Chen Yang's face was completely pale. He stepped back trembling, picked up Chao Jian and ran away.
He ran faster than the last time he dodged the dandelions.
She tilted her head back to avoid the hair that was brushing against her face: "Why are you panicking?"
“I’m being watched.”
"They won't be able to catch up with us in a short time." Chao Jian said, "Put me down and go to the thorny path that Zhou Xiaoxiao took us this morning."
Chen Yang put the boy down on the ground and panted, "I hope the clues we are looking for next are all in the mountains. We don't have to go down the mountain to look for them. It's really too crowded down there."
As he was speaking, his face changed: "Oh no, I don't remember that road. When Zhou Xiaoxiao took us there in the morning, it wasn't very bright, and I didn't pay attention to my surroundings."
Chao Jian adjusted the height of his crutches and led the way: "Follow me."
We arrived at the cave safely along the way.
Chen Yang went in and took a look. The cave was still the same as it was in the morning.
Chao Jian was not surprised. It was obvious that this result was within his expectations, so Chen Yang was no longer panicked.
"Let's just stay outside so we can find out in time if anything comes."
Chen Yang sat on the stone, bent over and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, pulling out the thorns and broken leaves that were stuck to his clothes. When he came, he walked while looking back to cover the traces they left behind.
Even Zhang Yan, who had been here once, was not easy to find.
It's safe here for now.
Chen Yang looked at the boy whose cold was getting worse. The scene at the foot of the mountain reappeared before his eyes. There was no one like them among the pile of people. It was unclear whether they were locked up or dead.
The situation is not favorable for them.
"Aunt Liu's youngest son died after eating fertilizer for several days. It took only a few hours for Old Lady Li to eat fertilizer and bury herself. And Grandma Qi got ghost needles before she died."
Chen Yang rubbed his wet face and said, "Now another kind has appeared. They are not human, and they can't turn into plants. When they die, they just become a pool of plant juice."
"This curse has no fixed rules. It cannot be avoided. If you are hit, you will just be waiting for death."
The answer to Chen Yang was a cough, which sounded like rust.
Chen Yang was helpless and could only try to analyze the situation and collect clues as much as possible. The sooner he found out the cause and effect, the sooner he could get out of the predicament.
When you go back, your cold will be cured and the curse will disappear.
Chen Yang got closer to the boy, playing with a branch in his hand, and asked casually, "What kind of meat do you think the monster eats raw?"
Chao Jian coughed and said, "You know."
Chen Yang's hand trembled, and a thorn pierced his fingertips, and a drop of bright red blood oozed out. He lowered his head and sucked it away, without saying anything.
The sun is playing hide-and-seek with the clouds.
Chen Yang took a nap, and when he woke up he saw the boy looking at his phone. He stretched his neck to check, and found that only one bar of battery was consumed.
"What brand is your phone? The battery is very durable."
Chao Jian glanced at him and said, "It will take time to get it if it is custom made."
Chen Yang didn't understand.
He said something in an inaudible voice to Chao Jian, then used his crutch to clear a piece of barely clean ground, picked up a branch and started writing and drawing something.
Chen Yang looked over.
One end is Li and the other end is Shi. There is an arrow in the middle pointing in the positive direction with seventy written on it, and an arrow in the reverse direction with forty-five written on it.
Chen Yang figured out what he meant, but didn't interrupt. He just glanced at the boy with a complicated look, wondering when the other party had used his mobile phone to record the duration. Even he didn't know, so it was even less likely that others would notice this.
When they came here in the morning, Zhou Xiaoxiao was startled and dragged their feet. Plus, they were not familiar with the road conditions, so it was normal for it to take longer, and it was also normal for it to take much less time when they went back.
Chao Jian drew two more stick figures.
Chen Yang saw him write 180 next to the short one and 190 next to the tall one.
"?"
Even without indicating their height, he would have known it was them, right? Don't he have this much IQ
Chao Jian marked the matchstick man's height, drew an arrow, and wrote "Shi, sixty-five".
Chen Yang had anticipated how long this would take. It would take time for the trampled grass and thorns along the way to recover, so he still didn't say anything.
Chao Jian threw away the branch and coughed a few times, then said in a hoarse voice, "On the day Zhou Xiaoxiao and Huang Qing disappeared, we had breakfast and went our separate ways, around 8:30 in the morning."
Chen Yang thought of something and his heartbeat quickened: "Are you calculating the time when Zhou Xiaoxiao and Huang Qing entered the cave?"
Chao Jian said, "I can't figure it out, so I just wrote it for fun."
"..." Chen Yang swallowed all the words in his mind.
Chao Jian rubbed his fingertips on the phone screen: "It's 9:45 now. We entered the cave three minutes ago and there was nothing unusual. Let's go again at 10 o'clock."
Chen Yang didn't ask any more questions: "Okay."
Fifteen minutes passed quickly and Chen Yang felt like he was in a daze for a while. He stood up, brushed off the dirt on his body, and walked into the cave for the second time with Chao Jian.
Still no results.
After that, every five minutes, Chao Jian asked Chen Yang to go in with him.
Chen Yang knew that Chao Jian had some ideas in his mind that he wanted to verify, and he had no other way but to use the dumbest method. He had no complaints, but he felt tortured to go in and count each time.
Fortunately, the cave is not big and it only takes a few steps to go in and out.
Entering again, Chen Yang held up his phone and took a photo of the cave as he went through the process: "With such frequent tests, don't you think there will be ghosts here at some point..."
Before he could finish his words, the breathing sounds beside him stopped.
Chen Yang's scalp instantly went numb, and he grasped the phone tightly and shook it around.
"Chao Jian?"
"… Chao Jian?"
"Chao Jian!"
Chen Yang's palms were wet and cold, and the phone fell to the ground with a "bang". His pupils trembled with fear, and he picked up the phone in panic.
The stone cave was still the same stone cave. It was only about twenty steps to walk back and forth, but there was no sign of Chao Jian.
There is only the sound of my own footsteps.
Worried that he might really attract that thing, Chen Yang didn't dare to stay any longer and ran out with trembling steps.
The moment he went out, Chen Yang's frightened soul returned to his body.
Fortunately, I was able to come out.
What he saw the next second shocked him.
The young man who had been missing from the cave just now was now walking out of the cave with crutches.
Chen Yang first looked at his shadow, then closed his dry eyes and tried his best to act natural: "Where was our first meeting in the real world?"
Chao Jian didn't say anything.
Chen Yang continued, changing his tack: "Chao Chao?"
Chao Jian's figure swayed vaguely: "What are you testing? It's me."
With this irrelevant answer, Chen Yang was inexplicably certain that the boy was real. He was no longer afraid, but was left panicking: "Then where did you go?"
"It's been in the cave all the time." Chao Jian said.
Chen Yang was stunned: "Then you didn't see me or hear my shouting?"
Chao Jian: “Yeah.”
Chen Yang was struck by lightning: "What's going on?"
Chao Jian was leaning on crutches, his back slightly hunched, looking at him calmly.
Chen Yang felt nervous and cautious as if he was called by the teacher to answer a question. He looked into the boy's eyes which were as dark as the abyss, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“It’s spatial overlap.”
Everything makes sense.
This is why Zhou Xiaoxiao and Huang Qing stayed in a cave for such a long time without knowing each other's existence, but they did not lie.
They entered the same cave, but it was not in the same space.
Chen Yang and Chao Jian did not discuss it immediately, but continued to enter and exit the cave tacitly. Finally, they discovered that the overlapping space appeared at 10:35 and disappeared at exactly 12 noon.
Lasted one hour and twenty-five minutes.
Zhou Xiaoxiao and Huang Qing went in during that time period.
The reason why the two did not discover the secret of the cave was because they had been hiding inside it all the time, never coming out and going back in, and had always stayed in the overlapping space.
Otherwise, if you go in after that time period, you will be able to see the other person.
"Are there only two spaces in the cave, or are there more?"
Chen Yang was filled with excitement, and saw the dawn of returning to the real world: "How about we find other people and try together?"
Chao Jian casually swept the ground with his cane: "No need, two are enough, I can find the overlapping points."
Upon hearing this, Chen Yang gave up the idea of looking for Zhang Yan and the others.
It’s best not to look for it.
Now they are all scattered and no one knows where they are. It is difficult and dangerous to find them.
"Do you think there is something wrong with Awu?"
Chen Yang said to himself: "I think he knows that there is space in the cave. Wait for you to find the overlapping points. Let's see if we can find anything related to the disappeared civilization, and then we can go find him."
He kept swinging the cane in Jian's hand, sweeping it a few times and then stopping to think.
It was very abstract and Chen Yang couldn't understand it.
"You can think of anything else. I'll go look around to see if there's anything to eat."
As soon as he finished speaking, there was a cell phone in his arms.
Chao Jian: "There is no password. Stay here and play games."
Chen Yang: “…”
In the afternoon, Lin Yue appeared in front of the cave.
Chen Yang was very surprised, he thought Zhang Yan would be the first to come.
Lin Yue was alone, with some dried green liquid on her clothes.
Seeing Chen Yang's scrutinizing gaze, she said lightly, "I did this to pretend to be one of their kind, so it would be nice to make them slow down for a while."
Chen Yang said "Oh" and didn't ask her about her experience in detail.
They don't get along.
Lin Yue saw him eating green fruit and asked casually, "Aren't you afraid it's poisonous?"
"fine."
Lin Yue gently brushed the long hair beside her cheek: "You are okay."
Chen Yang seemed not to have heard her and did not ask her if she wanted to eat. He just ate two, which were the size of apples that the boy had knocked down for him with his crutch. They were eaten each.
Lin Yue turned her gaze towards the young man who was leaning against the stone cave with his eyes closed, breathing heavily, and looking abnormal: "Has he mutated?"
Chen Yang said: "It's just a cold."
Lin Yue was still watching: "Really? He doesn't look well... Tsk, he has a fever."
"There's no medicine here. If he doesn't finish his mission and return soon, he'll burn to death."
Chen Yang frowned: "Have you seen Zhang Yan and Zhao Yuan?"
"No." Lin Yue retracted her gaze, "I was with Awu."
Chen Yang paused with his hand holding the half fruit, and asked calmly: "Awu? Where is he?"
Lin Yue said lightly: "Dead."
Chen Yang's heart sank. He had finally locked onto a suspicious target, but before he could even find him, he was dead
"I wanted to bring him here, but when I was about to bring him here, he dug a hole with his hands and buried himself in it, turning into a carrot." Lin Yue pointed, "It's right over there."
Chen Yang didn't smell the fertilizer in her mouth: "Radish? Don't they all turn into plants? And vegetables and fruits?"
"Yeah, if I hadn't seen him mutate with my own eyes, I would have wanted to dig him out and eat him." Lin Yue said coldly.
Chen Yang ate half of the fruit in a few bites: "Take me over to have a look."
Lin Yue crossed her arms and raised her chin towards the young man: "What about him? Not with him?"
Chen Yang wiped his mouth: "Isn't it not far from here? I'll be back soon."
The second half of the sentence is directed to the young man.
Not long after leaving the stone cave, Lin Yue stopped and said, "It's right there."
Chen Yang looked past her and asked, "Where?"
"Front."
Chen Yang turned his back to her and searched in the bushes: "I didn't see any radishes."
Lin Yue, who was standing behind him, said, "Isn't it right there?", while tightly grasping the carefully polished iron sheet, raised her hand and scratched it towards the young man's clean neck, but was kicked to the ground just before it touched the young man.
The blow was so severe that her internal organs were in pain and she couldn't even get up.
Chen Yang's face was expressionless: "You really want to kill me."