Bizarre Detective Agency

   Chapter 292 207. Fragile Humans

   "They won't find me easily anymore."

   heard Anna's whisper.

  Lu Li's nod was submerged in the turbulence of the carriage. He tilted his head to look at Patton, who seemed to have nothing happened before: "Is there anything you want to remind me about Elm Forest?"

  Barton said: "Have respect for forests, they hate people who don't respect them."

   "They may be dead."

   Patton continued: "This principle applies to any field."

   "What about other than that?"

  Barton added: "Be careful not to fall, there is no place for you to change clothes."

   It seemed that he couldn't think of anything else to remind Lu Li.

   After half an hour, the carriage arrived at Elm Street.

  As the ancient books were taken away, the street has been restored to its previous appearance, and there are few passersby under the rain curtain. Only a few houses were cordoned off, and people were vaguely guarding them behind the shop windows or house windows opposite.

   These blocked houses are the ones that Lu Li determined to be infected, and they have not been dealt with yet.

  Barton was also looking at the street outside the car window, even if the wind and rain poured in wet his thin clothes.

   Soon, the carriage stopped at the end of the street.

   Lu Li, who put on a raincoat, paid the fare, opened his umbrella and got off the carriage.

   Behind him, Barton, who was also wearing a raincoat, was helped down by the groom. The wooden stick under his right trouser leg was on the bluestone road. He looked at the street in the rain and said with emotion, "The last time I came here was seven or eight years ago."

  Jojo told him on the phone that Patton was retiring at that time—because of losing a right leg.

   "That means you haven't been here since you were disabled."

   Lu Li's words in the cold and heavy rain were a bit harsh, but Barton didn't feel anything, after all, in his "Snake Love" neighborhood, everyone called him Lame Barton.

The word   disabled sounds milder than lameness.

"You have been suffering in one place for more than 20 years, and then lost a leg there. Will you suddenly think at some point, 'I think it's there, I have to go back and see'?" Barton sneered sarcastically, Go to the end of the street a dozen meters away. "There are some good memories here, though."

Snapped--

The ground is no longer a smooth-paved bluestone road, a muddy dirt road mixed with rainwater replaces the former. Barton, who was not paying attention, stumbled under his feet, stood up, raised his hand and said to Lu Li, who was indifferent behind him, "Don't help me...here I've walked hundreds of times on each road, it's just an accident."

   But Barton did not wrestle or slip again after that. He really knew the forest like the back of his hand. Even if the heavy rain made the visibility only tens of meters, and the muddy ground could not tell which was the dirt road and which was the wild land, he could still find a relatively gentle road, allowing the two of them to enter the forest ahead smoothly. .

   After walking a distance behind Barton, Lu Li began to see the shadows of trees around him.

   As seen in other places, their appearance is like a dead tree that has lost its green leaves and is overwintering, but has no vitality, and there are only bare branches on the trunk.

  The looming tree shadows in the surrounding rain curtain began to increase, Lu Li stopped and looked back, the rain pouring between the sky and the earth blocked the way they came.

   At some point, Lu Li began to feel a certain uncomfortable emotion permeating his heart.

   Barton, who was walking in front, suddenly changed direction. He turned a right angle and walked to an elm tree with thick roots under Lu Li's gaze.

   It is taller and sturdier than the elm trees that Lu Li has seen along the way, but without a single leaf, and its brown-grey torso carries the twilight of the end of its life.

  Barton stopped when he was seven or eight meters away from the tree king, stood in the rain and felt something, and murmured: "They are crying in despair, because life is irretrievably lost..."

  The scene of an old woodcutter turning into a magic stick and speaking inexplicable words really made people laugh, but when Lu Li felt the same way, it was no longer a joke.

  Sorrow pervades the entire forest. This emotion is so pure that it seems that people can also fall into an irreversible sadness.

   There is no malice, no unspeakable repression, no gloomy atmosphere. As Patton said, this forest only expresses its emotions.

   "I'm a little uncomfortable..." Anna whispered in Lu Li's ear, he felt something lightly tugging at the corner of his clothes.

   "Because this forest is sad." Lu Li replied.

   He truly understood why Patton was so determined that this forest had only emotions, not consciousness.

   It never thought of hurting people, it just gave emotional feedback to everything in the outside world. Those dead woodcutters and lumberjacks were just because fragile humans couldn't bear the pain and sadness that burst out of the forest at that moment.

  Barton stepped back, with tears on his cheeks covered with ravines, or just the rain: "The mood in the forest is not right...Follow me, don't approach those tree kings."

   "How about approaching them." Lu Li asked.

   He wants to know all the dangers that may exist here.

   "It depends on your willpower. If your willpower is worse, you may be like that unlucky guy."

  Patton nuzui not far from the other direction.

   There is also a tree king growing there, with a pile of broken bones piled next to its trunk, and a suspender of a bib hanging from the tree branch above.

   The skull of the skeleton was half buried in the muddy water, staring blankly at the sky.

   This corresponds to the tree king's trunk with an axe carved into the body of the tree.

   A long time ago, this unlucky lumberjack was infected with the emotions of the forest while cutting down the King of Trees, and hung himself from the tree with a sling from his tooling.

   They have no intention of harming humans, but humans die because of their own weakness.

   Thinking of such a sentence in his heart, Lu Li fell into deep thought, and he couldn't help but continue to think along this sentence.

  Perhaps some weirdness and beings are not hostile to human beings, but vulnerable people can't bear those beings themselves, and even trying to understand them will drive themselves into madness?

  Lu Li felt that he was approaching some indescribable reality.

  Barton is still leading the way, sometimes stopping, identifying the direction and continuing to walk.

   There are more and more shadows around, and they have really walked into the elm forest.

   The hurricane some time ago also devastated this forest, and fallen dead trees can be seen everywhere, which made the already muddy mountain road more difficult to walk.

   Twenty minutes later, Lu Li asked Patton, who changed direction again: "How far is the cliff from Elm Street?"

   "About twelve or three miles. At this speed we have to walk for almost two hours." Patton answered slightly panting.

   He looked all right, and the physical labor of his youth gave him a lot of energy to splurge.

  Lu Li nodded and continued to follow Barton silently, walking in the silent elm forest with only the sound of rain.

   (end of this chapter)