Lin Yuanmu watched Ni Ji leave.

The sky in the distance brightened again, and tiny dots of fire flew up from there.

Is this camp really that big? The fighting seems so far away.

From far away, there was a sound of explosion.

Lin Yuan felt the floor beneath her feet move slightly. She seemed to hear a heartbeat, and the sound seemed to be right under her feet.

It seemed as if there was a huge heart beating deep under my feet.

Not long after, the rough knock on the door that sounded yesterday was heard again.

"Open the door. Tell Xunhua to come out and keep me company."

The man knocked on the door loudly, and a drunken shadow appeared on the window grid.

Lin Yuan released the mind control of Exorcism, just like she did last night.

The person outside the door screamed, and the knocking stopped soon. But the person did not leave like he did last night.

He refused to leave, as if extremely unwilling, and paced back and forth outside, making rapid wheezing sounds in his throat.

The voice was not human, and Lin Yuan could no longer understand what was being said.

But that kind of thick desire and twisted malice penetrated into the house through the gaps in the doors and windows like a cold wave.

The silhouette projected on the window paper was distorted and deformed, becoming burly and strong, and even growing sharp horns like a demon.

"Who is this person?" Lin Yuan stared at the swaying ghost.

Windsor took two steps back, one hand on her chest, the other hand rubbed, and touched the knife on the table for peeling fruit. She held the knife in her hand with trembling fingers.

"That man used to be Xiaoxun's subordinate." Windsor's face turned pale, and he hid the small knife behind his body. His body was shaking all the time. "Now he is a devil."

Xunhua used to be a very powerful warrior. He was aloof and untainted, which inevitably offended many people.

"These people always come here every now and then to torture people." Windsor bit his lip and didn't say anything else.

"Why did Xunhua come to such a place?"

Windsor's eyelashes drooped, and she said, "One winter..."

One winter, the weather was very cold and there was a lot of snow. Monsters attacked the town several times and many families could not survive.

But the taxes collected by the Empire were still so heavy and could not be reduced at all. There were many more orphans in the city, and many children and the elderly died of starvation, including Windsor's younger brother and a very young sister.

Xunhua used her power to embezzle part of the food used for tax payment and distributed it to the orphans in the city who had difficulty surviving the winter.

Later, when winter was over, he was reported by someone and sentenced to a serious crime.

The empire's property is more important than anything else, and misappropriation is the most serious crime.

From then on, the moon fell into the ditch and was trampled on by people.

"So I said he is the moon. No matter where he falls." Windsor's soft fingers pinched a stone pendant hanging on his chest.

It was a relic left to her by her mother. Although it was not worth much, she had been holding it in her heart since she was a child. Whenever she made an important decision, she could not help but pinching the small stone back and forth.

It seems that in that inconspicuous stone pendant, there is the belief that supports oneself.

She stopped shaking, gritted her teeth, and gripped the knife handle tightly.

Lin Yuan stretched out her hand to her, and the two girls held hands together.

At the moment of shaking hands, their skin touched each other, and Lin Yuan clearly felt Windsor's emotions.

There was intense pain and indelible fear, as well as the courage that allowed her to hold the knife handle tightly even in such fear.

"Don't be afraid." Lin Yuan said.

She wanted to say, don't be afraid, I will protect you. But she suddenly realized in her heart that she could not protect Windsor or help her.

This is a friend who died three or four hundred years ago.

Something made Lin Yuan feel her nose sore and her chest seemed to be blocked by something, making her feel uncomfortable and want to bite her fingers.

The yellow paper used to paste the windows was licked to pieces by something, and a long, non-human tongue stretched out from the hole, licking around in the room, trying to hook the door latch.

Lin Yuan stared at that place, holding Windsor's hand with one hand and stretching the other hand far away in that direction.

The tongue twitched and then retracted. Screams of pain and violent rolling sounds came from outside the door.

Soon, there was a cry for mercy, "No, it's too painful, let me go."

Lin Yuan stared at the licked paper window expressionlessly, and his five fingers slowly tightened.

The wailing became more intense, rolling all the way down the stairs, tumbling and struggling on the street on the first floor for a while, then gradually becoming weaker and could no longer be heard.

"Yuanyuan, what did you do to him?" Windsor breathed a sigh of relief and ran to the window to peek.

"I just concentrated the emotions I felt from you a little bit and stuffed them into his brain in one breath."

Lin Yuan stood with her by the window, and through the torn window paper, they saw an ugly body lying on the ground inside.

That seemingly strong piece of meat twitched slightly, and finally stopped moving.

"Some people may seem strong," Lin Yuan pointed his finger at his head, "but in fact, they are pitifully weak. They enjoy torturing others, but if those cruel things happened to him, he would not be able to bear it at all."

There was a sudden flash of fire in the sky and the sound of explosions could be heard from far away.

"What's going on?" Windsor said. "What's burning?"

Lin Yuan walked out of the door and looked into the distance in the corridor. The red flames in the sky flickered, as if a fierce battle was going on.

Ni Ji hasn't come back yet, I don't know what the situation is like over there.

But here, the lights on the street are still on, the noise is still there, and the people coming and going have smiles on their faces, as if they are oblivious to the flickering red flames.

Lin Yuan seemed to hear that strange heartbeat coming from underground again.

It was as if there was some huge will hidden underground, with golden roots spreading like a big net, controlling the emotions of all living beings in this world.

She didn't hear the sound last night because she fell asleep.

Lin Yuan thought about it. Last night, around this time, she fell asleep for no apparent reason.

At that time, she fell into a deep sleep in this strange world. When she opened her eyes again, it was already dawn. Windsor, Xunhua and everyone in the Rose Camp had disappeared.

Knock knock.

Knock knock.

That powerful beating sound became distinct, as if it could forcefully envelop everyone in its emotional world.

Lin Yuan immediately turned around.

She had only taken one or two steps out of the door, but for some reason, at this moment, she found that the distance between herself and the lighted door had become very far.

Even Windsor, which was reflected in the lights, became blurry.

The floor beneath your feet becomes soft and begins to float and twist, making it unsteady to stand.

The world fell into darkness, only the door behind me and the small room were still brightly lit.

Countless faceless black shadows climbed up from the stairs, walked from the other end of the corridor, and crawled towards the small door with bright lights on.

The door of the room was open, and inside the room were only the sick Xunhua and the unarmed Windsor.

Lin Yuan ran towards the door.

The long corridor was twisting and shaking. The further I ran, the farther the door with the light was getting.

It felt like his feet were stepping on soft flesh, with nowhere to put his strength, and Lin Yuan fell down.

She raised her head and watched those black monsters crawl into the small house.

She saw Windsor stand up, holding the small knife in her hand. She stood in front of the bed and stabbed the black monsters' heads with the knife used to peel fruits.

Lin Yuan realized that this was not reality, but something that had happened here four hundred years ago.

But at that moment, Lin Yuan stared at Windsor in the light, not even willing to blink.

She is so brave. With such a weak and powerless body, she dares to resist such a powerful monster.

She was so beautiful. She was so beautiful that she was almost glowing when she bit her hair and stabbed the knife into the monster's body with both hands.

I really can't bear to leave her, I really want to take her away from here, Lin Yuan thought to himself.

When you blink again?

The distorted space and the black monsters all disappeared.

The scene of the girl biting her long hair and fighting the monster also disappeared.

The world seemed to have returned to peace, Lin Yuan fell at the door, and inside the room, Windsor was lying beside the small wooden bed with his eyes closed, as if he was asleep.

Xunhua sat up on the bed, stretched out his hand, which was so white that it didn't look like a human's, and gently touched the girl's hair.

The thin blanket slipped off him.

Lin Yuan realized that at some point, countless golden tree branches had grown on the ground.

Those dense and flexible golden branches penetrated through the baseboard and the bed and stabbed into Xunhua's body, almost merging with his lower body.

The man, half of his body dyed golden and the other half skinny, glanced at Lin Yuan who came in, bent down and picked up the fruit knife that had fallen on the bed.

He weighed the knife, then without any expression cut off one of his fingers, picking out a bloody piece of finger bone.

The pale bone fell on the handkerchief and soon turned into a piece of golden bone.

"Take it. Leave here." Xunhua, who was gradually wrapped in the golden branches, handed the hand holding a piece of bone to Lin Yuan.

This is the key. The key to open the Golden Tree Contaminated Area.

Lin Yuan didn't understand for a moment. Countless warriors gathered in the distance where the flames were rising to the sky to fight, so how did the key to open the contaminated area suddenly appear in front of him?

It turns out that Xunhua, who has always been right in front of him, is the true essence of the golden tree.

The most powerful mutant in Contaminated Area 77 and the pillar of the entire contaminated area.

The golden trees gradually spread out their branches and roots. Xunhua's body was slowly eroded by the golden branches. His hands were hung up and his back was melting. His face was calm, as if he had long been accustomed to everything.

Windsor lay on the golden tree roots with protruding knots, quietly as if he was sleeping.

"This is the first time I've taken the initiative to give a key to a human being." Xunhua looked down at the girl sleeping on the tree root, "It's considered as such. Thank you for telling her that the moon also likes mice."

The ground of the house began to shake, the floor cracked, and there, a bloody crack appeared.

The inner wall of the crack was filled with red blood vessels that were wriggling like living things.

The bed, the floor, the table, the sofa, all the messy things in the room began to slide into the cracks.

The golden tree was slowly sinking. It seemed that there was some terrifying force pulling it under the bloody ground, pulling the golden tree all the way into the bloody, dark, bottomless abyss.

"Leave. Don't dream about things that you can't get." Xunhua's body sank along with the golden tree. His voice was very calm, without pain, with only a little advice, "After a while, even I won't be able to let you leave."

"Wait a minute," Lin Yuan tried his best to keep his body steady as the ground shook, and reached out his hand to Xunhua who was sinking, "Do you, do you want to go out with me?"

The man, whose body was slowly being eroded by the golden branches, raised his eyes and looked at her.

"Leave here, take Windsor with you." Lin Yuan grabbed the door frame of the house and shouted at him, "After you get out, you can live in my house. There is another mutant like you living in my house, and she is living well there."

Xunhua, who was trapped on the tree, looked up at her, her cold face revealing a hint of surprise.

Lin Yuan felt that he had never tried so hard to persuade others in his life, and had said so many words in one breath.

"Really?" She kept stretching her hands forward and kept saying, "My yard is very big and can accommodate many people. It's still short of a gardener. You can move in and bring Windsor with you."

The golden branches covered his short silver hair, and the crisscrossed golden roots covered his forehead and eyebrows, and finally only half of his human face was left.

The pale human lips moved, bringing a slightly bitter smile.

"Windsor is gone. If she leaves here, she will disappear."

"And I..."

Lin Yuan didn't hear his last words.

The golden tree fell to the ground with a loud bang and fell into the bottomless crack.

Lin Yuan leaned on the edge of the cave entrance. The golden leaves on the branches collided with each other, making crisp sounds, like someone singing, coming all the way up from far away.

Lin Yuan clenched the bone-wrapped handband in his hand; it was the key to open the door.

Although she didn't find what she wanted, at least she could leave here alive.

Many people trapped here, those who have not died and are still holding on, have been given the opportunity to leave alive.

Lin Yuan gritted his teeth and started running outside.

Outside the window, the remnant moon in the night sky became very dim, as if daybreak would soon arrive.

In the distance, the flames and explosions continued.

Behind her, the terrifying rift began to swallow everything.

Rooms, corridors and streets were collapsing into it, and the entire Rose Camp was slowly being swallowed up by it.

While running, Lin Yuan heard the heartbeat from underground again.

This time, she heard it clearly.

She also heard the pain, struggle, resentment and sorrow of many people.

Deep underground, there is a huge creature, like a god.

As a guide, Lin Yuan felt its presence.

The powerful heartbeat is beating, swallowing up the pain of so many people and swallowing it into its spiritual world.

It is a huge creature that has survived for countless long years. It is also very cruel, feeding on the painful emotions of countless people and unwilling to let anyone leave alive.

Lin Yuan soon met Ni Ji who had come back to look for her.

From a distance, a sentry in black shouted at her, "Run! This place is going to collapse."

The flames burned behind him and he ran towards himself.

For a moment, Lin Yuan also imagined running towards him just like he was running towards her.

Hold his hand, take the key, and leave here with him.

Get away from this twisted, perverted place full of monsters and fire.

The world outside is quiet and beautiful. Hiding in the holy light of the White Tower, alcohol and delicious food can heal everything.

Let her forget the screams and pain that echoed in her mind, and forget the girl who sang to her.

Lin Yuan took out a handkerchief wrapped with a golden bone from his arms and threw it towards Ni Ji.

A tentacle emerged from the ground far away, caught the string of the hand and threw it forward, and another tentacle emerged to catch it.

By the time the last tentacle rolled up the tiny handkerchief and stuffed it into Ni Ji's arms, Lin Yuan had already turned around and ran back to the cave filled with pain and screams, echoing with heartbeats.

"Go open the door first." She waved her hands, her fingers making a firm gesture.

He didn't even look at the sentry behind him.