Decay

  Because even if the positions of those few people were remembered just now, but if they changed their positions afterwards, the tracker would be meaningless. Fortunately, Lu Xun's phone was durable and when he restarted the tracking system, several red dots appeared on the screen again. Still in their original positions, not much had changed, and instead, the three who were about to leave the Stone Gate Pass seemed to have deviated further from the exit.

  Back to reality, how can we leave this place?

  He put away his phone and continued to walk towards me, not making a sound. I was hoping he would be stuck there until nightfall. At this point, it was already afternoon, and if we delayed any further, the fog would likely thicken soon, making every step difficult, and then we wouldn't have to worry about how to get out anymore.

  I put down my bag, unzipped it and rummaged through the tools. Since it was hard to pull open the rattan net with bare hands, I had no choice but to cut it open. Just as I found a pair of scissors and was about to take action, I suddenly heard knocking sounds coming from beside me. I turned my head to look and saw him hitting something in front of him, and even used his foot to kick it. This scene looked a bit abnormal, and I couldn't help but speak up: "It's just because I said a couple of words to you, do you have to be so hysterical?"

  "What are you talking about? Come and help quickly. This tree trunk is hollow. We might be able to climb up from here."

  That was actually a hundred-year-old ancient cypress! I had wrongly accused Luchu, he remained silent and wasn't sulking, but rather discovered that what surrounded us was a giant tree stump, estimated to be around three meters in diameter. Due to the dense vines covering it, the stump rose high into the air, making us see branches splitting out from the treetop, thinking they were separate trees.

  Similarly, because the vines were too dense, they covered almost two meters of the base, preventing sunlight from shining in, so it lost the nutrients needed for survival. What's more, the wild vines sucked out the nutrients inside its body, gradually hollowing it out, so after continuously scraping off the surface bark with a knife, just a few kicks were enough to break open a hole, and indeed, the inside had become hollow.

  He dropped a sentence: "You wait here, I'll go in and take a look first." He crawled inside. After waiting for at least ten minutes, he finally saw him crawling out from inside, directly picked up the backpack that had just been put on the ground by him, and handed it over to me: "Take the bag and follow behind me." Then he crawled in again, looking like this should be able to climb up.

  When I also crawled in, I found that the situation was not what I expected. The ancient cypress tree may be hollow, but it's not completely empty inside. It only allows people to bend their waists and walk with difficulty. The top has a gap, but if you want to climb up, you might get stuck.

  Because it's pitch black as soon as you enter the tree hole, the flashlight comes in handy at this time. In just a split second, I turned back to look for Luchu, but he was nowhere to be seen. I searched around, and it was really strange - the space is not that big, how could he disappear into thin air? Suddenly, I heard his voice coming from somewhere: "Come over here, where are you?" Following the sound, I shone the flashlight in that direction, and found that there was actually another hole just the right size for a person to crawl through, and Luchu's voice was coming from inside.

  The cat immediately walked over with its waist, and before it reached the entrance of the hole, I saw a succession of heads poking out from there. After our eyes met, they complained: "What are you doing? Follow me closely." He actually understood that I had lost him just now.

  After crawling through the third hole in the tree layer, I suddenly realized something. In this mysterious and deep forest, because of the long lifespan of trees, some are over a hundred years old, and some are even hundreds or thousands of years old. As a result, their roots have gradually grown together, and even the trunks at the bottom have converged into one piece. Therefore, not only is the sunlight insufficient to provide nutrients, but this soil has almost reached the point of exhaustion.

  So, these tree stumps, which seemed extremely sturdy, had all rotted away.