There's definitely something wrong with this murder mystery game

When the two of them entered the valley, their figures were completely obscured by the dense forest.

Luo Kai, who had been holding in his urge to smoke during the whole car journey, had a cigarette in his mouth now, puffing out smoke while holding a stick in his hand, knocking and tapping as he walked ahead, scrutinizing his surroundings.

After a while, he furrowed his eyebrows, "I feel like something is off here, is there something wrong with this place?"

The red high bridge was about three to four hundred meters ahead; one could clearly see the bridge spanning between two mountains by looking up, and the original vortex was right beneath the bridge.

Xu Shuo pinched a blade of grass and said, "It wasn't this lush."

Luo Kai was startled, "What?"

He hadn't realized what was happening until he stared at the grass in the young man's hand for a while and then his eyes widened in shock!

During their train ride before, the vegetation in the valley under the bridge had not been this luxuriant. Most of the area allowed a clear view of the exposed rocky soil!

But now, the grass and trees here were far too dense!

After thinking it through, Luo Kai's expression turned very grave, indicating that something truly must have happened here, otherwise, there wouldn't have been such a change.

Script Space extracts a script by copying an actual subspace from the real world, and every detail in it should be exactly the same as in reality!

"It's a pity we didn't take a photo back then."

The broken script could no longer be entered.

If they had photos, they could directly compare them to see where the anomalies were, instead of now having to rely on memories that they barely remembered.

...

The valley with its dense vegetation was not easy to traverse; sometimes they would step into pit holes hidden beneath the soft soil.

In the weather of May, the forest was very stuffy and hot.

By the time Luo Kai had walked for quite a while and stopped to rest and take a drink of mineral water from his backpack, he suddenly turned around and saw that the young man who had been following behind him was now at least thirty or forty meters away, his figure in a long-sleeved tracksuit partially concealed by foliage.

Luo Kai: "..."

This guy had disappeared without making a sound.

He had no choice but to call out, "Did you find something?"

Xu Shuo, tugging at a fresh leaf, looked at the towering trees in front of him, and without responding, started walking toward his direction.

Below the high bridge, the vegetation was indeed not as robust, dropping from person-high grass to waist-high, with the soil becoming particularly loose.

Apart from the river hundreds of meters away, there were no other water sources nearby, and perhaps this was also why the soil had seemed relatively infertile before.

"Oh! I know what you were looking at just now!"

Luo Kai, who had not received an answer earlier, found the reason himself; he plucked a blade of grass, chewed it in his mouth, and said, "It seems the vegetation here has all freshly grown!"

The two of them had reached right below the high bridge, but they didn't find any anomalies there.

Luo Kai squinted his eyes and said, "If the villagers didn't lie, something must have happened here yesterday at noon. We can straightforwardly speculate that this place has been destroyed by some kind of power!"

Xu Shuo tilted his head, "The Abyss?"

After all, the Abyss hole in the script was located right here.

"Perhaps, especially since that vortex that appeared in the script at the end was truly bizarre no matter how you look at it," Luo Kai said, changing the subject, "But what I'm even more curious about is, what force restored this place to its original state."

"Isn't it obvious?" said Xu Shuo.

"Emmm..."

Luo Kai fell into an eerie contemplation.

If all this was the result of a battle between "The Abyss" and "Script Space," wouldn't it mean that their world was no longer safe, no longer purely material?

You should know that even now, their special skills as players still cannot be used in the real world, and on Earth, they are still ordinary people.

But sometimes, for this world, not having their abilities unlocked might be a good thing.

Because there had not been any supernatural events on Earth before, and once a change occurred, it invariably meant—Abyss invasion!

The consequences of worlds eroded by the Abyss are something no old player is unaware of.

After understanding this, looking at the vibrant vegetation before him, Luo Kai felt a tinge of melancholy.

He had come here this time merely to see if he could find out the reason for the collapse of his script, or if he could extract the script once more on the Ghost Train. After all, a third-level assessment script was really expensive, sob sob sob...

This was his first level three script!

Yet, after actually seeing the situation before him, he suddenly felt that a simple collapse might have been fortunate.

And there was no way this stretch of vegetation could have grown at this time.

Perhaps yesterday, someone else had arrived here even earlier than them.

The only one who could arrive at the first moment seemed to be the power of the Script Space.

Luo Kai touched the green leaves and sighed.

Then he saw the quiet young man walk under the overpass, now and then glancing at the overpass, and now and then at the surroundings and the ground.

He seemed to be focused on some specific location, appearing quite concentrated.

Luo Kai did not disturb his thoughts, merely following with curiosity and making scholarly observations.

At that moment, Xu Shuo walked over to a clump of dirt, stepped on it, and then kicked the clod away.

"What are you doing?" Luo Kai couldn't help but ask.

"The ground around here is very soft," Xu Shuo said.

"And then? So you think this hard clump of dirt is strange, so you have to dig it out?"

Xu Shuo did not say anything, but suddenly stomped down hard.

Bang!

Sand and gravel shook from the surrounding ground.

Luo Kai unconsciously frowned, as Xu Shuo forcefully stepped onto that spot again, spreading some cracks on the yellowish-brown ground.

Just as the young man was about to lift his foot again, Luo Kai thought he was going to stomp down once more, Xu Shuo suddenly stepped back two paces.

"Tired, your turn."

"..." Luo Kai.

He rolled his eyes, not actually moving forward to continue digging in the mud. Instead, he took off the black travel bag from his back, pulled out a homemade small bomb from inside.

Xu Shuo curiously looked at the object: "How did you sneak it past security?"

Luo Kai: "Sneak, it sounds so unpleasant, this doesn't have any lethal power."

While saying that, he buried the device in the pit Xu Shuo had stomped out, then pulled out a lighter to light a cigarette for himself and casually ignited the bomb.

Xu Shuo watched with a detached look: "Open flames are prohibited in the forest."

"You tell me that now, after I've already set it off!"

"Boom!"

Right after Luo Kai's complaint, the bomb over the pit exploded, blasting a hole more than two meters wide.

He looked into it: "And then? It's still just dirt underneath."

Xu Shuo's expression unchanged: "Then keep blowing it up."

Luo Kai did not act but looked at him puzzledly: "Blasting is prohibited in the forest, what exactly have you found, tell me first."

Xu Shuo glanced at him, then turned his head to survey the surroundings, observing the verdant and vibrant planting grounds.

After a long pause, he spoke: "It's too fake, superficially it looks like newly grown plants, but there's always a sense of being artificial and rigid, completely different from the forests we passed on our way here."

Luo Kai understood his meaning, thoughtfully: "But if you talk about the sounds of insects and birds, this mountain forest still has them, it has vitality too."

In short, he didn't find anything wrong!

Even when he chewed on a grass leaf earlier, the dry and fragrant sensation didn't seem fake at all, and the sharp leaves cutting the skin on their journey felt very real too.

If all this were an illusion...

That would be terrifying.

Xu Shuo looked expressionlessly at the two-meter-wide pit, referring to the scene in the script. The Abyss Vortex was supposed to be at this location.

From what he learned from Little Ghost, this place had recently emitted some kind of Qi, which is why Little Ghost gradually grew and took control of the Ghost Train.

If his hunch was correct, it should be at this position.

But they were too late.

...

...

At the Normal University Affiliated High School earlier.

After getting out of the cab, the man with dazzling blonde hair stared at the school in front of him for a long while, then looked at the gatekeeper at the school entrance.

Hopefully, he hadn't gotten the wrong place again, right?

After all, that person didn't look at all like a student, but perhaps... a teacher?

...