Chapter 114.1
Xiao Tangqiu, “f.u.c.k!”
Tang Mianmian, “f.u.c.k!”
They actually witnessed a living person turn into a tree right in front of them!
The middle-aged man had completely turned into a tree in an instant with not even a trace of being a human left.
Bai Yushan sneered, “Sure enough! Everyone in this village became a tree!”
Tang Mianmian hesitated, “But he didn’t seem to be lying just now.”
Xiao Tangqiu frowned, “Maybe this guy really didn’t know that he would become a tree. Didn’t he say it before, every time he ate the Sacred Tree’s bark, he would sleep until the next morning… Maybe he became a tree without his knowledge and didn’t regain consciousness until the next morning.”
“It’s indeed possible, maybe he didn’t even know that he was a tree,” Xue Junli nodded, “But… Why did he become a tree? He should have been a normal person originally. He was from outside the island, so what’s the reason for his change?”
Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian glanced at each other, and said in unison, “The Sacred Tree’s bark!”
“There is no food on the island, everyone can only rely on the Sacred Tree’s bark to sustain themselves. A gradual mutation must have happened because he has eaten the bark!” Tang Mianmian quickly reacted, “He said that everyone on the island gathers under the Sacred Tree in the evening and asks the Sacred Tree for food, indicating that everyone should get their food around the same time. Then they would all go back to their houses to eat, so they would mutate around the same time. If this guy had eaten with the others, he would have become a tree with the others, so he wouldn’t realize that he became a tree… But if he doesn’t eat with the others and secretly goes out to feed his wife, the others had already all turned into trees by the time he comes back, so he a.s.sumed the others had disappeared.”
Duan Hongzhen sneered, “So the trees around the village are actually made up of the people on the island?”
“Most likely, yesk2026;” Xiao Tangqiu frowned, “Actually, there’s another strange point. Where did the water come from? If there’s no food on this island, there should be no water sources either. Maybe the water is also provided by the Sacred Tree.”
“The Sacred Tree gave them everything in order to turn them into trees?” Tang Mianmian touched his chin, “This is reallyk2026; hard to put into words. Then, what should we do next?”
Xiao Tangqiu stared at the big pit left behind by the Sacred Tree, seeming to be asking Tang Mianmian or just muttering to himself, “Where did the Sacred Tree go?” The most important thing was, how was the Sacred Tree related to their instance mission? What did it have to do with Shen Yuan’s resurrection?
“Let’s search around here, and then… wait until dawn,” Xue Junli looked up at the dark night sky. “Didn’t that person say that he woke up after dawn? It seems that these trees should become humans again after dawn. “
“A person during the day and a tree at night? How interesting…” Tang Mianmian touched his chin.
They began to search the vicinity of the giant pit. Since Bai Yushan had already gone to the bottom of the pit, they only searched around it. But all they found were the black thorn trees that were suspected to be people of the island. There was nothing on the whereabouts of the Sacred Tree.
“Forget it, let’s wait until dawn.” Xue Junli said lightly. Since they had searched for a long time without finding anything useful, it either meant that the time had not come, or that there was nothing to find.
Everyone turned around and returned to the village. Although the conditions in the village were not much better, there was at least a place to sleep compared to the wilderness.
When the newbies saw them coming back, they collectively breathed a sigh of relief, as if worried that they would leave them behind and ran away.
The village was completely silent and everyone spent a quiet but sleepless night like this.
Xiao Tangqiu recalled the things written in the Book of Light, tossing and turning all night. He felt that he had just closed his eyes and it was dawn.
When the first ray of morning light fell on Xiao Tangqiu’s face through the primitive window, his eyes shot open. He heard a rustling sound.
The rustling sound was very light, like the sound of the wind blowing through tree leaves. He turned and got out of bed and walked to the window to witness an amazing scene. A dozen or so trees slowly moved in from the village entrance. The way they moved was very strange. First, they uprooted a few tree roots up into the air, then the exposed tree roots took root on the ground in front, and then the remaining section of the roots would also do it.
They just kept pulling roots and re-rooting, advancing in such a strange yet seemingly normal way.
When the strange black thorned trees entered the village, they gradually changed. The original rough and hard bark became human skin and the roots became human legs. By the time they returned to their own homes, they had completely become humans. Everyone had their eyes closed, as if they were sleepwalking.
Xiao Tangqiu saw that the middle-aged man also returned, changing from a tree back to a human when he stepped into the door of his house. He was not wearing any clothes but he walked into the house as if sleepwalking, and he automatically found and put on clothing. It was as if the same action had been done hundreds of times before.
If this guy really turned into a tree every night unknowingly, his body habitually took off his clothes before turning into a tree and then rooting himself, then after daybreak, he turned back into a human and returned home. If he did all of that, then he would definitely remember to put his clothes back on automatically.
Except for a couple of newbies with low vigilance, the others also woke up one by one. They silently looked at the middle-aged man who seemed to be sleepwalking with his eyes closed, then looked at each other for a while. Finally, Duan Hongzhen stepped forward and stretched out his hand to pat the middle-aged man on the shoulder with some strength, “Hey! Wake up!”
The middle-aged man snapped awake in an instant. He looked at Duan Hongzhen in shock, then turned to look at Xiao Tangqiu and others, then looked down at his hands and legs with a look of disbelief. In just one night, his eaten arm grew back; just like a tree, no matter how many branches were lost, it would grow back soon.
Xiao Tangqiu said lightly, “It seems that you still remember what happened last night.”
The middle-aged man blurted out subconsciously, “No! Impossible! That’s impossible!”
He subconsciously resisted, wanting to refute Xiao Tangqiu, but also questioning himself, “How is this possible? How could I become a tree? No! This is impossible! This must be a nightmare! It’s just a nightmare!”
“Why is it impossible?” Xiao Tangqiu said lightly, “You can accept that your wife has become a tree, so how can you not accept that you have also become a tree?”
“No! That’s impossible!” The middle-aged man reacted strongly, “If I really became a tree, why can I change back? If I can change back, why can’t my wife change back? Why is she still a tree!”
This was indeed a question. Xiao Tangqiu pondered for a while and said, “Are you… not the same species of trees?”
The corners of the middle-aged man’s mouth twitched violently. At this moment, Xue Junli suddenly said, “You have turned back, but your wife can’t. Isn’t it because your wife is dead?”
The middle-aged man choked suddenly, but he still shook his head frantically, “No! Impossible! How can I become a tree? I cannot become a tree!”
“Why?” Xiao Tangqiu felt that the att.i.tude of the middle-aged man was off, and immediately asked, “Do you know something? Or is it that you were normal at first, and the mutation happened recently? Do you know what happens after the mutation?”
The middle-aged man fell to his knees with a thud and shivered, “No… Impossible… I can’t become a tree… I’ve seen… I’ve seen those people…”
“What do you mean? Go on.” Xiao Tangqiu said coldly.
“Those who are over 30 years old… They will return to the Sacred Tree the day before they die.” The middle-aged man hugged himself and shook, “They will change into a tree, then… be absorbed by the Sacred Tree… and ultimately become part of the Sacred Tree…”