Chapter 575 Provocation

Chapter 575: Provoking Anger

"What have you done? What have you done?"

Su Bai had endured countless nightmares, witnessed the most terrifying and unsettling Eerie Entities, and even ventured into life-threatening predicaments more times than he could count.

But what he "saw" at this moment was beyond words. Those "blisters" squeezed between the withered branches like fruits held sleeping infants—new lives almost impossible to find in the nightmare world...

Yet to Su Bai, this was a scene more morbid than death itself. There was no so-called "light" or vitality, only despair, suffocation, and madness.

This image, combined with the distorted vision of the Blood Butterfly, worsened Su Bai's headache.

"What exactly have you done!" Su Bai knew well that the nightmare world could never produce so many infants, not even the former Mother Tree of Life could achieve that.

Coupled with the fact that this was the 666th Hospital's Newborn Department, the Reverse Birth Corridor as the administrator had called it, he could easily guess where these infants came from.

But knowing the answer this time brought no comfort.

"Oh, you poor humans, can you imagine the scene of a world collapsing?"

It still didn't directly answer Su Bai's question, but it wasn't an entity beyond communication either—it just sounded like an old storyteller who loved to digress.

A collapsing world?

Su Bai had never witnessed such a world-shattering spectacle, but remnants of different civilizations were scattered across the nightmare world, and from those ruins, one could easily feel the despair of that time.

"They called me the Mother Tree, and I regarded them as my children." Its voice was gentle yet sorrowful. "I heard the wishes of those in love, let the fruits be picked, let my children leave the fruits behind to go out into the world. I hoped and prayed they would live happy and peaceful lives."

"But what happened?"

"This world was too weak. It exhausted itself time and again to nurture new civilizations, only to falter just as they flourished. The ground started shaking, cracks appeared in the earth, and the Blood Sea that had been hidden by the rise of new civilizations re-emerged through the fissures, merging back into rivers and lakes. All life died in the Blood Sea and blood rain, and the world died once more."

"The Red Moon appeared, and the Eerie Entities that had vanished with the Blood Sea spread across the land once again. The remnants that had hidden through countless civilizations shed their disguises. Only when everything collapsed did the new civilization and new lives, still in their cradle, see the world's true face."

"Because I was just a tree, I could only watch my children fall into the cracks of the earth into the Blood Sea, watch them be killed by bloodthirsty Eerie Entities, watch them lose their sanity in the collapse of civilization, watch them mutate into monsters under the Red Moon's influence."

"The children who survived came to my tree, begging the mother tree who gave them life for protection. But at that time, I couldn't do anything, not even reach out my branches to embrace them."

"In the end, all of my children died in that world-toppling disaster, while I, a useless old trunk, survived."

"Back then, to the world, civilizations could still be reborn, but my children would never return. Perhaps out of anger, perhaps out of resentment, I took root here and grew endlessly. Though I gained power I never had, I lost the ability to nurture new life."

"And now, this world no longer has the strength to nurture civilizations. It's become a barren wasteland and a Blood Sea without new life..."

"How could I stand to watch the few remaining lives recklessly expose themselves to danger? Poor children, since you've come here, please lower your guard and come into my embrace. From now on, all the fears and nightmares of this world won't touch you anymore."

"After all, in this long stretch of time, the only way I could come up with to protect my children was to completely cut off this space I could control from the outside world."

"This is the power I got from endless grief."

Listening to it ramble on, Su Bai understood why the Crying Nurse had been willing to leave the Evil Ghost Puzzle to check on this building. The Puzzles must have sensed that this building was well isolated from the outside.

So...

Su Bai suddenly thought of something.

Both Su Xuan and Wu Hang had told him to hide his power in nightmare games because "players" themselves were experiments of the Red Moon Association, and the association naturally had ways to monitor the progress of their test subjects. Even if those "eyes" weren't constantly watching, Su Bai had to be careful not to be seen.

So, since it had isolated the Newborn Department's building from the outside, could this power also block the prying eyes of the Red Moon Association?

Had Blood Epiphyllum's sudden proactive intervention earlier been based on this realization?

Su Bai immediately asked Blood Epiphyllum and got a satisfying answer from her and the other Puzzles gathered around.

"Lady Tree, with all due respect, aside from this ability, you must have also learned to turn us poor humans back into infants over the long years, right?" Su Bai's tone was now more relaxed, and his words more pointed. "No wonder this place, though full of danger, still has a glimmer of hope to find."

"After all, if we died here, we wouldn't have the chance to regress into the 'new lives' you desire, would we?"

"What's wrong with becoming my children?" It seemed not to understand why humans resisted. "If my children hadn't been picked back then, they would have survived like me."

"Here, they will no longer feel pain, no longer feel fear, and even... no longer die."

"But can you say they're still alive?" Su Bai "looked" at the repulsive sight before him, gritting his teeth. "They... to me, they don't count as living beings, don't count as people. They're just lumps of flesh that happen to be breathing."

"Perhaps you were once the Life Mother Tree, but now you're nothing but an Eerie Tree that sucks the life force out of things. This place isn't some gentle, kind Newborn Department to us—it's a hell that devours people without spitting out bones!"

"The 666th Hospital is indeed an extremely dangerous place, but the hypocrisy and selfishness hidden in this Newborn Department are even more nauseating!"

Chi Yan and Le Shiya stared at Su Bai in shock, not understanding why the usually calm and steady man had suddenly become so sharp-tongued. Le Shiya even forgot to translate Su Bai's words to the nearby Jie Ying.

But Jie Ying, who couldn't hear, relied on her keen observation to notice that Su Bai's shadow... had somehow developed several overlapping silhouettes.

"Boom—!"

The surrounding withered branches suddenly slammed violently against the blood vine around Su Bai and the others. It, which had been too "reserved" to touch the blood vine before, now attacked recklessly again and again.

"They are my most important children!!" Its voice and tone began to lose control. "I long realized that not all children are worth saving!"

"Since disobedient children will die in this world anyway, they might as well die here and become nourishment for my children!"