Chapter 330: Eerie Forest

Wu Tongyuan’s voice pierced the dead night sky and disturbed everyone’s minds. Everyone’s expressions changed, and cold sweat began to break out on their backs.

Indeed, in this deep forest, only that fragment existed... Combined with the disappearance of the previous two teams, it was hard not to let one's imagination run wild.

"Old Wu!" Lu Xun frowned and glared at him, signaling him not to speak.

"What's the use of glaring at me! I'm telling the truth!" Wu Tongyuan bit the bullet and glared back. "Didn't I say this thing was evil? This is no fragment; it's a monster from the sky! A little monster that fell off a big monster!"

This time, no one refuted Wu Tongyuan’s words. Everyone looked down at the fragments of communication equipment on the ground, their brows locked.

"Old Lu, now that the communication equipment is gone and we know that thing is a monster... let's turn back." Wu Tongyuan tried to persuade him earnestly. "While we haven't gone too far, it's still not too late to go back. Dealing with monsters should be done with planes and tanks, not by us scientists who have no strength to truss a chicken."

Lu Xun was silent for a long time before shaking his head:

"We can't turn back... It's nothing more than a special magnetic field. Now we already know how the first two teams lost communication. Even if we go back, it won't change anything. Sending another team would just mean not bringing communication equipment at all. How is that different from us continuing forward?"

"This trip is to figure out the principle of that thing. We can't give up halfway."

"Fine... fine."

Wu Tongyuan waved his hand. "I can't talk to you. I admit that compared to you, Dr. Lu, I'm a coward who is afraid of death, okay? Anyway, this exploration is the same with or without me. I'll withdraw first, you guys continue forward."

He turned and walked toward the dark forest behind him.

Seeing this, everyone turned to look at Lu Xun... Wu Tongyuan was brought by Lu Xun, and his relationship with Lu Xun was the best. At this moment, only Lu Xun could persuade him to stay. But Lu Xun didn't stop him, just watched him turn and leave quietly.

The wind-and-rain-swept deep forest rustled. In the endless darkness, only Wu Tongyuan’s flashlight moved forward slowly. After walking for a few seconds, he stopped automatically.

He looked at the dark forest in front of him, which was like an unknown giant beast, and swallowed his saliva.

"...Old Lu, send someone to escort me?" He turned his head and asked cautiously.

Lu Xun said faintly, "Sorry, we don't have any extra manpower."

“……”

Just as Wu Tongyuan was gritting his teeth, Chen Ling’s voice suddenly sounded:

"Dr. Wu, is it? I'm afraid even if someone escorted you, you wouldn't be able to go back."

Wu Tongyuan was stunned and looked at him suspiciously. "Why?"

Chen Ling raised his hand and pointed to the forest behind him and the mountains lurking in the darkness. "Because we are no longer on the road we came from..."

As soon as this sentence was spoken, the others didn't understand what it meant, but when several doctors saw the mountain range, their expressions changed instantly!

"Did we come from that direction?"

"No, there were no mountains in the direction we came from..."

A scholar in a protective suit walked under one of the trees and observed it carefully with a flashlight for a moment, his expression becoming increasingly ugly.

"No... these trees are also wrong!"

"What's wrong with them?"

"Generally speaking, the leaves on the south side of a tree are denser. We were heading south when we came, but now they are facing east... This is not the forest we came from at all."

"But, but we clearly walked out from here! Our footprints are still there..."

"Wait, where are the footprints??"

Everyone then discovered that the long string of footprints left by dozens of people had disappeared. The ground didn't leave any trace of them, as if they had appeared out of thin air in this forest.

This discovery made everyone shudder. Even Lu Xun, who was leading, had his expression changed. Everything happening before them had exceeded their daily cognition.

"It's over... what did I say, what did I say!!" Wu Tongyuan stumbled back into the crowd and said tremblingly, "Coming here was a mistake... Now it's good, we can't go back!"

A researcher with black-rimmed glasses was relatively calm and said in a deep voice, "Maybe it's too dark, we remembered the direction wrong, and the wind and rain in the mountains washed away our footprints... Or perhaps, that fragment has hallucinogenic components? Look, none of us have protective masks on now, maybe we inhaled something that affected our brain's judgment."

Chen Ling looked at the person who spoke in surprise. Among the crowd, he and Lu Xun were relatively calm. At this time, he could still try to explain everything before them with scientific principles.

"Dr. Lou is right. What we need to do is explain all this in a scientific way, not push all abnormal phenomena to ghosts and gods." Lu Xun said in a deep voice. "Old Wu, say less, don't add psychological burden to others."

Wu Tongyuan opened his mouth to refute, but after seeing Lu Xun’s murderous gaze, he silently lowered his head.

"But now we have no idea where we are, the communication equipment is broken, and the compass is malfunctioning... How can we confirm the location of the Red Star fragment?" Su Zhiwei looked at the spinning compass in her hand and frowned.

"If I remember correctly, Dr. Lu should be able to identify the direction by the position of the stars." Yang Xiao, who had been silent, suddenly spoke.

Lu Xun looked up at the sky. Thick dark clouds completely shrouded the mountains, and not a bit of moonlight or starlight could be seen.

"No, the rain clouds blocked the starry sky..."

As soon as this sentence was spoken, everyone’s hearts sank. Without being able to locate the Red Star fragment, they couldn't continue their actions, and they couldn't even turn back... Unexpectedly, just ten minutes after starting, everyone was in a deadlock.

Just then, Lu Xun seemed to think of something and looked at Chen Ling like he was grabbing the last straw.

"Director Chen, you are most familiar with this deep forest. Do you have a way to locate it?"

Everyone then remembered that they still had a guide following them, and if it weren't for him taking off everyone’s masks in time, they would have lost their ability to act by now. They turned to look at him one after another.

Chen Ling held his flip phone, his eyes narrowed as he looked into the distance... After a few seconds of silence, he nodded and said:

"Yes, I know where that fragment is."

Everyone’s eyes lit up, feeling a surprise of turning the corner, and let out a long breath. Sure enough, one still needs a guide at this time.

Chen Ling could locate the Red Star fragment, of course, not because he was familiar with this forest, but because he could locate the source of the magnetic field fluctuation through the flip phone disturbed by the electromagnetic field... In Chen Ling’s eyes, that fragment was as dazzling as a torch in the dark night.

Chen Ling walked through the crowd, went straight to the front of the team, and said calmly,

"Follow me."