Chapter 63: The Vast Dead Bones Under the Moonlight
"After gaining entry to the manor, I was assigned to collect morning dew. For a long time, I didn't see my companions. Every morning, when the morning bell rang and the main gate opened, I would go out to collect morning dew and not return until the evening bell struck."
The gardener rolled up his sleeves and said this. His arms were covered with horrible scars of all sizes, old and new.
"Being beaten is commonplace. Many people have been killed, and people die almost every day. Now there are only a dozen people like me left, but they have gone crazy and work like machines every day. There have been no new people here for a long time..."
Xie Liang looked at the wound on his hand and was shocked. He couldn't tell whether the people in the copy were flesh and blood and could feel pain, or whether everything was just a setting.
The gardener was still talking to himself, "One morning, I saw a companion in the manor, and hurriedly chased him, and caught up with him in the other half of the manor, which I had never been to.
"People were carrying something into an open door. I took a peek inside when they weren't paying attention and saw rows of stone tables. Each one held the remains of a child who looked long dead... Their bodies were covered in white, filamentous growths..."
"What is that?" Long Qingye asked.
The gardener shook his head and said nothing.
"How long have you been here?" Xie Liang asked.
"Two or three years," the gardener said. "Kill me now! I didn't bring back the morning dew tonight in exchange for that drop of flower wine. Soon I'll be like the things out there."
"What's that outside?" Xie Liang recalled the black spots he saw on the glazed roof and asked, "What are those black spots in the sea of flowers?"
"Those aren't black spots, they're people. People who didn't complete their mission have turned into monsters that can only come out in the moonlight."
A ray of moonlight shone through the iron-barred window on the door and fell on them.
The gardener began to tremble all over under the moonlight. The flesh on his limbs began to shrink and turn black, and he was shaking as if he was about to lose control.
Xie Liang was startled by this sudden change. Before he could finish asking many questions, he hurriedly took off his white coat and covered the gardener with it, holding him down.
"Quick! Cover the iron window and don't let the moonlight in!" Xie Liang shouted at Long Qingye.
Before Long Qingye could take off his coat, the gardener struggled madly to break free from Xie Liang's shackles.
The gardener's skin and flesh shrank into a wrinkled brown-black color at a speed visible to the naked eye, and his eyes became deeply sunken, as if something had drained away his flesh and blood.
The gardener completely lost his mind and turned into a monster with the appearance of skeletons.
He crawled straight towards the tightly closed iron gate, and his two withered black arms burst out with great strength, knocking the lock of the iron gate away.
The original rose mark on the gardener's waist disappeared, replaced by a real bright red rose, whose dark brown roots densely wrapped around his entire body.
After the door was knocked open, the gardener's shriveled body, like a skeleton, could not wait to dig the ground with his hands and jump with his hind legs, leaping towards the sea of flowers.
The rose was controlling the gardener and leaping towards the fertile land among the sea of flowers.
Xie Liang and Long Qingye followed him cautiously.
In the moonlight, Xie Liang saw the gardener crawling into the fertile soil.
The rose plant on the gardener's body took root and grew taller and taller, and soon it reached the same height as the other roses. A gust of wind blew, and the clusters of flowers swayed. Xie Liang could no longer tell which one it was.
After an unknown amount of time, the skeleton emerged from the mud again, like a ghost, swaying and floating within a certain distance around the rose, as if waiting for its prey to appear.
There were so many of these dead bones drifting among the sea of flowers in the fields that from a distance they looked like moving black dots. As the wind blew through the flowers, they rose and fell in the moonlight, accompanied by waves of blossoms. Xie Liang couldn't help but feel his hair stand on end when he saw them.
Suddenly, there were some unusual movements in the flowers on one side, and Xie Liang quickly turned his head to look.
The figures of Hongguo and Xu He appeared among the flower-filled ridges, and the sounds were made as they crossed the ridges.
"Did you also follow the gardener here?" Hong Guo asked Xie Liang.
As soon as she finished speaking, the surrounding dead bones seemed to have sensed something and floated towards them.
Several people quickly squatted down on the edge of the field.
After floating around them for a while, the dry bones gradually dispersed and drifted to the other side.
"This is not the place to talk, let's go upstairs and talk." After Xie Liang said that, he led them to a slope not far away.
Behind the slope is the pear blossom fence, where the view is wide, and they are lying or sitting on the top of the slope.
In the distance, the dead bones and clusters of flowers are "dancing gracefully", the moonlight is flowing, and the breeze is blowing gently, giving people a sense of unreality.
"What did you and Brother Ye find out?" Hong Guo asked Xie Liang who was lying on the side.
Xie Liang repeated the gardener's words in a nutshell.
"So, our role is the same as that of the gardener. What is the mission this time?" Hong Guo asked.
"To put it simply, the police are catching thieves. According to this logic, this Rose Manor should not exist. It is irrational," Xie Liang explained.
Looking at the scattered bones in the vast moonlight, Xie Liang crossed his arms and placed them under his head, wondering, "So many people have died. Are they just part of the dungeon, or are they real people with flesh and blood who feel pain?"
"According to speculation, they are real people, and their souls are trapped in different copies. As long as these copies can be activated, the roles they play will always exist. They will never remember their names or why they appeared here." Hongguo's voice sounded a little indifferent.
Hearing her say this, Xie Liang suddenly thought of Su Yubai.
Su Yubai remembered everything, and the small world he was in had long since stopped reincarnation.
"What if they remembered something?"
Hong Guo didn't understand what Xie Liang was talking about: "What did you say?"
Xie Liang: "Nothing."
"We used to have prompts when we entered, but now they're just forcing us to fight. Who created these little worlds? Damn it!" Hong Guo pouted and angrily punched the moon in the air. "Then again, are we really going to ignore those flower beds and just go ahead and answer that suited man's question?"
Long Qingye sat up on the grass and asked Hong Guo, "What did you ask?"
Hongguo counted them on her fingers. "They're all questions about roses. Which flower is the prettiest? Which color of rose is the most valuable? How long do roses last? Or when do the roses here wither? Basically, they're all about roses."
"Mr. Xu, you don't know the answer, do you?"
Xu He glanced at him, as if to say: You know, just tell me.
"Tsk, isn't the corresponding answer that every rose is equally beautiful? Red roses are the most precious and never wither. After all, who dares to say the roses here are not good?" Long Qingye sneered. "How boring! It's clearly a question of giving up, yet so many people got it wrong."
"What if it's 'Why do roses bloom so brightly'?" Xie Liang asked.
"The roses here bloom as red as blood, simply because they are nourished by human flesh and blood." Long Qingye looked at Xie Liang with a half-smile and asked, "Is it difficult to guess?"
"It's not that these questions are difficult to answer. Many people will panic when faced with life and death situations." Xie Liang said.
The rose scent brought by the distant wind was still fragrant, but Xie Liang felt nauseous when he smelled it.
The evil fragrance nurtured by humans should not exist. Looking at the black shadows swaying in the flowers in the distance, Xie Liang couldn't help but feel powerless.
The group lay on the slope and discussed many strategies for dealing with the question-and-answer session.
The night was like water, and the air gradually became more humid. In the purple-black sky, gauze clouds moved with the wind, and the wind blew moist vapor on people's faces, making them feel uncomfortable.
Xie Liang didn't know how long he lay on the grass slope. By the time they left, the grass on the slope was covered with dew.
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