“Professor Yin!” Surprised and delighted gazes suddenly fell on Yin Xubai. “Have you discovered any clues?”
“I suppose there’s been some progress,” Yin Xubai replied. After spending time together, he was no longer as aloof as before. He pointed towards the foggy area in the distance. “If I’m not mistaken, Li Fufeng’s intuition was correct. This fog isn’t harmful to us. On the contrary, it’s actually beneficial for the human body.”
“Over this period, I collected some fog samples from the outskirts and found that this gas has a clear nurturing effect on living organisms. It can eliminate fatigue, alleviate pain, and more. Due to the limited time, I haven’t been able to research its full effects yet.”
He added, “During this time, with Kun Mountain as the center, this special fog has been continuously spreading to the surrounding areas. We’ve all inhaled varying amounts of it. However, the concentration of the special gas in the air here isn’t as high as in the foggy area, and the efficiency of inhaling the fog while breathing is quite low. That’s why the effects weren’t noticeable in the first few days. You should be able to feel something by now.”
He reminded them, and though the others couldn’t quite believe it, they followed his instructions and focused on sensing the changes in their bodies.
“Wow! This arm of mine suffered a severe injury and the bone would ache from time to time, but it hasn’t bothered me these past few days,” someone said in amazement while swinging their arm. “I didn’t notice until you mentioned it, but it seems more flexible now. It’s not like before when I couldn’t use much strength in this arm.”
“Same here. I used to suffer from insomnia, but since coming here, I’ve been sleeping soundly every night. My energy levels seem to have improved a lot recently. Could this also be an effect of the white fog?”
“I suspect so. We’ve been running around investigating everywhere during this time, and the intensity of our activities has been quite high. Yet we’ve rarely felt tired. Based on my previous physical limits, I should have been aching all over by now…”
“I see you’ve finally noticed,” Yin Xubai said with certainty. Even with his calm tone, coming from him, it sounded like he was saying, ‘See, you’re not as stupid as I thought.’ He paused, then continued, “That’s why I said the foggy area might not be as dangerous as you think. From the beginning, because of the disappearance of over a hundred people and the rescue teams not returning, everyone assumed it must be a forbidden zone that devours life. But the reality might be completely different.”
Yin Xubai then went on to explain various energy reactions and hypotheses related to the special gas.“So, the missing people are likely to be safe?” Liu Ningshuang asked, grasping the main point despite feeling overwhelmed by the information.
Yin Xubai glanced at her and said, “According to my estimates, being in such dense white fog, they could survive for ten days and nights without food or water, as it would be enough to replenish their body’s energy. Unless they encountered other accidents.” As he said this, his eyes were filled with incredulity, as if still immersed in his previous experiments.
In his mind, he recalled: In the high-concentration fog cultivation, in just a few days, ordinary white mice had not only undergone transformations from flesh to fur, but even the speed of cellular aging had begun to slow down, albeit slightly. Moreover, their unusually agile reactions… It gave him the absurd notion that if the experiment continued and they kept living in such an environment, they might one day develop intelligence and spiritual awareness.
Yin Xubai didn’t mention his experiments or the far-fetched theories that followed. He simply summarized calmly, “Therefore, on your journey, you might encounter some scares and twists, but barring any accidents, you likely won’t be in mortal danger.”
“If that’s the case, that’s great news!”
It was as if a veil of mystery had been lifted from before their eyes. Yin Xubai’s judgment and logical reasoning suddenly brightened everyone’s mood, as if a heavily overcast sky had turned into a bright, sunny day.
This was because they had finally found a clue, grasping hope that they might uncover the secrets behind this unusual event.
This greatly reduced their worries about their companions’ prospects.
Li Fufeng and his partner soon set out.
They carried a full set of wilderness survival tools, including the newly improved communication devices from Yin Xubai – which incorporated design ideas from electronic components found in the inn from another world, making them currently the most advanced in the world. They also wrapped long, sturdy ropes around their waists, made of a special material resistant to all kinds of cutting and burning.
Fully prepared, the two cautiously stepped into the dense fog.
Inhale… Exhale…
The towering white pillars of gas were composed of pure, dense fog. During this period, as the fog at the edges of the pillars continuously spread outward, even the villages and towns near Kun Mountain began to be shrouded in wisps of mist.
As a result, everyone could feel the air becoming much fresher as they breathed, with the sense of clarity and invigoration becoming more and more apparent.
Some even joked that living in such an environment would surely add years to their lives.
However, it wasn’t until Li Fufeng and Liu Ningshuang actually entered the foggy area, immersing themselves in this mist-filled zone, that they realized how naive and inexperienced they had been before!
This was what a true earthly paradise felt like! (They were taken aback.)
With each breath, an unimaginably pure energy entered their nostrils. Though the gas was colorless and odorless, it felt incredibly fresh and pure, making them feel as if they were floating towards immortality. Their bodies instinctively craved it, greedily absorbing it through every pore as they were continuously washed by the incoming white mist.
At this moment, as the dense fog washed over the two, it seemed to awaken a desire deeply rooted in their genes, in every cell of their bodies. They were so engrossed in the intoxicating, incomparable pleasure that they couldn’t even respond to Yin Xubai’s voice coming through the communicator.
At this point, how could the two not understand that this special white fog was not only harmless but a tremendous stroke of luck?
They even had the notion of staying here until the end of time.
Li Fufeng used his astonishing willpower to regain some focus, finally hearing the constant voice coming from the other end of the communicator.
“How is it? Are you alright? Please respond…”
Here’s the English translation of the Chinese text, keeping the requested elements in mind:
“We…we’re fine…” He was about to speak when he heard Liu Ningshuang’s voice next to him, seemingly squeezed through her teeth, “This is… good… phew…”
The world was obscured by an extremely dense fog, filling Li Fufeng’s entire field of vision. Even though he couldn’t see Liu Ningshuang’s expression, he could sense how hard his companion was trying to endure from the force with which she was gripping his hand.
It wasn’t endurance due to pain.
Rather… it was too pleasurable.
It felt as if everything old in their flesh and blood had been swept away, every cell reborn, emerging from the old shell.
The feeling, a hundred or thousand times more comfortable than soaking in a hot spring, almost made them not want to move forward anymore. Fortunately, they both remembered they had entered to find someone. They struggled to suppress the urge to lie down and groped their way forward through the thick fog.
As they walked, they both reported their findings to the other side of the communicator, their tone sounding very relaxed.
“Don’t worry, this fog isn’t dangerous. You can come in too—”
****
“We… we’re fine…”
“This is… good… phew…”
“Don’t worry, this fog isn’t dangerous. You can come in too—”
“Zzzzzzzz…”
Outside the foggy area, hearing a series of unintelligible static from the communicator and seeing the signal connection interrupted on the display, their heart sank like a stone, and the smile on their face completely disappeared.
“This, this, this…” Taking a step back, looking at the white fog as if they were seeing a demon. “It’s exactly the same as what happened to those rescue teams, exactly the same.”
“They were saying everything was fine, that it was good, and even told others to come in. But as they were speaking, they just… disappeared.”
The person speaking wasn’t a member of the Special Case Investigation Team, but an official from a nearby village who had personally experienced the disappearance of those rescue team members. At this moment, their face was whiter than paper.
“Could it be… could it be that ghosts really exist in this world…” they mumbled in a voice lighter than paper.
“They’ve all been bewitched…”
“…And they want to lure more people in?”
Bang!
With a light sound, the person felt a pain in their head. They covered their head and turned around, only to find that someone had given them a flick on the forehead.
The middle-aged man beside him, with a serious expression, lowered the hand that had flicked him. “What nonsense are you thinking, kid! Have you gone crazy from reading those ghost stories on the internet all day? There’s no such thing as ghosts!”
After giving a harsh scolding, seeing that the other person had become quiet and submissive, the middle-aged man then turned to Chu Xingrui and said, “Young people just don’t know how to behave. Captain Chu, I’ll take him away now to prevent this kid from disrupting your investigation.”
Chu Xingrui smiled and waved his hand. After they left, the smile on his face faded, turning serious.
With a solemn expression, he looked towards the other two members of the Special Case Investigation Team – they were responsible for constantly monitoring the movements of two long ropes extending into the mist. The other ends of the ropes were tied around Li Fufeng and Liu Ningshuang’s waists. If anything happened, they would at least have a chance to pull them back along the ropes, preventing them from going missing.
But when Chu Xingrui’s gaze fell upon them, he discovered that their faces were also deathly pale.
With trembling lips, they showed him the ropes they had pulled back from the mist. At the other end of the ropes were smooth, even cuts, as if something incredibly sharp had severed them in an instant. “They’re gone. As soon as the signal was cut off, the ropes went slack on the other end. When we pulled the ropes back, this is what we found.”
The surroundings immediately fell into a heavy, deathly silence.
In the silence, Yin Xubai walked over, laid the rope on the ground, and examined it. By estimating with just his eyes, he concluded, “Approximately six meters. No, it’s 6.2 meters. In other words, they walked 6.2 meters into the foggy area and then, for some unknown reason, lost contact.”
He continued to stare at the severed end of the rope, falling into a state of isolation, muttering to himself.
“The cut is very smooth, so smooth that I can’t imagine anything in this world being so sharp. No, there is nothing in this world that is that sharp. Given the material of this rope, nothing I know of could cut it in an instant and leave such a smooth break…”
Upon reaching this conclusion, Yin Xubai’s eyes lit up with excitement that had not been seen before.
“——That ‘knife’ is unlike anything I know.”
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