Chapter 22 It's a Formation!

"Su Haicheng, please don't do this, get up. Don't be like this!" Various horrifying scenes automatically played out in my mind. Like the corpse from last night, it had come back to life and walked away from here. Not just that one, but many others too. Some of them were burned, and some were soldiers like Su Haicheng. I even imagined Su Haicheng himself following those corpses. In fear, I tightly held onto him, afraid that he would disappear.

When Kakashi and the others arrived, it was already more than twenty minutes later. It took them quite some time to come through that small path.

Ah Tian came running, his face full of anxiety, and he pounced on us from two meters away. "What happened to him?"

"I... I don't know. He suddenly collapsed."

Kakashi walked over to us, took out his tablet, and dragged the sound as he spoke, "He was already a dead man. He suddenly came back to life."

I shouted at Kakashi, "Can you just shut up?" He was being mouthy.

"Hey, hey, crying? Are you crying like this because you've fallen in love with this dead man?" He continued being mouthy. The boss pulled him back from behind, and he finally shut up and moved aside.

The boss said, "Artificial respiration probably won't work on him. Think about it, after he collapsed, did anything unusual happen?"

I wiped away my tears, forcing myself to calm down. "We found a corpse here, the medic's corpse. We stayed with the corpse all night. But when we woke up in the morning, we found that the corpse was gone. He collapsed while searching for it."

"The corpse is gone?" Kakashi leaned closer again. "Are you sure you're not hallucinating? Are you reading a novel or something? The corpse just disappeared?"

"It did disappear! I'm telling you, it disappeared!"

Ah Tian had remained silent all this time. As we discussed, he took out a water-based pen from his bag, grabbed Su Haicheng's left hand, and pressed the tip of the pen onto the tip of his left middle finger. Then he used both hands to press down on the pen from inside.

The next second, Su Haicheng suddenly sat up and even pushed me away.

I was startled and fell to the ground, staring at him intently. Kakashi widened his eyes and approached, saying, "Wow, he's really awake? Handsome guy, how did you do it?"

"This move is a reflex of the human body. It's used for emergency first aid or dealing with feigned unconsciousness."

"Impressive!"

I crawled back up and asked softly, "Su Haicheng, how are you?"

He stood up and walked towards the lake. I also got up and wanted to follow, but he shouted at us, "Don't follow!"

"Hey! Haicheng!" Ah Tian shouted too. Su Haicheng's words surprised all of us. We thought he would explain what had happened, but we never expected him to prevent us from getting closer.

He stood alone by the lakeside, looking at the water with his eyes closed, not saying anything. The four of us stood behind him, watching and discussing what we should do next.

Kakashi said, "The lake water is so beautiful. Let's have a picnic and cook noodles. Siyi, you must be hungry, haven't eaten anything, right?"

I looked at Su Haicheng's figure and murmured, "That night, the corpses we saw walked by themselves, and their path led here. This place is surrounded by mountains on all sides. When the corpses reached here, where would they go?"

Kakashi and the others fell silent, and even the boss seemed to grasp the implication. "In the water? Are there corpses under the beautiful lake water? Is Sakurayuki also down there? The key can bring the dead back. We have to go underwater!"

Ah Tian looked at him and said, "Don't be so impulsive. Love is sometimes something that leads people to their doom. Professor, look at the color of this water, it's blue. What does that indicate? The depth of the water is enough to reflect the sky. It's not an ordinary depth. We didn't bring any diving equipment this time, so my suggestion is to go back and come again next time with the equipment."

"Go back?" Kakashi shouted, "We're exhausted from driving here. We've come such a long way, it's unrealistic to go back and come again. Siyi, what do you think? Siyi?"

He nudged me, and I finally shifted my gaze away from Su Haicheng's figure. "I don't know." I was genuinely frightened, my legs were still a bit weak.

Su Haicheng finally turned around and walked towards us, saying, "Rest for ten minutes, eat something, and then we'll go to the nearby village to inquire about this lake. It's impossible to go underwater now, but we need more information. Siyi, give me your phone, I'll check the satellite map."

I quickly handed him my phone, and Kakashi also handed me a pack of instant noodles. And then, I ate them dry! There's a lake with water here, but no one suggested boiling the noodles with this water. Who knows if there are bodies underneath?

While I was eating, Kakashi was looking at the map on his tablet and saying, "We should head southeast from here, and there's a village about ten miles away."

However, Su Haicheng said, "Go west. The southeastern village is close, but if you zoom in on the picture, you'll see that the village was burned down!"

Kakashi quickly zoomed in on the satellite map. The boss also said, "Yes, there was a village nearby that was burned down. It seems like it happened nine years ago. I was a student at D University at that time, and Sakurayuki was also at D University. She told me that a village near her home was burned down. It was made of bamboo houses and located on the mountainside. The fire trucks couldn't reach there, and the fire spread extensively. The entire village was burned down."

"What about the people?" Probably due to a woman's sympathy, my first question was about the people living there.

"They all died, not a single person survived. The fire broke out at night when everyone was asleep."

As I listened, I quickly snatched my phone back and then zoomed out the satellite image. Kakashi leaned over and looked at me, saying, "Siyi, you dropped your noodles, what a waste. Why did you make the image so small? What can you see?"

But I did see clearly, and after seeing it, my heart sank. I whispered, "My suggestion is for us to leave this place. Let's not concern ourselves with these things anymore. The situation may be much more serious than we imagined."

My words surprised them all. I turned to the boss first and said, "Boss, when your girlfriend is dead, she's dead. Stop searching for her. Look, you've come all the way here, and she hasn't come out to talk to you. Su Haicheng, don't dig too deep either. Anyway, now you... whether dead or alive, it's the same. Your brothers, they are destined to be dead. Don't go..."

He pulled me closer to him. "What do you know? Tell me."

I remained silent, my heart pounding. I held my phone close to my chest, certain that I hadn't analyzed the satellite image incorrectly. I kept my head down, afraid to look into his eyes.

Su Haicheng sighed. "Alright, let me tell you what I know, and you tell me what you know."

He turned to the lake. "I passed out just now because I realized something. That night, I walked here with those corpses, walked into the water. They were all in the water. I don't know why they walked like that, but they did go underwater."

"And you? Did you go underwater?" Ah Tian asked.

"I think I did. I'm not entirely sure; my memories are a bit fuzzy. But I know that night I didn't go underwater with them. However, I did go down at some point." He looked at me. "Siyi, tell us what you know."

I hesitated for a moment before taking out my phone and displaying the shrunken satellite image for them to see.

"This lake is surrounded by these mountains. If you look closely, there are four mountains positioned exactly in the east, south, west, and north directions. The remaining ones are a bit off, but they are still positioned around the four corners, just like a bagua, the Eight Trigrams. It's too far, and some of the mountains aren't very clear. I can't be sure if there are formations set up on them. But with the tallest mountain as the center, there are five villages scattered around it, forming the shape of a pentagram. Or, I guess someone used the Five Elements to set up a formation. This is a formation! An inward formation, indicating suppression. Two villages have already been burned down, with everyone dead, and it happened nine years ago. Nine years is one cycle of a flying star. There's something being suppressed here."