Players Please Get In the Car

The slender and long voice came far away along the woods. After a while, the same voice came from far away. With Xu Huo's ears, he could hear the voices coming from different directions. He should be out looking for someone. The villagers are reporting to each other.

This is indeed a good idea.

"...My uncle found me. I fell asleep in the tree hole." The little girl had already told Granny Yi what had happened, and at the same time looked at Xu Huo expectantly.

"Thank you for saving the child. Come in and have a sip of tea." Grandma Yi said gently.

Xu Huo did not refuse. Grandma Yi had a much better attitude than before. She sat down and said, "I didn't expect that we would see each other again."

"Outsiders who come here always come and go, and they almost never show up a second time."

She looked at Xu Huo, her eyes sparkling with a clear sense of vicissitudes brought about by age, "Do you want to find your hidden friends?"

Xu Huo shook his head, "The real hidden friends... they should be your friends. What I'm looking for are the players."

Grandma Yi nodded slightly, and then told him a true story of her own experience.

That was when she was thirty years old. She already had a child. Her father died early. Although her mother was still there, her health was not very good. Especially when she had to stay in bed, she sometimes became confused and confused. Unclear people often think of her husband as her father.

For this reason, she also learned some about her mother and father's past, and some special codes that only they understood.

One day when her mother couldn't eat and relied on a little water to survive, she suddenly woke up and told her clearly that she heard her father's voice.

After so many years of the story of "Hidden Friends", the people living here have acquiesced in its existence, and at the same time more and more believe that it is just the auditory hallucinations before death. Although some of the missing people seem to be healthy, They have lived with the forest all year round, and are used to seeing small animals that have a premonition of death quietly finding a place to hide and wait for death...perhaps dying people also have this ability.

Of course, no one knows whether they really have this ability, because the missing people cannot speak, and those who claim to have heard the voices add fuel to the fire, making it difficult to tell the truth from the false.

Grandma Yi had the same idea at that time, so she didn't believe her mother's words, but just reassured her that her illness would get better.

One day after doing this two or three times, she came home from cooking and found that her mother was missing.

You must know that her mother had been in bed for a long time and had no strength to stand up, let alone walk. So when she saw her mother standing in the nearby woods, she was so shocked that she could not even speak.

And her mother, standing like a normal person, holding the tree with one hand, making a strange gesture with the other hand above her head, shouted her father's name towards the front of the forest.

At that time, Grandma Yi saw that there was really a figure standing not far from her mother. It was as tall as her father. After seeing her mother's hand signal, she raised her hands above her head and replied with a special signal, Then her mother followed the shadow.

Some people regarded it as an anecdote, some people regarded it as some kind of sustenance, and some people regarded it as some kind of message. But after the shock, Granny Yi quickly went home, took a hatchet and chased her out.

She ran following her mother's light footprints for a long time, but never found any trace of her mother. Finally, she completely lost her trace in an area with dense vines.

There were no traces of anyone walking on the vines. Her mother seemed to have suddenly walked there and disappeared, leaving no trace behind.

This statement was spread back to the village and became a kind of sustenance or a message. After all, Yi Po's mother was about to die.

"Every day since then, I almost have to think about whether what I saw that day is real or fake. The longer time goes by, the clearer my memory seems to be. I remember that it should have been a dark shadow. , but later it seemed that I had clothes, shoes, and a face.”

"It looks just like my father. It responds to my mother's signals with special gestures. I just didn't hear its voice."

"I wrote, drew, and talked, trying to write down what I saw that day through these methods. My husband thought I was crazy, burned my paintings and books, and abandoned me. The neighbors also thought I was not normal. , thinking that sooner or later, my mother will come and take me away.”

"So one day, I went to the place where the vines grew again, bringing a knife, fire, and oil. I wanted to dig up the vines to see if my mother was buried underneath."

"But those mutated plants ran in all directions and shrank underground as soon as they touched the knife. Even if I chased them and cut them off, more of them were still alive."

"But that piece of land was vacated, and there was nothing underground, not even insects or ants. When I passed by there again the next month, the vines that had been cut grew back again."

"A few years later, I moved to Shangmu Village. Many people moved to Shangmu Village when they got older. They thought they could predict death, thought they could die peacefully, and live forever with the forest. Unfortunately, their hidden friends Just a man-eating monster, they are the prey to be eaten!”

The anger in Granny Yi's eyes overwhelmed the fear, "I'm waiting here until the day it comes out again, I'm going to kill it!"

Xu Huo listened to the story in silence, and then asked: "You didn't hear the sound, but saw the special gesture of the figure?"

Granny Yi raised her eyes and said, "You don't believe it?"

Xu Huo shook his head slightly, "Your mother was the one who was taken away. Only she heard the sound, but the special gesture made by the figure was what you learned from your mother. You can see it, which means there was indeed a figure there at that time."

"As for why it imitated your father, it may also be a plant that is good at learning. Mutated plants sometimes imitate human behavior, which is not surprising."

Grandma Yi's expression calmed down a little, "I thought so at the time, so I went back to get the knife. My mother suddenly disappeared, maybe she was dragged into the ground."

After a pause, she said, "You should leave here quickly. Those outsiders who came before, it is unclear whether they are dead or gone, but there must be someone buried here."

Xu Huo accepted her kindness and asked, "Every time there are outsiders coming, is there anyone missing in the village?"

Grandma Yi recalled carefully, "It's hard to match, there are often outsiders coming."

Xu Huo pondered for a moment, and asked about the local missing incidents that she really knew about, and then got up to say goodbye.

Hearing the sound of the door opening, the two children in the house ran out.

Xu Huo followed his words and took out a snack bag from the painter and gave it to them. The two children thanked him quietly. The little girl stuffed a whistle into his hand and said, "Grandma asked me to give it to you."