“Lie?”
“He said he lied to us?”
Bai Ting instantly sat up straight.
Sure enough!
Chen Bugu was indeed hiding something from them!
Bai Ting knew that what Chen Bugu wanted to say next was exactly what he had always wanted to know.
“I hope everyone will hear me out.”
“First, I know how to leave this forest.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Liu Shifu excitedly stood up from the ground, clenching his fists, his voice trembling.
“Are you… are you telling the truth?”
“It’s true, Liu Shifu. The towering jungle you saw to the north, reaching into the clouds, isn’t a jungle at all. It’s a single tree, and the key to leaving this forest is indeed within that tree.”
“A single tree? How is that possible!”
“At this point, do you still think anything is impossible?”
Chen Bugu countered, and Liu Shifu instantly recalled everything that had happened since Yu Tan Tunnel.
The inescapable tunnel, strange and varied abilities, summoned beasts, Scarlet Hounds, treasure chests, an endless forest, two-legged Green-skinned monsters…
Everything that had happened in this short day had already overturned his understanding built up over forty years.
Yes, what else could be impossible?
“As Liu Shifu you can see, the trunk of that tree alone has a radius of about two to three kilometers, and the base of the tree is an endless expanse of tangled roots. The exit from this forest is hidden beneath that tree, so our initial goal was not wrong.”
“We still need to find a way to bypass that Goblin gathering place and head north.”
“That tree, which I call ‘Soaring Sky Tree’, is our next objective.”
“But!”
Lin Xiaoxiao was about to speak when Chen Bugu’s “but” stopped her.
“I know what everyone wants to ask. After leaving this forest from the base of the Soaring Sky Tree, can we return to our original world, right?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
“However, perhaps after leaving, we will have a chance to see our families and friends. If everyone is worried about their families, at least we must leave here; this is our only chance.”
After Chen Bugu finished speaking, he did not continue.
He knew that everyone needed time to digest the huge amount of information he had just given them.
“Why?”
“Why can’t we go back to our original world, but we have a chance to see our families and friends? Where will we see them?”
Liu Shifu tightened his grip on the red whistle in his palm, continuing to press for answers.
His family was his greatest concern at the moment.
“Liu Shifu, we are not the only ones trapped in this forest.”
This time, Chen Bugu’s calm words made everyone stand up.
“You mean, besides us, there are other humans in this forest?”
Chen Bugu nodded.
“The strange event we encountered in Yu Tan Tunnel, I call it the ‘Great Disaster’.”
“At the same time we were struggling to survive in the tunnel, the ‘Great Disaster’ was unfolding in different ways in different places around the world.”
“Other unfortunate people will be successively drawn into strange events, and those who survive will, like us, be randomly dropped into some part of this Starting Forest.”
“And as long as they are on Earth, others will also be successively drawn into the ‘Great Disaster’ within the next year, and then randomly teleported to a certain location in this forest. Of course, not everyone will be able to reach this forest alive.”
Chen Bugu looked at Liu Shifu after he finished speaking, and Liu Shifu instantly understood his meaning, after all, so many people had died in Yu Tan Tunnel.
“No, no, then I want to stay here, I’m not going anywhere, I want to stay here and wait for my family!”
Liu Shifu immediately became emotional, as expected.
“Liu Shifu, putting aside whether your family has already been drawn into the ‘Great Disaster’, even if they have been randomly teleported to some location in this forest, where will you find them? And where do you think they are most likely to go?”
“Then I can’t help it, I can’t leave my family behind like this.”
Liu Shifu was clearly unable to think calmly.
Bai Ting and the others, however, frowned beside him, clearly realizing the complexity of the problem.
“Everyone will head towards the Soaring Sky Tree, because that’s the only place that looks different. Besides, if you stay here, you’ll starve to death first. Even if you manage to survive on some food, when you encounter those large Green-skinned monsters again, what will you use to protect your family?”
“Are you going to watch your family die before your eyes?”
This time, Liu Shifu was stumped.
Yes, with his current strength, if he encountered those monsters, he wouldn’t be able to protect his family at all.
“Then what should we do?”
Liu Shifu suddenly calmed down, but his eyes were full of exhaustion, as if he had aged ten years in an instant.
He looked helplessly at Chen Bugu; he could only rely on this young man now.
“If your family has already encountered the ‘Great Disaster’ and has arrived in this forest, the most likely place to meet them is the Soaring Sky Tree; we can wait there first.”
“If your family hasn’t encountered the ‘Great Disaster’ yet, then you should first consider how to survive and improve your strength, so that you will have a day to meet again, and then you will be able to protect them.”
Chen Bugu calmly stated his advice.
This was not only his advice but also his own plan.
In his previous life, Chen Bugu did not see his family when he first reached the Soaring Sky Tree; he guessed that his family was not among the first to arrive in this apocalypse.
And later, when Initial Awakened began to appear in large numbers in Starting Forest, Chen Bugu, due to insufficient strength, was unable to return to Starting Forest like other strong individuals to bring his relatives and friends out.
Chen Bugu begged everywhere, hoping someone could enter Starting Forest and protect his family to leave together, but unfortunately, no one was willing to help him.
Finally, when Starting Forest returned to silence, he still hadn't seen his parents.
That time, Chen Bugu waited for half a month at the exit connecting Starting Forest to the outside world.
On the tenth day, it rained heavily.
Chen Bugu stood in the rain, listening to the last person who walked out of Starting Forest say that the forest had long been stained with blood for miles, with corpses strewn everywhere.
He advised Chen Bugu not to wait, because there were no more living people behind him.
Chen Bugu did not listen to the advice; he waited five more days, but he waited for nothing.
Indeed, as that person said, after that, Chen Bugu never waited for anyone else to walk out of that forest again.
Chen Bugu forgot how he returned to the gathering place later.
He only remembered that he was depressed for a while, and then, in self-abandonment, decided to go to the extreme north to die.
Unexpectedly, he didn’t die in the extreme north; instead, that adventure led him to obtain the blue bow, which gave him a small increase in strength.
Later, Chen Bugu finally had the strength to return to Starting Forest, but he didn’t see anyone.
He guessed that his parents had died somewhere in Initial Forest, which also became one of Chen Bugu’s biggest regrets in his previous life.
Therefore, in this life, he must become stronger and protect the people he cherishes.
“But how do we know if what you’re saying is true?”
Yan Kuan’s rhetorical question interrupted Chen Bugu’s recollection.
“There are indeed other people in this forest; he didn’t lie about that.”
“On the arm of the second Goblin Berserker Chen Bugu killed, I saw a red cloth strip.”
Before Chen Bugu could explain, Bai Ting suddenly spoke.
“At first, I just found that red cloth familiar, but it wasn’t until the monster died and turned to ash, and the red cloth fell to the ground, that I dared to confirm it was a headband, an AK brand headband.”
“AK brand?”
“Second one?”
Yan Kuan and Lin Xiaoxiao both questioned simultaneously after hearing Bai Ting.
“Yes, the Goblin Berserker I saw Chen Bugu kill later was different from the one he initially lured away; at least the one he initially lured away didn’t have a headband on its arm.”
“However, judging by the situation, the owner of the headband should have already…”
Bai Ting didn't finish his sentence, but everyone already understood what he meant.
A human headband taken off and tied to a monster’s arm—the owner of that headband was probably in a dire situation.
Bai Ting’s observational skills were still so meticulous.
Chen Bugu secretly sighed.
“So, that was really the second one?”
Lin Xiaoxiao’s gaze towards Chen Bugu changed slightly; she knew too well how troublesome that monster was.
She and Yan Kuan, with Bai Ting’s cooperation, barely managed to defeat one, and Chen Bugu could actually fight two—that’s unscientific!
“Yes, that was indeed the second one.”
Chen Bugu had no intention of hiding it anyway; he just hadn’t had the chance to explain before. He wouldn't be able to avoid using “Bullet Time” in front of everyone later, so it was a good time to explain the awakening of his second ability as well.
Subsequently, Chen Bugu explained the awakening of his second ability and a series of events, including encountering the second Goblin Berserker in the forest.
Although the details were somewhat vague, that wasn’t what everyone would care about.
“You’re too crazy; one slight mistake and you would have died.”
After listening to Chen Bugu’s calm narration, Lin Ye only felt terrified.
Chen Bugu’s actions, with even a slight error, would have resulted in his death without a burial place.
“Teacher Lin, I would have died anyway if I wasn’t crazy.”
Chen Bugu said with a wry smile.
Lin Ye was speechless for a moment, because Chen Bugu was telling the truth, and his actions had saved everyone.
Given their situation at the time, no one could handle a second Goblin Berserker; once Chen Bugu was killed, it would instantly lead to everyone’s annihilation.
Liu Shifu then remembered what Chen Bugu had told him at the time.
“From the moment we entered this forest, we no longer had a choice.”
Bai Ting pondered for a long time, and his final conclusion was that if it had been him at the time, he would absolutely not have been able to achieve Chen Bugu’s feat.
He knew too well the strength of a Goblin Berserker in its berserk state.
“Alright, I have two more questions.”
After Bai Ting understood, he said to Chen Bugu.
The answers to these questions would determine his attitude towards Chen Bugu moving forward.
“First, why do you know so much information, and what else do you know?”
“Second, with your strength and the information you possess, you could have completely taken some food and left. Why tell us all this?”
Bai Ting was a successful businessman; in his eyes, there were only two types of transactions in this world.
The first type was dimensional reduction attacks using information asymmetry and resource differences.
The second type was “equivalent exchange.”
These two transaction philosophies were deeply ingrained in his bones, which also led Bai Ting not to trust others easily.
Because in his world, everything was a transaction.
“The first question is a bit complicated to explain; it’s mainly due to one of my abilities, and it also involves some of my secrets. If the time is right one day, I will tell you. I hope everyone won’t press me; I promise I have no ill intentions.”
“As for what else I know, I will gradually tell everyone everything I know later. But why did we awaken abilities? And why were we teleported to this messed-up world to fight these monsters? And how to return to our original world? To be honest, I have no idea.”
“For the second question, if it weren’t for Lin Lin, with my strength, I would be crippled now even if I weren’t dead, so I think team action is far safer than being alone at the moment. And why I’m telling everyone this now is because, after several life-and-death situations, I believe we are already teammates who entrust our lives to each other and should be open with each other.”
“At the same time, and very importantly, I don’t want you all to lose hope. I’m not making up stories to encourage everyone; I also want to live to see my family, to see my friends. I even want to go and see the mastermind behind all this, to see what’s on his mind—of course, in a physical sense.”
“For this, I also need partners.”
The firelight flickered, illuminating Chen Bugu’s profile.
Everyone silently looked at him; this time, no one asked any more questions.
Even Bai Ting lowered his head.
Lin Ye and Liu Shifu had, in fact, subconsciously relied on Chen Bugu’s decisions from the very beginning.
“Awesome, Bu Gu Ge!”
Wang Bin felt that Chen Bugu’s rhetoric was very much to his liking.
Lin Xiaoxiao just thought Chen Bugu was a bit chuunibyou, but he seemed to give off a good feeling nonetheless.
Yan Kuan was surprised to find that everyone’s mood seemed to have undergone some positive changes, but he couldn’t pinpoint what those changes were, only that they were for the better.
In a place no one noticed, only Lin Lin, with slightly red cheeks, pouted.
“This guy is showing off.”
…
Seeing that everyone finally had no objections, and their emotions were subtly changing, Chen Bugu finally relaxed his posture.
He continued to speak while adding branches and dry leaves to the bonfire.
“So, next, we need to solve the food problem first.”
“I have a plan…”