Chapter 41 Those Who Left Me (14) (2.5 Updates Combined) [VIP]
"She Mochu..." Guan Hongyan felt that her voice sounded like sleepwalking, "Is Bi Wu okay?"
She fell to the ground, still holding Bi Wu, who was knocked unconscious by She Mochu's knife. The burns on Bi Wu's body were rapidly subsiding. Li Ren and Jiang Jinming stumbled and supported Lu Changfeng, preventing him from falling directly due to the overdraft of fixed attributes.
The ground was covered with white dry powder, like white frost under the moonlight. With a "bang", the fire extinguisher in Zhang Lu's hand fell to the ground. She propped herself up with her legs and gasped heavily for a few times, then wiped her eyes fiercely.
She didn't want to cry, but she felt that she should make a similar reaction at this time to prove that her sanity had not been shattered by these things, and she could still think and express herself completely.
This too similar "bang" sound made everyone tremble nervously, and then they closed their eyes at the same time after realizing that it was the fire extinguisher that fell to the ground.
The entire clearing was startlingly silent.
Only Zhang Lu's frantic breathing echoed.
At this point, Yun Guang was the only one who could maintain normalcy. The gentleness and calmness on his face seemed to be welded on. Bai Jinshu withdrew his hand that had knocked down Bi Wu and looked at him. Yun Guang gave him a slightly frowning expression.
Bai Jinshu looked down along the line of sight he had. Guan Hongyan's face looked even paler than the skin of a cold-blooded animal with a constant temperature of 25 degrees.
"No," Bai Jinshu thought about the question he asked a few seconds ago and answered Guan Hongyan calmly, "She lost too much sanity points after the sanity test, so she fell into temporary madness."
It will be fine after a while.
Guan Hongyan finally got the answer. She took a deep breath of the cold air mixed with dust, and then began to cough heart-wrenchingly.
Compared to those investigators who fell into temporary madness and did irreparable things, having Lu Changfeng was Bi Wu's last luck.
His [First Aid] is definitely a god-level skill. Apart from the invisible and intangible sanity value, it can cover almost all physical injuries.
After this exploration, Lu Changfeng's rating will be raised to an extremely high level in the minds of those investors. No team will not need a healer who can heal anyone with one breath.
"Okay, okay, drink this first, and then lie down." Li Ren, who was far away, poured the physical recovery potion into Lu Changfeng's mouth frantically, and then Jiang Jinming staggered and helped Lu Changfeng lie flat on the ground.
After doing all this, the two men half-knelt on the ground and looked at each other, both seeing the absurdity in each other's eyes.
After I calmed down and thought back to what happened a few minutes ago, that absurd and distorted scene seemed to be separated by a layer of blurry frosted glass and I could no longer remember it clearly.
This is the body's automatic defense protection mechanism.
A cold wind blew by, raising the dust on the ground. The sky was filled with these tiny dry powders. Everyone thought of what Bi Wu had shouted hysterically at the end.
"Smoke and dust".
What is smoke?
You can't be referring to the fire extinguisher dust everywhere, right?
As if waking up from a dream, the comments popped up in twos and threes:
【Woo woo woo woo woo Xiao Chu woo woo woo woo woo woo. 】
[I was crying too. I don’t know why I wanted to cry, but I was so moved when I saw Xiao Chu.]
[My eyes are light-hearted, and I burst into tears the moment Xiao Chu came out.]
[I don’t blame you. She Mochu felt too safe. The first thought that came to my mind when he came out of the house was: I’m finally safe.]
[I am a 185cm tall strong man, but I never thought that there would be a day when I could feel safe with another person of the same sex. ]
[…Even if you didn’t say you were 185cm tall, you could still feel safe with She Mochu.]
[You'd better be really 185cm tall. ]
[Xiao Chu will equally give a sense of security to everyone who is about to lose sanity, no matter if you are 185cm or 179cm tall, Truman. ]
[After investing in the Cthulhu world, I will not pray to God or Buddha for the exploration to be completed, I will pray to Xiao Chu and Truman. 】
[May God bless me so that every Cthulhu world I blindly visit in the future will not have any casualties and can be explored and completed, Truman. ]
[This is the suspension bridge effect, this is definitely the suspension bridge effect. In this way, I feel that I am not far from falling in love with She Mochu...]
【Wake up, She Mochu is a paper man. 】
[Oh no, this time it really is a paper man. ]
[Does anyone still care that Xiao Chu is the protagonist of the comics? It's already on NBCS. 】
【What is NBCS? 】
【Nobody cares.】
On the screen, Guan Hongyan, who finally came to her senses, stood up with her arms around the unconscious Bi Wu, and Zhang Lu came over to lend a hand.
"Cough... cough, She Mochu," Guan Hongyan said, almost coughing three times, "Do you know what happened?"
Bai Jinshu nodded: "I know."
He probably knew what was going on.
"But I need to find a way of narrating it that won't make you lose your mind after I tell you." Otherwise, it would be like what happened to Bi Wu, where everyone went into temporary madness after getting the information.
He hesitated for a moment and said, "Or, we can adopt a hierarchical approach to convey information."
Information will be lost during the process of transmission, whether it is the loss of information when it is conveyed for the second or third time, or the understanding ability of the recipient after each transmission. As long as a clue is passed on round after round, when it reaches the last person's ears, this clue will always be missing some content compared to the first person who said it.
Because the human body is not a machine and cannot accurately remember every word that the other person relays to it.
When humans convey information, they actually first understand the meaning of the previous person's words, and then narrate their understanding to the next person in their own way.
When sorting, put the people with the strongest receptive ability in front and the people who are most likely to lose sanity in the back. This will minimize the impact of this information on everyone and minimize the loss of sanity for the entire team.
This means that Bai Jinshu is using human filtering to dilute the danger of information.
Bai Jinshu could certainly not tell them and explore the subsequent content on his own, but the last time he made an independent conclusion with this idea in mind, he fell into She Mochu's thinking trap, and he couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't happen this time.
Therefore, in order to ensure accuracy and prevent clues from going astray, this dangerous information must be conveyed to all employees, and the person who receives the information firsthand will be the most dangerous.
Guan Hongyan and Yun Guang should be the most rational. They can be the first recipients of the information. In this way, even if their points are deducted, the amount deducted will be the least.
Next in line are Zhang Lu and Li Ren. Zhang Lu is a little stronger than Li Ren and has better stress resistance. Li Ren's perception is too sharp, and as the second information receiving checkpoint, it is easy for him to be pushed into san check again by clues that have not yet diluted the amount of information.
Next are Lu Changfeng and Jiang Jinming. Lu Changfeng's san value is actually not dangerous, and his acceptance is also very good. It's just that the fixed attribute of "intolerance" will be very scary if it is superimposed with san check. If no one is injured, Lu Changfeng's priority is higher than Jiang Jinming.
Jiang Jinming died once at the hands of "Xiangcai". Even if he didn't show any symptoms, he would have post-traumatic stress disorder, so he would be ranked one place lower.
Then comes Bi Wu. Bi Wu has fallen into temporary madness and her sanity is already in danger. Putting her last in this order is to protect her.
The sky had completely darkened. Without the pollution of city lights and the obstruction of tall buildings, the Milky Way in the sky was astonishingly clear.
Bai Jinshu looked up a few times and felt something was wrong.
The distribution of this starry sky seems... not like a normal galaxy.
He did not see some familiar constellations and star clusters.
But this is a Cthulhu world, which is normal. After all, "Cthulhu" in the Cthulhu world refers to one of the Old Ones who is sleeping in R'lyeh on the bottom of the sea. The condition for Cthulhu to wake up and rule the world is "when the stars reach the right position."
God knows if the stars are in the right position now.
If it were, the world would be over soon.
Bai Jinshu retracted his gaze and reminded: "I suggest you don't look up at the starry sky, it may deduct your sanity points."
Lu Changfeng was lying on the ground, emptying his mind, but after hearing his brother Chu's words, he quickly closed his eyes, as if the stars in the sky would jump down and bite him.
"Hegel once said," he closed his eyes and breathed faintly, "a nation has hope only when it has a group of people who look up at the stars."
Even at this point, he still didn't forget to quip: "I think everyone in this world is doomed. They are in despair."
Jiang Jinming: "... Let's just take care of ourselves first."
"If we can't find all the rules or a way to crack them, we'll be finished before everyone else in this world."
That's true.
"By the way...who is Hegel?" Jiang Jinming turned his head.
Lu Changfeng narrowed his eyes and looked at him, feeling even more hopeless: "Hegel is a German philosopher, this is his famous quote... Forget it, you definitely don't have it either, it's not certain whether there is Germany or not."
Li Ren said bluntly: "When you say something like this at this time, I thought you were a Hegel Cthulhu scholar."
"The Cthulhu scholar is over there," Lu Changfeng pointed respectfully at Bai Jinshu who was not far away, "His famous quote is: Don't think, stay ignorant."
Although he felt that now that Cen Qiwen was dead and Bi Wu had gone mad, all of them except She Mochu were quite ignorant, with a kind of clear stupidity that would allow them to spend their old age in the world of Cthulhu.
Bai Jinshu looked around at his teammates who had recovered from their shock and asked, "Do you want to listen here or go back and listen?"
"Go back and listen," Lu Changfeng rolled over, "Brother Chu, if you finish talking here, I'm afraid we'll all go crazy. You can't fight seven people alone in this remote mountain forest and deserted village."
What he said was what everyone wanted to say.
It was already past the return time they had originally planned. If anything else happened, it would probably be early morning by the time they got back to the cave.
Besides, if everyone really went crazy, She Mochu wouldn’t be able to bring all seven of them back by himself.
"Okay then," Bai Jinshu said without hesitation. He opened the task panel of the Foundation on his left hand and looked at Yun Guang. "Do you know of any miracle that can destroy or cover the scratches on the wall?"
He had to cover up those marks.
"It's fine to be temporary," Bai Jin thought for a moment and added, "It's enough if it can be effective until tomorrow afternoon."
When the landslide happens tomorrow, the old site of this mountain village will probably be buried.
By then, everything that happens here will be covered by countless rocks and mud.
Bai Jinshu was good at using tools conveniently. Yun Guang's behavior of directly giving him stomach-strengthening and digestion-promoting tablets last time made him take the initiative to classify the other party as someone who was particularly familiar with the miracles in the foundation mall.
"Can [curtain] be used?" Yun Guang lived up to his classification. He pondered for a moment. "A piece of cloth with a performance concept applied to it. The audience side faces outward, and the stage side faces inward. Before the performance begins, the curtain cannot be opened by any means, and the audience side cannot see the stage behind the curtain."
"Okay," Bai Jinshu pulled his right hand out of his pocket and typed a few words on the search box, "Wait a minute."
He walked back into the room holding a piece of red cloth in his hand.
Cen Qiwen's body lying on the ground had disappeared, and Huai Jiamu, who was in the house just now, also left. Bai Jinshu reflected for a moment on the fact that he had treated the evil god as a suppressor that could be summoned and dismissed at will.
He's a bit like a scumbag.
Although Huai Jiamu is not a human, he is a real dog.
After Bai Jinshu left the previous space, the first time he took the initiative to pray to the evil god was to ask him to deliver a takeaway.
If this were to be made public, Fang Shaoning would be so angry that he would die.
But since Huai Jiamu was brought to the outside world by him, Fang Shaoning must have also been outside. I don’t know what happened to this true believer with a not-so-good brain after he went out.
Bai Jinshu let go of the piece of cloth in his hand without any guilt and hung it on the wall.
The blood-red velvet curtain concealed the traces of the painting, and the color was so rich that it seemed as if it was stained with blood that seeped out of the wall.
After Bai Jinshu confirmed that he really couldn't see the contents that followed, he walked out of the room.
Compared to when he entered, he had an extra piece of paper in his hand. It was the paper that Guan Hongyan had painted on and Cen Qiwen had added a few strokes to.
The team members outside the house were ready to pass through the woods. Bi Wu was lying on Guan Hongyan's back and still did not respond. It seemed that Guan Hongyan was going to carry her out.
Bai Jinshu rolled up the white paper in his palm and asked Guan Hongyan, "Can you still recognize the road while carrying Bi Wu on your back?"
Although they followed the path when they came, it was daytime then and now it is night. It would be very difficult if they got lost during the journey, so it would be better for Guan Hongyan to lead the way in front to ensure that they do not go astray.
Now that she is carrying Bi Wu on her back, it means that some of her attention will be diverted away.
"Okay," Guan Hongyan nodded slightly without trying to show off. "Zhang Lu and I will take turns."
"Okay," Bai Jinshu was not the kind of considerate person. Since Guan Hongyan said it was okay, he would assume that she really could do it. "Then let's go."
Fortunately, they had already opened the road when they came during the day. Guan Hongyan was carrying Bi Wu in front, and her steps were still agile as she walked through the woods. Zhang Lu followed behind her, so that she could replace Guan Hongyan in time when she felt exhausted.
The relationship between Jiang Jinming, Li Rengeng and Lu Changfeng seemed to have reached a new level after this incident. The three of them walked together and chatted about random things from time to time. Lu Changfeng talked about all sorts of things, which finally made the atmosphere of the team not too heavy.
Bai Jinshu was thinking in his mind how to prevent Yun Guang and Guan Hongyan from going crazy, and did not notice that Guan Hongyan, who was walking in front, suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong?" Lu Changfeng felt that the whole team suddenly stopped. He stuttered and stopped talking about how bad the new snail noodles near his home were, and stuck his head out to look forward.
Guan Hongyan stood at the front and felt that her brain was a little confused: "Ma, Teacher Ma."
Why did the team leader appear in this forest?
Teacher Ma was wearing black clothes, which should be the one that Bai Jinshu took out of his tent in the morning. But the strange thing was that one corner of the clothes seemed to be missing a little compared to this morning, as if someone had cut off a square with a knife.
He stood in front of the team members, as if he hadn't noticed anything unusual about them, and asked with a frown, "Why didn't you return to the camp at the appointed time?"
Did the teacher in charge find out that they didn’t return to the camp on time and came out to look for them?
Guan Hongyan knew that she should give an explanation for their situation now, but her mind was too confused. Facing the strange deaths of her companions and personally preventing them from falling into bizarre madness made her physically and mentally exhausted. Her brain was like a rusty gear that got stuck a few times and was completely useless.
At the critical moment, Yun Guang's clear and steady voice reassured everyone: "Teacher Ma."
He supported Bi Wu on Guan Hongyan's back and said in a gentle tone, "We are here to look for Bi Wu."
"Bi Wu accidentally slipped off a cliff while collecting soil samples. The communication base station in the mountain was destroyed. We shouted but got no response, so we had to come down from the mountain to look for her. Unexpectedly, we got lost in the deep forest and couldn't find the exit."
If we don’t know what happened before, the exhausted and empty-eyed looks of the team members now really look like they are lost in the forest for a long time and can’t find the exit.
"As for Bi Wu," Yun Guang sighed with some regret, "she wasn't seriously injured when we found her, but she was too frightened and exhausted to be able to walk through the woods."
Yun Guang's explanation was not reasonable. In this case, the best option would be to return and inform the teacher leading the team, and then ask the villagers at the foot of the mountain to rescue them. However, Teacher Ma did not seem to care at all that the students he brought out for investigation were injured. He looked at everyone for a while with an expression that made it impossible to tell what his mood was, and said indifferently: "Since we have rescued the people, let's go."
Yun Guang let out a sigh of relief and gave Guan Hongyan a look: [Go.]
Guan Hongyan carried Bi Wu on her back, her brain spinning slowly for a few seconds: [Is there something wrong with Teacher Ma?]
Today's Teacher Ma, and not just today's Teacher Ma in the past few days, is completely different from the Teacher Ma on the first day they entered here.
If it were in another world, she might suspect that the teacher in charge had been replaced, but in this Cthulhu world, Guan Hongyan felt that what she should think about more was, is Teacher Ma still Teacher Ma?
Is he still human?
Did he become another creature?
No, Guan Hongyan woke up suddenly, the time of the teacher in charge was in chronological order. If he was not a human, then perhaps the talkative and enthusiastic teacher Ma whom they saw when they came in was not a human.
Seeing her stuck in a weird circle of thoughts, Yun Guang shook his head slightly, "It's not important."
It doesn’t matter what the team leader is.
As long as he doesn't interfere with their exploration, they will pretend not to know and not see anything. This kind of deaf-muteness is what the Cthulhu world needs most.
Guan Hongyan: [But he went towards She Mochu? Could he be an old acquaintance of She Mochu? But She Mochu is an exploration team member from the Cthulhu world. His presence, which he tolerates by default, should be harmless to us, right? ]
Yun Guang:?
Forgive him for not having mastered the skill of mind-reading yet, he really couldn't understand Guan Hongyan's series of rapid blinks.
Guan Hongyan: ...
"Forget it," she lowered her voice, handed Bi Wu to Zhang Lu, and mouthed to Yun Guang, "Let's talk about it when we get back."
The forest was too quiet and the entire team was silent. Even if they wanted to say something bad about someone, not sure if it was Teacher Ma, behind his back, they shouldn't say it in front of him.
But in fact, the team was not quiet.
Bai Jinshu silently hooked the evil god's little finger and spoke in the voice of a believer: "You are here."
It’s not that he wanted to simulate love or that he was deceiving the evil god, or that he was acting like a spoiled child, which would never happen to Bai Jinshu in his life, but he did have other intentions.
He couldn't wait to hook Huai Jiamu's little finger to prevent himself from further alienation.
The transformation from human to mythical creature is not something that can be dragged forward and backward at will like a progress bar. Generally speaking, this process can only be interrupted and cannot be reversed.
Bai Jinshu was able to turn back into a human because the moment he came into contact with Huai Jiamu, including eye contact, his synchronization rate would be reduced to 0 during the contact. At this time, he did not represent the character he played. When the synchronization rate was 0, he was just Bai Jinshu in the skin of She Mochu.
So he briefly turned back into the human "Bai Jinshu", thus reversing the process of alienation of the mythical creature Mo Chu.
But once he leaves Huaijiamu for too long, this forcibly reversed alienation process will restart, and his body will re-enter the slow alienation with a lengthened progress bar, so absorbing people in time... absorbing the tool god, is a necessary behavior for him to maintain his human identity in this space.
Having items related to Huai Jiamu around can also slow down this process, just like yesterday when he was sleeping, holding the corner of his clothes reduced the synchronization rate to 15%. Bai Jinshu suspected that it was because these items carried the aura of the evil god.
But in comparison, when the original body is here, there is no need for substitutes such as the corners of clothes.
Bai Jinshu hooked Huai Jiamu's fingers with ulterior motives, and his right hand silently loosened the square piece of clothing corner that he had been holding in his pocket.
It’s better not to recall how he tricked the evil god into cutting off a piece of his clothes.
But you can try to get the evil god's coat...
Bai Jinshu seemed to be thinking about something and planned to wear Huai Jiamu's coat tomorrow.
After returning to the camp in the cave, Yun Guang cast a miracle of sound shielding, and Guan Hongyan finally spit out a string of questions like cannonballs: "What happened to Bi Wu? What did I miss to draw? Is the flame dangerous? Why did Cen Qiwen's head explode? Will she continue to be crazy when she wakes up tomorrow? And who is that teacher Ma?"
She was an impatient person, and the fact that she asked so many questions in one breath was enough to show how much she had been holding back along the way.
Yun Guang shrugged as expected, turned around and said to the others, "You go out and wait for She Mochu to tell us the information, then come in and listen to us."
After everyone else left, Bai Jinshu slowly opened the rolled piece of white paper in his hand.
There was even some of Cen Qiwen's brain stains on the paper.
Guan Hongyan's temples jumped, apparently recalling a bad memory, but her facial expression remained unchanged, and it seemed that she did not enter the san check.
Bai Jinshu pointed at the paper and said, "First of all, let me make one thing clear. What I am going to say next will not have any impact on your safety or health at the moment."
After the two people on the opposite side nodded, Bai Jinshu got straight to the point and said, "There is a kind of bug in our brains."
"In the eyes of humans, this kind of insect is invisible. You can't see it," Bai Jinshuo gestured for them to look at the blood mist on the picture that was sprayed with Cen Qiwen's blood. "Its larvae usually fill the air. Once inhaled, they will enter the body through the trachea and then enter the brain. They will then form a cocoon and wait to hatch."
Guan Hongyan's eyes were blank for a few seconds, and she immediately understood what Bi Wu meant: "So she meant that those bugs are smoke and dust!"
Smoke and dust are everywhere, filling the air.
Bai Jinshu looked at her calmly and said, "You passed a san check."
"Yes," Guan Hongyan said frankly, "but the deduction should not be much."
"Then remember to modify some of this information when you tell Zhang Lu later." Bai Jinshu said calmly.
“Smoke and dust…” Yun Guang’s last syllable was strangely dragged out for a few seconds. “The pickled vegetables that clear the lungs in spring are these larvae!”
"You've also passed the san check," Bai Jinshu said, holding his head in embarrassment, "If you keep going like this, there's no way I can finish the story."
If he says a piece of information and these two people pass a sc, they will go crazy before he finishes speaking.
"It's okay," Yun Guang shook his head, "You continue, I will try my best to control myself from thinking about it further."
"Then continue," Bai Jinshu glanced at Guan Hongyan, "'Xiangcai' attacked the team members in order to prey on the mature larvae that had emerged from the cocoons in their heads."
As long as you can see the mature larva in Cen Qiwen's mind, the rest of the content can be easily deduced.
Jiang Jinming, the first to die, and Bi Wu, the second to die, both had their skulls ripped open by "Coriander". However, Cen Qiwen, the third to die, was not. Why? Because the existence of Guan Hongyan prevented "Coriander" from appearing.
Then why did her brain explode? Because the bugs in her brain had matured.
This is an absolute death situation. The three of them don't know why the larvae in their brains mature earlier than those in theirs. So when they are about to break out of the cocoon, the insects will emit a strange pheromone, or smell, which will attract its natural enemy "coriander" to come and eat it.
If "Coriander" does not appear, the host's head will explode because the worms break out of the cocoon. If "Coriander" appears, it will pry open the host's skull in order to prey on the worms. No matter what, only death awaits them.
Because no one knows what the pattern of maturity of these insects is.
Or in other words, the order in which these insects mature is the order in which the team members die.
"Cen Qiwen's brain exploded because the larvae matured and broke out of the cocoon, and the human brain couldn't accommodate it."
"In the Cthulhu worldview, there is a kind of bug called the Shaggai Zerg," Bai Jinshu raised his eyes and glanced at the two of them, "This kind of bug can control the actions of the host."
"I need to know if you have ever had any involuntary thoughts or behaviors."
"I didn't..." Guan Hongyan suddenly made a loud dry heave.
She knows.
She now knew why she felt so familiar with Cen Qiwen's brain.
She knew why she always felt that there was a creeping, sticky feeling on her body that could not be washed off.
Because the bugs felt that she was of the same kind, that was a signal of familiarity sent by the bugs in her brain.
Amid the violent retching and dizziness, Guan Hongyan heard She Mochu's last words: "And I suspect that the time reversal has something to do with this kind of bug."
The author has something to say:
Happy Valentine's Day, my dears. I give you all a kiss. I went out to play with Hantang today. I will update 2.5 times.
Comment and draw 50 lucky beauties to send red envelopes ~ I originally wanted to draw 10 520, but JJ's lottery can't customize the amount_(:з」∠)_
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