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墨書 Inktalez
I shared my thoughts with Cold Bench, who nodded slightly in agreement. "Without the assurance of a complete retreat, no Spirit Caller would take that risk unless they were confident. And I believe their intention is not to kill you."
Suddenly, a phrase came to mind: "The bolder the artist, the greater the risk!" Could it be that he was trying to intimidate us? By the way, did you see anyone when you came in?
Cold Bench shook his head, indicating he hadn’t seen anyone. His gaze remained fixed on the incense burner, seemingly lost in thought. I considered this as well; even if that Spirit Caller was audacious, they wouldn’t dare to put their physical body into a deep sleep in such a public place where anyone could enter at will. That would be courting death. In contrast, casting the Illusionary Technique in such an unsafe environment without regard for our safety—if they hadn’t killed us directly, wasn’t it just a way to use others to do their dirty work?
I couldn’t help but shiver; indeed, the world was perilous, and human hearts were the most treacherous of all.
Cold Bench seemed to have come to the same realization and muttered to himself, "It seems we’ve run into trouble this time."
I paused for a moment. In my impression, words like "trouble" were not something associated with Cold Bench. If he considered it trouble, then for us, it must be a significant problem.
I grew anxious. "Master, this Illusionary Technique is so powerful; is there any way to break it?" After all, encountering trouble didn’t mean we were doomed.
Cold Bench continued to stare at the incense burner with an expressionless face. "There’s only one way: break this trigger."
I pressed eagerly, "How do we break it?"
He glanced at me before returning his gaze to the burner as if something captivating lay atop it. After a long pause, he finally said softly, "Only the Spirit Caller who cast it can break it."
His statement was problematic and easily refutable. "Then how did I wake up? Is it possible that that Spirit Caller suddenly had a change of heart and wanted to part ways amicably?"
At that moment, I suddenly realized that my junior brother, Old Qiao, and A Li were still in a dormant state. Logically, since we were all in the same room and shared a common Huan Ling trigger, now that the trigger had been broken, I had awakened, and they should have woken up too!
A jolt of anxiety shot through me, and cold sweat broke out all over my body as a cacophony of sounds whirled through my ears. The Spirit Caller extracts fragments of human brainwaves through special drug triggers to help construct a new world... Everything you can see with your naked eyes is refined and processed by the Spirit Caller based on those memory fragments... There’s truth within falsehood, and falsehood within truth; what is real may also be fake, and what is fake may also be real... By the way, did you see anyone when you came in just now? It seems we’ve run into trouble this time... Aside from the Spirit Caller himself, no one can break this...
“Trouble,” Cold Bench said for the first time. It had to be the Spirit Caller who could break it, but apart from Cold Bench, no one else had entered here, yet the incense burner’s drug trigger had been broken... My heart skipped a beat as a thought flashed through my mind—could it be that Cold Bench... is the Spirit Caller himself? Am I still trapped in an illusion?!
Lost in thought, suddenly, Cold Bench stood up, his gaze shifting from the incense burner to outside the window. Calmly, he said, “We’ve arrived.”
I looked up at his voice and saw that the train had unknowingly pulled into a station. It was an unfamiliar place; on the platform beside the tracks stood the name of the station—Anle. I was taken aback; that name sounded familiar, but I just couldn’t recall where I had heard it.
I watched as Cold Bench slung his backpack over his shoulder and walked out without looking back. I hurriedly got up and asked, “Aren’t we going to Chengdu? We’re not there yet!”
Cold Bench turned around, glanced at the people on the bed, then looked at me and said, “If you want to save them, come with me.” He didn’t seem to be joking at all.
I was momentarily stunned. “What do you mean? Aren’t they under the Illusionary Technique?”
Cold Bench ignored me again; his figure quickly blended into the crowd until he was almost out of sight. I panicked as my mind raced chaotically. Did I guess wrong? Had I wrongly accused Cold Bench?
“Wait for me!” Before my brain could analyze an answer, my body instinctively opened A Li’s box under the bed. I gasped internally as I grabbed the staff inside and ran after Cold Bench.
After exiting the station, a question suddenly struck me. I caught up with Cold Bench and asked, “Are we just leaving like this? What about my junior brother and the others? Or will the train wait for us?”
As soon as I spoke, I realized I had asked an utterly foolish question. My father isn’t even the Minister of Railways; even if he were, there’s no reason for a whole train full of people to wait for just us two. Before Cold Bench could look down on me, a familiar whistle sounded from behind us—the train was starting to move.
My heart tightened with worry for my junior brothers. Instinctively, I wanted to run back, but Cold Bench grabbed me and pulled me forward, saying as we walked, “There are people waiting for us in Chengdu, and if we’re quick, we might arrive first.”
I thought to myself, you’re just blowing hot air; how can a bus be faster than a train? But then I remembered that this was coming from Cold Bench, which made it more credible. Perhaps there really was some hidden path that could significantly shorten our journey. Just like the secret passage we discovered last time in Emerald Villa, which cut down the travel time from Li Mountain to Qinling to just a few hours.
After crossing two asphalt roads, we quickly plunged into a dense, towering primeval forest. The climate in Sichuan is heavily influenced by its terrain. The central basin has a subtropical humid climate with abundant rainfall and significant temperature differences between day and night, which is very favorable for vegetation growth. The southern mountainous areas have a subtropical semi-humid climate with distinct wet and dry seasons, mainly concentrated from May to October, while the northern high mountains and plateaus have a cold alpine climate with dry valleys and cool, damp mountains, receiving little rainfall and averaging temperatures below 10 degrees Celsius.
I guessed that this place called “Anle” should be located in the Sichuan Basin. Although it was already September, the heat was still intense. After walking for less than half an hour, I was drenched in sweat and feeling quite uncomfortable.
Looking up, I noticed a large opening above me, where the bright yellow sun hung hazily in the center like a fried egg. The plants here grew strangely; they seemed to avoid photosynthesis altogether, with all their branches and leaves twisting away from the sun, creating a bizarre and distorted appearance. If someone were to walk here alone at night with poor eyesight, they would surely be frightened out of their wits.
Lost in my thoughts, a sudden damp breeze swept towards me. Cold Bench ducked down and slipped into a dark hole at the base of the slope ahead. For some reason, my heart skipped a beat at that moment, and an uneasy feeling crept over me; I couldn’t shake the sense that something unclean lurked within that cave.
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