"Anyone?"

Hearing this, Cao Yuan and An Qingyu frowned at the same time and prepared for battle. Baili Pangpang's face turned pale and he spoke with some trembling:

"Is it... a living person or... a dead person?"

"Of course he's a living person, watching us from behind the window!" Cao Yuan couldn't help but speak.

"No." Lin Qiye stared at the dark window. His other hand slowly grasped the handle of the straight knife. He took a deep breath and spoke in a hoarse voice:

"That's not a living person...you should be mentally prepared."

Not a living person?

An Qingyu turned his head to look at the window, a hint of gray appeared in his eyes. After a moment, he froze in place.

"How is this possible..."

Cao Yuan's pupils shrank slightly, and he subconsciously moved the flashlight beam to the window, wanting to see clearly what it was...

A bright beam of light streaked across the dilapidated gray wall and shone into the dark cave. Behind the tattered brown wooden frame, a pale human face was pressed against the wall, and a pair of black eyes without whites were staring straight at the four people downstairs!

This face is so strange. It is not three-dimensional like a normal human face, but has a strange flatness, with long and slanted eyebrows, dark eyes, and bright red lips... There is no nose on that face, only two black holes.

The moment he saw this face, Cao Yuan suddenly felt a chill rushing from the soles of his feet to his brain, and the hairs on his whole body stood up.

This is not a human being!

This is clearly a paper figure used for burial!

When Baili Pangpang, who was standing by, saw this scene, his heart skipped a beat. The strong psychological quality he had developed in the training camp prevented him from screaming out loud. Instead, he bit his lips tightly, and without saying a word, he took out a string of Buddhist beads from his pocket and stuffed it into Cao Yuan's hand.

"What are you doing?" Cao Yuan was startled by him.

"Aren't you a monk? Here are the Buddhist beads for you, quickly chant the mantra to collect them!!" Baili Pangpang's face turned pale, and he lowered his voice and said anxiously.

Cao Yuan: ...

After being illuminated by the flashlight beam, the pale paper face suddenly flashed and disappeared behind the dark window. Lin Qiye's pupils suddenly shrank, and he rushed into the building like lightning with a knife in hand, shouting:

"Catch it! Don't let it get away!"

However, there was someone who was faster than him.

An Qingyu rushed out long before Lin Qiye. His eyes behind his glasses were fixed on the window where the paper man disappeared. He grabbed a scalpel for dissection in his backhand, and rushed upstairs vertically along the wall, his face full of excitement and curiosity!

When Cao Yuan saw Lin Qiye rushing out, he immediately followed him. Only Baili Pangpang was left standing there holding a string of Buddhist beads. After a moment, he also ran away.

"Don't leave me!!"

In the pitch-dark low building, Lin Qiye ran extremely fast. In less than two seconds, he ran from downstairs to the room where the paper man was originally located. At the same time, An Qingyu climbed in from the window.

But at this moment, there was no trace of the paper man in the room.

"It flipped out from there and ran into the woods." Lin Qiye was aware of the paper man's every move, and he immediately flipped out from another window opposite.

After stepping into the "Chuan" realm, the perception range of [Mortal Divine Realm] soared directly to 500 meters. Although the paper man was fast, he could not escape Lin Qiye's perception in a short time.

The four of them left the abandoned forest and ran at full speed towards the forest on the other side!

A paper man suddenly appeared in an abandoned forest farm deep in the mountains. This incident itself was extremely strange, so Lin Qiye and others naturally couldn't just let it run away.

The body of the paper man seemed to have no weight at all. With the cold night wind, it leaped lightly and flew very far into the forest. Then it floated down and landed in a deep forest somewhere.

Lin Qiye and others rushed into the forest and chased for a long time, but they were unable to close the distance with the paper man. Instead, they were left farther and farther away and gradually lost the opponent's trace.

Lin Qiye frowned slightly and stopped in the forest.

About half a minute later, Cao Yuan and the other two finally followed Lin Qiye. After looking around and not seeing the paper man, they sighed helplessly.

In fact, it was not impossible for Lin Qiye to catch up. In the darkness of the night, his speed had been enhanced to a terrifying level. If he used the [Poet of the Sky] to enhance it, the probability of him catching up with the paper man was quite high. But the problem was that Cao Yuan and the others did not have so many means, and their speed was simply not enough to keep up with Lin Qiye's pace.

If he continued to chase after it, it was hard to say whether he could catch up with the paper man, but he would inevitably be separated from the team. Then the four of them would be scattered in this vast primeval forest, which would be really troublesome.

Baili Pangpang panted heavily and couldn't help asking: "Qiye, what on earth is that?"

"There are no life fluctuations, no mental reactions, and no signs of being controlled by the Forbidden Ruins..." Lin Qiye pondered for a moment and shook his head. "It doesn't seem mysterious, but I have no idea what it is."

An Qingyu sighed with some regret, "If only I could do an autopsy."

Cao Yuan on the side seemed to have thought of something, and said uncertainly: "Don't you think that this scene just now... seems to have been heard somewhere before?"

Hearing this, the other three were stunned.

"Pale face, blurred features, looks like a human, but also like... a dead person." An Qingyu murmured to himself, "So that's it. With this comparison, it's very similar to the legend I heard before."

"That legend, can't it be true?" Baili Pangpang couldn't help but ask, "What the lumberjack saw at the beginning was actually the paper man we just saw?"

"The location is indeed a forest farm..." Lin Qiye frowned slightly, "The location and the events all match up. This seems a bit too coincidental."

"Since the paper figurine part is true, could the other parts of the legend also be true?" Cao Yuan asked.

"What part?"

"The eternal realm of the dead that exists deep in the forest."

Everyone fell silent at the same time.

Deep in the primeval forest, is there really an eternal kingdom of the dead? It sounds like a fairy tale, but they just confirmed that part of the legend is indeed true...

Mysterious giant red ants, the unknown location of the queen's nest, pale paper figures that appeared inexplicably and disappeared in the forest, and the legendary eternal kingdom of the dead deep in the mountains and forests...

Lin Qiye looked up at the dense black woods around him and the outlines of the distant mountains hidden in the night, and he let out a long sigh.

"It seems that this place has more secrets than we thought."

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