The Otherworld (Part 1)
In the last second, he was in the brightly lit hospital corridor, and in the next second, he was on a dark and dilapidated cement path.
Su Qingzhu's left hand grabbed nothing in an instant, and the forest beside her disappeared.
All these changes happened in the blink of an eye, which made Su Qingzhu's vigilance reach the highest level.
She quickly and nimbly explored the surroundings. Judging from various information, this place seemed to be a rural market town in the early years of the 21st century.
Although nothing suspicious or threatening has been detected so far, Su Qingzhu still does not let down his guard.
All the detection equipment she carried with her malfunctioned: time and space positioning failed, and she was unable to confirm her current time and place, and the energy detection equipment displayed garbled characters.
Even the terminal has become almost a useless decoration.
This small town was not big, and Su Qingzhu didn't spend much effort to survey the town inside and out.
The strange thing is that she cannot get in touch with the people and things in this town.
For example, she can push open a door, but she can't lift a cup because her hand will pass through the cup.
There were people in the town, but their faces were blurry and their behavior was sluggish, like puppets performing a repetitive script.
Su Qingzhu explored the outskirts of the town and found that she could only move within a certain range. Anywhere further away was blocked by black fog, and if she walked in, she would be teleported back to her original place.
Su Qingzhu saw his palm passing through an object again and thought:
This should be an independent, non-real space.
In other words, we are still in the time and space of 2022, and to some extent, we should still be in the hospital.
It was just that some force opened up an independent space, pulled her body into it, and trapped her in this illusory town.
Su Qingzhu did not find any trace of the border forest, it must have been deliberately isolated.
Was it intentional? Or was it an accident? What was the other party's purpose?
Just as Su Qingzhu was thinking about it, a couple came out from another path, holding a baby in their arms.
This couple was completely different from the stiff-behaving phantoms Su Qingzhu had seen before.
Their movements and behaviors are no different from those of real humans, except that their faces are still blurry.
The couple walked slowly to a storage table with a garbage dump next to it. They looked around and finally put the child on the storage table.
Su Qingzhu frowned when he realized what they were doing and deliberately made some noise, but the couple didn't hear it.
Obviously, she was just a spectator in this illusory space.
After putting the child down, the two of them left quietly. The woman wanted to take another look, but her husband pulled her back:
"There's no point in looking at it. We can't afford it. The more we look at it, the more reluctant we are to give it up."
This was the first time that Su Qingzhu saw such vivid movements in this space, and the first time he heard the voices of people in this virtual space.
After the two men left, Su Qingzhu walked forward to see the baby they had left behind.
What surprised her was that she could see the child's face clearly, even each eyelash was clearly visible.
Since entering this space, everyone she met seemed like a mosaic. This child was the first one to see facial features so clearly.
Su Qingzhu tried to pick up the child, but her hand passed through the child.
It was winter in the small town, and the wind was biting cold. Soon the child's originally rosy face began to turn pale, and his breathing became weaker and weaker.
Su Qingzhu was very unhappy with the feeling of being able to watch but not interfere. She narrowed her eyes and became irritable, which was unusual for her.
Until a lame old scavenger appeared in the night. This was the second person Su Qingzhu met whose facial features could be seen clearly.
When Su Qingzhu saw the familiar figure and face in the depths of her mind that had not appeared for a long time, she realized something and suddenly lowered her head to look at the baby.
Then he took a deep breath and looked at the old man again, staring at the face without blinking, which, although old, still looked a little younger than he remembered.
The old man picked through the trash for a while and soon found the child abandoned on the grocery counter.
"Oh, why is it a child?"
"Whose child is this?" He shouted loudly a few times, but no one answered in the dark night.
He immediately realized that the child must have been abandoned by his parents.
He touched the child's face, then took off his coat and wrapped the child up.
He hesitated for a while while holding the child, and finally sighed softly: "Oh, what a sin! It's a life after all! In this cold winter month, you should be called Layue from now on."
*
Bian Senlin relived the feeling of being forced to choke on water when learning to swim as a child.
He frantically struggled with his limbs, and was soon thrown out by something, only to be caught by something soft.
“Cough cough cough…”
The body's natural reaction caused him to cough repeatedly, as if he wanted to cough out all the water he had choked on.
But Bian Senlin immediately found that his whole body was dry, so how did he choke on water?
He found himself in a gentle little garden, feeling very comfortable with the gentle breeze.
He lay on a patch of grass. The soft grass was piled into an oval shape, just big enough for a person to lie down.
He stood up and looked around, but did not see Su Qingzhu.
Bian Senlin walked around the small garden, his hands gathered at the sides of his face into a trumpet shape as he walked: "Sister Qingzhu!"
Su Qingzhu is not here, and there is no one here.
This small garden has only one path leading to the outside. Bian Senlin hesitated for a while and decided to go out and take a look.
What he didn't expect was that the further he went outside, the worse the road conditions became.
The neat and flat garden path at the beginning turned into a gravel road, and the gravel road changed from smooth pebbles to increasingly broken and rougher ones.
In the end, it simply became a muddy road that was difficult to walk on.
The visibility around us was getting lower and lower, and the temperature was getting colder and colder, which was a far cry from the warm breeze blowing on my face in the garden.
"ah!"
Bian Senlin slipped again. He rubbed his ankle with difficulty and found that he had sprained his ankle.
The road ahead was difficult, and he was thinking of giving up. He wondered if it would be better to stay in the small garden and wait for rescue.
Just when he wanted to retreat, he found that his retreat route had been cut off at some point.
He could still see a shadow of the small garden in the distance, but he could never go back.
Since I can't go back, I can only move forward.
“Why are there so many pits!”
Bian Senlin accidentally fell into a muddy pit again. He was extremely angry after he got up.
This had happened countless times, and the most dangerous time was when he fell into a deep pit and almost couldn't climb out.
It's not that he's careless, he just hasn't learned his lesson after falling many times.
However, the visibility around me was getting lower and lower. I could only see less than a foot around me. At first glance, some pits looked like flat ground.
It’s really hard to guard against!
Fortunately, this difficult road seemed to have come to an end, and he saw the light again ahead.
While walking through the forest, he carefully paid attention to the various pits on the ground and quickened his pace forward.
As we walked forward, we could gradually see the surrounding scenery more clearly, and the road under our feet slowly changed from mud to deep red rock.
But the temperature is getting increasingly unbelievably hot.
At this moment, Bian Senlin seemed to see a person sitting on the big rock in front of him.
Judging from her figure, she is 28!!!
Bian Senlin was so excited. He had been walking in this deserted ghost place for so long and finally saw a living person!
Even if this person doesn't like him very much.
He ran towards 28 while shouting from afar in the forest.
It was not until he ran closer, panting, that he discovered that 28 was wrapped in a lot of chains, trapping him on a big rock.
"What's going on? Who locked you in here?"
Bian Senlin pulled the chains on 28, trying to find the source to untie them and save 28, but he found that the chains were extending from the rocks.
28 ignored him and looked at a puddle in front of him with his chin in his hand.
Bian Senlin followed his gaze and found that there was an image in the puddle.
The image in the puddle was exactly the scene where he fell into the puddle and shouted angrily, "Why are there so many puddles?"
Bian Senlin felt a little embarrassed when he saw the frustrated look on the video.
But then, he found something wrong!
Bian Senlin retreated half a step silently.
No matter how weird 28's temper is, he won't really ignore him in this situation.
Importantly, he discovered that the chains not only extended from the rock, but also penetrated directly into 28's flesh.
Putting aside the question of whether he could survive with so many chains stuck in his body, based on his understanding of himself, he definitely did not have the courage to remain calm in the face of this level of pain.
Even he can't do it 8 years later!
What's more, 28 is now unconscious in the hospital, how could he appear here?
Moreover, this person seemed to have been monitoring him all the way through the scene in the puddle?
Bian Senlin slowly retreated further away and asked cautiously, "Who are you? Where is this place?"
Hearing this, the man who looked like 28 finally moved. He turned around with chains all over his body.
His eyes are somewhat similar to 28's when he is alone, no, it should be more thorough than 28's!
If 28's eyes revealed the exhaustion of an ox or a horse who had no desire to live, then the eyes of the man in front of him revealed a lifeless deadness!
He looked towards the forest with an expressionless face, his voice hoarse from not speaking for a long time:
“When people are sober, they always have to follow all kinds of rules and regulations, so they are always unwilling to face their true selves.
It may be the education they received or the moral code in their hearts that suppress their truest thoughts."
Bian Senlin didn't understand what this man was saying. He moved back little by little, ready to run away at any time.
The man ignored his little gesture and continued talking to himself:
"The more he suppresses himself, the more broken he becomes. When he is no longer sober and rational, the truth that is usually suppressed will naturally break free.
I call this reality the human subconscious."
Bian Senlin paused. "What do you mean? Are you saying you are subconscious?"
"That's right. I am the subconscious of 28-year-old Bian Senlin, the truest thoughts of your future self."
"Then where is this place?"
"Since I am the subconscious, this is naturally the world of the subconscious. I prefer to call it the inner world."
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