"Hey guys, look...what's going on?" The fellow villager came over holding the child and asked quietly.
"Have you talked to your parents? Why are they here?" John Woo asked.
"I asked, and they said... I can't explain it clearly. How about you help me take a look?" After relaxing, the fellow villager felt very uncomfortable when looking at the seemingly harmonious scene.
"Okay, let's go take a look." John Woo nodded and took Lin Fan to where the old couple was.
Sister Xu carried the box alone and went to the surrounding forks in the road to investigate.
"Uncle and aunt, why are you here?" John Woo showed his signature smile from a distance.
"If not here, where else?" the old lady asked in surprise.
John Woo spoke again politely.
Lin Fan listened for a moment before understanding. In their minds, this place was no different from the place under the tree at the entrance to the village.
After eating and drinking enough and having nothing to do, everyone gathered here automatically.
As for how this place was discovered?
"One day, the eldest grandson of the Li family came back and said there was something in the pond," the old lady said. "What was he doing then? The water level in the pond was low, otherwise how could he have seen the door inside?"
"Later, the village chief took a look and said it might be a tomb or something. Then an old village head said there might be valuable treasures inside, so they found a pump and drained the water."
Well, it turns out they drained the water themselves. With the diversion of water on both sides, no new water was flowing in, so the soil in the pond naturally dried out and cracked.
"Then why don't you call the police? Let them handle this matter?" The fellow villager held the baby and looked at John Woo and the others nervously.
These guys are police officers. Don't tell them that their fellow villagers are tomb raiders anymore. Just arrest them.
"What are you reporting? It's just a grave, isn't it?" The old man came up and said unhappily, "Haven't you seen enough graves on the hills in our area? Why are you bothering others with something you can't do yourself?"
"No! You didn't take any treasures back home to hide after you came in, did you?" The fellow was a little scared. He wondered if he would be arrested! There seemed to be some special crime, what was it called...
"What kind of treasure could there be?" The old lady glared at him. "We were hoping there would be something good inside, but when we got in, there was nothing."
"The young people over there said that it might not be a tomb," said the old man.
"No matter what it is, we villagers were very excited at the time, thinking we could see some treasures with our own eyes." The old lady sighed somewhat disappointedly.
"From what you two said, this place has been discovered for some time, right?" Wu Yusen asked again, "Do you gather here every day? How do you eat and rest?"
The old man and the old woman explained again.
It turned out that after they opened the stone door and discovered the cave inside, they would come here every day when they had nothing to do, and go home when it was time to eat and sleep.
I just treated this place as the second place under the big tree at the entrance of the village.
When asked again why they came underground, the old couple's thoughts stopped. They seemed unable to explain the reason, they just knew they had to come.
After arriving here, everything we say and do seems to become a matter of course, and no one has ever thought about why they do it.
John Woo and Lin Fan asked some other people and got roughly the same answers.
In other words, everyone's life on the ground, including eating and sleeping, is still normal.
But other than that, I would automatically come here, do some seemingly normal leisure and entertainment activities, and then go back at a certain time...
During the conversation, Lin Fan felt that everyone was very clear-headed. However, once the topic of the underground world was brought up, such as why they came here or why they were doing this, the people being questioned would become confused.
And soon, they will all ignore this difficult question and continue doing what they were originally doing.
"What's going on?" Lin Fan leaned over to Wu Yusen and asked quietly. "Are there any problems with these people?"
If you want to say they are weird, they are quite normal.
But if you say it's normal, it's obviously not normal...
It feels like there is a deviation in some part of their memory, causing them to naturally regard this special place underground as the entrance to the village, and to gather and live there spontaneously.
"Something must have influenced their thinking, and the underground part naturally merged with their original life. But there are also missing things, so the questions that cannot be answered are simply ignored." John Woo quickly analyzed and began to look around, looking for Sister Xu, and just happened to see her coming out from a fork in the road.
"So what should we do now? Continue exploring inside?" Lin Fan asked after seeing Sister Xu remained silent after listening to John Woo's analysis.
"Not now." Sister Xu shook her head. "There are so many people here. If something happens, we won't be able to rescue them in time."
She had just ventured a little further into the side passages and hadn't noticed anything obvious. For now, the entire underground space was considered safe.
But since there are things that affect their memory, there is definitely a risk.
She is not afraid of being beaten, but she obviously cannot just ignore the presence of so many ordinary people.
"Then let's come back after they go back?" John Woo remembered what they had said before, that they would go back to eat and sleep, and felt that this was a perfect opportunity for them to take action.
Sister Xu also nodded, "Yes, escort them away first, and we will come back later."
After the three of them had discussed it, they dispersed and went to get useful information from different people.
"Don't worry, it's almost time for dinner, and everyone should go up together." Lin Fan was thinking about the fellow villager who came down with them, and was afraid that he would be anxious, so he said something to him.
Unexpectedly, he turned around blankly and said, "I'm anxious? I'm not anxious. Did you remember it wrong?"
After saying that, he smiled and sat down with his parents, trying hard to twist the hemp rope in front of him.
…
Lin Fan's heart sank at that moment. Wasn't this person just trying to find a reason and leave?
Then I understood and went to find John Woo and Sister Xu.
"You said he was assimilated too?" John Woo looked up in the man's direction in disbelief.
He was talking to his parents with a silly smile on his face, holding his child in his arms, his hands still working.
But the movements looked clumsy and unskillful, and the ropes they twisted were thick and thin, and were not at all attractive to look at.
But he was not in a hurry at all, and continued to grin and grin...
"I remember he seemed to have a bit of a bad temper." Lin Fan crossed his arms. "If it were him before, he would have lost his temper and thrown the straw out long ago. How could he sit there so calmly?"
Sister Xu took out the compass, and the needle inside did not move, which meant that there was no special magnetic field at all.
But what is going on?