Joan stood on tiptoe high, trying to get closer to the row of blurry characters above the door.
Fan Ning and Sheeran couldn't believe what they saw.
"What's wrong with this place name?" Roy asked in confusion.
"A former residence that she went home for every summer vacation in her memory, but actually didn't exist." Fan Ning explained simply, then turned around and scanned the small town full of lights in the dark, "How is this?
What's going on? I drove for more than two days and couldn't find it, but I accidentally came here during a trip to Fort Santalan."
Coincidence? Inevitability after unknown conditions are met? Or is someone secretly manipulating it?
The last group of residents who arrived late and had not yet entered the venue were still walking in twos and threes, passing Fan Ning one by one.
Sheeran stood side by side next to Fan Ning, watching the sleepy-looking people below walking around the figure-eight roundabout of the large dry fountain, and suddenly some past scenes flashed through her mind.
She touched Fan Ning with her arm: "Caron, this place, why do I feel a bit like you? Look at this roundabout, is it——"
"Police Security Bureau?" Fan Ning immediately answered her question.
He turned around and looked at the black building again. There were still lame and weird sounds coming from inside.
"Is this so-called concert hall the Police Security Bureau building in the center of Gogol Town that we visited? Or, at least, there is a similar mapping in terms of spatial location?"
He recalled the scene of him driving around this roundabout with two girls. The only difference was that the terrain was flat that day and there was a slight difference in height here.
"Although we don't know how we broke in, if there is indeed some connection between this small town of Vaznay and the real town of Gogol, maybe we can get out from the area where the two are connected."
When Xilan heard this, she had an idea: "Joan, where is your manor?"
"I have the impression that it is in the north of the city." Qiong replied, "It is far away from us now. It might have been closer when we first entered. But, there is a problem. The street view of this weird town is different from what I remember. I don't know.
It may not be possible to find it, or my ancestral home may not exist here.”
Fan Ning felt that this was indeed an idea. Since the name here was the small town of Watznai, perhaps he could find the exit by following special clues.
Of course, special clues also mean special risks.
He thought for a moment and asked: "Roy, is it possible to do divination for propositions such as 'the exit from here'?"
"Theoretically, it is possible, for example, writing the sentence 'There is an exit in a certain place', but there is a problem here, that is, the way of writing 'a certain place', first of all, it must be a clear place, otherwise it will lead to meaningless conclusions; secondly,
The range of the location needs to be considered. If it is too large, it is easy to get a positive conclusion, but it will not be instructive. If it is too small, if the conclusion is denied, a lot of attempts will still be needed."
"So I need to be certain in advance." Fan Ning nodded to express his understanding.
Even if the proposition "There is an exit in the town of Watznai" is correct, it is useless. "The house at the door has an exit" is highly likely to be wrong, which is a waste of inspiration. If the ancestral home in Joan's memory can be clearly found, this range is generally suitable.
Roy suggested: "It is better to follow what the young man just said and go to the Chengnan Hotel to visit his employer, Mr. Godfrey. Judging from the current situation, these aborigines are not monsters, but most of them are hostile to outsiders.
Indifferent, if there are potential communication opportunities, we might as well take advantage of them first, which will help us learn more.”
This plan was unanimously approved by everyone - as Roy said in the car before, "whether there is an exit" and "whether there is danger" are not related. The most important thing now is to avoid risks.
Everyone left this nervous concert and groped their way south along the dim streets. They saw four or five double-storey buildings next to the suburban gate where the gravel road was about to disappear. They were so repaired that no damage could be seen.
, there is a spacious but withered terraced garden in front of the door, and the dim gas lamp illuminates the mixed sign of "Godfrey's Grocery Hotel".
The wooden door at the entrance is ajar, and a few wooden sticks on the wall next to it are tilted upward to prop up the long board of the sales window. In the dim light, you can see the tobacco, alcohol, food, and daily groceries displayed in the glass cabinets.
The salesperson with a gloomy face and dejected demeanor was calmly looking at his group.
During the brief eye contact, Fan Ning felt a little weird, but he still gently opened the door, and a musty smell from under the wooden floor penetrated everyone's nostrils.
The salesperson's eyes did not move with the few people, but continued to stare directly outside the room. However, another old voice came from inside: "Outsiders? Hey, five at a time is not uncommon."
The stairwell creaked, and a thin old man with thick hair slowly walked down and sat down at the log table. The flame burning in the candlestick listlessly shone on the old man's red cheeks.
...Five at a time? It's obviously five hundred at a time. Fan Ning couldn't help but curse in his heart, but his vigilant spiritual sense had swept through this person's body.
This old man is a knowledgeable person, and he did not hide his inquiry into Fan Ning, but his rank is not as good as Fan Ning's, and he is not studying "Zhu". In this way, Fan Ning can see part of his background.
But he didn't see anything about himself.
Fan Ning motioned to the other people to stand and watch what happened. He took a step forward, sat down opposite the old man, and politely explained his purpose: "Old sir, we must have met your hotel staff at the entrance of the concert hall, so we found this place.
."
"Wow!" The old man unscrewed a bottle of wine without any visible brand, poured it into the glass and drank half of it. He took a long breath and smacked his lips again: "You want to ask a question, right? This is usually the case at first.
People who come to this damn place always have a lot of questions in their stomachs."
"Where is the exit? Or how to get out?" Fan Ning went straight to the point without comment.
"Your problem is that you have a big appetite." The old man took another sip and drank the remaining liquid. The smell of cheap alcohol and essence floated in the air.
His pretending to be profound made Fan Ning frown, but out of fear and vigilance for the mysterious side, he responded patiently and calmly: "If you can't answer this question, you can also talk about something else.
"
"I need inspiration, inspiration from you, the young gentleman, and the ladies behind you. You know, precious knowledge always requires some price in exchange." The old man's eyes showed enthusiasm.
"Oh?" Fan Ning looked at him with interest, "Why are you asking for help?"
Two velvet-like red strips wrapped around Fan Ning's wrists in a quick but silent manner, followed by more strips extending toward the people behind him.
"You will be a little tired later, but it doesn't matter. You can recover after some rest. I will tell you some basics right away-"
The gas lamp in the room flickered, candles everywhere were extinguished, and the red velvet suddenly turned black and cracked, and the foul smell of burnt meat wafted out.
The "click" sound of loading was heard, and the old man felt his mind stagnant and his vision blurred. A tall girl wearing a goose-yellow dress somehow stepped directly behind him, and the cold metal pressed against the back of his head.
Roy, who had regained his inspiration a little, said coldly at this moment: "If you can't answer, just say something else. It's better to do something else."
Sheeran, who was behind Fan Ning, had also raised his arm, and two black gun barrels were pointing at him one after another.
...So many knowledgeable people!? It seems that the person sitting opposite him is stronger than himself. The skinny old man suddenly found that he had kicked the iron plate today. He huddled up in his position and rolled his eyes: "Dear gentlemen and ladies,
If you have something to say, speak slowly."
On the surface, Julius seemed to be on the same team as Fan Ning, but she was equally arrogant at this time and did not dare to say anything. She was glad that she had not been there all the way from the moment she got in the car to the accident, whether she was in front of or behind several people.
Make some small moves.
Fan Ning took out a small dark glass tube with a volume of less than five milliliters from his body.
"I don't advocate taking action unless necessary." He put it on the table nonchalantly, "Especially when the actual benefits brought by taking action are extremely limited... I hope it will help you to share your attitude next time.
From being forced and helpless to being willing to help.”
The old man was stunned for a moment. Seeing that the young man in front of him had relaxed and leaned back on the chair, he tried to reach for the glass tube and pull out the rubber stopper at the mouth of the tube.
When he saw the incandescence and flames gushing out, his small eyes under the messy hair showed an ecstatic look. He poured himself a glass of inferior wine again, carefully added a few drops of radiant spirit liquid, and even more carefully collected the glass tube.
good.
He drank a large glass of glowing liquid in one gulp, and then let out a satisfied sigh.
Fan Ning couldn't help but raise his head and looked at Roy, who was holding a gun, strangely. Both of them seemed to be thinking, can this thing be eaten?
"I tried it, and it's edible, but it doesn't work and it doesn't taste good." Qiong's soft voice came to Fan Ning's ears.
Next, this strange old man Godfrey answered some questions under the dual stimulation of threats and gratitude.
In a sense, this guy is a complete unlucky guy. When he was young, he discovered the taboo about the 'pool' due to his own research on mysticism, but he didn't even have the experience of being a knowledgeable person in the normal world for a day - Chapter 1
Once when I was turning back from Yiyong, there may have been some mistakes in my route. When I opened my eyes, I realized that I didn't know how I ended up in this ghost place.
According to his own statement, this strange town called Vatznay is "a wrong folded time and space formed by the real world under the influence of the 'hidden light'" - this is the reason why he has been trapped in this town for dozens of years.
Over the years, I gradually received hidden revelations.
The people in the town are divided into two categories: outsiders who occasionally stray in from time to time, and aborigines. The so-called aborigines are actually the descendants of the previous outsiders who have lived here since they were born. As time goes by, the aliens
Generations of people have died here, and indigenous people now make up the majority.
"I can probably understand evaporation, but what are the hidden diseases?" Fan Ning asked about the two common dangers Godfrey introduced.
"People who live in this wrong time and space are in a state of neither lower nor upper." The old man added a few drops of high-quality spiritual liquid into a glass of inferior wine again. This time he drank slowly, "...there is no way to go back."
The normal world has not completely turned into nothingness yet - turning into nothingness here means evaporating."
"In the wilderness outside the town, if you are away from other people's observation, it will evaporate, all traces of existence will be erased, and it will be reduced to complete secrecy and nothingness. In the town, as long as you stay away from other people's sight for no more than an hour, you will be safe. This may be
It’s because the town is an area with dense human activities, and the residual factors such as spiritual bodies or observation auras are more intense, so it is relatively easy to do this while avoiding being alone.”
"But there is an exception, that is when going to bed, which can easily be out of sight for more than an hour, so everyone can only sleep separately and take turns keeping watch."
"What about the second danger?" Fan Ning asked
The old man muttered a name that he didn't hear clearly and kept standing in the shadow of the lamp. After hearing this, the ghost-like salesman came over.
Fan Ning was finally able to take a closer look at the salesperson, and soon he discovered a problem.
The face and skin color of this middle-aged man with a dull expression seemed a bit too pale under the light, and his skin was even so transparent that there was no trace of blood.
No, it wasn't just the skin. Fan Ning was horrified to see that his entire ears, neck and shoulders were translucent, and the things behind him could be seen directly.
"This is a hidden disease." Old Man Godfrey said, "Basically everyone in the town suffers from it, but the severity varies...perhaps it can be understood as a kind of chronic evaporation. As various parts of the human body become more and more transparent, corresponding
The function of the local organs will also be greatly reduced until they gradually die out. This process is more painful than sudden disappearance, but the ending is the same. The whole person disappears completely with all traces of existence. I can’t remember how to clearly explain it now.
After spelling out his name, I only have a rough pronunciation impression."
"However, as generations of people explore, they have found a practical way to alleviate hidden diseases, and that is to hold concerts."
The old man burped, looked at the height of one-third of the spiritual liquid in the glass tube, and gave Fan Ning a look that seemed to be bargaining, but the force from the barrel of Roy's gun pressed against the back of his head,
Let him give up this unrealistic idea.
"The level of performing in public is not very important, but it does require a certain amount of audience. The best effect is at three o'clock in the evening. At least once per person per month can reduce the speed of disappearing into nothingness. So everyone arranged each
Yue’s plan - let 20 people go up to play every night, and the other half listen, and everyone takes turns... The residents who don’t want to die so quickly have reluctantly learned an instrument."
…There seems to be something really wrong with all of these source gods. Fan Ning frowned when he heard this.
This is already the third source of artifact witness that he knows: "Red Pond" is an evil god, "Fountain in the Painting" is crazy, and "Hidden Lamp" seems to be extremely abnormal - this thing that comes out of his activities
You can see the error zone and all kinds of weird rules.
Living in such an atmosphere and routine, it is normal for these residents to act strangely.
"Where is the manor in the north of the city?" Fan Ning continued to ask, trying to confirm whether Qiong's memory of the ancestral home actually existed.
"Manor?" The other party's expression was stunned for a moment.
"...Or, a special place in the north of the city." In order to increase the possibility of getting clues, Fan Ning expanded the scope of his expression.
"A special place?" The old man's raised wine glass stopped emptying, and his lips were half-immersed in the liquid. "If we have to exclude those ordinary residential buildings-" He searched hard for memory, and then said: