The shaman was squatting by the river, using the damp cloth to wipe around the wound.

Yu Xing's footsteps were not easily heard over the flowing water, but the shaman still turned around when he approached.

"You're back?" Her gaze fell on the suitcase in Yu Xing's hand. "Thank you. Did you get lost?"

Yu Xing's forehead was sweating, and his breathing was slightly unsteady, making it look like he had run all the way here. If people didn't know any better, they would have thought he was genuinely worried about the injured shaman. "The direction in the mountains and forests is a bit difficult to discern. I took a detour and ended up being late."

As he spoke, he hurried to the shaman's side and leaned in to look at the wound on her leg.

The flow of blood had noticeably slowed down. Now, under the cover of the icy river water, the blood was half-congealed and no longer dripping from the wound.

The shaman's method of treatment was quite professional, and Yu Xing didn't need to do anything. He hadn't really used a first aid kit before, as when he was injured as a child, the family doctor had always taken care of it for him.

Recalling the shaman's skilled handling of the wound, he opened the first aid kit and handed it over. "I don't know how to do this. You do it yourself."

The shaman smiled and took the box, picking out the necessary medicine to start bandaging herself. Yu Xing watched the whole process and felt that her technique was probably honed through practice, especially since so many people in the village had to cut meat for offerings, and there were no doctors around.

Although he didn't know what method the shaman used to keep a group of skeletons in a "living" state, he guessed that if someone was really about to die, in order to maintain the illusion of immortality for the sake of faith in the gods, the shaman would definitely help with the treatment.

"Can you carry me back later?" With the bandaging almost done, the shaman's request didn't come as a surprise to Yu Xing.

Yu Xing smiled, feeling a bit awkward. "Of course, everyone in the village respects you. As a newcomer, I will naturally obey."

"No, I don't want you to help me just because of that... I just think you have a good aura, so I kept you here. I hope you can treat me like a friend." The shaman furrowed her brows. "I'm not commanding you to help me as a shaman now. I'm just asking for your help."

The shaman, who was admired by everyone, spoke to him in such an equal tone, and Yu Xing showed some signs of being pleasantly surprised.

"No problem."

After a while, he squatted down and lifted the shaman onto his back, feeling the sudden weight on his back, and the unfamiliar breath rhythmically moving behind his ears.

"Thank you for your hard work." The shaman didn't immediately show any closeness, but she was less forceful than at the beginning.

When the two returned to the village, Yu Xing found that it was getting dark again. Each day seemed to pass at least three times faster, shortening his daytime activities by quite a bit.

However, the nighttime should also have been shortened, and he had no idea how many hours he had slept in the past few days. It was a number that made him feel drowsy from time to time.

At night, Yu Xing slept at Aunt Li's house as usual, and today Aunt Li didn't have any problems, so Yu Xing slept soundly.

His emotions were becoming more and more stable because the clues to what was happening here had already emerged. Everything he wanted to investigate but couldn't find, he would be able to find out when the shaman and the water ghost made a move against him.

He just feared that there would be no way to advance this event, but now there was a way, and he just needed to wait for the right moment.

It's worth mentioning that after a day of thinking, he began to suspect that he was now in some kind of specter's domain, and his memories were being blocked by this powerful specter.

The reason he thought this was because he couldn't think of any other reason that could separate his memories, even the performer couldn't do that.

After all, the performer was still a human, and even though he had a mysterious power that was difficult to understand at first, he couldn't directly send his body or consciousness into a scene that was so realistically created.

Of course, if in the memories he couldn't recall, a long time had already passed, and the performer's abilities had become stronger, then it was possible... but Yu Xing felt that this possibility was not very high.

Yu Xing remembered that when he was locked in the experimental base, he had to have blood drawn, sliced, and various values tested with medical equipment that was not very efficient and was imported from abroad.

But in his anger and pain, he noticed something that shouldn't have been in the base.

It was a black, indescribable thing that floated at the end of the dozens of tubes inserted into his skin every day, delivering wisps of unknown mist into his body.

The mist made him feel cold all over, and he could also feel that, under the transformation of this thing, his body was gradually changing in a direction away from humanity, and his mind was also gradually becoming alienated.

The experimenters could see this thing, but no one dared to approach it, only the performer dared to get close to it.

The performer would come to check on it every once in a while, then smile and say to the numb Yu Xing, "I was right about you. The fusion is really good, surpassing all the other current experiments. Young master, it's not in vain that I spent so much time on you."

Occasionally, Yu Xing could still see other strangely dressed people coming in and out with the performer, and with his overly sensitive hearing, he could eavesdrop on some things.

For example, the performer and those people often had to enter some other place, and the place they referred to the most was "Absurd."

There were many, many specters in the Absurd, Yu Xing guessed based on what he heard.

Very occasionally, he also heard the word "game."

He gradually guessed that the black mass that was transforming him, which went against science, seemed to have been brought out of the Absurd by the performer, some kind of offering, some kind of fragment.

From that moment on, he really wanted to know what the performer had obtained from the place called Absurd, and if the performer's mysterious power came from there, he also wanted to go there.

If he could obtain those powers, he wouldn't be so passive, would he?

He wouldn't be like an exhibit here, being pointed and stared at by so many people, would he?Even the alienated thoughts kept reminding him that with his own power, he could kill all these people, right? Let the performer be burned all over, screaming and dying in pain.

But even after escaping from the base, he didn't find more information about that absurd place, and now...

Yu Xing was very confident in himself.

After his body and mind were both reconstructed, he didn't believe that he wouldn't be able to find clues to the absurd in the future. He knew himself, and after gaining freedom, no matter what happened along the way, he would always continue to search for that absurd place.

Because on the day he left the base, the performer was not there, and he didn't confront the performer directly.

So the performer was still alive.

In order to prevent the performer from harming him again, he would definitely find a way to take control and ensure that he wouldn't be manipulated at will.

If he was in the absurd place now, in the domain of some specter, then everything would make sense.

"Although I can't be sure, this is indeed the most likely possibility. I hope I haven't misunderstood myself." Yu Xing lay on his hand in the night outside the window.

Before going to bed, he took a bath in Granny Li's bathroom, heated by fire.

Yu Xing had hardly seen such an old-fashioned method of heating water. He was born into a wealthy family, with ancestors who served as officials in ancient times. After the establishment of the Republic of China, they operated a business association in the local area, doing all kinds of business.

He had never been involved in business, but he knew a little bit about it. In short, both the righteous and the evil had people from their family, so he had always lived a very comfortable life.

He had been showering since he was young.

In the experimental base, it was either a shower or soaking in a strange liquid, with no chance to bathe.

So the first time he took a hot water bath in a wooden tub, it was quite a novelty for him, but this novelty faded when he thought about the current situation.

"Assuming I'm right, there are two ways to leave here. First, investigate what happened between the two villages, reconstruct the complete chain of events, and then the prohibition can be lifted to return to reality. Second, kill the water ghost... because the water ghost is the only supernatural thing I've seen here." Yu Xing muttered to himself, organizing all his thoughts into two tasks.

For him, the first task was more difficult.

Because to understand the whole event, he had to keep following the irregular flow of time. The second task, killing the water ghost, was much clearer.

Yu Xing pinched his fingers and felt the power in his body. "I don't know why my strength is so much weaker than in my memory. Is this also a kind of prohibition?"

Not only had his strength decreased by seven or eight tenths since he escaped, but his senses had also dulled a lot, and his physical strength was even worse than that of an ordinary person. It was as if his whole body had been cursed and destroyed from the inside.

He knew that the curse on his body had not been lifted in the future, because the first time he was touched by the shaman, he had a momentary feeling of cold rising. This feeling was very familiar to him. When he received the mist from the Black Ball every day through the pipeline, this feeling would persist.

But at that time, his physical condition was at its most terrifying stage, and the cold breath only brought him pain, with little real harm. Unlike now, Yu Xing felt that if that breath surged now, he would die within half an hour.

Die... and then revive, repeating the process.

However, after weighing it up, if he really triggered that breath to explode in a suicidal manner, the water ghost would definitely be annihilated in it.

It was an indiscriminate attack when the breath exploded, which might harm the innocent.

But he didn't have much compassion now. Whether the villagers were innocent or not was not within his consideration, so killing the water ghost was not difficult.

"Let's take another look tomorrow... try to clarify the events as much as possible." Yu Xing said softly, closing his eyes.

His spirit also needed to be replenished.

...

Green-Capturing Ghost Yi Qing, detected that you used the talent ability "Dream Intervention" on the deductionist Yu Xing. Your restrictions will now be strengthened, and you have lost all dream-related abilities in this deduction.

Although the deduction system was silent in Yu Xing's mind, as an individual hidden in Yu Xing's personality mask, Yi Qing still occasionally received warnings from the system.

In a surreal bamboo house, Yi Qing lay slanted on a bamboo chair, his hair spread out. He fanned himself with a fan, with a smile on his lips, looking like a naughty student who didn't listen.

"Why so strict? I just increased the probability of him dreaming about the past. Even if I don't intervene, with his abilities, he would soon remember some of it." With a snap, Yi Qing closed the fan and took a sip of hot tea. "It's better to let this happen in a dream. I can observe it and understand him more, isn't that good?"

The promotion deduction of the deductionist requires one's own efforts, and external interference is not allowed. You have violated the rules.

The system did respond to him, and Yi Qing took another sip of tea. "What a great opportunity. You only told me to follow him, but didn't tell me what kind of person he really is. Since you didn't say, I naturally have to figure it out myself. Hmm, I know you're not a living being, and you have no emotions, just a void will. But isn't weighing the pros and cons your specialty?"

He seemed to be talking to himself, but he wasn't embarrassed at all, still smiling, and even chuckling. "Since you discovered the abnormal data in him and deliberately let me monitor him... then at least give me some authority to monitor his environment."

"Um, monitoring is my own interpretation. Are you afraid that this abnormal data will cause an uncontrollable mutation, and you need a strong person or ghost to restrain him? I promise."The ageless Green-Capturing Ghost lazily lifted its eyes, gazing out of the bamboo hut's window at the murky chaos and the strange dreams that occasionally flickered through it. With a negotiating tone, it said, "But if it's someone dull, I wouldn't agree to this task. Most of what he said in the bar was true, and you must have heard it too. I followed him because I'm interested in him. You could say... my interest in him comes first, your hints are only secondary. So, if you want me to keep an eye on this unstable element for you, don't stop me from exploring this interesting person. What do you say?"

A quick look at "pawread.com" will leave you more fulfilled.

You have violated the rules. In view of your mission, this violation will not be penalized, but you still need to stop interfering with Deductionist Yu Xing's promotion game.

"Fine, fine, I've already seen part of it anyway. He's more fun than I imagined. I definitely won't be bored in the next decade or so," Yi Qing decided to quit while she was ahead, not bargaining further with the system. Then she suddenly remembered something, "But the more I look at it, the more I feel there's something off about Yu Xing's age."

"Could it be that he won't just avoid being killed, but also won't die of old age?" The system hadn't mentioned this when she signed the agreement with Yu Xing.

Although Yi Qing had no regrets now, she felt like she had been played by the system.

This time, the system remained silent, as if it hadn't heard his question.

...

A good night's sleep.

Yu Xing gradually woke up under the warm sunshine, realizing he hadn't dreamt today.

Indeed, last night's dream about the mountain village was intercepted by a mysterious force, which wouldn't allow him to obtain any excess information through dreams anymore.

He took a moment with his eyes closed, then suddenly heard a slightly familiar voice, "Brother Yu Xing, Brother Yu Xing, wake up!"

The youthful and vibrant voice rang in his ears. Yu Xing opened his eyes in surprise and saw Mai Mai's little face.

He suppressed the astonishment in his eyes and looked around.

Well, he was back at Old Zhang's house again... and it was still the Old Zhang's house that hadn't turned into a desolate village.

The Eternal Sin Poet