Thin brown twigs had burrowed out of the soil and, at some point, stuck firmly to the entire sole of her shoe, writhing like insects.
Lu Mi spotted them too and gestured for her to take her shoes off quickly.
Zhang Mei hurried to obey, but with her left shoe only halfway off, she suddenly stopped.
Beside her, Zhang Zhu was frantic. "Why did you stop? Hurry! This probably isn't one of 'Mom's' ways of killing people. You still have a chance!"
Zhang Mei slowly raised her head, her lips as pale as a corpse's.
Without a word, she continued taking off her shoe. Once she had pulled it all the way off, she let go, but the shoe remained suspended in the air-the brown twigs had pierced its sole, connecting the bottom of her foot to the ground.
"Brother, it's so cold. It hurts so much," she said.
Everyone fell silent.
Zhang Mei remained motionless in that same position, her face ashen, as though she could already see death waiting for her at the end of her fate.
Zhang Zhu, a grown man with a face full of stubble, spoke with a sob in his voice. "Lu Mi... Lu Mi, please save Mei. I was wrong earlier. Please don't hold it against me. You knew something was wrong with those flowers, so you must be able to save her now, right?"
Lu Mi's expression was grave. "Don't talk."
The writhing twigs made a wet, sticky sound, but beneath that, he heard something else.
At first, it was so faint that he had to check several times before he could be certain something was moving toward them underground. Its target was most likely Zhang Mei, who had picked a flower.
Tiny beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
He had started using his special ability as soon as Zhang Mei discovered that her shoe was stuck.
But despite several attempts, he couldn't control the twigs the way he could control water and fire.
Closer. It was getting closer. Zhang Zhu heard it too and grabbed Lu Mi in a panic. "What's coming? Have you-have you thought of anything?"
Lu Mi gritted his teeth and reached for Zhang Mei, who was already frozen in shock. At that same moment, a twig as thick as a grown man's upper arm burst out of the ground beside her feet, wrapped around her waist, and dragged her into a fissure in the earth.
Lu Mi's hand caught nothing. A second later, the ground opened wider and wider like a beast's gaping maw, and two even thicker twigs emerged.
As though they had eyes, they swiftly locked onto their targets. One bound Lu Mi and Ning Zhuangzhuang, while the other caught Zhang Zhu as he tried to flee, dragging them into the pitch-black depths underground.
The soil overhead settled back into place, and the twigs rustled as they writhed past.
Rubbing his forehead, Lu Mi slowly opened his eyes. He couldn't see anything. Only the overpowering stench of rotting meat assaulted his nose.
He tentatively felt around beside him and touched something soft.
Then Ning Zhuangzhuang's muffled voice reached him. "That's my damn back."
Lu Mi quickly withdrew his hand. "You're still here. Thank goodness. Where are the other two?"
He felt Ning Zhuangzhuang stand up and brush the dirt off herself. Then, with a click, a ghostly face appeared right in front of him.
Lu Mi recoiled in fright, then quickly realized that Ning Zhuangzhuang had switched on a flashlight and held it beneath her chin.
He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "At a time like this, you're still in the mood to scare me?" Then he asked curiously, "Wait, where did that flashlight come from?"
"It's an item I bought through the wristband." Ning Zhuangzhuang moved the flashlight away and shone it around them. "Those two Zhangs must be somewhere else. Weird. We didn't pick any flowers, so why were we dragged down here too?"
"Maybe those twigs thought we were together and were going to pick the flowers too." Lu Mi kept surveying their surroundings as he spoke.
The place was surprisingly spacious. Soil covered the ground beneath their feet, and several thick tree trunks supported the space between them like pillars.
Then what's above our heads? As the thought crossed Lu Mi's mind, Ning Zhuangzhuang raised the flashlight as though she had read it, illuminating the space overhead-
Both of them sucked in a sharp breath.
A headless corpse hung above them, wrapped like a cocoon in some kind of thick green substance.
"Judging by his build and clothes, that looks like the man whose tongue was cut out," Lu Mi said quietly.
Ning Zhuangzhuang murmured in agreement and shone the flashlight farther away, revealing more corpses scattered above them.
They walked with their heads tilted back, counting nine in all.
"If those twigs belong to the monstrous flowers at the foot of the wall," Lu Mi speculated, recalling what he had seen and heard in the kitchen the night before, "these headless corpses might be their fertilizer."
Ning Zhuangzhuang nodded. "No wonder those nine players only had their heads left on display in the living room... Thinking about it that way gives even me the creeps. Are you scared?"
Lu Mi considered it carefully. "Yes. But we might find some clues down here."
"Do you know what I do when I'm scared?"
Ning Zhuangzhuang walked beside him, the little tuft of hair at the back of her head bobbing up and down. "I sing. And I'm really good at it."
Lu Mi grew interested. This frail girl possessed a vitality that drew him to her. "Could you teach me?"
They wove between the tree trunks, searching for a way out.
To avoid attracting any monsters, they stayed close together. Using the birthday song as an example, Ning Zhuangzhuang quietly explained how to control breath and resonance. Lu Mi listened intently, committing it all to memory.
For that moment, neither the darkness beyond the flashlight's reach nor the stinking, headless corpses hanging overhead seemed quite so terrifying.
They walked for a very, very long time, even beginning to talk about the real world. Lu Mi admitted that he had lost all his memories, and Ning Zhuangzhuang told him about her family and her high school life.
Just as Lu Mi had almost relaxed enough to stretch, the flashlight suddenly caught something.
Not far ahead, a small, pitch-black humanoid creature lay curled up.
Ning Zhuangzhuang immediately switched off the flashlight.
Darkness reclaimed its territory, and cold sweat broke out over both their backs-the light had swept across its face just now. It was wrinkled, with several twisted, unidentified bluish-green things clinging to its surface.
The humanoid creature was facing them.
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