I'm a Flower, but You're Definitely Not Human

Whee?

Yu Xing didn't think the other person would laugh out loud out of excitement just because they saw his face.

The fog was so thick that even the outlines of people were not clearly visible. He looked around with great interest, observing the surrounding environment that was faintly visible in the fog.

After climbing the cliff, this mountain suddenly became abnormal compared to the first one. At least on the first mountain, everyone had to be careful and observe before encountering the giant gray worms and mutated bone vines. But this mountain was practically telling everyone who came that it was abnormal.

The soil on the ground had a slight reddish tinge. As far as Yu Xing knew, this type of red soil was mostly distributed in tropical rainforests in the real world. It was washed by torrential rain and was acidic red due to its high content of iron and aluminum oxides.

But the climate here is clearly not as humid and hot as the rainforest, so where does this red color come from?

The trees around us looked as if they had been twisted into pretzels, their branches leaning to one side, twisted and gnarled, with small white fruits on them, and slender, soft, and graceful leaves.

The chirping of insects and birds gradually began, at least it wasn't as silent as Valley of the Dead anymore, but just because living things can survive in this mountain forest doesn't mean humans can.

Yu Xing discovered many messy footprints on the cliff, probably left by the previous group of people who came here, leading to the depths of the forest.

He remained silent, but the voice that had spoken earlier seemed to be growing impatient on the other side of the fog. A soft female voice, mixed with some of Yu Xing's vocal qualities, as if trying to re-attract Yu Xing, asked in the exact same tone as the first time it had spoken, "Who is it?"

Yu Xing unconsciously touched the warm hilt of the knife with his thumb, trying to recall where he had heard the woman's voice before, something that sounded somewhat familiar. He replied, "It's your ancestor."

The woman's voice said, "It's your ancestor."

It really is something that can mimic human speech, and it even seems to have a certain degree of self-awareness; otherwise, it wouldn't have just laughed it off when Yu Xing it for parroting.

Yu Xing hadn't misheard. The more the other person imitated his speech, the more his voice resembled his. It was no longer the pure female voice from the beginning. Perhaps that female voice had also mixed several voices, which made it impossible for Yu Xing to recognize who some of the familiar voices belonged to.

He paid attention to his feet and head, slowly walking towards the source of the sound, mentally going through the women who might appear in this simulation, including simulationists he had met before and NPs he had just met.

Just a heads-up, this app is really good and worth installing, especially since it allows you to cache books and read them offline!

There weren't many choices: Xiao Xuechen, Shi Jiu, Alice, and the local residents in the campsite outside the mountains.

If the scope is broadened further, it's not impossible that among the female deducers he's met before, there might happen to be one in this investigator-type deduction world. But the problem is that in the deductions he's passed, the survival rate of women... is generally not high.

Of course, this is also because there are inherently fewer female strategists.

He eliminated several candidates, Yu Xing, somewhat puzzled, deliberately asked, "Why are you here?"

Sure enough, as soon as he answered, the woman's voice excitedly repeated, "Why are you here?"

This time, Yu Xing was closer and had a better ability to distinguish voices. His pupils contracted as he realized he had overcomplicated the identity of the person speaking; it was the same person he had encountered during this simulation.

However, this person was the one among the women he listed who should least set foot here.

That's Alice's voice!

Yu Xing's eyes flickered. He used the back of his knife to push aside the vines blocking his path, and finally, where the thick fog had cleared, he realized what had made the sound.

He saw a huge vine cluster, just like the ones on the cliff face.

Several vines extend outwards from the vine cluster, densely packed like a spider web. If anyone hears the sound and comes to investigate, they might accidentally step on the vines that cover the ground and be surrounded by them.

The fog here is so thick that you can't detect the hidden dangers unless you get close.

"Was it you who spoke?" Yu Xing stared at Teng Tuan, her tone tinged with surprise.

The same question immediately arose from within the vine tuft, even the tone was exactly the same, the voice was half male and half female, very androgynous. "Was it you who spoke?"

So there was something wrapped inside the vine bundle.

Yu Xing wasn't surprised. He had been wondering what was inside the vines, and now he could finally guess: what was being protected by the vines was probably a flower.

But Hua couldn't possibly be that useless; plus, if she can create illusions, then she deserves to be listed alongside the other three dangerous things.

After hesitating for two seconds, Yu Xing wanted to confirm something, so she temporarily refrained from testing whether there were flowers inside. Instead, she carefully stepped through the gaps between the vines to approach the vine cluster itself, and then proceeded to recite a list of dishes.

After he finished reciting his long list of dishes, the thing inside the vine began to repeat it merrily. Clearly, it didn't understand the meaning of the words themselves, nor did it realize how embarrassing it was to be reciting dishes to a human.

Imagine a tall, strikingly handsome man standing ramrod straight beside a twisted vine in a mountain forest. Thick, white fog surrounds him, through which the branches of the crooked trees are visible. The man stares intently at the vine, listening intently to the call of nature, a call that seems to say, "I'll treat you to steamed lamb, steamed bear's paw, steamed deer tail..."

"Hiss..." Anyway Yu Xing she listened to the vine's meticulous imitation.

He mainly wanted to hear the changes in the timbre of this thing. As the names of the dishes were announced, the voice coming from inside the vine bundle gradually shifted towards a male voice. In the end, it was very similar to the magnetic voice that Yu Xing usually used.

It also contains other characteristics, probably the sounds left behind by people who passed by it long ago, the time before that, or even much longer ago.

Yu Xing got the result he wanted. By explaining the basics of crosstalk to Teng Tuan, he determined that it was learning the voice of the person who had recently come. So the question is, the person who came before him was Alice.

But how could it be Alice?

She should still be at the entrance of the valley, resting at the camp with Brother Sun and Scarface, or perhaps she returned the way she came after discovering the map was missing.

Even without a map, they had to keep going. At their pace, they should have just reached the middle of the valley. How could Alice possibly have climbed the cliff before Yu Xing and left enough space around the rattan ball to change her voice into a woman's voice?

There's only one possibility: there are two Alice in this mountain.

One person rested wearily at the campsite, while the other took advantage of the chaos of the previous night to get ahead of someone and climb the second mountain shrouded in thick fog.

Yu Xing found things were getting interesting. If that's the case, the latter should be true. Not only could Alice survive alone in these mountains, but she also knew a lot of information and the route forward.

She was likely just like Shi Jiu, acting as an informant in Brother Sun's team. Once she realized the team was not a threat, she stopped keeping watch and chose to leave early.

The difference is that Shi Jiu doesn't care about the original strength of Brother Sun's team; she just wants to trip them up and weaken them so that they won't become a threat in the future competition for the secrets of the tomb. Alice, on the other hand, is only responsible for making judgments. If Brother Sun's Brother Sun stronger, she would continue to mingle with them, but if the team is weak and no longer of value for her to monitor, she will leave.

Yu Xing recalled Alice's slightly chubby face and found it amusing. Do these forces nowadays like to shove girls into other teams as spies? Are girls really that successful?

That seems to be true. Anyway, when Alice approached him and kept talking to him, he didn't feel disgusted. On the contrary, he thought that such a brave and cute girl was adorable, so he just let her be.

Looking back now, the maternal glow that she frequently displayed when she was with him was nothing more than a way to lower his guard and try to figure out the background of this painter who was out of place in the team.

He was the first to fall behind last night, and Alice must have noticed, so even if she hadn't figured it out yet, she had no reason to stay with the team.

After mentally reviewing the power struggles between the various factions, Yu Xing's curiosity was piqued once again.

Who exactly is this "Alice" in the camp?

Is this Alice's special ability? Because this world is different from his real world, abilities like Carlos's manipulation of paper figures are acceptable, which means that there are many special people in this world, not only the divination practitioners scattered in various places, but also the "native" NPs.

What Alice possesses—a clone, or a disguise?

Brother Sun really wanted to curse.

He did curse, but unfortunately, apart from Scarface, no one in the camp could hear his furious outbursts.

The twelve-person team was torn apart after crossing just one mountain. Four people died in front of him or had their bodies found. Incredibly, six people went missing: Shi Jiu, San, Finley, Mantou, A Long, and Alice, who had just disappeared.

No, it can't be said that he just disappeared, because when he woke up from his headache-induced coma, only Scar was beside him, while Alice, who had gone into the tent to rest, had turned into a rotting corpse of some unknown year.

After being chased by a horde of corpses all night, Brother Sun was so frightened he almost jumped up. Then he discovered that the rotting corpse was wearing Alice's clothes, but its face had nothing to do with Alice.

Suddenly, Brother Sun's muddled mind cleared up. He understood the cause and effect, and couldn't help but grit his teeth.

Alice did it on purpose! She came prepared! She must have knocked me unconscious, stolen my map, and then put a rotting corpse in the tent, waiting for it to turn into a zombie and ambush me tonight!

But he was helpless now. He had failed this time. He didn't have enough men and supplies to continue, and he had lost the map. He had no choice but to turn back.

With Scarface's help, Brother Sun packed up some usable items. He thought bitterly that when he got back, he would definitely drag out the middleman who introduced Alice and interrogate him thoroughly. He would find out which powerful connections were so blatant that they had the words "sucker" written all over his face!

He was severely weakened, gained no benefits, and lost a lot of money. In particular, San, whom he had hired at great expense, disappeared into the vast mountains before he could even play a useful role.

Brother Sun had no hope that San was still alive. He knew that even if this painter liked to exercise, it was only because he was physically fit. The danger of a life-or-death struggle was something that an imaginative artist who liked to paint horrors and ghosts couldn't withstand. Not to mention anything else, San didn't have insecticide.

Little did he know that when Yu Xing stole the map, she also took a bottle of insecticide with her, and Brother Sun assumed that Alice had taken it as well.

Yu Xing did a good deed anonymously, but the blame was all placed on Alice Li.

In the misty mountains, a burst of laughter suddenly rang out, startling a flock of birds into flight.

Yu Xing wasn't interested in what was happening at the camp; he was currently showing a video to Teng Qiu.

With only a small portion of battery left and no signal anyway, Yu Xing rummaged through the phone's video and audio folder for a while before finally finding a video clip that somehow ended up on San's phone, clearly labeled as a compilation of highlights from a crosstalk performance.

He pulled out the SIM card, and the voices of the two comedians kept coming from the phone, their accents very similar to those in Tianjin. Occasionally there would be a pause, and Tengtuan would seize the opportunity to imitate a few lines. By now, Tengtuan had completely taken on the role of the comedian.

Yu Xing watched with satisfaction as Tianjin Tengtuan learned to perform crosstalk in just over ten minutes. He thought Tengtuan's voice was much better than before. He mischievously thought that it would be great if Zhao Yijiu and Zhao Mou could learn to perform crosstalk someday. These two Tianjin have real talent.

After admiring the Tianjin rattan for a while, Yu Xing in a very good mood. He decided to keep his achievements hidden and, carrying his Tang sword, bypassed the rattan and continued into the mountains.

After walking about six or seven meters, seeing that a thin layer of white mist was already obscuring the vines between him and the vines, Yu Xing turned around and threw his phone at the vines, which hit the top of the vines.

The vines reacted strongly to the touch, entwining themselves around the phone. The vines on the ground rose up in a serpentine pattern and then shot towards the phone at high speed. The poor phone didn't even know what was happening before it was smashed to pieces, and the crosstalk video inside came to an abrupt end. Now, only the thing inside the vine tangle was still performing crosstalk.

After the vines snatched the phone, they seemed to receive some kind of signal and slid outwards, revealing what was inside.

This was exactly what Yu Xing wanted to see, and as expected, there was indeed a flower inside—a large, pure white flower with four petals.

The white flower is about the height of an adult's forearm, and its petals, once fully open, resemble those of a lily.

Its petals have many holes at the bottom, and between the petals there is even a translucent membrane with veins, inside which the blood vessels expand and contract with the sound emitted by the flower, just like breathing.

Previously, it was tightly wrapped by vines, but after the vines caught their "prey," it was exposed to the air. The pure white stamen trembled excitedly twice upon contact with the white mist in the air, and then a few wisps of pale red gas escaping from the holes under the petals.

Yu Xing wasn't too far away; he watched as the pale red color merged with the mist and spread outwards.

Some of them drifted toward him, and Yu Xing stood there expectantly, controlling his breathing as he inhaled a small breath of red-tinged mist.

Instantly, a scream reached his ears, as if a terrifying scene had been unearthed from his memory, and he felt an itch all over his body, making him want to scratch.

"So that's how it works..." Yu Xing calmly retreated, quickly moving away from the area, only then did she feel the strange sensation on her body gradually dissipate, and the sounds around her returned to silence.

He murmured, "The large white flower mimics human voices to lure prey. Once the prey takes the bait and steps on the vine, the vine bundle binds it. Then the vine unfurls, allowing the flower's stamens to come into contact with the mountain mist, releasing a hallucinogenic red gas that causes people to commit suicide in a cruel way."

Finally Yu Xing reached a conclusion.

The large white flower needs blood to survive, so the vines must cooperate with it, causing people to die next to it.

Otherwise, the vines could skin a person alive and cause a gruesome death on their own; there would be no need for such trouble.