This book has been through some kind of ordeal; its spine is tattered, and there are often missing or torn pages inside.
Back in civilized society, she would only skim through a few chapters, and then stop reading when she got sleepy.
Now, in this dungeon, there's something to amuse herself, and she's gradually gotten engrossed in it. But the more she reads, the more disheartened she becomes; the absurdity and darkness lurking in human nature far exceed her imagination. She also grows increasingly frustrated; the tattered pages are really hindering her reading.
The strange man had already noticed Xia Chuhe. He wanted to get her to work, but he also wanted to see what she was doing, so he kept silent.
After watching for a while, the strange man separated the stacked cabbages and piled them up one by one, creating a pergola out of cabbages in a way that defied the law of universal gravitation.
The strange man surrounded himself with various plants and examined the papers in his hand.
He flipped through the book, glancing at the book in Xia Chuhe's hand every time.
He only had one sheet of paper, while Xia Chuhe's book had countless pages.
The strange man looked at the paper over and over several times, and then he got annoyed.
The strange man walked up to Xia Chuhe, handed him a piece of paper with one hand, and placed the other hand on the book "Jin Ping Mei".
Xia Chuhe shook his head: "You want to trade one of my books for another? Dream on."
The strange man wouldn't haggle with her; he threw the paper aside, grabbed the book with force, and snatched it away.
The strange man who had snatched the book happily returned to the cabbage shed to look at the incomprehensible tadpole characters.
Xia Chuhe smiled slightly and picked up the paper the strange man had dropped.
This piece of paper appears to have been torn from the introduction page of a comic book; it only has four rows of stick figures.
The first row depicts a skull, but the skeleton is poorly rendered, with uneven thickness.
The second row depicts three little people surrounding two other little people, with one of the three little people crying.
The third row depicts five little figures, four of whom look gloomy, while only one has a sullen expression.
The fourth row depicts a frowning little man, a half-human, half-skeletal monster, and... two four-legged creatures, one large and one small.
The four-legged creatures in the last row had triangular, pointed ears and long, curved tails...
Xia Chuhe suddenly realized, could these two be cats?
The drawing on this paper looks like it depicts people from a dungeon...
The number of characters and the composition of the team match perfectly.
That cheeky little figure... is it myself?
Xia Chuhe pressed down on his reflection in the paper, unable to bear looking at it.
After pressing down, Xia Chuhe felt a strange sensation on his fingers, indicating that his little figure seemed to come alive and was trembling incessantly.
Xia Chuhe dragged the little figure, and surprisingly managed to scatter it all over the paper.
Not understanding the purpose of this arrangement, Xia Chuhe eventually dragged the little figure back to its original position.
Besides the location of the villain, there was something else that bothered her.
The two little figures lying on the ground in the second row are the two men who died in the dungeon before. The two related to the skeleton are the corpse in the corner and Du Zhen.
The two men's bodies have been completely destroyed; they must be truly dead. Judging from Du Zhen's behavior, perhaps the corpse in the corner... is still alive.
Getting this information from the paper was a pleasant surprise. But to Xia Chuhe's disappointment, the paper wasn't a tool to protect against plant attacks.
Xia Chuhe persisted, continuing to harass the strange man.
As soon as the strange man saw her approaching, he hurriedly hid the book behind his back. Halfway through, something fell out from the gap in his waist. Before Xia Chuhe could see what it was, the strange man extended a tentacle from his waist and swiftly retracted it.
Perhaps it's a prop.
Xia Chuhe could tell from the strange man's slow movements that he was in a state of panic.
Xia Chuhe looked at the crack in the strange man's waist and came up with a good idea.
She found Lu Danggui and wanted Lu Danggui's iron hairpin.
Lu Dangui handed the iron hairpin to Xia Chuhe: "Are you going to see Du Zhen? She might be dying."
Xia Chuhe was full of questions and really wanted to ask Lu Dangui if she had learned to talk like that from Li Qiusheng. Du Zhen seemed to be in good condition when she left this morning.
Du Zhen is now in charge of guarding her team's flowerpots, and Xia Chuhe went to the basement to see her.
Du Zhen didn't mean he was about to die; he just looked very tired.
Du Zhen glanced at the gap-toothed man's teammate and whispered, "The mother-son clue you mentioned before might be related to the wound. Ever since the day after I was injured, after the wound started to fester, I've been hearing people calling me 'Mom'."
Xia Chuhe subconsciously wanted to ask, "Why didn't you say so sooner?"
However, considering that she and Du Zhen were not actually completely comrades-in-arms, and thinking about the strange paper she had hidden, Xia Chuhe could understand Du Zhen's little scheme to monopolize the clues and rely on his own people to find the core of the dungeon.
From this perspective, Du Zhen is indeed "out of options," and she has realized that she cannot find the core of the dungeon by relying on her own people.
Du Zhen relayed the nagging she'd been hearing for the past few days to Xia Chuhe, focusing on the questions "Are you willing to be a mother?" and "If you're not, then go die."
Based on the clues provided by Du Zhen, Xia Chuhe can complete the backstory of the farm—
A mother and child depend on each other for survival. The mother abandons the child for some reason. The child comes back to life, finds the mother, and then kills her, thus achieving the goal of never being separated again.
The biggest question now is, what is a child?
Xia Chuhe said, "Can I see your wound?"
Du Zhen unwrapped the gauze, revealing that the muscles in his entire leg had begun to atrophy, and the skin clung loosely to the bone. This condition didn't resemble insect bites; it looked more like some kind of parasite had drained the nutrients and muscles from his leg.
This is a botanical garden, and the first thing Xia Chuhe thought of was dodder.
However, they did not see any parasitic plants like dodder in the garden these past few days.
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