stonecrandall Chapter 41: There was no fog this morning.
Chapter 41: There was no fog this morning.
Lin Weiwei's voice was deep and mysterious, even carrying a trembling sense of revealing taboos.
It's here!! Li Jiu's spirit trembled violently; the logic seemed to be finally starting to make sense...
The eerie figure in the rules of White Dragon Pool, the missing person mentioned by Lin Weiwei, and the inhuman attributes of the "staff"... everything seems to point to a chilling yet unknown bizarre truth!
He subconsciously glanced at Tang Mubai beside him, who was still trying to appear calm. He thought of how Tang Mubai had been in and drunk water from the pond after the plane crash, and how he had been scratching his skin, resulting in strange scratches... and how he had exhibited behavior that resembled "inhuman" behavior...
A chill ran straight to the top of Li Jiu's head! If Lin Weiwei's information was true, then if Tang Mubai really went to the Mushroom House for that examination, he would probably... never see him again?
Or, will we meet again as "staff members"...?
"The water in Bailongtan...is it really that terrifying? Then why are there boat tours and other similar activities?" Li Jiu's voice was filled with urgency and confusion. "Logically speaking, given the high risks of contact with the water, why not just close Bailongtan off?"
Lin Weiwei immediately understood Li Jiu's meaning and sneered, "Blockade? How naive, Li Jiu, you're oversimplifying things."
Lin Weiwei, who exudes youthful charm, looks at Li Jiu with an air of premature maturity.
"Do you know what a 'landscape' that is safe most of the time but occasionally causes some anomalies means to the authorities and certain organizations that control resources?"
"That's practically a top-tier gene serum! A key to unknown powers!"
"If we could grasp the mechanism of the White Dragon Pool's water and control the direction of its mutations... it would be tantamount to wielding the power to rewrite the code of life!"
"Faced with such temptation, who do you think would be willing to let go? Who would dare to let go?!"
"Nobody's here!"
"No one wants to let such an opportunity slip by!"
"Whether it's some private enterprises or... official entities."
Lin Weiwei truly lives up to her reputation as a moderator who possesses a wealth of inside information; every piece of news she utters is a bombshell. No wonder she dared not say these things in the Mushroom House, otherwise she would probably have been subdued on the spot.
She seemed to see the worry in Li Jiu's eyes as he looked at Tang Mubai, and changed the subject, her tone softening slightly: "But you can rest assured, although we haven't investigated what the problem is with the water in Bailongtan, one thing is certain: under normal circumstances, it's safe to come into contact with the water."
She paused for a moment: "The key is the 'fog'!"
"We strongly suspect that the water in Bailongtan only becomes extremely dangerous when a strange fog appears in the area."
"I speculate that the combination of mist and pool water produces some kind of magical reaction... Of course, this is just a guess."
"And, regarding the fog..."
"Based on our review of years of meteorological records and local accounts, the core area of Fulong Mountain, especially the Bailongtan area, seems to have never had any record of natural fog formation!"
"It's never fogged up before?!" Li Jiu exclaimed in surprise, stopping abruptly in his tracks and staring at Lin Weiwei in disbelief. "No! This can't be right!!"
He pointed in the direction of Bailongtan (White Dragon Pool) at the foot of the mountain.
"Just this morning! Shortly after Tang Mubai's plane crash... fog rolled in at White Dragon Pool! A grayish-white fog! It looked extremely eerie!"
"What?!" Lin Weiwei and Zhang Fanjie exclaimed in unison.
Zhang Fanjie subconsciously looked towards the direction of White Dragon Pool below the mountain, while Lin Weiwei's eyes were filled with disbelief: "Today?! When did this happen?!"
Almost at the same time, when Tang Mubai heard the words "grayish-white mist," his previously monkey-like appearance suddenly twitched almost imperceptibly, as if struck by an invisible electric current.
Li Jiu said, "It was this morning, when Lao Tang's plane crashed, that I ran towards Bailongtan. A huge fog rolled in along the way, a vast expanse of gray mist, and it took quite a while to dissipate!"
"No way? The weather's been great all day..." Lin Weiwei frowned, exchanging a surprised look with Zhang Fanjie. "Could it be—?!"
Upon hearing this, Li Jiu couldn't help but recall the past.
If he remembered correctly, the mountain mist arrived almost simultaneously with the swarm of snakes, and then they all disappeared together...
If Lin Weiwei's words are correct, then the only explanation is... that the mist, like the snakes, was something he saw after his inspiration struck.
If that's the case, then wouldn't that mean... the fog that has been rumored in Fulong Mountain all along was actually seen by people who had a burst of inspiration?
Lin Weiwei asked cautiously, "Besides the fog, what else did you see? For example... did you see any snakes? Lots and lots of snakes? Or... did you hear any chanting or something?"
Li Jiu's expression changed slightly, and he slowly nodded: "What you've described... I have indeed encountered all of these things."
Lin Weiwei snorted twice, as if to say, "You're not being honest, you're hiding things when you tell me crucial information."
Zhang Fanjie didn't speak, but instead glanced at Tang Mubai: "Why is your face so pale?"
Tang Mubai trembled, as if he had become a different person, his eyes filled with fear: "I remember seeing snakes when my plane crashed... I thought it was a hallucination, but now that I think about it... there really are a lot of snakes in the White Dragon Pool..."
Lin Weiwei gave Tang Mubai a deep look: "You...you're lucky, Tang Mubai. If you had gone to the Mushroom House for an inspection, who knows what you would have become when we saw you again!"
Tang Mubai spat several times, slightly reducing his fear, but his face remained deathly pale: "You're so sharp-tongued. I really want to run away right now..."
Zhang Fanjie said, "You can run. It's daytime now, so it's perfectly safe."
Tang Mubai pursed his lips and said, "No... I can't escape... Actually..."
Tang Mubai pursed his lips bitterly, shook his head, and said with a hint of despair in his voice, "No... I can't escape... Actually..."
"Shortly after I climbed out of the White Dragon Pool... a voice in my head told me... I can't escape..."
Li Jiu suddenly looked at Tang Mubai, a hint of anger in his eyes, but his words were full of concern: "What's wrong, Lao Tang? Why are you only telling me now? It's so important!"
Tang Mubai shook his head with a wry smile: "We hadn't yet determined the nature of this matter, had we? Until we left the Mushroom House, didn't we all just think we were hallucinating? I actually wanted to observe it a little longer..."
"That's definitely not an ordinary hallucination!" Lin Weiwei interrupted him. "Or rather, although they appear as hallucinations, they are completely different from ordinary hallucinations!"
"Hallucinations don't exist at all, but that... kind of thing does exist, only it exists in another 'layer'—a 'layer' superimposed on the world we see!"