Bizarre Detective Agency

   Chapter 1069 Seven. "The Sunken Land" (seven)

  7. Memory

  Life carries memory, and memory is like life, only existence has meaning. People do not mourn for lost memories, just as the dead will sleep forever after death.

  The burning bonfire dispelled the darkness and gloom around Luli. He leaned against the rock and lowered his head to write down the information of the first level. Soon after, Claire's handwriting appeared on the paper, asking Lu Li where the new level was. Lu Li raised his head again and observed this depressing and silent dark forest: a terrifying giant tree rose from the ground, taller than the chimneys he had ever seen. The twisted branches on the canopy shade the sky. Standing in this forest is as small as an ant. Dig out the wet, soft rotting mud, and the ground is packed with the roots of these terrifying giant trees. These tree roots made Lu Li recognize this place—a strange jungle in one of the forbidden places. After examining the silent evil parchment and summoning the merchant Anthony, Lu Li set foot on the road to the "wood cabin" and recalled various rumors about this place on the way:

  【The strange jungle is their territory, any outsider will be rejected and become a part of the jungle - nourishment. They fear fire, and they hate fire—the more they hate, the more they fear, and the more they fear, the more they hate. The wood hut is the only exception, and the corpse remains respected. If you find a hut, you will gain temporary peace. 】

  Lu Li held a torch and walked along the compass pointer in the vast and cold horror forest. But in the absence of a reference, the only function of the compass is to tell him which direction to go. Tree Whisperer doesn't work here, at least not entirely. The exorcist was not attacked by the forest like all the outsiders who stepped into this place, but he was also disliked. The proof is that the torch that should have been burning for more than ten minutes turned into smoke in just a few minutes. As if the serenity of the bonfire that had been raised before was just an illusion. However, after Lu Li consumed his humanity to release the power of the Tree Whisperer, the Forest of Terror acquiesced to his existence - before the power of the Tree Whisperer disappeared.

   Not long after, Lu Li peeped into the woods cabin deep in the gap between the terrifying giant trees, with the warm fireplace glowing in the window. It's just that he didn't go in or even get close, because the old sewer front and the conspiracy cobweb **** system occupied there, only them, no other camps - the fate of those people is self-evident. The contestants in the wooden house sincerely invited the exorcist who was drenched in shimmering light and surrounded by thriving plants, but Lu Li declined them, just hoping to get clues for the second level. They graciously handed out a note left to the players in the cabin: it asked the players to escape to the north exit of the grotesque jungle for three days, and points would still be awarded for eliminating other players.

The    note is real, and the location is confirmed by the mark on the crude map at the bottom: the middle of the strange jungle. But there is still a problem that cannot be understood: the level written on the note is the third level, not the second level, and the players in the wooden house do not know the reason. Putting aside his doubts temporarily, Lu Li turned around and walked into the dark forest, relying on the shelter of the Tree Whisperer to go to the next cabin in the woods. The time for a cup of coffee passed, and Lu Li approached a hut in the woods that was dormant in the dark and seemed untouched. But some players had come here and confronted each other - Lu Li's arrival disturbed the three players, the two humans recognized that it was an exorcist and relaxed, and the rest of the aliens fled into the forest, where it almost died because of it, it was Lu Li who saved him. got off him. They were no longer hostile because of Lu Li, and lit the fireplace and oil lamps to illuminate the strange jungle attached to the wooden wall. Notes:

  【Keep quiet and slow at all times, even in a hut in the woods】

  【Don’t stay too short or too long in the wood cabin. If you must, come out slowly, don't disturb them]

  【If anything appears to try to lure you out of the cabin, ignore it. Whether it's your deceased relatives or the temptation of power]

  【Your emotions will be perceived by the forest, like a tree, my friend】

  【Also remember to add firewood, don’t let the people behind you have no firewood to burn. You can pick it up in the forest around the cabin, be careful not to attract too much attention]

   After a short stay, Lu Lihe chose to follow his Willett Marvin and Inhuman Root into the lonely, dark forest of horrors like fireflies. In the third forest hut in front, they encountered two waves of players facing each other. It was also eased by the appearance of Lu Li, and then he was forced to stay in the hut in the woods because of the nightfall that followed. In the terrifying forest shrouded in darkness, unknown things gradually emerged, lured them out of the wooden house, including Lu Li - when the beautiful girl in a long white dress stood in the darkness and called his name, Lu Li couldn't remember who she was. "Anna... Mr. Lu Li, have you forgotten? That's your assistant and partner in the old days, the ghost girl Anna Bessie." Ole Lorenzo sighed, everyone here knows about exorcists and The story of the ghost assistant - except for Lu Li himself.

   Obviously, Lu Li is very healthy, without low sanity syndrome, amnesia or any kind of mental illness, but he really doesn't remember these people's definite stories that happened to him. But it didn't take long for them to realize that all of them had lost their memories - the memories of the past had disappeared with the forgotten second level. And how unfortunate are those who have lost their memory, who sadly cannot even remember the lost memory itself. At this time, Lu Li understood why this was the third level, and the true meaning of the third level: his memories were stored in every hut scattered in the strange jungle.

  The morning came, and the exorcist and his party continued northward. Every hut on the road had lost memories, but until he reached the last wooden hut before the forest exit, Lu Li still couldn't remember anything about Anna. And when he looked into the depths of the horror forest, he seemed to see the white-skirted girl named Anna waiting for him-in the end, Lu Li decided to return to the horror forest and embark on the road to find memories. It's a pity that luck doesn't always favor the exorcist. On the way to retrieve his memory, he was shot by an irrational contestant who was hiding inside the wooden house in the woods. The loud noise attracted the shadows hovering over the forest. The Tree Whisperer sheltered the landing from being swallowed by the shadows, but also substituted into the sky by them. In that wonderful balance of life and death, the evil parchment in his chest forges and falsifies the obscure dialogue: "He got another piece, just one more piece from the last..." "Give it back to him..."" It's not time yet...the marionette...going as planned..." "Then finish us...plan the last bit..." "He's almost there...he's almost there..."

  The Tree Whisperer healed Lu Li's wounds, brought him back from his near-death, and fell into the noisy wooden house that drew the shadows. This was the last piece of the puzzle that Lu Li was missing - the exorcist had recovered a vital memory. And the memories mottled by time are revived.

   (end of this chapter)