Day of Imprisonment

This forest is very large.

Walking here for a long time can give you a sense of disorientation.

Also, everywhere you look feels very similar, creating a sense of déjà vu.

"This isn't déjà vu!"

After Crazy Lion voiced his feeling, Luo Xi patted the strong man's arm.

"This is essentially a seamless patchwork of nearly identical forest scenes. It looks vast, but in reality, it's just a cheap trick."

After Luo Xi finished speaking, An Zhiyan nodded in agreement.

She had also discovered this secret.

Crazy Lion couldn't help but interject, saying he didn't quite understand.

"You can think of this place as a map made of tiles. For example, each tile is a square area with sides of five hundred to one thousand meters. This area has trees, rocks, varying terrain, Grandma's house, and wandering werewolves. Then, four such tiles can form a larger tile, and nine such tiles can form an even larger one, and so on..."

"Currently, from the hunters' accounts, Grandma's house has been located at number twenty-two. So, at least this is a tile map composed of 4x6 or 5x5 tiles. Therefore, we just need to find a new 'tile' that no one else has set foot on, and we should find something."

Crazy Lion still didn't understand.

But An Zhiyan reacted.

"No wonder your route is L-shaped. Does that mean you've at least explored one side of this tile map?"

"Yes, it's composed of 7 tiles," Luo Xi nodded.

There was no need to hide this.

"But we haven't reached the boundary yet," An Zhiyan looked around.

"Because someone has made this place into a 'sphere', using eternal night, the forest, and a misty environment to confuse us, and using the undulating terrain to conceal it. But if you only walk in one direction, you will only pass through 7 identical 'tiles'. This is the horizontal axis. Also, if nothing goes wrong, the vertical axis won't exceed 7 'tiles'. I think it should be 5, which means this scene is most likely a 5x7 map, composed of 35 tiles in total, and then wrapped into a sphere. Of course, it may not be a sphere, but another form of spatial folding, such as a 'Möbius strip'. But no matter what, the principle is the same."

"Wait a minute, you said before that there's a graveyard here. So where is the graveyard? Does every tile map have one?" An Zhiyan raised a question.

"No, there's only one graveyard, and only one hunter camp, including the forest merchant. The locations of these three places are fixed, each on three different tile maps. So most people only operate around these three tiles, and the map they explore is limited. Let's take the sphere as an example again. The northern hemisphere has already been explored, and most people only operate in this area, because if they die, they will immediately return to the only graveyard to revive. So, to find Grandma's house that hasn't been stepped on, we can only go to the 'southern hemisphere'."

"I understand!" An Zhiyan nodded.

"I still don't understand!" Crazy Lion couldn't help but say.

"You don't need to understand, just listen to Big Brother."

"Okay!"

This time, there were many dangers along the way, and a moment of carelessness could lead to disaster.

Giant spiders, man-eating swamps, poisonous snakes lurking behind the leaves...

Each one could send people back to the graveyard.

In addition, every once in a while, they could hear singing coming from somewhere in the forest.

"Are there werewolves on every tile map?"

"It seems that's the case for now."

"Then how can there be a living 'Grandma'?"

She was very excited.

Because this kind of unexpected situation might lead to unexpected discoveries.

According to the previous information, 'Grandma' was very likely killed by werewolves. Then, if there is no Little Red Riding Hood in an area, Grandma might not die.

Immediately, An Zhiyan quickened her pace.

She was naturally already familiar with the 'tile area' after following Luo Xi for so long. For example, which area Little Red Riding Hood was active in, where Grandma's house was, these were already deeply ingrained in her mind.

Soon, the three found Grandma's house.

Finally, there was a different discovery.

The lights were actually on in the house.

This had never happened in the multiple Grandma's houses they had encountered before.

"What should we do now?" An Zhiyan turned her head and glanced at Luo Xi.

"Put this on and go knock on the door," Luo Xi took out a red cloak from his arms.

Little Red Riding Hood special.

It was stripped from the werewolf when he hunted it before.

An Zhiyan nodded, she put on this red cloak still stained with blood, and prepared to walk towards the cabin.

"Wait a minute," Luo Xi called her to stop.

"What's wrong?" An Zhiyan was stunned.

"Don't forget to sing."

"Oh ~"

An Zhiyan walked over singing.

To be honest, this behavior was very strange, but it was an indispensable and most important part of the 'Reshape Fairy Tale' plan.

As she approached the cabin, she could even vaguely see a figure busy in the house.

When An Zhiyan walked to the door, reached out and knocked on the door, and called out 'Grandma' while enduring the discomfort.

A strange thing happened.

It dawned!

The air was fresh, the grass was green, the butterflies were dancing, and the musty, gloomy, and rotten atmosphere in the air disappeared instantly.

It was as if some kind of dimension switch was completed in an instant.

An Zhiyan was stunned when the door opened.

Inside was a kind 'Grandma'.

"Little Red Riding Hood is here, Grandma has been waiting for you for a long time, come in quickly."

Entering the house, it was also clean and tidy. On the table was freshly served vegetable soup, and the pervading aroma stimulated An Zhiyan, who already possessed superhuman perception.

It was too real.

It didn't seem like an illusion.

At this time, [Absolute Rationality] played its role.

The surprise and discomfort brought about by this sudden normal plot and scene, as well as the accompanying fear, were perfectly suppressed.

An Zhiyan didn't make mistakes in the chaos. She played the role of Little Red Riding Hood according to the script that had been prepared long ago, asking Grandma about her well-being. After a completely unreal family dinner, Grandma smiled and talked to An Zhiyan. A breeze blew in from the window, the jungle birds chirped, and everything was warm and unreal.

However, An Zhiyan knew that all of this was only because she had triggered a certain 'plot' in this scene.

But this feeling was really good.

She would take greedy deep breaths from time to time, and she would also lean on the soft cushion and listen to a smiling old woman telling interesting stories.

"Okay, Little Red Riding Hood, you should go home. If it gets dark, there will be danger in the forest," Grandma said at this time.

"Is the plot going to end?" An Zhiyan didn't know what she should do.

In fact, she had carefully analyzed that she didn't need to do anything unusual, just follow the plot.

Let it go naturally.

Rash changes would only lead to unpredictable consequences.

Grandma sent An Zhiyan to the door. At this time, she suddenly seemed to have remembered something.

"Little Red Riding Hood, wait a minute."

After speaking, Grandma ran into the house. Soon, she came out with a small basket.

"These are all vegetables and fruits that Grandma picked herself. Take them back for your mother to eat. Also, take the boat back earlier, this is the ticket." Saying that, Grandma took out a white ticket with a scarlet number '1' written on it and handed it over.

An Zhiyan accepted it without showing any emotion.

"Thank you, Grandma, goodbye!"

"Goodbye, come and see Grandma often."

Grandma standing at the door waved to Little Red Riding Hood, who also turned her head three times and slowly disappeared on the stone path in the jungle.

Whoosh ~

A gust of wind blew, and everything around returned to normal.

The cold and rotten smell, the eternal night forest.

An Zhiyan looked around and found Luo Xi and Crazy Lion walking towards her.

"So, what exactly is real?" An Zhiyan began to think about this question that shouldn't be a problem.

At this time, Luo Xi and Crazy Lion had already approached.

An Zhiyan handed over the No. 1 ticket in her hand and asked, "How long have I been inside?"

"Less than a minute, to be precise, from the time you entered the door to the time you opened the door, a total of twenty-seven seconds," Luo Xi took the ticket and looked at it, his expression calm, neither surprised nor frustrated.

"But I felt like I stayed inside for two hours," An Zhiyan told the truth.

"Time illusion, mental influence, or, it may also be that the person who created the fairy tale town with some kind of time rule is very unusual," Luo Xi took out the previous No. 2 ticket and looked at the two tickets together: "No. 1, No. 2, then... will there be No. 3?"

An Zhiyan was stunned: "What are you going to do? Kidnapping, or murder?"

"You misunderstood," Luo Xi glanced at An Zhiyan in surprise: "Do you think I would plot against that living Grandma?"

"Isn't that so?" An Zhiyan asked back.

"Of course not!" Luo Xi shook his head: "You should be able to see that the scene designer here followed a principle, the ticket is bound to the fairy tale character, one character is bound to one kind of number ticket, Grandma is No. 1, Little Red Riding Hood is No. 2, so if there is No. 3 ticket, I think it should be related to the hunter, or, it is the source of the curse that caused the werewolf curse to spread, perhaps, it is the 'Big Bad Wolf' that has never appeared."

It has to be said that Luo Xi's analysis was very organized, and An Zhiyan couldn't find any fault with it.