pjbooks Chapter 333 The Strange Valley
Chapter 333 The Strange Valley
"Where the hell did I get this?"
Looking out at the unfamiliar plants, Lin Fan subconsciously slowed down.
Through the car window, he looked at a large tree by the roadside and began to examine it carefully.
But even after searching his mind, he couldn't find any tree that could match it.
The tree had a very strange shape, looking like an upside-down umbrella stuck in the ground. The "umbrella" at the top was a semi-transparent membrane structure with visible veins inside, just like the human nervous system.
Although the entire world is now being affected by an unknown force, causing mutations.
But all those mutated plants have traceable origins, and the original plant can be vaguely identified.
But now...
The tree that appeared before him did not resemble a native plant at all.
It gives people the feeling that...
It's as if these plants were "transplanted" from somewhere else.
Why is this happening?
Lin Fan muttered to himself, started the car again, and slowly continued forward.
The strange plants along the way became increasingly dense and varied.
Some low-lying ground cover plants will quickly contract and curl their leaves when his vehicle passes by, and then slowly unfold them after the vehicle has passed.
There is also a slender plant that resembles a reed, with a faint fluorescent glow at its tip, which can be seen even during the day.
Lin Fan gradually became wary.
What alarmed him was that he hadn't encountered any mutated beasts along the way.
After entering this area of strange vegetation, he did not see any animals again.
Along the way, we encountered mutated wild dogs and mutated birds.
Now, there is nothing at all.
Moreover, the surroundings were unusually quiet.
"Did these plants drive away the animals, or were they eaten by them?"
Lin Fan's gaze swept across the dense forest on both sides, his mind filled with questions one after another.
"There's definitely something wrong with these plants."
He doesn't plan to get out of the car to verify.
After driving for about another hour, the terrain began to rise.
The highway was long gone, and he was now driving on a relatively flat surface, the wheels crunching over the strange purple ground cover plants.
A mountain ridge appeared ahead.
Seeing this, Lin Fan accelerated, and the pickup truck roared up the slope.
The moment he reached the top of the hill, he stepped on the brakes.
The car stopped.
Similarly, others were dumbfounded.
Lin Fan sat in the driver's seat, looking at the scene before him in disbelief through the windshield.
He had considered that the view behind the hillside might be the same, or perhaps an abandoned road or ruins, but he never expected...
It turns out it's like this.
He stood there stunned for several seconds before subconsciously muttering to himself:
"Holy crap... what is this thing?"
Below the hillside, there was a valley.
From a distance, the area appears quite large, estimated to be several square kilometers.
The valley floor is flat and covered with a thick layer of strange vegetation.
But what stunned him was not the valley in front of him.
It was something inside that valley.
Within that vast valley, there were swarms of mutated beasts.
Various kinds.
There are giant deer with enormous bodies and antlers covered with crystal-like inclusions.
There are also white wolves that are two or three times larger than normal gray wolves.
There were also some unidentified reptiles basking in the sun on the rocks.
Countless mutated beasts of all kinds were crammed into the valley before them...
Even more bizarrely, a mutated deer passed by a pack of white wolves. The wolves looked up at it, then continued to lie down and rest.
A giant lizard crawled across the bird habitat, and the birds overhead didn't even flinch.
The scene before him completely overturned his understanding.
It's important to understand that whether it's the end of the world or a time of peace, the law of the jungle prevails.
The scene of different species of mutated beasts living together peacefully, as it is now, is truly bizarre.
However, what truly shocked him was not these mutated beasts.
What truly shocked and amazed him was the tree in the very center of the valley.
A huge, towering tree.
Its trunk is ridiculously thick, even thicker than the body of the giant crow.
The tree is at least fifty or sixty meters tall, but what's astonishing is that its canopy almost covers half the valley.
The leaves were a color I'd never seen before—not green, but a warm hue between gold and amber.
In the sunlight, the whole tree looks like it's glowing.
Countless aerial roots hang down from the tree trunk and take root in the ground.
Faint points of light were moving within the tree canopy, as if some kind of energy was circulating within the tree.
Whether it was his imagination or not, the moment he saw this big tree, the image of the withered tree he had seen in the mysterious space the night before involuntarily surfaced in his mind.
The two large trees are almost identical in shape.
However, one of them was dead, gray and withered.
The one in front of us is alive, its golden color brimming with vitality.
"no……"
Lin Fan instinctively gripped the steering wheel tighter. "What a coincidence!"
Is it really just a coincidence?
Dawu said the thing that was eroding him was in the northeast direction.
He headed northeast, encountering more and more unusual plants along the way, until he finally reached this valley.
In the valley stood a towering tree, identical in form to the withered tree in his dream.
The mutated beasts in the valley coexist peacefully, behaving in ways that defy all reason.
This tree...
Could it be the "thing" that Da Wu was talking about?
"wrong."
Lin Fan stared at the tree.
"The Great Crow is referring to some kind of consciousness, some kind of existence that can erode and assimilate him. Can a tree do such a thing?"
But then again, all sorts of strange and wonderful things happen after the apocalypse.
The giant octopus is a sentient octopus; who says trees can't have consciousness?
Lin Fan remained seated in the car, not in a hurry to get out.
He observed the situation in the valley.
There were quite a few of those mutated beasts, but judging from their behavior, they didn't seem to be aggressive.
They are more like... taking a "rest".
Or rather, in "gathering".
It was as if it had been attracted by something.
"Could it be that unknown entity?"
Lin Fan recalled Da Wu's words.
Dawu said that thing attracted him like a magnet.
Were these mutated beasts also attracted in the same way?
Why weren't they eroded and assimilated? Or have they already been assimilated, just in different forms?
Mutant beasts coexist peacefully. There is no hostility between different species.
What if the will of these mutated beasts has been assimilated by that tree? What if they've become "extensions" of the same consciousness, which is why they don't attack each other?
The more Lin Fan thought about it, the more a chill ran down his spine.
"If the giant crow were completely assimilated... would it become like that too?"
To become part of that tree?
He took a deep breath, lit a cigarette, leaned back in his seat and began to think, taking two puffs.
"Alright."
Smoke spilled from the corner of his mouth.
"Since we're already here..."
He put the cigarette in his mouth, opened the car door, and got out.
Standing on the ridge, the wind blew from the direction of the valley.
It has a faint, indescribable smell.
It doesn't smell bad, it even smells a bit nice... It's similar to the fresh scent of plant sap that comes out when a plant stem is broken, but it's more than ten times stronger.
The moment Lin Fan smelled that scent, a thought suddenly popped into his mind...
Go down.
Go to the valley.
Go to the tree.
The thought came naturally and peacefully, without any sense of compulsion.
It's like when you pass by a bakery and smell the aroma, making you want to go inside.
Lin Fan stood still and slowly took the cigarette out of his mouth.
"interesting."
He stubbed out his cigarette and threw it on the ground.
Although the thought of "wanting to go down" still lingered. And it was gentle, friendly, and without a trace of malice.
But what Lin Fan was most wary of in his life was this feeling of "feeling safe for no reason".
He stepped back, got back into the car, and closed the door.
"Wait a minute."