Alice's Hell (39)-Nourishment

The stark contrast between the warmth on his hands and the chill within his body further agitated Yu Xing. His current physical condition meant he couldn't afford to waste time, yet the situation was extremely difficult.

The anger in Zeng Lai's eyes was very real, as if Yu Xing had truly "betrayed his trust" and broken a part of his body.

But both his words and actions, as well as his still-functioning heart, told Yu Xing that Zeng Lai was still human and had not completely turned into something strange.

Things haven't gotten out of control yet.

He tossed the stunted rose towards Zeng Lai, raising his voice to reveal a suppressed disbelief beneath his composed tone. "Look closely at this! Can't you see yourself like this?!"

Zeng Lai was in so much pain that she lost her voice, and her eyes were blank for a moment.

"Wh... what does it look like?"

Isn't this just the rose growing on his body? What else could it look like?

Why did Xing have to hurt him? They were working together so well before!

Yu Xing saw his gaze clearly, and her narrow eyes squinted uncomfortably, whether she didn't want to look directly at Zeng Lai, who was covered in roses and whose eyes were rather glaring, or she didn't want to see Zeng Lai's stupid appearance.

In the end, however, he chose to look Zeng Lai in the eye, tossing the bleeding rose from her hand onto the muddy ground like trash. With his free hand, he grabbed Zeng Lai by the collar, his voice heavy. "Do you think it's normal for a human to grow roses?"

"What..." Zeng Lai frowned deeply, seemingly unable to understand Yu Xing's words.

"Come to your senses. Do you even have the concept of ghosts in your head anymore?" Yu Xing felt his blood vessels surging with his chaotic emotions from that moment, a chilling aura rampaging through him, like a reckless car race inside his body.

He trembled violently for a moment, barely managing to grab Zeng Lai. Blood flowed from his nose and the corners of his mouth. Yu Xing sighed deeply, withdrew his hand, took a step back, and wiped it haphazardly.

When the pain reached its peak, he actually calmed down.

That's strange; the reaction shouldn't be this strong.

Was it the unpleasant smell in the air that amplified the faint emotions in my heart...? Yu Xing closed her eyes.

"Ghosts? Of course I know... What are you trying to say?" Zeng Lai gritted his teeth.

Yu Xing tried to calm the chilling atmosphere, then threatened as he grasped another rose from Zeng Lai's arm. "Now, please carefully consider every word I say."

"You've been assimilated. These roses on you didn't grow on you before you entered this tunnel."

"You can think of it as some kind of malicious force modifying your body and affecting your brain, making you an idiot who's about to become a ghost without even realizing it."

Zeng Lai was taken aback. Although he had been called an idiot, his anger subsided considerably. After all, he was a highly capable strategist, and various possibilities flashed through his mind. He began to carefully consider Yu Xing's words.

Really? I didn't originally have any roses with me?

That seems to be the case? No one else has it.

Zeng Lai's current feeling is like when your friend suddenly looks at you and tells you, full of confusion, "How can you have a nose? Humans don't have noses."

If you look to the sides, you'll see that the other people don't have noses.

A few seconds later, his pupils contracted, and he involuntarily looked at the unopened rose stems covering his entire body.

"It seems... that's how it is?"

A few seconds later, Zeng Lai covered her head, confusion appearing in her eyes.

"Something seems off; I suddenly have a strange feeling..."

After realizing something was wrong, it was as if something in his mind had broken, and some isolated concept returned to his mind.

Twenty seconds later, Zeng Lai's face finally turned horrified. "Holy crap? How did these things grow on my body?!"

Very well, now his complexion looks even worse than Yu Xing's.

Yu Xing breathed a sigh of relief. Zeng Lai's perception hadn't been completely distorted; he still remembered his identity as the deducer and could still be corrected.

Yu Xing couldn't recall whether he had ever experienced cognitive distortion, but he could understand the feeling.

To use an imperfect analogy, it's like someone suddenly having a brain short circuit. They try to turn on the air conditioner with the TV remote but fail. This person carefully examines the remote, even re-inserts the batteries, and checks it thoroughly. They clearly know what both remotes look like, but they just don't realize they've picked up the wrong one.

In that instant, the person's mind was convinced that the TV remote in their hand was originally an air conditioner remote.

The truth is right before our eyes, but it is obscured by a layer of falsehood, thus affecting people's perception.

It wasn't until someone pointed out that he had taken the wrong remote that he belatedly realized what he had just done and began to wonder about his actions.

Zeng Lai was in this state. Only after Yu Xing laid everything out clearly in front of him did he manage to sort out his chaotic thoughts, and a deep sense of fear surfaced... He hadn't even realized what was happening to him!

That's terrifying! It's even more terrifying than if the person crying out was standing right in front of him!

"You remember now?" Yu Xing asked, as if confirming.

"Damn it, oh my god, it hurts!" Zeng Lai not only remembered, but he also tried to pluck a rose, and as soon as he exerted force, he experienced the pain of being peeled.

Sweating profusely, the man looked at Yu Xing with pleading eyes. "How could this happen?"

It's not that he gave up thinking; rather, given the current situation, Xing, who came to him, clearly knew more information.

Yu Xing calmed her breathing and pointed to Zeng Lai's hand, which had stopped moving due to the intense pain. "How does it feel?"

Zeng Lai said, "It feels like peeling off a layer of skin and pulling out a tendon from under the skin."

Upon hearing Yu Xing's desire to help the other person rip out every last root of their body diminished somewhat. "So, do you still remember how you became like this?"

"Well, the offerings I used to neutralize the curse's power are no longer usable. After that, it seems... I kept walking into the tunnel, and my skin was a little itchy, especially around the wounds. It felt like something was growing. At first, I thought it was the wounds healing, so I didn't pay much attention. But not long after, roses started growing. By then, I didn't think there was anything wrong with the roses anymore; I just assumed they were part of my body, and they kept multiplying."

Zeng Lai tried very hard to recall the experience, but was still terrified by it.

He wasn't unfamiliar with cognitive manipulation; he had even experienced a deduction Yugi where his memories were altered. But this time was different. This time, he had absolutely no awareness of it and was completely and naturally assimilated without anyone noticing.

If he hadn't been reminded, he probably would have remained in this "thinking ability" and become a non-human being.

He didn't know exactly what it would turn into, but it certainly wasn't going to be anything good.

"Was there no other opportunity along the way...? In other words, it's very likely that if I stay in the tunnel for too long, the wound from the rose scratch will undergo a change." Time is the most likely answer. Yu Xing looked at himself again. The reason he felt nothing was because his wound had completely healed, and it wasn't time yet?

Yes, most likely.

Zeng Lai also thought of it, and while feeling lingering fear, she was also somewhat annoyed by her carelessness.

That's so mean.

This deduction is ridiculous.

They actually set up a death spot that's so easy to fall into.

Normally, deduction scenarios rarely involve inevitable death, because this would contradict the purpose of the deduction. The deduction system doesn't want the deducer to die; it wants the truth.

The Rose Tunnel is not necessarily a death sentence; anyone who enters it can simply leave within a certain timeframe.

It now appears that the critical point should be around fifty minutes. Zeng Lai wasted half an hour in front of that door, so he exceeded the time limit.

The explanation is easy: it's perfectly reasonable for Alice to set up such a trap to prevent others from entering.

After calming down, Zeng Lai breathed a sigh of relief. Thankfully, he had realized it now and regained the initiative.

He took out the seemingly unadorned sacrificial scissors from his Persona Mask, steeled his heart, closed his eyes, and snipped at the roses on his body.

"Ah"

The fleshy thorns on the rose retracted sharply, followed by Zeng Lai's cry of pain. Fortunately, the next moment, a black mist surged from the cut area, which acted like a corrosive agent, devouring the remaining stem. Zeng Lai was at least relieved during the process.

It's good that it can be resolved.

The "ghostly energy," "curse," and other semi-abstract elements that are cut off by this dagger will be severed from their owner, making them easier to eliminate.

Seeing that the dagger was effective, Zeng Lai immediately began cutting off all the rose stems from her body. Apart from the initial pain when she cut them off, it was much easier afterwards.

Yu Xing watched him cut the paper, gaining a new understanding of the projected mortality rate.

Even celebrity predictors can perish without any chance of recovery if they're not careful. Although this is because they follow the hidden storyline, which naturally increases the difficulty, it's enough to illustrate the problem.

If that's the case...

Yu Xing's expression darkened.

Will it happen often that teammates almost die?

He couldn't stand that.

Those who don't know him well would probably never imagine that Yu Xing, the villain who is dedicated to making himself look worse, actually can't stand seeing someone he knows die in front of him.

He doesn't care about strangers, but if it's someone he approves of or admires, he will never allow them to get into trouble where he can help them.

Just like when he was on the drop tower with Zhao Yijiu, trying to get the clue at the tip of the sharp spikes, he didn't even consider the possibility of Zhao Yijiu taking risks, and ended up having his palm pierced.

Yu Xing is the kind of person who would rather suffer a fatal injury himself than see someone he approves of lose an arm, even though it's not outwardly apparent.

Even Zhao Yijiu, who had already realized that Yu Xing was intentionally preventing others from trusting and relying on him, probably wouldn't have thought of it that way. After all, such "kind and upright" behavior seemed completely inconsistent with Yu Xing's face, which was always shouting "I'm not serious."

Perhaps the longer you live, the more you cherish the people you can still get along with.

Yu Xing was always easygoing, only showing some restraint when it came to expressing goodwill.

Because all well-intentioned emotions could be used as leverage by those with ulterior motives. After all, there was a whole Single Prism watching him intently from across the way, manipulated by the Lingren. Not to mention, he occasionally worried about losing control, and those nearby wouldn't be able to avoid it.

Therefore, even if he worries about others and wants what's best for them, he usually doesn't show it outwardly. To others, he appears to be heartless, cold-blooded, and aloof.

Yu Xing admired Zeng Lai quite a bit; otherwise, he could have ignored Zeng Lai from the start. You see, even when he didn't know that Zeng Lai's location was the core area where the deduction ended, his choice was to save Zeng Lai first and then look for the plot.

"... Looks like I'll have to step up my efforts to protect my teammates from now on, otherwise I'll get hurt one after another and I'll be so excited I'll die." Others may not know Yu Xing, but he certainly knows what kind of person he is. Just now, for a moment when Zeng Lai turned his head from a distance, he thought Zeng Lai was dead.

My heart sank a little.

Although this time it was indeed sudden, Zeng Lai, who was fine not long ago, had become this strange-looking person when they met again. Coupled with the stimulation of the rose scent and the irritation brought by the cold atmosphere, Yu Xing couldn't control himself and let his emotions show. However, if Zeng Lai, who was not close to him, could cause him to have emotional fluctuations, let alone if it were Qu Xuanqing, Zhu Yan, or Zhao Yijiu.

Thinking about this, Yu Xing was very annoyed. "Tsk, trouble. I brought this trouble upon myself."

It's a personality trait I developed myself; I can't bring myself to curse.

"What did you say?" Zeng Lai finished dealing with the roses on his body. He seemed to hear Xing's whisper, but the sound was too soft, and his head was buzzing with pain, so he couldn't hear her at all.

"It's nothing. How are you feeling right now?"

"It's barely passable..." Zeng Lai couldn't bring herself to say the word "barely passable," it would be too heartless.

Thinking about how he almost died, he couldn't help but complain, "The roses in this tunnel are just too weird. They bloom as soon as you scratch them, and look, they're so densely packed. There's no way you can avoid them all. You're bound to get hurt in a few places..."

He paused here, because he looked Yu Xing over for a while and found that the man was unharmed.

Okay, let's pretend he didn't say anything.

Yu Xing agreed with him. He had actually cut himself along the way, even though he was very careful, but he recovered quickly because the density of roses here was too high.

So... why are there so many roses here?

Several fragmented images flashed through Yu Xing's mind, the clearest of which was the time Yi Qing's fan hit him on the head.

Yiqing's voice began to echo in his mind.

"It's even dirtier here. Irrigating such a large area would kill quite a few people."

Do you know where these roses came from?

"Oops, something fell to the ground."

I see.

Yu Xing glanced at Zeng Lai, and the answer became clear in his mind.

The source of roses... is living people.

When a living person is cut by a rose and fails to leave within the time limit, the same thing will happen to Zeng Lai.

Its entire body is covered with flower stems.

Then he died.

After death, the body rots in the soil, while the flowers that grow from the body take root in the soil, making it appear as if they were planted in the soil.

In fact, on both sides of them, beneath all the rose bushes... lay a corpse that had long since decomposed into nutrients.

Tsk, no wonder the floral fragrance is mixed with a rotten, unpleasant smell.