deadly round table

The branches of the sacred tree are full of fruit, they are about the same size, about the size of an adult's fist, they look like ripe peaches, their shape is plump and their color is bright red.But no one will confuse them with peaches, because peaches are immobile. The fruits attached to the branches of the sacred tree shrink and shrink rhythmically, and every beat is very powerful, making a plopping sound...

Jiang Wenyuan and the others stared at the sacred tree in astonishment——

Those beating fruits turned out to be human hearts!

The canopy of the sacred tree stretches extremely wide, and the number of hearts on the sacred tree is too many to count.Among the densely packed hearts, most of them are complete hearts. Under the sun, these hearts have no physical entities, but they reflect a complete figure out of thin air; the remaining hearts are torn from the middle, although they are still beating, but There were no figures beneath them.

The appearance of the sacred tree was so terrifying that Li Na couldn't continue to look at it. She lowered her head and looked away from the crown of the sacred tree.This avoidance made her see a lot of strange things.

On the soil where the roots of the sacred tree are entrenched, not a single blade of grass grows.The mud is full of debris, fluorescent lamps, flashlights, candles, etc., as long as it can be used as a light source, you can find it here.Among the abandoned light sources that have been fused with the earth, there is one thing that looks new. It is a smartphone, the back of which is facing up, and the flashlight that comes with it is still burning.

Li Na suddenly thought of the player whose shadow disappeared on the second floor. He threw away his mobile phone on the way to Dabu Village.Li Na is sure that they did not pass near the sacred tree on their way to Dabu Village.If the phone in the mud is the phone that the player lost, who brought it here?

"Everyone spread out, find a place to hide, and cover the shadow with black gauze!" Jiang Wenyuan whispered extremely fast.

Everyone looked for a nearby hidden place to block their figures, quietly poked their heads out under the black veil, and looked at the mutated sacred tree.I saw a heart growing on the edge suddenly beating faster and trembling violently.

The heart was torn apart from the inside by something, and a mass of pitch-black things shook and slowly grew into shape, trying to crawl out of the heart.It wears the shadow in the sun like it is wearing clothes. When it completely detaches from the heart and jumps to the ground, the heart has been completely cracked, and the human-shaped shadow of the heart has disappeared.

The monster that fell to the ground was almost exactly the same as the black shadow monster that Jiang Wenyuan and Jiang Zhan encountered in Dabu Village. It was completely black, without a face, and the edges of its figure were fogged and blurred. Only its arms and feet could be barely distinguished.

Jiang Wenyuan had a bad premonition experience. When he saw that the player and tourist on the second floor lost their shadows, and then thought of the monster's stretchable and curved features like a snake, he already suspected that there might be more than one black shadow monster.Jiang Wenyuan looked at the shadows on the ground in vain. There are hundreds of thousands of monsters that have not yet formed. What about the monsters that have already formed? Just thinking about their number makes people feel creepy...

The newly hatched black shadow monster staggered on the muddy ground for a while.Walking, it found the smart phone on the mud floor that had been on for a whole day and night and hadn't been turned off.It picked up the phone, and directed the light of the phone's flashlight at itself. Where the light of the phone's flashlight irradiated, the foggy and fuzzy edges gradually became clear.The black shadow monster fondly played with the mobile phone, and after playing for a long time, he reluctantly put the mobile phone back on the mud floor carefully, aiming the direction of the mobile phone flashlight at the unhatched heart fruit on the treetop.

The black shadow monster came out from under the canopy staggeringly. It was a coincidence that the direction happened to be the hiding place of Jiang Wenyuan and the others.

Jiang Wenyuan held the black gauze umbrella and squeezed the golden fork with a wooden handle in his hand. Since it was a humanoid monster hatched from the human heart, the location of the heart should be the weak point.

Jiang Wenyuan's center of gravity leaned forward slightly, and the hand holding the golden fork with a wooden handle rested on the ground, ready to catch it by surprise.Unexpectedly, a white cloud floated over, just blocking the sunlight shining on Jiang Wenyuan and the others. The black shadow monster had just hatched, and its thirst for light was very strong. It temporarily changed its course and caught up with no clouds at a fast speed engulfed by sunlight.

After the black shadow monster disappeared without a trace, Jiang Wenyuan walked out from behind the stone holding a black gauze umbrella, looking at the sacred tree thoughtfully.Li Na punched her weak legs a few times, and barely stood up. Jiang Wenyuan's focused eyes made her feel a little flustered, "Brother Chen, don't you want to get a heart and go back to study?"

Jiang Wenyuan shook his head, "It's not yet time to study the heart. The speed of the black shadow monster is too fast, and its limbs can deform and stretch. Let's go back to Dabu Village first and find a way to deal with the black shadow monster from the villagers as soon as possible." , so as not to be helpless against the shadow monster next time."

"Understood." Li Na nodded resignedly. It's not time for research now, which means she will do research in the future?She really wanted to know where Jiang Wenyuan's courage came from, even with such a terrifying heart, she wanted to get one to study.

Several people have already seen how thirsty the shadow monsters are for light. When they walked back to the village, they turned their heads to be vigilant. They tried to hide under the shadow of the clouds and took a long detour. port village.

It was approaching noon, which should have been the quietest time in Dabu Village, but now it was not only quiet at all, but also made people smell uneasy.The people living in the second-floor building, except for the two players and tourists whose shadows disappeared strangely, all gathered in the open space in front of the first floor, and each of them held something that could be used as a weapon in their hands.

Now that the sun is shining, the teaching assistant saw Jiang Wenyuan and the others come back, and swept around the four of them to make sure that their shadows were not taken away, and then said anxiously to them: "Where did the four of you go this morning?" Yes, we have been searching for a long time but we have not seen anyone, we thought you were killed by the villagers of Dabu Village!"

Jiang Wenyuan always felt that something was wrong. He concealed the matter of seeing the sacred tree, "We are very interested in the branches and leaves of the sacred tree, so we went to investigate the situation in the forest. Is there any important thing for you to gather here? What happened to Bucun?"

"Your classmate and a tourist have something strange. We very much suspect that Dabu Village has tampered with them." The assistant teacher said angrily, reaching out to grab Jiang Wenyuan's hand, "You came back just in time, let's go, follow Let's go to the village chief's house to ask for an explanation! Does Dabu Village treat people who live in small two-story buildings as sacrifices!"

Jiang Wenyuan avoided the teaching assistant's movements without any trace, "We have been busy in the forest all morning, and we are very tired. We need a good rest. The four of us will not go to the village chief's house. I believe that the professor and the teaching assistant must justice will be done for us."

When Jiang Wenyuan said this, the teaching assistant couldn't force him, so he returned to the professor, and the professor led everyone to set off to the village chief's house.The players who passed by Jiang Wenyuan and the other four with weapons all cast contemptuous looks at them, as if they regarded them as deserters on the battlefield and cast aside them endlessly.

The four returned to their room, and after closing the door, Li Na said anxiously: "Brother Chen, why don't we share the information on the sacred tree with them. I don't think it's time to monopolize the information now. If the black shadow on the sacred tree The monster was hatched at once, and with the strength of the four of us, we couldn't deal with it at all."

"I don't want to keep the information about the sacred tree to myself, but they look weird, so I didn't say anything." Jiang Wenyuan sat down at the small table and repeated, "There are too many weird things."

Jiang Zhan sat down next to Jiang Wenyuan silently, and poured a cup of tea for himself and Jiang Wenyuan respectively, "The biggest doubt should be those two passengers. The behavior of those two passengers is very worthy of investigation."

"Why do you say that?" Li Na pushed Lu Yingqi to his empty seat on the small table, and then sat down. She filled a cup of tea and pushed the teacup in front of Lu Yingqi, "You drink first, and I will wash the cup later. Drink again."

Due to various reasons, they never had time to go to the empty room to get an extra cup, so there were only three cups, so they could only make do with it.

Jiang Wenyuan held the teacup, didn't drink it, but felt the heat of the tea through the teacup, "The behavior of the two passengers following the professor and the teaching assistant to find the village head is very unreasonable. If the relationship between the two of them and the victim passenger If they are close, then they should be the first to discover the anomaly. However, in fact, we were the first to discover the absence of the victim, which shows that the relationship between the three passengers is not close. Ordinary companions encountered something that science cannot explain. Isn't it more reasonable to run away or call the police at this time, why do you have to ask the village chief for an explanation?"

Li Na was also inspired by Jiang Wenyuan's words, "Speaking of which, they are really weird. They came earlier than the players, and they didn't leave until after the sacred tree festival was over. Dabu Village is only a small place. If they really came to travel, One or two days is enough to appreciate the customs of Dabu Village. If the three travelers want to stay in Dabu Village for such a long time, do they have other purposes..."

"Not only the three passengers, but also the professor and teaching assistant are a little weird." Jiang Wenyuan let go of his teacup and went to take out the lantern hidden under the bed. He put the lantern on the table and lit the light blue lantern, " Shadow monsters perceive their prey through light and shadow, and they like all light sources. For shadow monsters, lanterns have no effect. So far, I have found that the only function of lanterns is to distinguish between living people and dead people whose shadows have been taken away."

Lu Yingqi asked humbly: "Brother Chen, what you mean is that the professor and teaching assistants probably knew about the black shadow monster before they came to Dabu Village, and that after the black shadow monster took away a person's heart, that person would become a living creature without a shadow." dead?"

"How much they know, I'm not sure." Jiang Wenyuan shook his head, "Actually, a common light source is enough to distinguish between the living and the dead, but the teaching assistant's lantern is more special. The brightness and color temperature of the lantern are something that the villagers of Dabu Village can understand." Accepted, this is a tool used by the villagers of Dabu Village, who live in darkness all year round, to judge whether the people around them are still alive. The professor and teaching assistants use lanterns to travel, and maybe some of them have blood relations with Dabu Village.”

In an instant, Li Na figured out that the love affair between a girl from Dabu Village and an outsider is not allowed in the village. They both died, leaving only one child, and the child came back for revenge.Li Na was so excited that she accidentally knocked over the cup of tea she offered to Lu Yingqi. Lu Yingqi had trouble moving, and her knees were splashed. "Ahhh—I'm sorry!"

Li Na hurriedly helped Lu Yingqi move the wheelchair away, and found a dry cloth to wipe his legs, "You didn't burn you, did you?"

Lu Yingqi replied: "I have no feeling in my leg, no problem."

Li Na felt even more guilty when she heard Lu Yingqi's words.

Lu Yingqi was more concerned about those players than whether his legs were burned, "Will there be any trouble for those players to go to the village chief to argue with them?"

There was no need for Jiang Wenyuan to answer this question, someone else gave Lu Yingqi the answer.

Bang bang bang!

Their door was knocked loudly, Jiang Zhan got up to open the door, and the person who came was a young man from Dabu Village who delivered meals to them every day on time.The black veil on his body was covered more tightly than ever. He was holding a knife in his hand. The black veil on his body could not see blood, but it had a strong smell of blood. After he looked around the room, he confirmed that the After everyone in the house had shadows, he said, "Do you know where the two people without shadows live?"

Jiang Zhan stopped the young man at the door, "Why don't you tell me what's going on with your blood first."

The young man raised his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose and his eyes were as sharp as a life-threatening sword. He sneered and said, "Then you might as well ask yourself, why do you slander Dabu Village and regard you as sacrifices for the sacred tree sacrifice!"

Jiang Zhan was not afraid of the killing intent hidden between the lines of the youth, he still blocked the door, "If we think that Dabu Village treats us as sacrifices, do you think you will stand here and talk to us? "

The young man's mood eased a little, "You didn't go to the village chief's house with those people to make trouble, so you can be regarded as sensible people. But starting today, Dabu Village will no longer provide you with two meals of fresh leaves every day. Discontinuous If you eat fresh branches and leaves, you will not have enough aura of the sacred tree in your body, and without the aura of the sacred tree as a cover, you will be the same as the villagers of Dabu Village, and you will be targeted by the black shadow monster at any time, so please ask yourself."

Jiang Zhanchao smiled at the young man, "Thank you for your advice, those two shadowless people are in the third room from left to right on the second floor."

The young man nodded, and strode towards the second floor with his knife in hand.

When the young man dragged two people wrapped in black gauze down from the second floor, the people who went to the village chief’s house to make trouble also came back. All of them had their hands tied behind their backs and strung together with a long rope. In a row, a few villagers from Dabu Village wrapped in black gauze guarded around them with knives and sticks in their hands.

Jiang Wenyuan and several people came out of the house, counted carefully, and there were four fewer people who came back, and they were all players, Liu Yunyun was one of them.Yang Xie and Liu Yunyun have the best relationship. She is standing in the team now, her body is covered in other people's blood, and she is out of breath from crying. Liu Yunyun is probably in danger, and the other three players are probably in the same situation.

The young man from Dabu village threw the two shadowless living dead to the ground. They were covered with black gauze, struggling and moving like insects. Looking at the rioters who were tied up in a row, the young man from Dabu village said, "Aren't you going to Did the village head ask you two companions what to do? The village head hopes that everyone can sit down and talk calmly, but you don’t want to listen, and even killed the village head brutally! I’ll tell you now, Dabu Village How to deal with the living dead."

Saying that, the youth of Dabu Village lifted the black veil of the two living dead on the ground!

The two living dead who had lost their shadows were exposed to the sun, and every inch of their skin began to burn, and their bodies were carbonized at a speed visible to the naked eye.The living dead traveler screamed and crawled towards his donkey friend. He screamed, "We came to Dabu Village to find the legend of eternal life. Doesn't it say that those who abandon the light can obtain eternal life? Why did I become In this way...you lied to me..."

The two travelers watched in horror as their companion turned into a burning black charcoal in the sun, and broke down crying, "We also heard that there is a legend of eternal life in Dabu Village, it's not our fault."

A young man in Dabu Village wanted to ask the question of eternal life, but he heard the villagers next to him shout: "The black shadow monster is here!"

Two corpses engulfed in flames under the scorching sun are the favorite light source of the shadow monster.The black shadow monsters are coming, and there are more than one!