books44 Chapter 84 Chapter Recollection
Chapter 84 Chapter Recollection
This is a forest with hazy lighting and strangely twisted tree shapes.
The tree trunk has burls resembling human faces, and the branches and leaves sway slowly in the stillness of the wind.
The ground wasn't soil, but some kind of soft, dark red substance that would sink slightly when stepped on.
The air was filled with a sweet, cloying fragrance that, when inhaled, could induce mild hallucinations and amplify emotions.
The rules appeared on a piece of dead wood:
【Mental Forest Rules:】
First, the forest reflects your inner emotions and thoughts and materializes them.
Second, maintain inner peace and emotional stability. Intense fear, anger, desire, etc., can give rise to corresponding "mental monsters."
Third, find the "Tranquility Lake" in the center of the forest, reflect your image in the lake water, wash away all emotional residue, and you will obtain the exit mark.
Fourth, do not trust any "familiar faces" or "memory scenes" that appear in the forest; they may be traps in your mind.
Fifth, if one dies here, their soul will be absorbed by the forest, becoming new nourishment and landscape.
Lin Yu memorized the rules and entered the forest.
The ground beneath my feet was soft and springy, and every step felt like stepping on a living thing.
The sweet aroma kept wafting into the nasal cavity, making people involuntarily relax their guard and let their thoughts drift.
Lin Yu immediately held his breath, concentrated his mind to suppress all distracting thoughts, and maintained a calm and undisturbed state of mind.
The forest was quiet, with only the sound of footsteps and a faint "thump...thump..." sound in the distance, like a heartbeat.
After walking for about ten minutes, a figure suddenly appeared in the fog ahead.
It's Shen Bing.
She stood under a tree, wearing her crisp police uniform, and smiled and waved to Lin Yu: "Lin Yu, over here, come on~"
Lin Yu's eyes remained unchanged, and he walked straight past "Shen Bing" without stopping.
Shen Bing's sweeping is so fake, it couldn't be more fake.
Shen Bing's smile froze, and her body melted like a wax figure, seeping into the ground.
Lin Yu continued forward.
Then the nightingale appeared, kneeling on one knee, devoutly calling to its master.
Su Wan appeared and said gently, "We'll wait for you to come back."
Anna appeared, crying and shouting, "Master, don't go!"
Even Qin Shuang and Qin Xue appeared, seductively beckoning with their fingers...
Lin Yu's lips twitched; this illusion was far too childish.
Perhaps it's because he has a pure heart; in any case, this illusion has no harmful effects whatsoever.
Lin Yu isn't some naive cook (Shenhe); he can't resist this little temptation.
These phantoms dissipated as he approached.
But as he ventured deeper into the forest, the sweet, cloying scent seemed to penetrate his skin, and even holding his breath was useless.
Some deeply buried emotional fluctuations were still stirred up and amplified.
Suddenly, some strange sights appeared ahead.
Lin Yu stood before that distorted scene, his brows slightly furrowed.
Burning ruins, screaming crowds, the back view of a little girl curled up and crying...
These images are intensely emotional, conveying grief, despair, and a chilling cold that seeps into your bones.
But this wasn't Lin Yu's memory, yet the little girl felt very familiar to him.
Lin Yu immediately realized that this was the mind image of the kestrel.
She got lost in the forest.
The rules of the mental forest will materialize the deepest traumas and fears in a person's heart. The more you try to suppress them, the more ferocious the rebound will be.
Beneath the kestrel's cold shell lies a deeply painful past.
Lin Yu's gaze fell upon the ruins.
The details are very clear.
Charred wooden beams, broken rubble, and twisted symbols painted on the walls with some kind of dark red pigment... this must be some destroyed settlement in the Ash Wasteland.
The little girl's back view showed her chestnut hair tied in a crooked braid, wearing tattered and ill-fitting coarse cloth clothes, and her shoulders trembling violently as she cried.
This is a kestrel from my childhood.
Lin Yu did not rashly step into this area of mental imagery.
He first took a few steps back and carefully observed his surroundings.
The ground of the Mind Forest is a dark red, soft substance, but at the edge of this burning ruin area, the ground is noticeably darker, almost blackish-red, and pulsates slightly as if it were alive.
The sweet aroma in the air became pungent here, mixed with the smell of burning and blood.
The grotesque figures of screaming people moved through the ruins, but their movements were repetitive and stiff.
It's like a broken phonograph playing a scene from a disaster on a loop.
Only the little girl's crying was real and vivid.
Lin Yu tried calling out in a normal way: "Red Falcon".
no respond.
The little girl continued to cry with her back to him, showing no reaction to his voice.
Lin Yu then tried throwing a piece of gravel into that area.
The stone passed through the afterimage and landed on the ground with a dull "plop" sound, before being slowly swallowed up by the dark red ground.
It seems that ordinary methods are ineffective in understanding someone else's mindset.
But rule number four says, "Don't trust any familiar faces or memories that appear in the forest; they may be traps in your mind."
At this moment, the falcon is trapped in her own mental prison.
To rescue her, we must find a way to get inside her, but not too directly; we must trick the rules from behind—a so-called back route.
Lin Yu needs Red Falcon as a backup to rescue her.
After thinking for a moment, Lin Yu decided to try one method first, but to be on the safe side, he also used the cooperation opportunity.
He closed his eyes, relaxed his mental defenses, and let the sweet aromas affect him.
At the same time, he began to recall fragments related to the kestrels.
A calm glance on the train, the silent watchmanship in the shack, the tacit cooperation in front of the clock tower, that unexpectedly profound night in the hotel, born out of necessity for survival...
Lin Yu wanted to create a certain resonance between his mental image and Hong Fu's mental image, to intertwine them like a teacher and student.
Sure enough, as Lin Yu deliberately guided his thoughts, the surrounding forest scenery began to blur and distort.
He felt the ground beneath his feet become softer, almost like he was sinking into it.
A new sound reached my ears. Not the grotesque screams of the past, but fragments of more intimate and real sound:
"Run... Little Falcon, run as fast as you can! Don't look back, don't look back..."
"Mommy, Mommy!"
"Live on, promise Mom...live on..."
It is the sound deep in the kestrel's memory.
Lin Yu opened his eyes, and the scene before him had changed.
He was still standing in the forest, but the boundary of the area of burning ruins in front of him had become blurred.
More importantly, he could see an extremely fine thread extending from the back of the crying little girl.
Passing through the ruins, it stretches into the depths of the forest in some direction.
"Is that... the connection at the core of emotions?"
Lin Yu looked in the direction the silk thread extended and vaguely saw an area shrouded in darkness in the distance.
That's where the kestrel is truly trapped right now.
Her most feared and least willing-to-face core memories are hidden in her subconscious.
The crying little girl in front of us may just be a surface projection.
Lin Yu decided to take the risk and give it a try.
He took a deep breath, no longer resisting the influence of the forest, but instead actively channeling a portion of his consciousness into that thread of emotion.
In an instant, the world spun around.
Lin Yu felt himself being dragged into a fast-flowing tunnel.
All I could hear was the howling wind and chaotic cries.
Countless fragmented images flashed before my eyes: thugs wielding torches and knives, collapsed houses, and the mother's last look as she pushed her little girl into the cellar.
What followed was a long period of darkness, hunger, and cold, and glimpses through the cracks in the cellar of people in uniform searching, stabbing, and looting among the ruins...
Like a locust swarm passing through.