was like standing in a world in a shell, and only the outer shell was shaking, while the world inside remained calm.
The shaking of the building lasted for about a minute, and the surroundings became quiet again. Youxi vigilantly used a flashlight to check the surroundings to prevent sudden strange attacks.
The flashlight swept across the bookshelf on the opposite side, and Youxi's sight followed the flashlight and swept across there. Then, the flashlight stopped, and her sight also stopped.
She slowly stepped forward, walked to the front of the bookshelf again, and aimed the flashlight at the dilapidated sun brooch in the corner of the bookshelf.
Not long ago, she checked this brooch and accidentally knocked off the last decorative white stone on it, and wiped off the dust on the silver ornaments below.
But now, the brooch lay there quietly, covered with dust, and the only white stone returned to its original position.
A chill rose from her back, and Youxi felt a little tingling on her scalp.
From just now until now, she was the only one in this small dark reading room. She had her five senses fully open the whole time, alert to everything around her. Even if a tiny flying insect passed by, she could accurately sense it.
But in this situation, during that period of time just now, something came in through the door, passed by her quietly, and restored the brooch to its original state.
**
She walked out of the reading room, stood in the dark corridor, took out her mobile phone to check her SAN value, and there was no change on it, it was still 18.
She was not attacked, but she also did not receive any prompts.
Youxi opened the team group and wanted to post the process of this incident in the group. While she was still typing, someone else had already sent a message.
Xiyuan: There was an earthquake just now! What happened! It woke me up directly!
The time gate there is about five to six hours later than that of You Zhenzhen and Tang Yatong, so he goes to bed later.
Tang Yatong: It’s the same here! There was a very strange earthquake. I felt shaking and trembling, but the items and furnishings around me were not affected. It was like...
Tang Yatong seemed to be thinking of a suitable word to describe what had just happened. When You Xi saw this, she directly deleted the words she had typed and continued with her message.
You Xi: It’s like being in a world in a shell. Only the shell is shaking and trembling, and it doesn’t affect the world inside, right?
You Zhenzhen: Yes, yes, yes! That’s it! How weird, is this an earthquake?
Xi Yuan: It’s definitely not an earthquake. Something else must have happened. Where’s Lin Wu? How is he doing over there? Why has there been no news since yesterday?
You Xi: He should still be investigating the clues he found, but it is a bit worrying that there is still no news after such a long time.
You Zhenzhen: Doesn’t Brother Wu have a few holy light bullets over there? Although they may not be useful for some things here, it is better than nothing. He should be fine. After all, the level here is A, and it is impossible for a situation to arise that we are completely unable to resist.
Tang Yatong: No matter what the cause of the shock just now is, this is also a clue. We plan to find the students here today and try to ask them. See if this situation has happened before.
After a few quick exchanges, everyone started their respective tasks and explorations.
On the third and fourth floors, Youxi discovered some problems again. A chair had been moved. Because this was a leisure reading area, the surroundings were relatively empty. She clearly remembered that when she came here yesterday, there was no chair blocking the middle door, but now a chair was placed in the middle.
Other discoveries were similar. The layout of the building seemed to have been subtly shifted, but strangely, these moved objects were covered with dust, and there were no traces of dragging or handprints around them.
This situation made her feel very puzzled.
It was as if everything that was presented at this moment was the original appearance of this building.
She felt like she had discovered something, a feeling that kept lingering in her mind, but she couldn't grasp it clearly. It wasn't
until two hours later that Xiyuan sent a message again.
Xiyuan: Everyone, there is one thing I need you to verify for me. The creek cannot be verified for now. I just talked to other aboriginal students here, mainly to find out about the earthquake. They said that this was the first time such a situation had happened, and they were also very scared, but fortunately the surrounding buildings and interior furnishings were not damaged... After chatting, I found a problem.
The problem Xiyuan mentioned was that the student he was chatting with knew nothing about the several cracks in the walls and the ground in the library yesterday.
The other party was very surprised and had no idea that such a thing had happened. He was even surprised and thought Xiyuan was joking with him.
Xiyuan initially thought that this student did not go to the library yesterday, and had not heard about what happened in the library. But later, he found that other students did not know what happened in the library.
Finally, he took a few students directly to the library and found the floor where the accident happened yesterday, and then something strange happened.
The walls and floors that had been cracked are now intact. It is not the kind of intactness after being repaired later, but it is as if no damage has ever occurred, without even a trace.
Two accidents happened here yesterday, and the tables and chairs were pushed around by students, and even a few chairs were broken, but now all traces seem to have been smoothed out.
No, it is better to say that it is restored than smoothed out.
It's like -
Youxi: What you want to say is - the time gate is back in place?
Xiyuan: Yes, that's what I'm guessing now. You said that when you broke the wall violently yesterday, the prompt that appeared was layer damage +1. The world you are in is very small, only the size of a library, so you can find such a message. And the three of us are in a very large plane world, so this situation has not happened before. But in fact, size may not be important, we are actually all trapped. It's not the real world, the surface world, and the inner world, but different worlds where time gates are stagnant. In the different worlds we are in, the time gate will cycle through a certain interval gate. The shock just now is the reset of the time gate.
After Xiyuan sent this message, Tang Yatong, You Zhenzhen and Youxi, who saw this message on their mobile phones, received mobile message prompts at the same time.
Youxi's prompt: Congratulations! The time portal world has been cracked, and the rewards are: 1. "Life-saving coffee" (increases SAN value at a rate of 1 grid per second, for a total of 3 seconds); 2. Jigsaw fragments (1/3, dark).
Hint: Please continue exploring and find a way to cross the boundaries. Success will get a hidden reward.
Youxi: It seems that Sister Yatong and the others don't need to verify it. The hint has already given the answer. Xiyuan's guess is correct.
You Zhenzhen: Great! Finally, there is some progress on the task!
Tang Yatong: We now have three fragments. It seems that collecting fragments is a more important task in the future.
Xiyuan, who is an aboriginal and has never received any tasks: ... Is there anyone who can tell me what happened?
**
Twelve hours later, Youxi put the tree house on the first floor, took care of her physiological needs, and then put it away. Then she went to a reading and leisure area on the fifth floor.
This was supposed to be a drink table. There were few bookshelves around it, the ceiling was high, and there was an open space door around it. There were low round tables and chairs everywhere. There were no walls or doors, and the view was relatively open.
When she explored this floor before, she did not trigger a decrease in SAN value, which was why she chose to rest here today.
She released a crystal bubble from a right-angled door between a tall bookshelf and a wall, and then used a table to prop up the bubble from the outside. Then, like yesterday, she put on an oxygen mask, wrapped herself in a down jacket, and crawled in. She sealed the bubble from the inside, took out a pillow and a blanket, and lay down.
After today's exploration, her SAN value, which was originally 18, dropped by two levels and is currently 16.
However, today's exploration also had some gains. In addition to a puzzle piece as a mission reward, she also got another piece.
The fragments are roughly the same as those shown by You Zhenzhen before, the difference is the pattern on the black side and the text on the white side.
The text on the white side of one fragment is "Dark 2", and the text on the white side of the other fragment is "032".
These numbers are not quite complete, but they can all be recognized. The two puzzle pieces cannot be put together, and she can't guess what the words on the white side mean for the time being.
Lin Wu hadn't sent any messages, and You Xi didn't know what was going on with him. She leaned on the pillow and opened the private chat interface with the other party, and sent a question.
After a while, there was still no reply. She put away her phone, put on an eye mask and went to sleep.
Wearing an eye mask is to avoid closing your eyes in the middle of sleep and suddenly seeing something you shouldn't see, encountering a direct impact and causing your SAN value to drop.
She didn't know how long she slept, and vaguely heard a crackling sound, which felt like something sharp was scratching the wood.
The next second, Youxi woke up. She listened carefully for a moment and found that she was not dreaming. Somewhere in the empty space, there was indeed something scratching the wood. Maybe it was the floor, or maybe it was the bookshelf...
She did not take off the blindfold, kept her breathing steady, and continued to listen carefully.
If it was based on yesterday's experience, the thing outside could only leave a mark for the first time and could not attack her directly. But this limitation is very likely to require a premise - she fell asleep yesterday. If that thing now finds that she is awake, the situation may change.
The crackling sound stopped, and the surroundings fell into silence again.
Just as she was hesitating whether to take off the blindfold, she felt an invisible chill all around her, and she heard the sound of something scratching again. This time, the sound was no longer a crackling sound, but a different kind. The object being scratched was no longer wood, but glue.
The outer layer of the crystal bubble was made of glue, and the sound was very close, coming from directly above her head.
Youxi's breathing paused for a second, and with this tiny change, the thing outside the crystal bubble seemed to notice it, and the scratching sound suddenly became louder, as if it was going to break through the glue layer that separated the two sides and hit her face directly.
Having been discovered, You Xi stopped pretending to sleep. The crystal bubble was well-defended. No matter what the thing was, she was ready to roll the bubble to crush it or drive it away.
She pulled down her blindfold, put away her pillow and blanket in an instant, stood up in the crystal bubble, and in the dark, judging by the direction of the sound, rolled the crystal bubble directly and rolled it down hard.
When she felt the crystal bubble rolling over something, a piercing and strange scream came, unlike any creature she knew.
Her SAN value changed, suddenly dropped by 0.5 points, and then, it dropped by 0.5 points again.
Just as she was about to take out the "life-saving coffee" to drink, a light golden light suddenly lit up in the darkness. She looked towards the light and saw fragments of light golden light projected towards her like a stream of water, and then enveloped the entire crystal bubble.
The trend of her SAN value decreasing stopped, and countless sharp light spikes suddenly shot out from the circular protective shield formed by the light golden light.
The thing screamed again, this time it was particularly terrifying, as if it was going to fight to the death. But soon, as the light spikes exploded, the sound disappeared, and the invisible cold feeling also disappeared completely.
The light golden light wrapped around her crystal bubble faded, and the surroundings returned to darkness. She turned around and looked in a certain direction through the transparent gel layer.
There were footsteps, accompanied by a little light golden light.
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