The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

After Su Mu left, the street became quiet again.

The thick fog still covered the area, the grayish-white mist flowing slowly, as if it had never been disturbed.

Suddenly, the ground trembled slightly at the corner where he had just dissected the monkey.

A slender vine emerged from a crack in the soil, dark red in color, its surface covered with a thin layer of watery sheen, like a living creature that had just poked its head out from the depths of the earth.

It paused briefly in the air, as if to confirm that there was no other movement around, before quickly swimming toward the pile of grayish-white debris.

The vine tips split into several thinner branches the moment they touched the debris, wrapping around the fragments like fingers and then silently dragging them into the ground.

The whole process took less than ten seconds.

Only a shallow pit remained on the ground, its edges clean and smooth, as if something had gently scraped across the ground.

The fog quickly gathered again, obscuring the outline of the pit.

Moments later, new dust slowly flowed into the pit from all sides, as if something was carefully concealing its traces.

Even the last trace of being touched was gradually swallowed up by the mist.

.......

Su Mu's footsteps faded into the distance until they disappeared completely into the depths of the thick fog.

He walked along the route marked on the map, crossing three or four streets, and the more he walked, the more familiar the surroundings seemed...

The collapsed fences, the overturned display boards, and the dilapidated outlines of the cages.

It wasn't until he stepped on a metal sign half-buried in the sand, with the rusty words "Ash Zoo" still faintly visible, that he realized where he was.

The zoo was littered with traces of battle; the ground was uneven, with circular dents of varying depths, as if it had been repeatedly struck by heavy weapons.

Several large trees were snapped in half, with charred marks at the break, the edges curled and blackened. The ground around them was covered with a layer of dark gray dust, making it impossible to tell whether it was the embers of burned plants or something else.

Further away, some fences have completely disappeared, leaving only the foundation remains and a few twisted steel bars, as if something huge had squeezed through there.

He walked further in, the emptiness after the great battle still lingering over the entire area.

Just as I was feeling a bit sentimental, I suddenly saw a brown bear at the corner of a passage whose original shape was no longer recognizable. It was the same brown bear that had appeared before.

At this moment, it was crouching behind a section of collapsed wall, with its back against a pile of rubble, and there were no landmark trees or other objects around it.

The brown bear also saw him.

The image of Su Mu was reflected in those cloudy brown eyes. It didn't stand up, but merely raised its head slightly, as if sampling the scents in the air, then let out a very low growl...

It's not so much a threat as it is an attempt to confirm something.

Su Mu's spear was already prepared in the void, but the brown bear did not move.

It glanced at him briefly, then slowly, with a noticeably weary heaviness, turned away. It was thinner than before, its fur dull, and it had a healed but still visible scar on its left foreleg. Its gait was also much slower than the last time he'd seen it…

It's like a headstrong young man who used to be so unruly that he wanted to turn the whole zoo upside down, but now he's quiet.

I can't say whether I've grown up or been scared by the outside world, but I'm no longer the fearless person I used to be.

The brown bear didn't look back at him, but limped away in another direction.

Su Mu did not give chase.

He didn't know if the half-golden giant bear was still nearby, and fighting a bear in this area occupied by strange creatures would only benefit the truly dangerous ones, regardless of the outcome.

He watched the figure disappear into the mist on the other side, then turned and continued walking along the route he had planned.

......

The sky began to darken after he passed through the zoo. The fog gradually deepened in color from grayish-white to a murky leaden gray, further narrowing the field of vision until visibility was reduced to less than a hundred meters.

The air grew heavy, as if some invisible resistance was squeezing in from all directions, making each step more strenuous than before.

But his pace didn't slow down... His talent for adapting to any road conditions allowed him to maintain a normal speed of movement even in this sticky environment.

He originally planned to reach the area where the entrance to the secret realm was located before dark.

The white mist that had been flowing slowly was now being stirred up from within by something, and its churning speed was getting faster and faster.

Outlines began to appear in the fog...

Not just one or two, but large swaths of them.

Su Mu stopped in his tracks. The silhouettes emerged from the depths of the mist, moving slowly and silently.

Some shapes resemble elongated human figures, others resemble disproportionately large beasts, and still others are indistinguishable in any way, merely a constantly twisting mass of darkness.

They formed a long line, moving slowly along the street, so numerous that he couldn't possibly count them all.

There was no sound...

The entire street was as quiet as if the air had been sucked out; only the outlines intersected, passed through, and disappeared in the mist, only to reappear on the other side.

Hundred Ghosts at Night.

Su Mu stood still.

The ghosts didn't notice him; they moved slowly in a fixed direction, like some kind of queue that had been going on for thousands of years.

But there were so many of them that they covered the entire street, and their silhouettes seemed to slowly weave through the buildings on both sides.

There were no gaps, no openings to pass through.

He quickly glanced at the map... He was currently about one kilometer from the edge of the normal area. If he went further in that direction, the density of those ghosts should decrease.

Without hesitation, he turned and moved at full speed toward the regular area.

Behind him, the slowly moving silhouettes on the street continued to travel through the thick fog, their direction unchanged even after he left.

Su Mu glanced back as he ran...

Those dark shadows at the boundary between night and thick fog resembled a slowly moving dam, completely sealing off the boundary between the red and blue zones.