Chapter 572 The Safest Place?

Chapter 572: The Safest Place?

"Now's not the time for that."

Su Bai had no clue what crazy stuff Jie Ying was thinking in that brief moment, but the situation was more dangerous than he'd imagined, and he wasn't in the mood to explain.

Danger was right on their doorstep.

The second the wall broke open, those withered branches shot forward with a sharp whoosh, moving so fast you could barely react.

Su Bai didn't expect the branches to tear through the wall like that, coming straight at them. Before this, "it" had been attacking... pretty gently.

Su Bai "looked" at the lights shining in the corridor, making it clear the fifteenth floor didn't play by the same rules as the ones below.

"Master, looks like you've pissed off something serious."

Blood Epiphyllum's voice floated in, all airy and calm, like a breeze rustling blood-red petals, whispering in the dark.

"Or did you find another plant you like while you were out?"

"..."

The pieces of the "Evil Ghost Puzzle" all had their own way of addressing him. Some called him by name, others called him "Xiao Bai" all friendly-like, but most chose "Master" out of respect for the "Master of the Evil Ghost Puzzle."

Although Su Bai had never treated them as servants, preferring to think of them as family, no matter how much he tried to correct them, they seemed dead set on defying him—the more he corrected, the more they'd use it. Eventually, Su Bai just had to give up and accept it.

But...

But...

Su Bai frowned a little, reaching out with his mind to ask: "...Little Flower, did you sense something?"

"Little Flower"—a name Blood Epiphyllum had chosen for herself. Yet, every time he addressed the former "Queen of Blood Epiphyllum" with this nickname, a twinge of awkwardness still hit him.

"That thing's only got a few things in common with me. Though it looks like a mutated plant, it doesn't seem like it came from the Red Moon..."

Blood Epiphyllum's voice had a hint of doubt in it. She paused, like she was sizing up the vibe of those withered branches, before continuing—

"There's no smell of blood or rot around it at all."

"I never leave the wastes, so I don't know much about other anomalies, but I can feel it... pushing me away."

Su Bai's brow twitched as he kept listening to Blood Epiphyllum's analysis.

"Honestly, I'd say it thinks I'm disgusting. Those branches won't even get close to my blood vines, like... I'm something dirty."

By the end, Blood Epiphyllum's voice went ice cold, clearly annoyed.

"Hmph, how stupid," the Queen of Blood Epiphyllum said, clearly annoyed. "Even the Human-Faced Forest... *cough, cough, cough*."

Before she could finish, she suddenly seemed to choke, coughing a little, then she changed the subject on purpose, sounding all dismissive: "Anyway, it's a really weird feeling."

Su Bai could feel that "disgust" Blood Epiphyllum was talking about. Her vines could block attacks and even fight back. But through the eyes of the dancing blood butterflies, Su Bai could see those branches avoiding the blood vines, lingering nearby—unwilling to give up, yet reluctant to draw close.

What bugged Su Bai more, though, was the name "Human-Faced Forest" Blood Epiphyllum had mentioned.

That made him narrow his eyes a bit.

In Su Bai's memory, there was nothing about the "Human-Faced Forest." I mean, the world under the Red Moon was huge and endless, so not knowing a place wasn't that weird.

What got to him was what that name brought up.

Earlier, when Su Bai had entered the Void Sea, he'd accidentally fallen into a rift.

Su Bai didn't know how he'd been saved, but it probably had something to do with Wu Hang. More importantly, when he fell into that rift, he felt like he'd glimpsed some weird images.

Images that didn't exist in his memory.

Scenes he'd never experienced, never seen, yet that stirred strange feelings in him.

One scene that stuck with him was this—

He was in a dark, damp forest, surrounded by twisted, crooked trees. On their pale trunks, countless agonized human faces emerged, silently screaming with open mouths.

"Human-Faced Forest."

That name matched what he'd seen with scary accuracy.

And why had Blood Epiphyllum stopped dead when she said it?

Just as Su Bai was lost in thought, a voice suddenly rang out in the corridor: "Stop! Don't let anything filthy enter here!"

This voice was the same as the one from the nurse's station, the same one that had tried to lure the players earlier.

But this time, the tone was far from "gentle."

"Why do all of you resist and struggle? Let that filthy thing leave, be embraced by my branches, lie in a calm and peaceful embrace, stay in the safest place under the Red Moon, become new life, become my children."

"Isn't that good?"

Relying on Blood Epiphyllum's vines protecting them, Su Bai didn't hesitate to ask: "Milord, you keep saying this place is safe. But it's hard for us to believe in an 'absolutely safe' place under the Red Moon. If you truly mean well for us... then would it be too presumptuous to ask you to prove just how safe it really is?"