Chapter 329 Dreamland: Kuai Hongji's dense forest and fanatics
Chapter 329 Dreamland Kuai Hongji's dense forest, and... "Fanatical believers"
May 023, X5, the "Dome", an annex building of the gymnasium.
Lin Yi had a dream while sleeping soundly.
In his dream, he seemed to have entered a dense jungle. This jungle was both familiar and unfamiliar. It seemed to be the green belt on campus, but it was different. It was like a corner forgotten by the world, exuding a chilling atmosphere.
The light struggled to penetrate the layers of branches and leaves, but it had become extremely dim, like the last breath of a dying person, weak and powerless.
Every ray of light was like a prisoner swallowed by the darkness, gradually disappearing in the struggle, leaving only mottled, almost imperceptible light and shadows on the ground. Those light images were like ghosts hidden in the darkness, twisted and irregular, and seemed to be squirming restlessly with the occasional breeze.
The fog was like a huge, cold white snake, winding and circling, tightly entangling the entire dense forest.
It permeated every inch of space, thick and damp, like miasma gushing out from the depths of hell.
In the fog, everything became blurred and the outlines of the trees were looming, like a group of monsters with bared fangs and claws in the dark.
Occasionally, the fog would disperse briefly, but then quickly gather again as if deliberately teasing the intruder, ruthlessly extinguishing that brief glimmer of hope once again.
The trees here seemed to be twisted by some evil force, with their trunks bent at unreasonable angles, like limbs struggling in pain.
Their bark is rough and cracked, like deep wrinkles carved by time and pain. The branches are like dry arms, stretching helplessly toward the sky, and seem to be pulling and entangled with each other, as if they are engaged in an endless battle. There are also some yellow leaves hanging on the branches that may fall at any time, making a rustling sound in the breeze, and the sound is like a sobbing whisper, which makes people unconsciously get goose bumps.
Rushs of air shuttled through the twisted trees, making a sharp "woooo" sound, sometimes high, sometimes low, like a tortured soul wailing in endless darkness.
Some wind blew through the dry branches, making a rustling sound, as if a pair of invisible giant hands were shaking the entire dense forest vigorously.
Gradually, he heard some rustling sounds, as if something was moving on dead leaves and soft soil. As his "perspective" continued to go deeper into the dense forest, he gradually saw some vague figures. These figures were very different from the shadows of old trees with gnarled branches. From a distance, he could tell that they were "people" - or at least things with human-shaped outlines.
Soon, Lin Yi analyzed what those things with human-shaped outlines were by decomposing the movement patterns between different scenes and fog in his field of vision and combining them with the patterns of light and shadow changes - human-shaped sculptures.
However, compared to the pseudo-human sculptures in the sculpture array, the human-shaped sculptures here gave him a more bizarre feeling. If those that had the ability to enter under the light curtain of the lamppost were new pseudo-human sculptures, then the human-shaped sculptures here should be old pseudo-human sculptures.
These human-shaped sculptures are scattered around and move along certain specific tracks, like loyal guards.
Before he could react, the vision in his dream began to move...
The original body in the field of vision was moving swiftly in the fog, so agile that it didn't seem like a human being, but more like some kind of ghost riding the wind.
Lin Yi's thoughts moved slightly, and he tried to pull his vision back a little.
So just like when he entered Mao Feiyang's perspective in his dream, he now floated out of the original body of this vision like a wisp of smoke...
After seeing this person clearly, he should have been shocked, but instead he was calmer than he expected, as if it was supposed to be this way.
He saw the original person in his vision - Kuai Hongji.
This is actually Kuai Hongji’s perspective.
Absolutely unexpected, yet within reason.
During the two days of dreams, he mostly followed Maozi's experience of being an artist from Maozi's perspective, and rarely entered into Kuai Hongji's perspective.
Unexpectedly, this time it was from Kuai Hongji's perspective.
"Kuai Kuai, are you traveling through the dense forest?"
“When did this happen?”
He subconsciously glanced at his wrist, but unfortunately, there was no quartz watch on it.
After entering the campus, Kuai Hongji almost always maintained the rhythm of fighting alone. Except for a few times of eating and returning to the dormitory, he did not have much communication with them.
He knew that Kuai Hongji had entered the green forest belt, but he didn't know what he was doing inside. Therefore, he had always been curious about Kuai Hongji's perspective, but he didn't expect to see it at this time.
Kuai Hongji was still moving deep in the jungle, and now the fog in the jungle was so thick that it was far beyond imagination. Those with poor eyesight could not tell whether it was a tree trunk or a human-shaped sculpture, or something even more bizarre.
"Kuai Kuai is moving here, isn't it affected at all?"
Lin Yi was a little puzzled. Logically speaking, if he wanted to stay rational in this kind of environment, he at least needed to be aware of the things he would see in advance.
But when did Kuai Hongji have such a deep understanding?
"Did he know everything from the beginning?"
"No... Am I the only one who knows nothing?"
In Lin Yi's understanding, Tian Bufan knew the most, but now it seems that Kuai Hongji is the strangest one. The logic of his behavior is as if he is carrying out a specific task.
His purpose is too clear.
What made Lin Yi feel even more incredible was that he tried to use his vision to observe Kuai Hongji, but found that Kuai Hongji was like a transparent man. He shuttled through this place full of fog and pollution, but all the aura passed through his body.
This is somewhat similar to his previous method of allowing "original pollution" to flow in and out of his body.
But at that time he at least took a scoop from the Three Thousand Weak Waters, but Kuai Hongji didn't touch a drop, as if he didn't exist.
"Wait... doesn't exist?"
"Could it be that in the 'cognition' of these non-human entities, Kuai Kuai does not exist now?"
Just like the original pseudo-human sculpture, which anchored each other through mutual perception and then searched for the enemy in the void, these human-shaped sculptures could not sense the existence of Kuai Hongji at all, so they could not find him?
This technique is like a very advanced form of "stealth", even reaching the level of "invisibility".
Lin Yi didn't know how Kuai Hongji did it.
The cold air seemed to materialize and came from all directions. Even though it was just a dream, Lin Yi still felt it, as if it invaded every pore of his body and made his blood freeze. He didn't breathe, but he could feel that every breath of Kuai Hongji seemed to absorb the coldness around him into his heart and lungs, making him shiver involuntarily.
Lin Yi vaguely remembered that deep in the dense forest, there was a dividing line between light and shadow, a place that even Mu Daxian did not bring Maozi into.
However, Kuai Hongji traveled deep in the dense forest for a long time, but he never let Lin Yi see such a dividing line.
Not only was there no such dividing line, there wasn't even any abandoned lamp posts to be seen.
"Haven't we reached that limit yet?" Lin Yi had some doubts in his mind, but looking at the increasingly weird and unfamiliar environment, he suddenly realized that perhaps the opposite was true!
It’s not that Kuai Hongji hasn’t crossed that line yet, but that he has already crossed it a long time ago!
Lin Yi then followed Kuai Hongji, moving through the depths of the dense forest like a ghost. He passed through layer after layer of patrol circles of human-shaped sculptures, and finally came to a dark world completely obscured by lush leaves.
The ancient trees here were cut down according to a certain pattern, and some areas have become a completely barren, cracked land. The momentum of vegetation growing from the dense forest to the cracked land is being reduced like melting ice and snow.
It is extremely abnormal to have such an area in such a damp and dense forest.
It was a desolate land that seemed to have been forgotten by the world. There were some huge milky white stones scattered on the ground. It was difficult to define what material these stones were made of just by a distant glance, but Lin Yi's first impression was that they were like plaster that could be used for sculptures.
However, compared with traditional plaster, the stone in front of us seems to be harder.
Kuai Hongji stopped at the edge of the barren land. His thin body like a bamboo flexibly climbed up the branches of the ancient tree along the twisted branches, blending into the surrounding environment like a stick insect.
At this moment, he was hiding among the twisted branches like a very patient hunter, his pair of gloomy eyes fixed on the scattered giant rocks. It was unknown what he was observing, but he should be waiting for some opportunity.
Lin Yi then began to observe those large plaster-like stones. His eyes penetrated the floating mist and vaguely saw some moving figures.
"There are living creatures here?!"
Lin Yi was startled. Those figures were still human-shaped, but compared to human sculptures, they seemed to have some special... "rhythm".
Suddenly, he discovered that a figure was walking out from behind a large plaster body that was relatively close to him.
Because the distance was relatively close, and the fog was floating in waves, he could see the nearest figure clearly this time.
It was a man wearing a dark green cloak and a hood, holding a strange vessel in his hand, and there seemed to be some axes and chisels hanging around his waist, like a combination of a mentally ill bricklayer and a carpenter.
In the vessel in his hand, there was some sticky milky white paste.
Due to the severe obstruction of his vision, Lin Yi could not see the facial expression of the figure clearly, but even from a long distance, Lin Yi could feel the wild enthusiasm, morbid piety, greed and restless madness emanating from him...
“‘Fanatical’…?!”
At this moment, this word popped up in Lin Yi's mind for no reason. He didn't know whether it came from his intuition or a slight fluctuation of consciousness in Kuai Hongji's heart.
Regardless of whether it was related to Kuai Hongji, his intuition told him that this guy was a fanatic, and the guys behind him were also fanatics.
I still remember that the first time Lin Yi heard the term "fanatic" was from Mu Daxian's mouth.
Now seeing this situation, the first term that came to his mind was "fanatic".
These people seem to have the characteristics of an art department, but they do not have the green aura of art, but a mixed aura of gray-green.
The dark green robes they were wearing also turned into tattered cloaks.
The style of the cloak was like the same robe that an art student originally wore, but it was torn to pieces by the swarm of bats in a bat cave when passing through it.
This fanatic gestured devoutly in front of the large plaster body. From time to time, he stretched out his hand to scoop up some paste from the container and smeared it on the plaster body. He muttered something in his mouth, which sounded buzzing and made people feel uncomfortable in their heads.
When the fanatic had finished applying all the ointment, he reluctantly left with the vessel in his hand. Then, like the movement of gears, another fanatic came out from the depths of the desolate land shrouded in fog, took over his job, and continued to fiddle with the large plaster body.
He observed the other large plaster bodies again, and he immediately found that in front of each of the large plaster bodies he observed, there was at least one fanatic doing something.
Lin Yi immediately realized that these fanatics were carrying out some organized and disciplined secret activities.
As he observed the large plaster bodies, he discovered that these large plaster bodies did not seem to be... "dead objects."
When he noticed this, those large plaster bodies became more vivid in his "perception". He could see that the surface of these large plaster bodies seemed to have some slight undulations, like the cocoons of some creatures.
“Boom… boom… boom…”
He seemed to be able to hear some subtle noises, and even the surrounding fog seemed to be affected by the noises, sending out ripples in all directions in a very regular rhythm...
Lin Yi's eyes suddenly flashed with a gleam of light: "Why are the ripples in the mist so similar to the gray mist ripples on the dome playground?!"
"Could these plaster bodies be the source of the gray fog fluctuations?!"
"Kuai Kuai came here alone, could it be related to these large plaster bodies?"
"Or... is it related to some kind of activity that the fanatics are carrying out?"
Thinking of this, Lin Yi felt more and more that everyone in the dormitory seemed to be here with a mysterious mission, and he was the only one who really came to "experience seven days".
No.
From now on, his life experience seems to have deviated from the normal track...
However, just as he had this thought, he discovered that Kuai Hongji's attention had been diverted to the depths of the barren land.
It seems that something existing over there is actually related to the purpose of Kuai Hongji's coming here.
(End of this chapter)