Chapter 337: Inhuman (145) (1st + 2nd) [VIP]
Honestly, this development is not surprising.
Zhou Ju said at the beginning that their team had eleven people when they came in, but now it has become six, and it is obvious that five of them are dead.
Now we say it is missing, but in ghost stories, missing is actually no different from being dead.
Bai Jinshu shrugged, supported Huai Jiamu's shoulders and jumped down from the bed next to him: "So the five people you are missing all disappeared inexplicably at night? All of them are older?"
According to them, everyone who enters here will be forcibly compressed in age. The stronger the fighting power, the smaller the compression will be. The younger the age, the more restrictions there will be in terms of physical fitness, physical strength and stamina. So after entering here, the ones who can do more are those team members who are not good at fighting and are therefore compressed to be less powerful.
These team members were the main force in digging tunnels during the day and going out to explore at night. There was a high possibility of all kinds of unknown dangers in the shelter at night, which led to the disappearance of those team members who did not stay in the dormitory at night.
"Not really," said a boy with short hair in Zhou Ju's team, "The only member of our team who was compressed to four years old was taken away by someone."
"Ah? Adoption?" Yuan Shanming looked up. "Didn't you say there was a war going on outside? How could someone come to adopt a child at this time? Isn't this abnormal?"
"They were taken away, not adopted," Zhou Ju corrected. "Many of the children here are not orphans. They were brought back from outside by good people. At least one of their parents was still alive when they were taken away."
However, as the war continues, it is uncertain whether these parents can still survive.
"In the beginning, because this was a church and a ceasefire zone, and there were two kind nuns, some parents took the initiative to send their children here," Zhou Ju explained. "Some children were brought back by kind people like this. Some children's parents did not die and found a way out other than the war, so they came here to pick them up."
That’s how the “only member of their team that was compressed to four years old” was picked up.
"The girl they were originally going to pick up was actually another four-year-old girl, not the one from our team," someone said. "What a coincidence that the day before someone came to pick her up, Sister Zhou Ju heard the news first."
The two nuns received news that someone had found a way out and wanted to come to the shelter to take their children home tomorrow. Zhou Ju, who had been standing outside the window, heard the name of the girl who was about to be taken away.
The children in the shelter were all dull and incompatible with their age. When Zhou Ju heard the news, he quickly told his team members.
"At first, we planned to try to follow them out, but to be honest, this plan is unlikely. After all, it's not like we haven't tried to get out with the truck before," Zhou Ju shrugged. "But it's a good opportunity that someone came to take the children out of the shelter, and we don't want to give up."
"So you finally let a team member of similar age pretend to be her and be taken away?" Bai Jinshu frowned, "How did you do it?"
This is not an ordinary adoption. It's just a replacement. These are the biological parents. How can they not recognize their own child?
"The last step is to steal the show?" Xu Zichen interrupted.
"Yes," Zhou Ju nodded. "Most of the children in the shelter had tattered clothes when they arrived here. Most of them were wearing clothes that the two nuns had randomly cut out using the fabrics here. We found the girl a day in advance, and then found a dress of the same color as hers, and had our team members change into them in advance."
The next day, the parents who came to pick up the children got off the bus and got on with their own children. When they were about to start the car and leave, everyone pretended to be reluctant to part with their companion's child. They said goodbye to her at the last moment, found reasons to divert the couple's attention, then quietly knocked the original girl unconscious, and let the only "four-year-old" member of the team get on the bus with the same clothes and hairstyle as her.
Although the two people are 90% similar at first glance, they look different after all. Fortunately, it doesn't matter whether they will be recognized later.
The biggest problem everyone faced at the time was that they could not leave the shelter. As long as they crossed a certain line in the fog, they would be teleported back to the outside of the iron gate of the shelter. This line was only a few hundred meters away from the door.
A distance of several hundred meters can be walked in just a few minutes, and it would take more than ten seconds for a car. As long as the team member who managed to get into the car can hold on for these ten seconds, it would immediately become clear whether she could leave here.
"So what you're saying now is that this person has successfully left here?" Xiao Tang shook his head curiously and got up restlessly from the ground. "Haven't you found a solution? From now on, just follow the parents who came to pick up the children and leave."
Although this method is a bit despicable, it's okay as long as you can get out. The NPCs in the ghost stories are not real people. They will only repeat the established procedures over and over again after the triggerer enters. Their fate really has nothing to do with the triggerers.
Not to mention that most of these NPCs are not normal.
"You think too simply," someone in Zhou Ju's team couldn't help but say, "How could so many parents take their children home? We have been here for more than ten days and have only waited for this one. What's more, we can't be sure whether she has left or not."
"She didn't come back, so she left, didn't she?" Brother Yin didn't understand what they meant. "According to you, if she wasn't teleported back to the iron gate, doesn't that mean she left?"
"But those parents never came back after that," Zhou Ju frowned, his tone was incredible, "Just like you said, how could the biological parents not recognize their own child? If she was really taken away by those parents, then after they found out that they took the wrong person, how could they not come back to take their real daughter home? This is not normal."
According to common sense, when parents come to pick up their child and find another child sitting in the back seat, the kinder ones might take the other child home and then pick up their own child. The more ordinary ones would just send the other child back and then take their own child home.
Whether it is the former or the latter, their first reaction must be to go back to the shelter to pick up their real children.
But since that day, three days passed and the couple never came again.
"Not only that," Zhou Ju added in disbelief, "Do you know what happened to the child we replaced?"
"How is it? Missing?"
"She acted like nothing happened," Zhou Ju raised his voice. "We knocked her out that day and quietly sent her back to the shelter. We were prepared for her to cry and make a fuss about leaving with her parents when she woke up, but the result was..."
"As a result, she acted as if nothing had happened a few hours ago," someone in the opposite team swallowed and said with difficulty, "She woke up from the bed and stared blankly at the blank space in front of her as usual. Then she went downstairs to eat at mealtime. After dinner, she stared blankly in the room with the others. When it was time to go to bed, she went back to sleep."
She was as dumb as a puppet, as if she was not the one her parents had said they would take away a few hours ago but ended up leaving behind.
"It was after that time that we suspected there was something wrong with the medicine." After a few minutes of silence, Zhou Ju spoke.
"You may not know that although the shelter is running low on food, the supply of medicine has strangely never been cut off. It can even be said that it is quite sufficient," she pointed to a room outside. "In that room, every night before dinner, each child will be given a small pill."
It was a round pill, very small, with a small cross on it. It was broken into pieces when it was distributed to each person, and each person could only get a quarter.
All children will take this pill half an hour before going to bed. The good guys say that this pill is a nutritional supplement and only after taking it can they have a good sleep.
"Every night there are all kinds of gunfire outside," Zhou Ju's team member said, "We have observed the pattern. This war is very strange. There is no sound of fighting during the day, but there are continuous gunfire at night. It seems that both sides of the war have tacitly agreed to only fight at night and rest during the day."
"There was a pharmacist from a top three hospital in the team. She said she had worked in the pharmacy for seven or eight years. She recognized the drug at a glance. It was not something else but □□, which is commonly known as sleeping pills." Zhou Ju exhaled lightly, "She said that this thing is not available to the general public. It is considered a sleeping pill, but most of the time it is used to treat epilepsy. This thing can only be prescribed by a doctor in a hospital. A large dose can cause death, so doctors dare not prescribe a whole bottle or box. They can only take a few tablets at a time, for fear that the patient will be upset."
The night was filled with the sound of gunfire. In order to prevent the children from being frightened and unable to fall asleep, the two nuns decided to feed everyone sleeping pills before bedtime.
A medicine that can only be prescribed in a hospital is used as a "nutritional supplement" in this place and is distributed in large quantities to help children sleep well on nights of gunfire. This is not normal in any way.
"Although it's unusual for this thing to appear here, the pharmacist said that apart from helping you sleep, it doesn't have any other side effects if you pay attention to the dosage. The most you'll get is dizziness and drowsiness. And the dosage for children should be half or one-third less than that for adults. A quarter of a tablet is just right," Zhou Ju's team member added. "So although we didn't take it at that time, we didn't stop others from taking it."
The child who was supposed to be taken away by her parents that day was knocked unconscious by them. In order to prevent her from waking up too quickly and causing trouble, Zhou Ju had an idea and fed her a sleeping pill that everyone had saved in the past few days.
Unexpectedly, after waking up, the other party seemed to have completely lost all his previous memories. He did not show any panic or anger about being abandoned by his biological parents. Instead, he seemed to remember nothing and continued to mechanically repeat his previous life.
"That was when we suspected that the dullness of these children was not due to their numbness to the war, but to the medicine they took."
"Do you still have those sleeping pills?" Xiao Tang stretched out his hand. "Can I take a look?"
Zhou Ju rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a small package wrapped in cloth. At first glance, there were at least nearly a hundred tablets of the medicine in the package.
"You also know this kind of medicine? You are also a doctor? Do you know what kind of medicine can achieve this kind of amnesia effect or make people very dull?" Zhou Ju looked at Xiao Tang.
"I don't know, I don't understand, I don't know," Xiao Tang denied three times, "Don't hold so high hopes on me, I just want to see what this pill looks like. By the way, have you ever fed this stuff to animals for experiments? Or secretly crushed it and added it to the bowls of those two nuns?"
"The former... it seems that there are no other living things here except these two nuns and the children. The latter... is also a solution." Zhou Ju touched his chin and the more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. "Let's stop talking. I'll go down and drug them first!"
Zhou Ju was impetuous and acted quickly. As soon as he finished speaking, he jumped out of the bed and ran towards the door.
In order to prevent someone from suddenly coming in while they were talking, Zhou Ju and his team quietly locked the door after entering the room. Now there were only three teams of unlucky people who were innocently dragged into this place gathered in the whole room.
"Wait," Bai Jinshu called out to Zhou Ju before he could open the door, "They won't be having dinner tonight."
"Have you forgotten?" Bai Jinshu looked at Xiao Tang, "Those two nuns said they would give us their dinner."
"Oh... yes," Xiao Tang slapped his forehead, "Hey, who is that, Sister Zhou Ju?"
She looked at Zhou Ju, and saw no resistance on her face, so she continued, "Sister Zhou Ju, have you tried it? Is the food here edible? Is it normal? We didn't dare to eat just now, and we threw it all away."
"Food is not a problem..." Zhou Ju answered quickly, "At the beginning, we suspected that the food here might not be safe, so we kept eating the supplies in our backpacks. Later, when the supplies ran out, we had no choice but to eat the food here, and nothing happened."
If I had to say one thing that was not good about the food, it would be that the portions were too small.
Compared to the sleeping pills provided every night, food is even more scarce here. Each child only gets a small amount of rice porridge in their bowl. The rice is very little and there is mostly water. The only side dishes are some soybeans that look like they came from a can. Meat and vegetables are nowhere to be seen.
The biggest impact of eating too much of this thing on people is that they can never feel full. Even if the people here are children whose appetite is much smaller than that of adults, they can never feel full.
"No wonder those kids are lying there motionless..." Guan Hongyan whispered.
If you eat less, your energy will decrease and your strength will become weaker and weaker.
If you don't want to get hungry too quickly, the best way is to enter low power mode, which means like those kids, staring at one place motionless all day long, with no other activities except eating and sleeping.
Now it seems that in addition to their abnormal dullness, their lack of liveliness is also likely due to not having enough to eat.
“This is really troublesome…” Brother Yin let out a long sigh, a little irritated. “When you were exploring a few days ago, you still had supplies with you, but we didn’t bring anything when we came in.”
According to this statement, wouldn't it mean that we will never be able to eat enough? If we can't eat enough, we won't be able to explore this place normally, and finally we will be forced to reduce power consumption.
"It's not that there is no solution." One of Zhou Ju's team members muttered in a low voice.
"What method?" Brother Yin curled his lips.
"People, isn't the fundamental reason for the food shortage here because there are too many people?" The team member's voice became lower and lower, and he was silent at the end. "If there were fewer people at this time, everyone would get more food..."
By the end of his words, they were so soft that they were barely audible.
There's nothing wrong with thinking about it in your mind, but it seems a bit bad to say it out loud.
No matter what, they are adults in their twenties or thirties at heart. Killing children who are only seven or eight years old just to have a few more bites of food is not the same as taking their identities and going out.
"Okay, let's not talk about this for now!" Yuan Shanming quickly changed the subject, "We've already finished our meal today, why don't we take a walk around here before it gets dark, maybe we can find some clues?"
"Whether there are clues or not, Sister Zhou Ju and the others must have seen it all," Xiao Tang dragged the topic back to the topic, "But what the guy just said is right, when people die, they will eat more. I think those kids think so too. When we came in, many people on the first floor had hatred on their faces."
In this place, food is the basis for survival. Once more than a dozen of them arrive, the amount of food everyone gets will be reduced a lot.
"You say..." She squinted her eyes and crossed her chest as she looked at the person who had just spoken, "Could the five people you are missing have been killed by other children?"
"Impossible, they are adults!" Zhou Ju retorted subconsciously.
"An adult's soul, a nine or ten-year-old body," Xiao Tang tapped Ersi with his chin, "If all of us surround Ersi now, maybe we can..."
Before she could finish her words, Guan Hongyan patted her on the back of her head: "...Sister Hua, why are you patting me!"
Guan Hongyan raised her chin silently and pointed in the direction of Huai Jiamu: "Save your life."
Xiao Tang blinked his eyes, and under the gaze of the big ghost, he pouted angrily: "Me! It's okay that I'm the only one surrounded! Now if all of you surround me! I may not be able to escape!"
The ten-year-old team members who disappeared at night may be ten years old physically, but what if the children surrounding them were all of a similar age?
She didn't think that an ordinary person without any combat experience could win in a melee, even if they had an adult soul in their body.
It would be worse to say that it is an adult soul in the body.
From just a short description, Xiao Tang could already tell from Zhou Ju and the others' attitude towards that girl that although they had grown younger, as adults, the condescending attitude towards underage children was still engraved in their consciousness.
They subconsciously feel that they are still stronger than these children.
With this invisible sense of superiority, if these kids want to do anything to them, they will definitely fall flat on their face.
A big, big fall.
Xiao Tang's eyes silently swept across the land outside the shelter, and he was already thinking about where these children might bury someone if they killed someone.
There was a war going on outside, so it was not surprising to see one or two corpses. The most difficult part of the killing process, which was to dispose of the corpses, became extremely simple.
In her mind, these missing people are almost as good as dead.
Xiao Tang even suspected that if they had come in later, Zhou Ju's team might have been killed by the children.
She is not one of these ordinary people who have no fighting consciousness. Children's evil is sometimes the purest. These newcomers with child appearance and adult souls may not attack others because they cannot bear it in their hearts. But for these children who were born and raised in war, killing may be much easier for them than for them.
"Then tonight..." The others didn't know much about Xiao Tang, but Bai Jinshu knew that she was very smart. Seeing Xiao Tang lost in thought, her eyes moving around the open space outside the window, Bai Jinshu immediately understood what she was thinking, "Shall we take turns to keep watch to prevent any accidents?"
"Well... OK," Xiao Tang recalled his thoughts, "But we can make it easier and put drugs in the food of those older children. That way, even if there are many people coming, they are still easier to control if they are young."
Children grow up fast, going through different stages each year. Just as she said just now, a three or four-year-old child like her might really fail when facing a teenager due to the huge physiological difference.
And the only ten-year-old child here, Yuan Shanming...
Bai Jinshu glanced at Yuan Shanming's face. Most likely, he was not good at fighting.
Instead of throwing him out to protect everyone, it would be better to throw out Huai Jiamu, who has also become a little kid.
At least throwing this person out can really protect everyone.
Bai Jinshu silently glanced at Huai Jiamu, assessed his opponent's current combat capability and his previous performance, and imagined in his mind the spectacle of Huai Jiamu, who was only one meter tall, waving his hand in the air and causing a group of people to fall in front of him. His expression suddenly became subtle.
"Ahem..." Before Huai Jiamu noticed his strange expression, Bai Jinshu quickly came back to his senses and looked at Yuan Shanming again.
Although Yuan Shanming is the leader of the Jin faction, after such a long time, everyone has gotten to know him well. His gold medals are mainly accumulated through experience and connections. His fighting power is actually his weak point, otherwise he would not be the only one with the youngest age among all people.
It was almost enough that everyone was protecting him, not to mention that they were also relying on Yuan Shanming to take them to the S ghost story that Shi Pang mentioned.
The members of Yuan Shanming's team present looked at each other and saw the same emotion in each other's eyes.
Yuan Shanming must not go out. If he wants to go out, let the other two team leaders who are down to seven or eight years old go.
It was already late, and after discussing what to do tonight, everyone immediately ground the sleeping pills in Zhou Ju's hand into powder according to the number of people, and then gave them to them to go downstairs to give the drugs to the older children.
The rest of the group discussed how to keep watch tonight.
The ideal situation is of course that everyone is in the same room, but now the dormitories in the shelter are arranged according to age, and the age can be seen by looking at the height. Whether the younger team members are sent to the dormitory of the older team members, or the older team members are moved to the dormitory of the younger team members, it is easy to see.
After thinking about it, You Yi, a female team member from Brother Yin's team, made the decision: "Otherwise, you can just say that you don't feel safe, so you need a brother or sister to accompany you!"
It is safer for those of them who are a little older to go to the dormitory of three or four-year-old children than for those who are a little older to go to the dormitory of their older children. If these children really swarm over, the three or four-year-olds will be easier to beat than the seven or eight-year-olds.
But in this case, Zhou Ju and the other kids who were seven or eight years old would have no reasonable reason to come into this room.
We can only hope that nothing happens over there. Xiao Tang and Bai Jinshu, who used to be the main fighting force, are also helpless at this time.
Sending Huai Jiamu to the opposite side could keep them safe, but Bai Jinshu is not that selfless.
As the final weapon, it is better for Huai Jiamu to be on their side.
After arranging the situation, Zhou Ju's team members also came up and said that they had already administered the medicine.
These pills were divided according to the number of people. Although they had saved up a lot, if they used them like this every night, they would probably run out of money in two or three days.
Half an hour before dinner, the kind nun came up and gave everyone pills, telling them to take them before going to bed.
By the time the night was dead and everyone was asleep, the shelter finally returned to peace, and the outside world was filled with the sound of gunfire.
Bai Jinshu leaned on the bed, squinting his eyes and dozing off, keeping a little energy to listen to any movement around him.
"Er Si——"
"Er Si——!"
Xiao Tang called him twice in a whisper.
[What's wrong?] Bai Jinshu opened his eyes and looked at her inquiringly.
There doesn't seem to be anything unusual around, right?
"Live broadcast--" Xiao Tang whispered, "The live broadcast signal seems to have been connected tonight--"
Bai Jinshu opened his eyes slightly and immediately reached out to click on the live broadcast panel.
"But..." Xiao Tang's voice and the panel in front of him came into his sight at the same time, "There seems to be a small problem with the live broadcast--"
This is more than just a small problem.
Bai Jinshu frowned and looked at the panel in front of him.
The usual regular panel was now filled with all sorts of messy gibberish.
【尔▇▇▇*/.*^%￥】
【Views—#@! Number: *%……#）】
【Strange Talk: ▇▇▇】
【What is this this this this this this&#@*&%? 】
【*&%##@Anchor I I I I I I I I I I I%￥#@￥@#):! 】
【It’s jkhdfo look at yuepe% hehehehehehehehehe^】
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