The plump pigeon was originally intended to be cooked as an extra meal, but Xiaoxi happened to pass by and stopped her. Sheng then tamed it, and it was transformed into a tool for him to deliver messages.
Faced with my question, Sheng nodded gently: "Yes, and we are also very familiar with the other party. She is Juncheng and Duheng's daughter, the little girl Ping who happened to be rescued by us before."
I raised an eyebrow in surprise.
Sheng shook his head and sighed: "Maybe it's because she's the youngest among us, and besides me, she's the weakest in terms of physical ability? It's just that I managed to choose a rather special profession in advance through a cheating method, which slightly improved my abilities, while she has remained in an almost completely blank state."
I paused for half a second, then recalled the numerical prompts I had seen earlier, and nodded convincingly: "There is indeed such a possibility as you described."
The first three main quests were mostly presented as tutorials, and the time limits were unlimited.
It seems that Ping was originally protected by her parents, but now she is in a situation where it is like a low-level alt account with white gear being forced to accept high-level quests and run high-level dungeons. Not only did she not get the full reward from the quest, but her only purpose was to choose a place that would not affect the team's output and quietly wait to die.
However, Juncheng and Duheng could not choose to abandon their only daughter—this can be clearly seen from their attitude along the way.
"No matter what, we should go and see something first to find out. Maybe there will be some clues."
As we say this, we have now arrived at the depths of this library, at a slightly sunken entrance to an underground passage.
There's even a basement... Although I had already confirmed the existence of this underground space with my senses, I still couldn't help but feel a bit surprised after actually seeing those doors opening in front of me.
Sheng blinked: "When I first learned that this basement existed, I was even more shocked than you, big brother!"
"How so?"
"Because a really big monster will suddenly pop out from inside!"
He raised his hand and growled in a mocking manner, which looked somewhat comical.
I couldn't help but frown, looking again at the last door in front of me: "Does that mean this place isn't entirely safe?"
"Ah, don't worry about that. It's just a temporary dungeon. It can be closed soon after it's opened, and you can even get a lot of necessary resources from it."
The patients housed underground exhibited significantly more severe symptoms than those on the surface. A few, on the verge of death, showed signs of blackening, necrosis, cracking, and detachment at the delicate tips of their fingers, revealing traces of sparse roots.
Traces of black blood unconsciously spitting out were visible around their mouths, and the functions of their necrotic and atrophied organs were entirely replaced by plants. The light green plants rooted in their chests and abdomens had long since burst out of their chests, swaying freely in the windless ward, stretching out their tendrils. Even without dimming the lights, it looked quite like something out of a horror movie.
It's no wonder they chose to hide these people deep underground.
However, strangely enough, my senses clearly told me that those people were still alive, and even that their thoughts were in a slow but active state.
I can almost describe their current state like this: their bodies are already dying, barely maintaining their basic dignity and integrity only thanks to those extraordinary plants. I don't know if their thoughts are still in the same place, accepted and stored by those plants, or if what I feel is just a little bit of intelligence nurtured by the plants themselves replacing the fake, while the real them are already dead.
“…If I saw this scene in another setting,” I suppressed the twitching and nausea in my tail, trying to keep my tone calm as I carefully chose my words, “I might not even wait for you to explain anything before I prepare a powerful spell to knock you down.”
After all, from any perspective, this seems like a vicious ritual that only someone who believes in evil would perform.
Realizing what was happening too late, Sheng hesitated a bit more. But seeing Du Heng, who looked exhausted, approaching from the end of the corridor, he suddenly took a few steps ahead and went to meet him.
"I've done everything I could to meet your requirements." Rubbing his temples, Du Heng sighed softly. "Now it's not just Pingping who's like this, even Juncheng is... Sigh, I hope you can confirm this time what the cause of this illness is, and how it spreads, which is why so many people have been affected."
She shook her head, sat down on a chair next to her, propped her forehead up with her hand, and soon began to doze off.
“These days have been tough for her and another doctor.” Sheng lowered her voice. “Because I can’t take care of every patient every moment, and most people refuse to provide help and care because they are afraid of being infected, so in the end all the burden falls on them.”
"The most troublesome thing is that we still haven't been able to successfully confirm how this disease is transmitted."
"Yes, although many people now call this disease wind-heat disease, but... in the end, it just happens to have a few symptoms similar to the common cold."
Sheng nodded slightly, opened the door at the end of the corridor first, and led me into the single room where only a little girl lived.
The little girl inside the house was in a similar state to the people in the rooms we passed through.
It also had a persistent high fever and a swaying plant growing from its chest and abdomen. However, after a thorough examination, I was surprised to notice that the little guy's fingertips were still pink. Although they were slightly swollen, there was no sign of them dying or breaking.
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