Chapter 489 Mysterious Tower
Yu Sheng was leisurely basking in the sun on the roof of the castle with Little Red Riding Hood (although there was no sun here), and Hu Li had fallen asleep beside him in a daze at some point - the fox girl stuffed a bunch of tails behind Yu Sheng, and curled up on her side, holding the big tail that she usually used to store food in her arms, snoring slightly in the daylight, with a faint smile on her face.
"She seems carefree..." Yu Sheng turned his head to glance at the fox girl who was sleeping soundly next to him, and scratched the fur behind her ears. "She really is full and the world is peaceful."
"There's someone more carefree in the valley." Little Red Riding Hood leaned against the shadow wolf she summoned, lying on the roof and said slowly.
Yu Sheng raised his eyelids: "Who? Rapunzel?"
"Big golden retriever? She's not carefree at all. She has a lot of things to worry about, like the homework she has to hand in at the beginning of the school year." Little Red Riding Hood narrowed her eyes. "I'm talking about that snake."
Yu Shengyi raised his eyebrows: "Snake Queen? Didn't you go back to Qianfeng Lingshan yesterday?"
"She's back again. Now she can open the door herself, so she spends her days wandering between the valley and the sacred mountain, eating as if visiting neighbors," Little Red Riding Hood yawned. "She should be picking wild fruits in the Black Forest right now. When she's full, she swims along the stream all the way to the town to play with the king. When it gets dark, she goes to sleep in the small woods in the north. She lives her life like a first-class protected animal."
Yu Sheng had been listening casually, but suddenly he was surprised. "She wants to play with the king? Isn't she beaten all the time because she keeps climbing on the king's cat climbing frame?"
"Yeah, let's play this."
Yu Sheng: “……?”
"Don't ask me. I don't know what she's thinking. The king is so annoyed right now—this is the first time in my life I've seen someone so annoyed that he loses his temper."
Yu Sheng blinked, but just when he was about to say something else, a series of vibrations from his cell phone interrupted him.
He took out his phone and saw that Border Communications was sending out messages frantically. When he clicked on them, they were all sent by the Alice doll named Marlene - a large amount of video footage and accompanying situation descriptions.
He looked at them one by one, and when he saw the one behind, he suddenly sat up.
A record of what appears to be "Irene's" last battle against an alien enemy... A massive shadow crouching on the mysterious, shattered tower... A blond figure charging toward the tower...
"This is the data I discovered deep within the Garden Network," Marlene sent another message. "The data is severely damaged, and the upload path is impossible to trace, but it's certain that it was uploaded by 'Erin' 3,700 years ago in the final moments before she engaged a mysterious enemy. The footage lasted until she rushed to the top of the tower, after which the recording was cut off.
"It's still unclear whether there are more records in the Garden Network... My exploration triggered the scavenger program, and they may prohibit me from diving again in the short term. Also, Marys encountered some problems when she and I were diving into the network together, and she's not in good condition now... We probably won't be able to search for more information in the deep network for the time being.
"Another detail: when I was active in the deep web, I noticed that my mind body was entangled in a 'spider silk'..."
Yu Sheng looked at the message sent by the living doll, then went back to carefully review the video data that had been processed twice by Marlene and sent to the border communication, and his brows gradually furrowed.
After a while, he sent a message to Marlene: "...Why is that 'Erin' holding a frying pan?"
He soon received a reply: "That is the standard weapon of our Alice doll."
Yu Sheng: “……?”
"The reasons behind this are very complicated," Marlene's tone seemed a bit troubled in her message. "A complete explanation would require 2.59 million words..."
When Yu Sheng saw this situation, he immediately said that there was no need for further explanation - for him, there were already enough strange things in the world.
Of course, another important reason for his reply was that Little Red Riding Hood came over to take a look and muttered to him:
"What's so strange about this? The best master at Qianfeng Lingshan just picked up a brick when he was fighting. Your fox can shoot its tail, but their frying pan at least has a handle. Isn't it more like a 'weapon' than the fox-radish missile?"
Yu Sheng felt that Little Red Riding Hood was right, and her brain was worthy of someone who had just finished the college entrance examination.
Then he continued to study the information sent by Marlene, while secretly looking in the direction of the small square.
Irene was still running wildly with a group of doll-headed kids. Teacher Su and a few fairy tale "parents" were helplessly maintaining order at the edge of the square. Yun Qingzi pulled a stool to the side of the road and sat there, happily watching the children play. There was a plate of sunflower seeds beside him. Of course, since the old man was now a spirit and couldn't eat, his method of consuming sunflower seeds was to grab a handful and instantly refine them...
Very high-end and atmospheric.
Yu Sheng stared at the squeaking little puppet in the small square for a long time, then looked away and compared it with the blond figure on the phone screen, who was carrying a frying pan and rushing towards the "Outer God". He tossed it back and forth several times... but in the end he didn't catch it.
But judging from the content at the end of the video, that kind of reckless and poor quality demeanor does seem to be somewhat close to the original.
Mainly due to the poor quality.
"So this was your style from the beginning..."
Little Red Riding Hood heard Yu Sheng's whispered grumble, but her attention was clearly drawn to the images on her phone. Frowning slightly, she looked at the few images taken from the video at the end of the message. As Yu Sheng was swiping through the pages, she suddenly reached out to stop him, "Wait a minute, let me take a look."
Yu Sheng looked at Little Red Riding Hood in surprise and handed the phone over: "You..."
He saw Little Red Riding Hood flip to one of the pictures, click on it to enlarge it, and look at the details in the picture with a serious expression.
That was a scene captured when Marlene's gaze was withdrawn from the top of the tower. In the slightly distorted image, one could clearly see the broken spiral staircases and the floor slabs floating in mid-air as if they had lost their gravity, as well as the dark-colored wall structure covered with complex reliefs beside the stairs.
"This one looks familiar."
Yu Sheng was shocked when he heard this: "It looks familiar... Do you know where this place is? Have you been there?!"
"I haven't been there, but I remember seeing a photo very similar to this one somewhere," Little Red Riding Hood said with a frown, as if trying to recall something. "It seems to have been a few years ago. It was in a post in the Border Newsletter... Wait a minute, I'll look it up!"
As she spoke, she pulled out her phone, clicked on Border Communication, and began to quickly search through her favorites. As she scrolled through the numerous pages, she muttered, "I remember that post was quite popular back then, and I even saved it... Ah, why are there so many random things..."
Yu Sheng stared at the other person fiddling around in a daze. He craned his neck to take a look, feeling dazzled. He couldn't help but ask, "...You never clean up your favorites? And you save everything?"
Little Red Riding Hood frantically scrolled through her phone screen without looking up. "These are all things that might come in handy someday. It's not hard to just save them..."
"That's right. Clicking on something is easy, but finding something in there is a real struggle. Do you at least remember the keywords? How about searching for it?"
Little Red Riding Hood: "I searched, and this is after filtering with keywords."
Yu Sheng was suddenly filled with awe and kept silent.
But when he saw the girl sweating profusely as she searched through her browsing history from a few years ago, he suddenly found it interesting.
Little Red Riding Hood usually gives people the impression of being calm, reliable and smart. She is the most prestigious "parent" in the fairy tale, but in fact she also has such an impulsive and even childish side.
Of course, we can’t say that now. He is already 18 years old and has taken the make-up exam for Subject 2 twice.
"Ah, that's it!"
Little Red Riding Hood's surprised voice interrupted Yu Sheng's wandering thoughts. He quickly pulled back the distracted part of his mind and stretched his neck to look at the content displayed on the other person's mobile phone.
That was a post for sharing and asking for help.
The poster first posted a picture in the exchange section of Border Communications. The content showed a scene of standing on a broken staircase and looking up at the interior of the tower. It can be seen that it was taken in a hurry, and the edges of the picture were shaking badly.
It matches a certain frame in the video sent by Marlene!
“It’s this place!”
Yu Sheng and Little Red Riding Hood said in unison.
Then their eyes all turned to the description below the post——
"...I stumbled into this place while carrying out an investigation commission in the Dark Alley. I was fleeing from a physical 'cat'... The alley suddenly became foggy, and then a fork in the road, not mentioned in the historical records, appeared at the end of the alley. It led to a strange area with a tower...
"I can't confirm whether this strange area is still part of the 'Dark Alley'. It is very likely another alien realm, because there is a clear 'fault' feature at the edge of this space, and there is no physical passage that can directly return to the 'Dark Alley'.
"I recorded many scenes inside and outside the tower, but for some reason, most of them were damaged after I returned to the real world. They were covered by strange shadows or things like balls of thread, and nothing can be seen clearly. Only this photo was preserved - but I don't know when I took it...
"Note: The photo may have been taken accidentally. I suspect this is related to the tower's 'mechanism'. Perhaps it will erase all conscious recording behavior, but unconscious random or timed shooting may be able to circumvent this mechanism.
"I'm sending this photo out now to seek any clues about this tower... I can't remember how I left it, but it has been appearing in my dreams every day for the past ten days.
"I suspect a part of me is still trapped in that tower."
(End of this chapter)
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