Xia Jing looked at Song Yang and the others: "You have watched the surveillance video just now, you should have discovered it, right?"
You Ye and Lu Chenfei nodded with cold expressions.
Cheng Hua and the others were even more confused: "What? Is there something wrong with the surveillance footage just now?"
Song Yang said slowly: "The woman who appeared in the surveillance video is thinner than Sister Zhou."
Zhou Yaqing was wearing a very tight chiffon dress, every cut of which was closely fitting her figure. However, the woman who had just appeared in the surveillance video, although wearing the same clothes as Zhou Yaqing and having the same shoulder-length hair as Zhou Yaqing, the dress was obviously loose on "her" and half a size larger.
"Are you sure?" Cheng Hua was stunned. "Could it be that you remembered it wrong?"
"One more thing. Sister Zhou's shoulders tend to be right-angled, but the person in the surveillance video has obvious triangular shoulders. They can't be the same person." You Ye looked at Xia Jing, "Is it the female employee who just passed by?"
Xia Jing nodded.
At this moment, Gu Chen shuddered, as if he suddenly remembered something. He opened his eyes wide and said, "Come to think of it, yesterday at noon, after everyone finished their meal, I went to the kitchen to get more food. There was a fat chef in the kitchen... as fat as Brother Cao. I almost went over to call for help, but when the person turned around, I realized it wasn't him!"
"No wonder... no wonder 'Brother Cao' and 'Sister Zhou' in the surveillance footage both had their heads down. That's because they weren't really them. Their disappearance was entirely the hotel's doing!"
Upon hearing this, Cheng Hua and the others were even more stunned, because everything seemed to be becoming more and more in line with Xia Jing and the others' speculation.
In the dungeon, the morning mist gradually dissipated in the sunlight, and the temperature began to rise continuously.
Xia Jing said, "There are two things we can be sure of. First, none of us here would choose to walk into the forest alone so early in the morning. Second, we can only enter the dungeon with tools and weapons sold in the official supermarket in Smiley City. However, the official supermarket doesn't sell drugs, so it's impossible that Zhou Yaqing drugged You Ye himself."
Chenghua and the others nodded solemnly.
Xia Jing's gaze passed through the hotel's floor-to-ceiling windows and met the mustachioed manager in the lobby.
He smiled and said, "Then could it be that You Ye's death in his sleep wasn't the effect of the drug at all, but some kind of ability of the monster?"
Several people nodded quickly, yes!
They had previously speculated whether the hotel and the monster were in a cooperative relationship. Maybe the hotel let the monster in to knock You Ye unconscious?
Xia Jing continued, "The hotel just released the surveillance footage from 4:30, but actually, at 3:30, when Gu Xing and Gu Chen saw the monster outside the window, You Ye and Sister Zhou were clearly already fast asleep. Sister Zhou must have been in trouble between 3:30 and 4:30. When do you think she really got hurt?"
Lu Xiang thought for a moment and said, "Oh, if it really is a beast-like monster, it's impossible for it to wait outside the door until 4:30. It must have started killing them as soon as it knocked them unconscious!"
"That's right," Xia Jing chuckled, "but at half past three, Gu Xing didn't see the monster in their room, right?"
Gu Xing was stunned and nodded quickly.
"So, why didn't the thing that knocked them out appear in the room at that time?"
A few people thought about it, and Cheng Hua was shocked. He immediately said: "At that time, Xiaoxing saw the monster outside the window and screamed!"
Xia Jing nodded and said slowly, "Given You Ye's alertness, she would have woken up immediately if they had broken into their room. So they must have knocked them unconscious through the door, perhaps by blowing in drugs through the crack. At half past three, I'm afraid 'they' were just halfway through their action when Gu Xing screamed—"
At that moment, the thing outside the door must have stopped immediately.
Being so alert, "they" didn't break into the room afterwards, probably because "they" were observing the movements in several rooms.
"They" will wait until everything calms down before continuing their actions.
Thinking of this, several people finally reacted slowly -
Xia Jing: "Which 'beast-type' monster in a dungeon would be so cautious, timid, and cowardly?"
All of this clearly shows that it was humans who were causing the trouble, and the monsters were not involved at all!
Cheng Hua and the others finally figured it out, and cold sweat streamed down their faces.
Cheng Hua murmured, "Thinking about it, there was something wrong with my sleep the night before last. I slept too deeply..."
The hotel simply took advantage of the people in their room falling asleep and moved the target players away. They then took off the other person's clothes and had employees of similar body types wear them, thus forging two false surveillance records!
Xia Jing just asked Xiao Huzi to retrieve the surveillance records of the fifth-floor corridor between 3:30 and 4:38, because the camera would definitely capture the hotel employees sneaking in and out of You Ye and her friends' room!
Song Yang said solemnly, "The hotel will open the door half an hour earlier today because they know that we already know the time of 'five o'clock'. If they want to do it secretly, they have to open the door earlier."
"The hotel's exterior soundproofing was so poor that we could clearly hear the monsters crawling outside the window. However, the interior soundproofing was so good that even if two rooms next to each other were talking loudly, they wouldn't necessarily hear each other. This is because the hotel wanted to make it clear to their guests that they weren't lying and that there were indeed monsters in the forest at night. They wanted their guests to cooperate with their nighttime blockade. At the same time, this internal soundproofing made it easier for them to avoid being discovered when they moved to another target."
"We searched all the way from the direction Cao Jun walked into the forest, but why didn't we find a single footprint? Because footprints can be erased. It's not even a huge task. The person impersonating Cao Jun can simply wait until they disappear from the surveillance footage and then circle back to the hotel."
In other words—
Cheng Hua and the others exclaimed, "It's very likely that Cao Jun and Zhou Yaqing have never left the hotel!"
Lu Xiang screamed, "The basement! They must be locked up in that weird basement, right?!"
However, when they came out just now and glanced at the kitchen, it was full of people and they couldn't get in at all.
To break into that place, they had to first find another entrance to the basement that they had anticipated!
"But what on earth are they doing by capturing players?"
Xia Jing glanced at the sky and said, "These questions require more clues to sort out. Let's hurry up and go into the forest."
Although most of Cao Jun and Zhou Yaqing's people are gone, they are still racing against the copy. The sooner they find the truth, the sooner they can kill the monster.
Several people nodded quickly, and followed Xia Jing and Song Yang in a panic, turning around and walking towards the forest.
Cheng Hua was a step slower and hesitant, "Are we really not going to eat something?"
Lu Xiang took out a pack of biscuits from his pocket and complained, "Oh, I'm hungry too, but it's so late now, how can I have the mood to eat? Uncle Cheng, just eat some biscuits to fill your stomach!"
Lu Chenfei turned around and asked, "Are you okay? Can you hold it in?"
Lu Xiang swallowed his saliva: "To be honest, I want to chew every leaf I see now, but I will try my best to hold back, Xiao Feifei!"
Lu Chenfei: "If you can't help it, just tell me and I'll tie you up."
Lu Xiang: "Oh, I hate Xiao Feifei, you made me look forward to it!"
Lu Chenfei: "…" Damn.
Cheng Hua's Adam's apple kept rolling. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened the biscuit and bit it hard.
As usual, Song Yang and Xia Jing led the way, and they went deeper into the forest again according to the route they took yesterday afternoon.
The forest was lush and green, and they walked while observing the clues around them.
In addition to Cheng Hua and Lu Xiang, Gu Xing was also very hungry. Her face was pale and she looked very weak.
Gu Chen had two packs of biscuits with him. He asked her to eat a little and be patient. Seeing his sister like this, Gu Chen couldn't help but get anxious.
He took two steps forward and whispered to Xia Jing and the others, "Speaking of which, why do I feel like the NPCs in this dungeon cause more damage to the players? The monster should be the thing that appeared outside the window in the middle of the night. It couldn't even get close to us."
This is all so weird. I always feel like something is wrong. It's impossible for NPCs to lead the killing in the dungeon.
Song Yang asked, "Have you ever thought about why the hotel chose Cao Jun and Zhou Yaqing?"
Gu Chen was stunned, and then thought of——
Yes, there is also a Cheng Hua in Cao Jun's room, and there is also a You Ye in Zhou Yaqing's room.
But why did the hotel choose to attack these two people?
This must be something to do with the monster.
Gu Chen wasn't particularly stupid. He pondered for a moment and then analyzed, "The vegetables in the hotel are strange. On the first night, Brother Cao ate the most among us. As for Sister Zhou... Sister Zhou didn't pull up the mosquito net on the first day!"
Thinking of this, Gu Chen was confused again: "But what exactly do vegetables mean in this instance? And why was Sister Zhou taken away only the next night?"
Xia Jing turned around and asked You Ye: "Didn't Sister Zhou say yesterday that she seemed to have eaten a mosquito in the middle of the night?"
You Ye was stunned: "Yes...what, did you discover something?"
Xia Jing pondered, "Many answers can only be confirmed after we reach the fruit and vegetable farm. Cao Jun wasn't necessarily captured because he ate too much on the first night. If that were the case, Lü Xiang would have been captured as well."
Lu Xiang's face turned green.
Xia Jing: "But you can be careful not to touch those red seeds."
Several people were startled and jumped up subconsciously, because they had found those seeds in the soil yesterday.
Song Yang reminded him, "Just don't put it in your mouth."
Lu Xiang shouted, "No matter how hungry we are, we can't eat something dug out of the mud!"
You Ye and Lu Chenfei thought for a moment and frowned.
Song Yang and Xia Jing thought that what Zhou Yaqing accidentally put into his mouth in the middle of the night last night... was actually a seed?
Seeds, plants.
As they thought about it, their expressions became subtle.
The fog was too thick, so they could only speed up to move towards their destination.
Ten kilometers, even if they walked non-stop, would take at least five or six hours. Moreover, some of them were physically weak, and it would be difficult to leave them alone when they could no longer walk.
It was almost half past six when they set out. The sun had already risen to the top of the sky and the time on their cell phones showed it was already noon, but they had not yet arrived at their destination.
It is estimated that there is still more than one kilometer to go.
At this moment, Lu Xiang could no longer walk. He squatted down, holding his stomach and wailing, "I'm dizzy and dazed. You guys go first. I really can't walk anymore. Please leave me alone!"
Lu Chenfei frowned: "Just hold on a little longer and we'll be there!"
Lu Xiang's lips turned pale. He shook his head and said, "After you find the clues, you have to come back. I'm so hungry that my brain can't work and I can't do anything. I'd better wait here for you to come back!"
Gu Chen asked Gu Xing: "Xiao Xing, why don't you take a rest here too?"
Gu Xing bit his lip and shook his head, "I want to hold on a little longer and go with you, brother."
Song Yang said calmly: "Although it is daytime now, it is best not to act alone. If you want to rest here, one of us must go with you."
Lu Xiang was really unable to think at this moment. He waved his hand and said, "It's really okay! Nothing will happen. Just let me sit here!"
At this moment, Cheng Hua said in a hoarse voice: "I'll stay and look after him."
Everyone looked at him.
Cheng Hua said, "My brain isn't very sharp, and I couldn't offer any meaningful ideas in other dungeons before. I just followed other players. I was able to survive in the end thanks to this muscular body."
"I can only act as a bodyguard, so I'll stay and watch over him."
Song Yang looked at Cheng Hua's ugly face and asked, "Uncle Cheng, are you sure it's okay?"
Cheng Hua nodded: "You guys go ahead."
"...Okay," Song Yang paused and said, "Then you two should stop arguing."
Cheng Hua and Lu Xiang are the two who get along the most with each other.
Lu Xiang said delicately, "Oh, it's already late, there's no need to quarrel, Xiao Yangyang, don't worry!"
Cheng Hua frowned, but nodded and said vaguely, "Yes."
Since both of them said so, the others would not force it anymore.
They continued to move forward.
The temperature was getting higher and higher, and even Lu Chenfei and the others felt hungrier, their strength was depleted, and their pace was getting slower and slower.
Seeing Xia Jing moving forward non-stop, Lu Chenfei muttered, "Damn, is this guy a monster?"
Time passed minute by minute, and they crossed a large jungle, walking and stopping, and finally arrived at their destination at around two o'clock.
Xia Jing pushed aside the dense branches and leaves that blocked their way, and everything in front of them appeared before them.
Seeing the scene before them, even people like Lu Chenfei and You Ye, who had fought through many three-star dungeons, could not help but stand there in a daze.
Gu Chen and Gu Xing took a deep breath.
Ahead, there is a dazzling array of crops.
They are scattered across the vast land, bathed in brilliant sunshine. Each one is more shocking than what Lu Chenfei saw through the Eye of Props, and more spectacular than what others imagined.
On the ground, there are huge, plump watermelons and winter melons, as well as lush and green cabbages, lettuces, and green vegetables.
All kinds of vines coiled around the wooden poles and wooden racks that were planted on the ground by someone unknown. Thick cucumbers and bunches of purple gemstone-like grapes all hung down, reflecting the attractive light in the sun.
There are also small fruit-bearing plants that do not quite match their appearance in reality. Their height is uniformly between one meter and one and a half meters. Some plants have thin and short trunks, but they are full of red apples, peaches that are so full that they are almost juicy, and huge white pears. Each fruit is almost as big as half an adult's face.
There were even thick green rhizomes rising from the ground, with large pumpkins hanging at the top, stretching the waist of the rhizome.
It's all so bizarre. These plants grow and are distributed in a mess. It even looks like a paradise that only appears in children's imagination, with colorful colors and all kinds of things growing bizarrely.
For a moment, everyone was speechless.
A gust of hot wind blew, and Xia Jing was the first to step in.
The others reacted and quickly followed.
They moved cautiously through the quiet vegetable and fruit field, and after a close observation, they soon discovered something unusual.
Xia Jing stopped, picked up a pear hanging in front of him, turned it, and found a red seed stuck on the back of the pear.
Song Yang whispered, "All fruits and vegetables are covered with these seeds."
"There are some here too!" Lu Chenfei squatted on the ground and pulled apart a large cabbage, revealing several red seeds hidden inside.
You Ye examined a bunch of purple grapes and found traces of seeds between the grapes. She said solemnly, "There are seeds here too."
Gu Chen lifted up the big pumpkin and shouted, "Here too!"
"There's also this!" Gu Xing exclaimed as he let go of a strawberry.
The vegetable and fruit garden, which is almost the size of two playgrounds, is full of vegetables and fruits, and seeds everywhere!
Gu Chen was shocked and said, "If these plants are the ones that produce seeds, then where did the seeds we found in the soil elsewhere in the forest come from? There are no such plants elsewhere in the forest, and these seeds can't be blown so far by the wind, right?!"
"If the seed is a monster, then of course it can crawl!" Lu Chenfei said with a dark face.
Gu Chen was stunned.
Xia Jing said slowly, "The monster we saw outside the window two days ago had a different appearance. It's probably because it wasn't a complete 'monster' at all."
"—That's a collection of these seeds."
Gu Xing finally reacted and covered his mouth.
——It's like wild geese. They can fly in a line or in a V-shape.
Dense clusters of seeds can also gather together, take on a variety of shapes, or scatter like fireworks when they retreat.
At this time, he finally confirmed his speculation, and Song Yang also solemnly told more clues that he and Xia Jing had noticed before.
"That guy with the mustache is contradictory. They say that anything from the forest is forbidden to be brought into the hotel, but in reality, any time a tourist steps into the forest, the soles of their shoes will inevitably be stained with forest mud and grass."
"You should have noticed along the way that, apart from the seeds we picked up yesterday, the rest of the plants in the forest don't have such a strong earthy smell. Even if we carry them with us, the hotel won't be able to detect them, let alone prohibit us."
"So from the very beginning, what they were guarding against was the seeds."
Gu Chen opened his mouth and asked again, "But, if the seeds turn into monsters and awaken at night, then...wait, what happened to the seeds that the mustache took away?"
"They threw them into a glass jar and soaked them in water," Xia Jing narrowed his eyes. "We found all the seeds in other areas of the forest buried in the soil. I think, no matter how they crawled during the night, they must have made some attempt to burrow into the soil before dawn."
"—After they shed their mother plant, they probably can't stay out of the soil for too long. That's why the hotel seals the seeds in water and labels them."
"If the seeds are out of the soil for a certain period of time, they will die."
Gu Xing exclaimed: "So the movement outside the window yesterday disappeared very quickly!"
It was at this moment that Gu Chen and Gu Xing suddenly thought of why the hotel used mosquito nets to prevent monsters!
Combined with Zhou Yaqing's experience of not pulling up the mosquito net on the first night and eating a "mosquito" in the middle of the night, a terrible idea came to their minds.
...From a seed to a plant, there must be a process of breaking through the soil and growing.
There were seeds hidden in the soil elsewhere in the forest, but they had not grown into plants. So what was so special about the land beneath their feet?
Xia Jing and Song Yang squatted down.
They began digging in the dirt again.
The other four people stood aside and watched at first, feeling a little overwhelmed. But soon, Lu Chenfei and You Ye took the lead, gritted their teeth and went forward to help. Gu Chen and Gu Xing also took a deep breath and squatted down.
Six people, six pairs of hands, quickly dug out the truth from the soil.
When Gu Xing saw the corpse buried deep in the soil, which had become the real "soil" for these strange plants, he couldn't help it and threw himself to the side and vomited!